HorsesAss.Org

Search Results for: ’

Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza!

by — ,

Cenk: Anti-gay pastor caught maturating near a playground.

Thom: The Good, the Bad, and the Very, Very Ugly.

Maddow: Anti-gay marriage language slipped into Ohio “budget” bill.

Pres. Obama toasts Gov. Gregoire and the whole pack of Gubernators:

Defense of Marriage Act: That’s gay.

Revolution in the MiddleEast:

Young Turks: Anti-Muslim bill in TN.

Drug Czar Kerlikowske on pot legalization and the Seattle Times (via Slog).

Jon: The Pardon of the Christ (via TalkingPointsMemo).

Thom: “How far will you birthers go to keep a black person from being president?”

FAUX News “facts”:

Young Turks: Huckabee’s anti-Obama quasi-Birfer comment.

Sam Seder: George Will takes the Crazy Train to Glenn Becksville.

Revolution in the Middle West:

Stephen: New Country for Old Men (via OneGoodMove).

Young Turks: Sen. Hatch and the “Federal Government Dumbass Program”.

Rep: Jay Inslee (D-WA-01) on Boeing tanker deal:

White House: Behind the Scenes at “The Motown Sound”.

Federal Budget Battle:

Lawrence O’Donnell: How Mike Huckabee smears Mitt Romney.

Mark Fiore: Little Suzie Newsykins with “Cut and Run”.

Maddow: Newt’s fundraising scam.

EMILY’s List Senators fighting the G.O.P. war on women.

Young Turks: New Polls show U.S. liberal on taxes, budget cuts, bargaining rights.

Lawrence O’Donnell dismisses Huckabee’s ‘Boy Scout’ talk as culturally detached ‘lying’.

Ann Telnaes: Republican Trojan horse.

Young Turks: Strictest abortion law in U.S. coming to South “Coat Hanger” Dakota.

White House: West Wing Week.

Haters Have Free Speech Too:

Young Turks: 9-week year old fetus to testify.

Thom: Is there a civil war coming in the GOP?

The story of Citizens United v. FEC:

Maddow: Obama to G.O.P. governors, “Put-up or shut-up!

Cenk fires back at Rush.

Newsy’s hat trick in crazy: Teabagger compares Boehner to Charlie Sheen.

Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.

Polls: Americans strongly oppose stripping public workers of bargaining rights

by — ,

Yesterday there was this NY Times poll, of 984 adults, taken 24 to 27 Feb (3% margin of error):

Americans oppose weakening the bargaining rights of public employee unions by a margin of nearly two to one: 60 percent to 33 percent. While a slim majority of Republicans favored taking away some bargaining rights, they were outnumbered by large majorities of Democrats and independents who said they opposed weakening them.
[…]

The poll found that an overwhelming 71 percent of Democrats opposed weakening collective bargaining rights. But there was also strong opposition from independents: 62 percent of them said they opposed taking bargaining rights away from public employee unions.
[…]

The one group that favors weakening those rights, by a slim majority, was Republicans.

And today, a similar poll from the Wall Street Journal and NBC is about to be released. This poll sampled 1,000 adults (3.1% margin of error). From the preliminary WSJ write-up:

Eliminating collective bargaining rights for public-sector workers over health care, pensions or other benefits would be either “mostly unacceptable” or “totally unacceptable,” 62% of those surveyed said. Only 33% support such limits.

The results don’t bode well for Wisconsin’s newly elected Republican governor, Scott Walker, who is locked in a standoff with statehouse Democrats and unionized state workers over these rights.
[…]

Similarly, 77%…think unionized state and municipal employees should have the same rights as those union members who work for private companies.

You know, I seriously doubt the same poll taken six months ago would have come out anywhere near this pro-Labor. Gov. Walker’s extreme, and ham-handed politics, with a helping hand from New Jersey, Indiana, Michigan, Ohio, etc. has been a big awakening for America’s inner progressive.

The question is does Walker do more damage by compromise, or by standing firm on stripping public employees of their collective bargaining rights?

Either way…Walker’s and the right wing extremist’s War on Workers has sustained a huge blow.

HA Bible Study

by — ,

Numbers 31:7-18
They attacked Midian as the Lord had commanded Moses, and they killed all the men. All five of the Midianite kings—Evi, Rekem, Zur, Hur, and Reba—died in the battle. They also killed Balaam son of Beor with the sword.

Then the Israelite army captured the Midianite women and children and seized their cattle and flocks and all their wealth as plunder. They burned all the towns and villages where the Midianites had lived. After they had gathered the plunder and captives, both people and animals, they brought them all to Moses and Eleazar the priest, and to the whole community of Israel, which was camped on the plains of Moab beside the Jordan River, across from Jericho. Moses, Eleazar the priest, and all the leaders of the community went to meet them outside the camp. But Moses was furious with all the generals and captains[a] who had returned from the battle.

