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The Seattle Times editorializes about education, which as usual, leaves me totally confused.

Our state is at a crossroads. An ambitious education plan recently approved by the Legislature was a major hurdle crossed. The next hurdle is a question: where do we go from here?

Um… how about funding it?

Debates in this state about education reform rarely rise above the level of money.

You know, except during the past legislative session when an ambitious and expensive education reform package was passed to great editorial applause, without any discussion whatsoever about how we’re going to pay for it. Surely the Times isn’t implying that these reforms won’t require a major investment to turn all schools around?

Granted, it will take a major investment to turn all schools around, but without planning and general consensus, the cash will be useless.

Okay then, I’m all for planning and consensus.  Now where are we going to get the cash?

Federal input wouldn’t be intrusive, it would be welcomed.

Silly me… the money comes from the federal government, of course, because those are magical dollars pooped by fairies and wood nymphs, and don’t in any way come from the kinda income and estate taxes that the Times argues would be so unfair and wealth-destroying should they be collected in Washington state.

Education stimulus dollars account for the largest spending increase ever.

That’s swell, but what’s this about the largest spending increase ever? I thought we just dramatically slashed education spending in WA, even with the federal stimulus dollars? Am I missing something?

This state will use much of the money to mitigate education cuts imposed by the state Legislature, but millions will be available with varying degrees of flexibility. The new rule in spending should be money spent on unproven efforts is money wasted.

Wait… so do “education stimulus dollars account for the largest spending increase ever,” or did we just “use much of the money to mitigate education cuts imposed by the state Legislature”…? And if the latter, how does this in any way implement the “new rule” the editorial kvells about.  I’m soooo confused.

Encouraging signs from Duncan, and President Obama, are the two men’s refusal to simply throw money at public education’s many problems.

Right, because otherwise, gutless legislators, cheered on by gutless, anti-tax editorialists, might just use the federal money thrown at them to “mitigate education cuts” rather than applying it to public education’s many problems.  And we would want that to happen.

Consider this the warm up before Congress delves into reauthorization of the federal No Child Left Behind law. The massive law should be tweaked, necessary improvements include additional flexibility and money, but not abandoned.

Again with the shilling for more federal dollars. Can’t debates in this state about education reform ever rise above the level of money? The editorial mentions money nine times; I thought we were talking about education?

(Oh, and note to the editors who edit the editors: that last sentence doesn’t scan well, so you might want to consider rearranging the clauses. But then, I graduated from public schools, so what do I know?)

So there we have it, the Seattle Times editorial board’s usual clarity of thinking: we need to spend more money on education, but federal money, not local money, and we want to be careful not to throw money at the problem because more money won’t do any good anyway, which is why we shouldn’t even be talking about money, investments, cash, dollars or money in the first place.

Oy.

There will be a vigil tonight, 6pm, near the south end of the reflecting pool at Cal Anderson Park in Seattle, to offer thoughts and prayers to the family and friends of Dr. George Tiller, who was brutally assassinated yesterday by a right-wing terrorist as he was entering his Wichita, KS church.

Hey… apparently, I’m a genius…

“Everyone who owns GET plans, they’re starting to look like geniuses,” said Joe Hebert of TrueNorth Financial Services in Seattle.

We prepaid our daughter’s tuition when she was five years old, back in 2002, when the cost was only $42 a credit. After this week’s GET price increase, the cost is now $101 a credit. That’s a pretty damn good annualized return. But I’m no genius.

Washington’s in-state tuition costs were bizarrely low at the time we bought in, and there seemed nowhere to go but up. The GET program was only advertising (but not promising) a projected 6 percent average annual return at the time, but that seemed impossibly low considering rising costs and stagnating state tax collections. Besides, the “G” in GET stands for “guaranteed,” so it wasn’t much of a gamble to plunk down $16,800 in 2002 for four years of college tuition our daughter wouldn’t finish redeeming before 2019. I suppose it might have turned out to be a conservative investment, but it also bought us peace of mind.

But, as is my wont, I digress, for it’s not the virtues of GET I planned to blog about, but rather the first comment on the story in the thread on the Seattle Times, in which rawdibob asks:

Why has the cost of college tuition increased faster than inflation?

