HorsesAss.Org

What?! You mean a group of Oklahoma City billionaires, desperate to bring a major league team to their home city, had no intention of keeping the Sonics in Seattle when they purchased the team? Who’d a thunk?

OKLAHOMA CITY — An Oklahoma City energy tycoon says the group that purchased the Seattle SuperSonics hopes to move the NBA franchise to Oklahoma City, but he acknowledges the team could make more money in the Pacific Northwest.

“But we didn’t buy the team to keep it in Seattle; we hoped to come here,” Aubrey McClendon, chief executive of Chesapeake Energy, told The Journal Record for a story in Monday’s edition. “We know it’s a little more difficult financially here in Oklahoma City, but we think it’s great for the community and if we could break even, we’d be thrilled.”

[…] “We started to look around, and at that time the Sonics were going through some ownership challenges in Seattle,” McClendon told the newspaper. “So Clay, very artfully and skillfully, put himself in the middle of those discussions and to the great amazement and surprise to everyone in Seattle, some rednecks from Oklahoma, which we’ve been called, made off with the team.”

That’s right, Clay Bennett — the guy the easy marks at the Seattle Times editorial board judged to be negotiating in good faith — “artfully and skillfully … made off with the team.” Hoity-toity editorialists comfort themselves by dismissing bloggers like me as unserious, but they do their readers a disservice when they infuse their coverage with the kind of naivete that comes from their solemn dedication to establishmentarian objectivity:

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.

No, I guess it was never a foregone conclusion, but with Bennett and the other owners willing to lose money in Oklahoma City — in fact, preferring it over making a modest profit in Seattle — it would take a helluva sweet deal to keep the team in the region. You know, something like a free half-billion dollar arena from which they keep all the revenues. Bennett and his buddies never negotiated in good faith (hell, they never even negotiated,) they always intended to move the team to Oklahoma City, and they laughed at the naive, big city rubes who ever believed otherwise. You don’t get to be a billionaire by taking the first deal slapped on the table, yet that’s exactly what the Sonics asked WA state and local officials to do.

Unless the NBA intercedes for the good of the league, the Sonics are moving to Oklahoma City. All the talk thus far has been little more than a charade to keep hopeful fans in their seats until the Key Arena lease expires in 2010.

Some rich person is throwing a shindig in Gasworks Park, and everyone’s been abuzz over just who it is. Dan Savage decides to check it out:

SIK [Dan’s codename for his friend who worked the posh event. -Will]also told me that, just a few moments before I breached security, a Wallingford resident—one of the with-friends-like-these-who-needs-enemies “friends” of Gasworks Park—had treated him to a screaming fit. SIK told this “friend” of Gasworks that parks all over the city can be rented for weddings, and the “friend” of Gasworks insisted that his wasn’t the case, that it was theft, that it was a public park and what SIK and his crew were doing was illegal, blah blah BLAH.

Most of the park was open to the public, including a large lawn right next to the spot where the tents were set-up—the perfect spot to watch the fireworks display later that night.

I took my son’s dog for a walk after I got home from my party-crashin’ bike ride… and what do you know? There was a wedding in Volunteer Park the same night. Most of the lawn in front of the Seattle Asian Art Museum was covered by a huge white tent. That lawn not only has the best views of the Space Needle and the reservoir, but it also happens to be my son’s dog’s favorite place to take a shit. I noticed that a couple of other dog walkers—park regulars, always fully clothed—nearby; apparently that lawn is a favorite for lots of neighborhood dogs. The best man was giving a speech about the lucky couple—when they met, when he first realized it was serious, how nervous the groom was the first time he met his future in-laws. The folks with dogs standing outside the tent joined in the applause at the end of the speech, and then strolled off to find other places for their dogs to crap.

No one screamed “theft!,” and no one threatened to sue. Everyone in the neighborhood seemed genuinely happy for the couple. The next day we got our park back, no harm done.

The “Friends of Gasworks Park” are ridiculous ninnies who need to take a Valium with their wine spritzer. Gasworks belongs to everyone, not just the neighbors, and like all Seattle parks, it’s for rent for special events. Always has, always will be.

I just got back from a weekend away in the hinterlands of Washington state. Specifically, at a family cabin on the Natches River. It’s a nice place to visit, even if it’s “red”, in a political sense. I also get the chance to see where my transportation dollars are going. With just about 18% of the state’s population, the east side gets 22% of the transportation dollars. I don’t mind, I just wish they’d stop complaining so much.

In the 14th legislative district, Curtis King is challenging Sen. Jim Clements. He’s attacking Clements for doing liberal things. You know, investing in health care, school funding reform. While Sen. Clements is no liberal, he’s maybe a little better than Curtis King in my eyes.

