HorsesAss.Org

On Monday, former Stranger news editor Josh Feit introduced Publicola, a news and opinion site intended, amongst other things, to help fill the gap in WA state political coverage left by our ever shrinking political press corps.  Check it out.

Well today I’m pleased to announce HA’s own extended Olympia coverage with the addition of Bryan Bissell to our stable of bloggers.  Some of you may remember Bryan from PolitickerWA, where he covered state politics for much of the past year before its investor pulled the plug.  Bryan is a Tacoma native, and conveniently, a current resident of Olympia, from where he will be providing his own coverage and commentary of this year’s momentous legislative session.

Welcome Bryan.

I don’t pretend that Bryan and Josh can make up for the number of political reporters we’ve lost over the past couple years.  But they’ll try.

Microsoft’s long rumored job cuts are no longer a rumor, with the company announcing plans to cut as many as 5,000 jobs over the next 18 months—about 5-percent of its worldwide workforce—in the wake of a weaker than expected earnings report and what Steve Ballmer called “the most challenging economic climate we have ever faced.”

Sure, these layoffs are a helluva lot less than the massive, 17-percent reduction some rumormongers had predicted, but that’s little solace to the 1,400 workers laid off today, the majority of whom had been working in Redmond.

Microsoft ouch.

Microsoft Corp. said Thursday morning it would lay off up to 5,000 employees, or 5 percent of its work force, over the next 18 months, including 1,400 jobs today, marking the first time in its history that it has laid off workers across the company.

The announcement came as Microsoft posted quarterly results far short of analysts’ and its own expectations.

—snip—

The company said that jobs would be eliminated in research and development, marketing, sales, finance, legal, human resources, and IT. At the same time, the company said it would continue to hire in other areas, including its search business, so its work force would actually fall by between 2,000 and 3,000.

And Intel ouch.

Intel will close an aging computer chip factory in Hillsboro late this year, eliminating 1,000 positions as it ratchets back production in response to a spectacular decline in sales.

The 12-year-old facility, known as Fab 20, is one of five sites worldwide that Intel will shutter in 2009. As many as 6,000 workers will lose their jobs globally, about 7 percent of Intel’s total work force.

People have less money, they buy less stuff, then people lose jobs, meaning they have less money and buy less stuff…

Some really outstanding reporting by Columbian reporter Courtney Sherwood about the failure of Bank of Clark County, the first Washington bank seized by the state since 1993. Well worth a full read if you are trying to understand how a smaller bank got into such serious trouble. For starters, the bank began making riskier loans starting in 2005, according to The Columbian.

Another factor that seems to be worth focusing on is the issue of brokered deposits, which are (of all things) deposits made by brokers on behalf of clients, usually those seeking a higher rate of return. As Sherwood notes in her article, the FDIC has rules about this sort of thing.

With its core deposits falling, the Bank of Clark County appears to have sought out even more of the risky brokered deposits it had come to depend on. Over three months, it brought in $28.7 million this way, and brokered deposits climbed to 35.7 percent of all deposits.

Mounting loan troubles may have triggered an FDIC rule that forbids banks with lower capital ratios from taking on any more brokered deposits, though there’s not yet enough public data about the bank’s finances to be certain.

If I understand correctly, one reason brokered deposits can be risky is that large dollar amounts can quickly be pulled out of a bank when, for example, brokered CD’s expire and investors chase higher returns elsewhere. In other words, the use of brokered deposits is part of the mix, but too heavy a reliance can be dangerous.

The underlying cause of the failure, of course, was a collapse in real estate values. While it wasn’t a Southern California scale bubble, it was still a speculative bubble fueled by lax lending standards in the house buying, selling and financing industry. As we move forward, state and federal regulators (not to mention lawmakers) are going to have to come to grips with what worked and what didn’t work in terms of oversight.

Tomorrow night (Thursday) is NARAL Pro-Choice Washington’s annual Chocolate for Choice fundraiser, celebrating the 36th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, and if love chocolate and support reproductive rights, it’s an evening you don’t want to miss.  This is my third year as a “VIP chocolate judge,” and I always jump at the invitation.

