– Sen Wyden and his staff handled a hands up protest about as well as one might expect, but I’m surprised it was organized without anyone on staff’s knowledge.
– Another reminder that the Supreme Court is not always going to do the right thing.
– Male Nerds Think They’re Victims Because They Have No Clue What Female Nerds Go Through [h/t]
Area school districts are having a helluva time attracting substitute teachers:
Some districts said teachers are missing too many school days, whether for sickness, vacation or teacher training. Some said pools of qualified candidates are dwindling for all teaching positions — not just substitutes. Others said substitutes aren’t paid enough, and that higher-paying districts attract more candidates. A substitute in Seattle makes between $161 and $187 a day, with no benefits unless the sub works more than 60 consecutive days in one place.
Considering how disrespected they are by politicians and pundits, it’s hard to understand why anybody would want to be a school teacher these days. But a substitute? Yikes. Even if one were to get an assignment for all 180 school days (and you won’t come close), $161 a day comes to only $28,980 a year with zero benefits. For somebody with a college degree!
So here’s an idea: If we want to attract more (and better!) teachers to the profession, maybe we should try both paying them more, and showing them a little goddamn respect? I mean, isn’t that the way labor markets are supposed to work?
Every Joo
Down in Joo-ville
Liked Chanukah as such…
But the Kvetch,
Who lived just north of Joo-ville,
… not so much.
The Kvetch hated Chanukah, the whole Chanukah season.
Now don’t ask me why. What? Should I know the reason?
It could be he wasn’t a mensch, that is all.
Or his petzel, perhaps, was two sizes too small.
Such meshug’as comes from one thing or another,
But like most Joo-ish boys, we should just blame his mother!
But,
The reason, whatever,
His mom or his putz,
The Kvetch hated Chanukah. Oy, what a yutz!
For he knew every Joo down in Joo-ville tonight
Was busy preparing menorahs to light.
“And they’re giving out gelt!” he sighed as he said
“I need waxy chocolate like holes in my head!”
Then he nervously whined as his fingers tapped horas,
“I MUST stop the Joos from igniting menorahs!”
For,
The Kvetch knew that soon…
… All the Joo girls and boys
Would say the baruch’ha, then unwrap their toys!
And then! Oh, the oys! Oh, the Oys! Oys! Oys! Oys!
If it’s not what they wanted, the OYS! OYS! OYS! OYS!
Then the Joos, young and old, would sit down for a nosh.
And they’d nosh! And they’d nosh!
And they’d NOSH! NOSH! NOSH! NOSH!
They would nosh on Joo-latkes, and Gefilte-Joo-Fish,
Which was surely the Kvetch’s least favorite dish!
And THEN
They’d do something
Which made the Kvetch plotz!
Every Joo down in Joo-ville, Bar Mitzvahed or not,
Would sit down together, their proud ponim’s grinning.
Then dreidels in hand, all the Joos would start spinning!
They’d spin! And they’d spin!
AND they’d SPIN! SPIN! SPIN! SPIN!
And the more the Kvetch thought of this Joo-Dreidel-Spin,
The more the Kvetch thought, “I can’t let this begin!
“Oy, for fifty-three years I’ve put up with it now!
“Chanukah, Schmanukah! Stop it!
… But HOW?”
Then he got an idea!
And the moment he had,
He said
“I’m no Einstein, but this… not half bad!”
“I know just what to do!” Then he donned an old sheet,
And dug up some sandals to wear on his feet.
“I’m the Prophet Elijiah! They’ve set me a plate!”
(For the Kvetch couldn’t keep Joo-ish holidays straight.)
“The Joos ‘ll oblige ol’ Elijiah, no doubt!
“I will simply walk in. Then I’ll clean the place out!”
“All I need is a camel…”
He looked far and near,
But this wasn’t the desert, and camels are dear.
Did that stop the old Kvetch…?
That pischer? No, never:
“If I can’t find a camel,” the Kvetch said, “…whatever.”
So he called his dog, Max. Then he took an old sack
And he tied a hump onto the front of his back.
THEN
He climbed on this
dog-dromedaryish mammal.
You never have seen
Such a schmuck on a camel.
Then the Kvetch cried “Oy vey!”
As old Max started down
Toward the homes, while the Joos
Where still schmoozing in town.
All their driveways were empty. Just SUV tracks.
All the Joos were out last-minute-shopping at Saks,
As he rode to a not-so-small house on old Max.
“It’s a good thing I brought” the old Prophet Kvetch thought,
“All these bags with to stuff all the stuff the Joos bought.”
