HorsesAss.Org

Busy with stuff, so talk amongst yourselves.

It is freakin’ cold out there…even for this Midwest boy. So dig out your parka and grab your boots and mittens. It’s time for an evening of politics under the influence at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. We meet at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. beginning at about 8:00 pm. Stop by earlier for dinner.

Not in Seattle? There is a good chance you live near one of the 243 other chapters of Drinking Liberally.

While Goldy enjoys a warmish day on the East Coast, it’s freezing here. I’ve heard some horror stories about the commute last night, but in general, this isn’t as bad as 2 years ago. Given how much of a surprise it was that it was as bad as it was, the response was pretty good overall.

I took my bike most of the way into work before my boss called and said not to come in. Most of the roads seemed well plowed this morning, and it was more slush than snow. Light rail is still going fine. If 2 years ago was snowpocalypse, then this year is more snowpoc-eh-lypse.

Hey King County Police Officers Guild… if you thought the law and order types on the Seattle Times editorial board would choose public safety over union bashing, well, think again:

With all due respect to the men and women who put their lives on the line to protect residents, union leaders behaved in a shortsighted manner. There is apparently a last hope that if deputies come forward in the next few weeks to forgo the 2011 pay raise, some positions could be saved.

Um, as I told Reagan Dunn… what the fuck did you expect?

Yeah sure, you may put your lives on the line for us and all that, you know… when you’re out on the streets. But once you’re sitting around the negotiating table, you’re just another dirty, public employee union in the eyes of the anti-tax crowd. And as anybody who has read the Seattle Times op/ed pages—and nothing else—knows, it’s the public employee unions who are the real cause of our current budget crisis. (Declining revenues and a tax base that’s steadily shrinking as a percentage of the economy apparently have nothing to do with it.)

The irony of course is that police unions are just about the only public employee unions to reliably endorse Republicans and their anti-tax agenda. I guess ye really do reap what ye sow.

While my daughter and I were spared the indignity of the choosing between the porno-scanners and a TSA groping yesterday morning, according to the comment threads on Slog, other Sea-Tac travellers were not so lucky. Which got me thinking: if safety is really the overriding concern, are the feds bothering to inspect the airplanes as closely as the crotches of passengers?

Well… apparently not, at least judging from my casual inspection of the ubiquitous “tamper seals” on the access panel behind the toilet in the airplane lavatory. It’s hard to see from the photos, but both tamper seals had be plied from the top panel, and were hanging a fraction of an inch in the air.

I’ve seen this before, and I’ve always wondered about the purpose. I don’t know if there’s a regulation, but since all airplane lavatories seem to have these tamper seals across the back panel, I assume there must be some concern about tampering, right? And yet, I routinely find these seals unsealed.

Huh.

Of course, I’ve had other unpleasant experiences with airplane lavatories, like the the time I flew cross country with all of them leaking sweet-smelling, bluish effluent into the aisles. Which brings me to my main point: statistically, by far the largest danger to passengers comes not from crotch or shoe bombers, but from shoddy maintenance. And as I wrote at the time…

If this is the sort of stunning lack of pride the airlines now show in the most visible sections of their aircraft, how can we trust them to maintain the parts we can’t see?

And then of course there are the regional commuter airlines and their poorly-trained/underpaid/overworked pilots, like those responsible for the Continental Connection flight that crashed last year outside Buffalo NY, killing all 49 people onboard, and one on the ground.

But no, the only way to make us safer is to grab my thirteen-year-old daughter’s crotch. Or so the angry trolls keep telling me.

Last week’s contest was won by Liberal Scientist. It was the futuristic house from the movie Sleeper, located just west of Denver along I-70. It was sold at a foreclosure auction last week.

From now on the third Sunday of every month will be specific to Washington, so this week’s photo is a random location somewhere in this state, good luck!

My daughter and I just went through security at Sea-Tac airport, and are relieved to report that while the backscatter scanners have been installed at the A gate, they were not being used. No unwarranted violation of our Fourth Amendment rights, no drama.

So, sorry trolls… I’ve once again managed to make it on to a flight without being cavity searched or shipped off to Gitmo (which I suppose, must be a surprise to folks like the Orb, who think I’m such a danger). Maybe next time.

Deuteronomy 22:23-24
If a man happens to meet in a town a virgin pledged to be married and he sleeps with her, you shall take both of them to the gate of that town and stone them to death—the young woman because she was in a town and did not scream for help, and the man because he violated another man’s wife. You must purge the evil from among you.

Discuss.

If the state Transportation Commission approves new tolls for the 520 floating bridge or any other roadway, in flagrant violation of I-1053’s supermajority requirement on raising taxes and fees, and initiative profiteer Tim Eyman doesn’t sue to uphold the letter and spirit of his recently passed measure… well, I will.

Because honestly, this might just be our best shot ever at forcing the state Supreme Court to finally rule on the constitutionality of this clearly unconstitutional provision.

