HorsesAss.Org

I lived in rural King County for much of my childhood. In 1992, me and my dad went to Husky Stadium to watch the undefeated UW Huskies destroy Pacific. My dad hated (and hates) sports, and it was nice of him to do an activity that only I wanted to do. It was a fun; a day of watching football surrounded by drunk-ass WASPs and rowdy college kids. Mark Brunell (yeah!) and Bill Joe Hobert (boo!) split time at QB, and Napoleon Kaufman was unstoppable at tailback.

So how did we get from Redmond to Montlake? My dad drove us to the Downtown Redmond Park and Ride. We parked and waited for the Metro bus that would take us, across the Governor Albert D. Rosellini Bridge, to Montlake and Husky Stadium.

Well, the bus never showed, so we had to drive. Traffic sucked, as it always does. We missed kickoff.

I chalk it up to the inherent drawbacks of a bus system. If my dad had driven us to the Downtown Redmond Light Rail Station, it would have been a very different story. Given that light rail has suburban headways of eight minutes (depending on demand, service could be more frequent, or less frequent), the train (barring some calamity) would have shown within those eight minutes, and we would have saved big bucks on parking.

Suburban and rural folks are likely to engage with transit through park and rides. When Sound Transit does community forums out in the ‘burbs, the first question is always, “where are the park and rides?” This is a sensitive issue, especially for enviro-folks, who don’t like park and rides because they think them too accommodating to the automobile.

Josh Feit writes:

It sounds counterintuitive, but you have to be strategic about using mass transit to promote density.

Light rail is not just a pour and stir fix.

Running the line where there’s already some earnest development will suck in development and fight sprawl. Spending billions to run it out into Yenemsvelt [Yiddish for “far, far away” -Will] will simply create park and rides and more sprawl.

Opposing light rail on because of park and rides is so incredibly short-sided. If suburban citizens are going to pay taxes for transit, they’ll demand park and rides. Lecturing them to think otherwise is mostly a waste of time.

Besides, who cares? Park and rides become popular, they fill up, and the decision is made about what to do next. Sometimes they’re expanded into parking garages. And those parking garages eventually become paid parking garages, which turn into paid carpool parking garages, which turn into… apartments with retail. I know, evil right?

The park and rides along I-5 are slated to become light rail stations. The empty lots and asphalt slabs that surround these stations are going to turn into mixed-use developments (if you want examples, visit the line that’s opening in ’09). Those developments with attract the kinds of folks who will leave the car at home and ride the train instead. Sure, they’ll use the Honda (or better yet, a Prius Plug-In Hybrid) to run to the store, but many trips, especially the everyday commute-type trips, can and will be made by train. If they need a car at work, there’s always Flexcar (soon to be ZipCar). Give people choices and they’ll respond.

Like Josh, I would err on the side of fewer park and rides at rail stations. Unlike Josh, I’m not going to kill a huge light rail investment over park and rides.

Last week, President Bush sent a request to Congress for $500 million in supplement aid to Mexico. This is part of a $1.4 billion package known as “Plan Mexico” that aims to combat drug trafficking and other issues of concern involving our southern neighbor. Mexicans are concerned that the plan subverts Mexico’s military and justice system to U.S. demands. Americans are concerned that the plan will be as big of a disaster as Plan Colombia. And Congress is accusing the Bush Administration of keeping information about the plan secret while demanding that they pass the funding before the holiday break. Here’s a quick pictorial rundown of how we’ve ended up in this sorry state.

Americans spend $40 billion per year on drugs that come here from Mexico.

As a result, Mexican drug lords get filthy, stinking rich and very powerful.

Needing someplace to hide all this money, the drug lords started to launder it through Mexican banks.

The Mexican President vows to crack down on this illegal industry.

Gaseous windbags who have no idea what they’re talking about expect this to be simple.

The drug lords use their billions of dollars in profits to arm themselves and bribe public officials.

The violence and corruption wreaks havoc on the Mexican economy, sending millions of people north in search of opportunity.

Drug lords are captured. The head of the DEA declares victory in the drug war.

Gaseous windbags who have no idea what they’re talking about cheer the news and blame Mexico for the immigration problem.

Drug prices spike as addicts continue to drive the market.

The Drug Czar declares victory at the higher drug prices, while crime waves occur along drug distribution points in the US.

