B.D.'s world

Mark Horn

2011-02-06T07:03:00.000-08:00

The meal revealed

2010-11-26T05:31:00.001-08:00

Mmmm, it was a tasty Thanksgiving. I hosted Sean and Scott for the meal. A small group with good conversation, good libations, and good food.

I came home on Wednesday night with the intention of beginning or completing 3 dishes. Sadly, by the time I came home and unloaded the car I was too exhausted to do much. As a result most of the cooking was done yesterday morning. As is my habit I was up by 4am and got to cooking by 6:30. The boys arrived shortly after 1PM and I had plenty of time to get things mostly done.

Sean brought with him an assortment of lovely cheeses and crackers. Scott has intolerance's to cow dairy and wheat. Sean's cheeses were almost all goat's milk. I supplied to wheat free crackers. Scott brought some of his wonderful Indian-style falafels. I don't recall the original name of these tasty treats, but I enjoyed them last year as well. Scott also brought some tamarind chutney to enjoy on them.

After eating and toasting for an hour or so, I was having to get on with the rest of the meal. Everything was done except the main courses and the greens. I employed Scott's assistance to wrap up the greens while I threw together the final details for the boy's main course.

The dishes for this year:

- Cranberry sauce made with Grand Marnier and orange zest (traditional for us)
- Yams mashed with crystallized ginger and Maker's Mark
- Wild rice and porcini mushroom stuffing (actually served as a side dish and made with mostly porcinis, but also a few other dried mushrooms such as morels and shitakes)
- Greens sauteed with garlic and red pepper flakes (I used a combo of black Tuscan kale and Rainbow Swiss Chard which made for a lovely presentation)
- Baked black eyed peas (a vegan recipe that went over well last year...these are a bit spicy)
- Mushroom gravy made with red wine and the left over soaking liquid from the stuffing

For the boys the main course were Cornish Game Hens glazed with a combination of Tayberry sauce and balsamic vinegar. My main course was halibut baked with white wine, thyme, and lemon slices. Our dessert was Pears poached in a spiced burgundy and cranberry syrup topped with Coconut Bliss ice cream (vanilla and chocolate).

So, what changes? First, I dropped another veggie dish. I had thought I'd make green beans sauteed with some almond slices, but after looking at the dishes that were already prepared I decided that we had enough food and one green already. Next I dropped the planned corn bread. Scott is wheat intolerant, so I would have made a gluten free version, but again, looking at the meal I decided that we had enough. Even so, I'll probably make some corn bread over the weekend for myself. Also dropped were potatoes mashed with celeriac - to be revived over the weekend, I'm sure.

Finally, the mushroom gravy was entirely improvised. I had planned on being lazy and serving Tofurkey mushroom gravy. I even bought some and had it thawing in the refrigerator. However, when I pulled it out, I noticed that it was no longer "mushroom gravy", but rather "gravy with giblets". The giblets were made from wheat (probably a seitan) which Scott couldn't eat. I had the time, I had the wine, I had left over soaking liquid from the dried mushrooms for the stuffing. I also had some button mushrooms in the refrigerator. I sauteed up the button mushrooms in some butter until they began to release their juices. then added salt, black pepper, and dried thyme. To that I added 1 cup of soaking liquid and1 cup of Malbec. I cooked that down a little then added a tempered slurry with corn starch to thicken it up.

After the main courses came out of the oven, I left them rest for 10 minutes. During that time I turned the oven off and put the side dishes into the oven to warm (except for the cranberry sauce). It all pulled together nicely.

I was thankful for the dishes coming together so well, but more importantly I was thankful for the good company that I was privileged to share them with. Good times.

New spirits

2010-11-11T06:25:00.000-08:00

New special orders in the store this week:

Black Maple Hill Bourbon, Bacardi Ron Solera 1873, Feckin' Irish Whiskey, Corzo Reposado, and Corzo Anejo.

Recently in:

Kelt Tour de Monde VSOP Cognac, Four Roses Bourbon, St. Elizabeth Allspice Dram, Cruzan Rum Cream, Caribou Crossing Single Barrel Canadian Whiskey, Ultimat Vodka, Don Julio 1942 Tequila, Haymen's Old Tom Gin, and Metaxa 7 star brandy.

Don't forget our Northwest Spirits:

Batch 206 Vodka and their Counter Gin, Dry Fly Gin and Vodka, Ebb + Flow vodka, Voyager Gin and their sister Pacifique Absinthe, Soft Tail Vodka and Grappa, It's 5 O'Clock Somewhere Block and Tackle White Dog Whiskey, Black Heron Spirits' Rayne Anjel Gin, Ink Vodka, and Desert Lightning White Dog Whiskey, Ransom Spirits' Ransom Gin, Small's Gin, and Whippersnapper Whiskey, Bend Distillery's Crater Lake Vodka and Cascade Mountain Gin, New Deal's Portland 88 and New Deal Vodkas, and Clear Creek's Pear Brandy, Apple Brandy, Marc, and Grappa of Pinot Noir.

Coming soon:

Woodinville Whiskey Company's Peabody Jones Vodka and Headlong White Dog Whiskey, Clear Creek's Cranberry Liqueur and Slivovitz, Yellow Chartreuse, Creme de Violette, French Creme de Cassis, and more...

