HorsesAss.Org

I just got back from Nollie’s Cafe, where Sen. Patty Murray sat down this morning with a handful of local bloggers electronic journalists online-ish media types who write substantively on politics. (Are Erica Barnett of PubliCola and Eli Sanders of The Stranger “bloggers?” Am I a “journalist?” I don’t wanna go there.) In addition to me, Erica and Eli, we were joined by Joan McCarter of Daily Kos, Dave Neiwert of Crooks and Liars, and Andrew Villeneuve of the NPI Advocate.

We were promised a half an hour, and got a bit more than that from a U.S. senator who clearly knows the issues as much as she obviously cares about them. A similar coffee klatch with the nearly totally inaccessible Dino Rossi would be almost unimaginable, and it is equally hard to imagine Rossi coming off anywhere near as knowledgeable or as thoughtful as Murray on such a broad range of topics. (Nor as down-to-earth likable, either.)

So much for the GOP’s self-soothing meme of Murray as the dumbest member of the Senate. But don’t take my word for it, you can listen to all 38 minutes for yourself:

[audio:https://horsesass.org/wp-content/uploads/PattyMurray.mp3]

I’ll come back with a more thorough report later, after I’ve had the opportunity to listen to the audio and parse my illegible notes, but I came away convinced that if every voter in Washington state could have the same opportunity to sit down with Sen. Murray for half an hour, she’d win reelection in a landslide.

Given that this is the year that we finally see an income tax initiative on the ballot, it’s hard for me to believe that this could be the worst initiative season ever… but this has gotta be the worst initiative season ever.

I mean, honestly, the way that corporate interests have so totally hijacked our state’s initiative process this year makes Tim Eyman look like Thomas Jefferson.

See, the Seattle Times editorial board agrees with me. Only in a lot more boring fashion. And I agree with them: Rev. Terry Jones is “an idiot.”

If Jones wants to be a beacon instead of a bozo, why doesn’t this clown organize an interfaith group to feed the poor, build housing and help sustain families of all faiths through this economic crisis?

But the question is, would 25th LD Republican nominee Hans Zeiger agree with the Times call for “interfaith” outreach, or would he find the editors to be a bunch of watered-down ecumenists?

Unitarians, mainstream Baptists, Muslims, Jews, Buddhists, members of the “Military Pagan Network” and other watered-down ecumenists will hold an “Interfaith Day of Prayer and Reflection” on the steps of the Oklahoma State Capitol today to pray to the generic god.

[…] But … the significant difference between the kumbaya sessions and interfaith vigils and atheist protests of the Religious Left and the Bible studies and prayer circles of the Religious Right is that our God is real.

I dunno… sounds like Zeiger considers Jones to be one of the real Christians praying to the real God. Perhaps, if the Times wants to do its job of educating voters, it should ask Zeiger about that, along with all the other batshit-crazy stuff he wrote?

NY Times

The $83 million local taxpayers still owe on the Kingdome, ten years after it was demolished, gets a mention in today’s New York Times article on the extraordinary bad deal publicly financed stadiums turn out to be, but that’s nothing compared to the most Giant boondoggle of them all:

It’s the gift that keeps on taking. The old Giants Stadium, demolished to make way for New Meadowlands Stadium, still carries about $110 million in debt, or nearly $13 for every New Jersey resident, even though it is now a parking lot.

And that’s just the debt on Giants Stadium alone. Three and a half decades after workers first broke ground, New Jersey taxpayers still owe $266 million on the entire Meadowlands project.

So I guess we got off relatively easy with the Kingdome. How many years we taxpayers will be paying off the bonds on Safeco and Qwest fields after they’ve been abandoned or demolished, now that’s another question. And what more useful or productive purposes we might have put that money to, rather than padding the pockets of billionaires, well, we can only speculate at this time when city, county and state governments are facing unprecedented deficits.

As the NY Times article concludes:

With more than four decades of evidence to back them up, economists almost uniformly agree that publicly financed stadiums rarely pay for themselves. The notable successes like Camden Yards in Baltimore often involve dedicated taxes or large infusions of private money. Even then, using one tax to finance a stadium can often steer spending away from other, perhaps worthier, projects.

“Stadiums are sold as enormous draws for events, but the economics are clear that they aren’t helping,” said Andrew Moylan, the director of government affairs at the National Taxpayers Union. “It’s another way to add insult to injury for taxpayers.”

An interesting side note, the new $1.6 billion dollar Meadowlands Stadium both the Jets and the Giants will inaugurate this fall, was built entirely with private money, so it can be done. By comparison, taxpayers picked up the cost for 71% of Paul Allen’s Qwest Field. Go figure.

