HorsesAss.Org

Again, forgive my cynicism, but considering the Seattle Times editorial board’s track record of transparently passing off Frank Blethen’s narrow partisan agenda as the public interest, I instantly assumed the worst when I read today’s headline: “Watch carefully as Justice is named.”

And I wasn’t disappointed. Or, uh, I was disappointed. Um… you know what I mean.

The Times argues that the public should carefully watch Gov. Chris Gregoire as she appoints a replacement for retiring Justice Bobbe Bridge, and while the unsigned editorial offers no names, it does “have some thoughts on qualifications.”

• It would be good to add to the diversity of experience on the court, which has a former appellate judge (Gerry Alexander), tribal judge (Susan Owens), special prosecutor for child abuse cases (Barbara Madsen), specialists in voter initiatives (Jim Johnson) and bankruptcy and collections (Mary Fairhurst) and several trial attorneys (Charles Johnson, Richard Sanders, Tom Chambers). What it does not have is someone with major experience as a criminal prosecutor.

• It would be very good to have more geographic diversity. The court is all from west of the mountains. Its gender diversity is good, but its ethnic diversity is not.

• It is essential the appointee be willing to discuss his or her judicial philosophy. Some candidates have declared it is improper to talk about such things. The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled it is all right, and we believe the voters need to know, so candidates for the court should speak their mind.

Uh-huh.

Let’s just be brutally honest. Quite simply, this editorial clearly assumes that its readers are a bunch of fucking morons.

Huh… let’s see… the new justice should be a criminal prosecutor from east of the mountains. Oh, how coy. How clever. You mean… a Republican.

And while they “offer no names,” the qualifications the Times lays out are clearly designed to eliminate all of the top names I’ve heard being bandied about by Olympia insiders. In fact, it is fair to speculate that the editorial is specifically aimed at Jenny Durkan, a prominent Democrat and close friend and advisor to Gov. Gregoire. Durkan is probably best known to Times readers as the kick-ass attorney who humiliated Dino Rossi’s lawyers in that Wenatchee courtroom. Durkan is one of the most highly respected attorneys in the state, and I’m guessing the Times is guessing that the appointment is hers for the asking… if she’s willing to give up her lucrative private practice.

To dismiss this editorial as sophistry is to give the anonymous writer too much credit. It is bullshit. Ridiculous, illogical bullshit. Complete and utter bullshit that totally disrespects the intelligence of the reader.

We need a criminal prosecutor on the bench? Why? If the argument is that we need somebody experienced in criminal law, why not a trial judge or criminal defense attorney? What’s the problem? Is Washington soft on crime? Don’t we lock up enough of our citizens? The Supreme Court doesn’t rule on evidence, it rules on points of law, an exercise whose primary requisite is constitutional scholarship and a sharp legal mind. That skill-set doesn’t exclude a criminal prosecutor, but it doesn’t particularly recommend one.

And the Times laughably argues for more diversity (other than gender) at the same time slamming the court for failing to block Seattle Schools’ racial tiebreaker? What’s up with that?

No, the Times didn’t put forth its “thoughts on qualifications” in pursuit of a qualified jurist, but rather a conservative one. What the Times wants is a court that will toss out the estate tax, legalize dog shooting and bust up organized labor. Let’s face it, Frank Blethen’s personal Hell would be a unionized Heaven.

Washington voters elected Chris Gregoire governor, presumably because we thought she was the candidate who best reflected our values. And Gov. Gregoire should follow suit, appointing the best qualified justice who best reflects her values. That’s what executives do. That’s what we expect of them.

That’s what Gov. Gregoire will do, and the Times knows it.

When the Times lays out a set of narrow qualifications, and then writes that “Gregoire needs to choose a candidate who can be defended,” what they are really saying is that she needs to choose a candidate who can be defended against attack from the Times.

Whoever the appointee is, he or she should consider today’s Times editorial as the opening salvo in their 2008 election campaign.

Before I start into this post, I wanted to introduce myself and thank Goldy again for letting me post up here. I normally post as ‘thehim’ at Blog Reload, Effin Unsound and (every once in a long while) at Washblog. I started blogging three years ago after the advent of the Iraq War made me realize how far away this country has gotten from the principles that have made it so great. But for the past 2 years, I’ve focused more on issues of personal liberty, specifically the drug war.