“Why have you let all the women live?” he demanded. “These are the very ones who followed Balaam’s advice and caused the people of Israel to rebel against the Lord at Mount Peor. They are the ones who caused the plague to strike the Lord’s people. So kill all the boys and all the women who have had intercourse with a man. Only the young girls who are virgins may live; you may keep them for yourselves.

Discuss.

The weekend rallies for workers

by — ,

Pro-democracy, pro-worker rallies were held in all 50 states on Saturday. People were protesting Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker’s move to take away collective bargaining rights from public employees (at least those in unions that did not support Walker’s election campaign). More generally, people were protesting the Republican War on Workers.

Here in Washington a rally was held in Olympia where

…several thousand union workers faced off with hundreds of tea party enthusiasts in competing rallies.

King 5 has a gallery of photos of today’s event in Olympia.

The main even in Madison, Wisconsin drew, perhaps, 125,000 people—seemingly the largest protest ever in a city known for big protests. (FWIW, the Madison police provide an estimate of from 70,000 to 100,000 protesters.)

Even police officers joined the protesters in a remarkable show of solidarity:

“Hundreds of cops have just marched into the Wisconsin state capitol building to protest the anti-Union bill, to massive applause. They now join up to 600 people who are inside.”
[…]

“Police […] announced to the crowds inside the occupied State Capitol of Wisconsin: ‘We have been ordered by the legislature to kick you all out at 4:00 today. But we know what’s right from wrong. We will not be kicking anyone out, in fact, we will be sleeping here with you!’

Here is the video:

And even though the right wing lunatics will claim that all those protesters in Wisconsin were bussed in by George Soros with help from ACORN and Van Jones, there were, apparently, enough people left behind to put together an impressive number of rallies all over the U.S.

Here are some estimates from the numerous other locations that I was able to find Saturday evening using The Google:

Here is a nice collection of photos from protests around the country.

As I mentioned previously, Walker may well get his way in Wisconsin. But he will pay dearly for it in Wisconsin.

A recent USA Today/Gallup poll shows that “61% would oppose a law in their state similar to such a proposal in Wisconsin, compared with 33% who would favor such a law.” If Republicans in other states join in on Walker’s War on Workers, the damage will certainly spread to them.

Update: As Dave points out, I missed Spokane. I’ll include an addenda. Leave a comment if you find news of another demonstration from the weekend:

Update: Fifty more photos.

Thug Life

by — ,

Remember this incident from last May?

Christine Casey, patient coordinator of North End Club 420, tells the Weekly that the detectives from the West Sound Narcotics Enforcement Team (WestNet) who came to her house in Olalla (west of Vashon Island) handcuffed her 14-year-old son for two hours and put a gun to his head. They also told the kid to say good-bye to his dad, Guy Casey, because the dispensary owner was going to prison.

And as the detectives looked for cash to prove that the dispensary was illegally profiting from pot sales, Casey says, they confiscated $80 that her 9-year-old daughter had received from her family for a straight-A report card. Where did they find it?

In the girl’s Mickey Mouse wallet, according to Casey. She also claims that the cops dumped out all her silverware, busted a hole in the wall, and broke appliances. She alleges too that the cops finger-wrote “I sell pot” in the dust covering the family’s Hummer, which the cops then seized. (WestNet did not return repeated calls seeking comment.)

At the time, I wrote:

Once again, WestNET is claiming that a “police operative” repeatedly bought marijuana from the Caseys without showing a medical marijuana authorization. The Caseys deny it. If the Caseys are telling the truth, it’s just another reason to put pressure on our state’s Congressional delegation to eliminate WestNET’s federal funding.

Today, the Tacoma News-Tribune reports what nearly everyone in the medical marijuana community has known for quite some time:

Pierce County prosecutors have dismissed numerous drug charges filed last year against two men who run a Tacoma medical-marijuana cooperative.

Guy Lewis Casey and Michael Jonathan Schaef – who operate the Club 420 cooperative on Oregon Avenue – had been scheduled for trial in April.

Deputy prosecutor Jennifer L. Sievers filed paperwork Tuesday dismissing the case, saying that after further investigation she had “doubts as to the veracity” of a confidential informant who fed information to police.

Just as with the Bruce Olson case, the WestNET drug task force used the word of an untrustworthy “informant” in order to justify their invasions on law-abiding members of the medical marijuana community. Again, it’s time for our representatives in Congress to ask why this group continues to receive federal funding in order to destroy the homes of innocent people and terrorize their families.

Nebraskghanistan

by — ,

Remember the Taliban before the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan?

They were embattled politicians made up of religious fundamentists using extreme interpretations of ancient religious texts to justify their oppression of women and the murder of people with whom they disagreed.

So…how is this any different?

Last week, South Dakota’s legislature shelved a bill, introduced by Republican state Rep. Phil Jensen, which would have allowed the use of the “justifiable homicide” defense for killings intended to prevent harm to a fetus. Now a nearly identical bill is being considered in neighboring Nebraska, where on Wednesday the state legislature held a hearing on the measure.

