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Which makes me, and others, fools.

Local politico Sandeep Kaushik is ready to throw down a prediction for the Iowa caucuses—with one big caveat:

Only a fool would try to predict the outcome of the Iowa caucuses. It’s a suckers bet.

Having said that, Kaushik offers a prediction, and even a point-spread. He says:

Edwards wins Iowa cleanly:

Edwards 34

Clinton 27

Obama 25

I think Sandeep has it pretty much nailed. There are, however, a few days to go, so the numbers might move a little bit.

My prediction:

Edwards 34

Obama 28

Clinton 28

Richardson or Kucinich comes in 4th

On the GOP side, I’m a little less specific:

Huckabee BEATS Romney, with McCain coming in 3rd

I invite my fellow HA contributors to add their predictions to this post!

UPDATE:
In a surprise upset, NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg wins the Democratic caucus, while Nebraska Sen. Chuck Hagel takes the top spot for the Republicans, despite the fact that neither is running. Or maybe vice versa. Because DC sage David Broder just couldn’t be that wrong.

I haven’t read Jonah Goldberg’s new book “Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning,” and I probably never will. But I’m amazed that anyone even tried to make the argument he’s trying to make.

One of the main reasons why I started blogging a few years back was because I read Mein Kampf. As hard as it was to read a book that’s not just extremely racist but led to the deaths of people I’m related to, I felt like I had to wrap my head around how something like the Holocaust can happen. To try to compare the sentiments expressed in Mein Kampf to anything you hear on the American left today is a stretch of the imagination that I can’t comprehend. If Goldberg claims to have read Mein Kampf as part of researching his “thesis,” he’s either lying or crazy.

Dave Neiwert does a good job picking apart some basic errors, like pointing out that despite Goldberg’s claims that the Nazi’s were “socialists,” the first people sent by the Nazis to Dachau were actually Socialists and Communists. People who called themselves socialists back then were as close to real socialists as the people who today call themselves conservatives – but believe in starting war after war in the Middle East – are to real conservatives. But the whole book seems to be based upon this very basic error in understanding the history of Nazi Germany.

The Sadly No! crew actually have a copy of the book and have been posting some of the most ridiculous passages. His larger argument is that the desire by liberals and progressives to improve society through government is the direct path to fascism and relates back to the Nazi movement. Now while it’s certainly possible for left-leaning movements to become authoritarian, it’s not what’s happening in America right now, it’s not how fascism evolved in 1930s Germany, and one can really only reach the alternate conclusion if they believe that things like universal health care are more anti-liberty than torture. I think Brad may have located a major part of Goldberg’s mental block:

Giving out free food isn’t fascism. Look, Jonah, I’ve done some research into the matter and have determined that giving out free food is one of the least fascist things a government can do. Call this hyperbole if you will, but if the very worst thing the Nazis had ever done was to give people free food, they’d have probably gone down as the greatest government in history.

When Hitler wrote Mein Kampf, his vision had nothing to do with economics. His vision was pure paranoia, where he blamed the “Jewish press” for weakening support for the war effort during World War I. He viewed the influence of immigrants as a direct threat to the nation. He also railed against pacifists, Communists, capitalists, the ruling class, ethnic minorities, and fellow soldiers who faked injuries to get out of the war. As Germany was subjugated by the victors of WWI in the post-war period, his paranoid outlook found an audience, but his message was never one of socialism, it was of nationalism. In Chapter V of Mein Kampf, he shared his thoughts on what happened during World War I:

After the very first news of victories, a certain section of the press, slowly, and in a way which at first was perhaps unrecognizable to many, began to pour a few drops of wormwood into the general enthusiasm. This was done beneath the mask of a certain benevolence and well-meaning, even of a certain solicitude. They had misgivings about an excess of exuberance in the celebration of the victories. They feared that in this form it was unworthy of so great a nation and hence inappropriate.

The notion that the press (which was of course run by Jews and treasonous Germans) was insufficiently patriotic during the war and had a bias towards pacifism and international institutions like the League of Nations was central to his outlook. It’s the polar opposite of what the American left stands for today, and it’s why comparisons to Ann Coulter and other extreme voices on the authoritarian right aren’t all that far-fetched. At the same time I started blogging back in 2004 and wrote that post, Jonah Goldberg wrote the following:

In the process of debating the merits of publishing, and now continually hyping, the Abu Ghraib photos, I keep hearing that it is contrary to the American journalistic tradition to let patriotism or concern about the negative effects of bad news interfere with coverage. I have no idea where this idea comes from.

