Nail in the Coffin (Hopefully) link
October 31 Now Playing: Talib Kweli / The Beautiful Struggle / We Know
This ought to be good for a few laughs.
The Washington Post, a fairly Republican-leaning poll in recent years, has Tim Kaine taking the lead in the Virginia governor's race. Ed Kilgore (who's not running for governor) highlighted the contortions the Jerry Kilgore (who is) campaign has performed in order to spin the poll. You see, over five days, there were a lot of people who were in church, watching football, or going to a NASCAR race. And we just know that all those folk are going to vote for Jerry.
My general election ballot is here, ready to be filled out.
I should preface this with my general rule of thumb on initiatives, which is that I vote "no" on almost all "initiatives to the people", and consider the "intiatives to the legislature" on the merits, though with a bias towards voting against them.
Initiative 900. This is a worthless Tim Eyman stunt that forces the government to do more some performance audits, despite the fact that in the past legislative session the Leg enacted strong performance audit requirements. Vote "No" on I-900.
Initiative 901. This is the new super-strength indoor smoking ban, and while it technically bans smoking within 25 feet of doorways, in practice no county health department would ever enforce such a law. Smoking bans clearly reduce the number of smokers, which makes good public health sense, but definitely raise everyones libertarian hackles. Yes, if indoor smoking is banned, smokers are less free to choose where they smoke. But non-smokers who dislike smoke or who don't want their kids exposed to it are more free to go to a wider selection of restaurants and bars. So it's not enough of a problem to raise my libertarian hackles. Still, while I support the indoor smoking ban, I'm going to stick to principle and Vote "No" on I-901.
Initiative 912. This will eliminate funding for a series of safety-oriented road improvements placed in last years state budget, including much needed replacements of the Alaskan Way Viaduct and the 520 bridge. Here's the official "Vote No on 912" website. There's no reason to let the Flat-Earth Society continue to hamstring local government through the initative process. Vote "No" on I-912, with extreme prejudice.
Initiative 330. This is the insurance companies' "tort reform" bill, which would put a cap on the punitive damages and damages for pain & suffering one can recover from a malpractice claim. There is no evidence that such laws reduce health care costs in any way. Plus, my girlfriend's mom is with the plaintiff's bar. Vote "No" on I-330, with extreme prejudice.
Initiative 336. This is something of a wonkish initiative that will try to crack down on the small number of lawyers who bring lots of frivolous claims, force the state to take more action to discipline the tiny number of doctors who account for a majority of malpractice claims, and is in general a much more balanced way of dealing with the high cost of malpractice in the United States. Still, it's a special-interest backed bill; it just happens to be backed by special interests I'm more amenable to. While it's not quite as important, Vote "No" on I-336.
State Constitutional Amendment: SJ 8207. See this site for a full explanation. Small towns don't have their own municipal courts; instead, they just have state district court judges who handle all casework for the area. At present, only district court judges are allowed to serve on certain commissions; this amendment opens those commissions to municipal court judges as well. The Senate clearly is just trying to "fix a bug" in the constitution; Vote "Yes" on SJ 8207
King County Proposition 1. The County Council raised property taxes to fund a "veterans and human services levy", which is a very clever way of increasing funding for mental health & housing assistance by forcing "no" voters to appear "tough on veterans". These are the kinds of initiatives & propositions that really chap my hide, as we get nickled and dimed to death with pet projects. There's really no reason why the County council couldn't just raise property taxes by .005%, put the money in the general fund, and use it to fund mental health services. I'm going to withhold judgement on Prop 1 until I find out whether or not the revenue increase will eventually find its way into the general fund.
King County Council. There is no reason to deny him a third term. He's the man. Vote Ron Sims (D).
King County Sheriff. Sue Rahr is part of the Reichert machine, so Vote Greg Schmidt.
King County Council, District 4. It's always fun living in a midnight blue district. I've got a liberal Democrat and an independent to choose from. Vote Larry Phillips.
