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This headline is just too precious:

Suburbs aren’t a wasteland — they even have brie out here

Bless your cotton socks, sweetheart. You mean they have cheese in Bellevue? Really? Really? I would never have guessed that cheese- expensive cheese- could have made it over the I-90 bridge. Simply amazing.

Child care, not soaring fuel costs, led to my recent, brief stint telecommuting, and the experiment was rewarding from a financial, parenting and policy standpoint.

Good news: I saved a half tank of gas!

Bad news: Reports of the demise of the automobile are greatly exaggerated.

I have discovered my car, my suburban lifestyle and I can coexist.

Good for you. Do you want a medal? (And who exactly is saying the automobile is dead? Lynne doesn’t let on. From seeing the run on Prius’, my only guess is that the automobile she’s referring to is the H2 or Frank Blethen’s ride, the Porsche Cayenne.)

That’s likely to be disappointing news to many. The New York Times recently published essays from writers expressing the national angst over skyrocketing gas prices. The mood was funereal.

One was titled “Goodbye to the Great American Road Trip,” and needs no further explanation. “Ghosts of the Cul-de-sac” announced, a tad gleefully, a mass exodus from the suburbs and exurbs as people escape their cars for city living.

The difference between our area and many areas of the country is that Seattle has held up much better than lots of other markets. Big subdivisions outside D.C. are vacant, and the Las Vegas exurbs are imploding just as quickly as they were built.

Blog postings on the subject ranged from expressions of schadenfreude to something more venal. Suburbanites are stereotyped as gas guzzlers commuting to McMansions, the values of which are dropping like granite countertops. One poster predicted rising gas prices will scatter suburbanites like rodents. OK, I like cheese — particularly soft brie — but comparing us to rats? Not as bad, however, as the poster who crowed that the rise of gas prices was for commuters, “the chickens coming home to roost.”

There’s something to be said for folks living with the decisions they’ve made. You know, free markets and what not.

I get the fear and pessimism. We’re all reeling, and relief is not forthcoming. The World Petroleum Congress is meeting this week in Madrid, Spain. But the Saudis and other OPEC oil ministers are more likely to concur on the best tapas than agree to lower the price of crude oil.

Lynne’s idea of relief is cheaper gas for people who don’t want to change their behavior. Totally off the table is relief in the form of driving less. That’s Commie bullshit!

Barring a change in price, we’re going to have to change the level of demand. It has already started. Cruising is down, making the drive along West Seattle’s Alki Beach doable in less than two hours. Farther from home, driving on empty is up. AAA reports a 7 percent increase in calls from Southern California motorists running out of gas.

How are people lowering demand? By cruising less, and by being irresponsibly driving around on empty. Amazing sacrifices, America. Simply amazing. I want every one of our boys currently holed up in Tikrit and Karbala to know that we’re doing our part.

Yet, the rise-and-fall-of-the-suburbs-type prognostications march on unchallenged. But jumping on the for-sale signs littering the landscape as symbolic of an American shift to living next door to work is premature. Right now, empty houses are more about the subprime-mortgage fallout than gas mileage.

Uh, ok. Then riddle me this one, Lynne: Why are housing prices stable in transit-oriented development? I saw plenty of “For Sale: Price Reduced” signs in Kent’s East Hill, but not so many in SE Seattle, where light rail is coming in 2009.

The urge to blame someone — who better than affluent suburbanites and their cars? — is understandable, but a waste. Smart public policy will fail if its relies on emotional attempts to lure people back to the city or offer a bike for every garage.

I agree with Lynne. I’m all for guilt-trip reduction. Let’s add buses and build more rail out to the ‘burbs. Telling someone to ride Metro for the sake of the polar bears is bullshit, and will never work. People will only ditch their cars if the train gets them to work faster than driving.

Better solutions are to continue efforts belatedly launched around telecommuting, fuel-efficient vehicle standards and increasing funding for public transit.

Of course we should have seen this coming, whether we live in the city or a rural hamlet. Demand for fuel-efficient cars has resonance now, but Congress and Detroit automakers made sure we were slow getting to this point.