Yes, I understand that part of the government-run college tuition increases represents a decrease in the taxpayer subsidy but that is not all of the story.

No, the recent budget cuts aren’t all of the story, but this question gets to the heart of one of the basic misunderstandings many taxpayers have about the cost of providing government services… a misunderstanding I’d argue is intentionally perpetuated by many of those in the smaller government crowd.

Government critics often point toward population plus inflation as a formula for constraining government growth, and while that’s not the best metric (growth in demand for government services most closely tracks growth in personal income), it does appear somewhat reasonable, at least on its face. Problem is, there are multiple measures of inflation, and the familiar Consumer Price Index is perhaps the least applicable when it comes to measuring rising goverment costs.

Why? Because as a broad index of the economy as a whole, the CPI reflects productivity gains resulting from technological and policy efficiencies (such as trade) that simply aren’t available to state and local governments, for whom the bulk of the services provided rely on highly trained professionals.  Think about it.  You can automate a factory floor, resulting in fewer workers producing more and better product, but you can’t comparably automate a doctor’s office or a fire station or a police precinct.

Or, a classroom.

The only way to dramatically increase the productivity of a university professor is to either increase class size, or require the professor to work longer hours for less money, neither of which is a tenable alternative if your goal is to attract and retain quality students and faculty. And even if one were to head down that route, the productivity gains could not possibly be sustainable compared to those achieved in the broader economy, even compared to many industries that also rely on a highly skilled labor force. For example, Microsoft can exploit the global economy by outsourcing engineering to India and China, but the University of Washington simply can’t outsource its faculty.  (It can outsource its students perhaps, but not its faculty.)

Republicans point to year over year spending increases and argue that state government has grown too fast, but the fact is that the cost of providing most government services simply rises faster than consumer prices. Indeed, when adjusted for the Implicit Price Deflator for State and Local Governments (the IPD is widely accepted as the most accurate measure of inflation for various industries), Washington state taxes per capita were already at a 15-year low heading into the Great Recession that sent our budget off a cliff.

Just look at the widening gap between CPI and IPD. What that represents is a decline in government spending power.

And that, rawdibob, is one of the main reasons why the cost of college tuition has increased so much faster than inflation.

It looks like the long expected backlash has finally struck KIRO radio in the wake my controversial firing:

At KIRO-AM and KIRO-FM, well, it was time to be philosophical about the quake that had just gone through the market.  […] Ross and Monson and the rest of the gang had sunk from No. 3 in the winter 2009 book (which used the diary format) to No. 19 in the PPM rankings.

Yeah, I suppose KIRO’s plummetting News/Talk ratings might be due to Arbitron’s switch from diaries to PPM ratings, or due to the audience disruption created by dropping its familiar AM signal, or some combination of the two. But I prefer to think it’s all due to a delayed audience rebellion after my weekend show was dropped back in February of 2008.

Meanwhile, Fisher Communications’ STAR 101.5, which has its studio just down the hall from those of KOMO 1000, saw its ratings climb to number one exactly at the time I started showing up at the building, subbing on The Commentators.  Coincidence? I think not.

If you want to lift the curse Rod, you know how to reach me. Personally, I’d prefer Dori’s slot, but I’m willing to negotiate.

“Kansans for Life,” (yeah, I know) says it deplores the assassination of Dr. George Tiller.

We value life, completely deplore violence, and are shocked and very upset by what happened in Wichita today.

They should be upset I guess, since by my count there were over 80 references to Tiller in their 24 page spring newsletter (PDF,) including the main front page story. Obsess much?

And you’ll notice the second story in the pdf newsletter is about Kathleen Sebelius. A reader at TPM and Josh Marshall point out that the fact Tiller was a donor to Sebelius was something the GOP tried to make a big deal of during Sebelius’s confirmation hearings.

The subjugation of women movement spent decades demonizing Tiller, and then used Tiller’s support as a justification for attacking Sebelius, so the assassination is not exactly some random, out of the blue event. More like sadly and horribly predictable.

That doesn’t mean the gunman isn’t, at some level, nuts, as someone who would do such a thing clearly has issues. But the subjugation movement will now correctly come under intense public scrutiny for the kinds of tactics and rhetoric they have employed in pursuit of their goals. (And yes, the First Amendment gives one remarkably broad freedom to say many, many things when commenting on public issues, but it also gives everyone else the right to be repulsed and sickened by extremism.)