You know where the idea comes from, Jonah? It comes from people who’ve actually taken the time to study and to try to understand the roots of fascism, rather than just attempting to draw nonsensical parallels between Hitler and the people who make fun of you on the internet.

The P-I writes:

Motorists help pay for roads with gas taxes, tolls and license tabs. Boaters subsidize maritime programs with vessel registration and boat launch fees.

Maybe bicyclists, too, should pitch in for the costs of their trails and lanes.

It’s a suggestion — sometimes born of sincerity, other times of snarkiness — that drivers, tax-weary citizens and others make whenever politicians and cycling advocates talk about investing public money into cycling facilities. Some raised the idea again in recent weeks after the Seattle City Council and Mayor Greg Nickels endorsed a $240 million, 10-year plan for new bike lanes and street upgrades.

I read the story and the “comments” section at the end of the story (“Sound Off” is what it’s called), and the kinds of people who want to register bikes are the kind of people who hate cyclists. I hate some cyclists, but I also hate some drivers as well. It’s all about equal opportunity.

But cycling saves taxpayers money. If large numbers of people switched from SOVs to bikes, we would all save money on road maintenance. The mayor’s ten year cycling plan is cheap as shit compared to any other transportation investment.

Josh Feit writes:

I’m not sure where I stand on the idea of making bikers register. My gut tells me it’s not as simple as angry car owners make it out to be. Car owners gripe that they pay for roads through car fees, so why shouldn’t bikers help fund roads and bike lanes and bike trails?

Well, actually car owners pay for roads mostly through gas taxes, not car fees.

And here’s the real rub: Car owners are the ones who use and batter roads and cause congestion and emissions—all things that spike the cost of living for all of us.

Meanwhile, bikes save us all money—lowering congestion, easing emissions, and barely leaving any wear and tear on roads. So, why should government put up a barrier to getting more people on bikes?

Josh and the gang may not know where Federal Way is, but he’s dead on here.

Side note:

One night after doing the last hour of “The David Goldstein Show,” Goldy was giving me a ride home to Belltown. Underneath the Monorail tracks, 5th Avenue is divided in half, with the center of the street obstructed by the columns. Each half of the one-way street has (I believe) one traffic lane and one parking lane. Me and Goldy were on the left side of the pillars, and as we passed a car going much slower on the right side, I pointed the sight to Goldy:

Me: “Hey look, bicyclists, two abreast, blocking the whole lane.”

Goldy: “Fucking assholes. That’s why people hate cyclists.”

BTW, the cyclists were dressed totally in black with no helmets. Nice. Thankfully, for their sake no gravel trucks were in the area.

Perhaps my absolute favorite thing about Seattle’s congressman is that he excites our retarded comment trolls like nothing else. These are priceless:

Only in a place like Seattle can someone like Baghdad Jim McDermott exist.

Ah yes. Only in Seattle. Whereas, only in Florida do you find a congressmen who desperately wants to fuck young page boys, and trolls for them on the internet. Or, say in Vancouver, where you can find a family values conservative who watches porno with a gay hooker in a Spokane hotel.

McDermott fenced stolen property. Ergo he’s a crook. McDermott lied about fencing stolen property. Ergo he’s a lying liar.

To which HA’s own Lee responds:

“Fencing” requires a profit motive, which was not the case in this incident. Ergo, you’re a fucking retard.

Goodness, gracious. Just look at what we’ll miss when McDermott retires.

On a personal note, I’d like to thank Congressman McDermott for perhaps his greatest accomplishment in public life: the creation of Washington Basic Health. WBH has allowed the working poor to get health care and avoid medical bankruptcy. Once derided as “socialized medicine” by Republicans who can’t do math, WBH is now embraced by other states as the model for public health care delivery. It should be noted that WBH does something liberals love (providing health care to those who can’t get it otherwise) by doing it in ways conservatives admire (allowing companies to compete, thus creating an incentive to keep costs down). While I hope that universal health care is on it’s way from Washington, it’s good to know that Dr. McD made it happen here in WA state.