There are fewer American institutions that move slower than Detroit’s car industry. Toyota is eating GM’s lunch on hybrid technology, while Honda is releasing (to a few hundred handpicked customers) a car than runs on hydrogen.

Now we’ll have to dig into our collective pockets to pay for light rail, buses and additional lanes on our highways.

Uh, ok. Two out of three ain’t bad. Demand is way up on Metro and Sound Transit, that’s for sure. But more highway miles? Really? As gas prices rise steadily year after year, I wonder why we would want to invest billions in a product that’s losing it’s market share.

The need is dire. State transportation officials often present worse-case scenarios to get our attention, but one prediction is untenable at the lowest and highest ends. By 2030, the portion of Interstate 90 running through Issaquah will slow to 30 miles per hour as a rising population runs into stagnant road planning. Traffic is expected to increase from 43 percent to 72 percent in this area.

Similar predictions can be made about roadways from Mercer Street in Seattle to Route 202 on the Eastside. In the languid days of summer, it is easy to agree our problems will be eased by getting out of our cars, selling our homes for close-in condos or simply busing ourselves across Lake Washington. When the water sparkles like clear gems, as it has the last few days, I, too, am vulnerable to such fantasy.

You mean, if we do nothing for twenty years, I-90 will be jammed on the freeway through Issaquah? (Isn’t I-90 already jammed through Issaquah?) Yeah, like I trust the highway-building clowns who got us into this mess to get us out of it.

But it’s nice to read that Lynne’s thinking outside the box by maybe, just maybe, taking personal responsibility for her commute.

Then I snap out of it.

Nevermind.

The suburbs aren’t dead.

Lynne Varner 1, Strawman 0.

They’re more vibrant than ever. Technology has pushed the work-at-home concept and large employers such as Microsoft have turned the burbs into employment centers.

That must be why Microsoft hired a fleet of buses and vans to get their employees to and form work… because they’re all telecommuting. Right.

City dwellers aren’t the only ones interested in doing errands on foot. Planning for suburban communities includes retail, employment and entertainment options that operate as mini-Seattles.

Good for you. Want another medal? The Distinguished Cross for Stating The Obvious?

More creativity, less blame, can give us four-day work weeks, telecommutes and a viable school option across the street rather than across town.

Less blame, absolutely. Don’t blame me for laughing at you when you’re stuck in traffic, burning seven dollar Saudi vintage, when I’m not, all because you don’t want to change your behavior, ever.

Gas-guzzling suburbanites and sweaty bicycle-riding urbanites unite!

I prefer a policy of detente, but any move by you towards a rational, evidence-based transportation policy will be welcomed.

In 2004, Washington state witnessed the closest gubernatorial election in history, as then Attorney General Christine Gregoire defeated then real estate broker salesman Dino Rossi by 129 votes (later changed to 133 by a court).

A year and some later (April, 2006), the now defunct East Side King County Journal asked about Rossi What’s his shelf life?:

The charismatic and smooth conservative came within a whisker of winning the governor’s mansion in 2004 and is widely expected to seek a rematch with Democrat Chris Gregoire in 2008. Will it be “Dino Who?” by then?

In politics, it is said that a year is an eternity. So what does that make Rossi’s four-year hiatus with no political office or bully pulpit while Gregoire relentlessly dominates news cycles week after week?

It was an interesting time to ask the question. At the time, Rossi was leading Gregoire by 51% to 38% in a Strategic Vision poll asking about the 2008 election. In fact, Rossi had led Gregoire by more than 50% to Gregoire’s less than 40% in the five other polls taken after the election contest and before April 2006.

The Republicans resoundingly lost the legal battle in the election contest of 2005, but they won the PR battle. Governor Gregoire began her first term polling as less popular than the loser of the election. After a highly contentious, close election, followed by a multi-million dollar Republican dis-information campaign (a.k.a. the election contest), Gregoire’s approval–disapproval spread started out strongly negative, and remained in negative territory for her first year in office. Then, after a 6 months period of nearly even approval (Jan 2006 until June 2006), Gregoire emerged from negative approval-disapproval territory.

