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About two months ago, I was at the Northgate Park & Ride helping a UW transfer student from Sydney figure out which bus to take back to the University. She’d just arrived in the U.S. that morning and was buying basic supplies at Target. I recognized her accent and knew she was an Aussie right away. She seemed surprised that people she’d talked to earlier in the day thought she was English. I just replied “Americans are stupid.” She says, “You’re the second person to say that so far.” If what’s happening in Olympia isn’t enough proof, here’s more:

UPDATE: My god, people! Get a grip on yourselves. When I said “Americans are stupid” to her, it was said in a joking fashion to someone who was overwhelmed by being in this great country for the first time. The notable thing was that I wasn’t the first person to say that to her.

The bottom line is that Americans ARE pretty stupid (arguably the better world is ignorant) when it comes to knowing about the rest of the world. Survey are survey confirms this. The numbers are terrifying:

Take Iraq, for example. Despite nearly constant news coverage since the war there began in 2003, 63 percent of Americans aged 18 to 24 failed to correctly locate the country on a map of the Middle East. Seventy percent could not find Iran or Israel.

Nine in ten couldn’t find Afghanistan on a map of Asia.

And 54 percent were unaware that Sudan is a country in Africa.

I’m reasonably certain that commenter Puddybud could find Afghanistan on a map of Asia. That means that he’s arguably more knowledgeable about the world than 90% of young adults. If that doesn’t send chills down your spine about what’s going on, nothing will.

I’ll save the venting for tomorrow night’s show when The Stranger’s Josh Feit will join me in studio to give his first-hand account of the proceedings at yesterday’s special session, and the inevitable fallout from the Dems’ boneheaded political blunder. But I just want to take time to thank those Democratic legislators who stood up to the political pressure, and voted against rashly reinstating I-747’s unsustainable and irresponsible one-percent cap on regular levy revenue growth.

Yesterday I wrote, “I’d be surprised if a majority of the Seattle delegation didn’t vote to approve the governor’s plan,” and, well… I was wrong. There are six legislative districts that represent Seattle, for a total of twelve representatives and six senators. Of those, only one senator and four representatives voted for the bill, with two representatives excused and not voting. A total of eleven Seattle legislators cast votes against the bill: Senators Ken Jacobsen, Adam Kline, Jeanne Kohl-Welles, Joe McDermott and Ed Murray, along with Representatives Mary Lou Dickerson, Sharon Nelson, Jamie Pedersen, Eric Pettigrew, Sharon Tomiko Santos, and Helen Sommers. I was particularly proud that my entire 37th Legislative District Delegation — Kline, Pettigrew and Santos — voted against the bill.

Only a handful of non-Seattle legislators bucked the governor’s pressure to quickly pass dumb policy. In the House, special kudos go to Rep. Geoff Simpson of Covington, who voted his conscience despite the fact that his district overwhelmingly supported I-747, and despite the fact that he feared this vote could potentially end his political career.

“I’m not here to make decisions based on whether or not I’ll get re-elected,” he said. “I’m here to make decisions that are good public policy … 747 is not good public policy.”

Simpson said local government can’t be expected to provide high quality services when revenues are not keeping pace with the rate of inflation.

While he was aware of the risks, Simpson said he hoped voters in his district would consider the sum of his voting record, not just this one vote.

That’s what representative democracy is all about. In the Senate, Craig Pridemore of Vancouver made a similar principled stand, again, knowing the political risks coming from a district that overwhelmingly supported I-747:

“I’m a former county commissioner. I know the impacts this will have on local government, law enforcement abilities, and all of the other critical local services. I can’t vote yes for that,” he says.

No doubt Pridemore and Simpson’s opponents will attack them as arrogant and out of touch, but this is exactly the sort of principled leadership voters so often decry as missing in our elected officials. If we want our legislators to mimic the polls rather than make informed decisions, we might as well just eliminate the Legislature entirely.

(Cross-posted at Hominid Views.)

