HorsesAss.Org

I’m heading down to Oregon today at the invitation of the folks at Loaded Orygun, The Bus Project and The Portland Mercury:

What: Digital Politics Forum–More Than Meets The Eye
Who: Progressive wunderkind David Sirota, BlueO’s Kari Chisholm, The Merc’s own Amy Ruiz, Anna Galland of MoveOn.org and Grand Poobah of Washington State blogging, David Goldstein–fielding questions and discussing issues surrounding the ways that the netroots can and does transform politics.
Where: Acme Pub, Portland
When:7PM is the official start time. But I plan to show up by 5:30 and have some food–so feel free to make an early entrance and join me.

So I won’t be at DL tonight, and I likely won’t be blogging for the next 24 hours or so. Hopefully Will, Darryl and Geov can fill in for me both places.

With gasoline prices once again hitting record highs it may seem like an odd time to argue for a hike in gasoline taxes, but argue the P-I editorial board does:

We are as upset as anybody at oil companies. And roller-coaster prices are painful for everyone’s budget. But a key ingredient in any reasonably speedy energy-policy fix must be higher gas prices.

That’s particularly true if innovation and technology are to be utilized effectively. A federal gas tax increase of 50 cents or more would assure that there will be a market for new technologies.

[…] Congress should raise gasoline taxes or set minimum oil prices. Democrats might regard that as political poison to their new majority. But addiction to oil is poisoning the environment, weakening public confidence in the economy and undercutting U.S. ability to make wise, independent foreign policy decisions.

No doubt the tripling of gas prices over the past six years has been a hardship for working and middle class Americans, costing many families thousands of dollars a year. But to do nothing is to tacitly approve a course of action that would surely lead American consumers from bad to worse. Between global warming, Middle East security concerns and approaching peak oil, the price of energy is going nowhere but up.

So I’d like to one up the P-I editorial board and suggest that we cannot wait for Congress and the President to act unpopularly, if responsibly. We need to dramatically increase gasoline taxes in Washington state, while amending our state Constitution to permit gasoline tax revenues to be spent on mass transit and alternative energy research and development.

A massive investment in rail and other mass transit infrastructure is the fastest way to get Washington drivers out of their cars and away from the pumps. Meanwhile, given the focus and the money, there is an opportunity for the region to take the lead in the development and manufacturing of the alternative energy technologies of the future, assuring another generation of high tech jobs in the region to accompany those in the aerospace and software industries.

Gasoline prices routinely jump a dollar a gallon with barely a blip in consumption. Wouldn’t you rather the next hike in fuel prices represent an investment in our region’s future, rather than a 9-figure bonus for top Exxon executives?

Apparently inspired by my inspired defense of online anonymity, I received a rambling piece of anonymous hate mail yesterday, that amongst other things accused me of cowardice for failing to attack the Mormon religion.

This has been a relatively common theme in comment threads and emails since 710-KIRO was acquired by Bonneville International — a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Church of Latter Day Saints. In the same way that my righty critics smirked that I wouldn’t last ten minutes on the air without blurting out the word “fuck” or some other FCC-banned profanity, there also seems to be this expectation (hope?) that I simply will not be able to restrain myself from using the airwaves to attack the religion of those who sign my paycheck.

So I thought it time to finally address this thorny theological issue.

As a non-Christian — a self-described Jewish Atheist — I do not find the Mormon religion to be any more ridiculous than “mainstream” Christian denominations. So Mormons believe that Joseph Smith found some golden plates and translated them by looking at a seer stone through a hat. So what? Catholics believe that the bread and wine of the Eucharist is the actual body and blood of Christ. Yuck. You tell me, objectively, that one is weirder or more or less likely than the other.

And yeah, Smith preached plural marriage (though the church later rejected it.) But the Vatican mandates clerical celibacy. I didn’t do so well with one wife, but given the choice, I’m going with Smith on this one.

My point is, to nonbelievers, the specifics of all religions come across as unbelievably fantastical, even Judaism — though the reformed rabbi at the synagogue in which I was educated and bar mitzvahed taught the Torah as allegory rather than literal truth. What is important are the ethical and moral lessons these stories teach you, not whether or not Adam and Eve really were the progenitors of all humanity. (And the icky incest issues a literal reading of Genesis inevitably raises.)

