HorsesAss.Org

Yesterday I announced a break from my longstanding (near) zero-moderation policy, warning that blatantly off-topic comments, copyright violations and sock puppetry would no longer be tolerated. Today Slog announced a “new” comment moderation policy of its own:

The Stranger’s Blog Comments Policy

We remove comments that are off topic, threatening, or commercial in nature, and we do not allow sock-puppetry (impersonating someone else)—or any kind of puppetry, for that matter. We never censor comments based on ideology.

Define “threatening.” But other than that, that’s pretty much the same standard we intend to follow here on HA. Repeat violators will be banned, joining the infamous JCH in comment thread purgatory.

I’d say the HA community has been very cooperative, and overwhelmingly supportive. I’ve personally only deleted a single comment thus far… and that was a mistake. Thanks.

(Taken at Broadway and John on Capitol Hill by Dominic Holden of The Stranger)

Everytime I hear somebody say “instead of rail, let’s add more buses,” this is the image that pops into my mind: a line of buses snarled after a bus breaks down in an intersection.

This is an Open Thread.

Those were Sen. Joe Biden’s words at the end of the debate after the the candidates were subjected to another weird question from YouTube land.

Some thoughts on the candidates:

Gravel: Why is he still allowed into these debates?

Dodd: He’s growing on me. There isn’t a question he doesn’t want to answer. Years in the US Senate haven’t dulled his edge.

Edwards: He doesn’t attack well, and it shows in these “debates.” But, when given a chance, can find the thread and run with it in a passionate way.

Clinton: She’s the smartest, best equipped candidate in the race. She has a great grasp of issues. She’s in the lead because she hasn’t had to attack yet.

Obama: I don’t get how the nat’l media folks see him as naive. He’s not, but he does have a sort of “over-thinking” quality, reminiscent of Gore circa 2000. He needs to get out of his own way once in a while.

Richardson: I’m surprised how by how little I liked his performance. With the background he has, you’d think he’d be taking it to Obama and Edwards. He hasn’t. I get the “he’s running for VP” vibe from him. Still, I’m ready to see what he does later in the race.

Biden: He’s not afraid to say unpopular things. But what a mistake to openly mock the gun owner from MI! Still, Biden is relatively bullshit-free. Even though I know he’s a longtime pol, I don’t want to write him off. He could be a factor (but probably not) later on.

Kucinich: If ever there was a worse spokesman for his ideas, Dennis is it.

I thought Anderson Cooper did a pretty good job. They could have given some candidates more time. Some of the YouTube questions were overly schlocky and schmaltzy, but the format is here to stay.

But next time, Jon Stewart hosts! I wish.

I think you know how this works by now, so let’s get to it starting nationally:

* The bullshit artists sure like to make up things about presidential candidates and potential presidential candidates. Speaking of make up, the fact that Mitt Romney spent almost $700 on one makeup session proves that John Edwards’ haircut is horrible. Hillary Clinton wore clothing appropriate for DC in the summer, so clearly that’s bad. Obama supports teaching children age appropriate sex ed, the horror. And Al Gore’s daughter’s husband’s family had a food that has been available at Whole Foods since 1999, and was, you know, “from one of the world’s few well-managed, sustainable populations of toothfish, and caught and documented in compliance with Marine Stewardship Council regulations” so clearly he’s the devil.

* Hew Hughitt thinks that trying to end the war will hurt Democrats, you know, because he cares about helping us out politically. But maybe the horrible war is, you know, just branded wrong.

* And of course the democrats constantly need to have a Sister Souljah moment. No matter how wingnutty the rightwing base is, no matter how in lock step the top tier is on the most compellingly shitty foreign policy decision in this country in decades and possibly ever, only Democrats ever seem to need to distance themselves from their base. You know, anti-war folks who were either right all along, or who have since come to the right side long ago on again, the most important thing on the election by miles.

Locally,

* Dave Reichert still doesn’t have a record of bi-partisanship or independence. As if there was ever any doubt.

* Darryl and The Olympian are calling bullshit on one of Dino Rossi’s main campaign totally not a campaign themes.

* Will has already mentioned Gary Randall, but tee hee hee.

Seattle Times:

The state’s new domestic partnership law, which went into effect Sunday, gives gay and lesbian couples some of the rights granted to married couples, including the right to visit a partner in the hospital, inherit a partner’s property without a will and make funeral arrangements.