It’s not like others haven’t attempted to challenge the constitutionality of previous two-thirds measures, but the popularly elected members of the Supreme Court have so far managed to avoid invalidating a popularly approved initiative by ruling that the issue simply wasn’t ripe, or that the plaintiffs did not have the standing to bring suit. And since the absence of a tax for fee increase at best raises a hypothetical harm, how does one sue over something lawmakers haven’t done? At least, that has been our Court’s cowardly approach thus far.

And since multiple legislatures and governors have never had the balls to affirmatively violate the two-thirds provision, we’ve never had the opportunity to put its constitutionality to the test.

But if the appointed members of the Transportation Commission were to simply ignore Eyman’s objections, and impose tolls on the 520 bridge and/or other structures without legislative approval, there’s your test case, for once I’m forced to pay this toll, well, I obviously enjoy standing as a “harmed” party, and the issue instantly becomes ripe.

Of course, the Supremes might still try to wiggle out of the underlying constitutional issue by somehow ruling that the Commission’s toll-setting authority falls outside the restrictions imposed by I-1053—get a bunch of clever lawyers in a room together, and anything can happen—but, well, you take the opportunities that come your way. And Eyman’s arrogant bluster over this issue is an opportunity his opponents would be stupid to ignore.

Reagan Dunn gets a Schrammie, and I couldn’t have said it better myself.

If there’s any lesson to learn from Washington state’s bucking of the Big Red Tide, it’s that a strong ground game may not be sexy, but it still can win, even in the face of overwhelming odds. And so while few journalists pay much attention to what goes on at the local party level, it’s a helluva lot more important than you might think.

That’s why next month’s election of a new King County Democratic Party chair is ultimately so important. And while I don’t generally like to get involved in intra-party politics, I would be remiss if I didn’t at least say a few words in support of one of the candidates, Steve Zemke.

I’ve long described myself as an “accidental activist” having stumbled onto the local political scene with my satirical initiative to proclaim Tim Eyman a horse’s ass, and it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that I knew absolutely nothing about how local politics worked, and had absolutely no connections to the players involved. But Steve did, and so I was very fortunate to have him take me under his wing almost from the start, and serve as a kinda tutor, if not a mentor, during my first couple years of activism.

It was Steve who explained to me how initiatives worked (and how they didn’t), and who first took me down to Olympia to lobby and finagle and implore elected officials and their staff. It was with Steve who I somehow found myself in a conference room in the Fall of 2003, sitting across the table from Frank Chopp and Jim McIntyre… totally oblivious to how remarkable it was for him to have managed to secure us an hour to talk tax restructuring with the Speaker of the House and the Chair of the Finance Committee. And remember… this was before I started blogging… when I was just some crackpot with a joke initiative.

Steve simply knows how things work, knows how to get things done, and sometimes seems to know absolutely everybody in Washington state Democratic political circles. And on the local level, where the ground game is so damn important, I can’t help but feel that that’s the kind of chair we need leading the county party: somebody who will focus on building infrastructure.

Nothing against Steve’s opponent Karl de Jong; he’s a great guy with great values. But Steve, well, he’s kind of a savant when it comes to organizing and running campaigns. So if I were a Democratic PCO, he’d have my vote.

That said, I couldn’t end this post without saying a big thank you to current chair Suzie Sheary, who is retiring after holding the post, well, forever (“forever” being defined as, since I started paying attention to county politics). She was perhaps the first local Democratic official to recognize the role local bloggers like me could play in promoting a progressive message, and I’ve long counted her as a political ally and friend. You’ll be missed, Suzie.

My daughter and I are flying to Philadelphia on Sunday, and I can promise you that we’re most certainly not allowing ourselves to be herded through Sea-Tac’s new X-ray scanners along with the sheeple.

Or at least, I’m not. My daughter’s thirteen now, so I suppose it’s up to her to choose her own humiliation: the unconstitutional invasion of privacy and unknown health risks of the TSA’s porno-scanners, or the intentionally intrusive new crotch-grabbing indignity of allowing a glorified rent-a-cop to pat her down… or as my daughter aptly describes it, “feel her up.”

And just to be clear, I honestly do believe the TSA’s new pat down procedures to be intentionally intrusive, in that the motivation, at least in part, is clearly to discourage travelers from opting out of the scanners by making the alternative as unpalatable as possible. And if a growing wave of opt-outs do succeed in clogging up security lines throughout the nation, dollars to donuts the TSA will only attempt to up the humiliation ante. Or worse.

That’s why I believe that the only effective means of combatting this latest escalation of the TSA’s security theater of the absurd is to humiliate the TSA agents in return, by making pat downs as uncomfortable and embarrassing for them as they are for us. For while regulations require travelers to comply with lawful requests from TSA agents, there’s nothing that says we can’t have a little fun in the process.

For example, it’s certainly possible you might be extremely ticklish — who’s to say you’re not? — so imagine a TSA agent being forced to conduct an intrusive pat down while you’re writhing and giggling and shrieking with uncontrollable laughter. Or perhaps you bruise easily, or are just extremely sensitive; who’s to blame you for screaming in pain at the slightest white-gloved touch, while loudly pleading with the TSA agent to “for the love of Christ, stop hurting me!”…? Or maybe the attentions of a same-sex agent just, I dunno, turn you on, causing you to moan with pleasure at the pat down as you breathlessly encourage the agent to draw their hands further up your inner thighs, before exploding in a When-Harry-Met-Sally-like fake orgasm.

