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Shoes? We’re throwing shoes now? Seriously? Shoes? Really? Fucking shoes?

By the way, this whole footwear chucking incident gives George W. Bush the chance to show off one of his best attributes:

He’s spry.

Did you see him dodge that shit? Bush is the fuckin’ mack-daddy of dodging shit. If you can’t hit a guy from 10 feet out with your Adidas trainers, you need to pack it the fuck in.

I have to say, this incident proves there has been at least some progress in Iraq. If somebody had tried that shit when Saddam was in power, that reporter would be dog food right now. I’m talking some serious flys walking across eyeballs shit. Fucking six feet under.

So, that’s an improvement.

Tonight’s King County Democrats elections director candidate forum has been canceled due to the weather.  That’s a shame, but I myself don’t particularly want to be on freezing roads with native Northwest drivers unaccustomed to driving on ice.

I believe we’ll try to reschedule for after the freeze, and likely, after the holidays.

The Seattle P-I editorial board doesn’t want to cut off talk of a tunnel option to replace the Alaskan Way Viaduct:

We fear that eliminating any talk of a tunnel will lead to a political confrontation in Olympia that will favor another elevated monstrosity. Potentially, that would even reinvigorate the possibilities for House Speaker Frank Chopp’s overwrought, multistory highway-park-stores- and-offices mega structure, which the planners rightly intend to eliminate from further consideration.

[…]

Major surface and transit improvements must be in place when the current viaduct comes down, no matter what permanent plan is pursued. And, even with impressive recent enhancements for Interstate 5, the surface option is the cheapest. So, we hope Gov. Chris Gregoire, King County Executive Ron Sims and Mayor Greg Nickels will agree on the surface solution as their basic strategy.

We also believe, however, that the three leaders should reopen the idea of a compromise embracing the surface option with some sort of a commitment to studying a tunnel. The compromise wouldn’t have to be exactly the “hybrid” proposal favored by business groups. But it should include at least some traffic speed and volume metrics that would provoke a tunnel study if the surface streets and enhanced transit capacity prove less effective than supporters expect. After all, we think a surface-and-transit solution will work quite well for traffic, the environment and the economy, but we don’t know for sure.

I’m not sure how building the surface/transit alternative eliminates the possibility of a future deep bore tunnel, should technology improvements make it affordable and traffic demand it.  But I see no harm in building in a committment to explore the possibility at some point in the future.  After all, talk is cheap; it’s actual action for which our region has trouble coughing up the cash.

It’s snowing in Portland. Stop being a dumbass, carry chains or have traction tires. Slow down you idiot, I’ve got kids in the car.

We now put on the football game you were going to watch. If you want to know if it’s snowing at your house, look out the window.

It’s week two of the Fantasy Football playoffs in each of my two leagues. Antonio Bryant’s 200 yard / 2 TD day last Monday night bumped me out of the league I’ve been in with some old college friends. But I’m still alive in my league here, which started back in 1998 among a bunch of recently transplanted Boeing employees. Over the 11 years that league’s been around, we’ve come up with some pretty good twists on the typical fantasy league to keep things interesting. We have our own website with a player stats database and trash talk page. We have a rule that if a player on your team gets arrested the week before a game, you get 5 points. And the person who finishes in dead last (after a four team “Toilet Bowl” playoff among the 4 worst teams) must host the Super Bowl party. That honor will be decided by tomorrow night. Thankfully, I’m not in the running, but if I do win this week and next, I have to bring the keg for the party.

Last week’s contest was a challenge, but the answer was close to home. It was the Delridge neighborhood in West Seattle. The big winner was ibogaine, with wes.in.wa supplying the link. Here’s this week’s, good luck.

The headline right now at Huffington Post is:

“GATES: DON’T TEST OBAMA”

…which made me think of this.

Seriously, shaddup:

The decision by transportation planners to possibly map a replacement for the Alaskan Way Viaduct along Western Avenue worries those at the Pike Place Market who fear it could damage the Market’s historic character.