New people take over drug distribution in Mexico in order to get filthy, stinking rich and very powerful.

The new drug lords re-establish smuggling routes and drug prices drop. American drug users rejoice.

Gaseous windbags who have no idea what they’re talking about accuse the Mexican government of not being serious and demand that a wall be built along the border.

The Democratic candidates for President argue about whether or not illegal immigrants in New York State should be able to get drivers’ licenses.

The Republican candidates for President vow to keep arresting sick people who use marijuana medicinally.

Drug policy experts explain for the 8 millionth time that the only sensible solution is to decriminalize drug use and have the government regulate and control addictive drugs.

Gaseous windbags who have no idea what they’re talking about scoff at the experts and dismiss them as a radical fringe.

Once the Patriot Act makes it tougher for Americans to make meth in their garages, Mexican drug lords supply it, get even richer, and start putting their money in American banks.

Even more weapons are purchased in the US and smuggled across the border, increasing the amount of terrifying violence.

The Mexican President asks for more assistance from the US while also blaming US drug policy.

Americans do nothing about drug policy while continuing to send millions of people to prison to stop using drugs that 100 million Americans have used.

The President concludes that $40 million per year is not enough money to waste trying to destroy a $40 billion a year industry, so they propose wasting $1 billion instead.

Gaseous windbags who have no idea what they’re talking about are outraged…OUTRAGED!!, that illegal immigrants in New York State can get drivers licenses.

Americans turn to drugs to escape the fact that everyone seems to have their heads up their asses.

It’s Freaky Friday for the Seattle dailies, a day in which every single front page story in the dead-tree editions of both the Times and P-I feature staff bylines. (Score one for localism!) It’s kinda like living in a real big city like New York or Washington DC, except without the transit, the excitement and, um, you know… the real big city.

That said, sports leads todays news with the top story in both papers featuring the Sonic’s season opener… or maybe it was open season on the Sonics. Same difference. The P-I reports that it was a bad night for scalpers as the team recorded a 106-99 loss to Phoenix in what could be its last home opener in Seattle — but wait… the Times reports a local group headed by venture capitalist Dennis Daugs is offering to buy the team and keep it at Key Arena:

Daugs characterized his new group’s interest in buying the team as driven more by civic pride and love of basketball than a desire for financial gain.

“It can be a great investment, it can be a poor investment or something in between, but it is the most fun a lot of people I know have ever had,” said Daugs, who grew up in Burien and used to take the bus to Sonics games at Seattle Center as a kid. His group wants to maintain that tradition.

“Civic pride”…? “Love of basketball”…? “Fun” and “tradition”…? What is this guy, some sort of commie? There’s absolutely no way that NBA commissioner David Stern would fall for a bunch of new-age hooey that runs 180 degrees counter to the true spirit of basketball: extorting sports palaces out of local taxpayers. If the Sonics could make a go of it at Key Arena, the league’s whole carefully constructed house of trading cards might collapse in on itself, forcing owners to finally address their own greed and mismanagement. Goodbye Seattle, hello Oklahoma City.

And speaking of greed and mismanagement, WaMu makes local and national headlines today, with the lovable local mortgage giant being accused by New York state Attorney General Andrew Cuomo of pushing appraisers to inflate home values. Really? I think just about anybody who has refinanced a home in the past few years would respond, “duh-uh.” How else to explain the magical ability of most homes to appraise just high enough to meet loan approval standards? And with home values continuing to appreciate at double-digit annual rates, where’s the harm? Oh.

One house that sure appreciated last night was Benaroya Hall, where former President Bill Clinton appeared live and Nobel Laureate Al Gore spoke via satellite at the US Conference of Mayors climate summit. Of course whenever policy makers or scientists meet to discuss the threat of climate change, the event always attracts those global warming denier wackos:

The mayors were met at Benaroya Hall by a small gathering of demonstrators urging people to vote against the regional road and transit tax increase on the ballot, arguing it could exacerbate climate change by increasing traffic. The demonstrators included small children dressed in polar-bear outfits, a reference to polar bears threatened by the loss of ice to warming in the Arctic.

Oops. I mean global warming believer wackos. Because the best way to save polar bears is to kill any reasonable political chance the region has of expanding light rail sometime during the next decade or so, because the plan, you know…isn’t perfect. What a bunch of maroons.