Northwest spirits

2010-11-07T06:12:00.000-08:00

I realized that while sending an email to a couple of friends I was essentially writing a blog post. I copied and pasted it here with minor edits:

Man, even when I try to sleep in, I find out that I'm up at my regular time. :-) I went to bed later last night after closing the store, dropping a co-worker off at home, and staying up to speak with S a bit. I got out of bed this morning and the clock read about 5:19. When I came downstairs and started my computer it read 4:34. Maaaaaan, standard time already fucking with me!

Woodinville Whiskey Company - had fun bottling with those guys the other night. We got 499 bottles done in about an hour and a half. We would have done more, but they forgot to order more bottles from their supplier. Living and learning. Yesterday a customer came in and we spent some time speaking whiskey and other liquor. She was really into her whiskey and very knowledgeable. It turns out that she had been to Woodinville Whiskey Co. and done a tasting yesterday afternoon. They told her about me and suggested that she stop by. My store is close by to her home, yet she hadn't been by. She noticed the Dolin vermouth right off, before I approached her, and told me, "I knew this wasn't your average store when I saw the Dolin on the shelf". It's nice to see the relationship that I'm establishing with Woodinville Whiskey is reciprocal. The customer eventually bought a bottle of The Whippersnapper - a new whiskey from Oregon by Ransom spirits.

The Whippersnapper: retail $27.20/bottle. I've enjoyed the Ransom Gin from the same distiller. The gin is based on an old, pre-prohibition formula often referred to as an "Old Tom" style gin. That is that it's not as dry as the London dry gins and not as sweet as the Genever style gins. It exists somewhere in between, but closer to the London dry. It's also brown in color due to 2 - 6 months of barrel aging and has a fair amount of cardamom in it. The gin makes great, and I mean GREAT, old fashioned cocktails as well as playing nicely in the sandbox when making more modern ones.

As to it's whiskey cousin, The Whippersnapper, named thusly for the fact that it's a young whiskey. Ransom is barrel aging a Scotch-style of whiskey. But they were so happy with the results of some of the younger ones that they decided to do a bottling. Because of it's young age and impertinent nature, they named it The Whippersnapper. The whiskey is a blend of 21% barley based whiskey (the Scotch portion) and 79% corn neutral spirit. The barley comes from Oregon and is not peated as Scotch normally is. Even so, one can smell and taste a definite Scotch flavor due to it's inclusion. The corn neutral spirit (otherwise known as white dog, unaged bourbon, or moonshine) is hardly neutral in flavor. It adds a bit of sweet, honey-like flavor and scent to the whiskey. S and I tried some last night. We began with just a glass straight up. It was good and decidedly odd in that it was unlike anything else we had. The finish was not long and the body medium. It reminded me more of American and Canadian blends in the body aspect, but tasted unlike either. Definitely the corn spirit was existing alongside the barley and they weren't quite dancing down the aisle together towards bliss as much sharing each other's time. We then decided to put it on ice. That was a game changer. With the addition of a couple of cubes the corn spirit receded a great deal leaving behind the barley and it tasted like a nice, light, and smooth Scotch. We agreed that it would probably make quite an enjoyable drink either on the rocks or mixed with soda, much like a blended Scotch. I suspect we'll find some cocktails to try it out in as well. It's definitely a whiskey that likes to blend which will make it something to enjoy as an addition to the bar.

J sent me a link to a Huffington Post article on fall whiskey releases. Oddly enough, it was just a couple of days after I had special ordered The Whippersnapper in for the store. It's good to go back and read what the author from Huffington Post wrote about this whiskey:

Already available is a weird and wonderful new concoction from Ransom Spirits, the Oregon-based distiller which brought us the mind-blowingly brilliant Old Tom gin last year. This year's baby, WhipperSnapper Oregon Whiskey, is... well, what is it, anyway? Is it a bourbon? A Scotch? Sort of and sort of. The two main components of WhipperSnapper are malted barley (the same stuff they make Scotch from, although this barley is from Oregon) and un-aged or "white dog" Kentucky corn whiskey (from whence comes bourbon). The resulting alchemy, about an 80/20 ratio of corn to barley, is then aged in barrels that have housed French pinot noir and American whiskey, as well as new unused barrels. The aging process is relatively short -- generally less than two years, hence the "WhipperSnapper" name -- and then various barrels are selected and combined for each bottle.

The end result is something akin to an incredibly vibrant young Scotch, while you also get the sweet and unrefined vibe of the white dog. At 84 proof, it goes down dangerously smooth neat or on the rocks. I suppose you could mix it with soda, but it's so damn good on its own that you needn't bother. Because it's not peaty, WhipperSnapper would make a great gateway drug for those timid souls who are scared off by the pungent aroma and powerful flavor of Islay single-malts. But it still makes for a damn fine libation even if you like the "hard stuff" like Lagavulin or Laphroaig.