Then he looked at the chimney. It seemed quite a stretch
That a fat goy like Santa could fit, thought the Kvetch,
“Still, the goyim believe stranger things, that’s for sure.”
Then the Kvetch shrugged his shoulders, and walked through the door
Where the little Joo dreidels were all strewn about.
“These dreidels,” he grinned, “are the first to go out!”
And he schvitzed, as he shlepped, with an odor unpleasant,
Around the whole house, as he took every present!
Barbie dolls! Mountain bikes! Brios! And blocks!
Pokemon! GameBoys! And all of that shlock!
And he stuffed them in bags. Then his arms spread akimbo,
He shlepped all the bags, one by one, out the wimbo!
Then he shlepped to the kitchen. He took every dish.
He took the Joo-latkes. The Gefilte-Joo-Fish.
He cleaned out the Sub-Zero so nimbly and neat,
Careful to separate dairy from meat.
Then he shlepped the Joo-nosh right out the front door-a.
“And NOW!” kvelled the Kvetch, “I will shlep the menorah!”
And he grabbed the menorah, and started to shlep on,
When he heard a whine, like a cat being stepped on.
He spun ‘round with shpilkes, and coming his way,
It was Ruth Levy-Joo, who was two, if a day.
The Kvetch had been caught by this small shaina maidel,
Who’d been watching TV on her big RCA’dle.
“The Prophet Elijiah?” she quizzed the old fool,
“You visit on Pesach, they taught us in shul.”
And although the old Kvetch was surprised and confused,
It’s not hard to lie to a girl in her twos.
“Bubbeleh… sweatheart…” he started his tale,
“Your dad paid full price, when this all was on sale!
“And like any good merchant, I just want to please ya.
“I’ll ring it up right, then I’ll refund your VISA.”
Then he patted her tush. Put a Barney tape in.
And she spaced-out as fast as the spindle could spin.
And as Ruth Levy-Joo watched her mauve dinosaura,
HE went to the door and shlepped out the menorah!
Then the match for the shamas
Was last to be filched!
Then he shlepped himself out to continue his pillage.
On the walls he left nothing at all. Bubkes. Zilch.
And the one speck of food
That he left in the house
Was a matzoh ball even too dense for a mouse.
Then
He did the same schtick
In the other Joo’s houses.
Leaving knaidlach
Too dense
For the other Joo’s mouses!
It was quarter to dusk…
All the Joos, still at Saks,
All the Joos, still a-shmooze
When he packed up old Max,
Packed him up with their presents! The gelt and the dreidels!
The chotchkes and latkes! The knish and the knaidels!
He hauled it all up to his condo in haste!
(A Grinch might have dumped it, but why go to waste?)
“Shtup you!” to the Joos, the Kvetch loudly cheered,
“They’re finding out Chanukah’s cancelled this year!
“They’re just coming home! I know just what they’ll say!
“They’ll ask their homeowners insurance to pay,
“Then the Joos down in Joo-ville will all cry OY VEY!”
“All those Oys,” kvelled the Kvetch,
“Now THIS I must hear!”
So he paused. And the Kvetch put his hand to his ear.
And he did hear a sound rising up from the shtetl.
It started to grow. Then the Kvetch grew unsettled…
Why the sound wasn’t sad,
It was more like the noise
Of a UPS trucker
Delivering toys!
He stared down at Joo-ville!
And then the Kvetch shook,
As truck after truck
Replaced all that he took!
Every Joo down in Joo-ville, the Golds and the Steins,
Re-ordered their presents by going online!
Chanukah HADN’T been cancelled!
IT CAME!
…On UPS trucks… but it came just the same!
Then the Kvetch, staring down at the gifts where they sat,
Stood kvitching and kvetching: “For this, I did that?
“It came without traffic! It came without tax!
“It came without shopping at Bloomie’s or Saks!”
And he kvetched on and on, til he started to shvitz,
Then the Kvetch thought of something which might make him rich!
“Maybe stores,” thought the Kvetch, “don’t need mortar and bricks.
“Maybe toys can be bought with a few well-placed clicks!”
And what happened then…?
Well… in Joo-ville they say
That the Kvetch raised
Ten million in venture that day!
And the minute his web site was ready to go,
He raised ten billion more on his new IPO!
He sold back the toys to the homes they came from!
And he…
… he the Kvetch…!
Founded YA-JOO.COM!