The reason I’ve made this my focus is because after following a number of foreign policy and domestic issues, I saw that the drug war and its inherently counterproductive nature is wreaking havoc in a number of difficult issues that we face today – from illegal immigration, to crime, to our relations with Latin America, to the war in Afghanistan, to the way our nation’s infirmed and elderly are taken care of, to our overcrowded prisons, and worst of all, to our race relations. The drug war costs us billions of dollars every year and accomplishes absolutely nothing. It’s based on an assumption that the government has a duty to protect adult citizens from their own decisions. This false belief has been recognized as a mistake by people as politically diverse as Milton Friedman, George Soros, William F. Buckley, and Ralph Nader. Yet it still continues, because the willingness of politicians from both parties to resort to fearmongering has never been effectively countered with basic reason and common sense.

As this blog deals with Washington State politics, let’s look at some recent local news. Over the past school year, undercover police officers had been attending classes and pretending to be students at three Federal Way high schools. In the end, they were able to charge 3 adults and 11 juveniles with drug offenses. Two of the adults are facing gun charges for illegally selling firearms to the officers. Most of the transactions happened off school grounds once students agreed to help these officers purchase drugs.

I don’t doubt that the high schools in Federal Way have a problem with drug use. Illegal drug markets tend to gravitate towards the path of least resistance. In other words, the decision to make a living by selling illegal drugs is made more often in places where people have less opportunity. But all high schools today have some level of drug use going on. The last undercover operation like this one was at Redmond High in 2003 (you can see what one person had to say about that here).

What was done in Federal Way has been presented nearly unanimously by the local media as a positive thing. It is portrayed as a reasonable response to underage drug use. But the reality is not so neat. In any school where drug use is fairly common, these operations aren’t like finding a needle in a haystack. It’s more like shooting fish in a barrel. Undercover cops, especially female ones, can make just about any student into a drug dealer by making them feel that it would worth their while to break the law for them.

The main question to be asked is how did the cops decide who to target? In my suburban high school 15 years ago, an undercover cop could have arrested about half of the students in my senior class this way. Was it different here? Did these two officers make an effort to find out who certain main dealers were, or were they just content to arrest anyone who had the knowledge of where to find drugs? Did they only focus on a certain ethnic community? Did they only focus on kids who fit a specific stereotype (as what happened in Redmond)?

Probably the most pernicious aspect of stings like this is the belief that it helps those who get caught. I’ve seen this expressed several times, by teachers and school officials, even by one of the arrested teen’s grandfather. This is a greatly mistaken belief. No drug on this planet does more damage to a child’s prospects to succeed in life more than what a trip through the criminal justice system will do. Not to mention that all of the charged students have now been expelled. Depending on how these cases are handled, some of the arrested may find it impossible to receive financial aid for higher education or to be qualified for a number of jobs. All because they were the middleman between a drug supplier and an adult pretending to be a teenage drug user.

Despite these criticisms, I understand the train of thought for Federal Way school officials. They obviously know that drug use is widespread among their high school students. They felt like they had to do something. It’s very difficult to look at a problem like that and accept the fact that, at the local level, there’s nothing that can be done to fix it. This is a problem that needs to be fixed at the state level, by having the Governor and the Legislature finally take a stand against the federal government and start being smart about how we deal with drug use.

The reason that drugs are so readily available in our high schools stems from the fact that they’re illegal for adults as well. As a result, the supply chains exist underground and are controlled by criminals. Compare that to alcohol, where the supply chain is aboveground and heavily regulated by the government. Certainly, kids still get their hands on alcohol, but are there networks of alcohol sellers in high schools, who have large quantities of alcohol that they can sell to other students? Of course not. But this happens with drugs like marijuana, ecstasy, and cocaine, because at the higher levels of the criminal organizations that control those drugs, they could care less if a 16-year-old wants to be part of the network of low-level dealers. That’s exactly why our schools are flooded with these drugs. But if either of those two undercover cops wanted to buy alcohol from other kids, they probably would’ve been told to find someone over 21 to buy it for them.

The media occasionally raises points like these when the topic of the drugs comes up. So far, in relation to what happened in Federal Way, I’ve seen nothing to challenge the prevailing mindset that this sting is an acceptable and beneficial response to the problem of teenage drug use. If we understand that involvement with drugs is a function of having a lack of opportunity, why do we think we’re going to fix it by randomly picking off kids in a high school and giving them less opportunity to succeed in life?