Thursday, January 22, 2009
7-9pm
Safeco Field
1st Base Terrace Club
1250 First Ave South, Club Level

Tickets are only $40 at the door, and I promise you a tongue-dazzling selection of chocolate treats from 50 Seattle-area bakers, restaurants and chocolatiers.  Don’t miss it.

Russell Tice, former National Security Agency analyst, is on Keith Olbermann’s “Countdown” right now saying that the Administration wiretapped all communications of targeted journalists. He has not mentioned specific publications or individuals but did not reject Olbermann’s mention of The New York Times and Olbermann (MSNBC) himself…

This comes after Olbermann ran old video of Bush saying only individuals and groups suspected  of terrorist activities were targeted, only foreign communications, etc. etc.

Olbermann says he will have Tice on again tomorrow…

Also, Olbermann just said Caroline Kennedy has NOT withdrawn her name from consideration.

(Tice is a well-publicized whistleblower but it looks like he’s going to expand his revelations now that there’s promise of change.)

Allrighty then.

Chief Justice John G. Roberts was ushered into the Map Room of the White House on Wednesday night to re-administer the oath of office to President Barack Obama because the original oath on Tuesday had a word out of sequence.

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said the move was made out of “an abundance of caution” in consultation with White House Counsel Greg Craig. Obama’s second swearing-in, devoid of the pomp of the initial event, took place at 7:35 p.m. in the presence of a few aides and a press pool. The chief justice was wearing a court robe. “Are you ready to take the oath?” Roberts said. “I am,” Obama said, “And we’re going to do it very slowly.”

No word on whether Obama was wearing a flag pin while holding his birth certificate.

That’s really strange, although someday it will make a great trivia question I suppose.

I love it when a politician immediately does what they said they will do. In this case, new Superintendent of Public Instruction Randy Dorn is wasting no time doing away with the much-despised Washington Assessment of Student Learning. (Say it out loud–WASL. Now you hate it too.)

From The Seattle Times:

No changes can be made to the WASL for this school year due to time constraints, Dorn said, but beginning in spring 2010, he plans to replace the WASL with two tests. In grades 3-8, students would take the Measurements of Student Progress (MSP). In high school, they would take something called the High School Proficiency Exams.

One way he plans to cut costs is to offer the tests via computer, rather than just on paper and pencil.

Niki Sullivan over at the TVW blog notices something interesting in the official SPI Question and Answer document, and provides a link to the PDF document using some kind of fancy mouse-over deal. The something interesting is that Dorn is claiming he can change the testing system under existing law and the Legislature can request input.

Sounds fun!

There’s a lot of detail to wade through, of course, and Sullivan slyly notes she is checking into how much requesting Legislators might imagine can be done…

Last night, while driving home from Drinking Liberally (two pints of Manny’s over four hours FYI, before any of you trolls start going on about DUI), I ran into a fog bank on 23rd with almost zero visibility.

And it got me wondering… why isn’t anybody bitching about Mayor Nickels’ failure to clear our streets of fog?

I mean, it’s been days now, with no improvement, and what has the Mayor done?  No salt.  No plows.  No fleet of giant fans blowing the mist from major arterials.  Nada.

I’m just sayin’…

Good thing this guy doesn’t have an Arabic sounding name, or speak with a funny accent, else he’d be in real trouble.

A 65-year-old Spokane man has been ordered held in custody on federal charges of illegally possessing automatic weapons and illegally storing explosives in a Bellevue commercial storage shed while agents investigate how he came to possess a huge military-grade arsenal that included … 37 machine guns, 12 silencers, two grenade launchers, more than 60 high-explosive grenades, several pounds of military-grade C-4 plastic explosives and thousands of rounds of ammunition.

[…] At a detention hearing set for Friday, [Asst. US Attorney Thomas] Woods said he will present evidence that Struve possessed “anti-government material.”

According to a complaint filed earlier this month, Struve “planned to use the items at some uncertain date in the future.”

[ATF Special Agent Heidi] Wallace, who was at Struve’s court hearing Tuesday, said there was no evidence at this point that Struve was involved in domestic terrorism.