The legislation, LB 232, was introduced by state Sen. Mark Christensen, a devout Christian and die-hard abortion foe who is opposed to the prodedure even in the case of rape. Unlike its South Dakota counterpart, which would have allowed only a pregnant woman, her husband, her parents, or her children to commit “justifiable homicide” in defense of her fetus, the Nebraska bill would apply to any third party.

“In short, this bill authorizes and protects vigilantes, and that’s something that’s unprecedented in our society,” Melissa Grant of Planned Parenthood of the Heartland told the Nebraska legislature’s judiciary committee on Wednesday.

Behold, the resurgence of the American Taliban.

Update: Matt Yglesias points out the more pernicious effect of the legislation from South Dakota and Nebraska:

…there’s actually no need whatsoever for such a bill to pass. You just need several state legislators to introduce the bill, hold hearings, popularize the idea, generate press coverage and discussion, etc. Soon enough we’ll have another assassination of an obstetrician and the perpetrator will use the justifiable homicide defense. Say 20 percent of Nebraskans decide that, yeah, abortion is murder to killing abortion providers is justifiable homicide. How’re you going to get a unanimous verdict from a jury?

Shaky Statistics

by — ,

Now that Goldy isn’t the head honcho here any more, I think I’ll pick on him today. Over at Slog, he posts:

Following the success of last year’s local initiative outlawing red-light cameras in his hometown of Mukilteo, Eyman’s taking his latest for-profit/anti-government gimmick on the road. This year, he’s cosponsoring copycat measures in Bellingham, Monroe, Wenatchee, and Longview. But while Eyman provocatively characterizes the cameras as the “crack cocaine” of city budget writers and “taxation-­by-­citation, just another way for government to pick the pockets of taxpayers,” a definitive new study conducted by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety (IIHS) finds that red-light cameras save lives.

Comparing crash statistics between 1992–1996 and 2004–2008 in the 99 US cities with populations above 200,000, researchers found a 35 percent reduction in red-light fatalities in cities that implemented red-light-camera programs, versus a 14 percent reduction in those that did not.

But the cameras’ benefits actually proved to be much bigger. When all crashes at signaled intersections were tallied, not just those due to red-light running, total fatalities dropped 14 percent in cities with cameras, while rising 2 percent in cities without.

This should be fairly obvious, but the evidence described in the third paragraph doesn’t exactly bolster Goldy’s assertion. It’s proof that there are a number of other factors causing declines in vehicle fatalities other than what’s happening at red light camera intersections. These could be related to safer car construction, fewer miles traveled, changes to traffic patterns, or something else. If there’s a reduction of 14 percent in red light crashes in cities that didn’t implement red light cameras, then there are another explanations for the decline. And that explanation could perhaps also explain why there was a gap in the overall statistics from city to city.

Here’s a page from the National Motorists Association that criticizes other aspects of the study, and another page from them that details out some studies which have shown that red light cameras increase accidents.

The National Motorists Association is an organization with a strong bias in this matter, and they often play up the increase in rear-end collisions that are seen with the implementation of red light cameras, while ignoring the decreases in side-angle crashes (which are more likely to cause fatalities) from the very same studies. In the end, I think there’s a case to be made that red light cameras provide some benefit, although I find this study to be completely unconvincing in the effort of making that case. In fact, this part at the end of their press release gives you an idea of how little their numbers are actually telling them and how they understand them even less:

Results in each of the 14 camera cities varied. The biggest drop in the rate of fatal red light running crashes came in Chandler, Ariz., where the decline was 79 percent. Two cities, Raleigh, NC, and Bakersfield, Calif., experienced an increase.

“We don’t know exactly why the data from Raleigh and Bakersfield didn’t line up with what we found elsewhere,” McCartt says. “Both cities have expanded geographically over the past two decades, and that probably has a lot to do with it.”

But Chandler has easily been one of the fastest growing cities in the United States over the past 20 years as well. Why did it experience such a dramatic decrease in vehicle fatalities while Bakersfield and Raleigh saw increases? There are certainly reasons for it, but it should be evident that red light cameras aren’t one of those reasons. When looking at red light cameras and trying to figure out whether or not they work, any study that isn’t looking at specific intersections and comparing data isn’t really worth much in this debate.

Unions

by — ,

Patrick O’Callahan of the Tacoma News Tribune has an editorial about public sector unions. Because daily newspapers in this state exist mostly to serve the powerful, he doesn’t like them.

In Wisconsin, the backlash against government unions has taken the form of a GOP drive to repeal collective bargaining for most public-sector employees. Similar drives are happening in other states where Republicans recently won governorships and gained control over legislatures.