“We’re disappointed this was chosen,” said Carol Binder, executive director of the Market. “We’re going to have to change and look at some of the ways we operate.”

Apparently, the folks at the Market would rather have an elevated freeway in their front yard than an arterial street. Huh.

If you’re not 100% clued in to why they’d be upset with the surface “couplet” option, here’s the skinny:

Instead of a viaduct freeway through downtown Seattle, the “couplet” would send traffic north and south on a reconfigured street grid, using Alaskan Way’s southbound lanes and Western Avenue’s northbound lanes as replacements, knitting together the street grid without building a limited access freeway through the neighborhood.

Western currently comes to a four-way stop at the north end of the Market, near Victor Steinbrueck Park. The plan would be to lid Western near the park, sending traffic under the Market instead of through it.

There is all sorts of hyperventilating over this whole viaduct mess. The Pike Place Market has nothing to worry about. On an issue where so many can disagree, everyone involved agrees that the Market is something worth protecting.

Crazy:

Six candidates have filed to run for King County elections director in an election that will be held without a primary — and, apparently, with gloves off.

…

Julie Kempf, who was fired as King County elections superintendent after she was accused of lying about why thousands of ballots were mailed late in 2002. She denies she lied.

Kempf said she decided to run after she was threatened by political opponents who didn’t want her to run. She declined to offer details of the threats. “If you give in to a threat, they’ve won already,” she said.

Wow. The word “delusional” doesn’t quite cover it.

I thought making the elections director an elected position was supposed to increase the quality of the candidates. So far, we’ve got a “raging bullshiter“; a carpet-bagging state senator with a penchant for irate outbursts; a crackpot civic activist with his own residency issues; and a software guy who nobody has heard of.

Then there’s the incumbent, Sherril Huff, who’s doing us all a “solid” by throwing her hat in the ring. I don’t know what her political beliefs are, and I don’t care. Like Dem chair Dwight Pelz said:

“Sherril Huff isn’t the Democratic candidate in this race, she’s the competent candidate in this race.”

Sounds pretty bad.

A bomb exploded at a West Coast Bank branch in Woodburn Friday, killing at least one person, and injuring at least two others.

The bomb detonated late afternoon around 5:45 p.m. at the bank in the 2500 block of Newberg Highway.

A Marion County deputy medical examiner said he was en route to the scene, saying that he was told of at least one fatality. He added that police were concerned about a secondary device in the area.

The bank had been evacuated before the bomb detonated, according to West Coast Bank chief executive Robert Sznewajs. The branch has been there for at least 10 years, he said.

Things are getting weirder. Turns out the Ghosts of Sixties Past are not as scary as the real life monsters in the bedroom right now.

Men’s Journal looks into the frazzled mind of CNN’s Iraq reporter Michael Ware, who’s been in Iraq covering the war for so long, he’s now an Iraqi citizen. I’m always impressed by Ware, but he has truly sacrificed his sanity to be so close to such a horrific human tragedy.

It’s not just the old media that is struggling to maintain political coverage, as newcomer PolitickerWA has reportedly shut its doors as part of a company wide purge that saw the closing of 12 of Politicker’s 17 state sites.   Bryan Bissell made a good go at it here in WA, and it’s too bad to see the experiment fail.

The future of journalism is online, but you still need deep pockets or not-for-profit support to survive for the moment until the revenue model catches up with the business reality.  Speaking of which… I’m looking for some angels to help me continue and expand my political and news coverage here on HA, so if you’re interesting in getting in on the ground floor of an innovative and exciting local media venture, drop me an email.

I’m glad this is finally being broached. 

Fox Chicago News reports that Emanuel, the Chicago congressman who was appointed shortly after the election to be Obama’s White House chief of staff, had “multiple conversations” about the issue with the governor himself and with Blagojevich’s chief of staff, John Harris — who this week was charged along with his boss.