I hope Ransom has more of the barley spirit continuing aging in the barrel. It'll be good to see if they can turn out a hardier Scotch style whiskey. Oregon already boasts a Scotch style Whiskey, McCarthy's Whiskey from Clear Creek Distillery. Clear Creek's product is made from barley that is grown and peated in Scotland. The barley is then imported to Portland were it is taken to the McMenamin's facility (known mostly as a brew pub) to be distilled. The resulting whiskey is then put into barrels and aged at Clear Creek's facility for 8 years. The whiskey in every way is competitive with the finest Scotch. Fantastic stuff and at $50/bottle, a real steal. It's been called the finest American whiskey by F. Paul Pacult. However, it's extremely limited in it's release and Clear Creek has no plans to expand it's production (which will only drive up it's price eventually). I hope Ransom has plans to expand the market and fulfill the craving.

One of the interesting things that these new American whiskey distillers are doing is they are aging in smaller barrels. The smaller barrels allows for more contact with the surface area of the whiskey. This extra contact pays dividends in the aging of the whiskey. Smaller barrels allows for a "faster aging" process. The wood in the barrel breathes more of the whiskey in and out faster, giving up it's flavor more readily. In just 2 years these small batch distillers yield a product that rewards as much as a big barrel that has been aged several more years. Of course, that keeps this small for these craft distillers and more barrels means more needed room and more labor intensive as the barrels need to be turned periodically and a closer eye maintained on all of them. The former distiller from Maker's Mark, Dave Pickerell, has been preaching this method and offering his consulting services throughout the country, including at Woodinville Whiskey Distillers. Pickerell has pioneered this method with his own whiskey, The Whistlepig. It's a straight rye whiskey, aged 10 years. It's a craft product with only 1000 cases available this year. It's supposed to be fantastic and I've got some on order for the store - hopefully it will come.

Also in the store this week were 3 spirits produced by Black Heron Spirits. Black Heron's logo was one that I recognized immediately. I looked it up and confirmed that the liquor is produced by a distillery founded by Joel Tefft. Joel was an early founder of the fine wine industry in Washington state. Apparently, Joel is getting up there in age and thinks that the hustle and bustle required for promoting wine in Washington has become too much for him. So, he sold his winery a year ago and began taking classes in distillation. He built his distillery in West Richland, Washington. This week my store got in Rayne Angel Gin, Ink Vodka, and Desert Lightning corn whiskey. The surprising big seller this week was the Desert Lightning. Frankly, I think that the packaging looks a bit gimmicky and cheap, but it's selling. Buyers are excited about it and clearly the design of the bottle is more appealing that I expected. Good for Joel and good for the Washington spirits community as having such a well known name dive in can only help with the promotion.

Fun times being a liquor enthusiast in these days of craft distilling. Lots of good things happening. It's the natural evolution of the cocktail revival in America. We had a post prohibition period where cheaply made, lower quality booze was the norm. People just accepted what was churned out in an industrial manner. It was usually pretty harsh and barely recognizable as the type of liquor it was labeled as (Scotch, whiskey, vodka, gin). But, it was cheap and widely available. Then came World War II and, as with the wine world, people came back from Europe with a new appreciation of better quality and a wider variety of liquor. Scotch whiskey made great strides in American markets in the 50s and 60s and sparked renewed interest in America's whiskey, bourbon. We also saw brands such as Stolichnaya, Absolut, and Campari make headway during this time. Then there was a leveling off and cocktails actually seemed to fall out of favor. Sales rose, but not at the same levels as the 50s and 60s. In the 90s cocktail culture really began a second coming, a revival. Prohibitionists from MADD and other organizations were seen for what they were and people began going back to discovering cocktails both new and classic. In the 2000 we began to see more people at home and in bars playing with making their own concoctions and infusions. Again, classic cocktails saw interest rise including updating those cocktails. With this we saw more interest in a wider variety of imported liquor. And now we live in the age of the revival of small craft distillers. By my count we're in the 4th wave of the liquor revolution in America. This bodes well for those cocktail makers as the new distillations are bound to inspire new mixes. They'll feed on each other much to my delight.

Now if we can just dispose of daylight savings time.

Cushy jobs

2010-10-24T06:55:00.000-07:00

One of the things that has really irked me in the debate over initiative 1100 has been the portrayal of government employees. I know that it's popular to bash government. I have a pretty good idea why that is, as well. After all, I cannot go to a competing government to get better service. People like to complain the same way about other monopolies or near monopolies like utility firms and cable companies. I get that. But we also know that just because a company is private doesn't mean that it's run any better as anyone who has dealt with customer service from Comcast, Sprint, Microsoft, et al, is aware.

In my experience both in private industry and in the government I've met my fair share of less valuable, less competent employees. I can honestly state that I don't find one system better than the other. In any bureaucracy - public or private - you are bound to attract people of a variety of skills, quality, and motivations. Sometimes it's easy to weed these people out; sometimes it's not. In the latter case the person is often promoted to a position less harmful in the organization.

One of the spokespeople for the "Yes on 1100" campaign is fond of saying the liquor board employs people with "cushy government jobs". I heard Ashley Bach say this in the debate at Town Hall. He reiterated it in his post on The Slog a week or so later. For the record, I'm not fond of Ashley's style. He comes off as smug, arrogant (in the way of the actor in the "I'm a PC" ad), rude, and a poor debater. So, making this statement about "cushy government jobs" really rubs me the wrong way.