In Washington in 2 years it may take the form of Rob McKenna if we’re not vigilant. But of course these types of editorials serve as a test run for their pro McKenna propaganda. So here’s my test run of opposing that bullshit.

This would not be happening if the unions had the support of the public. Many of those unions have forfeited that support by clinging to lush compensation packages at a time when workers in the private sector – including union members – are enduring the toughest economy in generations. A time when public services are being scaled back ruthlessly while generous labor contracts have continued on autopilot.

Yes, if only teachers agreed to live in poverty for the privilege of long hours ensuring the next generation has the requisite skills to survive as adults. If only firefighters would pay for all of their own health care for the honor of saving your life and property. If only police and prosecutors would demand extra, uncompensated work because putting criminals away is just so inherently rewarding. If only doctors and nurses were demanding to pay for their own training. Then perhaps the editorial writers in this state would support them.

Too many examples are found in Pierce County. Although the cost of living has been flat, some union leaders have adamantly rejected pleas to reopen their contracts to reduce “cost-of-living” raises that considerably exceed the actual rate of inflation.

That’s how it’s supposed to work in a healthy economy. Wages are supposed to rise beyond inflation. What do you want all public employees to make, inflation adjusted, the same as they were making in the early days of the Oregon Territory? As if there shouldn’t have been any raise in the standard of living for public employees ever? Come on. That attitude is why we have public employee unions.

County workers saw their compensation increase by 23 percent between 2005 and 2009, when their private sectors saw 14 percent. They’re doing quite well. Yet their leaders last year refused a request to roll back another round of raises, though the rollback would have helped spare county services.

This is such bullshit. This editorial and the thousands of others we’ve read and will read about public sector unions in all the papers across the state never seem to have any suggestions to bump up those numbers for private sector employees. It’s always cited as fucking gospel that the private sector numbers are a fact of nature as immovable as a boulder in your path. But if you believe these numbers and want public and private employees making roughly the same, then you need to figure out how improve the pay of private sector employees. It seems to me that the numbers you’re throwing around are a pretty damn fine case for more and stronger private sector unions.

Savaging Santorum and Goldy’s Google goods

by — ,

Roll Call provides a history of the savage Santorum smear concocted (so to speak) by Dan Savage. Former Pennsylvania Senator and likely 2012 GOP presidential primary candidate Rick Santorum has a rather persistent “Google problem.”

Santorum’s Google problem began in 2003, when gay sex-advice columnist Dan Savage sought to mock Santorum’s comments on homosexuality. Then the third-most-powerful Republican in the Senate, Santorum told the Associated Press that April that gay sex could “undermine the fabric of our society.” The interview touched on a Supreme Court case related to sexual privacy, and Santorum compared homosexual acts to allowing for “man on child, man on dog” relationships.
[…]

Savage soon created the website spreadingsantorum.com, tied to a contest in which he asked readers to submit definitions for the term “santorum.”

The winning entry…see santorum.

As a former constituent of Sen. Santorum, my initial reaction upon hearing the neologism was, “Brilliant!” Two reasons why.

First, it just feels…um, maybe I should say, it just sounds right. Dan Savage wouldn’t talk to Roll Call about it, but in 2003 he completely nailed the “sounds right” aspect:

What works so well about santorum is that a smart Savage Love reader linked Senator Santorum’s vaguely clinical-sounding name with something distinctly scatological, an anal-sex-induced bodily fluid that had previously lacked a really good name. ‘Santorum’ sounds like it could be what that frothy mix of lube and fecal matter has always been called, and that’s why it’s caught on.

Yeah…that’s it!

santorumThe second reason is…I don’t know why, but Rick Santorum always struck me as a deeply repressed gay man, full of self-loathing, and trapped in his life as an anal retentive conservative Republican. You know…like a younger, more uptight, Eastern version of Larry Craig minus the restless leg syndrome. It wouldn’t surprise me if Santorum is one day discovered in a cheap motel room, tied up to the bed posts (wait…posts on a motel bed?!?) naked and face down, with a leather-clad young man, whip in hand, lashing and scolding him for being a bad boy. No santorum involved. Just punishment.

Yes…a Santorum presidential bid will cause Dan Savage’s Google monster to come alive with good clean fun and salacious innuendo. (That’s right…we’re talkin’ santorum innuendo.)

Speaking of which, Goldy leaves HA with his own legacy of Google search results. Google Luke Esser and the second entry still points to Goldy’s Luke Esser Fucks Pigs complaint to the Legislative Ethics Board. Sen. Esser lost the election, so I guess the Ethics Board never got around to following up on the complaint….

Or Google Bradley Marshall and the number three entry is Goldy’s Bradley Marshall is a pussy post. (The number two entry is Dan Savage’s contribution based on Goldy’s post.)

