– Pro-Choice and Pregnant? Yeah, It’s Really Real

– Increasingly it looks like this whole P.C. boo-hoo is just a weaponized version of Those Were The Days.

– Being a GOP presidential candidate gets you the opportunity to scam the elderly out of their homes, eventually.

– Wow, Councilmember O’Brien.

– The legislature should pass a resolution saying they don’t know if longer fire seasons caused by global warming are real.

– WHY WERE YOU MUTED?

I don’t even understand what Dori Monson is trying to say here.

I have good news for the wildlife of our state. They’re getting their own overpass on I-90.

I don’t know enough about the overpass but roads are pretty bad for the environment so something like that to mitigate some of the problems is probably a good thing. There are reasonable discussions about cost and about what else we could do with that money, I suppose. But that isn’t really the issue here. The issue is superlatives:

The world’s most wildlife-friendly highways.

I don’t want to be obsessive here, but it comes up later: Most wildlife-friendly according to who?

How come everything we do has to be a world record? The [Seattle] tunnel was going to be two feet smaller in diameter, which would have made it the second largest tunnel in the world. They said no, no, no – let’s add two feet so that it can be the biggest drill ever. They were so obsessed with a world record sized drill that they cared more about that then building a drill that would actually drill.

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I was pretty critical of the tunnel machine for a long time, but I’m pretty sure Dori just made that story up.

Everything has to be a world record because they’re spending our money. I could set all kinds of world records if I could just spend other people’s money to achieve my goals.

Something something wasting Bonneville International’s money on the dipshittiest radio show.

Maybe we don’t need to have the world’s most wildlife-friendly highway ever.

Well, there are places that have more fragile ecosystems. Islands and like rainforests and shit. But I think it makes more sense to see the value of the project on its own merits rather than pointing out that you could do something similar in the Brazilian Amazon. Also, we didn’t answer who deemed it that. So if you want, you can just call it the antepenultimate and nobody will care.

This overpass is going to cost $6.2 million. Watch and see how much it ends up costing. It’s supposed to open in 2019 and cost $6.2 million. I’m going to guess 2023 and $20 million. I’ll go triple the cost that they’re estimating right now.

Calendared. I’m sure he’ll let us know if WSDOT’s prediction turns out to be correct. Also, is this a standard we can apply to all road projects or just the ones that don’t have to have safety improvements or to account for the weight of moving cars and trucks, so are probably less likely to come in over budget?

– Trans* Women Are Women

– Getting names is making East Link really feel concrete

– There is literally no problem on earth that lowering taxes on business people will not solve.

– Polish your lenses, oil your tripods, search your archives – the seventh Panda’s Thumb photography contest, begins – now!

– Ping pong tables in parks is kind of fun, but I don’t know why we have to ruin it with pretending it’s going to stop crimes.

One of the most infuriating arguments against Roe v Wade is from people who claim that they’re for abortion rights, but wish it had come from the states, legislature by legislature. The idea being, I guess, that women, trans men and other people who can get pregnant controlling their own body should be subject to the whims of legislatures and not a fundamental right. It always seemed like such a dodge to me.

But now that state legislatures and Congress are proposing and enacting more and more anti-choice legislation, and at least some courts are upholding them, it’s surely time for the people who have been making that argument to step up and oppose these things legislatively.

Because now Texas is pushing TRAP laws and the court isn’t intervening. Now 20 week bans, pre-viability, are sprouting up across the country. Now states are banning medication abortions with consequences. Now, if you care about abortion, but for some ungodly reason think it has to be legislative victories, you can act. Abortion rights are coming under attack, and it’s time, it’s past time, for pro-choice people to fight back.

So sure, in Washington we’re fighting to increase access. But it isn’t like the Reproductive Rights Parity act has passed. Or for that matter that the budget will be anything like friendly to reproductive rights. Of course the main reason to oppose these anti-choice measures is that they’re harmful to the people who live in those states who can get pregnant. But now the people who have been waiting for abortion to be a legislative thing, can finally get in the game. Unless it was just an excuse not to participate in the first place.

– We’ve had passionate left-wing students for a long time. Sometimes they’re right and sometimes they’re wrong, but either way the risk that you’ll lose your job because of their political complaints is basically zero.

– Everybody, just stop defending the Duggars, or trying to deflect blame onto liberals or whatever. Thanks.

– The weekend rollout of bus announcements makes me think Metro knew there might be some backlash. But still, good on them for correcting their course.

– Winning Hearts and Minds by Pointing Guns at them

– This book looks great. Anyone else going to Mamrie Hart’s book signing tomorrow?

– I know, I said no more puns. What can you do?

– Jesus is Not a Get-Out-of-Jail-Free Card

– But, I thought Ed Murray was just concerned with ethics.

– I just can’t with the McKinney story.

– Wells Fargo’s corporate practices don’t make up for an ad, but that ad is pretty sweet, and if that’s your idea of moral decay, you’re the worst.

– New Hampshire’s legislature is pretty ridiculous, but at least Obama managed to salvage some sort of civics lesson.

– With the Women’s World Cup, the whole country can have the same uncomfortable feeling Reign fans (myself included) have about cheering Hope Solo.

– Oil, gas, coal industries want Washington, British Columbia as permanent home ports

– I get what Goldy’s point is here, but Goldman Sachs would be a lot more creditable if they hadn’t recently helped crash the world economy.

– Chart of the Day: Novels about men are more likely to win major literary awards

– There was a Comcast outage recently, and if you’re upset, here are some things you can do about it.

– Here’s hoping there’s some Safe Routes to School money in the final budget.

– Everyone keeps saying how good Daredevil is. I’ll have to check it out.