Most of the liquor store employees that I know are hard working people who care about their jobs and customer service. Their jobs are not easy either; certainly not "cushy". Once a week there is a delivery of booze - up to 1200 cases at some stores. Each case weighs about 35 pounds. The goal, often achieved, is to put away that entire load in one day and stock the shelves and take care of the customers that day. Yea, more than one person works on these loads, but I can assure you that everyone who does, works their ass off. On top of that these workers deal with all sorts of customers. Granted, the vast majority of our customers are fantastic, but as with any job you meet some folks who are inconsolable. In fact, given the product, I'd say we meet more of these folks than your average Whole Foods clerk. And, if you think dealing with the government is sometimes a pain in the ass, just try working through the bureaucracy from the inside. Forms, signatures, more forms, specific rules, etc. There's a lot to know and do. The bottom line is they work hard for their money and their pay is comparable to pay at Costco and Fred Meyers, if not a little lower (I know as a manager that I get paid much lower and I put in the same work at my clerk's sides).

I'm aware that Mr. Bach considers these jobs "cushy" not just because of the nature of the work. He uses that term as code for well paid (we're some of the lowest pay in Washington government), good benefits, and pensions. News flash: that pension system hasn't been the same as it used to be for a long time, now. In fact when I qualified I found my options to be a choice of 401k plans. Yep, my cushy job's retirement has tanked just like most Americans thanks to those titans of private industry. As for the benefits? Well, we do get decent health care plan options for a reasonable copay (going up, just like everyone). Keeping the copay low is a way to compensate the workers for the lower pay that they get compared to the private sector. Rather than bash the liquor board clerks I'd rather see Mr. Bach get out there and campaign for lower copays for workers in private industry.

But that's not Mr. Bach's game. I suspect his views are more in line with his former employer's, The Seattle Times. That paper has cut it's contributions to it's employee's health care while the publisher (the Blethen's - inherited wealth) push for government to emulate it's model of prosperity. A prosperity, for the record, that they don't want burdened with a modest income tax. Is it surprising that this same paper is endorsing Initiative 1100 as well?

Mr. Bach worked for The Seattle Times for 5.5 years. During that time The Times faced a legal battle with the Seattle P-I. As that battle waged on The Times sought to portray itself as a victim of the owners of the P-I. In order to carry out this publicity stunt The Times hired Pacific Public Affairs. Can you imagine which firm that Mr. Bach works for now, after leaving The Times, that seeks to promote Initiative 1100? Yes, Pacific Public Affairs - the same firm that once worked for The Times while Mr. Bach also worked for the newspaper.

So, let's see - Mr. Bach, former journalist and now publicist, says that liquor clerks have cushy jobs. It takes chutzpah for a paid hack to call liquor store clerk's jobs cushy. As unseemly as it can be to see people revolve out of government to lobbying jobs, I think it's equally unseemly for what Mr. Bach has done. He worked for one employer, left to that employer's publicist, and now they sing a chorus of fiscally irresponsible, conservative policies. Mr. Bach, you're the one on the Republican welfare plan. You're the one with the cushy job. You're free to entertain your opinion that America should continue it's path to the lowest common denominator for it's working class, but don't you dare dismiss that working class as "cushy".

The Enterprise Newspapers: Local News

2010-10-14T05:57:00.000-07:00

The Enterprise Newspapers: Local News

Losses to: Lymwood - $500k, Edmonds - $500k, Mill Creek - $232k, Brier - $82k, Woodways - $15k, Snohomish County - $1.6m from either 1100 or 1105. Which programs are you going to cut? Or are you going to put the screws to the legislature to come up with a reasoned privatization plan during the next session?

1100 and 1105

2010-10-12T10:24:00.000-07:00

A friend wrote me this morning and asked my opinion on Initiatives 1100 and 1105. Here is my reply:

As I tell my customers, I don't have enough time in with the state to worry about my pension and other such nonsense. Furthermore, I'd love to see a privatization of the system. You may recall me telling a story about the first time I went to a liquor store in Washington at 8PM at night and found it closed. I was pretty ticked off. To this day I find it ridiculous that we have as few outlets as we support and that the hours are so all over the map. Truth be told, I think liquor stores should be available 24/7, 365 if they want to be.

Having said that, let me address a couple of myths perpetuated by these discussions:

State employees have cushy jobs. I'm not going to argue that all of us are hard working, caring employees. Those in purchasing have cushy jobs, for instance. I hear take that the distribution center employees often have cushy jobs. But at retail, we work our butts off. I defy the initiative lobbyists to come and spend a day in the retail employee's shoes on a load day and see how cushy our jobs are. We move anywhere between 300 and 1200 cases during an 8 hour shift, deal with customers - retail and restaurant, stand and walk most of that time, have to deal with idiotic regulations from on high, do inventories, displays, etc...and take abuse from those fired up about the initiatives. Not everyone at retail is easy to defend, either, but I don't know a chain that can say that. All I can say is that if you work for me and many other managers that I know, then you care about the service and you really don't get paid much for it. Indeed, one reason I'd like to see privatization is because I'd like to be paid more for the work I do as a manager.
The state will not be selling it's stores for a windfall. It will sell off it's distribution center (in these times it is hard to say how much that is worth...the equipment it uses is not that useful to many industries) for a one time windfall. But the stores are leased and the leases are written that if the state goes out of the business, then they will close the stores at no penalty. I've read me lease and it is standard for the entire system.
The state will save money by not employing these workers. Unlike other areas in state government the liquor board functions similar to a private business (I say "similar" as it depends upon the business....if you're talking inefficient like Microsoft, then the comparison is apt; if your talking streamlined like Google or HP, then it is less so). We actually earn enough in the mark up of the product to cover the entire costs of operating the business. The money in the markup covers the rents, the shipping fees, the employees and their pensions at all levels of the retail enterprise. Under either bill, once the state gets out of the business, no savings will occur because those costs were covered under the pricing. Instead, there will be a cost to the state via unemployment, buy outs (for long term employees), and payments to keep someone around to turn off the lights.
Employees will find jobs in the private sector. True, though not right away. And some of these government employees are going to seek jobs in the public sector by bumping other government employees. However, Costco, Wal-Mart, QFC? They already have managers and clerks to ring up customers and stock those spaces. They won't need to hire replacements unless those positions open up. Sure, private entrepreneurs, like myself, will come about in time and want to open shops to employ these folks, but that's not going to come overnight, so there will be unemployment for some for quite a while.
The liquor board will hire because it will need new enforcement people. Nothing in 1100 covers that cost. The liquor board hires as many enforcement people as it can given the beer and wine tax and 1100 keeps that in place. However, it eliminates the mark up and offers no revenue stream to hire these enforcement folks and, even if it did do that, has no one thought that enforcement folks cost more than clerks and warehouse operators? They do. If, as 1100's lobbyist proposed during the Town Hall meeting, we hired another 850 enforcement officers to patrol the new numbers of private sector stores, then it would cost the state far more money than the 900 or so people that they hope to lay off. Does that make sense?
One final bit about the mark up: yes, some of it is a hidden tax. Operating costs for the liquor board are far less than the 51% mark up. Over a year ago the liquor board's mark up was 39% and we operated just fine. In fact, we were instructed by the legislature to increase the mark up to 51% in order to bring in more revenue to the general fund. At the same time, stores and operating budgets have been slashed. So, we've raised taxes and decreased service. Operating costs for the retail business account for about 12% of the mark up. The rest is a tax in large part imposed by the legislature to increase money in the general fund. Both initiatives make it sound as if the mark up is that high because the state is inefficient at delivering the goods. That's a lie. The state would make you think that the mark up is a reasonable charge to operate the business. That's also a lie.

OK, having dispelled myths (hopefully - feel free to send follow up comments or questions), let's discuss the bills. 1100 is the so-called Costco Bill. It would radically restructure the state laws. Washington would go from what I refer to as a super control state to the most liberal laws in the country. I've got several problems with the bill. First, the most common complaint that I hear from my customers is that they'd like a system "like California". This bill goes beyond California's laws. In California local jurisdictions - city and county - can enact zoning laws to indicate where and how many liquor stores exist in their municipalities. Communities with a more conservative tradition can have fewer stores while West Hollywood can have one on every third corner. This makes sense to me and it should to those who like to have control at the more local levels of government. It makes sense from a planning stage as well. However 1100 does away with such control. Cities and counties would have no say in where or how many stores are in their community. It would be this way for 2 years before the state could get a handle on it and by that time they are likely to just limit the number of licenses. That's poor planning and I don't think that bodes well for any of us.

Next up revenue. State government has cut $5.2 billion from it's budget during the past 2 years. Services are being cut everywhere, including the liquor board (though, because we're revenue positive, we've felt fewer cuts). The governor has just ordered another $4.5 billion in cuts. 1100 would cost the state somewhere in the neighborhood of $250 - 300 million over the next 2 years even with the one time windfall of selling the distribution center. These are state numbers and they are conservative. Supporters of 1100 say that some of that money will be made up via increased B&O taxes, but ask them how much and they can't answer you. Hence, it's fictitious money. Not even the state's Office of Financial Management could take on that number. The city of Tacoma expects to lose $1million. Pierce County says that they will lose $770 million, the city of Sammamish $66,000, Edmunds, $60,000, etc. Budget cuts will occur at all levels of government. That likely means layoffs. Now, one could argue whether or not those layoffs should come from law enforcement or teachers, social services, or parks and recreation, but it means layoffs. So, now we're talking more than just 930 liquor board people laid off. Probably a lot more. Last time I heard, Costco is not going into the private police business, so they won't e hiring those cops back as they seek to sell at 7-11s. To my progressive friends who, like myself, want to see privatization, I ask the same question I ask every Republican during tough times: where do you want to see the cuts - specifically - and how deep should we make them? Initiative 1100 is irresponsible because it does not address the revenue stream as to where the replacement should come from or where the cuts should come from. The reply from the 1100 folks is that government is free to raise taxes, but given our legislature (both the current one and the one with more Republicans in it) and the potential for Eyeman's latest initiative to pass, do you really think that is going to happen and, if it does, then I ask where? And if the answer to where is through an increase in the liquor tax, then the price savings for the consumer is likely to evaporate and I'll ask again why we went through this process? Just to line Jim Senechal's pockets?