Starting from a very bad position, Gov. Gregoire genuinely won over the electorate.

But what about Rossi? When he launched his 2008 gubernatorial campaign (umm…for the second time), Rossi routinely quipped:

“Last time I started with a 12 percent name identity statewide. Most everybody thought Dino Rossi was some kind of wine at that point. A cheap wine at that,” Rossi said….

But name recognition isn’t enough. On the public’s perceptional palette, had Rossi matured into a vintage wine? Or had Rossi’s cheap wine turned to vinegar?

In 2005, Pollster Stuart Elway pointed out:

“’We wuz robbed’ won’t be a strong campaign theme, and Dino will have to present a credible challenge to an incumbent this time. It won’t be like he’s a challenger coming from out of nowhere, but my question is how he stays on the radar screen when he doesn’t hold any office.”

Elway’s concerns were prophetic. Rossi was never able to remain an important player in Washington politics. (Hell…he wasn’t much of a player in Washington state Republican politics, either.) For example, Rossi refused to take a stance in Initiative 912 that would have repealed a state gas tax increase. Neither has Rossi grown in the interim. His campaign stump speech has evolved minimally since 2004. And, at least early in the campaign, Rossi was still running on the “We Wuz Robbed” platform.

The inevitable result is that Rossi has squandered his position of great strength from 2005 and 2006. Just look at the polling. Here is a compilation of every publicly-released head-to-head Gregoire–Rossi poll for the 2008 election:

(Note: different pollsters probe undecided voters to very different degrees. To make the numbers comparable, I have normalized the results so that the Gregoire% + Rossi% sum to 100%.)

After leading in the first 15 polls in a row (through November 2006), Rossi has lost all but one of the most recent 15 polls. A running average puts Rossi about 7% below Gregoire. At this time during the 2006 election cycle, senatorial candidate Mike McGavick, running against an incumbent Sen. Maria Cantwell, had just peaked at 9% below Cantwell. In other words, beginning with a huge advantage in 2005, it looks like Rossi’s residual advantage of the 2004 election (and contest) has shrunk to, roughly, a 2% advantage over McGavick’s unimpressive performance.

The electorate just isn’t taking a liking to the Rossi-brand whine. (Perhaps Rossi shouldn’t be building a campaign on sour grapes.)

(Cross-posted at Hominid Views.)

[via Slog]

Yesterday started out with a modest goal. About $5,000 a day is what Darcy Burner needs to raise through the month of July just to keep pace with Dave Reichert, so every $5,000 chunk we raised for her would be one day more that she could devote to herself and her family after the devastating loss of their home and all their possessions in Monday’s fire. I didn’t know how many $5,000 chunks we could raise, but I was confident we could help lift at least a few days of fundraising off Darcy’s shoulders.

Well, thanks largely to the overwhelming support of the national netroots we’ve already raised over $85,000 in just 24 hours… that’s roughly equivalent to 17 days of fundraising this time of the year. Wow. And Markos is determined to raise $150,000 in online contributions, Darcy’s entire target for the month of July.

This is more than just money, it is a gift of time and an outpouring of affection that has buoyed Darcy’s spirits just as the full impact of her loss finally started to sink in. The campaign tells me she has canceled her schedule at least through the end of the week and will reevaluate day by day after that.

So if you haven’t already, please give to Darcy so that she and her family have the time to heal, without giving up an inch in her race against Reichert.

Give Darcy some time:

So, the Sonics will pay the city $45 million to break the final two years of their Key Arena lease (up from the $26.5 million offer the city rejected in February), and move to Oklahoma City for the 2008-2009 season, leaving their name and team history behind like a ghostly echo. Ah well.

Sure, the move was inevitable from the day Clay Bennett bought the team, and I suppose the mayor and his minions should be congratulated for squeezing an extra $18.5 million out of the lying bastard. But rather than settle (and it does feel like settling in more than one sense of the word), I would have preferred watching the team’s owners bled dry over the final two years of the lease, the arena as empty as Bennett’s promise of good faith negotiations.

Nothing wrong with a little spite now and then.

