Search Results for: drinking liberally

On Tuesday, I wrote about the House Democrats passing the minimum wage bill, but it probably is going to get jammed up in the Senate. A couple different people at Drinking Liberally that night suggested that I make fun of Rep. Matt Manweller’s arguments against the bill. I couldn’t find a transcript of the whole thing, but I did find this press release where he highlights what he seems to think is his strongest argument.

I’ve also been told, Mr. Speaker, that if we raise the minimum wage, it will actually have a stimulus effect.

Yes. Because minimum wage earners are more likely to spend it than people in higher income brackets. You can make an argument against it or you can go with some bullshit analogies.

As if somehow, if I take five dollars from the member to my left and I hand it to a member of my right, there is magically more dollars on the House floor.

Well, if the person on your left was going to take the money and put it in their pocket, and the person on the right was going to buy lunch with it in the House cafeteria, then by passing the money along there’s 5 dollars worth of lunch and 5 dollars in the House. So there’s more value in the House. Also, the economy is usually more than 2 people and an intermediary.

[laughter]

I don’t know if he or some member of his staff transcribed this or if it’s from somewhere else. But I’m now thinking of some intern being like, “No, there wasn’t really much laughter… No, I don’t really think it needs it… Fine, I’ll add some laughter to the transcript. Also, please stop asking me to marry you when I turn 18.”

That’s amazing! If you believe that, please go home to someplace that has a pool – dump a bucket of water – dump a bucket in one side of the pool and then empty that bucket in the other side of the pool, and tell me how long you had to do that before you realize there was not more water in the pool.

It’s sort of amazing that an economist doesn’t think it’s possible for economies to grow based on government policy. And taken to its logical extreme, any policy (other than deficit spending or reduction, I guess) would follow the same logic. Why worry about tax increases if it’s all just the same pool? Why worry about solving waste since it’s all just water in the same pool? Is that really the best GOP argument against the minimum wage?

Just water that had moved around.

Someone is really happy with his crappy analogy. It would be kind of adorable, except for all the people whose lives will be harmed if he gets his way.

Also, not for nothing, but if your go-to metaphor is about your swimming pool, what are you even doing talking about a minimum wage?

None of these arguments make intellectual sense.

Maybe actually engage the arguments instead of spending all that time making up those rad pool metaphors.

There was some discussion at Drinking Liberally over how much weight to put into Nate Silver and other people’s predictions for what will happen in the Senate. I tend to think his predictions are pretty good, and Democrats should be worried about losing the Senate, and having some losses in state legislatures. But the good news is that there’s still a month. And things aren’t static. You can still donate or make calls for your favorite candidates. You can still get behind candidates on Facebook or Twitter and talk to your friends. You can still write letters to the editor and comments. You can still call into talk radio.

And of course, you can still vote. Here in Washington we don’t have a US Senate race but we sure have a close legislature. We still have plenty of initiatives. Politics isn’t a spectator sport, and by all means get involved. The great thing about the issue of if the election were held today is that the election won’t be held today. There’s still time to make things better.

In the last week I was on the same bus as an old co-blogger from an earlier blog, I saw a writer of a blog I used to read back in the day and who was a Drinking Liberally regular at the Columbia City Farmer’s Market, and randomly bumped into another friend — who isn’t associated with politics or blogging — while out walking. That’s more than most weeks, sure, but it’s hardly uncommon. And I wonder what it is about Seattle (and me) that makes that sort of thing happen.

Part of it is simply that I’ve lived in the area for a long time so the number of people to accidentally run into is higher. But part of it is Seattle. I ran into those people on transit or on foot, and the city and county have invested a lot of money in those things. Of course, the primary reason for those investments is to get people around, but it’s a nice side effect to run into people you know.

I don’t really think of it as a suburban thing.* When I lived in suburbia (both growing up without a car and as an adult with one) there were a few places where you would see people. So at a coffee shop, a restaurant, a bar, or even the Post Office, you would run into a bunch of other people also there for the coffee shop, restaurant, bar or post office. But not as much out and about or commuting.

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Just a reminder to the regulars and an FYI to the new people: there is, in fact, a comment policy here. It’s pretty loose anyway, and it’s sometimes enforced more in the breach than in actual fact. But, you know, stay on topic and if you want to say something, there are 3 open threads as well as the Drinking Liberally and Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza act as open threads that are basically unmoderated (other than spam and copyright violations).

