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

7PM: Is the Port of Seattle taking on water?
With the Port of Seattle in the midst of an ethical scandal, Port Commissioner Alec Fisken joins me in the studio to answer some blunt questions about the culture at the Port, and what needs to be changed. Should Commissioner Pat Davis resign for authorizing a golden parachute for outgoing Port CEO Mic Dinsmore? Do the Port Commission’s executive sessions violate state “sunshine” laws? Call in and ask Fisken for yourself.

8PM: Is the U.S. becoming a prison state?
Author Sasha Abramsky joins me for the hour to talk about his new book, American Furies: Crime, Punishment and Vengeance in the Age of Mass Imprisonment. With over 2 million people imprisoned on any given day in a system that emphasizes vengeance over rehabilitation, Abramsky argues that “America’s incarceration infrastructure … has started to eat away at the country’s democratic institutions from the inside out.” Abramsky will be in Seattle doing a book reading and signing on Thursday, June 7, 7PM at the Elliot Bay Book Shop.

9PM: When is a terrorist plot not a terrorist plot?
This week’s high profile foiling of an alleged terrorist plot to blow up New York’s JFK Airport made screaming headlines around the nation, but didn’t even manage to make the front page of the New York Times. Why? Maybe because it was hard for the Grey Lady to get worked up about a plot “so nascent that there was no developed plan for how the plotters would get explosives, let alone gain access to the tanks and pipelines they hoped to target.” Kinda like my threat to blow up Sea-Tac Airport.

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

If you’ve watched TV, listened to the radio, read a newspaper or browsed the InterTubes in the past 24-hours, then you’ve surely heard about the “unthinkable” plot to blow up JFK Airport, that was foiled just in the nick of time:

A retired airport cargo worker and a former member of parliament in Guyana were among four men charged with a plot that officials said was intended to cause mass casualties and cripple one of the world’s busiest travel hubs.

Investigators acknowledged, however, that the scheme was so nascent that there was no developed plan for how the plotters would get explosives, let alone gain access to the tanks and pipelines they hoped to target.

Um… forgive me for being cynical, but we’ve been lied to so many times before, with Bush administration propagandists transforming the angry ramblings of narcissistic pizza-boys into sophisticated, 24-like conspiracies, well… I’m having trouble taking any of these stories seriously. I mean, I suppose I wouldn’t chafe so much at the inconvenience of the enhanced security restrictions put in place in the wake of the infamous “plot” to bring down a jetliner by mixing a high-powered liquid explosive mid-flight, if the would-be terrorists actually had the resources or know-how to carry out their threat, or if the plan was at least, you know, scientifically possible.

“The devastation that would have been caused had this plot succeeded is unthinkable,” Roslynn Mauskopf, U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, said at a Saturday afternoon news conference in Manhattan to announce the arrests.

Yeah, and one of the things that makes this plot so “unthinkable” is that it couldn’t possibly have worked. Fuel pipeline and storage tank explosions do occasionally happen, and while they can be tragic in their own right, they don’t result in the immolation of entire storage facilities or miles of pipeline. Fuel is volatile, and so engineers tend to build in automatic cutoffs and other safety stuff like that. It’s not like you can just light a fuse and the entire thing goes boom.

Can one imagine a plot like this succeeding in temporarily shutting down JFK? Sure. But then, so can a blizzard or an afternoon thunderstorm. Hell, if disrupting air travel is your goal, I’m guessing a bomb threat could be just as effective as an actual bomb, and much easier to execute. Leave a few identical, unattended bags scattered throughout the terminals, and then just sit back and watch the mayhem.

And while government officials were publicly painting the main suspect as a “self-radicalized New Yorker … plotting to betray his adopted country with a catastrophic attack,” off the record, a federal law-enforcement official admits that the suspect seemed more like a “sad old guy who’s got a lot of spit and vinegar in him.”

Mmm. Add a little salt, pepper and spices, and you’ve got the makings of a low-cal salad dressing.

Defreitas “had some ideas” about what he wanted to do, said the U.S. law enforcement official who spoke on condition of anonymity. “But he was a long way off from being operational or even coming close to getting explosives or posing a direct threat to JFK.” The official characterized the seriousness of the plot as “a notch below Fort Dix” — the recent case in which a group of Muslim men in New Jersey were charged with planning a sniper attack on the military base.