Bradley Marshall, a Seattle lawyer, was upset by something Michael Hood posted at Blatherwatch—a post that was both tame and factual. Marshall had a suspended law license at the time, and was under investigation by the Washington State Bar Association. It couldn’t have helped that he mailed a cease and desist letter using his official letterhead (implying he was licensed to practice law). The Bar Association was made aware. A year later, perhaps for totally unrelated reasons, the Washington Supreme Court disbarred him. Almost everyone came out a winner on that one.

Google David Irons and the second entry, Raging Bullshitter: the sad twisted tale of the Irons family feud documents some of the weaknesses (and strengths!) of the candidate for King County Executive. Irons lost.

Or, from another perspective, his mother won.

Roundabout

by — ,

I stumbled across this article today:

Woodinville’s Tourist District Roundabout Transportation Improvement Project received an engineering excellence award from the Washington State Chapter of the American Council of Engineering Companies (ACEC). The award was presented to the Woodinville City Council on February 8.

The roundabout project won a gold award in the category of exceeding client/owner needs. […]

A number of other national professional engineering groups have also recognized Woodinville’s project for its innovative use of three roundabouts. […]

Roundabouts2

What drew my attention is that I use this bit of road at least several times a month. It reminded me that I been meaning to post a RANT about Washington drivers and their seeming inability to use roundabouts effectively.

Before I take up a menacing stance upon my mighty soapbox, let me first add to the praises of this project. For many years now, I have made almost weekly trips from my home in Redmond to Snohomish. I take SR 202 (or the Redmond–Woodinville road) to Woodinville and then pick up SR 9 to Snohomish. The intersection of SR 202 and Northeast 145th, was sometimes a mess. During rush hour, SR 202 used to back up for a mile or two. But even during low traffic periods, the intersection of roads at odd angles, combined with the particular traffic flows rendered an annoyingly low throughput at this intersection. According to this 2006 Seattle Times article, people have been trying to find a fix for this problem since the 1970s.

Roundabouts were the answer. Not those wimpy little traffic calming circles that one finds all over Seattle. These are real (if smallish) traffic roundabouts. About a year ago, they finished the project that consists of one main 2-lane roundabout. And there are two satellite roundabouts (see image) that, in part, serve to slow traffic down and permit a smaller main roundabout footprint.

My assessment: Fantastic! The one-way time between my house and my destination in Snohomish was reduced from 40 minutes to just under 35 minutes. Also the variance in trip time was reduced. Essentially, getting through the SR 202/NE 145th intersection is now both faster and accomplished in about the same amount of time each trip. I truly love these things.

What annoys me about roundabouts is the stupid-ass drivers who have no idea how to use them effectively. There are some simple tricks that, when everyone is in on it, makes them much more efficient. So, at the risk of being dubbed “The Traffic Nazi” by someone other than my significant other (Happy Valentines day, dear!), allow me to offer some advice to the traffic circle novice.

  1. In America, you travel counterclockwise around the roundabout. Yes…I’ve witnessed (more than once) the car in front of me approach the roundabout in total confusion and then hang a left. Sigh.
  2. Enter, traverse, and exit the traffic circle at a fairly constant speed. There is almost no excuse for stopping. Never stop in the circle unless not stopping would result in death (wayward pedestrian) or property damage (an idiot stopped in front of you). There is no need for slowing or accelerating through the circle. Just hang a constant 20 MPH (or whatever is appropriate for the circle size). If you find yourself changing speeds…you have probably fucked something up.
  3. There is never ANY reason to panic in a traffic circle. In the past year of near weekly use of this newly redesigned stretch of highway, I cannot tell you how many times drivers in front of me have slammed on their brakes in confusion, or have exited in front of me only to pull a semi-panicked U-turn in front of me on the main drag. Dude…don’t panic. If you’re confused, and going counterclockwise, just chill and continue to circle. (On the other hand, if you are confused and going clockwise…panic!!!) Seriously, you can drive around a roundabout all day, and nobody will notice (except for that other pitifully confused driver going around in circles…but who cares what that dumb-ass thinks!). If you miss your turn, take a lap or two and exit with a Zen calmness once you’ve figured it all out.
  4. When exiting the roundabout, USE YOUR GOD-DAMMED BLINKER…without fail. And USE YOUR DAMN BLINKER, TOO. Blinker good. Blinky-blinker-blink! By my estimates, only about one percent of drivers in Woodinville understand this small, but important, form of communication. In Europe, the compliance approaches 100% in my experience. Really…it helps everyone (especially the car waiting on you before entering the roundabout) if you signal your exit about midway between the previous exit and your desired exit. Not signaling means you have wasted other people’s time and fuel.
  5. When approaching the roundabout, time your entrance so that you don’t have to stop. There is no stop sign at the entrance. Except in heavy traffic conditions, a full stop probably means you have failed to plan properly, and everyone behind you suffers. Of course you must yield right of way to traffic in the roundabout. But, like freeway on-ramps, you should plan the maneuver from early-on for a smooth merge with existing traffic (and don’t get me started about idiots braking on freeway on-ramps!). By the way…if a vehicle in the roundabout has to adjust for your entrance…you’ve fucked up. It was your responsibility to enter without affecting the flow within the circle.