UPDATE:
The Seattle Times editorial board chimes in:

Seattle sports fans can only feel despair as the high-tech shining city of the future loses its 40-year basketball franchise and a ton of civic pride to a group of dishonest brokers from Oklahoma City.

The team is leaving town. That is all anyone will remember.

Huh. Actually, that’s not all anyone will remember. Some of us will remember that the Times ed board itself was unintentionally complicit in Bennett’s deception, vouching for his integrity at the same time he was brokering so dishonestly.

There have been whispers and shouts that SuperSonics owner Clay Bennett is only buying time until he can move the teams to his home state of Oklahoma. This is an unfair claim. Bennett has done nothing to suggest that moving the teams is a foregone conclusion.

If the Times had devoted only half the cynicism toward Bennett that they showed toward Darcy Burner, perhaps they might have helped foster a consensus in which elected officials and civic leaders could have pursued a more pragmatic approach toward defending our team from poachers. Or perhaps not. Either way, the Team Blethen blew it.

UPDATE, UPDATE:
A more terse goodbye to the Sonics.

In attempting to brush aside the controversy over the campaign’s inappropriate and privacy invading abuse of the Everett AquaSox mailing list, Dino Rossi campaign spokesperson Jill Strait scapegoated Snohomish County Finance Chair Tom Hoban, telling reporters:

Dino Rossi was unaware that the list had been requested or used.

For his part, Hoban went on to ridiculously tell the Everett Herald that…

“It is not a partisan event. It is a fund raiser for Dino but it is not targeting any one particular group.”

Uh-huh. Well it turns out that Rossi’s feint of deniability is just as preposterous as Hoban’s claim of nonpartisanship, given the fact that Rossi was in attendance at a December “campaign kickoff” event in which Hoban bragged about their “design” to use their investment in the AquaSox to “help out if [Rossi] decided to run for office.”

[audio:http://horsesass.org/wp-content/uploads/dinoaquasox.mp3]

That’s right, Hoban, the self-proclaimed “ask man” explains:

“This is by design that a 2,500-seat venue, and Dino Rossi in it, might help out if he decided to run for office.”

And Rossi really wants to claim that he was “unaware” of plans to use the AquaSox and their mailing list for partisan political purposes? Really?

Can’t wait to see the Kate Riley rant attacking the Dems for raising questions about that.

This morning HA joined with dozens of other blogs nationwide in an impromptu fundraiser to help give Darcy Burner the time she needs to tend to herself and her family in the aftermath of yesterday’s devastating house fire, and without having to worry about the demands of the campaign. $5,000 a day… that’s about how much money Darcy needs to raise to keep pace with Reichert at this point in the campaign… and each $5,000 chunk we raise online is one less day that she has to spend fundraising during the month of July.

Well, by 3PM this afternoon we’d already raised over $50,000 $60,000 $75,000… the equivalent of a ten twelve fifteen day breather for Darcy and her family. Amazing! And Markos at Daily Kos has now set an ambitious goal of raising her entire $150,000 July target:

We can’t help with the “campaign” side of things, but we can help with the money side of things. Darcy would have to raise about $150,000 in the month of July to keep up with her Republican opponent. Us bloggers are going to try and raise that for her.

Your generous donation is more than just an investment in WA-08 and the US House, it is a precious gift of time… time that Darcy and her family need to put their lives back together. So please join us in giving today.

Give Darcy some time:

In the comment threads, HA reader Phil K posts the contents of two emails he received as a fan and online ticket purchaser of the Everett AquaSox. The first is an invitation to a $100 per person “special fundraiser” for Republican Grand Old Party Party candidate for governor, Dino Rossi. The second is a red-faced email from AquaSox majority owners Peter A. and Peter E. Carfagna, apologizing for violating their fans personal privacy:

We recently learned that our personal privacy policy was compromised in an attempt to solicit your support for a partisan political fundraiser.

In that regard, on behalf of our family ownership group, we would like to express our sincere apologies.

Although we did not authorize this communication nor were we aware of it in advance, we have justifiably received numerous complaints from you expressing your displeasure. We take full responsibility and again beg your pardon.

