Back in September, to great fanfare, well to some fanfare, to a Ryan Blethen column at least, The Seattle Times announced their great, their initiative, to have a conversation on how to fix everything wrong with King County, Washington State, and the Federal government. They called it, “Just Fix It.” And while they’re still cranking out editorials in an attempt to prove how much they hate state workers and people who rely on government services, their brilliant idea has stopped updating. The last piece in this series is from November (I think, it’s not organized chronologically, exactly).

Now, projects everywhere fall by the wayside. And if this project about how it’ll be simple to fix all of our problems turns out too difficult to maintain, well fine: I had pretty low expectations of it from the start. But they’re still promoting it at the top of Editorials and Opinion page on their website.

I was recently reading Bus Chick’s year in review, and I was struck by this:

What’s a little kid-related bus inconvenience compared to no buses? Those of you who live in King County no doubt remember this summer’s terrifying, “we might have to cut 17% of your service” moment. The County Council passed the (temporary) congestion reduction charge, but the problem hasn’t gone away–for KC Metro, or for transit agencies across the state (CT and PT have already implemented drastic cuts) and the country. If the state doesn’t figure out a real solution to the transit revenue problem ASAP, those barely averted cuts will become a reality.

In the meantime, riders (including this one) are already feeling the pinch. Metro is closing stops, reducing hours, eliminating routes, and taking other steps to save money in anticipation of its bleak revenue future.

I agree and would add that the cost of riding is also up quite a bit. With fares up to $3.00 for 2 zones at peak times and with the upcoming elimination of the free ride area, the recession is really pushing the cost of riding onto riders and employers. Fortunately for me, my work pays for it, but that’s a cost to the company I work for is up.*

Last year could have been a lot worse for Metro. And while we celebrate that we avoided that, we should also realize what we’ve lost.

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– Hornswoggle is a great word.

– But as sure as the followers of Farrakhan deserved more than UFOs, anti-Semitism and conspiracy theories, those of us who oppose the drug-war, who oppose the Patriot Act deserve better than Ron Paul

– Richard Cordray will get a recess appointment to the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau.

– Application for Kanye’s Magical Awesomeness Factory

– I don’t agree with North Korea very often, but it’s true that both the regime and I think Mayan apocalypse is bunk (point 7). Although for very different reasons.

I don’t know if it’s the political winds, a change in Governor Gregoire, or some combination, but I’m glad she’s going to push a marriage equality law in the next legislative session. She seems to think the votes are there. We’ll see, but it couldn’t hurt to contact your legislators, to shore the support up.

Even if the votes aren’t there in the legislature, it’s worth pushing. This will happen one day, and the only way you get forward movement is to keep working and working and working.

There have always been 3 things needed to make this a law: the legislature to pass it, a governor who’ll sign it, and a public that won’t override it. Today we have a governor who says she’ll sign it and who says there’s a legislature that will pass it. But there is still the matter of what happens if it goes on the ballot.

I assume that Faith and Freedom and the other collection of assholes who put the domestic partnership law on the ballot after the legislature passed it will be able to gather enough signatures to put this on the ballot. I hope they don’t. Still, having seen no polling whatsoever, my initial thought is that it would be marginally good for Cantwell, Inslee and downticket races. It would probably be a winning issue for them to latch on to, and it would probably bring out youth voters.

But whatever happens going forward, thanks Governor Gregoire for a willingness to push this.

– It’s caucus day in Iowa, so here’s my uninformed picks:

Win: Willard
Place: Paul
Show: Perry

Also, that Willard and Perry are relatively close to each other.

– Although kids don’t like them some Perry.

– Is tolling on 520 changing your commute?

– Awwwwwwwwww.

– Washington had 2 of these views.

– Chris Polk will enter the draft.

Just under the wire the Redistricting Commission have submitted their final Congressional and legislative maps. Now it goes to the legislature to basically rubber stamp it. So, I’d like to take this moment to add a few thoughts to N in Seattle’s post from the other day.