Now to 1105. I actually learned something at that Town Hall debate, but it was all about 1105. 1105 is the dog of the two and it should be viewed that way because it leaves the distribution monopoly in place and just eliminates the state jobs. One thing that I've often noticed when confronted by folks who tell me what they pay at Bevco in California for, say, a bottle of Jack Daniels, is that the price they pay is less than what the state pays. In other words, we couldn't sell it to them at that price unless we lost money on the booze. Why is this? Because in Washington the distribution monopoly sets the prices that they want to fetch for the alcohol. They never lose money. They know what the state formula is for configuring the price. Take the price the distributor charges the state, add to it federal tax and state tax, add to it the 51% mark up and come up with your retail price. So, if they want the retail to be $29.95 then they charge the amount that will produce that in the state formula and often times that is more than what the consumer pays in California. Don't believe me? Look at the store tags. They list the cost to the state plus the taxes and so on. And these distributors take what the market will bear. When we went from a 39% mark up to a 51% mark up many companies raised their prices for 2 - 3 months only to find that their market share was falling and their competitor's was increasing. So, they lowered the price to counteract the market forces against them. Initiative 1105 leaves this in place for beer, wine, and liquor. The distributor will set the price and it will be the same price for Costco as for the mom and pop stores. No discounts for volume sales will exist and no direct purchases will be legal. So, no competition for the consumer and the distributors continue to get their guaranteed profit.

From a revenue standpoint 1105 eliminates all state taxes as well as the mark up. 1100 keeps the state taxes (which pay for enforcement) in place. So why the more radical position for 1105? Because it "recommends" that the state legislature start with a blank slate and write a tax that makes up for the lost state revenue PLUS $100 million more. Why "recommend"? Because the initiative, according to the Eyeman ruling by the Supreme Court a few years back, cannot seek to change more than one law at a time. This was the interesting part of the Publicola debate I attended.

Let's say that the state follows the recommendation. They would make up the entire amount that they lost plus $100 million. Where, pray tell, is the savings for the consumer? The consumer gets no discount for buying at big retailers and, in fact, the prices go up. All the consumer gets is more outlets (1105 does allow the Liquor Board to decide how many licenses to issue, so it's not zoning, but it's better than nothing...assuming that they allow something reasonable - no guarantee of that either) and perhaps longer hours (again, no guarantee, depending upon how the Liquor Board writes the license).

But, as state above with 1100, does this or any future legislature have the will to pass those tax increases? Will they even be able to do so if the Eyeman initiative passes? The spokeswoman for 1105 stated that they "think" the Eyeman initiative allows a simple majority to keep taxes at current levels. If that's true, then the $100 million increase is just a mirage and shouldn't ever be considered reasonable.

So, bottom line for 1105 is it leaves the worst of a bad system in place (kind of like Medicare not being able to negotiate drug prices) and it shares with 1100 the revenue stream issues. Those are the reasons I oppose both initiatives.

What I'd like to see happen is the legislature convene and negotiate a privatization bill. Such a bill would allow for a reasonable transition process that would take place over 2 - 3 years in order to provide cities and counties to prepare and debate zoning laws. It would instruct the Liquor Control Board to transition first into selling the distribution center and move to direct distributorships to stores and work out the bugs of taxation and enforcement before that is turned over the private sector. It would determine the revenue streams and how they are to be comprised and where so that we don't put our state and local governments in further financial straights that cause greater grief to our most needy citizens. It would provide a transition plan for the 900 or so workers at the liquor board who would lose their jobs including a couple of months of pay (or a week for every year of service) and job training options. It would provide what a reasonable price would be for licenses, one that allowed for mom and pop stores, but also allowed for some more revenue to be made up. And, I'd (of course) like to see current liquor store managers and other, independent citizens, to be eligible to buy a license early on before the Costco's and Wal-Marts - perhaps a year earlier with the opportunity to open private stores 6 months before the state ones close. Give the small companies a head start and let them establish distribution processes with new specialty products and northwest craft distillers, so we can keep both on a lifeline. And finally, I don't want the legislature to drag their heels on this. It needs to be addressed and right away.

Thanks for asking. Let me know what your thoughts are and if you have any concerns or questions feel free to air them.

Sound Spirits

2010-09-28T04:56:00.000-07:00

Last week, our friend C sent Shawn home with some vodka. The vodka, called Ebb+Flow, is from a distillery that opened it's doors to the public on 9/17. This is the first distillery to open in Seattle since prohibition. The vodka was different from any other that I've tried before. It has a definite flavor and was a tad sweet on the tongue. It wasn't cloying and it made a good martini. C had the owner's (and sole employee) business card and on it was a note for me to call him.

On Tuesday I sat down at work and wrote him an email. His day job is being a Boeing engineer. He promptly returned my email with an invite to come down, try out his products, and get a tour of the facility. We scheduled it for 4pm on Sunday. In addition to Shawn and I we were joined by 3 friends.