©2000 by David Goldstein
All rights reserved
[An HA holiday tradition (yeah, a couple days late this year), with apologies to the late, great Dr. Seuss—but not to the greedy, litigious bastards at Dr. Seuss Enterprises, LLC. So there. Happy Christmukah.]
Thom: Politically correcting Bill-O on his crazy climate change statements.
Season’s Greetings:
James Rustad: Ted Cruz…a rebel without a clue.
Thom: You don’t frack with New York.
Jon hits Hannity over referring to Jay Z as a “crack dealer”
The Cuban Mingle Crisis:
Congressional Hits and Misses.
Ed and Pap: Another corrupt Bush seeking White House?
Young Turks: Andrew Hawkins has some powerful words:
Megyn Kelly: When things go weird with Obama.
Torture in our Name:
Larry Wilmore’s Nightly Show promo.
Sam Seder: Jeb Bush and the Republican clown car.
Obama talks about his own experience with racial profiling.
Thom: Is a climate disaster lurking off of the coast of Washington state?
Poison Pills:
White House: West Wing Week.
“Mom…you’re embarrassing us!”
Thom: The Good, The Bad, and The Very, Very Ugly.
Obama takes a swing at Keystone.
Sony and Kim-J:
Jimmy Dore: Ben Stein reveals his racist side talking about Ferguson.
Mental Floss: 13 inventions and innovations creating a better future for women.
Matt Binder: Ten Sandy Hook families sue gun maker.
Maddow: On Putin, GOP & FAUX News must eat their words:
Jimmy Kimmel: The YEAR in unnecessary censorship.
Does Stephen Commit Comicide?:
Thom: Is George Zimmerman right?
Sam Seder: Ted Cruz “own goals” the G.O.P..
Farron Cousins: Jeb Bush is the worst Republican traits on one package.
Not Mental Floss: 13 thing you think are true but aren’t.
Nutbag Republican state lawmaker proposes women have to ask men’s permission to have an abortion.
Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.
Governor Jay Inslee proposed a politically ambitious cap-and-trade-ish plan on greenhouse gas emissions yesterday. No doubt a complex proposal on which there is plenty of room for policy analysis and political debate. But this is how the Republicans responded:
Sen. Doug Ericksen, asshole
State Sen. Doug Ericksen, R-Ferndale, who chairs Senate’s energy and environment committee, called Inslee’s cap-and-trade plan “an energy tax, which is really a tax on mobility — which is a tax on freedom.”
So, um, Senator Ericksen, I sincerely hope you take my criticism in the most constructive way possible, but you, sir, are an asshole.
Seriously. Governor Inslee proposes pricing carbon in a way similar to British Columbia, California, and a number of northeastern states—a modest and much studied market-based approach to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by forcing polluters to pick up just a small portion of the externalized costs—and you respond by accusing him of taxing our freedom? Because he hates our freedom, right? Just like Al Qaeda!
Of all the assholery an asshole could have devised, this has got to be the most assholic.
This is not a tax on freedom. If it is a tax, it is a tax on carbon emissions. Period. And only an asshole would equate carbon with freedom.
“The tunnel project is 70 percent completed, according to WSDOT, so there’s no turning back at this point,” [Seattle City Council President Tim Burgess] added. “It is city government policy that this project be completed. The governor agrees. The mayor agrees. We must move forward.”
Look, I’m not suggesting that now is necessarily the time to pull the plug on the deep bore tunnel (or more accurately, put a plug in it). I’m not privy to enough information to make that decision one way or the other. But we should at least be open to that possibility, regardless of how much money we’ve already spent on the project.
No doubt Burgess understands this. If the engineers were to estimate that it would cost an additional, say, $20 billion to “move forward” and complete the tunnel, I’m guessing Burgess would be more than willing to turn back at this point. But would he turn back if the cost of completion was another $1 to $2 billion? How about $4 billion? Or how about $10 billion?
The money we’ve already spent on the tunnel is a sunk cost (in more ways than one), and as such should have no impact on our future spending decisions. What matters from here on out, given the known cost overruns and risks, is whether we’re likely to get more for our taxpayer money completing the remaining 30 percent of the project, or whether it makes more sense to to turn back and pursue a different option. Our prior expenditure of both financial and political capital should in no way influence our decision.
1 Kings 11:1-3
King Solomon, however, loved many foreign women besides Pharaoh’s daughter—Moabites, Ammonites, Edomites, Sidonians and Hittites. They were from nations about which the LORD had told the Israelites, “You must not intermarry with them, because they will surely turn your hearts after their gods.” Nevertheless, Solomon held fast to them in love. He had seven hundred wives of royal birth and three hundred concubines, and his wives led him astray.