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

7PM: Does the US have an immigration problem, or a Mexican problem?
The Immigration Reform Act failed to pass the US Senate when President Bush failed to get his own party to support his own compromise bill. Meanwhile, an amendment did pass this week making English our “official language.” Do we really have an illegal immigration problem, or is the problem with immigration in general? Or is it just a problem with those Spanish-speaking brown people in particular?

8PM: Filing deadline shenanigans?
Richard Pope a Democrat? Scott Noble or Jim Nobles? Yesterday was the filing deadline for the November election, and former Stranger writer Sandeep Kaushik comes into the studio to talk about some last minute surprises, and some surprisingly exciting races. Kinda “The Stranger Hour” once removed.

9PM: What’s up down in Oregon?
Fellow blogger TJ from Loaded Orygun joins me by phone for our monthly conversation about what’s going down, South of the border. A scandal that isn’t and some bipartisanship that shouldn’t be, tops the list of topics. Plus we ask the critical question: are Portlanders too polite?

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

PROGRAMMING NOTE:
Tune in tomorrow night when guests include Democratic candidate for King County Prosecutor Bill Sherman, Colbert Report star Rep. Adam Smith and blogger TRex from Fire Dog Lake.

Today’s Seattle P-I covers the candidate filings for this year’s elections. And, once again, HA commenter and political troublemaker, Richard Pope’s name comes up:

Serial candidate and municipal gadfly Richard Pope filed against Councilwoman Jane Hague, R-Kirkland. Although he has run as a Republican in several past races, Pope is a Democrat this time.

Municipal gadfly? What is that supposed to mean? I mean, the papers refer to people as “gadflys” all the time, but municipal gadfly? The term aptly describes Will Baker who has been called that “Tacoma gadfly” (News Tribune, 10 Jun 2004, pg. B06), “[Tacoma’s] most vocal political gadfly” (Seattle P-I, June 5, 2004, pg. B3), and a Tacoma “council gadfly” (News Tribune, 26 Aug 2003, pg. B06).

And then there is Glenn Baldwin who earned the headline “Vancouver Council Gadfly Tosses His Hat in the Ring” in The Columbian (August 03, 1995, pg. A8):

Vancouver City Council candidate Glenn Baldwin says his attendance at council meetings is better than that of the incumbent he’s challenging.
[…]

Once a milk man in Vancouver, Baldwin spent most of his career driving delivery trucks for Blue Bell Potato Chips in Portland. He retired in 1992 and planned to complete several repairs to his house. Instead, he became a City Council gadfly, attending meetings and writing to the council and The Columbian.

The Seattle Weekly once ran an article about dangerous dogs (March 1, 2001, Pg. 16) and mentioned another municipal gadfly:

Mitzi Leibst, a former Army intelligence officer and longtime city gadfly, whose concerns actually extend well beyond last summer’s code changes. “For years and years and years,” she charges, “the city’s gotten away with this kind of fascist mentality on dog bites. Seattle is one of the few jurisdictions in the state that doesn’t allow you to have a dangerous dog. That’s just crazy.”

Crazy, indeed…all we really need is concealed canine permits. Leibst died before a series of high-profile pit bull attacks; she left a sizable sum to the Pigs Peace Sanctuary.

Now those are examples of municipal gadflies.

(Apparently other governmental bodies can have their own fly problem, like former port commissioner Jim Wright, who was called “a port gadfly” by the Seattle Times [12 Sep 1993, pg. B1].)

Richard is an eastsider, and his gadflightery isn’t limited to any municipality, level of government, or even political party. He is more of a generalized political gadfly (and a perennial candidate).

For example, Richard has recently won the love and adoration of State Republicans (like former truck mechanic and failed King County Executive candidate David Irons Jr. and Benton County Republican Party Chair Patrick McBurney) over his PDC complaints about GOP campaign reporting violations. Ever the multi-partisan, Pope has also filed an unsuccessful PDC complaint against the state Democrats, and an ethics complaint against Gov. Gregoire last fall over a dinner date.

And last year, in a move that Ralph Nader could be proud of, Pope threw the election for King County Judge; his candidacy knocked out incumbent Mary Ann Ottinger in the primary and resulted in a victory for Frank V. LaSalata.

