HorsesAss.Org

Dear Amazon,

You lose money on every Kindle you sell, you pay carriers for every bit you transfer over your Whispernet wireless delivery system, and at $9.99 a pop you even lose money on many of your e-books. And you’re worried about competing with the iPad… why?

Quit wasting your time and money acquiring companies and technologies in hopes of outdoing Apple at what Apple does best, and instead put all your effort into creating a better Kindle app and e-book buying experience for the iPad and other forthcoming tablet devices than Apple has created with its own iBook platform. Think of the iPad as an opportunity to get your e-books into millions more hands, without having to subsidize the hardware and network costs. Yeah, sure, you might only ultimately capture 20 to 30 percent of the e-book market on Apple’s touch platform, but that would still represent a helluva lot of virtual Kindles… and just like in the smartphone market, even a wildly successful iPad won’t be the only major player in the field.

Oh, there’s still plenty of room for your physical Kindle, a special purpose e-book reader with a comfortable e-ink display and incredibly long battery life… and there’s plenty of opportunity to make the Kindle better and cheaper. But multi-touch, app stores, energy-hungry color screens… you’re never going to create a better multipurpose device at a lower cost than Apple. So please, keep your focus.

Kindle is a great product that kick-started the e-book industry, and you deserve to be proud of that. But don’t let pride get in the way of profiting off your initial success.

Best of luck,

Goldy

Now that even Colin Powell has reversed himself and come out in support of lifting the ban on gays serving openly in the military, and ending the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy that was implemented on his watch, is there really even much of a controversy anymore?

Top military brass support lifting the ban, and if I understand how the military works, those under them will do what they’re told. No doubt lifting the ban will make for some awkward moments, but what’s the big deal?

Apparently, the only thing that speeds more precariously out of control than a Toyota with a stuck accelerator, is DOT Secretary Ray LaHood’s mouth.

I’m embarrassed to admit that I kinda like Seattle Times editorial columnist Bruce Ramsey… you know, as a person, not as an editorialist for chrisakes. But I’d like him a helluva lot more if he were a bit more consistent.

For example, today Bruce is outraged over legislative attempts to reform the initiative process (reforms that are brought up every session, yet predictably never get out of committee). Applying campaign finance limits to initiative campaigns? Spiteful. Requiring paid signature gatherers to register with the PDC? Punitive. Raising the $5 filing fee from its 1912 cost to something approaching an inflation-adjusted value (about $110)? Well… um… Bruce defiantly stamps his foot down:

[T]he state constitution declares that the people’s right of petition “shall never be abridged.”

Really, Bruce? Huh, I don’t remember you coming to my defense when your own editorial page urged a Thurston County court to bar Initiative 831 from the ballot, and I sure as hell don’t remember you pontificating about my “right of petition” when the judge issued a wholly unconstitutional order barring me from filing my petitions with the Secretary of State.

No, I guess denying me and my tens of thousands of supporters our right to petition our government was okay, because we weren’t taking the initiative process seriously enough for civic leaders like you and your fellow editors. Besides, I guess I should’ve been satisfied enough, having “successfully placed the phrase ‘horse’s ass’ into dozens of family newspapers.” As if I held a fucking gun to your heads.

In the end, a humorless assistant AG and a humorless Superior Court judge denied me my constitutional rights, knowing full well that I lacked the resources to file an appeal. Written in the form of a resolution, the AG argued that I-831 was not legislative in nature because it failed to amend the RCW, and thus was outside the scope of the initiative process. And so for only the second time in our history , the state stooped to pre-ballot review to invalidate a proposed measure.

And you and your paper cheered them on.

So here’s your chance to make amends Bruce. An initiative was recently filed seeking to change our state’s official seal to that of “a tapeworm dressed in a three piece suit attached to the taxpayer’s rectum.” I’m the last person to come out against the use of the initiative process for satirical purposes (even if it’s totally misguided considering that WA hasn’t raised a single tax since 2005), but I’ve read the initiative, and while it seeks to direct the Legislature to change the seal, like I-831, it doesn’t actually amend the RCW itself. Thus under the precedent set in Goldstein v. Gregoire, that should place it outside the scope of the initiative process.

So if you want to be consistent in your advocacy for the integrity of the initiative process, I would expect you and your editorial board to urge the AG to deny this initiative a title, and if it ultimately goes before a judge, to editorialize in favor of denying this petitioner the same fundamental rights that were denied to me.

Or… would that run counter to your impassioned defense of initiative sponsors against any and all obstacles?