Whew! I’m glad I finally got that off of my chest.

HA Bible Study

by — ,

1 Peter 2:13-14
Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human authority: whether to the emperor, as the supreme authority, or to governors, who are sent by him to punish those who do wrong and to commend those who do right.

Discuss.

HA Bible Study

by — ,

Matthew 5:31-32
“It has been said, ‘Anyone who divorces his wife must give her a certificate of divorce.’ But I tell you that anyone who divorces his wife, except for sexual immorality, makes her the victim of adultery, and anyone who marries a divorced woman commits adultery.

Discuss.

Moscow airport bombing exposes obvious flaw in airport security

by — ,

In reading the New York Times coverage of today’s tragic bombing at a Moscow airport, I found the summation by former Department of Homeland Security official Stephen A. Baker to be rather curious:

“They’d like to be bombing planes and they can’t, so they’re bombing airports,” he said, adding that the attack “validates the focus that the U.S. has had on security at airports.”

Um… really? And how exactly would our focus on airport security have stopped a determined suicide bomber like the one who struck in Moscow today? As I wrote back in December:

In fact, if I were a dedicated suicide bomber (and just to be clear to federal authorities, I’m not), I’d pack a rolling, carry-on suitcase with as much explosives as possible, pick the busiest time of the day, wheel it through the snaking security line until I was in the very middle of the crowd, and then… BOOM!

Depending on the sophistication of the device, such an attack would kill and injure dozens, possibly hundreds, and achieve the same catastrophic impact on the airline industry without having to devise a way to sneak a weapon through security. And since the target is created by the screening process itself, such attacks would be virtually unstoppable, as any attempt to expand the security perimeter would merely create more targets.

I wasn’t prescient at all. Just stating the obvious.

As a 13-year-old visiting London in 1976, during the height of the IRA’s bombing campaigns, I was somewhat amused by the repeated announcements at Heathrow Airport that unattended baggage would be “removed and destroyed.” Less amusing were the armed soldiers who patrolled the halls, a sight that seemed incredibly incongruent to a sheltered, American suburbanite. But suicide bombings were not the IRA’s schtick, and so heightened security and vigilance had obvious rewards.

But in the age of the suicide bomber, not quite so much. There’s simply no practical way to screen passengers and their suitcases prior to arriving at the airport, and as today’s Moscow bombing illustrates, no amount of TSA screening can protect the crowds amassed outside the security perimeter. So if anything, I’d say today’s tragedy invalidates our focus on patting down 13-year-old girls… unless, of course, TSA’s real mandate is to protect the airplanes, not necessarily the people flying on them.

A Cheech and Chong Newspaper Editorial

by — ,

In an editorial entitled “A Cheech and Chong ‘medical’ marijuana bill“, the Tacoma News-Tribune’s Patrick O’Callahan goes after the medical marijuana bill introduced by Senator Jeanne Kohl-Welles and discussed last Thursday at the Capitol. O’Callahan’s editorial is fairly typical of the snide, dismissive editorializing that remains standard within many of our nation’s newspapers, but in the off-chance that anyone is taking this pile of nonsense seriously, I’d like to break it down and provide an informed perspective:

It must have taken some doing, but advocates of “medical” marijuana have come up with a bill that would actually invite more abuse of the drug than straightforward legalization.

Right away, O’Callahan starts with a mistaken premise. By assuming that even straightforward legalization “invites more abuse” of the drug, he ignores a significant amount of research showing that drug laws themselves have no demonstrable bearing on the amount of drug abuse a society encounters. And as has been pointed out numerous times over the years, the amount of marijuana use in Holland, a nation which has tolerated sales of marijuana in coffeeshops for over 35 years, has less marijuana use than the United States, where we arrest over 750,000 people per year just for possessing it.

Even worse, his editorial never fully explains how he came to this conclusion. He’s just spit-balling criticisms, hoping they’ll stick.

The “medical” belongs in quotation marks here, because the measure in Olympia would junk a key rule designed to prevent common drug seekers from getting marijuana on medical pretenses. And once recreational users or addicts got their pseudo-medical authorizations to use the drug, they’d enjoy more privileges than simple legalization would give them.

O’Callahan never specifies what the “key rule” is, so I can only guess at what he’s referring to. But in looking at the bill, and knowing how the system currently works, I can’t imagine any way in which it gets any easier or harder for someone to get a medical marijuana authorization under this bill. My best guess is that he’s referring to the removal of language that specified that a condition couldn’t be alleviated by other medicines in order for the authorization to hold up in court. But that never made a difference to doctors, only judges and prosecutors. And the language was removed precisely for that reason. A judge – or any other government employee – is not your doctor, and shouldn’t be in a position to second-guess doctors over what medicines you should be taking.