Pope is more like his brother-in-perennial-candidacy Michael Shanks, a.k.a., Mike the Mover. Before becoming a perennial candidate, Mr. Mover fought tirelessly (and did some jail time) to get rid of licensing for movers. It earned him his own Seattle P-I (15 Sep 2004) headline calling him a “political gadfly.” The Spokesman Review (15 Sep 2004, A1) referred to him as “perennial political gadfly Mike the Mover.” Most recently Mr. Mover ran against Cantwell for the Senate.

Maybe Pope is more akin to Dale Washam, described as “an unsuccessful office-seeker and political gadfly” by the Columbian (05 Sep 1996, pg. A3). Washam is, perhaps, most famous for suing Newt Gingrich for stealing his ideas when Newt created the “Contract with America.”

Washam, 58, a former Democrat, ran unsuccessfully for the Puyallup School Board in 1991, Pierce County executive in 1992 and Pierce County auditor in 1993.

When Washam won the Republican nomination for auditor, the county GOP chairman said he was voting for the Democratic incumbent.

In each election, Washam filed a notarized “political employment contract” containing campaign promises and a pledge to resign if requested in petitions bearing the names of at least 51 percent of the voters in the last general election. Citizens who felt he violated his campaign promises also could try to oust him with a breach-of-contract suit, he said.

In a complaint, Washam said Gingrich, Eikenberry and the state GOP “plagiarized as their own the plaintiff’s Political Employment Contract idea, concept and contents when drafting their 1994 ‘Republican Contract with Washington State,’ the ‘Contract with America’ and the defendants’ book ‘Contract with America.’ ”

In any case, look for a highly parsimonious campaign from perpetual political gadfly and perennial candidate Richard Pope. Richard is always proud to point out his very high ratio of votes to campaign dollar invested.

I guess if I had the opportunity to ask Rep. Adam Smith a single question, it would be not why did he choose to subject himself to the inevitable humiliation of a Colbert interview, but rather, how did he manage to keep a straight face throughout?

Fortunately, I’ll have the opportunity to ask Rep. Smith several questions, Sunday night at the top of the 8PM hour on The David Goldstein Show, Newsradio 710-KIRO.

Fnarf guest posting over at Slog (yay for guest posters!) has a great post about the Port of Seattle parks. They are a mostly hidden treasure:

For all of the many malfeasances of Mic Dinsmore’s and Pat Davis’s crony operation down on Port 69 (where elected officials and port businesses gather to fellate each other), they did a fantastic and largely unheralded job building a network of waterfront parks. Some of these fulfill the classic parks ideal of picnic tables in a field of grass, but they also don’t shy away from the truth about Seattle’s waterfront. Work goes on there, heavy industrial work, work that is a lot of fun to watch.

These parks are tucked in between working port sites and can be hard to spot. Some of them have sexy, romantic names like “T-105 Park”, but don’t let that put you off. They’re quite pretty, and have lovely river views. The Duwamish lives beneath the radar of most Seattleites, but it is the center of our Indian heritage, our early white settler heritage, and our industrial heritage.

Click over for some great pictures. My only complaint is nary a mention of my favorite Port of Seattle park, Jack Block. The best view of the skyline and some good biking. Near Alki, so well integrated into the Seattle Parks system.

In any event, I’ll have to check out some of the other parks this weekend. If you see someone who seems overdressed, especially given his crazy facial hair, say, “hi” and even if it isn’t me, it’s a nice thing to do.

The election is still a year and a half away, but we should be thinking about it now. And we should be thinking about more than just the presidential election. There are a lot of other offices and only so much time, energy, and money. So I’m curious, what do we want to work on the most?

Obviously, who’s president is hugely important. I’ll support the nominee whoever she happens to be. A Democrat in the White House will start to bring sanity to our foreign policy. Will restore our basic rights. Will be a force for the Constitution.

But a Democratic White House will need all the support it can get from Congress. Just look at the difference between Bill Clinton in 1993 and 1994, passing FMLA and restoring sanity to the budget with the rest of his Presidency where he was playing defense. Locally, that means supporting the nominee in the 8th. I’d also like to pick off one of the Eastern Washington Republicans.

Locally, we’re going to win the governor’s mansion by enough that the Republicans don’t try to steal it in court.

All of that is good and necessary, but I think it’s time to start running some primaries. There’s a lot of dead weight in Seattle, and frankly it’s silly. Is there any reason that the state’s best environmental legislator should be from sprawlville? Is there any reason that the impeachment resolution should have come from Kirkland? I mean these legislators are a treasure, but come on Seattle!