And pretty soon someone in the traditional media will inevitably demand that liberals be respectful and civil, because nothing earns respect like gunning a doctor down at a church service. I’d say we’re a wee bit past “civility” now.

What a terrible day.

The Lawrence Journal-World reports that the man in police custody in connection with the assassination of Dr. George Tiller had a “brush with the law” in the 1990’s.

Scott P. Roeder, the man who was detained by Johnson County officials as a “person of interest” in the Sunday morning killing of George Tiller, has a brush with the law in his past.

He was convicted in 1996 of criminal use of an explosive after police discovered a blasting cap in his car when his car was pulled over because his car was not registered. Roeder served time in Kansas prisons before an appeal was granted on the basis of the search of his car being unlawful, according to court of appeals records.

The article goes on to quote court documents saying that Roeder’s convictions for driving offenses were sustained, and mentions that they were somehow related to the “Freeman Group.” It’s not completely clear if the reporter means the “Freemen,” the nutjobs who holed up in Montana during the last Democratic administration.

At any rate, the killing of Tiller was a political assassination as vile as any assassination. The American Taliban had hounded Tiller for decades, and Tiller had even suffered right-wing attacks previously, having been shot in both arms and enduring a bombing of his clinic. The former attorney general of Kansas, Phil Kline, had relentlessly harassed Tiller and the women of Kansas with legal maneuvers until even Kansans said “enough” and booted Kline from his state post.

While details are still emerging, the pro-subjugation-of-women movement is trying to scramble for political cover.

“For the movement, it could not come at a worse time,” the Rev. Patrick Mahoney, director of the Christian Defense Coalition, which lobbies against abortion, said of the killing.

“If they make it seem that people who embrace the pro-life movement are kind of this extremist violent group, that could diminish some of the passion and energy on confronting Sotomayor.”

Nice sensitivity there. Don’t let the family grieve or anything.

I don’t know why anyone would think violence is part of the pro-subjugation strategy, other than say, all the violence. Weird how so much of it happened during the last Democratic administration. I’m sure that’s just an unhappy coincidence and has nothing to do with intemperate and inflammatory comments made by political leaders and media personalities.

There’s no discussing things with people who think they have exclusive insight into the supernatural and wish to impose their beliefs on all of society. They either follow the law or they suffer the consequences, and any bastard who thinks he has the right to be judge, jury and executioner needs to feel the full force of a real jury, judge and well, life in prison.

The death penalty is killing after all.

UPDATE 8:45 PM PDT–McClatchy just moved a story with some interviews of people who knew Roeder.

Those who know Roeder said he believed that killing abortion doctors was an act of justifiable homicide.

“I know that he believed in justifiable homicide,” said Regina Dinwiddie, a Kansas City anti-abortion activist who made headlines in 1995 when she was ordered by a federal judge to stop using a bullhorn within 500 feet of any abortion clinic. “I know he very strongly believed that abortion was murder and that you ought to defend the little ones, both born and unborn.”

The McClatchy article also discusses Roeder’s association with right wing extremists.

Morris Wilson, commander of the Kansas Unorganized Citizens Militia in the mid-1990s, said he knew Roeder fairly well.

“I’d say he’s a good ol’ boy except he was just so fanatic about abortion,” said Wilson, who now lives in western Nebraska. “He was always talking about how awful abortion was. But there’s a lot of people who think abortion is awful.”

Yep, it sure sounds like an assassination, although those of us who believe in the rule of law and democracy must hasten to add that Roeder is presumed innocent until he has had a trial by a jury of his peers or pleads guilty, something that Tiller was not afforded at church this morning.

According to the Seattle Times, housing prices fell throughout the region during 2008, with the median price per square foot dropping 5 percent in King County.  But one neighborhood is bucking the trend, North Beacon/Rainier Valley, which saw median prices rise 12 percent over the year.

Why?

[I]t boasts an amenity almost no other neighborhood can offer: the region’s first light-rail line, scheduled to carry its first passenger July 18.