In talking about congestion pricing on my show Saturday night, I couldn’t contain a brief outburst over how our local media and political elite continue to take seriously the Discovery Institute’s transportation proposals in light of its embarrassing role in promoting Creationism Intelligent Design. My frustration stems not simply from the fact that Intelligent Design is ridiculous anti-science, or that it is part of a well planned and executed multi-year campaign to undermine science education in the US at a time we face growing global economic competition… but that it has been promoted in such a shamelessly dishonest manner.

The Discovery Institute has proven again and again that it makes no distinction between scholarship and propaganda, and that there is no ethical boundary it will not cross in the interest of foisting its Christianist agenda on the American people. This blatant disregard for the most basic rigors of academia — or even fair play — was highlighted recently by a virologist/blogger who discovered that DI fellows had stolen and manipulated a Harvard University/XVIVO video for use in their own presentations, without attribution, permission or license.

Here is the original Harvard/XVIVO video, “The inner life of a cell”, with its scientifically accurate narration intact:

And here is a clip from a Discovery Institute presentation that features an excerpt of the video, now redubbed and retitled “The Cell as an Automated City.” Notice how the presenter describes the video as “state of the art computer animation,” implying that it is somehow the work of the institute:

As ERV points out in his her post, this isn’t just a naive case of copyright infringement. The Discovery Institute has plenty of lawyers on staff and on retainer, so they sure as hell know that scrubbing the Harvard/XVIVO copyright and credits off the video is not only dishonest, but illegal.

Maybe they think it is ‘okay’ because they gave the animation a new title (’Inner life of a cell’ became ‘The cell as an automated city’) and an extraordinarily unprofessional new narration (alternate alternate title– ‘ Big Gay Al takes a tour of a cell!’). Harvard/XVIVOs narration, all of the science, is whisked away and replaced with a ’surrealistic lilliputian realm’– ‘robots’, ‘manufacturing’, ‘circuitry’, ‘nano moters’, ‘UPS labels’. Maybe they think it is ‘okay’ because they turned all of Harvards science into ‘MAGIC!’

Hmm. From my point of view, as a virologist and former teaching assistant, this isn’t just copyright infringement. This is theft and plagiarism. Taking someone else’s work without their consent, manipulating it without their consent, pretending it supports ID Creationists distorted views of reality, and presenting it as DI’s work.

ERV further points out that if the DI fellows responsible for this were at his her university, they would be expelled for their plagiarism.

But this is just business as usual at the Discovery Institute, and it raises a question: if the Discovery Institute can’t be trusted to produce independent academic scholarship on its signature issue, Intelligent Design, how can its Cascadia Center be trusted to produce independent academic scholarship on regional transportation planning? Of course, it can’t, and the media, business and political elites who ignore the institute’s established track record of distorting scholarship and science in the single-minded pursuit of its own private agenda, are little more than willful dupes.

Our region’s transportation planning is too important to be trusted to a faux “think tank” with such a shameful and embarrassing record, and every time one of our local media outlets unskeptically cites one of its reports or recommendations, it grants the Discovery Institute credibility it simply does not deserve. Unlike a real think tank, the Discovery Institute produces “scholarship” to support its existing agenda, not the other way around, and thus it cannot and should not be considered a trusted partner in planning our region’s transportation future.

Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels has Santa’s back:

SEATTLE – Mayor Greg Nickels today launched “Operation Save Santa” to help protect the North Pole from the ravages of global warming. The mayor will enlist helpers in Santa hats to hand out 2,000 free energy efficient light bulbs prior to the tree lighting celebration at Westlake Center at 4 p.m.

The mayor kicked off the campaign today with an open letter to Santa. Concerned by the record ice melt in the Arctic Ocean this summer, Nickels reassured Santa that Seattle and 728 other U.S. cities are making progress protecting their communities, the planet and the North Pole from global warming. As he pointed out when he launched the US Mayors Climate Protection Agreement in 2005, Nickels is convinced that in the absence of federal leadership, cities must take action together.

“Some say that if we don’t do something to cut greenhouse gas emissions soon, the North Pole might be ice-free in summer as early as 2030. That’s why we’re launching ‘Operation Save Santa,’” Nickels wrote in his letter.

