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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.

With a little over a year to the 2008 election, there have already been over 100 statewide polls that pit Hillary Clinton against Republican challengers in a general election match-up. These polls can be combined to give us an early glimpse of the national mood (albeit one likely soured by years of Bush administration’s military misadventurism).

I’ve been collecting these polls for awhile now, and finally got around to an analysis of the Clinton—Giuliani head-to-head state poll outcomes. My analyses differ from the typical national head-to-head polls because (1) I am concerned with estimating the electoral college results from the statewide polls, rather than estimating a national popular vote, (2) I make extensive use of Monte Carlo simulation methods to examine the probability that each candidate wins, and (3) by combining multiple polls the sample sizes are much larger.

For example, here is the result of 100,000 simulated elections using all the 2007 state poll data I’ve been able to find:

The red line is drawn at 269 electoral college votes—a tie. The area to the right of the red line are Clinton wins, those to the left are Giuliani wins. (There are a few ties. A tied election would almost certainly result in Clinton being elected since the House Democrats currently control 26 state delegations, and the Republicans control 20 state delegations. The 2008 election will probably increase the Democrat’s control of the House.)

These results suggest that Hillary Clinton would have a 73% probability of being elected President, but only if the 2007 polls in toto reflect the national mood for election day, 2008.

In reality, attitudes change with time, so it is helpful to restrict the analysis to the most recent polls whenever possible.

Here is what happens if we restrict the analysis to polls taken in October, 2007 (unless there are no polls in a state for this month, in which case we take the most recent poll, or, if there are no polls at all, we give the electoral college votes to the party that took the state in 2004):

After 10,000 simulated elections, Hillary wins 9,991 times and Giuliani wins 9 times. Clearly, over the course of the year, Hillary has become more acceptable, Rudy has become less acceptable, or some mixture of both has occurred. (In fact, further analyses reveal that Rudy has made a bit of a comeback from his worst showing in mid-summer.)

The polls to date put Clinton in an extremely strong position to win the 2008 election. Giuliani has a tough row to hoe just to become competitive. He’ll need a lot more than just fear-mongering over 11 Sep 2001 to pull off a win.

(I provide a more complete description of the methods and results here.)

Join us tonight for a fun-filled evening of politics under the influence at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. We meet at 8PM at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E.

We will have two special guests this evening: George Fearing, a Democrat running to replace (non)Doc Hastings in the 4th congressional district, and Jimmy McCabe of McCranium, who is running as a write-in candidate for Richland City Council Position 3.

Tonight’s theme song: I Ran (So Far Away) by A Flock of Seagulls.

Not in Seattle? Check out the Drinking Liberally web site for dates and times of a chapter near you.

This hit piece, paid for by the BIAW of Whatcom County, is hilarious. The BIAW is supporting some pretty right wing candidates and instead of running ads about how great their candidates are, they’re trying to smear the other side.

Voters don’t know what Progressive Majority is or what they do. Most of all, they don’t care. Voters do care about sustainable development, protecting neighborhoods, and protecting the water quality of Lake Whatcom. Unfortunately, all three of the BIAW’s candidate’s don’t do very well on any of these points.

What’s more, Progressive Majority isn’t even organizing the bus campaign. Who is? The Washington Bus, an organization that gets young people who are left-of-center involved in politics in a fun way. Here’s what they look like:

and this:

A bunch of hippies? I think not. Those kids look like they’re having fun getting involved in politics.

Goldy wrote about this recently:

Why the fearful reaction to progressive organizers, and the sudden public embrace of non-partisan ideals? Because in a region where Republicanism has been discredited perhaps more thoroughly than anywhere else in the nation, these nominally non-partisan races are the only chance most Republicans have of ever holding public office.

Non-partisanship has become the last refuge of political losers.

Speaking of losers, I can’t wait to see how much more money the BIAW will flush down the drain on crap ads like this one.

It ain’t looking so good for state Rep. Richard Curtis (R-La Center) when the Columbian prints a lede like this:

State Rep. Richard Curtis had sex with a man he met in Spokane last week who subsequently tried to blackmail him for $1,000 and threatened to expose the incident, according to court records filed Tuesday morning.

Curtis, who has opposed most gay rights legislation, apparently rented two gay porno movies, and went back to his hotel room with Cody M. Castagna, a man he picked up at the Hollywood Erotic Boutique. Police have warrants seeking surveillance video and other records from the porn shop and the hotel to verify Castagna’s story. Yesterday Curtis insisted that he is “not gay.”