That said, if I were a Yakima area GOP activist, I’d be for Curtis King. He’s the real deal. Clements has the orchardists on his side, along with Dino Rossi’s endorsement. King is fighting an uphill battle against powerful special interests. The GOP isn’t going to get back in the majority by playing along with Senate Democrats. I say: fight on!

Speaking of what people were saying back in 1994, here’s a gem from Rudy Giuliani:

Freedom is not a concept in which people can do anything they want, be anything they can be. Freedom is about authority. Freedom is about the willingness of every single human being to cede to lawful authority a great deal of discretion about what you do.

If you weren’t clear about what the term Nanny State refers to, read that quote again. A Nanny State is what you get when you elect people who think like that. If Rudy were President, and Congress passed a bill that made cross-dressing illegal, I have trouble believing that Giuliani wouldn’t sign it.

On a completely unrelated topic, how much taxpayer money was wasted on this bullshit:

Several search-and-rescue groups collaborated today to rescue 10 sheriff’s deputies stranded in the Skamania County wilderness Saturday night.

Skamania County Sheriff’s deputies and Clark-Skamania Drug Task Force officers had removed more than 3,000 marijuana plants on the east side of Dog Mountain Saturday.

With some of them exhausted and dehydrated, the group decided to spend the night in the wilderness rather than hike out of the narrow gorge, said Skamania County Undersheriff Dave Cox. All but one of the 10 sheriff’s deputies had been rescued by early this afternoon.

This video is from a 1994 interview with Dick Cheney in which he gives reasons why the U.S. did not invade Baghdad and topple Saddam Hussein in the Gulf War:

(Via Crooks and Liars.)

Tonight on “The David Goldstein Show”, 7PM to 10PM on Newsradio 710-KIRO:

7PM: The Stranger Hour with Dan Savage
Stranger Editor and nationally syndicated sex columnist Dan Savage joins me for the hour. Rumor has it Dan might be gay, so perhaps we’ll talk about gay issues (you know, antiquing, musical theater, anal sex… stuff like that,) or maybe we’ll do our usual recap of the week’s news and other issues of the day. We’ll see.

8PM: Everything I need to know in life I learned from television
Parents want to give their children every advantage, so no wonder so many put their babies in front of “educational” videos like Baby Einstein and Brainy Baby that promised to give kids a leg up. Now a new study shows that babies who watch these videos actually learn fewer words than their counterparts. Is TV an educational tool, or just an electronic babysitter? Did TV make you and your kids stupid, or better informed. American Academy of Pediatrics spokesperson Dr. Ari Brown joins us to give us her take on the new study, and why the Academy does not recommend television for children under the age of two.

9PM: What’s up South and East of the border?
Julie from Idaho’s Red State Rebels and TJ from Loaded Orygun join me for the hour for a round table round up of regional news and politics.

Tune in tonight (or listen to the live stream) and give me a call: 1-877-710-KIRO (5476).

PROGRAMMING NOTE:
My show will be preempted by Seahawks preseason games tomorrow and next Saturday.

I ran a few local notables through the Simpsonizer.

Also, no one’s gotten the Birds Eye View Contest yet this week…

Great piece by Don Duncan in today’s Seattle Times. I don’t say it often, but truly great piece in the Seattle Times.

UPDATE:
And while I’m at it, great piece in today’s Washington Post.

…because life is too short to hold it all in.

Darcy Burner won the sole endorsement of the Pierce County Young Democrats this week in her primary race against Rodney Tom for the Democratic nomination in WA’s 8th Congressional District.

“Darcy [Burner] is the right candidate for the 8th District,” said Sam Ross, PCYD Chair. “She’s right on the constitution, she’s right on healthcare, she’s right on the Iraq occupation, she’s a leader on technology and economic innovation. On all the issues that Young Democrats believe in, Darcy will stand with us always, and on all the issues that truly matter, Darcy will do what she knows to be right.”

This early endorsement in a high profile primary is important for a number of reasons. First, the Young Democrats have strong chapters at University of Puget Sound and Pacific Lutheran University, and have promised aggressive recruitment, doorbelling and phonebanking drives at local colleges and universities. Second, it demonstrates the strong appeal Darcy has amongst one of the fast growing segments of the Democratic Party: younger voters.

In 2002 the electorate was equally divided between Democrats and Democratic-leaners (43%) and Republicans and Republican-leaners (43%). Today only 35% align themselves with Republicans, and 50% with Democrats. The Republicans are doing particularly badly among independents (the fastest-growing group in the electorate) and younger voters. The proportion of 18-25-year-olds who identify with the Republican Party has declined from 55% in 1991 to 35% in 2006, according to Pew. Tony Fabrizio, a Republican pollster, notes that the share of Republican voters aged 55 and over has increased from 28% in 1997 to 41% today, whereas the share aged 18-34 has fallen from 25% to 17%.