Now, I realize that pointing to the comment policy means that I’m somewhat committing myself to more moderating. Fortunately, the page is loading quicker, so it won’t take as long to do. But try to behave.

And feel free to use this as an open thread.

– Ed Murray’s first State of the City address.

– It’s a sign of the world we’re living in that we need regulations of drone use.

– The GOP Senate trying to hide the ball from their own constituents is just pathetic.

– On a disturbingly regular basis…

– Fare inspectors being able to issue tickets in real time seems both helpful and horrifying.

– Seattle’s Bitcoin ATM seems unnecessary, but it’s probably just another example of me not understanding Bitcoin. [h/t]

– The Drinking Liberally thread is below, if you’re looking for the address or whatever.

– On the Killing of Jordan Davis by Michael Dunn

– I’m looking forward to the Broadway Bikeway

– Few people ever stop to question why the 358 seemed to carry all of society’s “undesirables” — but the answer is simple: Because the 358 gets people to the necessary services they require to get by in an economy with no safety net.

– Remember, Stein’s report is quite informative – when Bush struggled with Part D implementation, he used executive-branch powers to tweak implementation. Obama is taking the same steps now. The difference is, when Bush did it, no one in Congress, in either party, ran around whining about the president creating a “government of one.” It just didn’t seem that important – because it wasn’t.

– Here’s hoping Oregon can pass their background checks legislation.

– Is Bertha still stuck?

– Just a quick note: When Drinking Liberally is in wandering mode, Darryl is going to post that thread in the morning, and I’ll post an Open Thread in the afternoon. Since you can use either as an open thread* it shouldn’t change conversations here too much.

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Assuming I can connect to the internet from the Union Bar, I’ll be liveblogging the SOTU. Please leave your own observations in the comment threads.

5:53: [Darryl] Okay…so I am on the intertubes. The teevee is on here at the Union Bar, and there is a good group of Drinking Liberally folks here, so here we go…just as soon as that turn up the sound.

5:57: [Darryl] Look for Boehner shedding a tear as introduces Mr. President.

6:00: [Darryl] Future first ex-lady arrives!

6:04: [Darryl] The cabinet arrives…no word on where Obama’s many Tsars are.

6:10: [Darryl] The Gavel. Obviously, Obama was frantically rewriting his speech for 10 minutes. A sure sign that his whole administration is in a steep decline….

6:12: [Darryl] Obama has a solid light blue tie on. It must mean something important….

6:14: [Darryl] Obama slips Boehner and Biden envelopes of unmarked bills just before taking the podium….

6:16: [Darryl] Obama front loads the address with all of the anecdotes.

6:18: [Darryl] “…I believe this can be a breakthrough year for America.” Are you with us or against us in this quest?

6:20: [Darryl] Obama says “In a balanced way.” and the cameras cut to Sen. Patty Murray. Nice.

6:21: [Darryl] Obama talks inequality and the income gap, and then promises concrete proposals. Then he threatens Republicans that he will implement these things using executive authority if they don’t help.

6:24: [Carl] All this America is the greatest country on Earth makes me think Obama feels there are better countries on other planets.

6:29: [Darryl] “Congress should undo the damage done last year to basic research.” Yes. Seriously! I’ll never understand why these asshole Republicans want to turn America into a 3rd world-class country in innovation. Oh…wait, I do. They are petty, greedy, selfish, small minded fucks!

6:33: [Darryl] “Climate change is a fact!” Of course…if you don’t believe in science or facts….

6:37: [Carl] Yay unemployment insurance. Now how many people applauding it will vote against it?

6:40: [Carl] Is son of a factory worker a parallel to son of a barkeep? Good job, some of the best speechwriters in the world.

6:43: [Darryl] Obama channels Christine Gregoire on early education.

6:47: [Darryl] “I believe when women succeed, America succeeds!!!” It’s that Democratic War on Women thing again.

6:49: [Darryl] Obama calls out Costco as a company that has learned that paying living wages turns into better business. “Say Yes…give America a raise!”

6:51: [Darryl} Okay…while I was eating my fish & chips, Obama totally schooled Republicans on health care. It was brilliant.

7:12: [Darryl] Until he got into all this foreign policy stuff, I was convinced this was Obama’s best SOTU address so far. It still may be.