Seattle legislators should lead on education. They should lead on the environment. They should lead on making sure there is better public transportation. It’s not like they are voting wrong for the most part, but they are in safe seats and if they don’t start acting like it, maybe we should put some time and money into finding better legislators.

Also, I’d like a better Lt. Governor. I mean playing the guitar is important, but I’d think we can do better. I’d like to see someone who we can put out on the campaign trail (I’ve been to my share of campaign events since Owen was first elected, and I can’t remember him ever showing up, maybe I’m forgetting something). Surely there’s some small town mayor from Eastern Washington who’s loved, but too liberal to advance to the legislature who can take a shot at a statewide race. Surely there’s some D. legislator who wants the job and is willing to make the case that we can do better.

I’m not sure that there is the energy (or the money) for several serious challengers, but I’d like to see a few any way. And with the earlier primary, it probably won’t take as much time away from general election activities.

Endorsement News:

I’m just gonna come right out and say it.

I’m endorsing Dan Satterberg for King County Prosecutor.

There’s just something about that face I can trust.

Speaking yesterday on KUOW’s The Conservation, Gov. Chris Gregoire stated that she has “no reason to disbelieve that” Sonics owner Clay Bennett is negotiating in good faith.

Uh-huh. Me, I’m more of a cynic. In fact, I’m not convinced that Bennett has actually negotiated at all. Perhaps its a cultural thing, but I’ve always thought of “negotiation” as a back-and-forth process, in which the two sides haggle until they reach a mutually acceptable compromise. Laying out plans for a half-billion dollar hoops palace, and then declaring “I’m out of ideas” upon its inevitable rejection? Well, that sounds to me more like an “ultimatum.”

Whatever. The point is, an Oklahoma City kajillionaire — who has long dreamed of bringing an NBA franchise to his city — bought the Sonics, and from the moment the sale was announced, we all understood how unlikely it was to keep the team in Seattle under his ownership. To look at this as just another business deal would be naive, as bringing the team home has a value to Bennett and his partners that far exceeds simple monetary considerations.

The Storm on the other hand, well, Bennett really couldn’t give a shit about bringing a WNBA team home to Oklahoma City, and from what I understand, the feeling is mutual: Storm star Lauren Jackson has already said she wouldn’t follow the team to Oklahoma, and faced with all the uncertainty, Sue Bird only signed a one-year contract.

For Bennett, the Storm is little more than an afterthought, and likely a money-losing one at that, moved to a smaller market and missing its two biggest stars. But in Seattle, the Storm has built a devoted and profitable following.

So if Bennett really wants to show Washingtonians a little “good faith”, the least he could do is divest himself of the Storm before packing up the Sonics and heading East. Besides, the Storm is worth more to us than it is to him, both monetarily and otherwise, especially in the absence of the Sonics. Rumor has it that a group of local investors is willing to put up the estimated $10 million fair market value of the team, and if Bennett is the “stand-up guy” Gov. Gregoire says he is, he’ll entertain a reasonable offer.

All that’s required is a little good faith negotiation.

King County Councilman Bob Ferguson is not running for County Prosecutor, and that means (a birdy tells me) Bill Sherman definitely is.

Sherman a longtime deputy prosecutor and a former aide to Interior Secretary Bruce Babbit, was one of the most pleasant surprises coming out of last year’s hotly contested 43rd Legislative District race. But don’t listen to me heap praise on Sherman, read what the Seattle Times had to say in endorsing his candidacy:

Sherman is a bright new entrant to elective politics who brings a very promising résumé and set of skills.

[…] Sherman has the right mix of temperament, attitude and résumé.

Sherman was an aide to Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt during the Clinton presidency, so he comes with political savvy and awareness of public-policy issues.

Sherman is currently a deputy prosecutor for King County who focuses on domestic violence, something that always can use extra awareness and voice in Olympia.

Sherman is a solid environmentalist with endorsements from Washington Conservation Voters and the Sierra Club.

He is also supported by Allied Arts of Seattle, and is an advocate for improved public education.

His law-and-order job helped draw support from former Seattle City Attorney Mark Sidran, who describes Sherman as a pragmatist and common-sense Democrat best qualified to work with Democrats, Republicans and suburbanites in Olympia.