Earlier this week, FCC Chairman Kevin Martin pushed ahead with his plans to change the FCC’s media consolidation rules—over objection of the masses at public hearings like the recent one in Seattle.

Martin’s move comes on the heels of Congressional hearings where lawmakers, both Democratic and Republican, took Martin to the woodshed over the plan itself, over his rush to move forward with it, over a tin ear that cannot hear the voice of the people, for his process seemingly designed to suppress public opinion (like announcing the Seattle hearings five days in advance), and because he published an op-ed piece written (and probably submitted) before the Seattle hearing. “My folks in Seattle believe that they were treated like a bunch of chumps“, scolded Rep. Jay Inslee.

The objections of the people and Congress were for naught:

The Federal Communications Commission voted on Tuesday to loosen media ownership restrictions in the 20 biggest U.S. cities, despite objections from consumer groups and a threat by some U.S. senators to revoke the action.

The FCC voted 3-2, along party lines, to ease the 32-year-old ban on ownership of a newspaper and broadcast outlet in a single market.

Perhaps Martin felt safe in giving us—the people—the finger, but when you give Congress the finger you might just find a foot planted in your crotch. Readers don’t generally expect many positive references to Rep. Dave Reichert here at HA but, considering this issue resulted in Goldy writing a post titled I heart Frank Blethen, that I am about to cite Reichert’s web site shows you just how powerful and bipartisan this issue really is.

That’s right…Reichert is one of the good guys in this battle. As a gesture of gratitude (or maybe something more like a Pavlovian reward) I’ll quote this fabulous press release from Reichert:

Congressman Dave Reichert (WA-08) joined Congressman Jay Inslee (D-WA) today in introducing the Media Ownership Act, legislation that will counter the damaging rule handed down by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to allow consolidation of media companies. The legislation would prevent the FCC’s hurried rule from becoming law by requiring more time for public comment and changing the timeframe for proposed revisions to be published. It would also go into effect retroactively, back to October 1, 2007.

“This legislation changes technical provisions but is simple in its message and effects,” said Reichert. “We want local media to remain local, diverse and free. I’m pleased to join with Jay Inslee to counter the damage that this ruling could bring. I’m not only disappointed in their ruling today, but also the process in which it came about. Last month when the FCC held one of the rushed public hearings in Seattle, I spoke out, calling for retention of the current rules. Relaxing restrictions does not serve our citizens, and would lead to the detriment of localism and diversity that we still enjoy. We’re taking swift action to hopefully prevent these changes from affecting our communities and the families at home. I respect the free market and want a marketplace that allows corporations to operate as freely as possible. However, I believe it is a role of government to stand between corporations and consumers when the public interest is at stake. I will continue to do what I can to maintain a diverse, free and unbiased source of news for my constituents and across this nation.”

Specifically, the legislation would:

• Require the FCC to publish any proposed revisions to its media ownership rules at least 90 days prior to a vote.
• Require at least 60 days for public comment and the FCC must respond to these comments within 30 days.
• Require the FCC to complete a separate proceeding to evaluate the effects of consolidation on broadcast localism before any vote.
• Require the establishment of an independent panel on female and minority ownership. The panel would provide data and offer recommendations to the FCC on how to increase female and minority ownership. The FCC must receive and act on these recommendations prior to voting on any proposed ownership rules.
• The bill applies to any attempt to alter rules made by the FCC after October 1, 2007.

Sen. Maria Cantwell is already cosponsoring similar legislation in the Senate.

Martin is a punk, and an arrogant punk at that. Kudos to Rep. Reichert, Rep. Inslee and Sen. Cantwell for listening to the people and giving Martin a good swift kick in the nuts.

Darcy Burner held a series of local events over the weekend where families could bring toys and other children’s products for free lead testing. Well, the results are in, and of the 479 items tested, 56 tested positive for lead, 47 above the 40 parts per million maximum recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics. Nine additional items tested positive for cadmium, another toxic element.

Surprised? Well you shouldn’t be. Ten percent of items tested positive for excessive lead levels, pretty much exactly what Burner and Essco Safety Check expected heading into the tests. And chances are, about ten percent of the toys and household items your children handle every day would test positive as well. Lax standards, loosened regulation, nearly nonexistent testing and a mad rush toward globalization have put all our children at unnecessary risk.