Me make fun of Mormons? Why? To me they’re just another Christian sect. Indeed, in some ways, Mormons have more in common with us Jews than they do with their fellow Christians, in that historically, we’ve both been persecuted, feared, ridiculed and despised by many in “mainstream” Christianity.

So enough with this goading me on to go after the Mormons. To be honest, all you Christians just kinda look alike to me.

Writing in today’s Washington Post, Tom Grubisich (if that’s his real name) sounds the alarm against the common blogosphere practice of pseudonymous posting. (Via The Agonist.)

These days we want “transparency” in all institutions, even private ones. There’s one massive exception — the Internet. It is, we are told, a giant town hall. Indeed, it has millions of people speaking out in millions of online forums. But most of them are wearing the equivalent of paper bags over their heads. We know them only by their Internet “handles” — gotalife, runningwithscissors, stoptheplanet and myriad other inventive names.

[…] In any community in America, if Mr. anticrat424 refused to identify himself, he would be ignored and frozen out of the civic problem-solving process. But on the Internet, Mr. anticrat424 is continually elevated to the podium, where he can have his angriest thoughts amplified through cyberspace as often as he wishes. He can call people the vilest names and that hate-mongering, too, will be amplified for all the world to see.

You would think Web sites would want to keep the hate-mongers from taking over, but many sites are unwitting enablers.

Yeah… an unwitting enabler. That’s me.

Um… do you think “Tom” could be any more condescending?

What I am is a witting enabler. You think I like the garbage dump that is my typical comment thread? You think I don’t know that my policy of no-holds-barred invective and pseudonymity is routinely exploited by faceless trolls who view hijacking a thread as some sort of ideological victory? You think I’m a fucking idiot?

I do plan to eventually move to a registration system that might cut down some of the most ridiculously extravagant trolling, and a community moderation system that will clamp down on it further. But I defend the right of every member of the HA community — no matter how vile — to maintain their anonymity.

Why? Because if you think the pseudonymous trolls are ruthless in their public efforts to trivialize and discourage the speech of others, just imagine the acts of intimidation that go on privately.

In the four years since unwittingly becoming a somewhat public figure I have found myself the target of all types of threats and attacks. My “fans” have told me that when “The Sweep” comes, they’ll be the first at my door, and that they’ll be in the front row cheering when I finally “hang for my crimes.” I’ve been assured that I can keep all my “fancy words” but that “we own all the guns,” and that I’ll someday “get what [I] deserve” for my gun control advocacy.

I’ve received hate mail from Nazis and fundies and other anti-semites warning me to go back where I came from. (Philadelphia?) I’ve had people forward me tidbits of my personal information to make sure that I knew that they knew where I lived, where I banked, and how I spent my money, and have repeatedly found unexplained queries on my credit report. I’ve had a load of horse manure dumped on my sidewalk, the tabs repeatedly scraped off my car, and my websites targeted with God-knows-how-many denial of service attacks. I’ve been falsely (and anonymously) reported to police for soliciting sex from minors online.

Perhaps all this attention just fires up the persecution-complex sufferer in me, but the average citizen just isn’t willing to put up with this kind of shit. There’s a reason why people resort to intimidation and threats — it often works. How many people are willing to passionately and openly express their opinions in the comment thread of a dinky, local blog, knowing that some asshole might call your employer to complain?

A paranoid fantasy? Just take a gander over at our friends at (un)Sound Politics, where Stefan “allows” anonymous comments, but is quick to out anybody who strenuously and effectively refutes his rhetoric? God help the public employee who dares express a personal opinion from a government IP, let alone a whistle blower on the wrong side of the powers that be and/or a vindictive mob.

In an ideal world, it would not take courage to attach one’s real name to a post or a comment. But this isn’t an ideal world. The public town hall meetings that “Tom” mythologizes may indeed be a paragon of openness and transparency, but they can also make for a stifling atmosphere of group-think and political correctness, where participants are actively discouraged from truly speaking their minds for fear of being ostracized by their neighbors. There are communities where being openly gay or atheist or anti-war can cost you your livelihood, let alone your social standing. Should these despised minorities be denied the opportunity to engage in public discourse because “Tom” has determined that pseudonymity is uncivil?