I’m pretty sure this is my favorite lede ever.

For the last six weeks, what appears to be a broken down van has been parked outside the offices of Bonneville Seattle, home of KIRO Radio, 710 ESPN Seattle, KTTH and My Northwest.com, despite official notice warning the owner to move it or face towing.

City law prohibits vehicles from remaining in the same spot for more than 72 hours.

It’s emblematic of a longstanding but growing problem around the city, as parking becomes harder to come by in denser neighborhoods.

Oh man, if I look out my window, I can really see there’s quite a problem. Sometimes I have to walk past it when I go to lunch. This particular story is one everyone can relate to, right? The story of a van in a not particularly well trafficked neighborhood?

I thought the there’s-traffic-congestion-on-my-way-to-work stories were my favorite example of unnecessarily overly personal “reporting” but I think this is way better. Talk about hyper local.

I’m dragging a bit, so I think I’m going to try to sleep on the way in to work. So here’s a placeholder instead of some links. Sorry.

– No, traffic accidents aren’t accidents. They’re unacceptable and preventable.

– Most smoking bans make sense, but outside in parks seems like too much.

– I guess I shouldn’t be surprised at how pro-Iraq war the GOP is even today, but damn.

– I love the World Cup, but I don’t know how I’ll possibly be able to justify to myself watching it in Qatar.

– Am I being a dick with open thread titles? Someone asked for dates so you could distinguish one from the other, and sometimes I do these things that amuse me, but — I sort of assume — nobody else. At least there haven’t been puns in a little while!

– If you are thinking “Hmmm, I wonder if Mike Huckabee has anything to do with this,” you are wearing your thinking pants correctly! It turns out that, as Arkansas governor, Huckabee thought it would be great to use Gothard’s teachings and programs for … just about everything!

– Everyone raising money makes me uncomfortable, even as I understand it’s necessary in politics, but there’s something about the anti-Sawant people.

– The fuck, Denny Hastert?

– I’m always a bit skeptical when organizations change their names. The Committee to End Homelessness had a name that laid out a really ambitious agenda. No, they haven’t come anywhere near meeting that, but it’s better to fail than to not try.

I hope I’m not back-in-my-daying this too much with this post but I’m writing it anyway:

The bus from Drinking Liberally to my apartment has been rerouted so now the best stop is like 10 blocks away from my apartment. It hasn’t been a bad walk the last few times I’ve taken it, but a few nights ago I was already dragging a bit. I had walked to Drinking Liberally when it was still pretty hot out, and I was out too late. 10 blocks was sort of that middle distance where it’s too short to call a cab or an get an Uber but I thought to m’self “if I see a cab, I’ll hail one.”

I didn’t see a cab until I was a block away from my apartment. I feel like even 5 years ago there were enough cabs out downtown — even at 11:30 on a weekday — that I would have caught one. Maybe this is me misremembering things, maybe it’s the route I took home, maybe it was just coincidence and I would have caught a cab most times.

Certainly, this personal story of one night isn’t data in any sense. But it does feel like now that Uber and Lyft are out there there are fewer cabs to be hailed. Maybe from a consumer’s point of view that’s a fine tradeoff for the advantages of ride sharing, but it is an issue. I’m not sure what the solution is.

– Saying this early: Bryant v. Inslee is not Jobs vs. Environment

– The underrepresentation of women and people of color in media extends all the way to the cartoons tucked into the New Yorker, according to an analysis of every cartoon published in the magazine last year.

– If this is how the Patriot Act goes, well, OK, I guess.

– But it’s worth noting that amidst all the hue and cry turning cake bakers into martyrs in the name of religious freedom, here is an actual ordained minister who was jailed and fined for seeking to practice her faith and support same-sex marriage.

– Byron Calhoun and the Phantom Fetal Skull

– The Bad Intelligence

– Emmett’s piece on how different people see Downtown Olympia probably scales to other downtowns.

– You need to know how to parallel park before you get on the road, Maryland drivers.

– The only Republican answer on Iraq that would make any sense is that it was the wrong decision. It’s surprising how few can do that.

– Top 5 Irritating Agency Operations Habits

– The diverse crowd of advocates, business owners and community leaders shows that the tide has turned overwhelmingly in favor of taking bold action to make Rainier Ave safer. This is a street where safe streets advocates have long felt resistance. It takes a big shift in mindset for communities to realize busy, scary streets can and should be made safer for everyone. It’s beautiful to realize that shift has happened, and this dangerous street’s days are numbered.

– It’s sad that one only need replace “back then” with “nowadays” and Assata could be describing life in 2015, not the 1960s of her youth.

I found the state’s compliance checks on marijuana businesses interesting.

The stores — two in Everett and two in Tacoma — could be hit with a $2,500 fine and a suspension. The person who did the actual selling could be charged by a local prosecutor.

The four stores were among 22 tested in checks between May 15 and 18. Brian Smith, a spokesman for the state Liquor Control Board which licenses recreational marijuana stores, said that compliance rate of 82 percent is lower than the 85 percent rate for all retail stores that sell some alcohol product and the 92 percent rate for stores that sell spirits.

I hope they get those numbers up, because obviously they shouldn’t sell marijuana to children. If it takes suspending some licenses, that’s fine. We’ve had more time to weed out* people selling alcohol (I don’t know how much it changed with privatization and deregulation a few years ago, but it at least had a bit of a head start).

It’s also pretty small numbers so one less bust would be better than 86%. Not that any selling to minors is OK, but we’ll probably want more numbers in the future.

Also, I’m guessing that’s a much better number than street dealers. So while legalization has had some hiccups, it’s a lot better than the old way people got their marijuana in the state.

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