Nickels asked Santa to recognize that Seattleites should be on his “nice” list for all of their efforts to conserve energy. They helped make Seattle the first city in the nation to cut greenhouse gas emissions to 8 percent below 1990 levels. And they continue to make a difference through Seattle Climate Action Now, a grassroots campaign to help people reduce climate pollution at home, at work and when making transportation choices.

“I’m really proud that Seattle is making progress on protecting our climate. I know a few light bulbs won’t fix the ice maker at the North Pole, but it’s a start. And when we all work together, we can make a difference,” Nickels wrote.

It might be too late:

The Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally meets tonight (and every Tuesday), 8PM at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Stop on by for some hoppy beer and hopped up conversation.

As for me, I’m headed out to Drinking Liberally Philadelphia tonight, so I won’t see you at the Ale House.

Not in Seattle (or Philadelphia)? Liberals will also be drinking tonight in the Tri-Cities. A full listing of Washington’s thirteen Drinking Liberally chapters is available here.

Earlier, I wrote:

Really, what the fuck are we doing even considering putting ferries into Lake Washington when King County’s South Park Bridge is deteriorating before our eyes?

I had the chance to chat with Dow Constantine’s legislative assistant Chris, and he explained the ins and the outs of the new King County Ferry District.

Like I said before, I like the Water Taxi and the Vashon-Downtown Seattle passenger ferry service. Since the state of Washington doesn’t want to provide this service anymore, King County has to find the money. Since the property tax is county-wide, the benefit has to be county wide. That’s why they’re studying all those extra routes. Some of them may never become permanent, but some may. The Kirkland-UW route has great promise considering 520 may be severely constricted for years during construction.

Using waterways for transit is something that’s done in many other big cities. The right-of-way is free! King County is right to explore it. Ferries won’t “solve” our transportation situation, but they’ll help move people.

I mean honestly what the fuck?

In the genteel world of bridge, disputes are usually handled quietly and rarely involve issues of national policy. But in a fight reminiscent of the brouhaha over an anti-Bush statement by Natalie Maines of the Dixie Chicks in 2003, a team of women who represented the United States at the world bridge championships in Shanghai last month is facing sanctions, including a yearlong ban from competition, for a spur-of-the-moment protest.

At issue is a crudely lettered sign, scribbled on the back of a menu, that was held up at an awards dinner and read, “We did not vote for Bush.”

By e-mail, angry bridge players have accused the women of “treason” and “sedition.”

“This isn’t a free-speech issue,” said Jan Martel, president of the United States Bridge Federation, the nonprofit group that selects teams for international tournaments. “There isn’t any question that private organizations can control the speech of people who represent them.”

Not so, said Danny Kleinman, a professional bridge player, teacher and columnist. “If the U.S.B.F. wants to impose conditions of membership that involve curtailment of free speech, then it cannot claim to represent our country in international competition,” he said by e-mail.

It only gets more insane. These women make their living playing bridge. They are some of the best in the world, and they’re being threatened with a years’ banishment because they held up a menu that said “We did not vote for Bush”? Seriously.

I’m super pissed off that there’s honestly any discussion of people losing their livelihood because they held up a menu that said how they voted. These are mothers and they held up a sign during a victory celebration. While waving American flags and singing the National Anthem.

And by the way, the French team got the American ideal better than our country:

“By trying to address these issues in a nonviolent, nonthreatening and lighthearted manner,” the French team wrote in by e-mail to the federation’s board and others, “you were doing only what women of the world have always tried to do when opposing the folly of men who have lost their perspective of reality.”

Anyway, next up is my expose on Pinochle: what do they do with all the low value cards, anyway?

From the New York Times on Democrats’ attempts to get a sane budget past Bush’s veto pen, our righteous senator hits the nail on the head:

“The president is appealing to a very small conservative base of people, his last few friends in the country, to say, ‘I am conservative,’ ” said Senator Patty Murray of Washington, a Democrat involved in mapping the party’s spending strategy. “But the problem is, he is playing with American lives while he sends his message to his friends.”