Or how about wearing an adult diaper through security? And filling it. No law against that.

And then imagine having a compatriot capture the entire scene on video, and posting it to YouTube. Think that might go viral?

I’ve discussed all of these options with my daughter, and while she thinks they’re damn funny, she’s forbade me from doing any of them in her presence, and I suppose as a good father, I’ll have to honor that. But the point is, if we really want to send a message to the TSA, it’s time to fight theater with theater.

Otherwise, if we continue to allow the indignity to remain one sided, we can only expect it to get worse.

It’s sheeple like Joni Balter who make the gradual erosion of our constitutional rights possible.

If we’re looking for some good ways to trim the budget, maybe we can cut out re-enacting episodes of the A-Team:

Marijuana activists are criticizing — and at least partly laughing off — a counter-terrorism exercise carried out Wednesday in California that featured marijuana growers setting off bombs and seizing a dam.

Organized by the federal Bureau of Reclamation, the exercise involved 20 government agencies and some 250 personnel, according to a report from the Redding Record-Searchlight. In the scenario, marijuana growers blew up a bus and car and seized control of northern California’s Shasta Dam in a bid to free an imprisoned colleague.

How did Hannibal, B.A. and the boys handle this one?

The team drives up to the compound in the terrorists’ truck, with the Frank Stallone guy as their hostage. Then there’s a funny montage, where Ramon is talking about some attack they’re going to launch while the team launches basically the same attack on his guards! Hannibal and B.A. pick up some needed supplies, and Hannibal tells the rest of the team all the trouble is behind them: “from here on out, it’s open road.” Not two seconds later B.A. walks around a corner and finds the giant beard guy, ready for another 38 minutes of fighting! The look on B.A.’s face is priceless. “Not again!” he says.

Luckily not everything is going wrong; Hannibal, Murdock and Face storm the terrorists’ interminable planning meeting and run off with Marcus and the briefcase full of money (though B.A. and the beard guy do crash through a window at one point). Ramon again promises the team “will not get away this time,” and to show he’s serious he lets his soldiers actually chase after them instead of calling another planning meeting. The dudes all run toward the front gate, only the team is being sneaky and escaping by rappelling off a treacherous cliff. Is anyone worried about escaping via an imposing rock cliff? Nah. “Piece of cake,” as Face, B.A. and Murdock all deadpan. The mountaineering actually goes pretty well, or at least until Ramon and company show up and shoot the rappelling ropes before Hannibal can lower himself down. So he just jumps. The jazz, man. But then they shoot the inflatable raft the team was going to use for their getaway. So the team is trapped! No, Ramon, who has REPEATEDLY SAID THEY WON’T GET AWAY lets them get away because it’s time to go blow up a dam.

The team is back at the van, so the mission’s over, right? Face sums up just how good the team is: “We lost our wheels, B.A. did fifteen rounds with Godzilla, Hannibal did a twenty story high dive, we had our raft blown out from under us, and we still managed to save the girl, her boyfriend and… retrieve the money.” “Now all you’ve gotta do is stop them from blowing up the dam,” says Marcus. Dam? Murdock: “I wanna cry.”

The terrorists show up at the dam, and they actually shoot the elderly security guy – that’s what, 40 million bullets on this show and he’s like the third guy who actually got hit? On the other hand, the guard saw a bunch of armed guys dressed in black bodysuits and ski masks and waved them through without a second thought, so maybe he shouldn’t be on the job anyway. Their red van is apparently a clown van, because about 40 guys pile out once they’re inside the dam area. Two of them have an explosive device. Ah, the security guard was Hannibal in disguise! “I’m beginning to love this bulletproof vest!” he says. He lets the team know the terrorists are inside the dam. Murdock and Face are already inside, so they subdue a few of the thieves and disarm a few others. Then Hannibal and B.A. come in to get the guys working on the explosives. Everybody’s accounted for, but Almost Brigitte says, in a halting, I-can-barely-remember-these-lines voice, “You forgot about this. It’s set and you can’t stop it. You’ve got less than 90 seconds. You’re too late.” Hannibal and B.A. race off with the bomb… and run right into the giant beard guy! But even he doesn’t want to fight when he realizes what they’re carrying and runs off. I was going to make a “Goldfinger” joke about Hannibal and B.A. disabling the thing with 007 seconds to spare, but they actually heaved the bomb into the nearby water with 007 seconds to spare! The bomb explodes and I’m pretty sure it wouldn’t have taken out the whole dam – maybe chipped some of the paint in the boiler room, but then I’m being picky again. Thumbs up from B.A. and Hannibal.

It’s a good thing the terrorists in the A-Team episode weren’t pot growers or that dam would’ve been a goner.

I spent most of the morning speaking to a couple civics classes at Seattle’s Center School, and knowing nothing else about the school except my interaction with these students, I’d happily send my daughter there.

Perhaps the rest of the students are delinquents, and all the other teachers suck, I dunno, but these two classes at least were great. So don’t let anybody tell you it’s impossible to innovate within the public schools.