Court of Appeals, Division 1., District 1., Position 2. She is well qualified and faces no opposition. Vote Susan Randolph Agid.
Port of Seattle, Commissioner 1. Avoid the well-funded business toady John Creighton and stick with the man who's endorsed by the working folks on the waterfront, environmental groups, and almost everyone else you care about. Vote Lawrence Malloy.
Port of Seattle, Comissioner 3. Hmmm .... I just got a piece of mail from "Citizens for a Healthy Economy" [and deregulation and the construction of overpriced condominiums], funded by real estate firms and companies doing business at the port, urging me to vote for Rich Berkowitz over goo-goo policy wonk Lloyd Hara. Suddenly I'm conflicted on this one. I'll put this race to the side, along with Prop 1.
Port of Seattle, Commissioner 4. I'll stick with the P-I endorsed, reformist-minded candidate. Vote Jack Jolley.
Mayor. The man who's "Just Good Enough", Vote Greg Nickels.
City Attorney. Absent any evidence he's doing a bad job, I'll assume he deserves re-election. Vote Thomas A. Carr.
City Council, Position 2. Okay, all you Citizens for a Healthy Economy [and deregulation and the construction of overpriced condominiums] folks, I'll throw you a bone. Richard Conlin's no-growth attitude has gotten in the way of public transit and improvements to Magnusson/Sand Point park, and is in general indicative of the stick-in-the mud belief that Seattle can get by without growing as a city. We can't stop people from moving to the Seattle area, and if we could, why would we want to? People like living here, and there are lots of job opportunities; what's wrong with that? We need a City Council that's willing to move beyond the debate of should the city grow and figure out how the city is going to grow. Vote Paige Miller.
City Council, Position 4. Government in America is adversarial, and if you're not a full-throated supporter of the Nickels agenda, you'll want a City Council that's interested in being a force for constructive opposition. That means not letting Nickels' former communications director, Casey Corr, onto the Council. The incumbent Council President is slowly learning how to be an effective force for opposition; Vote Jan Drago.
City Council, Position 6. We love our lefty gadflies here, right? Is anyone placing bets as to whether or not he'll beat Pete Steinbruck's 2003 vote tally? Vote Nick Licata.
City Council, Position 8. Continuing my desire to see a hard-charging City Council that will keep Nickels honest, Vote Dwight Pelz.
Advisory Measure 1. "Dear Mayor Nickels: please ask Congress to enact some form of universal health insurance. Sincerely, the City of Seattle". I'm all for universal health insurance, and I think the recently leaked Wal-Mart memo will be the starting point in the next serious business push to get it done, but Mayor Nickels doesn't need a bunch of ballots to tell him that we'd all like it out here. Vote "No" on Advisory Measure 1.
Seattle Popular Monorail Authority, Position 8. I have to make this choice again? Beth Goldberg would like to destroy the monorail in order to save it, while Cindi Laws inexplicably decided to trash the Jewish community during her candidate interview. Can I plead the 5th or something?
Seattle Popular Monorail Authority, Position 9. He's done nothing to deserve defeat, and he supports keeping the monorail project going in some form. Vote Cleve Stockmeyer.
SPMA Proposition 1. This modifies the proposed monorail plan by shortening it from the original Ballard-to-West Seattle, to instead become an Interbay-to-West Seattle line, and if there is money left over, to build the full 14-mile line. I need to look at the finances of this one before I make a decision.
SPMA Proposition 2. This changes the composition of the SPMA from a 7-members appointed, 2-members elected board to a 4-members appointed, 5-members elected board. This is possible a pandora's box, since the elected officals might be responsive to whimsical, short-sighted stories about inefficiency in the project by clamoring to shut it down rather than mend it. But, I think I'll put my faith in the newspapers and the voters to do a decent job covering monoral construction, should it, you know, ever happen. Vote "Yes" on Proposition 2.