I’m disappointed, though, that it has to be FOX. While the NYT was busy playing up Blago’s Obama quote —“They’re not willing to give me anything except appreciation, fuck ’em”—as evidence that O’s team was clean (heck, they even ran an article with a headline that cut across 8 lanes of traffic to imply that Obama was partially responsible for bringing Blago down), my take on Blago’s Obama rant was this: If Blagojevich was pissed at Obama, it’s possible Obama’s people knew Blagojevich was wheeling and dealing for quid pro quos. So, the question I had was: Why didn’t they blow the whistle? 

I’m not saying this news about Emanuel proves anything (as TPM pointed out, it does make sense that Obama’s people were talking to Blagojevich), but it does nudge this story in a direction that seemed obvious, but for some reason, was being downplayed by the likes of the NYT.

If the NYT learned anything from the Bush years, I’d hope it’s that they need to be more skeptical of what the President (or President-elect in this case) says.

Come on People. If this was Bush, you’d be asking the same questions.

It is nice to know that at least somebody is willing to speak honestly and openly about both sides of the budget equation:

The chairman of a legislative task force exploring how to improve the way the state pays for K-12 education says a tax increase is the responsible way to pay for the roughly $3 billion worth of ideas in the group’s final report.

Dan Grimm, a former state legislator from Puyallup as well as a two-term state treasurer, said Thursday that he was inspired by a phone call and letter from Gov. Chris Gregoire to propose an extension of the sales tax to services. That would make things such as doctor’s visits and financial advice subject to sales tax.

On Tuesday, the task force voted to approve a proposal that asks for more state money to pay for things such as a longer high school day, smaller class sizes in the younger grades and regionally adjusted pay for teachers. Cost estimates range from $2 billion to $3 billion over each two-year state budget cycle.

[…] Grimm said Gregoire made it clear in their brief phone conversation that if task force members suggested a plan for raising taxes she would support putting that proposal before the voters as a referendum.

Too often we’ve had a one-sided conversation when voting on budget issues, with a rash of statewide initiatives over the past decade that have either mandated new spending or cut existing taxes, with little or no debate about the budgetary intersection between the two.  And recently, editorialists have pressured legislators and the governor to ignore the revenue side of the equation in attempting to close our state’s looming $5 billion shortfall.  But it’s time to start treating voters like grownups, and have a grownup conversation about education funding and other budget priorities.

The fact is, we spend too little on basic education, and the sorts of increases the panel is suggesting would prove widely popular.  But the money has to come from somewhere, and while I don’t dismiss the notion of re-prioritizing existing funds as part of the solution, it would be totally irresponsible and fantastical to attempt to address this issue without at least discussing the revenue side of the equation.

Extending the sales tax to personal and professional services is certainly a reasonable proposal, as year over year these activities make up a larger portion of our economy as opposed to the sale of goods, the ever shrinking segment on which we currently rely for the bulk of state revenues.  Raising taxes is never popular with voters or politicians, but if we’re going to talk about increasing spending on education, increasing taxes needs to be part of the conversation.

And perhaps in this context it is also time for elected officials to start talking about an income tax, as either a dedicated tax or part of a broader restructuring that both increases education funds while lowering the overall tax burden for the vast majority of Washington families.  For example a Graduated High Income Tax of 3% on joint incomes over $200,000 per year ($100,000 for individuals), and 5% on incomes over $1 million, would raise about $2.6 billion per biennium, while exempting 96% of households. (Yet it would still leave us with a highly regressive tax structure that largely favors the wealthy.  Imagine that.)

The point is, there are two sides to the budget equation, and it is both silly and childish to insist on talking about one without talking about the other.  Any substantial tax increase or restructuring is going to come before voters, one way or another, so if the anti-tax folks truly represent the sentiment of the majority, they have nothing to fear from an open and honest debate.