They’d be protected, for example, if ex-spouses objected to leaving children in their care; judges would not be permitted to consider marijuana use as a factor in custody arrangements except in extreme cases involving “long-term impairment” – whatever that means.

What that means is that if you get cancer and your doctor authorizes you to use marijuana to deal with the nausea you experience as you go through chemotherapy, your ex-wife or ex-husband can’t use that to prevent you from seeing your kids. That’s just one example, but there are many others that warrant this provision in the bill. If a parent is irresponsible or incapable of being a parent, that’s one thing. But the reality of medical marijuana is that most of the people who use it lead very normal lives and can function perfectly well as parents. They don’t get “high” from the drug and act loopy all day. In fact, if you want to see a good profile of a parent who uses medical marijuana, watch the CNBC documentary “Marijuana Inc”, where they interview a patient’s two sons who tell the reporter that medical marijuana “gave them their father back” because it allowed him to deal with his pain and lead a normal life. If you think that someone like that should be prevented from seeing his kids, your moral compass isn’t pointing north.

The bill would bring down the hammer of discrimination law on companies with anti-drug policies. Employers who refused to hire or employ marijuana users – the drug stays in the body long after use – could be investigated and sanctioned by the state Human Rights Commission.

As I mentioned after the hearing, this is one area where it’s possible the language of the bill will have to be reworked to be compatible with existing anti-discrimination rules (I’m far from an expert on that). But the intent of the clause is clear. Unless a job entails public safety, you shouldn’t be allowed to discriminate against someone simply because they’re authorized to use medical marijuana. Of course, if that person is not capable of doing their job because of their medical marijuana use, then companies should be free to either fire them or not hire them in the first place. Getting the proper balance here is difficult, but I thought this bill did a good job trying to find it.

That’s just scratching the surface of this amazing piece of legislation. It would also legalize large-scale commercial marijuana grow operations and wholesaling – no specified limits on quantity. Cities and counties would not be permitted to ban grow operations in their jurisdictions; the measure leaves all control over licensing to the state.

Oddly, this is the exact opposite criticism of Proposition 19, California’s initiative to fully legalize marijuana production. Proposition 19 left this up to the individual counties and cities, and the criticism was “Oh my god! This will create a patchwork of different laws across the state!” In this bill, we have one law for the state, and the criticism now is that cities and counties have no control. Huh? Not to mention that O’Callahan leaves out the fact that under this bill, cities and counties can use zoning laws to ensure that a production facility can only be located in an industrial or commercial area.

Growing, processing and selling could be conducted in secrecy. Call this one the Home-Buyer’s-Surprise Provision.

This is really the dumbest thing in the entire editorial. The reason that this bill is being introduced is precisely because the “growing, processing and selling” is “conducted in secrecy”. By licensing and regulating both growers and dispensaries, you take this industry out of the shadows and allow the cities and counties to establish the proper location for these activities to take place. This bill fixes the problem of having large numbers of grow operations hidden in people’s basements. The fact that O’Callahan thinks that this bill would cause that is the clearest indication that he doesn’t have the foggiest idea what the hell he’s talking about.

There’s more: Police officers would have to check state databases for medical marijuana licenses before responding on probable cause to “cannabis-related incidents” (also known, under federal law, as “crimes”).

I’m having trouble not getting too snarky about this, but this attitude is extraordinary and O’Callahan’s lack of understanding of the law is terrifying. For starters, our local police aren’t supposed to be enforcing federal laws, so the fact that marijuana is illegal under federal law is irrelevant to any law enforcement official in this state. Second, asking that a police officer check a database – before bursting into someone’s home with weapons – to see if the person they’re about to invade might be a law-abiding citizen is not unreasonable. In fact, it should be considered a very basic part of a police officer’s job.

Individual officers could be personally fined or sued for failure to do so. There’s no obvious reason this wouldn’t apply to, say, a cop who spots dope and money changing hands in a dark alley. Odd: The law doesn’t paint a legal bull’s-eye on officers for responding to “alcohol-related incidents.”

As far as I can tell, this is completely untrue. If a police officer sees a transaction between two people in a dark alley, the officer should be able to respond exactly the same way whether it’s alcohol or medical marijuana being purchased. Those transactions should not be occurring outside of licensed establishments.

The bill, sponsored by state Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles, has been touted as a “clarification” of the legal status of the illegal marijuana dispensaries that Washington cities and counties – including Tacoma – have begun to tolerate.

The measure’s actual reach is far, far more sweeping; it amounts to legalization with privileges.

Again, O’Callahan says this but doesn’t provide any actual evidence to back it up. This bill does not change – in any way – the process by which an individual with one of the qualifying conditions goes to a doctor and gets an authorization. Recreational use is still illegal. The result of this bill won’t be an increase in the amount of medical marijuana users, it will be a better system for ensuring that those individuals can have a safe place to obtain it.