Uh-huh. And I suppose, as far as serious terrorist threats go, the headline on this post ranks just a notch below the alleged JFK plot. We just don’t know how widely spaced the notches are.

I’m not implying that this story was fabricated or that we shouldn’t maintain our wariness, but while there are crazed religious fanatics out there, seemingly intent on destroying America, none have the means like those who currently occupy the White House. As sure as night turns into day, or our terror alert level turns from yellow to orange in the weeks before an election, the Bush administration routinely trots out hyperbolic accounts of would-be dirty bombers and pizza snipers and other such evil-doers in a transparent effort to frighten the American people into propping up their sagging support for a war in Iraq that is needlessly killing thousands of American soldiers, bankrupting our children’s future, and destroying our credibility overseas.

Ironically, these mini victories in “The War on Terror” prove exactly the opposite of what the Bushies contend: it is not a massive display of military force that disrupted these “terrorist” plots, but good, old fashioned police work. If the JFK and Fort Dix conspiracies really were anything more than just idle, angry fantasies, then they were criminal acts, and our law enforcement officials should be thanked for yet another job well done. But these same officials do themselves and our national security a disservice when they allow their efforts to be manipulated for propaganda purposes by our war-mongering White House.

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

7PM: “The Stranger Hour” with Erica Barnett
We’re kicking off a new feature, in which a writer from The Stranger joins me for the hour to recap the week’s local news, and give a preview of what’s coming up in the next issue. Erica Barnett is my first victim, and topics will include the Sound Transit II and Regional Transportation Improvement District (RTID) plans that have just been finalized, as well as a discussion of Seattle’s controversial nightlife ordinance.

8PM: Do you believe in Obama?
4000 “Obamans” paid $25 to $100 a head, and crowded the WAMU Theater last night to witness presidential Barack Obama “make history.” Or at least, that’s what many in the crowd thought Obama was making. I’ll play clips from the rally, give my own assessment of the candidate and his supporters, then take your calls on what you want in the next president… and what you think you’ll get. It’s an on-air straw poll.

9PM: Questions over choice.
Congresswoman Cathy McMorris announced this week that her 1-month old son has been diagnosed with Down Syndrome. At 38-years-old, McMorris would have surely been advised by her doctors to screen for genetic abnormalities via amniocentesis. One can only assume that her religious convictions led her to decline. Would you abort a Down Syndrome fetus? McMorris made her choice — shouldn’t other women be allowed to make theirs?

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

PROGRAMMING NOTE:
Tune in tomorrow when I’ll be joined by Seattle Port Commissioner Alec Fisken, and Sasha Abramsky, author of American Furies: Crime, Punishment and Vengeance in the Age of Mass Imprisonment

This morning I thought I might write about the oil stain on my garage floor. Or, perhaps, the blue fuzzy lint I cleaned out of my navel this morning. But I was just a little too lazy to write on a topic of such irrelevance.

Besides, Alicia Mundy beat me to it this morning. In her Letter from Washington column in the Seattle Times, Alicia writes about Rep. Dave Reichert (R-WA-8)…and his utter irrelevance:

The annual power rankings from Congress.org have dropped Reichert, now a sophomore Republican, from 168th among 439 members to 419th. That puts him lower than emissaries from the District of Columbia (100), Guam (177) and Puerto Rico (377), none of whom represent a state or have actual voting rights in the House.

Reichert ranks lower than most Republicans, and every Democrat except Rep. William Jefferson (D-LA-2), who has been marginalized ever since the FBI filmed him taking bribes.

In short, Reichert has no recent accomplishments (well…he did successfully pretend to get a school bus driver fired). Furthermore he has shown no capacity to adapt—to find some kind of functional niche—in a House controlled by Democrats.

“But…but…but, what do you expect, Reichert is only a sophomore!” Sophomore, indeed…but, Reichert ranks 38th out of the 41 Representatives in his class of 2004.

So I guess Ms. Mundy was having one of those “I think I’ll write about something completely irrelevant” days, and she reported irrelevant old news about Washington’s 8th Congressional District’s irrelevant Representative.