There is a lot of opportunity to make fun of the Times’ latest effort at real estate market cheerleading, not the least of which being its apparent attempt to lump everything south of I-90 and east of I-5 as a single neighborhood. (The examples cited appear to be from distinct neighborhoods we locals would describe as Beacon Hill, Rainier Valley, Mount Baker and Rainier Beach, covering a distance of five light rail stops… but then I guess from Times’ distinctly suburban perspective, all us Southeast Seattleites must look alike.)

Still, it’s good to see the Times finally acknowledging something we light rail boosters have been arguing all along: folks like choo-choos. In fact, they like them so much, they’re willing to move to be near them. On the flip side, I challenge the Times’ intrepid real estate reporters to find one anecdote of a person willing to spend a little extra for a house on the basis that it’s a mere eight minute walk to a bus stop.

Put aside for a moment the question as to whether this behavior is rational, and don’t worry your pretty little heads debating the relative economic efficiency of investing in buses versus rail. All that’s entirely beside the point. Rational or not, for whatever reasons, folks simply prefer trains and trolleys over buses. And it’s a preference whose impact is consistently repeated wherever rail systems are built.

It is ironic that, in a nation that otherwise reveres the market, establishment voices like the Times should so often ignore consumer demand when debating transit alternatives, always arguing that we should build the transit system that costs taxpayers the least, rather than the one they actually want. That’s no way to run a business, and I’d argue that’s no way to run a government either… at least not if your goal is to keep your customers happy.

So North Beacon Hill/Rainier Valley is about to get its light rail, and I’m guessing once it does, our region’s other four “neighborhoods” will want their’s too.

Milwhcky just keeps on rolling. He won last week’s contest for his fourth win a row. It was the London Zoo in the UK (thanks to wes.in.wa for posting the link). This week’s is a tough one. I may have to throw out a clue a little later today. Good luck!

You knew it would happen eventually, but now we get to see how the right responds to the first terrorist attack on US soil since Obama assumed the presidency:

George Tiller, the Wichita doctor who became a national lightning rod in the debate over abortion, was shot to death this morning as he walked into church services.

No, it’s not anywhere near the scale of 9/11, but it fits the definition of terrorism nonetheless: “the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, esp. for political purposes.”

Will Republicans rally around President Obama in his efforts to fight the terrorist threat, as Democrats rallied around President Bush in the immediate wake of 9/11? It remains to be seen.

From the Young Conservative Anthem.

“Phase me, make me, into something that ain’t me

Serious c… can’t nobody shake me

great like the Gatsby, poppin posers like acne

Don’t matter if your gay, straight, Christian or Muslim

There’s one thing we all hate, called socialism.

It’s loathsome, and America ain’t the outcome,

Raise taxes on the people,

And you’re gonna feel symptoms, problems

I gotta message for a young con:

superman that socialism,

waterboard that terrorism”

See the video at HuffPo!

Adding, it’s very novel for students at an Ivy League college to lecture people about hard work and playing the hand one is dealt. Not saying people there don’t work hard, but if you’re going to an Ivy League school you’ve got a pretty good shot at a decent life. As with seemingly all conservatives, the sense of victim hood is palpable, constant and—hilariously absurd.

Likely these two will be installed on Wall Street in a few years, where they can dream up innovative financial products so another generation gets to enjoy the benefits of derivatives.

(Props to Aneurin for noticing this bit of strangeness.)

– Kitsap County was forced to pay Bruce Olson $2,000 as reimbursement for the grow lights that they confiscated from him and never returned after the ill-conceived 2007 raid on his legal marijuana patch.

– The Marc Emery extradition hearings have been pushed back another few weeks as a potential plea deal is being worked out.

– Melissa Gira Grant writes in Slate about why the crackdown on Craigslist for their erotic classifieds will just lead to more problems when it comes to dealing with prostitution. Dominic Holden and Jonah Spangenthal-Lee write about a local case that illustrates the pointlessness of maintaining an absolute prohibition on paying for erotic services rather than regulating it.

– Scott Morgan dismantles the myth that marijuana is a “gateway drug”.

– In Mexico, the political party that most openly advocates for drug legalization has seen some of its candidates violently attacked, allegedly by the cartels. It’s an important reminder that those who steadfastly oppose drug legalization are on the same side of the debate as the organized crime groups who profit from the illegal drugs.