I think Eli Sanders really captures the sad irony of Pat Robertson’s endorsment of Rudy Giuliani:

See how that works? Let your followers know that you agree that legalized abortion and gay rights were responsible for 9/11, and then, a few years later, endorse a man who is for legalized abortion and gay rights, saying he’s the only person who can defend the country against the “bloodlust of Islamic terrorists.”

Josh Marshall has some fun with it too:

As I noted earlier, Robertson’s reasoning is that God has withdrawn his protection from us because of America’s collective embrace of a godless, secular, gay-loving culture. When you put that together with his claim today that Rudy, a paragon of the secular culture, is the one to protect us from the terrorist hordes, the upshot seems to be that Robertson has more confidence in Rudy’s leadership and national security skills than he does in God’s. And that’s one hell of an endorsement.

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

Of course, tonight is election night, so expect a greater flow of folks in and out of DL this evening. I’ll be arriving a little late, and leaving a little early, party hopping, depending on results, and how happy or depressed I am.

I’m really at a loss to predict how things will turn out. Money has played a huge role in a number races which would have easily been one-sided without the huge influx of cash on the other side (some of it illegal.) R-67 shouldn’t even be close, but $12 million bucks buys you an awful lot of votes, and of course Bill Sherman should have had a comfortable win in this 2-to-1 Democratic district if not for the $300,000 in unopposed TV selling Satterberg as the non-partisan he’s not. And then there’s Prop 1, where months of lying ads have convinced untold voters that the Roads and Transit package has a $157 billion price tag. We’ll see.

Either way, I don’t expect to live blog tonight unless something extraordinary happens (and I have access to a computer,) but I’ll post a full wrap-up in the morning.

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

The “Commission,” in this case, is the Federal Communications Commission, and if this sounds familiar, it’s because it is.

Twice before — on March 7, 2003, and just last year, on November 30, 2006 — hundreds of area residents jammed auditoriums to testify overwhelmingly in opposition to a Republican-dominated FCC’s attempts to further weaken ownership limits on broadcast television and radio properties. In each case, the crowds testified only before the two Democratic commissioners; the three-person Republican majority was MIA. But those crowds were broadly representative of a national movement for media democracy that in only a few years stymied former FCC Chair Michael Powell’s deregulation bid, preserved net neutrality, and stopped a telecommunications lobby “reform bill” widely expected to pass the Republican Congress in 2006. In last year’s hearing, local testifiers against deregulation spanned an unlikely ideological range, from Reclaim the Media’s Jonathan Lawson to Seattle Times owner Frank Blethen, from KVI Radio host John Carlson to UW President Mark Emmert.

This time, FCC Chair Kevin Martin, architect of the latest (big) industry deregulation scheme, is bringing the whole Commission to town to “prove” to them that Seattle really doesn’t care all that much about this arcane stuff. Which is why, despite the entreaties of local Congresspeople (who wanted four weeks), he has given exactly five business days’ notice for this unprecedented local hearing. The hearing was announced late in the day Friday, November 2, timed for the least-read and -viewed news time of the week. The hearing itself will also be on a Friday night, from 4-11 PM November 9 at Town Hall, 8th & Seneca near downtown Seattle.

For the first two hearings, a significant number of people traveled from throughout the region, from California to Montana to Alaska, to make their opinions known to the FCC. The short notice and inconvenient time seem particularly designed to suppress regional testimony. Seattle area supporters of media democracy will need to stand in their stead. The FCC is hoping for a sedate dog and pony show that will ratify its ideological desire to give the public’s airwaves to the biggest companies and highest bidders (think Murdoch), regardless of content. They are looking to ram this through before opponents can get organized.

Our job is to be organized. And show up.