I’m confused, Bruce. Perhaps you can explain why it’s so outrageous to, say, bar convicted sex offenders and identity thieves from being hired to gather our addresses and signatures, yet it’s okay to use the full legal resources of the state to harass a petitioner and bar his satirical initiative from the ballot? Or… would you argue that your ed board was wrong in advocating that I-831 be tossed from the ballot?

I await either an explanation or an apology.

I may not be a big fan of the Seattle Times editorial board’s prose, but it turns out it’s better than their verse.

“HOW do you solve a problem like Pamela?” reads the Times’ lede on the latest Pam Roach soap opera, apparently thinking they’ve made a clever reference to the iconic song “Maria” from the Rodgers and Hammerstein classic, The Sound of Music.

But they haven’t. Because “Pamela” and “Maria” don’t rhyme. They don’t even share the same meter.

“Maria” is a double or feminine rhyme, with the accent falling on the second to last syllable, whereas “Pamela” is a triple rhyme (or antepenult) with the accent falling on the third to last syllable. To rhyme with “Maria” you’d need a word that mimics its final two syllables, like “Korea” or “diarrhea” or “onomatopoeia.” To rhyme with “Pamela,” you’d need a word that mimics all three syllables, absent the “P.”

Not only doesn’t “Maria” rhyme with “Pamela,” offhand, I can’t think of another word in the English language that does.

And to make matters worse, not only isn’t the Times lede singable as written, nobody but nobody refers to Pam Roach as Pamela. So this supposedly clever reference fails on two fronts. (Not to mention the fact that 95% of non-gay-male readers under the age of 40 probably aren’t even familiar enough with the song to get a properly made reference in the first place.)

Fail, fail, fail.

And even as a fail, the Times’ reference is unoriginal. Indeed, I castigated Newsweek on similar lines just a couple months ago, for attempting to force “Sarah” into the same lyric in a feeble cover headline.

Of course, it is possible to make this lyrical reference work, as I did in a headline not too long ago. My secret? Having the discipline to only make the allusion where it fits.

So my advice to the Times’ editorialists is to leave the rhyming verse to the experts, and stick to… well… I’d prefer they leave the editorializing to experts as well, but I suppose we can’t have everything.

It’s a double-header Drinking Liberally in Seattle this evening. You get two chances to engage in politics under the influence. The early meeting will be at O’Asian Kitchen 800 5th Ave starting at 5:30 and going to 7:00 or 7:30. The later meeting is at the usual place: Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. beginning about 8:00 pm. Or stop by earlier and join some of us for dinner.

Not in Seattle? There is a good chance you live near one of the 344 other chapters of Drinking Liberally.

Nobody wins elections they’re not running for like Dino Rossi.

After losing an excruciatingly close race to Christine Gregoire in 2004, Rossi went on to win multiple gubernatorial opinion polls in 2005, 2006, 2007 and 2009, as well as several head to head match-ups with Sen. Maria Cantwell in 2005. Indeed, just about the only poll Rossi has lost over the past five years was the one counted, in November of 2008.

And now comes news that Rossi has defeated Sen. Patty Murray in an opinion survey conducted by Moore Insight.

Encouraging news indeed for those Republicans living in that alternate universe where contests are decided months or even years before or after election day, and solely on the basis of surveys conducted by Republican pollsters.

Well, sorta. The Academy Award nominations came out today, and “The Last Campaign of Governor Booth Gardner” was nominated in the category of Documentary, Short Subject. The film chronicles our former governor’s Initiative 1000 campaign, in which voters overwhelmingly approved the “Death With Dignity” measure.

I hadn’t even heard about the film until Will, who worked for the campaign, called me with news. Here’s hoping the shots of him didn’t all end up on the cutting room floor.

Now that’s rich… the Seattle Times editorial board giving Apple’s Steve Jobs business advice:  “Apple’s latest iDevice needs a new name.”

Huh. Now let’s see. Since returning to Apple about a decade ago, Steve Jobs has rescued it from oblivion while introducing a string of hit products that have led to soaring market share, unmatched margins, and quarter after quarter of record profits… even during the biggest economic downturn since the Great Depression. In the process Jobs has also managed to redefine both the music and smartphone industries, while increasing Apple’s share price some 2800%.

Meanwhile, over that same decade, the Times has watched its readership, influence, newsroom and revenues shrink to the point where 49% shareholder McClatchy has essentially written off its investment to zero.

And they’re telling Jobs how to run his business?

But it’s not so much the misplaced smugness of the Times editorial that bugs me, or the fact that it’s based on a lazy joke that had run its course within hours of last week’s product announcement. It’s that with everything else going on in the world today, this is what they waste precious op-ed column inches on?