It is not more civility that is needed in the public debate, but more honesty, and sometimes the most honest words are those penned under a nom de plume. From “Silence Dogood” to “Publius” to “Mr. X“, our nation has a proud history of pseudonymity in public discourse.

Perhaps it is the very anonymity of the Internet that makes it such a powerful forum in the first place?

If you’re like me, you probably like the King County Parks System. Growing up in the suburbs, I loved Marymoor Park. I played many a youth soccer game there, and tasted victory and sometimes bitter defeat… If only after defeats in life everyone got to go out for ice cream at the Dairy Queen.

But parks cost money. Tax money. We have to fix them up and add more of them. We’ve got trails that don’t connect- let’s connect them! People are moving to King County, and if we don’t add to our parks system, people will be forced to hunt Knute Berger for sport and leisure. No one wants to see this happen. No one.

So show up at today’s “I (Heart) Parks” Levy Fundraiser:

Monday, May 14th, 2007
5pm – 7pm
King Street Bar & Oven in Pioneer Square
170 S. King St Seattle

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

7PM: Is America’s health care system sick?
As a 44-year-old man with catastrophic insurance, I’d say yes. Jonathan Cohn of The New Republic joins me to talk about his new book “SICK: The Untold Story of America’s Health Care Crisis — and the People Who Pay the Price.” Cohn will be speaking and signing books this Thursday, May 17, 7:30PM at Seattle’s Town Hall.

8PM: Are you willing to pay for parks?
King County Councilman Larry Phillips joins me to talk about the upcoming Parks Levies and to take your calls on whatever other issues are on your mind.

9PM: Are there smarter ways to fight terrorism?
Congressman Adam Smith calls in at the top of the hour to talk about the Iraq War debate and discuss some of his ideas for smarter ways to fight terrorism.

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

Chuck Taylor’s snipe hunt notwithstanding, someone is actually being prosecuted for actual voter fraud.

The CBS News Investigative Unit has learned a man who was a field coordinator in Congressman Patrick McHenry’s (R-NC) 2004 campaign has been indicted for voter fraud in North Carolina.

The indictment charges that Michael Aaron Lay, 26, illegally cast his ballot in two 2004 Congressional primary run-offs in which McHenry was a candidate. The charges indicate that Lay voted in a district where it was not legal for him to vote.

At the time Lay was listed as a resident in a home owned by 32-year-old McHenry but campaign records indicate Lay’s paychecks were sent to an address in Tennessee. McHenry won the primary by only 86 votes. According to Gaston County, North Carolina District Attorney Locke Bell, Lay was indicted on Monday, May 7 by a local grand jury.

Uh oh.

The reason I mention Taylor’s story at the Crosscut was because regular reporters (you know, guys with fedoras with a card that says “press” on it) have low balled this US Attorney firings scandal ever since it came out. The story wouldn’t be around for Chuck Taylor to poo-poo if it were not for some liberal bloggers.

Religion is under attack in the US!

Religious organizations have long competed for federal contracts to provide social services, and they have tried to influence Congress on matters of moral and social policy — indeed, most major denominations have a presence in Washington to monitor such legislation. But an analysis of federal records shows that some religious organizations are also hiring professional lobbyists to pursue the narrowly tailored individual appropriations known as earmarks.

A New York Times analysis shows that the number of earmarks for religious organizations, while small compared with the overall number, have increased sharply in recent years. From 1989 to January 2007, Congress approved almost 900 earmarks for religious groups, totaling more than $318 million, with more than half of them granted in the Congressional session that included the 2004 presidential election. By contrast, the same analysis showed fewer than 60 earmarks for faith-based groups in the Congressional session that covered 1997 and 1998.

Onward Christian soldiers.

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

7PM: And I suppose that means The Stranger isn’t part of our media elite?
What does our local media elite’s chumminess with our local business elite have to do with a $100,000 no-bid contract issued by Safeco Field? The Stranger’s reclusive Josh Feit comes into the studio to explain all.