7:16: [Darryl] This SOTU isn’t HIPPA compliant (Cori’s story).

7:20: [Darryl] Great closing. Definitely Obama’s best SOTU to date.

7:22: [Darryl] Here is my rebuttal prebuttal: Kathy McMorris Rodgers is a generic wingnut. So there.

Goldy has the details.

With the Washington State Legislature proving absolutely incapable (unwilling?) of addressing our transportation needs, King County Executive Dow Constantine is rolling out a proposal that would ask voters to approve $130 million a year in new local taxes to avert a 17 percent cut in Metro bus service, while providing additional money to maintain deteriorating city and county roads. Constantine will also ask the county council to approve a new low-income fare category—$1.50 per trip—that would provide a substantial discount to as many as 100,000 Metro riders who are struggling to cope with recent fare increases.

[…]

Rather than the more progressive motor vehicle excise tax (MVET)—a tax on the value of your car—that Olympia had promised King County but never delivered, Constantine is proposing raising revenue under the county’s existing but unused Transportation Benefit District (TBD) authority. The TBD would raise a combined $130 million in 2015; $80 million from a $60 annual vehicle license fee (VLF), and $50 million from a 0.1 percent increase in the county sales tax. (The $60 VLF would come after the current $20 “congestion relief charge” expires in June, so vehicle owners would only see a net $40 annual increase in their car tabs bill.) Sixty percent of the money raised would go toward filling a projected $75 million a year shortfall in Metro revenues, with the remaining 40 percent going toward city and county roads, allocated based on population.

The election to decide that will come up pretty soon, so that might be more interesting than whatever is happening, or not happening, in the legislature. I wonder if the opposition to the license fee will be out in as much force as it was in the Seattle election a few years ago. I hope it turns out better. Will the people who opposed it because it was regressive but haven’t lifted a finger to push Olympia for a better option be out again?

Will the promise of a lower bus fare make this package more progressive, so easier to swallow? In that election, there were vague promises that City Light would look into better rates for lower income people to offset some of the problems with the flat rate license fee. In this package, the lower rates are baked in. Goldy didn’t mention it in the piece and I forgot to ask him at Drinking Liberally, but I wonder what the mechanism will be for enforcing the different rate. It seems intrusive to have to prove that you deserve rate, but maybe it wouldn’t be. And with ORCA Cards, it’s probably a bit easier to just bloop the thing (THE TECHNICAL TERM) than to have to show a separate pass. Of course lower income people are probably less likely to have ORCA Cards, by and large.

Here are my blogging resolutions for 2014:

• I’ll post more content than just “Friday Night Multimedia Extravaganza” and “Drinking Liberally” this year.
• I’ll make every effort to avoid posts about Fibonacci sequences or Taylor series expansions.
• I’ll only blog professions of love to genuine offspring.
• I will not use the term “cephalonomancy” in a blog post this year. Period.
• I’ll scrap the draft about wetbacks with body parts the size of cantaloupes.
• I won’t blog about degrees of legitimacy regarding rape or about fecundability following rape.
• I’ll ALMOST shut down HorsesAss until Goldy agrees to getting lower internet connectivity, more limited resources, and crappier response time. Because FREEDOM!
• I’ll avoid uncomfortable sexual posts referring to unlubricated ass-fucking or the extra-plentiful quantity of pussy I have to eat at home.
• Oh…and I’ll avoid smoking anything while in a drunken stupor. Not even for the free munchies.
• I won’t write about a certain co-blogger’s pteronophobia
• I’ll refrain from commentary about dynasties, Dynasty, ducks, ducts of any sort, or even about about how to “die nasty.” Nuh-uh. Not gonna do it. Wouldn’t be prudent!
• I’ll eschew hackneyed clichés like “hackneyed clichés” and “Happy New Year!”

(Yup…it’s another open thread.)

Here is a thread where you can talk about this evening’s election. If the spirit moves me, I may do some updates from the Montlake Ale House.

Oh…and if you need to find a ballot drop-box or want to view the King County results, check out this page. For state stuff, go here.

(If you are looking for an open thread try the Drinking Liberally thread just below this one).

Later in the week, I’m going to send out candidate questions to everyone running for Seattle mayor. I have my own ideas about what to ask, but I thought I’d throw it out to the comment section before I send anything off.