Steve, the owner of Sound Spirits, told us that the flavor of his vodka came from his small batch distillation process. He makes what he calls a single malt vodka using barley from Washington. He distills his product twice, using pot stills with taps made by a local company (low end stills bought on eBay). He does not filter the product saying that doing so ends up with a bland flavor. Steve was clearly an enthusiastic distiller. He also gave us samples of his early incarnations of gin (very good), aquavit (a little light on flavor), and absinthe (a little heavy on flavor). We spoke about the process and his ingredients. He clearly is seeking input from his customers.

We also spoke about the challenges ahead. For instance, how to translate his small batch process into a larger system and maintain the quality of his product. As he becomes popular, he's aware that he'll have to write down his formulas and then hire a master distiller. Will the process allow for him to move into larger, more expensive equipment? On the plus side, Steve has a business plan and he's ready, when the time comes, to seek investors and bank loans to finance growth. He's done his research on the business end even as he maintains the books and stuff himself. His main concerns are currently in the processes.

Finally, we spoke about the initiatives in Washington. Steve's main concern about them is the lack of certainty that they provide. Under the current system he knows what to expect. It's established and he understands the rules to work within it. He doesn't necessarily like or agree with all of the rules, but the path to market is clear and proven. If the Costco initiative passes, then that certainty goes by the wayside. Steve expressed concern about finding a distribution channel as well as the time it would take for that channel to set up. For instance, how long will it take before the mom and pop niche stores arrive that would be willing to carry his product? Steve favors the Costco initiative over the competing one. I told him that I thought that neither initiative serves the public or the small distillers well and that the legislature should craft a bill the moves towards privatization in a thoughtful and careful way.

Good vodka; good sense.

Sad to say

2010-05-17T19:01:00.000-07:00

But Shawn's grandmother in North Dakota died on Sunday. I dropped Shawn off at the Everett train station at 5:00 PM on Monday. She'll be back on the following Sunday early in the morning.

Peace to her and her family. I met her grandmother once and found her to be a lovely person.

2010-04-26T04:03:00.001-07:00

R.I.P. Baraka, 1994 - 2010

2010-04-10T05:33:00.001-07:00

Baraka watches
Originally uploaded by B.D.'s world

He died last night at around 12:20 am. I spent the last 5 hours or so of his life lying next to him, comforting him, petting him, loving him, crying, feeling helpless, learning to accept the inevitable once again, telling him stories of his early life with us, singing to him, and thanking him for all that he brought to my life. Before he passed his head rose one last time and, as I often did, I petted his little "rhino-nose" bump. He, as he often did, opened his mouth in a seeming smile, then let out a sigh and slowly let his head fall back into his paws. I told Shawn a couple of minutes later and together we grieved.

Loving and loyal companion, gentle friend and brother, homeboyee. He is missed already. My feelings for Baraka are vast and deep. I promised him that he would not die alone nor in a hospital. Promise kept.

Color us grieving this weekend and beyond.

Annoyed with Toshiba

2009-12-07T07:49:00.000-08:00

On Thanksgiving morning I went to Toshiba's website to order some new RAM for Shawn's laptop. Her computer, a light weight Portege model, came with a mere 512MB of RAM and Windows XP. She wanted to upgrade to Windows 7, but that required a memory upgrade. Just as well as her PC was getting a tad sluggish.

The Toshiba website worked pretty well. I looked up her model number and up came the available accessories. I checked the memory link and was told that a 2GB card was available. Great! I made the purchase and we got it in the mail last Thursday.

Shawn backed up her laptop at work on Friday. Sunday morning, I set to replacing the old memory with the new. It was an easy operation. Rather than lifting the keyboard out I just had to unscrew a hatch on the bottom, snap the old one out, and insert the new one. The operation took less than 2 minutes. When I went to boot, an alarm sounded and the laptop would not run.

To make a long story short, her PC isn't equipped to handle anything more than a 1 GB card. So, why was Toshiba even offering a 2GB card associated with her model number? Sure, I could have looked it up in the specs before I made the order, but I figured this was Toshiba's website and they wouldn't steer me wrong, right? Wrong.

But that's only the beginning of my annoyance. It continued when I made the call to their customer service this morning. Yes, they provided me with a return authorization number and the address and so forth. Yes, the person was kind enough on the phone. However, when I asked if Toshiba, upon receipt of the wrong product they sold me, could then just ship me the correct product and then credit my account the difference I was told that they were not set up to operate this way. In other words, Toshiba's computer software couldn't handle that. I would have to wait for the account to be credited and then go online and re-order the correct product or I could have a second charge applied to my account and get the correct product ordered right away and then they would credit the account when the wrong product is returned. That's where I went off the rails. That's crappy customer service. In fact, it's not customer service. After their website steering me wrong that's a poor way of handling this.

Now that I have the correct information, I think that I'll re-order the part from someone else. Even if I was willing to order the RAM to have it rushed out and just wait for the credit, I wouldn't do that from Toshiba. They aren't willing to go the extra step and I'm not willing to give them my money.

Cheese balls

2009-10-19T07:01:00.001-07:00

Cheese balls
Originally uploaded by B.D.'s world

Rest of the pictures from the cheese making party here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/bdsworld/sets/72157622485117095/

Canning Season 2009

2009-09-07T06:50:00.001-07:00

Canning Season 2009
Originally uploaded by B.D.'s world

We had forgotten this basil vinegar. It's made using Purple Ruffle Basil, hence it's red color.