In a press release announcing the disturbing results (and apparently ignored by our local media,) Burner lays the blame squarely where it belongs:

“This administration needs to get its priorities straight. Recent news reports have revealed that the Consumer Products Safety Commission currently has only one staffer in the entire country tasked with testing toys, while the current director and her predecessor have traveled on nearly 30 junkets paid for by toy companies and other consumer products manufacturers,” Burner said. “This is truly a scandal. Children are being put at risk while our leading regulators are hobnobbing in resort locales with industry lobbyists and so far nothing is being done about it.”

So, how dangerous are these toys? Many of the items tested contained lead far above safe levels:

A red plastic roof piece from a Lincoln Logs set tested at 1488 parts per million for lead (or 37 times the AAP standard). A small plastic Fisher Price Sesame Street Bert figure tested at 5346 ppm (or 133 times the standard). A Tinkerbell pink rolling backpack tested at 533 ppm for lead, while a Cinderella princess backpack tested at 474 ppm. A Winnie the Pooh placemat contained 985 ppm.

The highest lead level was found was in a Fisher Price Flip Track crane from a plastic train set that was owned by Burner’s own 5 year-old son, which tested at 10,600 ppm, or 265 times the AAP standard.

Cooler-style lunchboxes and soft coolers tended to have high levels of lead or cadmium, as did all of the children’s character placemats tested, including Dora, Spiderman and Winnie the Pooh. Chinese manufacturers tend to add lead and cadmium to vinyl (PVC) to increase durability, and while the CPSC argues such products are safe because the vinyl tends not to deteriorate during normal use, any parent who sees the wear and tear their own child puts on their lunchbox knows otherwise.

So what can you do about it? I suppose you could write to the CPSC and ask them to adopt tougher standards. Or you could help enact real change, and elect better Democrats like Darcy Burner to Congress.

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.

I’m not sure what kind of crowds we’ll get the next two Tuesdays (or if the Ale House is even open Christmas night and New Year’s Day,) so if you suffer from the DL DT’s, you better come by tonight and drink your fill.

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.

Amnesty would stamp a congressional seal of approval on the Administration’s warrantless spying. If Congress immunizes the telecoms for past violations of the law, it will send the message that Congress approves what the Administration did. We would be aiding and abetting the President in his illegal actions, his contempt for the rule of law, and his attempt to hide his lawbreaking from the American people. Voting for amnesty would be a vote for silence, secrecy, and illegality. There would be no accountability, no justice, no lessons learned.

[…] Think about what we’ve been hearing from the White House in this debate. The President has said that American lives will be sacrificed if Congress does not change FISA. But he has also said that he will veto any FISA bill that does not grant retroactive immunity. No immunity, no new FISA bill. So if we take the President at his word, he is willing to let Americans die to protect the phone companies. The President’s insistence on immunity as a precondition for any FISA reform is yet another example of his disrespect for honest dialogue and for the rule of law.

It’s painfully clear what the President’s request for retroactive immunity is really about. It’s a self-serving attempt to avoid legal and political accountability and keep the American public in the dark about this whole shameful episode. Like the CIA’s destruction of videotapes showing potentially criminal conduct, it’s a desperate attempt to erase the past.

Via Crooks and Liars.

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

7PM: Radio Kos: Church and/or State?
Rev. Forrest Church is an author and theologian, the son of former Idaho Sen. Frank Church, and the Minister of Public Theology at All Souls Unitarian Church in New York. In her review and interview posted today on Daily Kos, Joan “McJoan” McCarter describes Rev. Church’s latest book, So Help me God: The Founding Fathers and the First Great Battle over Church and State, as “an engaging, beautifully crafted and meticulously researched history of our nation’s first culture war over what role religion was to play in government.” Rev. Church and McJoan join me for the hour.

8PM: Will WA state ferries sink or swim?
An 80-year-old section of our state highway system was essentially allowed to disintegrate, when four steel-electric class ferries were pulled out of service due to serious corrosion. Washington State Transportation Commissioner Bob Distler joins me by phone for an update on the current plans to serve the effected routes, and a discussion what got us to this situation in the first place.

9PM: TBA
Liberal propaganda.

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

No doubt Idaho’s GOP establishment has been shitting bricks over US Sen. Larry “Wide Stance” Craig’s refusal to step down and allow the state party to appoint an heir apparent, but nobody really believes the Republicans risk losing this seat in this famously red state, do they? Well, according to a new survey conducted by Democratic pollster Lake Research Partners, um… maybe.