The general rule is it would have to be broad enough that it could be asked to all of the candidates so no in your first term questions for McGinn or legislature questions for Murray, for example. But there are more general questions about things that happened in McGinn’s first term or in the legislature when Murray was there. I talked to Lee and Darryl at Drinking Liberally and there was some discussion of Metro and I-502, but we weren’t sure if that’s a city question. I’m definitely going to ask a police reform question.

Here are the questions I emailed out to City Council candidates 2 years ago.

Aside from Seattle mayor, I think I’m going to ask the top 2 people in each City Council seat after the primary. Are there any other seats you’d like to see questions asked?

Today is the 9th anniversary of HA. So I thought I would celebrate by remembering the top nine most memorable trolls who have lurked in the comment threads.

Any such list is necessarily subjective—trolls are memorable for may different reasons, sometimes rather personal ones. Some have invoked anger, some have provided “entertainment,” some were just very, very…VERY different. Okay…so here goes:

1. Mr. Cynical was Goldy’s first real troll. He showed up during the Great Election Contest of 2005, and loudly and boldly tried telling us how things would come out. Cynical was largely a propagandist for Republicans, so his many, many prognostications almost always came out dead wrong. Cynical was so wrong over the Great Election Contest of 2005, that the took on the moniker, “Mr. Irrelevant after his side lost. At least he had a sense of humor. An example of a Cynical long term political prediction, from the summer of 2005:
   

   Santorum and Rice will win in 2008 and 2012….
   Then Rice will become the first African-America and first woman President of the United States in 2016 and 2020.

   Mr. Cynical occasionally returns to the comment thread to offer his opinions on important events, like presidential elections. During the 2012 election, Cynical came back as Ryanistheman, Jody, and likely other commenters. A little know fact is that Cynical was the first troll to really get under Goldy’s skin…until Goldy got toughened and jaded into the troll-aloof person we know and love day.

2. Another of HA’s early trolls, JCH, was hell-bent on simply being disruptive. And he left lots of comments in attempts to disrupt. He was also a racist, spewing anti-Semitic slurs ad nauseum. It’s hard to know what drove him. He admitted that he lived in Hawaii, and I was able to deduce that he had previously lived in California, where he actively wrote letters to the editor of his local newspaper, pushing wingnut causes, of course.

   JCH has the distinction of being the first troll to be banned from HA. It was largely for his unwillingness to stop the barrage of anti-Semitic insults. And even his banning came after a long spell of having his comments moderated.

3. Chardonnay was HA’s first “concern troll,” but really stood out for being an (apparent) female in a largely male-dominated field. Something else that stood out about Chardonnay: she was excessively stupid. Now, whether this was an act or real is hard to tell. But she specialized in taking Republican talking points and re-framing them as “concerns” that were promptly demolished by other commenters. Here is a fun Chardonnay comment that came during the Ron Sims, David Irons, Jr. King County Executive election:
   

   oh ya Ivan, King Ronny is toast he’s as wacked as algore if not more. ronny f’d up with his trumped up enviro BS. and his election dept debacle. stick a fork in him.

   I’ll tell ya what ivan, if ron wins I’ll donate money to Goldy’s beer fund. You ‘buddy’ get zip unless Goldy wants to share his beer with you. If David Irons wins you buy Goldy a beer.

   I cannot say whether she ever donated beer money to Goldy. Chardonnay disappeared (under that name, anyway) after that election in late 2005. She made one more appearance in 2007.

4. Christmas Ghost is notable as another female commenter. She was much brighter than Chardonnay but, perhaps, crazier. A notable characteristic of her comments was an absence of upper case characters. Eventually, she moved to the Bay area and quit commenting on HA, but not before EFFin’ Unsound had some fun with her.

   Interesting, odd facts: She was a raging asshole to Goldy in the comment threads, but he reports that she was a nice and reasonable person in her emails to him. Goldy once posted a missing person piece on behalf of Christmasghost. The niece was eventually found, though I don’t know any of the details.

5. Piper Scott makes this list, because no commenter was more full of himself than was Piper. He was seriously insufferable and really did take himself seriously. Everyone else…not so much. In fact, Lee started a series of posts about him called The Crackpiper Chronicles (Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, and Part 4).

   Part one highlighted one of my favorite protracted exchanges with any troll. It’s still a fun read that shows, in the end, underneath all the pretense, Piper was reacting emotionally like a very typical reality-challenged wingnut.