To legitimize the dispensaries, the logical first step would be to impose genuine medical-pharmaceutical rigor on the authorizations that allow people to acquire “medicinal” pot in the first place.

And that would be a wonderful thing that just about every medical marijuana patient would welcome, but sadly the Federal Government makes this impossible so long as marijuana is considered a Schedule I drug.

As things stand, a handful of clinics – often fly-by-night operations – do brief, assembly-line-style “exams” of marijuana seekers and churn out authorizations like factories. They rubber-stamp the documents – often for about $200 a pop – for users with nebulous complaints of “intractable pain.” These mills have been transforming who knows how many garden-variety marijuana smokers into “patients.”

The law permits little effective regulation, and no one has ever been sanctioned for over-authorizing marijuana. The lack of controls blurs the line between legitimate providers and money-hungry enablers.

I have no doubt that this happens. And I have no problem with medical boards coming down on doctors who do it. But this phenomenon has minimal effect on anyone. In some ways, it’s better that recreational users become medical users because then the money they spend on marijuana is more likely to go to a local business rather than a criminal organization. That’s why over half the people in Washington state just want it legalized for both medical and recreational use. But until that point, you’ll likely always find some subset of the medical profession who decide that money is more important than their integrity. Just like journalism.

Instead of tightening the process, Kohl-Welles’ bill would actually loosen it. Under the existing law – an initiative approved by the voters – marijuana is largely treated as a last resort to be used only when legal, conventional treatments and FDA-approved medications fail. Her measure would let it be used as a first resort.

As I mentioned above, this language was taken out because it was putting judges in a position to make medical determinations for the folks in their courtrooms. It’s odd that in a world where we’re so easily terrified of “death panels” and “government getting inbetween you and your doctor”, a newspaper is actually editorializing in favor of giving the government the ability to send you to jail for a health decision that you and your doctor agree upon. That’s stunning.

With this in place, any drug abuser who didn’t get his get-out-of-jail-free card would deserve to be arrested for sheer stupidity.

This is even more stunning. Regardless of how one feels about the language of the bill, believing that “drug abusers” belong in jail is a sign of complete moral bankruptcy. Hardly anyone in our society still believes that the proper way to deal with a drug addict is to send them to prison. Even worse, that’s still quite separate from the reality here. The vast majority of both medical and recreational marijuana users aren’t “abusers”. They aren’t destroying their lives with it. But to believe that the few who do abuse the drug will turn their life around if you send them to jail is beyond stupid. Seeing something that dumb in an editorial from one of the state’s largest newspapers is quite remarkable.

Words fail. This bill could have been written by Cheech and Chong 30 tokes past midnight. Any lawmaker inclined to support it should make a point of reading it first.

I’m not sure what else there is to say. The sad reality is that people this clueless and blindly ideological are still employed by the major newspapers of this state, even as they’ve been under intense pressure to trim budgets. Like O’Callahan, I strongly encourage every lawmaker to read this bill, and if they have as much trouble as O’Callahan did in understanding it, I’d encourage them to do something he didn’t do: talk to someone who’s actually knowledgeable about medical marijuana and the history of how the law has worked in this state.

UDPATE: I was just sent this clarification to the “long-term impairment” part of O’Callahan’s editorial over email:

[T]he “long-term impairment” that confuses Mr. O’Callahan is exactly the same “long-term impairment” already described in the statutory provision allowing judges to preclude or limit visitation based on a parent’s struggles with “drug, alcohol, or substance abuse,” RCW 26.09.191(3)(c). Family law judges and attorneys are quite familiar with it.

Oh, that old line again…

by — ,

A group of Bellevue homeowners is alleging that Sound Transit has intentionally increased cost and risk estimates of a proposed light rail alignment, to make it look worse. The agency says it’s just not true, but it’s a sign of how much tension there is in a debate over where trains will travel.

Because as we’ve learned from experience, public agencies always overestimate the cost of large infrastructure projects. The Big Dig came in at a fraction of its original projected cost, and no doubt Seattle taxpayers are due for a big rebate when the deep bore tunnel comes in well under budget. That’s just the way these things work.

(Just more evidence that if you say something loudly and angry enough—and with hand-made signs—our media will eventually report it as news.)

Can’t Bring Yourself to Type the Word “Ass”?

Eager to share our brilliant political commentary and blunt media criticism, but too genteel to link to horsesass.org? Well, good news, ladies: we also answer to HASeattle.com, because, you know, whatever. You're welcome!

Follow Goldy

[iire_social_icons]

HA Commenting Policy

It may be hard to believe from the vile nature of the threads, but yes, we have a commenting policy. Comments containing libel, copyright violations, spam, blatant sock puppetry, and deliberate off-topic trolling are all strictly prohibited, and may be deleted on an entirely arbitrary, sporadic, and selective basis. And repeat offenders may be banned! This is my blog. Life isn’t fair.