HorsesAss.Org

While the process-hawks at the Seattle Times get all high and mighty about the budget crisis by demanding that Democrats call a special legislation session—you know, without sticking their necks out and making any concrete suggestions on how to cut the budget—I boldly propose a way of living up to the Times’ professed “Reset 2010” ideals, saving $165 million in the process: eliminate school levy equalization.

Read the whole thing over on Slog: “It’s Time to Give Rural Republicans the Government They Demand.”

I’m hoping to get a chance on my day off tomorrow to look through the leaked documents from Wikileaks about the Mexican drug war, but in the meantime this quote made me laugh:

Sarah Palin, the former Republican vice presidential candidate, likened Assange to an al-Qaida propagandist and accused him, without offering any proof, of having “blood on his hands.”

“Why was he not pursued with the same urgency we pursue al-Qaida and Taliban leaders?” she asked in a message posted on her Facebook page.

Probably because they want to catch him.

And if they do catch Assange, we might want to look through those cables on the Mexican drug war to understand why someone else from within Wikileaks will just assume his leadership role (or a different group of folks will open a competing website). That’s what happens when organizations exist out of popular demand for a service or product. Cutting off the head doesn’t kill it. It just causes it to grow a new head.

Yup, that’s budget hawk Reagan Dunn, more than five and a half years into his tenure on the King County Council, showing that he still doesn’t know how to read a budget.

More snark from me, over on Slog.

Today’s op/ed page is about as clear an illustration as you can get of the Seattle Times editorial board’s schizophrenic politics: socially liberal, fiscally, well, not just conservative, but profoundly anti-worker. I mean, if repealing “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” could only be achieved via a modest hike in the estate tax, you can be sure that the Times ed board would be vehemently opposed.

A freeze on federal pay is an acceptable part of a larger strategy.

I guess, maybe, depending on the strategy. Problem is, there is no larger strategy. In fact, now that President Obama has unilaterally proposed the freeze, it’s totally lost as a bargaining chip to force concessions from Republicans, so even if there is a strategy, this won’t be part of it. That’s kinda dumb.

As for the Times, I’m pretty sure, based on past editorials, that forcing wage and benefits concessions from public employee unions pretty much is their only strategy toward addressing government budget woes. At least, I don’t remember hearing any other suggestions.

Federal workers have not shared in the financial sacrifices made by other employment sectors.

You mean, sectors like Wall Street?

Federal wages have increased during the recession…

You mean, like Wall Street? I mean honestly… the Times’ editors even go so far as to call for a freeze on “bonuses” to federal workers, as if these are the bonuses that represent the real moral outrage. Forget about a sense of decency… at long last, have they no cognitive dissonance?

These are tough economic times, and like I said, I would be willing to at least consider government employee wage freezes and concessions as part of a larger strategy… but one that truly involved sharing the burden amongst all Americans. And if the Times ed board is really as concerned about budget deficits as they claim, I look forward to reading the editorial in which they oppose extending the Bush-era tax cuts to the top two percent of households.

On the morning of Saturday June 19, 2010, two Snoqualmie police officers showed up at the home of Jeff Roetter, a 33-year-old medical marijuana patient. The officers were expecting Roetter to help them in their attempts to prosecute a man who claims he was Roetter’s designated provider, a former Snoqualmie business owner named Bryan Gabriel. Instead, the police and Roetter’s housemate discovered him dead in his room. Roetter, an epileptic, had a violent seizure overnight, banged his head and died.

Even though the case involving Roetter and Gabriel had previously generated some local media attention, Roetter’s death went unreported. Roetter’s family and friends believe that the pressure being put on him by Snoqualmie Police led to his seizure and death, but their attempts to contact various media outlets led nowhere. Months later, they remain angry and frustrated about what happened to him, and they blame Snoqualmie Police.

[Read more…]

Please join us tonight 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.

Who knew he had it in him? When state Rep. Leo Berman (R-TX) starts spewing Birfer Conspiracies and Stuff, Anderson Cooper goes all fact-checky on his ass (via TPM):

Not in Seattle? There is a good chance you live near one of the 235 other chapters of Drinking Liberally.

Republican politicians may be awfully concerned about how allowing gays and lesbians to openly serve might disrupt the military, but the vast majority of the troops on the ground… not so much.

The Pentagon has concluded that allowing gay men and women to serve openly in the United States armed forces presents a low risk to the military’s effectiveness, even at a time of war, and that 70 percent of service members believe that the impact of repealing the “don’t ask, don’t tell” law would be either positive, mixed or of no consequence at all.