It has been suggested to me that burning books outdoors may actually be illegal in Washington state due to clean air restrictions, so in celebration of our region’s hippie-ish, environmental dogooderism, and our nation’s culture of inclusive religious intolerance, rather than burning Christian Bibles and other holy books this 9/11, it might be more appropriately symbolic to compost them.

So does anybody have a heavy-duty chipper/shredder available that could chew up the word of God — hard or soft bound — with little effort? Let me know, and perhaps we’ll have a party.

Please join us tonight for an evening of Bible burning politics under the influence at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. We meet at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. beginning at about 8:00 pm. Stop by even earlier and enjoy some dinner.

Not in Seattle? There is a good chance you live near one of the 245 other chapters of Drinking Liberally.

With a small, Florida hate church announcing today that it will follow through on its plans to burn copies of the Quran in commemoration of the 9/11 attacks, it is incumbent on us patriotic Americans to prove to the rest of the world how tolerant and pluralistic our nation truly is. And the only way to properly send this message, is to, well, fight fire with fire.

In other words:  who’s up for a good old fashioned book burning?

While Pastor Jones and his fellow islamophobes down in Florida are selectively burning Qurans, folks here in America’s least churched city could gather for a more inclusive celebration of religious hatred, roasting hotdogs and smores over a raging bonfire of Holy Bibles. Mmm… toasty.

But why stop with just the teachings of Christ? In fact, I’d encourage folks to toss in copies of the Torah, the Vedas, the Tao-te-ching, the Book of Morman, Dianetics or even the Origin of the Species for all I care… whatever you consider holy or unholy, it’ll all burn just the same.

And for an added spark to the festivities, we could use American flags for kindling.

The point is, this is America, so of course the ironically named Dove World Outreach Center has the constitutional right to burn the Quran — you know, in the same way that we all have the right to draw cartoons of the Prophet Mohammed — no matter how distasteful, offensive, or provocative this might appear to Islamic communities at home or abroad. See, that’s the thing about free expression: for this right to be the least bit meaningful, it has to be just as available to assholes is it is to the rest of us.

That’s a hard point to get across to folks who aren’t accustomed to our freedoms, so the only real way to combat Pastor Jone’s message of religious intolerance and hate is to dilute it with a more egalitarian message of religious intolerance and hate of our own. And that’s why we need to make a show of burning all the holy books, especially, but not exclusively, Pastor Jones’ beloved Holy Bible. Think of it as a “Bonfire of Inanities.”

Unfortunately, Seattle parks limits legal beach bonfires to firewood only, so we’d likely have to light ours on private property. If anybody has suitable space for a backyard bonfire this Saturday, let me know. I’ll bring a couple growlers of Manny’s. And, a Bible.

25th LD Republican nominee Hans Zeiger on religious diversity:

It just so happens that the “Religious Right” is the only significant religious group in America that is really dedicated and interested in praying to God. That isn’t to say there aren’t folks who occasionally pray to false gods or the multi-faith/inter-faith god or themselves in various corners of the Religious Left, but they don’t tend to be the prayer warrior types.

It’s only a state House race, so we can’t rely on our local political press — the watchdogs of democracy — to present Zeiger to voters in his own words. I guess that means Democratic incumbent Dawn Morrell is going to have to educate voters all by herself. And that means she needs you help.

Imagine how much cheaper air travel would be if the airlines could finally succeed in busting the pilots union.

The Seattle Times editorial board wants young voters to get more engaged in politics, and with hip, engaging prose like this, how could they not?

COME out, come out wherever you are. Experts predict younger voters, those pumped up, enthusiastic Millennials age 18 to 24 who helped propel President Obama to victory, will not participate so much in the 2010 midterm elections.

That is both predictable and a shame.

“Come out, come out wherever you are…” that’s your lede? What… did “olly, olly oxen free” come off as too sophisticated? Um, the minimum voting age is eighteen, for chrisakes, not eight.

I mean, perhaps young voters might get more engaged in politics if our political media didn’t constantly come off as a bunch of sclerotic, condescending scolds. I’m just sayin’.

Is it just my garden, or has anybody else noticed an absence of botrytis this year? Not a single drop of it in either my fall or early summer raspberry crops, even though the latter ripened during a pretty moist season.

For that matter, I haven’t seen any powdery mildew on my zucchini or cucumbers this year either. Odd. Is somebody sneaking into my garden in the middle of the night and spraying fungicide?