Congress:
• Even if Adam Smith is safe electorally, a majority minority district may force him to hire a more diverse staff (I have no idea what his staff looks like now) and recommend more non-white people to military academies. Members of Congress take their duty to represent their district very seriously, and do a lot of behind the scenes constituent service things that might have more of an immediate impact.
• While you still have to give the advantage to McMorris Rodgers in any race, her district has probably got a bit more liberal. Since she won every county against Don Barbieri and against Peter Goldmark, she’s probably safe, but the right candidate, a bit of luck, and maybe the right timing, I wouldn’t put it past a Democrat in that seat (but hope springs eternal with me).

Legislature:

• The 32nd and 46th seem to look quite bit different from how they’re currently drawn with the 32nd going pretty far North and the 46th going over Lake Washington and pretty far down. The rest of the Seattle area districts look pretty much the same to me on first glance, although I’m sure having typed that, someone in the comments will point out some glaring change.
• The 15th LD becomes the first majority Hispanic district in the state. At 54.52% of the population (as opposed to the % of voters), I don’t know if that’s enough to organize a majority of voters, but I suspect the Democrats will be aggressive in organizing there.

It’s almost 12:30, so I’m going to bed.

– New Approach Washington has submitted the signatures for their initiative.

– Today in Ron Paul totally isn’t racist or homophobic.

– The Reconstruction-era South didn’t invent dishonesty, but its response to America’s defining trauma has become a foundational lie, supporting an ever-growing edifice of false history. It’s a lie so big no one will forcefully challenge it, a lie that’s too big to fail.

– Mitt Romney Is Running For America’s Embarrassing Dad

– Awesome species identification, Orkin.

The Seattle Times’ editorial board is talking vaguely about reforms without ever explaining how much money (if any) they actually save, let alone what they’ll do to the people working in government. And even after mentioning that many of the so called reforms they want have already passed, they seem to get angrier. This is bad enough, and I considered a more general critique of it. But the opening paragraphs are what really pissed me off.

DEMOCRATS who take cheer from business leaders’ support for a tax increase should make sure they are hearing the whole statement: taxes and reforms.

That is what Jim Albaugh, CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, said last week. Add to his voice that of Microsoft’s general counsel, Brad Smith: “It’s important reforms are approved along with revenues.”

Phew, I was worried that an attorney for Microsoft and the CEO of Boeing might not have a space to push their preferred policy. Thank goodness The Seattle Times editorial board will act as stenographers for them!

Now, perhaps I’m being unfair here. I mean those tax policy changes affect those companies. Well the editorial goes on to mention some of the reforms they want: “formulas for pensions, pay increases, medical reimbursements, benefits, etc.”* Oddly, they don’t quote anyone who will be hurt by those things. People losing a good deal of their pensions and pay over the long haul, or who’ll have worse medical care maybe deserve as much time as a CEO of a Chicago company.

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Darryl and I have been doing some live blogging recently. Darryl has been on fire with the GOP Presidential debates, and I also did one of them. Mostly, I’ve been live blogging either events I’ve gone to as an activist or been invited to (or weaseled my way into) as a writer for this blog.

Recently, I’ve been influenced by this piece by Tim Wood. And while not everything about a sports blog applies to a politics blog, especially to the events where most of the readers aren’t able to follow along, there are some style things that are important.

There is an art to every format we use at Bleacher Report, but none more than the live blog. Done right, a live blog can be your ticket to a loyal following on B/R, because the live blog is the spot where you can most spotlight your personality.

You’re keeping readers up to date on the event, but more importantly, you’re giving the reader the feeling of watching it with you at a sports bar. You’re the buddy for the reader to interact with, so perspective and variety are two keys to keeping your readers interested.

I think change sports bar to watching the debate and you have a pretty good summation of Darryl covering the debates. For me, I think the most important thing is to put the updates below the older things. That way people just finding it half way through don’t have to scroll up and down a bit, then back up, and people can hit refresh from one point in, and be in the same spot. I try to remember to put times at the start of each update, but sometimes I forget. I’ve also made more of a point of going back and correcting grammar/punctuation/starting sentences that I don’t finish so it stands as something.

So, my question to you on this holiday shortened week, while most of you are perhaps still out with family: are these things you’d like to see more of? Less? Would you like advance warning? Would you like something different stylistically?