[…] Sherman is the best all-around candidate. He is a very strong newcomer who will represent the district admirably.

I don’t mean it as a knock against Ferguson, but the Democrats ended up with a better candidate in Sherman. He’s an experienced prosecutor, who, well, is simply much more qualified for the job. And while he doesn’t have Ferguson’s winning track record at the polls, he came from nowhere to be surprisingly competitive in the 43rd LD race.

Sherman will also match up better in the general, pitting his years in the courtroom against Acting Prosecutor Dan Satterberg’s years as an administrator. This’ll be a great race.

UPDATE:
Bill Sherman has confirmed via email:

I’ve decided to run, and will file tomorrow afternoon. I decided to run because I can bring the perspective of a front-line trial prosecutor, working with victims and offenders every day. The Prosecutor’s office needs to focus on protecting the most vulnerable among us; on leading the way in dealing with criminals with severe mental health problems, and stopping the cycle of crime by probationary offenders. I’m excited to lead that effort, and it starts tomorrow.

Sherman has also confirmed that he will be a guest on “The David Goldstein Show“, Sunday night on Newsradio 710-KIRO.

The Discovery Institute’s own Michael Behe has a new book. I’ll admit I don’t know enough about protein-protein binding to actually understand what the hell he’s talking about. But I do know that scientists are laughing at him.

Behe uses a pitiful number of examples (count’em: four) to attempt to establish a generalization that binding sites can’t evolve, ignores numerous known cases where binding sites are known to evolve, and then concludes that anything involving the evolution of two or more binding sites is impossible without mystical unspecified guidance by a mystical unspecified supernatural force that somehow mysteriously frontloads nonrandom mutations into the beginning of the universe. Or something. Behe even says explicitly that malaria and HIV are intelligently designed in just this fashion. Along the way he repeatedly violates the First Commandment of Competent Argument Against Evolution – Get Thee To A Library and Double-Check Thy Generalizations About Biology Against The Biological Literature Or Thou Willst Look Like A Fool. My biggest problems with Behe are within this last point, but Chu-Carroll shows that the math area is just as bad. And I’m sure the philosophers will jump in at some point. Most amazingly, in The Edge of Evolution, Behe treds onto ground occupied by population geneticists. Behe’s first book talked about stuff like flagellum evolution, which was actually pretty devious because the number of people who know enough about evolution, creationism, and a random obscure biological organelle to give a detailed rebuttal is bound to be pretty small. But vast herds of population geneticists stampede around the evolution meetings, trampling all foolish enough to get between them and another exciting session on Drosophila genetics. So Behe invading that turf is kind of like the “land war in Asia” scenario. Not a good idea.

Or to make it more simple:

Wow, double the irreducible complexity! You can’t build cilia without a functioning IFT, so now you have to explain both the origin of the IFT and the origin of cilia. Except that, as Nick shows, this claim is just plain false. Just as his claim in his earlier book that every single factor in the blood clotting cascade must be present in order to function was easily disproven by pointing to dolphins, which lack Factor XII (Hagemann factor) yet still have blood that clots), this claim is easily disproven by showing that, in the real world, there exist organisms which have cilia but do not have the IFT.

Nick shows a chart and offers a citation showing that there is an existing organism that has a cilium but does not have IFT, an organism in a group called Apicomplexans. Specifically, a parasitic organism in that group. More specifically, a parasite known as Plasmodium falciparum. You might know it by its better known name: malaria. Yes, the very organism that Behe spends much of his book using as evidence of IC actually disproves his claim about the cilia/IFT system being irreducible. Oops.

Hmm. Well maybe a research assistant who deals with infectious diseases can shed some light on the subject.

1. Evolution can be modeled in terms of a static, unchanging fitness landscape.
2. The fitness landscape is a smooth, surface made up of hills and valleys, where a local minimum or maximum in any dimension is a local minimum or maximum in all dimensions.
3. The fitness function mapping from a genome to a point of the fitness landscape is monotonically increasing.
4. The fitness function is smoothly continuous, with infinitessimally small changes (single-point base chanages) mapping to infinitessimally small changes in position on the fitness landscape.