If Ms. Mundy had been in the mood for a little more relevancy, she might have written about, say, sophomore Rep. McMorris Rogers (R-WA-5), with a ranking of 231 of 439, or 12th of 41 in the class of 2004 (and she spent the session pregnant until giving birth last month and missed much of May as a consequence).

Ms. Mundy could have done that…but, then again, McMorris Rogers doesn’t have that head of rich, silvery hair, bulging biceps, and those washboard abs….

From Eric Schwartz….

Discuss.

Microsoft CEO and kajillionaire Steve Ballmer wants the state to spend more money on education:

“If you’re the CEO of the state of Washington, the first thing that you have to do is recognize that there is a capacity problem in our four-year institutions,” Ballmer said, when asked what he would do to help more people take advantage of job openings in high-skill fields here.

[…] “We have some issues about traffic … but at the end of the day, the most important thing in the context that we’re talking about here is education.”

Wow. Great minds think alike. In fact, way back in July of 2004 (before HA became a must-read blog) I lamented the UW’s decision to stop accepting community college transfers due to lack of capacity, warning that higher education is the economic engine that drives local economies.

Cities like Boston, Philadelphia, and even rust-belt poster-child Pittsburgh, survived the collapse of their manufacturing industries — and prospered — due largely to the influx of talent attracted to their prestigious colleges and universities. The best and the brightest don’t just grab their degrees and leave; many settle in their adopted cities, creating new businesses and industries, or attracting existing ones to the growing pool of qualified workers.

My question is, which schools are going to be the economic engines for Washington, when we won’t even spend the money to educate our own children, let alone attract talent from out-of-state?

I moved to Seattle as an adult about 12 years ago, so I don’t have the same provincial pride in local institutions as most of you natives. And I’m not ashamed to admit that from my snobbish, east coast, elitist perspective there is not a single undergraduate program in the state that I could brag to family about my daughter attending.

Or rather, I am ashamed to admit this, because I’m a Washingtonian now, and I’m embarrassed to see my neighbors talk about how hard it is to get into the UW — like it’s some kind of west coast Harvard — when in fact increased admissions competition is due to declining funding not rising academic standards.

The state Labor Market and Economic Analysis Branch projects about 4,400 new job openings a year for computer specialists through 2014, while Washington is graduating fewer than 700 a year in this field.

“The state does not need to produce 4,400 computer and math occupation workers every year,” Weeks said. “The state needs to hire that many every year. … Some of them are going to come from Ohio or overseas.”

Yeah, or, some of those jobs might eventually move to Ohio or overseas. It’s not like you need to invest in a multi-billion dollar factory to hire a keyboard jockey. This is an industry with a lot of inherent mobility, and if I understand my Adam Smith, our region’s high-tech industry might easily move these jobs to where the qualified labor is.

And don’t put it beyond companies like Microsoft to do exactly that. Indeed, Ballmer’s statement is more than a touch ironic considering that Microsoft already maintains a corporate headquarters in Nevada — presumably for some tax advantage — and while it’s not really fair to single out Microsoft for its tax avoidance strategies (apparently, that’s what wealthy corporations do,) I wouldn’t mind hearing Ballmer talk a little about how we might raise the extra dollars he advocates investing in education.

That said, Ballmer’s insight should not be lightly dismissed. When the CEO of our state’s most prolific millionaire mill says that increasing capacity at our four-year institutions is more crucial to the region’s economy than increasing capacity on SR-520, lawmakers might want to take notice. Washington state has a lot of amenities that makes it uniquely attractive, but our university system is not one of them. As I concluded back in 2004:

The UW is a good state university… but it is only that.

And it is not going to get any better unless we fund it properly. That doesn’t simply mean more tax dollars. We also need to build the kind of multi-billion dollar private endowment that all the best schools rely on. And we need to move away from subsidizing all students equally, towards a means-tested system where tuition approaches market prices, and students receive generous financial aid based on need.

Either that, or we can continue exporting our best and brightest out-of-state.

Not to mention our best paying jobs.