The Democratic Party is getting younger, which not only bodes well for the future, it bodes well for candidates like Burner who appeal to their values. It’s kinda cliche to say it, but our young people are our nation’s future… as are future leaders like Darcy Burner.

Yeah sure, I’m no economist, so the other day when I said “fuck inflation” in response to the Federal Reserve’s refusal to cut interest rates in the face of a looming credit crunch that threatened to suck the broader economy down the sub-prime toilet, many readers appeared more offended by my economic heresy than my foul language.

Well… fuck you:

Fed seeks to calm markets with a flood of cash

WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve, trying to calm turmoil on Wall Street, announced today that it will pump as much money as needed into the U.S. financial system to help overcome the ill effects of a spreading credit crunch.

The Fed, in a short statement, said it will provide “reserves as necessary” to help the markets safely make their way. The central bank did not provide details but said it would do all it can to “facilitate the orderly functioning of financial markets.”

The Fed pushed $35 billion in temporary reserves into the system today morning, on top of a similar move the day before.

Hey… flooding the the financial system with cash… isn’t that supposed to be inflationary? You know, just like cutting interest rates?

I’m not suggesting an interest rate cut necessarily would have preempted or softened the market meltdown we’ve seen over the past couple days, but it certainly does appear that the Fed’s OCD-like focus on inflation blinded it to the severity of what has now become a worldwide credit crunch. And of course, rather than just assuring market liquidity — you know, propping up corporatist interests — cutting interest rates might have helped some threatened homeowners avoid foreclosure by making refinancing more affordable.

I’m just sayin’…

In the past, it seemed that President Bush was much more careful about how he misled us into war than to tell blatant and easily debunked falsehoods:

US President George W. Bush charged Monday that Iran has openly declared that it seeks nuclear weapons — an inaccurate accusation at a time of sharp tensions between Washington and Tehran.

“It’s up to Iran to prove to the world that they’re a stabilizing force as opposed to a destabilizing force. After all, this is a government that has proclaimed its desire to build a nuclear weapon,” he said during a joint press conference with Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

But Iran has repeatedly said that its nuclear program, which is widely believed in the West to be cover for an effort to develop atomic weapons, is for civilian purposes.

Brian Beutler gives kudos to AFP for clearly calling bullshit on the President’s bullshit. In the previous go-around with the Bush Administration and their propaganda catapult in 2002 and 2003, this wasn’t happening. For example, take a look at this speech from October 7, 2002, which had 13 separate falsehoods (search for “October 7” to see the list), hardly any of which were ever critically reported in the media, even though most of them were already known to be false at the time. In software testing parlance, this is a bug, not a feature when it comes to how the media should function. Even worse, many people in the media today recognize this, even lament it, but have decided that it’s a Won’t Fix.

For example, Robin Wright of the Washington Post responded to ThinkProgress today for their criticisms of her column about the neocon mindset towards Iran. Wright claims that it’s not her intent to pass judgement on them, just to make us aware of what their viewpoint is. It’s true that when you have a difference of opinion, someone like Wright shouldn’t inject her personal bias into the story, but that’s not what the complaint is about. Wright wrote:

Michael Rubin of the American Enterprise Institute recently wrote that assuming that Iran wants stability in Iraq is “as naive as it is dangerous. . . . U.S. and Iranian interests in Iraq are diametrically opposed, and will continue to be until one side wins and the other loses.” He depicted diplomacy with Iran as “a mirage, a tactical tool to divert U.S. policy attention away from the Revolutionary Guards and intelligence officials charged with implementing the Iranian leadership’s objectives.”

Rubin’s claim that U.S. and Iranian interests in Iraq are “diametrically opposed” is not an opinion, it’s a falsehood. Many of our interests in Iraq are in line. That’s why we’ve been sitting down and talking to them about how to deal with the situation there. Wright’s inability to call this out is not a noble effort to be free from bias, it’s lazy journalism. There’s a very big difference between leaving your opinions at the door and failing to identify something that’s not true as being such. When high profile people who have great influence over our foreign policy are believing in fairy tales, that’s something you need to tell people.

Hamid Karzai’s visit to Washington this week revealed even further the stunning aversion to the truth among the Bush crowd when it comes to Iran. Karzai believes very strongly that Iran is a helpful ally. Bush was not convinced:

“They’re not a force for good,” Mr Bush said of Iran, with Mr Karzai at his side. “They’re a destabilising influence wherever they are. Now, the President will have to talk to you about Afghanistan. But I would be very cautious about whether or not the Iranian influence there in Afghanistan is a positive force.”

The source of Bush’s opinion in this matter comes from where his opinions always come from, his gut. Facts, logic, history, and the opinions of knowledgeable people are mere distractions from the greater “truth” that comes from simply believing whatever he wants to believe.