[…] The report also found that a majority — 69 percent — believed they had already worked with a gay man or woman, and of those the vast majority — 92 percent — reported that the unit’s ability to work together was very good, good or “neither good nor poor.”

Hear that? 70 percent of service members couldn’t care less about the sexual orientation of their buddies serving next to them. So can we put this bullshit manufactroversy to rest already, repeal “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell,” and just move on?

I’ve warned Rep. Jay Inslee and his staffers. Our local news media and pundits don’t just love Washington State Attorney General Rob McKenna… they’re in love with him. Or at least, in love with the notion of being in love, which in practice, is basically the same thing.

In fact, so enamored are they of the ideal of McKenna as a “different kind of Republican,” and so desperate are they to see a Republican in the governor’s mansion for the first time in 30 years, that I wouldn’t be surprised if Inslee doesn’t get a single daily newspaper endorsement in his 2012 gubernatorial bid against McKenna. Not one.

And as evidence of our media’s weak-kneed, pouty-lipped infatuation with McKenna, I present the headline on today’s Seattle Times editorial: “Seattle’s lawsuit over state attorney general’s authority to sue feds is political.”

Yeah, well, no shit Sherlock, but then, that’s pretty much inevitable considering that McKenna’s decision to sue the feds over health care reform was nakedly political in itself. But the Times doesn’t call out McKenna for his political lawsuit… you know, the one that started all this.

Why? Because they’re in love with him.

The Times editors also ignore the other lawsuit against McKenna that was argued before the State Supreme Court the very same day—the lawsuit that McKenna will surely lose—the one seeking to force him to live up to his statutory duty to provide adequate legal representation Public Lands Commissioner Peter Goldmark.

McKenna’s refusal to represent Goldmark in an appeal of a Superior Court decision, well, that was political as well. Birdies tell me that McKenna nixed the appeal after being personally lobbied by a couple of legislators on behalf of the Okanogan PUD, though everybody was careful to be sure there was no written record available to disclose.

But regardless, it was a ridiculous legal stance that McKenna took—that he and he alone has the discretion to determine whether state officers and agencies get access to the courts—a stance that in itself questions his qualifications to be attorney general, let alone governor.

But the editors won’t write about this, because… well… they’re in love McKenna. And that makes this editorial even more political than any of the lawsuits discussed.

Michael Lind has an interesting post on why we need to have both Big Government and Big Business as they’re absolutely necessary for our economy to function properly. I don’t have much to add to his overall points (which I mostly agree with), but I was taken aback by this claim:

It is true that 99 percent of Americans work for small businesses. But this is only because the federal government defines a small business as one with fewer than 500 employees. How many ordinary people think of a company with 499 employees as small?

Even with that loose definition, I had trouble believing that only 1% of the American workforce works for a company with more than 500 employees. The total American workforce is roughly 150 million. That would mean that only 1.5 million would work for large companies. From Wal-Mart’s website:

At the end of fiscal year 2010, Walmart and its subsidiaries employed over 2 million associates worldwide, with approximately 1.4 million associates in the United States.

Maybe those subsidiaries are considered “small businesses” and therefore not all of the 1.4 million count towards that figure. But McDonald’s still employs over 500,000. Doing some more searching, I found this census page which says that 56 million people worked for businesses with 500 people or more, so I’m at a complete loss as to where that figure comes from.

UDPATE: As was pointed out in the comments, each McDonald’s franchise is counted as a “small business”, so it’s not clear if all of those employees count in the 1%, although I’d question defining it that way. Either way, the census figures certainly don’t match up, and if the difference comes from how franchises are counted, that doesn’t really square with the perception of companies like Starbucks and McDonald’s, which few would exclude from the definition of big business.

UPDATE 2: Well, it looks like Lind corrected his post:

It is true that 99 percent of American firms are defined as small businesses. But this is only because the federal government defines a small business as one with fewer than 500 employees. How many ordinary people think of a company with 499 employees as small?

Quite a difference. And my earlier update appears to be incorrect. A McDonald’s franchise isn’t considered a small business in this record-keeping.

The King is dead. The Waste King, that is… the forty-some-year-old portable dishwasher that came with our house back in 1997, and that had been dying a slow death by entropy ever since.

First the spring on the door went, then the latch on the detergent compartment. A couple years ago, the King started make a loud grinding noise during wash cycles, and more recently had sprung a slow muddy leak. But up until a couple weeks ago, when it abruptly died mid-cycle, the King continued to get my dishes clean.

Since then, I’ve been washing all my dishes by hand, resulting in a bit of an epiphany. For example, I used to think I didn’t have enough mugs, as I tended to dirty all of my favorite ones (heavy, with a slight lip) before I was ready to run a full load. But now I realize I have too many mugs; in fact, for my personal use, all I usually need is one.