Yeah, it’s over a year away, but Peter Goldmark is running for Commissioner of Public Lands, and he’s a helluva candidate. Take a look.

Dear Frank,

The insurance industry has already spent $11.1 million to defeat R-67, apparently, a new state record. And yet, the race is still too close to call. I think you’ll agree that this suggests that given an even playing field, voters would approve R-67 by a comfortable margin.

So, what to do if those bastards manage to sink R-67 under a tide of dishonest ads and out-of-state cash? Pass it again. Really. If the insurance industry has the resources to spend eight figures defeating R-67, I’d make them spend it every goddamn year.

Perhaps it’s worth $11 million to the insurance industry to keep this statute off the books. But is it worth $22 million? $33 million? $44 million? Wouldn’t it be fun to find out?

Thanks for building such a strong Democratic majority. Now let’s use it.

Goldy

More evidence of Dan Satterberg’s vaunted non-partisanship comes from his campaign expenditures, where he’s already paid Rep. Dan Roach (R-Bonney Lake) and his wife Melanie $6,663.60 for phone banking on his behalf. I suppose it’s not so uncommon for elected officials to phone constituents on behalf of fellow party members, but I didn’t realize they sometimes charge for it.

Most of the money went to Melanie and her gym (she’s a competitive weightlifter with Olympic ambitions.) Other than Dan Satterberg, Melanie has also been paid to phone bank for such noted non-partisans as Republican Rep. Dan Roach, Republican state Sen. Pam Roach (Dan’s mommy) and the King County Republican Party.

Yup, you can’t get much more non-partisan than that.

Talking Points Memo ran a piece yesterday on Rudy Giuliani, and his bogus ads on health care. Guiliani has claimed that survival rates from prostate cancer are much higher in the US than in Britain, attributing the difference to the inherent failures of “socialized medicine.” And even though Giuliani’s “facts” have been thoroughly debunked, he and his campaign continue to repeat the lie.

But of course, this isn’t really about prostate cancer or health care reform. As TPM’s Greg Sargent points out, it’s about whether working journalists are willing to continue to let lying politicians play them for chumps.

Memo to media: Rudy and his campaign think you’re a bunch of chumps. They have nothing but complete contempt for the truth and for everything that purportedly led you all to become journalists. Maybe it’s time to get serious about what this guy is up to.

It reminds me of a similar situation closer to home: our local media’s absolute refusal to reexamine the lie that forms the basis of Dave Reichert’s entire political career… they myth that he caught the Green River Killer.

In fact, Reichert was the detective who didn’t catch Gary Ridgeway, and who allowed him to go on killing young woman for another 18 years. Every time Reichert deflects a political question with some anecdote about looking Ridgeway straight in the eyes, he insults the memory of the victims he personally failed. But damn if our local media is willing to objectively investigate the truth when they are as much responsible for the myth-making as Reichert himself.

It was a bungled investigation. They had Ridgeway. And they let him go. Voters deserve to know the truth.

…fucktard.

A Seattle Times editorial on Prop 1 includes this turd of a statement:

Rail on I-90 would leave two lanes empty most of the time, even at rush hour. And, that means light rail will reduce the capacity of the bridge, particularly to people from Sammamish and Issaquah, since the light rail wouldn’t go there.

What total bull!

Here’s a depiction of 177 cars. (Just imagine the Times ed. board in their BMWs in the front)

Now here’s the same number of people, but his time they all rode the train.

Light rail will dramatically increase the capacity of the I-90 bridge. When the East Link line opens, we’re going to see a 50 percent increase in peak-hour transit use for the corridor. In plain English, the increase in transit use will be huge between Seattle and the Eastside. A Seattle Times/Ron Sims/Kemper Freeman Jr. bus plan doesn’t come close. Not by a longshot.

And who will be losers more frequently this winter (at least 60 times) than your Oklahoma City Sonics? The OC Sonics launched their lame duck season in Seattle, displaced from their true home by a renegade hurricane arena lease, with a convincing 120-103 loss in Denver last night. After a summer in which owner Clay Bennett and partners did everything possible off-court to get Seattle fans not to care about the franchise, we enter part two of the divorce, with Sonics fans getting their first regular season look at what’s left after Bennett jettisoned the two best players from an inept team last year. It ain’t pretty: two talented teenage draft picks and a bunch of people you’ve never heard of, unless you’re a UW fan, in which case Wally Szczerbiak simply brings back bad memories. It’s gonna get ugly. “Home” opener, and second loss of the season, tonight against Phoenix.