If you haven’t already read it, you might want to celebrate this Labor Day by reading Citigroup’s infamous 2005 Plutonomy memos, in which they advise investors that America is no longer a democracy as much as it is a plutonomy in which “economic growth is powered by and largely consumed by the wealthy few.”

At the heart of plutonomy, is income inequality. Societies that are willing to tolerate/endorse income inequality, are willing to tolerate/endorse plutonomy.

That pretty much describes the United States in the 21st century. The rich continue to get richer, consuming a larger and larger chunk of the GDP, as wages for working and middle class families continue to stagnate or drop, largely due to the global labor pool keeping wage inflation in check, and profits rising. And according to Citi, it’s only getting worse (or in their eyes, better).

But it’s not inevitable.

RISKS — WHAT COULD GO WRONG?
Our whole plutonomy thesis is based on the idea that the rich will keep getting richer. This thesis is not without its risks. For example, a policy error leading to asset deflation, would likely damage plutonomy. Furthermore, the rising wealth gap between the rich and poor will probably at some point lead to a political backlash. Whilst the rich are getting a greater share of the wealth, and the poor a lesser share, political enfranchisement remains as was – one person, one vote (in the plutonomies). At some point it is likely that labor will fight back against the rising profit share of the rich and there will be a political backlash against the rising wealth of the rich. This could be felt through higher taxation (on the rich or indirectly though higher corporate taxes/regulation) or through trying to protect indigenous laborers, in a push-back on globalization – either anti-immigration, or protectionism. We don’t see this happening yet, though there are signs of rising political tensions. However we are keeping a close eye on developments.

“One person, one vote.” That’s what the very wealthy fear most… that one day “labor will fight back” against the growing economic imbalance that is destroying our nation for the other 99% of us. Chew on that as you’re enjoying your Labor Day BBQ.

Back in 2006, then-U.S. Attorney for Western Washington John McKay appeared on 60 Minutes to defend his attempts to arrest and extradite Canadian marijuana seed seller Marc Emery. McKay argued that Emery was a drug kingpin and a threat to Americans. Four years later, Emery ended up in an American prison.

But after being pushed out by the Bush Administration later that year, McKay has had an interesting change of heart about our drug policies in the years since then. And in a guest column Friday in the Mommy Journal, he expands on his newfound enlightenment:

As Emery’s prosecutor and a former federal law-enforcement official, however, I’m not afraid to say out loud what most of my former colleagues know is true: Our marijuana policy is dangerous and wrong and should be changed through the legislative process to better protect the public safety.

Congress has failed to recognize what many already know about our policy of criminal prohibition of marijuana — it has utterly failed. Listed by the U.S. government as a “Schedule One” drug alongside heroin, the demand for marijuana in this country for decades has outpaced the ability of law enforcement to eliminate it. Perhaps this is because millions of Americans smoke pot regularly and international drug cartels, violent gangs and street pushers work hard to reap the profits.

Law-enforcement agencies are simply not capable of interdicting all of this pot and despite some successes have not succeeded in thwarting criminals who traffic and sell marijuana. Brave agents and cops continue to risk their lives in a futile attempt to enforce misguided laws that do not match the realities of our society.

I applaud McKay for speaking out on this now, and I hope that this does move the ball forward. He’s right to point out that many in law enforcement know exactly what he’s saying is true, but are afraid to say so publicly. Part of it may be that they fear having their professional hypocrisies exposed. McKay clearly doesn’t, and it would be pointless for me to harp on that – other than to encourage him to request a pardon for Emery, who was very far from the “drug kingpin” McKay accused him of being.

But one other thing did stick out to me. McKay’s column is dripping with his still-lingering contempt for those who actually do use marijuana. He calls them “idiots”, and despite even acknowledging that it can have medical benefits for some, he still thinks that it’s “dumb” to want it. I think this also plays a large role in why so many in law enforcement cling to this outdated policy. There’s still a strong element of contempt for those who drive the market.

Over the years, marijuana use has gone from being representative of counter-culture rebellion to being far more mainstream. Most of the people I know who use marijuana are regular folks who enjoy it the way many people enjoy a glass of scotch or a microbrew, but the idea of it being part of some sort of reckless rebellion still lingers. Even for those who’ve seen the light on what this devastating policy has done to our country, there’s still a blind spot to the fact that for a lot of people, it’s not by default a “dumb” thing to do.

Last week’s contest was won by Dan Robinson. It was Nettleton Middle School in Nettleton, MS, which came under fire last week for having race-based criteria for those running for class office positions.

Here’s this week’s, good luck!