And I’m the one who’s accused of not being serious.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates and Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified before the Senate Armed Services Committee in favor of dropping the armed forces’ 16-year-old “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy, and for the first time allowing openly gay men and women to serve in the U.S. military.

“No matter how I look at the issue, I cannot escape being troubled by the fact that we have in place a policy which forces young men and women to lie about who they are in order to defend their fellow citizens,” Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told the Senate Armed Services Committee. He said it was his personal and professional belief that “allowing homosexuals to serve openly would be the right thing to do.”

When President Bill Clinton attempted to address this issue early in his first term, the ensuing controversy sidetracked his administration, and resulted in the insulting and unworkable half-measure we have today. But it increasingly looks like President Obama need expend little political capital to fulfill this particular campaign promise.

My what a difference a decade and a half makes.

The headline in the Seattle Times says it all: “Gregoire opposes Seattle officials’ request to rethink 520 bridge.”

Of course she does. As does Judy Clibborn (D-41) and Mary Margaret Haugen (D-10), the respective chairs of the House and Senate transportation committees.

And what do all three elected officials have in common? None of them are from Seattle.

Meanwhile, a bill is meandering through the Legislature that would severely limit cities’ local control over large projects in their district, like, you know, the Alaskan Way Viaduct Tunnel, and the 520 bridge.

Of course my gut reaction is to rail against the rest of the state for their “Fuck Seattle” attitude, and the way elected officials outside the city explicitly and implicitly exploit it to their own political advantage. But really, we only have ourselves to blame.

We’re the ones so caught up in the Seattle Way that we can’t ever seem to make a firm decision for fear of pissing off one constituency or another, and we’re the ones who consistently elect perhaps the most anemic political class of any major city in America. Theoretically, the Seattle delegation represents the largest and most powerful political block in the Legislature, and yet they’re either incapable of working together that way, or unwilling to do so out of fear of reinforcing the stereotype that Seattle dominates the state.

Well I’ve got news for you: Seattle should dominate the state! This is where the largest chunk of voters live, and this is where an even larger chunk of the wealth (i.e. tax base) resides. Unlike the goddamn U.S. Senate, we elect all our legislators by the person, not the square mile, and so it’s only fair that our population-dense city gets a disproportionate share of state spending and power.

And yet at a time when two major transportation projects threaten to reshape the city for the next half century or more, we can’t even manage to put one of the transportation committees in the hands of a Seattle legislator. We’re pathetic.

The Seattle Times is earning well-deserved kudos for its three-part exposé of abuse and neglect at adult family homes… which is kinda ironic considering how vociferously its editorial board has opposed an initiative that would require adequate screening, training and certification of long-term-care workers.

Initiative 1029 was overwhelmingly approved by voters in 2008, securing 72.5% of the vote statewide, and passing by better than 20-point margins in all 39 counties. According to King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg, writing in its defense, the measure was intended to do two simple things:

• It requires FBI criminal-background checks for all long-term-care workers.
• It requires home and community-based long-term-care workers to complete 75 hours of training — the national standards for nursing-home workers — and pass a certification exam to demonstrate basic competence.

Yet despite the glaring need for better qualified long-term-care workers, and the unparalleled popularity of the measure, the Times, our state’s paper of record, urged voters to reject the initiative before the election, and has repeatedly argued for its repeal several times since, including just days after it passed:

Voters’ good, compassionate intentions were abused by the sponsors of Initiative 1029, which purported to ensure higher-quality long-term-care workers for the elderly and people with disabilities.

This measure, which passed handily, is nothing more than an artfully worded ballot measure that belies the bad public policy it is and the serious blow it will give to our state’s troubled budget — about $30 million over the next three years. … The Legislature and the governor should exercise their right to overturn this initiative immediately.

Tim Eyman’s tax-limiting I-960, which passed with a bare 51% of the vote, that the Times argues should be inviolable. But I-1029, the first statewide measure ever draw over 2 million votes… well… voters were hoodwinked or something, so the Legislature should just toss that one right out.

Why? Well, the Times argues that we just can’t afford $28 million over three years for training and certification. Oh, and the Times liked a supposedly “bipartisan” bill better.

But if you read through its several editorials on the subject, one pattern quickly emerges:

“The SEIU spent $650,000 of union funds to promote its proposal as I-1029.”

“Workers already organized would be trained by the SEIU and paid by the state.”

“Then the SEIU drafted this union-building, state budget-busting initiative and played off voters’ good intentions to get a better deal.”

SEIU this, SEIU that. This isn’t about responsible budgeting or a deliberative legislative process — and it certainly isn’t about the welfare and well being of seniors. No, the Times editorial board’s vehement and relentless opposition to I-1029 stems mostly from its vehement and relentless opposition to SEIU, and organized labor in general.