How did this violation happen? Postman reports that “Dino Rossi’s campaign misused the mailing list of the minor league baseball team.” And how did Rossi’s campaign get ahold of the list? Well, Dino Rossi is a minority owner.

Rossi campaign spokeswoman Jill Strait blames the whole affair on Rossi’s Snohomish County Finance Chair, Tom Hoban, who’s also a minority owner, and claims that Rossi “was unaware that the list had been requested or used” (you know, for an event he’s scheduled to appear at in less than a week), telegraphing the kind of buck stops elsewhere management style we might expect from a Rossi administration.

For their part, the Carfagnas appear sincerely contrite, promising to take immediate steps to ensure an incident like this never happens again.

We take your personal privacy seriously. We will remain vigilant in protecting your email address from solicitors and vendors…

… and Republicans.

Hmm… I’m guessing the Seattle Times is going to want to editorialize on this latest campaign scandal… not!

The I-1000 Death With Dignity initiative is holding a press conference at 1PM today to announce that they’re turning in the signatures required to make it onto the November ballot:

Former governor Booth Gardner, a well-respected leader of the death with dignity movement, who has called this his last campaign, will speak about his support for aid-in-dying. Volunteer Nancy Niedzielski, whose husband died of brain cancer, will also share her experience and discuss the reasons that it is important to decriminalize death with dignity.

I’ve been a pro-choice advocate on this issue for a long time and I’m excited to volunteer to help get this initiative passed. If you would like to help out, visit their website and sign up.

Darcy Burner issued the following statement on the fire that destroyed her Ames Lake home:

“As many of you may be aware, early this morning my home was destroyed by a fire. It appears to have been caused by a faulty lamp in my son’s room. Unfortunately, our home and all of the possessions in it are a total loss, but I am so grateful that my family and I escaped safely. We may have lost our home and our possessions, but for the most part they can be replaced, and I feel like a true tragedy was narrowly avoided today. Please rest assured that while we have been a bit shaken by what happened, Mike, Henry and I are all okay.

“Particularly, I am grateful to the wonderful men and women of the Redmond and Kirkland Fire Departments, and the investigators from the King County Fire Investigation Unit. Their rapid response and incredible professionalism brought the fire under control and kept it from spreading to our neighbors’ homes. And these brave first responders even miraculously rescued my son’s puppy, who we initially thought had perished in the flames. Sadly, our cat, Charlotte, did not survive the fire.

“I am also deeply grateful for the expressions of support from friends, supporters and others who have called to express their condolences and offer their generous and heartfelt assistance. I am so moved by all of the offers of a place to stay, or clothes to wear, or all of the other offers of help that have poured in throughout the day. While we are fine for now, your kind expressions of support and concern have helped to sustain me through what has been a long and difficult day.

“For those who would like to do something to express their support, let me suggest making a contribution to your local humane society or animal shelter in memory of Charlotte, or to the Washington State Council of Firefighters Benevolent Fund.

“Thank you all for being there for us in my family’s time of need.  It means so much to us.”

I’ve added in the links, but feel free to choose your own charities that fit the spirit of the request.

Join us at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally for an evening of politics under the influence. Officially, we start at 8:00 pm at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Some folks show up early for Dinner.

If you find yourself in the Tri-Cities area this evening, check out McCranium for the local Drinking Liberally. Otherwise, check out the Drinking Liberally web site for dates and times of a chapter near you.

The preliminary 60-day supply limits for medical marijuana patients in Washington have been released:

Patients authorized to possess or grow marijuana for medical reasons under Washington law would be limited to 24 ounces of harvested marijuana, plus six mature plants and 18 immature plants, according to an official draft rule filed by the state Department of Health today.

The filing of the draft rule starts a rule-making process and a public-comment period. A hearing has been scheduled for Aug. 25 in Tumwater, Thurston County.

As I mentioned below, this is lower than earlier numbers proposed by the DOH, but it’s also higher than the 3 ounces that law enforcement considered “reasonable.” Why these numbers? Probably because they’re exactly the same as what Oregon allows.