1. Idahoans are in the mood for change. Fifty-nine percent of voters believe that things in the United States are pretty seriously off on the wrong track. Only a quarter (26%) believe things are going in the right direction.

2. The Republican brand is in decline and a generic Democrat defeats a generic Republican. Forty-two percent of voters would vote for the Democrat in a hypothetical Senate race, compared to 36% who would support the Republican (21% are undecided). The Democrat leads by six points despite a 12-point Republican advantage in partisanship (40% Republican to 28% Democrat, 31% independent). Notably, voters criticize the job performance of President George Bush and Senator Larry Craig. Sixty-six percent of voters say Bush is doing either a just fair or poor job as President and only 33% say he is doing an excellent or good job. Craig is similarly critiqued: 56% just fair or poor, 37% excellent or good.

3. Jim Risch is not as strong as conventional wisdom dictates and Democrat Larry LaRocco is rated as popular. Asked to rate their feelings toward some people and organizations using a scale from 0-100, voters rate Risch a “56,” compared to LaRocco who scores a “57.” Despite his years as State Senate President Pro Tempore, and five years as Lt. Governor (including six months as Governor), the supposed Republican frontrunner has no advantage.

4. The data follows on the heels of two consecutive strong elections for Democrats in Idaho where voters have trended away from Republicans. In the 2006 State Legislative contests, Democrats managed to flip 6 State House seats from the Republican column. Additionally, Boise’s Democratic Mayor, Dave Bieter, won reelection this past November with 64% of the vote.

Sure, the poll was conducted on behalf of Democratic challenger Larry LaRocco and nobody is suggesting that he is even close to holding the upper hand, but Republicans would have to be nuts to write this seat off as an easy hold in such a volatile political climate. LaRocco is an impressive candidate — a likable economic populist in the mold of Montana’s Brian Schweitzer and Jon Tester — and if he runs an equally impressive (and well financed) campaign, the GOP will be forced to respond in kind. This poses a particular dilemma for the NRSC, which trails its Democratic counterpart by a nearly three to one margin in cash on hand, but has many more seats at risk.

Republicans have 22 US Senate seats to defend in 2008, compared to only 12 for the Democrats, and of the 10 races uniformly considered competitive by Beltway pundits, only one (Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu) is currently held by a Democrat. If the NRSC finds itself spending money fending of LaRocco in Idaho, that’s money it won’t have available to spend defending, say, a very vulnerable Sen. Gordon Smith in Oregon, who has a field of credible Democrats vying to take him on next November. And if the NRSC ignores LaRocco, writing off Idaho as a gimme, well, they need only look to the House Republicans’ disastrous strategy in 2006 for a vivid illustration of the possible consequences.

Faced with tight resources and an exploding number of potentially competitive races in the final weeks of the campaign, the NRCC resorted to political triage, ceding first-tier races to the Democrats while assuming the third-tier “Republican favored” races would mostly fall their way. This left the NRCC free to focus most of its resources on the second tier, where it pulled out narrow victories in eight of nine high-profile races, including WA-08. Problem was, Republicans ended up losing not only all the first tier races, but all the third-tier races as well. The NRCC gambled and lost.

It may seem odd to suggest that the road to a 60-seat Democratic majority lies through traditionally red states like Idaho and Alaska of all places, but that’s the beauty of the 50-state strategy that worked so well in 2006. Washington voters may not have a US Senate race on their ballot next November, but there are two key contests on our borders, and both our media and our money will play a big role in determining the winners. Stay tuned.

UPDATE:
Well, that’s what I get for not reading Joan. The poll was actually conducted by Myers Research on behalf of Idaho Dem House member Nicole LeFavour, who was considering getting into the race. Joan’s got more details over on Daily Kos.

The Yakima Herald-Republic’s article about Tim Eyman being escorted out of the Yakima City Council chamber was pretty amusing. But I found something else to laugh about in it (my emphasis):

In addition, Eyman complained that his request for a guest commentary on the Ensey blogging issue had been denied by the Herald-Republic’s editorial board. He argued that his sympathetic-to-Ensey perspective would be valuable because he once had been nailed for not telling the truth about receiving monetary compensation for his political work on initiatives.