Honestly, I feel bad for Rep. Curtis. Either we’ve just unfairly dragged his name through the mud, or he’s been living a terrible lie. Neither one is a good place to be.

UPDATE:
I think the KXLY.com headline says it all: “Cross-dressing state lawmaker blackmailed following late night tryst”

State Representative Richard Curtis says he’s not gay, but police reports and court records indicate the Republican lawmaker from southwestern Washington dressed up in women’s lingerie and met a Medical Lake man in a local erotic video store which led to consensual sex at a downtown hotel and a threat to expose Curtis’ activities publicly.

[…] Curtis, according to a search warrant unsealed Tuesday, went to the Hollywood Erotic Boutique on East Sprague on October 26th at approximately 12:45 a.m. The store clerk, who had talked with Curtis, referred to him as “The Cross-Dresser” and said that during their conversations he confirmed he was gay and was married with children at home.

During his visit to the video store Curtis was observed wearing women’s lingerie while receiving oral sex from an unidentified man in one of the movie viewing booths inside the store.

I’m guessing there’s going to be an open seat next year in the 18th LD.

After more than three years of public protest, the Woodland Park Zoo’s proposed mammoth parking garage has been ruled illegal by the Seattle Hearing Examiner. This is a huge victory, not just for garage opponents but for Seattleites and citizens everywhere who care about parks and the pernicious trend toward commercialization of public spaces.

“The Zoo garage was one of the biggest threats facing Seattle’s parks,” said Jeannie Hale, president of the Seattle Community Council Federation, an appellant in the case along with the Phinney Ridge Community Council and Save Our Zoo. Had the garage been permitted, “every park in Seattle would have been vulnerable to mall-sized parking structures and other buildings that were never intended to be placed in city parks,” Hale added.

More to come, but today is a day of celebration for civic activists, neighborhood advocates and average citizens everywhere who dare to fight City Hall. For more information and background, see the Save Our Zoo Web site. The Hearing Examiner ruling and a press release both are posted on the Save Our Zoo site.

Postscript: Dampening celebration over the decision is that Seattle environmental attorney Mickey Gendler, who eloquently argued the public’s case before the Hearing Examiner earlier this month, suffered a tragic bike accident on the Montlake Bridge on Sunday, injuring his spinal cord. Partially paralyzed, Gendler remains hospitalized with an uncertain prognosis. We wish him a full and speedy recovery.

New York Times: “Dodgers Could Reunite Torre and Mattingly”. Almost makes you wish they’d never moved from Brooklyn!

In the comment threads, Tim Eyman claims that “I-960’s policies have strong voter support,” but a recent KING-5/SurveyUSA poll suggests the initiative itself does not:

Initiative 960 is defeated 2:1 in a vote today. Women and greater Seattle voters oppose by 3:1. Those who have already voted oppose 2:1. A third of voters are Not Certain how they will vote on 960. If all of them vote Yes, the outcome could be close. Otherwise, the measure will be defeated.

Of course I take this and all pre-election polls with a lump of salt. I-960 has a very favorable ballot title (written by Timmy’s personal attorney, Jim Pharris,) and that’s always worth a few extra points at the polls. Still, if I were initiative financier Michael Dunmire, I’d start worrying about having flushed yet another half million dollars down Timmy’s gold-plated toilet.

It is interesting to note that Eyman’s success at the polls appears inversely related to the personal effort he puts into getting his initiatives on the ballot. While he’s never invested much money in promoting his measures, there was a time when the bulk of his signatures were gathered by volunteers, and the bulk of his money came from an army of small contributors… efforts that required real grassroots outreach and mobilization. But in lazily relying on lump-sum payments from Dunmire to buy his way onto the ballot, Tim has abandoned the grassroots campaigning that once generated the buzz and support that carried his initiatives to victory. Long past are the days when Tim can send out an email and instantly generate a crowd of supporters for some publicity stunt or another; now it’s pretty much Tim, Dunmire, the Fagins and a rented costume.

I-960 could still pass; it’s got an appealing ballot title, and nobody likes taxes. But if it fails, Tim only has himself to blame.

TANGENTIAL ASIDE:
Do you think Tim recognizes the irony that he has been reduced to commenting in the threads of a blog named after an initiative to proclaim him a horse’s ass?

Max Blumenthal keeps tabs on the craziest people in America so that you don’t have to.