Senator Jeanne Kohl-Welles, the prime sponsor of the bill tasking the State Department of Health to set the limits, has released a statement:

We have a responsibility to stay true to the values of compassion and empathy that are at the basis of this law, which was passed by voters in 1998. While I appreciate the Department of Health’s efforts to address this complex issue, I am concerned that today’s proposed rule is more restrictive than what had been previously discussed and may be unclear regarding a physician’s role in making a recommendation for a patient’s use of medical marijuana. Since the rule is not yet final, I encourage all stakeholders to continue providing written input and participate in the upcoming public hearing on August 25 to ensure a full consideration of their concerns.

In a recent interview with the Seattle Times, Dave Reichert made a point of emphasizing his bipartisanship:

“It’s about solving problems,” he said. “This bickering back and forth is a waste of time. It’s tiresome. I just think sometimes it gets childish.”

Childish bickering, huh? Well take a look at Reichert’s approach to bipartisanship, as he describes it before a roomful of Republicans back in 2006:

“Hardest thing in the world to do to be nice to a crook, let alone someone who took your best friend’s life. But it’s my job. And in America, how hard is it for me to put my arm around a Democrat, if I can put my arm around Gary Ridgway?”

Reichert takes a touching story about a colleague and friend, tragically shot and killed in the line of duty (just get a load of those dramatic pauses)… and uses it as a setup for a punchline about Democrats. A cop killer and a serial killer, equated with Democrats. Right back at you, Dave.

But I guess that’s bipartisanship, Dave Reichert style.

Mankind has witnessed a number of horrors in recent decades—the Rwandan genocide… the ongoing tragedy in Darfur… DOE’s stormwater regulations—but none, according to Seattle Times editorialist Kate Riley a few weeks back, matched that of a state Democratic Party press release criticizing Dino Rossi for deliberately attempting to hide his Republican affiliation:

Oh, horrors! Stop the presses. Republican gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi is trying to “rebrand” himself as a member of the Grand Old Party. How sinister.

The real horror here is the state Democratic party’s attempt, in a press release today, to invent a scandal out of nothing — and, worse, the premise for their argument is founded on an apparent belief that voters are too ignorant to know that “GOP” and “Republican” are the same thing….

Really, Kate? Well, I hate to say “I told you so”… so I’ll just let Postman say it for me:

Dino Rossi’s rebranding effort may pay off with voters who say they don’t know what it means when a candidate declares himself a member of the “GOP Party.” […] A recent poll by Stuart Elway says that about 25 percent of respondents didn’t know what GOP meant.

Elway asked respondents which party they thought a candidate who “prefers GOP Party” is associated with. 15% didn’t know, 7% said Democratic and 3% other. And of that 25% who didn’t know or got it wrong, 27% identified themselves as Independents and 26% as Democrats. Only 18% of Republicans were confused.

This came as no surprise to Postman, who adds:

That’s where the greatest benefit of rebranding could come for a Republican trying to buck a 24-year gubernatorial losing streak for the party.

And you can trust Postman on this, because he’s one of those credible corporate media bloggers.

Anybody who knows anything about initiatives knows that a good ballot title can mean a couple extra points at the polls, and no doubt Rossi took advantage of the new top-two primary to jigger the ballot to his advantage. You can’t really blame Rossi, I guess, for this calculated deception—he is a politician after all—but neither can you blame the Democrats for their efforts to educate voters by pointing it out.

It is at the very least ironic then, that Riley, a member of an editorial board that has argued persuasively for government openness, should so vehemently defend Rossi’s deliberate obfuscation, while hyperbolically attacking a Democratic press release on the subject. But as I wrote at the time…

[T]hat’s the sort of “I’m rubber, you’re glue” partisanship we’ve come to expect from an amen editorialist who applauded Dave Reichert’s sexist dismissal of Harvard grad Darcy Burner as a ditzy blond, while condemning Burner as the reincarnation of Karl Rove.

No doubt I can be just as much a partisan propagandist as Riley and her colleagues on the Times ed board. The difference is, I admit it.