Ouch. I dont talk about my research directly a whole lot here (except for pretty pictures, of course), but like I put in my blurb, I study the evolution of HIV within patients and within populations. Fitness and fitness landscapes are vital to my research. And if Mark has summarized Behes claims properly– Im kinda peeved *fumes*

No one can have a basic, basic, basic understanding of ‘fitness landscapes’ and come out thinking those four points are valid. Just watch, Ill explain fitness landscapes to you all right now in the context of HIV, and you will get it! You, even those of you with zero biological training, will be able to refute Professional Creationist Michael Behe! Yay!

And if you’re like me, you won’t actually get it, but you’ll get closer, so you might as well read go read it.

And this has some obvious real world implications. Namely if you don’t know how malaria works, it becomes very tough to cure malaria. Same with HIV or any other virus. If you’re hoping that God or magic or whatever unseen, unknowable force is acting on these diseases, well, I certainly believe in the power of prayer, but I also believe in knowing how things work. In experimentation. In moving slowly, one piece of data at a time, one experiment at a time, one peer reviewed paper at a time toward the truth.

That’s where the creationists and the intelligent designers bug the fuck out of me. Because even more important than any real world implication, is a basic attack on the truth. We humans believe a lot of crazy things (I certainly believe in the power of prayer). We take shortcuts in our thinking and we all bring in biases and our partial information to whatever we’re trying to discover. So science has taken great pains to figure out ways to minimize these problems so that we can get at the truth. And then these anti-intellectual institutions think they can just yell “nu hu!” and that their argument is just as good as the scientific method. But if evolution isn’t the best explanation, then do what plate tectonics and what quantum physics and every other new discovery in science has done: prove it! Make claims that can be proven wrong with experimentation (as opposed to God might do something, or He might have done something). Then if those claims aren’t proven wrong, you’re on the way. Publish in scientific journals. Repeat like a zillion times so you know it wasn’t a fluke and people will start to believe you. Then, maybe you can write your book.

But if you yell “nu hu!” enough, and let your biases and prejudices interfere with human advancement toward the truth, you create your own world. And that world can be scary to those of us looking at it from outside.

These folks living in their own world give skepticism a bad name. If it’s these creationists or if it’s Exxon scientists. And skepticism is vital to that advancement toward the truth. I’m thrilled that people are questioning even our basic assumptions. I’m disgusted that people think just saying “no” without proving it, or really even trying is the same thing as honest skepticism.

And it is embarrassing that a Seattle institution is getting in the way of finding the truth. It’s horrible to have to read, “Seattle’s Discovery Institute” as if the city had something to do with those freaks.

As a college student in Michigan ten years ago, I went to see Dr. Jack Kevorkian speak. At the end of his talk, people were allowed to ask questions. After a handful of questions over legal issues, a wheelchair-bound man took the microphone and began accusing Dr. Kevorkian of being a murderer and encouraging people with disabilities to end their lives. The old doctor at the podium tried his best to respond to the baseless accusations, but with every attempt to set the record straight, the man in the wheelchair just became more enraged and more belligerent.

I have no idea who it was that gave this disabled individual the idea that Kevorkian had a desire to kill people in his situation, but the media-crafted persona of him as “Dr. Death” allowed for many people to misunderstand him and to avoid the very simple point that he was trying to make – that it’s not the government’s role to tell people how to deal with the reality of terminal illnesses and unmanageable pain. And the hysteria that followed his fame and his brashness sent this gaunt old man to jail soon after.

Upon his release from jail last week, media outlets seemed incredulous that Kevorkian hasn’t changed his mind about his actions. There’s no reason for him to. He’s standing up for a principle that is fundamental to our rights and to what this country is all about. Our government should not have the right to impose a particular morality upon its citizens. If a person with a terminal illness feels that they wish to control the way they leave this earth, the government should have no right to stop them. If a person dealing with pain so excruciating that they can no longer enjoy their existence decides that death is a better alternative, it’s simply unconscionable to force that person to continue to endure the pain. This man went to prison for 8 years in defense of these rights, and for that, he’s a hero.

In America today, our growing tendency to believe that government has a role in making our moral choices for us is sending more and more people to jail who clearly don’t belong there. In Spokane, a 66-year-old woman named Christine Rose Baggett is facing a felony charge. Baggett suffers from arthritis, two herniated discs in her back, and a bad ankle. Why is this clear menace to society being charged?

What the court record shows is that Baggett admitted purchasing an ounce of marijuana from a man on Aug. 23 for $180. But she gave some of it back to him “as payment for delivering the marijuana to her.”