8PM: TBA

9PM: What’s up with Oregon?
TJ from Loaded Orygun joins me for our monthly rundown of what’s happening South of the border.

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

I’m filling in for Frank Shiers tonight, 9PM to 1AM on Newsradio 710-KIRO:

9PM: Are the Republican presidential candidates a bunch flip-floppers?
Liberal pundit Cliff Schecter calls in to talk smack about flip-flopping Republicans like Rudy Giuliani, who hates abortion, but supports it nonetheless, and suddenly conservative Mitt Romney, (who by the way, is hot.)

10 PM: Do you have faith in FDA? (The Faith-based Dining Administration)
Ben Huh from Itchmo.com joins me for the hour to give us the latest on our nation’s pet food recall cum food safety scandal, and to talk about the what’s happening in the Puget Sound “pet parent” community.

11 PM: TBA

12 AM: TBA

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

Our friend Stefan over at (un)Sound Politics is back on his one trick pony again, attempting to fisk fired USA John McKay’s KUOW interview into a display of unabashed hypocrisy.

For his purposes, Stefan presents this quote about WA’s disputed 2004 gubernatorial election:

I personally made sure the FBI was assigned to this case and I won’t go into all the details and I don’t think it’s even appropriate today to do that, but I can tell you that we did a tremendous amount of work to examine all of the allegations. and we determined and in the end I made the decision, which I absolutely stand by, that there was not sufficient evidence to take anyone before the grand jury.

Against this statement about the US Attorney firing scandal:

Yes, of course there is. And people often make a mistake and they assume that circumstantial evidence is not powerful and good evidence. It is, under all of the rules … there are some very troubling pieces of evidence out there … telephone calls from members of Congress related to a specific public corruption case.

Stefan wants to know why “hundreds of illegally counted ballots are not evidence of election crimes, but that telephone calls are evidence of obstruction of justice?”

Hmm. Off the top of my head, I’m just guessing that maybe the difference here is that the evidence of corruption and obstruction surrounding the US Attorney firings have not been criminally investigated yet, whereas both the FBI and the US Attorney’s office thoroughly investigated the circumstantial evidence surrounding alleged voter fraud in WA state, and determined “that there was not sufficient evidence to take anyone before the grand jury.”

How many times does McKay have to say it? He investigated the evidence. The FBI investigated the evidence. And they did not find sufficient cause to empanel a grand jury.

I know it is hard for Stefan to accept, but a Republican King County Prosecutor, a Republican Secretary of State, a Republican US Attorney, and a Republican judge in a Republican county all failed to find sufficient evidence of fraud or corruption. Furthermore, a Republican state Attorney General has publicly stated that Gov. Gregoire won that election under the statutes in place… statutes Republican gubernatorial nominee Dino Rossi had voted for just a few years prior, while serving as a Republican legislator.

No doubt Stefan has evidence of something. Mistakes. Errors. Whatever. But I hope he understands if I choose to accept the determinations of professional judges, prosecutors and investigators over the conspiracy theories of an amateur dick like him.

At Wednesday’s Friends of Seattle get-together, I got the impression that our city council candidates aren’t big drinkers.

This may be a problem.

You see, Seattle city politics can be awfully dull. Everyone is for parks. Everyone supports the schools. If we had the money, we’d hire 5000 new cops. When it comes to transit, the question isn’t “why?”, it’s “where and how much.” There are lots of lopsided votes on the council. Lots of 9-0, or 8-1. Consensus matters, maybe too much. On most issues, the difference of opinions between the members can be a matter of degrees.

The interesting stuff is in the details, and if it takes a PBR tallboy to coax it out, so be it.

Venus Velasquez told me she wants young people to be able to buy houses in Seattle. My reply was, “House? I’ll never afford a house in the city.” She said “home” might be a better word to use. In the downtown area, the condos being built are mostly luxury units. The developer community is going to learn soon that you have to serve the whole market, not just the high-end folks. Venus and the other candidates ought to have (eventually, I know it’s early) specifics about how we’re going to accommodate young families in the city.