I'll leave School Board races for another day; I didn't know I was going to have to think about three of them.
Update: It looks like I'm going with Michael DeBell, Mary Bass, and Linda Thompson-Black on the school board races. That leaves the no-win situation on the SPMA Position 8 race, the Hara-Berkowitz race (where I'm now leaning towards Hara), and King County Proposition 1.
Special "It is not okay to your treat your mother like this" edition:
All City / Nice With It
Dying in Stereo / Trinity
All City / Girl for All Seasons
All City / Don't Look Down
All City / Think Twice
Dying in Stereo / Dying in Stereo
All City / Time to Rhyme
Dying in Stereo / A Thousand Words
Dying in Stereo / At the Party
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The Fuzzy Math of Republican Budgeting link
October 19
You might have seen headlines trumpeting the proposed $50 billion cuts in Medicaid, food stamps, and farm subsidies. The esteemed Brad DeLong notes that the total cuts are "$50 billion" in the same way that Peyton Manning signed a "seven year, $99 million" contract in the offseason.
Nonetheless, it'll be nice to get everyone on the record on this sort of thing. So let's bring on the votes!
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Cherry Picking (The Fuzzy Math of Ivo Daalder) link
October 18
Not withstanding the horrors of Rwanda and Srebrenica, Bosnia, the number of genocides and other mass killings plummeted by 80% between the 1989 high point and 2001.
Well, when you put it that way, it really doesn't seem so bad. Aside from that whole Soviet invasion, 1956 was a good year for Hungary. And if you take out the Columbia accident, NASA has a 100% safety record since the Challenger accident!
That said, he's got some good news on the end of set-piece battles.
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Being Poor Is Expensive, Still link
October 16 Now Playing: The Sonics / Maintaining My Cool / Hanky Panky
The Washington Monthly has a nice article on just how difficult it is to get a job if you don't have a car, and how much more difficult it is to be a good mom or dad when you have an hour-long bus ride to work each way.
I always find backdoor social engineering through the tax code to be a little bit gauche -- there's no reason to make filing taxes more and more complicated for poor people -- and setting the income limit at $50,000 strikes me as a touch too high, but it would seem to me that doing something for those who make less than around $30,000 is a good idea.
Friday Chinchilla Blogging & Shuffle! link
October 14 Now Playing: Kanye West / Late Registration / Roses
T.I. / Urban Legend / Bring 'Em Out
Leonard Bernstein / The Essential Leonard Bernstein / I Hate Music! Mov. IV
Alison Krauss / Forget About It / Maybe
Philly's Most Wanted / Get Down or Lay Down / The Game
Zero 7 / Simple Things / I Have Seen
The Chemical Brothers / Surrender / Got Glint
Reflection Eternal / Train of Thought / Love Language
Sarah McLachlan / Surfacing / Last Dance
Arab Strap / Monday at the Hug and Pint / Who Named the Days?
John Debney / Sin City: OMPS / The Big Fat Kill
It's Friday, the best day of the week
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The Death of Irony link
October 11 Now Playing: Zero 7 / Simple Things / Destiny
Did the NFL just have helicopters fly over Qualcomm Stadium while playing Ride of the Valkyries over the loudspeaker? Did they not understand that Apocalypse Now is decidedly not a pro-war movie?
The horror, the horror ...
Drinking Liberally, this Tuesday and every Tuesday. 8pm at the Montlake Ale House
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Stop Snitching link
October 10 Now Playing: Alison Krauss & Union Station / Live from The Grand Old Opry / The Boy Who Couldn't Hoe Corn
Seriously. Whoever leaked this snark (via Lindsay) needs to find a new line of work. There's nothing to be gained by getting the press to write what is essentially a gossip column about the Sherrod Brown-Paul Hackett kerfuffle. You want to sort this out, get in a room with Chuck Schumer and sort it out in private. Or just agree to run in the primary and figure it out that way..