On Wednesday, Herald-Republic publisher Michael Shepard said the paper’s editorial board denied Eyman a guest commentary on the grounds that Eyman was neither a member of the community nor had any special expertise on the subject.

“Tim having been reared in Yakima doesn’t give him standing on City Council issues, nor is he an expert on blogging ethics,” Shepard explained. “We offered him the same letter-to-the-editor opportunity that Bill Lover and Rick Ensey took as well as 98 other readers. We would still consider a letter from Mr. Eyman.”

Wait a minute. Eyman was seriously arguing that he has expertise that warrants a guest commentary because…he was caught lying?

That’s rich!

You may recall that Eyman previously stole money donated to his initiative campaign, and used it to pay himself a handsome salary. Worse yet, he repeatedly said he wasn’t doing this. Essentially, he was lying his ass off to his donors: “The biggest lie of my life,” he finally admitted.

Later on, he was found by the PDC to have violated multiple parts of RCW 42.17 (Campaign finance and disclosure laws). As a result, Eyman was fined $50,000 after stealing over $200,000 from his donors.

So…come to think of it, Eyman actually does have a point. As an admitted liar, he can certainly comment with some authority on the ethical shortcomings of others.

And, apparently, the Herald-Republic came to the same realization. According to a comment left in the Horses Ass comment thread, Mr. Eyman claims that a limited guest commentary has now been accepted.

Unless, of course, Tim is lying again.

King County Executive Ron Sims and former Transportation Secretary Doug MacDonald are both in favor of congestion pricing.

Sims seems to be vacillating on whether congestion pricing is designed to reduce throughput of vehicles, or increase it. Doug MacDonald definitely believes in the latter. After all, would Kemper’s White Guys and the Discovery Institute support the idea if it cuts down on driving? (My guess: no) I don’t think the Sierra Club has thought this through. If variable tolling makes the existing freeways work more efficiently, doesn’t that mean you get more volume and more throughput? Add in the issues raised in that Willamette Week article (linked below), where environmentalists are raising red flags on charging per mile instead of per gallon (because of how each system might affect vehicle choice) and you have an even weaker “green” case for tolling.

This raises some fundamental issues and contradictions – which may explain why both greens like Ron and roadwarriors like Doug, Kemper and others all seem to like the congestion pricing concept – it can be all things to all people. The fact Discovery has attached themselves to it should be the first warning sign…

Ron Sims:

Sims: That’s really interesting. We have tolls on the Narrows bridge. We’re going to have hot lanes on 167, that goes through the Kent Valley. One thing we know is that traffic… it really affects traffic. When we have congestion pricing, it reduces traffic volume 15 to 20 percent, because people begin to use those roadways smartly. And it’s also complemented by increasing the transit service that we’re going to have there. So we expect that people are going to move much better. You know our goal is to have an average speed of 45 miles per hour, which is a lot faster than they’re going now.

Doug MacDonald, who sponsored a competition to put the transpo-nerd term “through-put maximization” into regular-person language:

Haase wrote in his winning entry: “The physics of car-flow in a highway resemble those of rice poured through a funnel. If you pour slowly, you get little out, but if you pour too fast, the rice clogs and you get little — or nothing — out either. Car-flow involves similar thinking. For any highway there’s a particular in-between speed that moves the most vehicles under typical conditions.”

[snip]

While “through-put maximization” — moving the maximum number of vehicles through a stretch of highway at the maximum speed — might sound good to transportation technophiles, much of the public doesn’t understand it, said MacDonald.

The Willamette Week did a story on Oregon’s consideration of congestion pricing:

Environmentalists question why the state would switch to a system where a Hummer owner would be treated the same as a Prius owner. And civil libertarians raise alarms about the mileage tax’s underlying technology—an electronic collection system that uses a global positioning system to count the number of miles driven. That information would get uploaded and recorded at service stations.

“We must be cautious and understand how information can be linked and how information can be used in a way that is not intended or foreseen,” says Andrea Meyer, legislative director of ACLU of Oregon.

I wonder how much it would cost to equip every car in Seattle, King County, or Washington state with the “homing beacons,” or if that would even be possible to do in the next few years? I’m a fan of the Logan’s Run-style bar codes on human beings, but without the ritual killing on your 21st birthday. You know, because that seems at least plausible to achieve within the next few years.

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.