– Time Magazine writes about one of the most morally bankrupt aspects of the international war on drugs – the attempts to use the U.N. to ban the ancient practice of chewing coca leaves in indigenous areas of South America.

Hard to re-brand the GOP when its elected officials step in poo like this. From The Columbian:

A proposal by County Commissioner Tom Mielke that Clark County should withhold some public health services from people without valid Social Security numbers has inflamed some Latino civil rights advocates.

At a hearing Wednesday, Mielke said he was “concerned about the service that we give to illegals, and the cost.”

“If we don’t have those Social Security numbers, I would like to know who those individuals are who we are serving that are here illegally, and why we serve them and help them in their health,” said Mielke, a Battle Ground Republican. “I think Sheriff Lucas is very interested in who they are.”

To their credit, Republican Sheriff Gary Lucas and Republican County Commissioner Marc Boldt rejected Mielke’s idea out of hand, as did Democratic Commissioner Steve Stuart.

Tough economic times always put resentments in sharp relief. You could wipe out all public health spending in Clark County and it wouldn’t make much difference to the economy one way or the other. Unemployment is high in Clark County not because of illegal immigration but because the local economy was so heavily depending on construction and endless growth. And coming on the heels of the swine flu stuff, it’s a pretty asinine proposal by Mielke.

This is basically Mielke representing the Limbaugh wing of his party, and the more astute politicians are figuring out citizens are beyond tired of that particular vintage.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTuhf9_YGhQ[/youtube]

(And there are over fifty more clips from the past week in politics posted at Hominid Views.)

There are a number of set strategies that come into play when running or opposing a ballot measure, and some of the most time tested involve the ballot title. So it is curious to consider the No side’s strategy in challenging the title to Referendum 71, which would put the recently passed domestic partnership legislation before voters.

No doubt the the original title assigned by the Attorney General’s office is more than acceptable to the Yes camp (those who would favor upholding the legislation), while the alternative proposed by the R-71’s sponsors (those who oppose the legislation) is more favorable to their electoral prospects.  Here is the original ballot title language:

“Same-sex couples, or any couple that includes one person age sixty-two or older, may register as a domestic partnership with the state. Registered domestic partnerships are not marriages, and marriage is prohibited except between one man and one woman. This bill would expand the rights, responsibilities, and obligations of registered domestic partners and their families to include all rights, responsibilities, and obligations granted by or imposed by state law on married couples and their families.”

And here is the alternative proposed by a referendum sponsor:

“The bill would expand the rights, responsibilities and obligations of registered domestic partners to be equal to the rights, responsibilities and obligations granted by or imposed by state law on married couples, except that domestic partnerships will not be called marriages.”

The original title is certainly more informative than the proposed alternative, accurately noting that “Registered domestic partnerships are not marriages, and marriage is prohibited except between one man and one woman.” Specifically restating our state’s DOMA-enforced definition of marriage can’t help but soften opposition to expanding rights for domestic partnerships, so I’m guessing that’s the language that the R-71 sponsors are most opposed to.  And for good reason.

But while a favorable ballot title (that is, favorable to your side) can amount to as much as a point or two advantage at the polls, it’s not worth a hill of beans if you don’t get your measure on the ballot in the first place, and that’s the kind of Sophie’s choice the two camps were faced with in making their calculation whether or not to challenge the ballot title.

R-71 sponsors have only until July 25 to collect 120,577 valid voter signatures. Add the recommended 20% cushion to account for duplicates, mismatched signatures and other discrepencies, and you’re looking at a target of about 144,000 signatures in less than eight weeks… and counting.

Had the No camp let last Friday’s challenge deadline slide, they could have printed petitions overnight and started collecting on May 23, giving them 63 days to gather their signatures at an average rate of about 2,286 signatures a day. But now, with a Thurston County Superior Court judge not scheduled to hear their challenge until next Tuesday, R-71 sponsors will have at most 52 days to gather signatures. At an average rate of over 2,769 a day, they’ve effectively added almost 500 extra signatures a day to their burden—a 21-percent increase—while losing two Sundays, a definite blow to a canvassing campaign that will likely rely on churches to produce a large chunk of its signatures.