I don't have much of a dog in this fight, and Lindsay thinks that most of Brown's advantages are transferrable to Hackett. That's not entirely true; most noticeably, Hackett will not be able to solicit donations from Brown's donor rolls as effectively as Sherrod Brown himself does.
The Washington Monthly will have some guest bloggers talking about how to respond to the current political polarization, and I'm sure to comment.
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Friday Chinchilla Blogging and Shuffle! link
October 7 Now Playing: Black Eyed Peas / Elephunk / Holiday
Shakira / Piez Descalzos / Quiero
Moby / Play / Porcelain
Portishead / Dummy / Strangers
Dixie Chicks / Fly / Goodbye Earl
Down South Georgia Boys / 'Til Death Do Us Part / On My Block
Mr. Lif / I Phantom / Live from the Plantation
Korn / Issues / Beg for Me
Mike Doughty / Haughty Melodic / Looking at the World from the Bottom of a Well
Talib Kweli / The Beautiful Struggle / Black Girl Pain
Yeah Yeah Yeahs / Fever To Tell / Cold Light
Erica really wants dessert:
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Dear Conservative Legal Scholars and Intellectuals link
October 7
How does it feel to get played?
You thought that with all the code words about strict constructionism, the debate praise for Justices Scalia and Thomas, and the Dred Scott shout-out, that Bush would nominate unabashed ideological conservatives to the Court. But you forgot that in politics, you dance with the one that brought you. In his case, that means giving back to the flock of Doboson-and-co. churches that provided small donations and sweat-hours in support of his election. They get the table scraps -- various rollbacks on third-world family planning and contraception, some sympathizers at the FDA. But it's the business lobby that gets the full meal with this executive, time and again. The National Association of Manufacturers (via Brad Plumer) doesn't want to rock the boat on the Miers nomination, and the "non-partisan" Chamber of Commerce is downright giddy. Miers' purpose is to allow Congress wide latitude to enact a pro-business (but not necessarily "pro-free market") agenda while granting deference to the executive branch. She'll exercise restraint in meddling with the tax code, efforts to block small meat manufacturers from shipping to Asia, radio spectrum giveaways, and so forth.
You wanted one of your own on the Court; another Justice who wouldn't hide or apoligize his contempt for Roe, umpteen different civil rights cases, Lawrence, and all that hippie-dippie environmental and consumer protection regulation you can't stand, 100% of the time. Instead you'll get someone who will oppose it 90% of the time, but will be quiet about it. Instead of movement conservatives getting "one of their own" on the Court, corporate lawyers got one. You thought that big business made an alliance with conservative jurisprudence out of convenience, when really it was the other way around.
So, how does it feel?
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Five Minutes with an (Above) Average Legislator link
October 4 Now Playing: Rage Against the Machine / Evil Empire / Roll Right
"You can't codify evil."
-Ron Sims, in answer to a question on whether the death penalty could practicably be outlawed in all but the most evil murders.
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Adventures in Headline Writing link
October 2 Now Playing: Chemical Brothers / Dig Your Own Hole / Setting Sun
Somehow I can't imagine Ms Cook (who is probably a talented and dedicated journalist) meant to write this headline:
We all make mistakes from time to time. We might as well laugh about them.
Then again, it was "Blessing of the Pets" day in Episcopal churches today, so perhaps it was intentional
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You Heard it Here First link
October 2 Now Playing: Thievery Corporation / Garden State: OMPS / Lebanese Blonde
Terrell Owens is going to have 2000 yards receiving this year. The Igles [sic] don't run the ball at all, and Owens is noticeably better than the teams' other receivers. His bold prediction was just four years early.
Braves over Astros in four. The 'Stros have a wretched offense, and Pettite and Oswalt are mortal.
Andruw Jones will win the MVP (even though either Pujols or Derek Lee deserve it), but Jeff Francoeur won't win the Rookie of the Year award. My money is on Ryan Howard over Francoeur and Zach Duke. Bobby Cox will take Manager of the Year.