When it comes to Afghanistan, Iran does have an interest in stabilizing the country. The number of Afghan refugees living in Iran has been decreasing since the overthrow of the Taliban, but that trend has slowed as refugees who have returned home are starting to complain about the Taliban resurgence. In addition, the massive drug trade originating in Afghanistan flows through Iran on its way to Europe, creating a very serious problem with heroin addiction there. The Iranian government has a strong incentive to deal with both problems there (for much the same reason that the U.S. wants to deal with the problems of immigration and drugs at our southern border). Whether or not we like or dislike the things that Iran’s pandering goofball of a President says is not as important as what they do. When it comes to dealing with the both the Taliban and the drug traffickers, there’s little difference between what we want and what they want.

But that hasn’t stopped the onslaught of accusations from the Bush Administration that Iran is supporting the Taliban in order to fight a proxy war against us. With so little attention being paid to what’s happening in Afghanistan, the effort actually managed to gain some traction, even as some high-level officials were somewhat confused on the talking points at first. It was effective enough that TPM’s Spencer Ackerman thought that it would be surprising that the Afghan Ambassador didn’t agree.

As frustrating as it was to watch our national media completely fall flat on its face in 2002 and 2003, it’s even more frustrating to see how much it’s still happening today. The idea that Iran is the destabilizing force causing both Afghanistan and Iraq to turn into such a mess is nothing more than wishful thinking on the part of those who can’t face up to the realities of their own miscalculations and blundering. The regime in Tehran may in fact have designs on nuclear weapons. It really wouldn’t surprise me. And much of the populace is certainly highly mistrustful of our intentions to the point of paranoia – even as they also take to western culture. But the most dangerous approach to Iran right now is to once again create our own fantasy world in order to justify our desire to disarm them. It would be nice if the people who get paid to keep us informed could let us know when that’s happening.

Oh man… I can’t wait to see this ad run all over South Carolina.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is preparing to launch radio ads in the districts of 12 vulnerable Republican incumbents, and lookie who’s on the list: Rep. Dave Reichert. “This August we’re going district by district to urge Republicans to stop obstructing progress and work with us to end the war in Iraq,” says DCCC chair Chris Van Hollen. TPM Cafe’s Election Central has the details and the audio.

The ad will run locally during drive time on KING, KIRO, KIXI, KMTT, KOMO, KPTK, KTTH and KVI. And considering the coming lane closures on I-5 North, folks will have plenty of time to listen.

There’s a reason why President Bush is coming out here to raise money for Reichert, the first congressman to receive that “honor” this cycle. Reichert is desperate. And you can’t get much more desperate than inviting Bush to come out and campaign for you.

Creating the opportunity for a potentially precedent setting decision, the Washington State Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal of a lawsuit challenging the constitutional “scope” of Tim Eyman’s Initiative 960. Oral arguments are scheduled for September 6 at 1:30PM, and a decision would presumably come before ballots go to press for the November election.

Futurewise and SEIU 775 had filed suit in King County Superior Court arguing that I-960 should be blocked from the ballot because it is outside the constitutional scope of the initiative process, and Eyman publicly gloated when the judge refused to act on their request. Hmm. I wonder if Tim’s gloating now?

Courts are reluctant to hear challenges to initiatives prior to the ballot, but the fact that the Supremes have agreed to hear the appeal — and on such an expedited basis — indicates that a number of justices believe the case raises points of law that at least merit consideration. Such scope challenges are not without precedent, the most recent being 2003’s Goldstein v. Gregoire, in which a Thurston County Superior Court judge selectively (and unconstitutionally) barred me from submitting petitions for I-831, my initiative to officially proclaim Tim Eyman a horse’s ass. At the time, my attorney cogently argued:

Many initiatives are presented to the people that are arguably unconstitutional or beyond the scope of the legislative power. For example, Tim Eyman’s Sound Transit Initiative would prevent Sound Transit from spending money on a “Link Light Rail” system. This proposed initiative is clearly beyond the scope of legislative power under Ruano v. Spellman and other cases holding that initiatives cannot seek to prohibit administrative actions. The Attorney General has done nothing to prevent Mr. Eyman from going forward with his initiative. Proposed Initiative 824 is a statement. The Attorney General has taken the position in the present case that statements are not legislative, yet nothing has been done to prevent Initiative 824 from going forward.

Allowing the Attorney General discretion to select initiatives for challenge based on their palatability would violate the First Amendment. If pre-ballot review is to be applied to some initiatives, it should be applied to all initiatives that are arguably unconstitutional or beyond the scope of legislative power.

I still feel that I-831, written in the form of a valid resolution, was barred improperly. But if Goldstein v. Gregoire is ultimately cited in a ruling that blocks I-960 from the ballot, those will have been lumps well worth taking.