6. Puddybud. Ahhhh, yes. What can we say about our beloved Puddybud. First, he gets kudos for longevity, having first posted back in 2005. Puddybud is a smorgasbord of illogical thoughts, nonsense, child-like arguments, illiteracy, hatred, bigotry, and right wing tripe, oddly mixed, on occasion, with pious religious fervor. And to add to it all, Puddybud has some deep insecurities as evidenced by his need for silly bragging. (Anyone remember the conversation about Puddybud serving in the military?)

   An interesting thing about Puddy is the he has actually engaged with some of us in person by coming to Drinking Liberally. In person, he is a friendly, articulate, and intelligent person—really, the antithesis of his online persona. How could this be? The answer is that Puddybud is a character. The person producing the character is engaging in performance art. This explains everything about Puddybud. Think about it…if your objective is to maximize disruption and “make liberal heads explode,” then debate using emotional arguments, use bad logic, be inflammatory while saying stuff that is barely comprehensible, misuse data. Hell…just blatantly lie—it’s the character Puddy, not the God-fearing person playing Puddy lying to you.

7. Mark the Redneck is a typical, if once prolific, propagandist/troll. What puts Mark the Redneck on this list is an infamous bet he made with Goldy…and reneged on.
8. Marvin Stamn was a prolific, nearly robotic troll. He had commenting down to an art:
   1. Open up Drudge and find an “outrage”
   2. Excerpt a quote from the piece
   3. Write just enough commentary so that it constitutes “fair use”.
   4. Go to 1

   Marvin eventually did himself in when he admitted to getting paid for his propaganda. It is hard to know if he was serious or joking, but since he lived in Southern California, commented for many hours a day, and had nothing to say about local politics, it seems more plausible than not. I don’t miss him.

9. I had a hard time picking just one last troll to memorialize. I considered pbj, chuck, manoftruth, howcanyoubePROUDtobeanASS, Max, YO, josef, and so on. But I choose Klake. What I remember about Klake was his long, rambly, semi-coherent comments, with random parts of the text in bold. Like here and here. Classic stuff.

So those are my “top” nine. How about you? Who are the trolls you would memorialize and why?

Yesterday evening going to Drinking Liberally as it was raining, I caught a crowded bus downtown at its first stop. People started pouring on from under the awnings for half a block around. There were at least 30 people, probably more, and it was already crowded by the time I got on. That’s fine. I’m glad that a lot of people use the bus in Seattle.

Still, getting on the bus was rather annoying. There were several people — who I assume were regular commuters — without a basic understanding of paying. There were people who fished out their ORCA Cards at the machine. There were people who fumbled around for their money once they got to the box.

This is not great behavior in the best of times, but when there’s a line waiting in the rain, it’s really unacceptable. Please, for the sake of everyone behind you, be ready when you get on the bus. If there’s a line where you’re waiting, that should be the time to get ready.

I’m glad for the policies that Obama embraces when he uses the phrase Wives, Mothers, & Daughters. The Violence Against Women Act and Paycheck Fairness are crucial steps forward.

But we can’t stop there. We know our economy is stronger when our wives, our mothers, our daughters can live their lives free from discrimination in the workplace, and free from the fear of domestic violence. Today, the Senate passed the Violence Against Women Act that Joe Biden originally wrote almost 20 years ago. And I now urge the House to do the same. (Applause.) Good job, Joe. And I ask this Congress to declare that women should earn a living equal to their efforts, and finally pass the Paycheck Fairness Act this year. (Applause.)

Yay for those policies! Still, when we watched that part of the State of the Union at Drinking Liberally, I asked Darryl if Obama realized that women were watching the speech too. That phrasing makes it sounds like the women who’ll benefit from the VAWA and the Paycheck Fairness Act aren’t listening.

I’m sure it polls and focus groups well, but it’s not as inclusive as it ought to be. So I’m glad to see that Melissa McEwan has started a petition to ask the president not to use that particular phrase.

Defining women by their relationships to other people is reductive, misogynist, and alienating to women who do not define ourselves exclusively by our relationships to others. Further, by referring to “our” wives et al, the President appears to be talking to The Men of America about Their Women, rather than talking to men AND women.

Please embrace inclusive language, Mr. President.

…to Drinking Liberally