Without a large infusion of cash to pay professional signature gatherers (we’re talking several hundred thousand dollars) this target just doesn’t seem doable, especially considering how noncontroversial the domestic partnership legislation has proven within the general population. Perhaps the R-71 sponsors are hoping for a miracle, but I don’t remember Jesus performing any magic tricks in the interest of promoting discrimination.

Meanwhile, the ballot title challenge itself was a crapshoot to begin with, with judges tending to retain the AG’s original language more often than not. Yes, the stuff about marriage being between one man and one woman sucks a lot of the outrage out of voters on the fence, but it will be hard for the No camp to successfully argue that voters should be presented with less information, unless they are fortunate enough to draw a judge who both sympathizes with their agenda, and is willing to use his court to act on it.  (You know, one of those damn activist judges the right is always complaining about.)

So it makes me wonder what the No camp’s strategy really is? Do they really believe they can gather the requisite signatures in a little more than seven weeks? Are they confident they have a chance of prevailing at the polls if they do qualify? Or have they wisely started to question whether waging a losing battle over R-71 might ultimately cause their anti-gay agenda more harm than good?

Yeah, I’m cynical, but this ballot title challenge sure does look like a poison pill. Which I guess, ironically, might make this religious right backed referendum our state’s second documented case of death with dignity.

UPDATE:
The ballot title challenge has been withdrawn after wasting a week of precious signature gathering time.  So I guess there’s no dignity after all.

Last week, the first Washington resident took advantage of the new Death with Dignity law, and chose to end her terminal illness with her family and her dog by her side. Another half-dozen individuals in the state have received the medication after being certified by physicians. This law, as in Oregon, is only used by a few dozen people a year. No one gets excited about people using the law, but supporters still work to make sure that people know it and can discuss it with their doctor. As Barbara Coombs Lee from Compassion & Choices explains in the Huffington Post, it pays off:

Most Compassion & Choices supporters would eagerly bargain away a few days of extended life in an intensive care unit in exchange for final days spent at home, in relative comfort and meaningful communion with those they love. Such folks don’t adhere to the doctrine of redemptive suffering and would rather slip away peacefully if imminent dying would be otherwise prolonged and agonized.

Well, the evidence is in. Recent studies indicate the single most powerful thing a person can do to improve the chance for gentle dying is — simply and courageously — to talk about it.
Talk to whom? First and foremost, talk to your personal physician. It’s never too early for this conversation. This March an important study appeared in the Archives of Internal Medicine. A large, multi-institutional study, it evaluated the quality of life at the end of life for people with advanced cancer.

Lo and behold! Those individuals who had discussed end-of-life values and preferences with their doctors experienced significantly less suffering in their final week of life. A significant reduction in intensive care hospitalizations and high technology interventions accounted for this desirable outcome. Not too surprising, the patients who had talked with their doctors, and who experienced a more peaceful, pain-free end of life, also received less costly care than those tethered to the tubes and machines meant to extend their lives.

But one finding is stunning enough to be a game-changer in end-of-life care. For all the suffering they inflicted and all the cost they incurred, the tubes and machines actually bought no life extension. None.

Coombs Lee goes on to give some good advice on how to start up that conversation with your doctor, as most doctors will not initiate it. Compassion & Choices has been doing a tremendous amount of work making sure that Washington’s law works as well as Oregon’s, where even death with dignity opponent Sen. Ron Wyden conceded in front of Congress that the law has worked incredibly well when it comes to improving end-of-life care:

While I do not know how I would vote if the issue were to appear on the Oregon ballot once more, I believe it is time for me to acknowledge that my fears concerning the poor elderly were thankfully never realized, and the safeguards appear to have worked quite well in preventing potential abuses.

What is often not discussed by opponents of the Oregon law is the Oregon Death With Dignity Act has brought about many improvements in end of life care in Oregon. Pain management has improved. My state remains the only state to discipline a physician for the under-treatment of pain. However, perhaps the most important side effect of the law is that families, health professionals and patients know they can, and should have conversations about how they want to die and what their wishes are concerning treatment.

The end-of-life rules before I-1000 was passed into law allowed for physicians to make decisions on end-of-life care that should have been left up to patients. Changing that protocol and allowing for conversations about different choices to take place is not just giving patients better options, it’s also improving their care overall.