I hear it’s nice in Oklahoma City in January.

Another loser, and the day’s top local story: Disgraced anti-gay state Rep. Richard “Big Dick” Curtis (R-Porno Emporium) resigned his House seat Wednesday, not because he’s a hypocrite, but because he’s not gay, and Republicans can never forgive someone who has to proclaim, verbally, that he’s not gay. He just likes — well, never mind. The sordid details of his Spokane sexcapades are here.

More than 100 mayors — plus former President, future First Husband, and permanent rock star Bill Clinton — hit Seattle today for a climate change “summit” that has already had Seattle mayor Greg Nickels lunging from photo-op to photo-op all week. Clinton will also do some fundraising for his wife while he’s in the area.

In a local story carried by virtually everyone, a Central Washington University chimpanzee who was the first non-human to learn sign language died yesterday at age 42.

On the national front, a loser Mexican gang member in the Bronx was convicted yesterday of terrorism in a gang-related shooting, under a new post 9-11 anti-terror law. Why? Because the violence “terrorized a civilian population,” an argument that can be made about virtually any street crime. And the ever-expanding power of the state marches on…

Remember when Fox News told us Al-Qaida was behind the California wildfires last week? This is the face of Al-Qaida: a ten-year-old playing with matches. Perhaps he can be prosecuted under new anti-terror laws, too. Waterboard him. The prospective new Attorney General won’t mind.

More on the loser meme: did anyone else catch that Dennis Kucinich’s life-altering UFO sighting experience, confirmed in Tuesday night’s Democratic presidential candidate debate, came outside the home of Shirley MacLaine in nearby Graham, Washington? The Dennis turned it into a Bush-bash: “…more people in this country have seen UFOs than I think approve of George Bush’s presidency.” (He’s wrong about that. Fourteen percent of Americans claim they’ve seen a UFO, slightly shy of Bush’s numbers.) Or, as Peter Gabriel once sang: “You can keep my things, they’ve come to take me home.” Safe travels, Dennis.

Of course, it’s not much a of a holiday amongst my orthodox Jewish neighbors either, but really?

UPDATE:
Just got back from trick or treating. My daughter hauled in a load of candy, that she’ll typically forget about in a week or two. As usual, I put on my gorilla suit and went as Tim Eyman hawking I-807. Scary.

Your want to see something really scary this Halloween? Go read Postman’s fisking of the Reject campaign’s claim that this ad is deceptive. Ethel Adams was seriously injured as an innocent bystander in a road rage incident, and Farmers (which has already contributed over $1.5 million to the Reject campaign,) denied her claim, saying it was technically not an “accident.” The bastards only paid up after Danny Westneat publicly humiliated them, and state Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler threatened to pull their license.

But, you know, those damn trial lawyers and all that, right?

It’s official. Rep. Richard Curtis has resigned. But he’s not gay.

If you want a measure of how much it really costs the citizens of this region not to have viable mass transit solutions, just take a look at Jane Hague’s latest PDC filings. So far she has put into her race $106,800 of her own money, bringing her total dollars raised to $432,628! Against Richard Pope, for chrisakes. When this whole thing is over Brett Bader should buy Pope a nice fat gift out of the $200K he’s already billed Hague.

I keep asking people who know these things, and while nobody’s willing to put money on a Pope victory, I don’t know anybody who would rule it out either. No wonder Hague is nervous. And if only she had the opportunity to hop on a train instead of flopping behind the wheel of her car, she’d have cruised to victory without it costing her a dime.

CLARIFICATION:
After the Dems launched their write-in campaign, I stated that I would endorse whoever won the August primary. This promise was made before we learned of Hague’s DUI’s, resume lies, and PDC shenanigans, and was mostly intended as a statement of principle.

Recently, I’ve heard from a couple folk wondering when I was going to live up to that promise and officially endorse Richard Pope. Truth is, I thought that my promise was my endorsement, and hadn’t really intended to post on it one way or the other, because I don’t generally do formal, ed-board-like endorsement posts. But so as to avoid any confusion: I endorse Richard Pope for King County Council. Of course, I’d previously endorsed Pope for Seattle Port Commission, so make of that what you may.