144 years and 151 days after Abraham Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation officially freed Alabama’s slaves, Gov. Bob Riley signed a resolution expressing “profound regret” for his state’s role in slavery: “We apologize for the wrongs inflicted by slavery and its after effects in the United States of America.”

And on October 29, 2151, I plan to apologize for calling Alabamans a bunch of gap-toothed, inbred crackers.

A very serious situation at the Capitol Hill campus of Seattle Central Community College:

An anonymous threat scrawled in a men’s bathroom at Seattle Central Community College kept hundreds of students and faculty away from campus this morning.

About half of the 5,500 students at the Capitol Hill campus appeared to be heeding the college’s Wednesday advisory to stay home if they felt uneasy about the note discovered last week, said SCCC spokeswoman Laura Mansfield. The note, written in pencil on a toilet-paper dispenser in the science and math building, read: “I will kill everyone at SCCC on May 31.”

SCCC officials decided to keep the college open, but notified students and faculty to “use their best personal judgment” about reporting to work and classes.

I don’t know why anyone would feel uneasy about going to school at SCCC today. After all, Seattle Central is a gun-free campus (even for those with a legal permit), so how could anyone bring a firearm on the property?

Wait a sec… you mean criminals sometimes disobey laws?

—-

All kidding aside, as a matter of policy, banning people with concealed permits from carrying on campus is dumb. In essence, we’re banning people who have the most experience handling firearms (aside from police or military). Recent news shows how you cannot depend on “security” or even the police to be there when you need them. A more enlightened stance, a civil liberty-respecting stance, would be preferable to the current rules governing firearms on our college campuses.

From the Seattle Times:

Sonics and Storm owner Clay Bennett says he’s “out of ideas” for landing an arena deal in Seattle and plans to file this November with the NBA for permission to move the teams after next season.

Of course, it’s easy to run out of ideas, when you only have one.

I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again: there is some number in between $0 and $500,000,000 that would likely work for both Bennett and lawmakers, and that might be approved by voters. And the only way to find that number is to actually NEGOTIATE.

In addition to the Renton hoops palace we could re-explore the possibility of renovating Key Arena, or perhaps consider the Sabey property south of Boeing Field. And instead of asking taxpayers to pick up the bulk of the tab, we could start at a more typical 40/60 public/private partnership. And if Bennett and his partners simply don’t have the financial will or wherewithal to invest their own money in their own team, then perhaps they could consider bringing in some local partners or corporate sponsors who actually care about the local community and the local fans?

Of maybe, Bennett could continue pushing for the Renton project, with minor changes, but actually hire some PR and lobbying consultants who could put together a competent campaign that didn’t suspiciously look like he was deliberately trying to fuck it up?

I mean, if Bennett really wanted to keep the team in Seattle, he wouldn’t be so uncreative or intractable. And he wouldn’t be such a whiney little quitter. You know, qualities one doesn’t usually associate with successful businessmen.

Hmm. Makes one wonder if perhaps Bennett ever intended to own a Seattle team at all? In that context, his D.O.A. Renton proposal might prove just how brilliant a businessman he really is.

See, if as expected, taxpayers (and the lawmakers representing them) rejected his extravagant proposal, he could claim he made his “good faith effort,” and then pick up and move the team to Oklahoma City, where he’ll be greeted as a local hero. But if we foolishly caved to his demands, well, he still might end up with an Oklahoma City team… just not the Sonics.

The Renton deal would dramatically increase the value of the team, allowing Bennett and his partners to sell out, taking a couple hundred million dollars in profit… money which could defray the cost of buying a smaller market team, like the Hornets, and moving it to Oklahoma City instead. In that scenario, Washington taxpayers would indirectly subsidize professional basketball in Oklahoma. Sweet.

Yeah, I know, it sounds a little too devious. But the fabulously wealthy generally don’t get that way by being artless and uncalculating.

Or, by running out of ideas.

Denny Park, like the photo says, was the first park in Seattle. It was totally redone after Denny Hill was regraded back in the 30’s. Then, someone decided to build an office building in the park. In recent years the park has been used more by drug addicts and prostitutes, and less by folks from the neighborhood.

Thankfully, these folks are doing something about it.