Likewise, my kitchen is stocked with two complete sets of flatware, yet I’d often run out of teaspoons between loads. But now that I have to wash every damn spoon by hand, well, let’s just say that I’ve learned to be a bit more frugal.

And that’s the curious thing about labor saving devices like dishwashers—their purpose is to clean the dishes we have, and yet they inevitably lead to us dirtying even more dishes. Similarly, imagine if you had to wash all your own clothes by hand; dontcha think you might wear your clothes more times between washings? And with fewer washings, your clothes would last longer, meaning ultimately, you’d buy fewer clothes.

In fact, there’s hardly an appliance, machine or device I can think of which doesn’t inherently demand increased consumption, just by the very nature of owning it.

Huh.

All that said, if you know of anybody with a portable dishwasher for sale, in decent working condition, I’m in the market for buying one. Le Roi est mort, vive le Roi.

There won’t be much suspense this Saturday when King County Democratic PCO’s vote for a new chair, now that labor activist Karl de Jong has dropped out of the race due to health reasons. That leaves longtime activist Steve Zemke as the only candidate, for what really can be a very time consuming and thankless job.

Steve isn’t exactly charismatic, but he knows the nuts and bolts of grassroots politics like nobody else, and he’s not afraid to do the necessary, but boring stuff. In fact, he seems to relish in it. So I have high hopes for his administration.

To the cyclist who got clotheslined this morning at the intersection of Wilson, Seward Park and S. Morgan, by stupidly maneuvering between me and my dog:

No, I don’t need to watch where I’m going, and no, I don’t need to put my dog on a shorter leash.

See, those white lines crossing the road from curb to curb with a lighted “Crosswalk” sign hanging overhead… that’s what is known as a “crosswalk.” And that means that you, and all other vehicles, are obligated to stop for me, and all other pedestrians, as we cross the street. Just like that silver minivan did… you know, the one you heedlessly sped around on your way between me and my dog.

I suppose it’s possible that the minivan blocked your vision, and so you couldn’t see my dog in the street, or perhaps me stepping off the curb, nor obviously the thin strand of leash between us, but that’s your responsibility, not mine, so next time, when approaching a crosswalk, slow the fuck down.

There is a lesson to be learned from a new report exposing the deceptive and unethical practices of for-profit colleges and universities, and it’s a much broader lesson than the narrow, mushy, call for greater “regulatory scrutiny” in today’s Seattle Times.

A scathing report by the influential think tank, Education Trust, offers a damning list of examples. Only 22 percent of students in for-profit colleges’ four-year programs earn degrees within six years. Contrast that with a 55 percent six-year graduation rate at public colleges and a 65 percent rate at private nonprofit schools.

The most egregious example is a 9 percent graduation rate at the University of Phoenix — the nation’s largest for-profit postsecondary education provider as well as the recipient of more than $1 billion in federal Pell Grant aid last year.

While some career colleges have achieved a level of credibility, the business model at far too many appears to be one based on student failure, not success.

The emphasis is mine, and I added it to highlight the inescapable conclusion that so many of our nation’s respectable pundits are too fearful and/or ideologically rigid to admit: there are simply some things that are simply best left outside the profit-driven clutches of the market.

And education—K-12 and beyond—is one of ’em.

This by the way, is one of the reasons why I oppose the charter school movement, which seems to be based on the attractively simple proposition that competition between schools will foster innovation and improvement. You know, sprinkle a little free market pixie dust on our public school systems and the problems and inefficiencies will just sort themselves out on their own. Or perhaps the invisible hand of God will reach in and personally carve lessons on the blackboard. You get the point.

This of course ignores the fact that we’ve had plenty of competition between public schools for, well, forever, and it hasn’t done anything to improve the failing ones. Those parents who could afford to move to neighborhoods with good schools, did so, and those who couldn’t… well… their children got what they got.

Now I know what the knee-jerk, free market apologists are going to say: the problem with for-profit colleges is not the profit-motive but rather the distortion of the market caused by government grants, loans and other education subsidies. If the government would just get out of the higher education business—you know, no financial aid, no community colleges or public universities, no research grants, no nothing—the market would be free to allocate resources efficiently and provide the best and most affordable higher education system possible.

Or, instead of relying on magic, we could as a society, you know, invest more heavily in our community college systems, so that technical and career degrees would be more widely available to qualified students, and from institutions whose primary obligation isn’t to the shareholder.

But for, say, the Seattle Times editors to call for that, would also require them to call for raising more tax revenues to pay for it. So instead they just waste the opportunity by settling for a little stern, finger-wagging.