Oh my gosh…

I stumbled across this website at Craig’s List. It’s run by Rossi superfans, and I think they got a little too carried away:

…which looks super similar to this:

Way back when, the local GOP stirred up all sorts of fake outrage when the WA Dems put a bumper sticker on their website for 5 seconds. (The sticker, if you don’t remember, made the allusion that Christians could be hypocrites, which we all know isn’t true.)

And no, I’m not saying Dino Rossi is a Nazi (cool your heels, Don!) The Iron Cross had a long history before being corrupted by Adolf Hilter. But if I was a Republican running in a race that’ll be tough enough already, I’m not sure I’d be happy if my fans were putting my name on Nazi-ish iconography.

[UPDATED]

A Maltese cross, while very similar to an Iron cross, is not the same thing:

[Oops, the above should read “Maltese cross” and “Cross pattée”]

Alright, I’m officially freaked out about how much I know about this stuff…

Happy Halloween. Wonder what Jane Hague will be going as this year? And where? And how?

In today’s Scary Politician news, an anti-gay Southwest Washington Republican (natch) state rep goes to Spokane to watch gay porn and hit on gay strangers. After all, Spokane’s thriving local gay scene did such wonders for Jim West’s career. State Rep. Richard Curtis’s semi-local newspaper, The Columbian, lays out the sordid details.

Big props to neighborhood activists (including HA’s own Paul Andrews) whose years of hard work paid off Tuesday when a hearing examiner did what neither Greg Nickels’ crony-fied Parks Department nor the City Council would do: put an end to the ill-conceived zoo parking garage scheme. Let’s be clear: the zoo’s garage was never about allowing more of the masses (and their kids) to see cute furry animals. It was all about hosting revenue-producing special events for companies, trade groups, and other people with the money to burn on them — just like the recent Seattle Aquarium Expansion, the GasWorks Park Summer Concerts series, the city’s count-’em three taxpayer-built convention centers (the big one over I-5 and the two new competitors, one the Port of Seattle’s Pier 66, the other adjacent to Qwest Field), and so on. In the case of the zoo, it would have dumped that much more traffic into an area of two-lane arterials already seeing a glut of new high end condo-complex construction along Phinney Ridge. A bad idea, illegally implemented, finally shot down not by local constituents’ elected officials, but by the legal process.

Speaking of less car traffic, it was announced yesterday that nationally and locally, FlexCar and Zipcar will be merging. FlexCar is based here in Seattle; the larger Zipcar is based in Boston. The new company will be Zipcar, based in Cambridge.

Not much in the Bothell Times this morning (we learn that “blueberries are Washington’s blue gold,” and that — do I smell a Pulitzer? — Proposition One doesn’t fully fund a new SR 520 bridge), but the P-I has a piece with a local angle on Sen. Ted Stevens’ FBI corruption probe: whether he pushed legislation that benefited the seafood industry while his son was a lobbyist for that industry. The son is a charter member of the Corrupt Bastards Club. And dad, well, dad stands to be the club’s patron saint. What do you think?

OK, this isn’t a Jane Hague joke. Honest. KING-TV reports that the county councilwoman is now being sued for defamation by opponent Richard Pope’s campaign manager over what he claims are false allegations by the Hague campaign that he’s been convicted for domestic violence. Oh, and our friend Richard (will someone hire this guy to do permanent opposition research?) has also discovered, according to the same KING story, that when Hague’s mother died last year she left Jane out of the will. (Fill in obligatory David Irons punchline here.)

Here’s an excellent example of how supposedly objective journalism isn’t, from a lede this morning on that old warhorse, local housing prices, in the P-I:

Home-price appreciation in the Seattle area led the nation for the 12th month in a row in August, but indications were not entirely positive, according to a national index report released Tuesday.

Catch that? Inherent in the lede is the assumption that having the highest home appreciation rates in the country for a year running is “positive” (though other indicators, maybe not so much). If you already own a house and aren’t on a fixed income (a category that includes, presumably, P-I reporter Aubrey Cohen), that’s true: it means your biggest asset is performing nicely as an investment. But if you’re one of the 50% of our city who rents, chasing the ever-receding hope of affordable first-time home ownership, or if you’re on a fixed income and getting squeezed by the higher property taxes that inevitably come with a housing boom, not so much. And if you’re in one of those latter categories, what the P-I has just “objectively” told you is either, at best, that you don’t count, or, even worse, that you don’t exist.