In a significant way, we already are organized. Much has changed since 2003, when the FCC first came to town. Nationally, the media democracy movement that barely existed five years ago is now a potent political force. Locally, newspaper lovers dodged a bullet when an ongoing court bid to dissolve the Times’ and P-I’s Joint Operating Agreement was going so badly for the Times (which initiated it) that the JOA was extended instead. But King County’s other daily paper, the King County Journal, was dissolved in the last year, and the 2006 purchase of the Seattle Weekly by the country’s largest “alternative” weekly chain led to the effective dismantling of its news department. Among the companies owning the 30 or so major local radio and television stations, only Fisher Broadcasting (KOMO TV/radio, KVI and Star 101.5 radio) is locally owned.

I have a personal stake in this, of course. I was a columnist and editorial board member at the Weekly for eight years, until its shift in editorial direction. Plus, a media company I started over 20 years ago is now owned by Clear Channel, which is also the nation’s largest owner of radio stations, with over 1,200. When Clear Channel started, the FCC allowed a maximum of 14 stations per company nationally.) Now Clear Channel, CBS, Entercom, and Sandusky own five radio stations each in the Seattle area alone.

Ultimately, though, my personal stake is the same as everyone else’s: I want to know about decisions being made that might affect my life, and I don’t trust Clear Channel or CBS or Belo or Entercom or any of the other companies controlling our TV and radio dials to tell me what I need to know. I don’t like the idea of media monopolies on information. The same is true of the music I listen to or the entertainment programs I watch. The number of people who access radio or TV programming through satellite or their computer is still minimal. And so the FCC’s proposed ruling — which would, for the first time, allow radio, TV, cable, and newspapers in the same cities to all be co-owned by one company — is a recipe for a media monopoly on local news, entertainment, and culture.

November 9 is our chance to tell the FCC what we think of the idea. If you care about a free flow of information in our democracy, please turn out, and let them know what you think. Whether they want to know or not.

I’ve been reluctant to join the fun of the Prop 1 debate up here on the front page, but I’ve gotta respond to Josh Feit here. He has a valid point that building massive parking lots around light rail stations will allow more people to drive to them. That’s obvious. But I think he misses the bigger point:

Because, like I said yesterday, ill-conceived light rail lines don’t create density, they create outpost park and rides that fuel exurban development and more roads. (Check out towns like New Market, Maryland “along” the Red Line—or some 40 miles away from DC.)

New Market, Maryland isn’t some new town created by expanded rail. It’s a rest stop town that was established over 200 years ago. It makes sense to build along established trafficways to accomodate the kinds of travel that people normally do. The development of the Philadelphia suburbs was very much shaped by where rail lines existed and along the main travel lanes, from the old Main Line to the newer SEPTA lines.

But while rail lines can concentrate development in certain areas, some people simply don’t like living in dense areas. No amount of urban planning will ever change how they think. One of the main problems I see undermining the development of better transportation solutions in this city is the belief that our transportation solutions should be used in a way to change people’s behavior. You can’t do that – it won’t work. You can only build systems that cater to people’s existing travel patterns and give them better options. Eventually, if you build a system that caters to what people want and need, they will use it to its fullest potential.

Sprawl will still happen no matter how effective your transit system is and how much effort you put into urban planning. New York City has a massive amount of trains going into the city from all over the region, yet people still live in far-off places, drive to train stations, and commute there. You’ll never stop people from choosing to live far from where they work in order to live more cheaply or to be far from others.

The solution isn’t to only build rail to places where people won’t (or can’t) drive to the station to ride it. The solution is to build rail so that larger numbers of people only have to drive their cars a short distance every day, rather than clogging the streets going into the major downtown centers (Seattle, Tacoma, Everett, Bellevue) where most people work.

In the comment threads, Tim Eyman claims that “I-960’s policies have strong voter support,” but a recent KING-5/SurveyUSA poll suggests the initiative itself does not:

Initiative 960 is defeated 2:1 in a vote today. Women and greater Seattle voters oppose by 3:1. Those who have already voted oppose 2:1. A third of voters are Not Certain how they will vote on 960. If all of them vote Yes, the outcome could be close. Otherwise, the measure will be defeated.