Discuss.
The magic of the market at work:
Just months after it opened, First Place Scholars, the first charter school in Washington state, is in turmoil.
Its first principal resigned in November, more than half of its original board of directors have left, too, and the state’s charter-school commission has identified more than a dozen potential problems that need to be fixed soon if the school wants to keep its doors open.
[…] First Place was the first charter to open in part because it wasn’t starting from scratch. It had long been a private elementary school, founded to serve homeless students, in partnership with Seattle Public Schools.
To be clear, First Place Scholars had been successfully serving homeless students for years as a privately funded not-for-profit. As a charter school it got to replace its private charitable funding with state and local tax dollars, allowing it to more than double its capacity to up to 100 students. But the transition has not gone smoothly.
I sincerely doubt the state’s charter school commission—packed with charter school advocates—would allow First Place to close. They have too much at stake here. But First Place’s journey from successful private school to flailing charter certainly belies the notion that charter schools are somehow magically efficient.
The other day I challenged our state’s editorial boards to take the lead in urging state legislators to raise new revenue. And while I’ve no idea if he actually saw my post, yesterday Seattle Times editorial columnist Jonathan Martin did exactly that:
To level the tax burden, the Legislature should give a hard look at a 5 percent state tax on capital gains, the profit reaped on the sale of an investment such as stocks. The idea needs a full airing, because a capital-gains tax would affect the angel investor network that fuels Seattle’s startup engine. Revenue from capital gains taxes are also volatile, swinging with the market.
But nearly all competing tech-centric states have capital gains taxes. California has a 13.3 percent capital gains tax for millionaires, plus a big income tax, and that has not slowed Silicon Valley.
Washington voters have gone all in on the progressive policy agenda, with marriage equality, legalized marijuana, gun control.
It’s time for a bit more progressivism in tax policy.
Sure, it’s just the opinion of a single editorialist instead of the editorial board board as a whole, but it’s an encouraging start. Here’s hoping Martin can persuade his colleagues and his publisher that Washington’s future economic prosperity requires a fair and sustainable tax structure.
According to Crosscut, it was a year ago today that we first learned that the giant tunneling machine “Bertha” had become stuck in the muck beneath Seattle. One year later, Bertha remains stuck, and construction of a deep bore tunnel replacement to the teetering Alaskan Way Viaduct remains no closer to completion.
On this anniversary of ineptitude it is useful to remember whose brainchild this boondoggle was in the first place: none other than Seattle’s infamously faith-based “think” tank, the Discovery Institute! Yes, that Discovery Institute—the equally proud progenitors of the science-denying theory of so-called Intelligent Design! As I scoffed nearly 7 years ago today:
I once proposed building a gigantic rollercoaster along the West Seattle to downtown portion of the Monorail’s abandoned Green Line, and you didn’t see my joke of a transportation proposal picked up by the MSM, let alone labeled “visionary”. And yet the Seattle Rollercoaster Project is no less technically challenging nor politically, well, utterly fucking ridiculous than Discovery’s deep bore, crosstown tunnel. Engineering and economic feasibility aside, God himself could descend from the heavens with a blueprint in one hand and an infinite supply of cash in the other, only to be greeted by polar bear clad environmentalists and angry Eastside developers complaining that He isn’t doing enough to ease congestion on I-405. In a city where completion of a 1.3 mile vanity trolley line is feted like some transportation miracle, the very notion that local voters might commit more than a half billion dollars a mile to an untested technology is a dramatic tribute to Discovery’s primary mission of promoting the exercise of faith over reason.
Of course, with hindsight, I was wrong about the political feasibility. A cabal of elected officials ultimately shoved Bertha down our throats. Where it remains lodged to this day.
Deuteronomy 22:23-24
If a man happens to meet in a town a virgin pledged to be married and he sleeps with her, you shall take both of them to the gate of that town and stone them to death—the young woman because she was in a town and did not scream for help, and the man because he violated another man’s wife. You must purge the evil from among you.
Discuss.
Thom: The Good, The Bad, and The Very, Very Ugly.
Puppet Nation: News of the week:
Ever notice how America is like a bad boyfriend.
Mental Floss: Misconceptions about Sleep.
David Pakman: More guns = more crime, no matter what NRA feels.
Thom: The secret ALEC conference.
Black and White and Red All Over:
Mike Pesca: A tribute to Nancy Grace.
Sam Seder and Robert F. Kennedy, Jr.: The Republican mission to destroy climate action.