See, if it’s supported by labor, it’s opposed by the Times, the painful, puss-filled, oozing bedsores of neglected seniors be damned.

Online retailing giant Amazon caved to book publisher Macmillan over the weekend, first pulling then restoring their catalog in a dispute over e-book pricing. Not too surprising.

But what really struck me was the statement Amazon issued Sunday afternoon in announcing their capitulation:

“We want you to know that ultimately, however, we will have to capitulate and accept Macmillan’s terms because Macmillan has a monopoly over their own titles, and we will want to offer them to you even at prices we believe are needlessly high for e-books,”

Really? Macmillan has a “monopoly” over their own titles? Isn’t that kinda like saying that McDonald’s has a monopoly over its own burgers, or that, say, Amazon has a monopoly over the sale of its own Kindle devices?

It is a rather startling implication — that there is something wrong with a publisher maintaining monopoly control over its own titles — but not as purely silly or resentful as it may first appear. The sale of goods and e-goods are not the same thing, and this shift away from physical media to online distribution may in fact demand a dramatic rethinking of the traditional relationship between content creators, owners and resellers.

And it will be fascinating to watch how this all works out.

Friday’s post on Kemper Freeman Jr. generated quite a few angry responses from apologists who insisted it was unfair of me to brand the Eastside real estate mogul with his own shameful family history. But if Freeman insists on wielding his wealth and power to influence public policy, I think it only fair and useful to evaluate his words and deeds within a broader historical context.

There is no such thing as a self-made man, and Freeman is arguably less so than others. Inheriting a family fortune built on the suffering of Japanese Americans and the taxpayer largesse that built two floating bridges to his Bellevue real estate holdings, Freeman’s own business investments can be seen as a continuation of a development strategy first laid out by his father and grandfather decades earlier. This is the family that raised and trained him, and from whom he clearly inherited the auto-centric/anti-rail philosophy that drives his civic participation. So why should his family history be ignored when attempting to discern Freeman’s personal motives?

Of course, I don’t raise these issues merely to fling poo at someone with whom I disagree politically (although I must admit that it can be pleasantly cathartic), but rather to chip away at the undeserved credibility Freeman appears to enjoy on transportation planning issues. The fact is, Freeman and his family have prospered handsomely from the public subsidy of our automobile culture, and thus his vehement pro-roads/anti-rail advocacy must be understood in that context. Likewise, as the great-grandson of a Confederate veteran and the grandson of the president of the Anti-Japanese League, it is only reasonable to explore the roots of Freeman’s passionate opposition to allowing South Seattle rail riders convenient access to his exclusive Bellevue properties.

Again, this all comes down to credibility. If his credibility largely stems from his personal wealth, then the circumstances of his wealth are fair game. But if his credibility is supposedly based on merit, then that should be evaluated too.

For example, my first introduction to Freeman came shortly after I began blogging in 2004, while covering Initiative 883, the Freeman backed measure that would have opened up HOV lanes to single occupancy vehicles, while diverting money from transit and other programs to build more highway lanes. After spending $350,000 on the campaign, 90% of it his own money, Freeman abruptly pulled the plug on the initiative just weeks before the petition filing deadline. The campaign told the Seattle Times that it had collected about half the 197,000 required signatures, but even that is surely an exaggeration.

So how do you spend that much money on a signature drive, and yet fall so far short of the mark? Well, you do it by spending your money very poorly.

According to PDC reports, over the course of its several month signature drive, I-883 spent only $92,000 on “voter signature gathering” (enough for maybe 60,000 signatures, tops), compared to $180,000 on “management/consulting services.” That’s gotta be the most inefficient signature campaign I have ever seen.

To put this in perspective, were Freeman put in charge of our region’s transportation budget, and he managed it as efficiently as he managed the I-883 campaign, for every $1 billion we spent constructing new roads, we’d spend an additional $2 billion on management and consulting fees.

So much for the private sector being more efficient than the public.

I mean, any idiot can successfully run a well financed signature drive (you know who you are, Tim), and yet Freeman couldn’t even manage that. And this is the guy who routinely attacks our regional transportation planning as wasteful and inefficient?

So if Freeman’s perceived credibility on transportation planning doesn’t come from merit, and it doesn’t come from any particular expertise on, you know, transportation planning (former State Transportation Secretary Doug MacDonald labeled some of Freeman’s proposals “wacky“), where does it come from? Apparently, simply by virtue of him being Kemper Freeman Jr.

And that’s all the more reason to make every effort to put Freeman’s advocacy in its proper context.