Of course I take this and all pre-election polls with a lump of salt. I-960 has a very favorable ballot title (written by Timmy’s personal attorney, Jim Pharris,) and that’s always worth a few extra points at the polls. Still, if I were initiative financier Michael Dunmire, I’d start worrying about having flushed yet another half million dollars down Timmy’s gold-plated toilet.

It is interesting to note that Eyman’s success at the polls appears inversely related to the personal effort he puts into getting his initiatives on the ballot. While he’s never invested much money in promoting his measures, there was a time when the bulk of his signatures were gathered by volunteers, and the bulk of his money came from an army of small contributors… efforts that required real grassroots outreach and mobilization. But in lazily relying on lump-sum payments from Dunmire to buy his way onto the ballot, Tim has abandoned the grassroots campaigning that once generated the buzz and support that carried his initiatives to victory. Long past are the days when Tim can send out an email and instantly generate a crowd of supporters for some publicity stunt or another; now it’s pretty much Tim, Dunmire, the Fagins and a rented costume.

I-960 could still pass; it’s got an appealing ballot title, and nobody likes taxes. But if it fails, Tim only has himself to blame.

TANGENTIAL ASIDE:
Do you think Tim recognizes the irony that he has been reduced to commenting in the threads of a blog named after an initiative to proclaim him a horse’s ass?

It looks like the “family values” party may have another gay-sex scandal on it’s hands, and this time its local:

An alleged extortion attempt involving a state lawmaker and a reputed male prostitute is under investigation by Spokane police.

Details surrounding the case remained sketchy Sunday, but authorities confirmed that it involves two-term state Rep. Richard Curtis, a Republican from the small southwest Washington town of La Center, and that there was some type of confrontation last week at Davenport Tower. The identity of the alleged extortionist was unavailable, though police confirm he is a reputed prostitute.

[…] Elected to the state House of Representatives in 2004, Curtis has voted like a fiscal and social conservative. This spring, he voted against domestic partnerships for gay and lesbian couples. Last year, he opposed a gay rights bill that banned discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

Of course, nobody wants to jump to conclusions when somebody’s reputation is at stake, but I find this tidbit particularly intriguing:

State GOP lawmakers were in Spokane Wednesday through Friday for a retreat to discuss the upcoming legislative session, said Rep. Mike Armstrong, R-Wenatchee.

He said most who attended the meeting stayed at the Red Lion Hotel at the Park. He said he visited with Curtis “a number of times” at the Red Lion and assumed he was staying there too.

“I didn’t know of anyone who stayed at the Davenport,” Armstrong said. “My first thought is that it must be a mistake.”

That was Armstrong’s “first thought,” but the phrasing kinda implies that there might be a second. I’m guessing we’re going to be hearing a lot more about this story over the coming weeks.

Following up on our speculation about a refresh of Macbooks for Leopard, MacRumors reports there may be an announcement as early as tomorrow. It looks like Apple held off coupling an announcement with the Leopard rollout, figuring they could sell a bunch of soon-to-be-outmoded Macs to the hordes seeking the new OS. Including around 200 who stood in line outside the U District’s Mac Store, aided by University Village’s Apple store being closed for renovation. The Mac Store folks parked their van outside the U Village Apple store to help usher Leopard buyers over to their outlet. Not that Apple stores were hurting: Buyers also lined up for nearly two hours outside Alderwood Mall and Bel-Square stores, as we reported.

Meanwhile, Ars Technica tosses its colonoscopy of Leopard into the ring. So far no real huge gotchas, although little annoyances are starting to surface (3-D being foremost).

Why give Apple so much attention in Microsoft country? As any local Mac user knows, there’s a huge disconnect between the 9-out-of-10 computers running Windows stat, and what we see around us. If you’re not on a corporate network requiring Windows, or your machine is not supplied to you by an employer, chances are much higher you’re using a Mac. Among my circle, here in Seattle, the stat is darn near reversed. And as Apple’s recent blowout quarter revealed, the Windows switch game is still going strong. From The New York Times story:

“One of the company’s strongest indications that it will see continued growth is its report that more than 50 percent of those who purchased Macintosh computers in its chain of 197 stores during the quarter were first-time Mac buyers.”