To qualify, the couples must file an affidavit of domestic partnership with the Secretary of State’s Office. The state then gives them a certificate with a state seal, and plastic cards that say “State registered domestic partnership” and lists their names. On the back it cites the chapter where the law can be viewed.

But not everybody is happy:

Gary Randall, president of the Faith and Freedom Network, a Christian political organization, said last week that his group has no plans to demonstrate today, but that doesn’t mean it approves of the new law.

“I’m disappointed, and I don’t think it should be happening,” said Randall, who considers the law a steppingstone to gay marriage. “I think it deteriorates society. Over time it takes away from what is the most important cornerstone of society, and that’s marriage between a man and woman.”

Notice how Gary doesn’t approve of the law, but he isn’t sending in the anti-gay shock troops just yet. You see, normal people (even many conservatives!) think that there is nothing overtly weird about a person visiting a loved one in the hospital, even if they are both of the same sex. Gary knows he’s on the wrong side of public opinion, so he’s doing his best to tie domestic partnerships to something not as popular: gay marriage. He knows fighting this law is a loser for his side, so he’s keeping his powder dry.

So Gary is reduced to getting the second quote in newspaper articles like this one. In the future, I hope for his sake that he can manage a less limp-dicked response than “I don’t think it should be happening.”

On a similar note, comedian Louis CK has a bit in his act where he explains how the gay marriage was argued in court in Massachusetts:

I can imagine when they get to the Supreme Court and the lawyers for the gay side say:

“Well your honor, we pay taxes, there’s nothing illegal about what we do, we’re the same as anyone else, why shouldn’t we get the same protection under the law as the heterosexuals get?”

And then they ask the lawyers [for the other side] and they say:

[Thick Boston accent] “THEY’RE FUCKING QUEER!!! THEY’RE FUCKING QUEER!!!”

So basically, Gary Randall’s response is “they’re fucking queer!” And that’s all he’s got.

***THERE’S MORE***

You can watch the Louis C.K. clip here.

Also, according to HA’s Lee:

Gary Randall was also pissed that a Hindu was allowed to give a prayer in front of Congress. The man is loco.

http://effinunsound.com/?p=424

Nice.

Dino Rossi’s idea man wants us to stop being so mean to the poor pedophiles in the Catholic Church:

One of things that has always distinguished HA from most other blogs is the unmoderated, no holds barred nature of the comment threads, and the nasty, brutish and often profane political bloodsport that they produce. No stranger to vitriol and foul language, I never felt it my place to impose more solemn standards on the HA community.

But really, enough is enough. It is one thing to abuse me personally, but it is entirely another to abuse the whole HA community by hijacking threads with intentionally off-topic comments. I have no obligation, ethical or otherwise, to continue to tolerate this deliberate trolling, and the deliberate disruption of legitimate debate on important issues of the day, especially in the face of the constant and baseless accusations that I have been blocking comments. (TIP: I don’t have the time to read most of my comments, let alone censor them.)

So as of this moment I am imposing new policies regarding comment thread moderation. The following type of comments will no longer be tolerated:

• Deliberately off-topic comments (except in “open threads”), as well as pointless comments on these comments.
• Deliberately repetitive comments, particularly those intended to repeat and a reinforce slander that has already been sufficiently debunked.
• Large chunks of cut-and-paste from copyrighted works or other blogs and comment threads.
• Blatant sock puppetry.

Each of my co-bloggers are now free to delete comments on their own posts based on their own arbitrary interpretation of these standards, while Darryl and I have global moderation privileges. Repeat offenders will be banned. And don’t be surprised to see these standards imposed sporadically and selectively. This is my blog. Life isn’t fair.

My advice to the rest of you is please don’t feed the trolls. Ignore the off-topic comments and the abusers who post them. When you comment on this garbage, you only encourage them. Comments on deleted comments will likely be deleted too, so as not to disrupt the flow of the thread. And if you absolutely feel the need to discuss some off-topic issue, or announce some sort of breaking news, please save it for an “Open Thread,” which will now be graciously provided on a daily or more frequent basis.