No evidence he was involved in domestic terrorism? Uh… how about the 37 machine guns, 12 silencers, 60 grenades and several pounds of military-grade C-4, not to mention…

One box contained 54 M406 high-explosive grenade rounds — 40-millimeter shells that can be launched from a shoulder-fired weapon to distances of 300 yards or more, according to military specification.

Its explosion creates a “kill radius” of up to 16 feet from the point of impact and injuries dozens of yards beyond that.

What’s that make him… a collector?  A Second Amendment enthusiast?  A grenade-launcher rights advocate?

Actually, what I’m guessing this makes him is white, considering that dark-skinned people with foreign sounding names are routinely convicted as terrorists in the press, and then in the courts, simply for talking about fantastical plots to wreak havoc in impossible ways with weapons they’ve made no serious effort to obtain.  But this “heavyset and bearded” white guy with the huge cache of illegal weapons and the “anti-goverment material”…?  There is absolutely “no evidence that Struve assembled the arsenal for terrorism purposes.”

So don’t you worry.  He’s not a terrorist.  An ATF agent said so.  And the agent must be right, else both the Times and the P-I wouldn’t have credulously repeated the assertion.

Here are a few updates on some recent news items I’ve been following before I head off to Drinking Liberally:

– The marijuana decriminalization bill introduced in the State House is here. After some more asking around, it appears that the bill is being held up by State Representative Chris Hurst (D-31), whose Criminal Justice and Corrections Committee does not plan on holding hearings, or even allowing a vote. I have an email out to his office in the hopes of getting an explanation. As Dominic Holden has pointed out, the bill would potentially save Washington taxpayers roughly $7.5 million per year. And the decriminalization is extremely limited. In fact, the bill’s proposed marijuana possession limits without being a criminal offense would still be more stringent than Ohio’s.

– The pre-trial motions in the Bruce Olson case (previous posts here, here, and here) will be on Monday, January 26 at 9am at the Kitsap County Courthouse (614 Division St. in Port Orchard). Prosecutors are trying to deny Olson’s ability to testify that he’s an authorized medical marijuana patient. Supporters of the Olsons are encouraging people to come to the courthouse to show their support.

If a person swears on a Bible to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States, so help me God,” and the US has laws saying that people must obey international laws against torture, then wouldn’t part of defending the Constitution include at least looking into reasonable suspicions that torture was official policy?

I mean, this is a matter of law, not a matter for the Washington, D.C. press corpse to decide, much as they might try.

And yes, someone saying something other than “yeah!” is horrible and mean and a sign of being a mean person. I’m arguing against torture out of spite and horribleness. Get off my lawn and don’t torture people!

But I am going to watch the concert ball on the tee-vee, if Sally “DC is a small town” Quinn isn’t providing commentary.

I heard Sting is a last minute addition, which sounds kind of cool, if true.

Get your Obama hat on, or whatever the kids are saying. Bring me a Werther’s.

Rumor has it that some sort of celebration is in order tonight. Whatever it take to get you motivated, please join us for an evening of politics under the influence at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. We start at 8:00 pm at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Some folks will show up earlier for dinner.

If you’re not in the Seattle area, no worries. Swing by the Drinking Liberally web site for dates and times of a chapter within rowing distance of you.

This is only the beginning:

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Tuesday she hoped that incoming US President Barack Obama will consult and cooperate with his international partners, and took a swipe at the unilateralism of George W. Bush by saying no country can solve the world’s problems on its own.

“I hope our cooperation will be characterized by listening to one another and taking decisions on the basis that any one country can’t solve the world’s problems on its own, but that we can only do it together. And I will meet him in that spirit,” Merkel told Germany’s ARD television on Tuesday ahead of Obama’s inauguration.

She said Obama’s inauguration as the first black president of the US was “a truly great hour for America” that offered “a multitude of opportunities.”

It’s worth noting that Merkel is a conservative, and is the leader of Germany’s “center-right” government. She’s another name on a long list of friends and allies excited for change in American foreign policy.