– When I finally stopped talking, I exhaled. I’d finally told someone I was falling for my whole story. And I was afraid that my biggest fear would come true: Aaron would look at me differently. (h/t)

– We might be all redistricted out by the end of the day, but this vignette from the 1960’s was fascinating.

– Is anyone else but Erika surprised that she finds it more remarkable that she would defend Kim Kardashian than that she would defend child sweatshops? You shouldn’t be because one of the questions on the wingnut welfare eligibility exam is to write an essay explaining the benefits of child sweatshops, poll taxes and climate change.

– Those Ron Paul newsletters are really, really, really awful.

– I think the question about Edgar Martinez and what would his Hall of Fame case would look like if he’d been a terrible third baseman is interesting.

HA seems to have eaten the last couple posts of mine. I’ve an out email to Goldy, but haven’t heard back. Here’s a replacement Open Thread

I mostly agree with The Seattle Times here on their piece about Mike Baumgartner, Cantwell’s maybe opponent next year. As I said in an earlier open thread, he’s a real piece of work for bringing up the fact that Cantwell isn’t married so she can’t have an opinion on Plan B. But for part of the editorial, they start with calling it a “rookie mistake.”

REASONABLE people can agree or disagree on the wisdom of making “morning-after” pills readily available to young teens. But Republican state Sen. Mike Baumgartner made a rookie mistake attacking U.S. Sen. Maria Cantwell, the Democratic incumbent he is challenging in 2012.

I mean yeah, it was an asshole thing to do, but it would be an asshole thing to do no matter what the timing. They pivot to why it’s wrong, and as I say mostly it’s fine. But that phrase just rankled me: He’s a grown up, he’s run for office before. He should know better.

– My abortion didn’t make me crazy.

– Your lie of the year, ladies and gents.

– I was as much in the bag for Hillary Clinton in 2008 as anyone you’re likely to find. But the people trying to draft her to run against Obama are awful.

– I’ve generally had good experiences with Seattle Police, but really, when I read a story like this, I can’t help think maybe we need to sack the lot of them and start from scratch.

– Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor, Your Internal Organs

– The public hype around Tim Tebow was enough to get me to root for the Patriots last week.

Erica C. Barnett has a post on Metro cutting the hours of the 99.

However, the low ridership is a bit of a Catch-22. Before Metro eliminated the streetcar, ridership on the corridor was dramatically higher than it is today—about 404,000 trips a year in 2003, compared to about 252,000 in 2010 (and 204,000 in 2009). The reason, probably, is twofold: First, Metro cut service on the route from every 15 minutes to every 30, making the faux-”streetcar” less reliable and convenient. Second, and perhaps more importantly: People like riding streetcars—and buses painted like streetcars don’t fool anyone.

Fair enough, and as good an argument for rail as anything. The bus gets stuck in traffic and traffic grinds to a halt on rainy days down there, probably more now with construction. But there’s another reason that Erica doesn’t mention, and that’s that the 99 only runs one way. So it makes a circle, going South along the waterfront, then across Pioneer Square through the ID, and then back North up First Ave.

If this were a commuter route going from the suburbs downtown, a few blocks wouldn’t be a big deal. But if you’re a tourist and you get off the bus anywhere other than the ID, you’re not going to catch it close to where you got off. Also, the route to the sculpture park doesn’t go by the waterfront, so you can’t get off for a bit, look at the aquarium or whatever and then hop back on.

Still, I’ve always pictured it as potentially a great route, even a bus route. If it ran every 15 (or dare to dream 10) minutes each way a lot of people, not just tourists, would use it. As it is, poorly thought out and underfunded, it doesn’t do much.

10 Conversations On Racism I’m Sick Of Having With White People (h/t Howie on Facebook)

– It seems like Ryan Blethen had already mostly stopped writing anyway.

– Two of the most insightful, best writers among lefty blogs are having fundraisers.

– I’m surprised more Neocons aren’t claiming Kim Jong Il’s death as a glorious victory against the Axis of Evil.

– a very dangerous president.

– Merry Christmas from Batman.