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

7PM: Is nothing sacred?
Politics is a dirty business, but are there any areas of a candidate’s life that is absolutely off limits? Writing on Slog, Josh Feit frets that it is “tacky to report on a politician’s religion,” before proceeding to report on Rep. Dave Reichert’s active membership in the ultra-fundamentalist Missouri Synod Lutheran Church. If Reichert’s religion is off limits, why not John Edwards’ haircut or Bill Clinton’s sex life… or the fact that Laura Bush killed her boyfriend?

8PM: But what about the pie crust?
King County bans Crisco! Oh no! Erika Nuerenberg, Senior Advisor to King County Council member Julia Patterson, and Trent House, Dir. Government Affairs for the Washington Restaurant Association, will join me for the hour talk about the county’s ban on trans-fat, and new nutritional labeling requirements for chain restaurants.

9PM: Prison overcrowding: supply or demand?
We’re running out of space in our region’s local jails. Is it time to start building more prisons, or maybe start treating drug addiction as a public health problem rather than a criminal one?

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

Apparently, our region’s prisons are running out of space:

Starting in 2012, King County plans to no longer house most drunken drivers, prostitutes, small-scale drug users and other misdemeanor offenders, prompting cities south and east of Seattle to start planning to build new jails in their communities.

Officials in Snohomish, Pierce and Spokane counties may follow suit and keep misdemeanor offenders from being booked into their main county jails. Although King County’s two jails in Seattle and Kent still have room for offenders, projections show the jails reaching full capacity in about a decade.

The region’s cities currently contract with the counties to house many of their misdemeanor offenders, but will soon be faced with the expense of building more jail space of their own. Or… perhaps we might want to consider not locking up misdemeanor, nonviolent drug offenders?

Whatever you think about the dangers of illicit drug use, few would argue that the “war on drugs” is working. Drug use is primarily a public health issue, not a criminal one, and studies show that it would be much more effective and less expensive to treat it as such. And apart from the obvious ill effects of smoking, there is little science to suggest that casual marijuana use is any more dangerous to the individual or society than casual drinking.

Cities pay King County $197.23 for each misdemeanor inmate booked into the jail, plus $103.17 per inmate, per day; drug treatment, by comparison, is a relative bargain. Throughout the state, over 70-percent of each county’s general fund is spent on their criminal justice system, and politicians who have made a career of railing against high taxes and wasteful government spending, are also typically the first to demand a “tough on crime,” “lock ’em up and throw away the key” approach to all sorts of social ills, real and perceived.

But if prison overcrowding is an issue of both supply and demand, it might behoove us as a society to examine both sides of the equation.

From their press release:

Today a slate of leading environmental organizations announced their endorsements of Roads and Transit. The package will provide more transportation options while improving our quality of life and the environment. The organizations announcing their endorsement are: Transportation Choices Coalition, Washington Conservation Voters, Futurewise, Environment Washington, Tahoma Audubon, and Washington Environmental Council.

With the passage of the joint ballot this fall, voters will give regional transit the biggest boost in state history bringing new light rail, improved service and more transit to Snohomish, King and Pierce counties. “This is a groundbreaking expansion of transit – the largest ever in the state. It is a once in a generation opportunity to change the way we move people and goods,” said Jessyn Farrell, Executive Director, Transportation Choices Coalition.

But what about global warming?

The majority of global warming emissions come from the transportation sector in Washington State. New transit projects will help combat climate change and reduce global warming emissions by giving commuters additional choices. “We must give people better alternatives to driving if we have any chance of combating climate change,” said Bill LaBorde of Environment Washington.

You can’t get people out of their cars unless you give them options that are attractive. I don’t think this endorsement will allay the concerns of the Erica C. Barnett/Kemper Freeman Jr. bloc, but it will present this package to the voters as a balanced one.

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

7PM: The Stranger Hour with Josh
The Stranger’s Josh Feit joins me for the hour for a round-up of the week in state and local politics, including bikes, developer loopholes, and pot, plus

8PM: President Dick Cheney?
President George Bush underwent a colonoscopy today, which meant that for several scary hours, Dick Cheney was acting president. What did they find in Bush’s colon? Is Tehran still standing? Also, old-line Republicans warning we need to impeach Bush/Cheney now, or risk becoming a “dictatorial police state.” Scared yet?

9PM: Do you want to recycle Richard Conlin?
Seattle City Councilman Richard Conlin joins me for the hour to talk about the city’s new mandatory food waste recycling program, and to take your calls.