Baggett, like many other people with similar ailments, had discovered that marijuana is very effective and inexpensive pain reliever. But despite the fact that Washington State voters overwhelmingly voted for the legal use of medical marijuana, prosecutors in Spokane still believe that they’re protecting society by hauling this poor old woman through the court system on technicalities.

Going back to Dr. Kevorkian, do people really believe that by sending someone like him to jail it was going to change his mind? This is a man who already believed that the law was wrong and was expecting to go to jail. Why would following through on the threat have any meaning at all, other than to prove to Kevorkian how dangerous the government has become in following its delusions?

The United States has 5% of the world’s population and 25% of the world’s prisoners. There are a number of reasons for this, but much of it boils down to our collective belief that prison is an effective tool for enforcing moral conformity, rather than just a way to provide justice for victims of crime. We understand that it’s fair and just to have a system where people who harm others are removed from free society and locked up. But it’s time we recognize that jail is not the place for those who aren’t harming anyone but whose personal moral choices we may disapprove of.

After a decade of producing 5-10 columns a week for various outlets, I’ve been mostly taking a break from writing these past few months, which is why Goldy’s comment the other day about my technically being a poster. But the P-I’s article this morning on city council candidate Joe Szwaja pissed me off sufficiently to post – and then I see Will already got to the article last night.

I really like Will, but his post on Joe Szwaja’s troubles in the past misses a really simple point: Why did the P-I run this story? How did Angela Galloway think to check Wisconsin court and newspaper records, and just happen to have a story on it ready the same week Szwaja’s kickoff event raised over $17,000? And if you’re going to compare Szwaja to Dixon, as Will does – a sort of ridiculous comparison anyway, since this is a non-partisan race and most of the people who have backed Szwaja for this race have nothing to do with the Greens – why did the P-I run only one story mentioning Dixon’s (non-) voting record, and never run any mention of his extensive legal problems, either Dixon’s current misdemeanor ones or his two prison stretches for rather serious crimes in the 1980’s? Somehow, that wasn’t relevant or newsworthy, but Szwaja’s misdemeanor incidents from nearly 20 years ago are.

I’ll tell you exactly why the P-I is running this story: because Godden’s campaign fed it to them. Jean Godden worked at the P-I for many years before jumping to the Times, and she has consistently received glowing, uncritical coverage from both papers during her four years on council despite being its most inert member. When running four years ago, her editorial board interview at Seattle Weekly showed a stunning lack of awareness of civic issues, and she hasn’t improved on the job – treating that powerful $100,000+ a year job as some sort of civic retirement prize for having attended all the right parties during her decades as a gossip columnist. I’ve had several council aides tell me privately the same thing I’ve seen with my own eyes: In four years, Godden literally hasn’t done anything of significance on the council. She’s barely kept the seat warm.

Want to know where the P-I is coming from? Any writer or editor will tell you that the subtle little twists of wording, as well as what’s omitted, are how you lead a reader:

Although he initially declined repeatedly to elaborate about what he said were inaccuracies in Madison newspaper accounts, he was more forthcoming in a later interview Wednesday…

A lot of interview subjects won’t comment on the record, or so do extensively, when first ambushed with questions about, say, their past personal life; when I did a piece on former radio host Mike Webb for the Weekly last year, I spent nearly a month getting him to go on the record with detailed responses, which, to his credit, he eventually did. It’s a standard part of the reporting process to get people to talk. I’ve never seen this sort of caveat dropped into the story itself.

[Szwaja] said he has had a good driving record since moving to Seattle in 1993.

You think the P-I didn’t check this? So why present it as Szwaja’s unsupported claim?

And so on.

Szwaja’s web site has a reasonably good response to these charges (another contrast with Dixon), and I’ve spoken with him about them and am satisfied with his answers. I’ve known Joe (though not well) through any number of activist connections over the years, and have always wished the Greens had more people like him. He’s smart, competent, and principled – and unlike Godden, he won’t treat a council seat as a gold watch. Maybe that’s why Godden’s campaign felt threatened enough to go after him through her former employer.

Rep. Adam Smith will appear tonight on Comedy Central’s The Colbert Report, as the latest victim in the show’s “Better Know A District” segment. Why? According to Rep. Smith’s press release: “A lapse in judgment on the part of Smith’s communications director.”

No truer words were ever spoken. Or, um… written.