Venus is running to succeed Peter Steinbrueck on the council, and claims him as a supporter. While I don’t know a lot about the challengers, I do know some about the guy they’re looking to replace. Peter Steinbrueck stands for something. On the great issues facing the city, he’s not afraid to pick a side and fight. Venus told me about how she’s good at solving problems and bringing people together. Sure, that’s important, but sometimes you have to pick which side is going to be the winner. These campaigns for council should be about what decisions they’d make and why.

I’ve got a busy schedule over the next week, so here’s a peek at what’s coming up.

• Extra Radio:
  I’ll be filling in for Frank Shiers tomorrow (Friday, May 11) from 9PM to 1AM, in addition to my usual Saturday and Sunday shows, 7PM to 10PM on Newsradio 710-KIRO. Scheduled guests include:
  • Friday, 9PM: liberal pundit Cliff Schecter talks smack about flip-flopping Republicans.
  • Saturday, 7PM: What does our local media elite’s chumminess with our local business elite have to do with $100,000 no-bid contract issued by Safeco Field? The Stranger’s reclusive Josh Feit comes into the studio to explain all.
  • Saturday, 9PM: TJ from Loaded Orygun joins me for our monthly rundown of what’s happening South of the border.
  • Sunday, 7PM: Jonathan Cohn of The New Republic joins me to talk about his new book “SICK: The Untold Story of America’s Health Care Crisis — and the People Who Pay the Price.“
  • Sunday, 8PM: King County Councilman Larry Phillips joins me to talk about the upcoming Parks Levy and other issues, and to take your calls.

• Portland World Tour:
  I’ll be reluctantly absent from Drinking Liberally this Tuesday, May 15, as I head down to Portland to join David Sirota at the Digital Politics Forum, sponsored by the Oregon Bus Project, the Portland Mercury and my friends Carla and TJ at Loaded Orygun. 7PMish at ACME, 1305 SE 8th in Portland. Free admission, but feel free to buy me a drink afterwards.

• 48th District Dems:
  Are you an Eastside party activist wannabe who just can’t bring yourself to attend your local Legislative District meeting? Well you 48th LD‘ers can drop by Stevenson Elementary School (14220 NE 8th ST, Bellevue) at 7PM, Wednesday, May 16 to hear me give my usual spiel on how the key to politics is telling a better story, and how if Dems want to tell a better story they could learn a lesson or two from the progressive blogs.

Blogging can be a lonely, thankless avocation, but there are those little things that make it all worthwhile. An appreciative comment or email. The occasional donation. Getting banned by the Chinese government.

During the six weeks I’ve dogged the pet food recall story, I’ve often grown frustrated with my failure to raise a louder alarm that melamine-tainted Chinese imports may have widely contaminated the human food supply, but yesterday I learned that my hard work has not gone entirely unnoticed. Sometime late Tuesday or early Wednesday the Chinese government blocked Internet access to HorsesAss.org, apparently fearful of what its citizens might learn of their own unregulated food supply — like the fact that Chinese vegetable proteins and livestock feed are routinely adulterated with scrap melamine and scrap cyanuric acid, and that in addition to renal failure, chronic exposure may cause cancer and reproductive damage. You know, stuff like that.

My local political blog typically averages just a few thousand readers a day, so if China’s billion-plus citizens were routinely checking in over their morning congee, I think I’d notice. But regardless, China’s government isn’t taking any chances.

I first became aware of the ban via an email from a reader, who wrote:

Congratulations! You just got blocked by the Chinese government! I happen to live in China at the moment, and couldn’t click into the article and had to go through anonymouse.org

The thought was oddly flattering, but I figured it was probably just some temporary network glitch. Then later in the day, I saw a link come in from Peking Duck, an expat blog in Taipei:

For some marvelous commentary on this subject, including a scathing indictment of how the US FDA (mis)handled this mess, you have to go here. Oddly enough, the site seems to be banned here in China. Fancy that.

Hmm. I wonder if Yahoo has handed over all my email yet?

That Chinese authorities would bother blocking a Washington state political blog because I’ve covered their food safety scandal a little too closely, says something about the total disregard they have for the health and welfare of their own people. And perhaps it says something about their growing unease over the details of this scandal that have yet to come to light.

Either way, it reassures me that I’m on the right track.