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

In the Seattle PI this week, AP writer David Pitt shares some sobering statistics:

DES MOINES, Iowa — Blacks in the United States are imprisoned at more than five times the rate of whites, and Hispanics are locked up at nearly double the white rate, according to a study released Wednesday by a criminal justice policy group.

The report by the Sentencing Project, a Washington-based think tank, found that states in the Midwest and Northeast have the greatest black-to-white disparity in incarceration. Iowa had the widest disparity in the nation, imprisoning blacks at more than 13 times the rate of whites.

For years, this disparity has continued to worsen, even as the numbers of people we send to prison in this country reach record levels. A public official from Iowa demonstrates the typical blind spot for the why this is happening:

Paul Stageberg, administrator of the Iowa Division of Criminal and Juvenile Justice Planning, said the results are not surprising, but the causes are subject to interpretation.

He said the state’s disproportionately high black arrest rates are likely linked to high poverty rates among blacks and lower educational achievement.

He’s completely wrong. The disparity does not result from any characteristic of the black community itself. It results from the way drug laws are enforced. I know I sometimes sound like a broken record on this front, but this problem is both well-known among those who study this and widely ignored by everyone else. And it’s long past due that we focus on the real reasons why our prisons are bursting at the seams and dispropotionately filled with minorities.

The chart at his link is from arrest data from 1996. It shows the number of individuals per 100,000 sent to prison for drug offenses – broken down by race. It’s important to recognize that surveys have repeatedly shown that there’s no difference in drug usage rates between different races. The difference lies in whose usage is targeted by the police and whose usage is ignored.

In the years since, things have actually gotten slightly better, but the disparity is still alarming. A report from Human Rights Watch in 2003 notes:

African-Americans are arrested, prosecuted, and imprisoned for drug offenses at far higher rates than whites. This racial disparity bears little relationship to racial differences in drug offending. For example, although the proportion of all drug users who are black is generally in the range of 13 to 15 percent, blacks constitute 36 percent of arrests for drug possession. Blacks constitute 63 percent of all drug offenders admitted to state prisons. In at least fifteen states, black men were sent to prison on drug charges at rates ranging from twenty to fifty-seven times those of white men.

[emphasis mine]

The disparities we see today do go beyond just drug offenses. Violent gang activity also leads towards a higher number of minorities going to prison. But what’s rarely ever made clear whenever these reports surface in the media is how our eagerness to put young black people in jail for drugs also leads to that outcome. Teenagers and young adults in black communities, who are doing things that most white teenagers get away with, are sent away to prison even if they have no prior record of violence. But instead of being “reformed” behind bars, they go in the opposite direction, making gang connections, becoming bitter at the lost opportunity they have, and returning to the world much more likely to commit a violent crime. Our drug laws have served to create a criminal class among African-Americans. We used to believe that stronger enforcement of drug laws in black communities were a benefit to them. Now we clearly understand that their enforcement does little more than just reinforce the stereotypes about the inherently criminality of blacks in our society.

Talking about these issues politically can be extremely difficult. The notion that blacks are more prone to crime and therefore require more strident policing finds acceptance among both liberals and conservatives. The myth that drug prohibition keeps us safe and that criminalizing drug use is necessary continues to eat away at our society in complete silence.

On Thursday night, I joined SeattleJew at an anti-violence vigil at Pratt Park in Seattle, led by Pastor Robert Jeffrey. Just as in other major cities, Seattle’s black community has fallen victim to this modern day incarnation of Jim Crow. At the end of Jeffrey’s passionate sermon, individuals lit candles and got up to speak about those who’ve been lost in the crossfire. Some were wearing T-shirts of the lost loved ones they mourned, while others spoke of brothers and sisters whose lives ended too soon. Not surprisingly, drugs were a common theme among the stories. Those who used drugs in this community were always in fear of being arrested.

As someone for whom illegal drugs were always nearby throughout college and afterwards, in both college towns and wealthy white suburbs, I don’t have stories of friends being killed and no one I personally know of has ever been arrested. Money certainly plays some role in that, but race plays a much bigger one. Our drug laws and the racial bias in their enforcement have created two entirely separate justice systems in this country that divide us in ways much more extreme than any of the ways we divide ourselves. And hopefully the next time grim statistics from our prison system make people scratch their heads and wonder what’s going wrong, the media will have more of a clue as to where to point the finger, rather than simply asking those in our criminal justice system who don’t have the courage to look into their own role.