I’ve bugged city government types every once in a while about this park, concerning the building. Usually, they don’t quite understand what the big deal is. This has impressed on me the need for regular citizens to get active on the things that are happening in your own neighborhood. Folks in city hall have a lot on their plate, so don’t be surprised if you have to lobby people to get things done. Just like the Friends of Denny Park are doing.

A few months ago, Goldy had Rep. Kucinich on his radio show. At the time I felt it would be wrong to speak ill of Kucinch on the blog just before he rolls into town. If I’m nothing else, I’m shameless in my loyalty to Democrats, even ones with a few screws loose.

Today, I end my silence. Here’s why:

Big score for Fox News and the CBC’s effort to legitimize Fox News with a Democratic debate.

While Barack Obama, John Edwards, Hillary Clinton, and Bill Richardson have all announced plans to skip the debate, they can console themselves with the fact that yes — Dennis Kucinich has decided to attend.

It’s actually quite hilarious how Kucinich tries to justify his validation of the right wing’s premier propaganda outlet — he’s taking his courageous stance on behalf of black folk!

What a weasel. Fox News is garbage; it’s president makes jokes comparing Barack Obama to Osama bin Laden. Dennis is all too pleased to play ball with those folks. Thankfully, the big four presidential candidates (HRC, Edwards, Richardson, and Obama himself) have skipped this debate. It’s going to be Dennis Kucinch and Joe Biden sucking up to Brit Hume for 45 minutes. Fun.

Apparently, you can never be too rich, you can never be too thin, and you can never be too wing-nutty. With only three of ten Republican presidential hopefuls displaying the integrity to admit they don’t believe in evolution, Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn is considering adding his authentic conservative voice to the GOP debates:

Sen. Tom Coburn is mulling an entry into the Republican presidential primary, according to sources inside and outside the Senate. Coburn, a senator from Oklahoma, is believed to be receiving encouragement from a small group of wealthy businessmen and philanthropists in the Oklahoma-Kansas-Texas region of the country.

Hmm. I wonder if any of those wealthy Oklahoma businessmen include Sonics owners Clay Bennett, Tom Ward and Aubrey McClendon, who have contributed nearly $10,000 to Coburn in the past?

“He’s all about faith, lower taxes, and staying the course in Iraq,” says an adviser outside of the Senate who has been speaking to Coburn.

He’s all about “lower taxes” huh? And, you know, one way to lower taxes is to not spend taxpayer dollars building $500 million hoops palaces for billionaires.

Coburn is believed to have the backing of several low-profile members of the so called “Swift Boaters,” men who financed the ads that doomed the presidential aspirations of Sen. John Kerry.

Yeah, well, I don’t really have anything snarky to add here. I just thought it might say something about the type of folk who support Coburn.

According to Wikipedia Coburn has said he favors the death penalty for doctors who perform abortions, and that homosexuality is the biggest threat to America. The inimitable Cliff Shecter thinks Coburn is just “another whackjob“:

He’s the freaking tool that says lesbians are in the school bathrooms, silicone breast implants are “healthy”, is blocking celebrating Rachel Carson’s birthday and and was against airing “Schindler’s List” on regular tv.

He’ll fit right in.

He certainly will.

A former director of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was sentenced to death today, for taking bribes to approve untested medicines. Um, a former director of China’s FDA, that is.

The developments are among the most dramatic steps Beijing has publicly taken to address domestic and international alarm over shoddy and unsafe Chinese goods — from pet-food ingredients and toothpaste mixed with industrial chemicals to tainted antibiotics.

The Beijing No. 1 Intermediate People’s Court convicted Zheng Xiaoyu for taking bribes in cash and gifts worth more than $832,000 when he was director of the State Food and Drug Administration, the official Xinhua News Agency said. The court then issued the death penalty, the report said.

[…] In one instance, an antibiotic approved by Zheng’s agency killed at least 10 patients last year before it was taken off the market.

On the bright side, China’s burgeoning organ transplant industry just gained another healthy donor.

The Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally meets tonight (and every Tuesday), 8PM at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E.

Please join us for the first DL of the post-Charles Nelson Reilly era.

Not in Seattle? Liberals will also be drinking tonight in the Tri-Cities and Vancouver. A full listing of Washington’s eleven Drinking Liberally chapters is available here.