David Pakman: Nutburger Republicans consider banning Obama from delivering State of the Union Address.
Mental Floss: 26 little things that changed history forever.
Richard Fowler: The GOP plan to rig the 2016 election.
White House: West Wing Week.
Immigration Action Reaction:
Sam Seder: What the fuck is up with Uber?
Guess who’s coming to The Colbert Report.
Maddow: AZ, KS, and Florida GOP are trying to kill solar power.
Thom: More Good, Bad, and Very, Very Ugly.
University of Virginia Rape Story:
Young Turks: Glenn Beck sued for defamation by Saudi he constantly defamed.
Thom: Some more Good, Bad, and Very, Very Ugly.
Stephen thanks Nazis for getting Congress to agree on something.
David Pakman: Nutjob Christan pastor calls for killing gay people.
TurkeyGate!
Obama speaks on the economy.
Richard Fowler: Voter proved he wasn’t quite dead yet.
Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.
As much as I love to hate the Seattle Times editorial board, the truth is I actually agree with much of what they write. Sure, sometimes they’re just plain awful, like their shameful “death tax” lies. And sometimes they’re just hamfistedly insensitive and stupid, like Wednesday’s editorial that came off as placing more value on Black Friday than on black lives. But much of the time, and on many issues, I more or less agree with their general sentiment, however incoherently stated.
Take for example yesterday’s editorial urging legislators to protect funding for early and higher education:
MORE money will flow into Washington’s kindergarten through high-school programs in the next two years, but state lawmakers must ensure that doesn’t come at a cost to early and higher education.
The state’s education system should foster student success from ages 3 to 23…
Well, of course. Who could disagree with that? It’s great to see such commonsense advocacy coming from the editorial board of our state’s paper of record. And 3-to-23 education isn’t the only worthwhile program on which the editors have advocated spending more money. The problem is they’re missing in action when it comes to advocating for raising the revenue necessary to pay for it. In fact they’re worse than missing in action—they’re goddamn obstructionists!
The editors assert that it will cost the state an additional $10 billion over the next two biennial budgets to fund both McCleary and Initiative 1351. Whether you trust their numbers or not (and you usually can’t) it’s a lot of money. And the editors’ only revenue suggestion? “Raising the sales tax another percentage point would be unpopular, but effective.”
Unpopular, maybe, but effective, not so much. A percentage point increase in the sales tax would raise about $1 billion a year. So even in that unlikely scenario in which we pass a sales tax increase through the Republican-controlled state senate, where’s the other $1.5 billion a year coming from, let alone any additional money to fund early and higher education? On this the editorial board is silent.
What’s so frustrating about this editorial is that they’re almost there! They recognize the need to spend billions more on 3-to-23 education, and they even appear to understand that it will require significant sources of new revenue. But they just can’t bring themselves to take the lead in moving our state closer toward an actual solution. Which is what we need—especially after their years of knee-jerk obstructionism on revenue issues.
Washington is a very affluent state. We can easily afford to invest in education. But more importantly, our future prosperity depends upon it. It is past time to stop arguing about whether to raise taxes, and to start arguing about which taxes we’re going to raise. And if our editorial boards really want to live up to the civic role they claim for themselves, they might want to start leading this debate.
– Protections for free speech are awesome, but I don’t think they covers threatening to murder your estranged wife.
– It strikes me as strange that we didn’t know who would be the GOP leadership if they’d won the state Senate, but now we know.
– While I fully admit that I don’t understand all the technical issues, I would like quicker Internet in Seattle, pleez.
– As sad as the perpetual closing/almost closing of neat theaters in Seattle is, maybe it’s the market speaking?
Mark Fiore: Congressional Turkeys.
Young Turks: People love ObamaCare, so long as they don’t know what it is called.
Puppet Nation: U.S. News:
White House: West Wing Week.
Richard Fowler: Sen. Elizabeth Warren takes her fight to Walmart.
Young Turks: Governor insists food stamps come with drug tests.
Roll Call: Congressional hits and misses of the week.
David Pakman: Republican Koch House passes bill muzzling EPA scientists.
Sam Seder: Solyndra turns out to be the opposite of a scandal.
Ferguson, Goddamn:
Thom: Is Walmart playing “Hunger Games” with its employees?
Farron Cousins: Net Neutrality battle rages on.
David Pakman: Director of ex-gay conversion clinic ends up marrying his same-sex partner.
Sam Seder: How Republicans ran from their right wing victory…
Last week’s Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza can be found here.
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!