Canning in Progress

2009-09-07T06:49:00.001-07:00

Canning in Progress
Originally uploaded by B.D.'s world

Lots of work done; lots more to do.

Montana vacation

2009-08-30T16:26:00.001-07:00

Weary goat
Originally uploaded by B.D.'s world

Rest of the set here.

Customer relations

2009-07-10T06:21:00.000-07:00

Had a young guy as a customer today wearing an Oregon State University t-shirt. I said to him, "I believe, if I'm not mistaken, that the Oregon Country Fair is in the next week or two?"

He replied, "Really? Are they going to put it in this parking lot?"

I said, "The Oregon Country Fair?"

He said, "I know that they have a fair in this lot once in a while."

"That they do! But I think the Oregon Country Fair is probably held in Oregon."

He looked at me, paused, considered the wisdom of my reasoning, then stared into the air above me scratching his chin. "Oh, yea, I can see that."

"You borrowed that shirt, didn't you?"

"Yea, how did you know?"

"Lucky guess. Have a good night!"

Open Source

2009-07-07T09:14:00.000-07:00

Hard economic times force changes in behavior, even in Washington State's government. It was announced last week that the Liquor Control Board's help desk was switching from a costly ticket tracking system to an open source solution. In house testing had been performed, the training needed was minimal, and the cost was right, so we're making the switch. Other open source solutions may be implemented if they offer a reasonable cost savings, according to our IT folks.

Now, this may seem to be A) sensible and B) no big deal, but consider that Washington is the home of Microsoft, Adobe, Nintendo, and many other software vendors...and the state is looking into open source solutions. If they find one that they like, then they may look to others and once they switch, then what's the rationale for going back to a paid product for those items?

It's possible that the economic downturn is churning up changes not glaringly apparent, but that may have long term consequences not currently recognized.

sunflower

2009-07-06T05:33:00.001-07:00

sunflower
Originally uploaded by B.D.'s world

Some new gardening photos are up.

Poverty

2009-06-11T08:04:00.000-07:00

My overlords at work have determined that an inexpensive way to improve the customer service experience is to implement a dress code policy. "Inexpensive" is naturally defined as "it costs the state nothing" to implement even though it takes money from the pockets of employees.

Now, I'm not terribly against their minor dress code policy. It's pretty loose. I do disagree with the idea that we shouldn't be allowed to wear jeans (hey, we're a liquor store/warehouse - we do a LOT of stock work daily and it requires heavy lifting as well as getting on our hands and knees), especially on load days. But, be that as it may I'm not even passionate about that requirement.

What I am passionate about is poverty and the lack of understanding of the situation. Most people don't see poverty. They drive right past it and don't notice it. They think it's just for criminals, drug thugs, and prostitutes. They may have a mental picture of a "slum", but I can tell you that A) that picture is better than many, if not most, such buildings and B)they don't even recognize the poverty that may be around them that doesn't fit that stereotype.

I've seen poverty. From the hills of Kentucky to the farmlands of Indiana to the inner city of Detroit, Pontiac, Louisville, LA and beyond. To East St. Louis to San Francisco, NYC, and even Seattle (though they like to deny it like most). Hell, just outside of where I live now there is an American shanty town filled with farm workers, many, though not all, Hispanics living on a river's bank that floods at least once a year.

So, yesterday, I find myself on a phone conference with my manager and other managers at my level. The dress code topic comes up. There's some juvenile griping about it for a bit - the banter being very old and boring to me..."I've had this conversation since high school", I thought. Then someone speaks up and says that she has one employee who says that she "cannot afford a whole new wardrobe." Her comment was met with a combination of giggles, exasperation, disbelief, and condemnation. "She doesn't need a 'whole new wardrobe'" was one typical comment. "Tell her to go buy a pair of pants for $10. I drove to an outlet mall [way outside of town] and found a pair for just that price. She could go back each paycheck until she had 3 pairs to switch through." This from an organization that spent thousands of dollars on vests last year that make us look like formal ice cream parlor attendants and now has no money to buy any new ones for new employees or to replace the ones that have been torn on the job. The irony, but I digress.

Employees for our organization get paid better than minimum wage. They don't do badly on the face of it. But most clerks at our stores are not full time either. Hell, I struggle to get my clerks between 10 and 18 hours per week. My assistant manager isn't even full time. So, yea, they may be paid, say $12.50 per hour, but when you're only working 10 hours per week, have 2 young children at home, no health benefits, and the state takes a percentage away each week for mandatory "retirement", you're not exactly swimming in dough. Add to this that you may not own a car and therefore use bus fare or, if you do, you're driving a junker with high fuel costs and maintenance.

So, how is this person supposed to afford 3 pairs of pants and 3 to 4 new shirts? Is he supposed to choose between food for the children and the clothes? Is he supposed to take a taxi to this outlet mall? Is he supposed to quit and then cost the state more money to support his family? Is he supposed to beg at the food bank and borrow from his co-workers? WTF?!!?

This shit makes me angry. It's idiotic. We're a fucking liquor store for goodness sakes; not some software vendor and not some group pushing digital TVs onto the world. Professionalism comes from customer service. Sure, clothes can help. But no clothes in the world will help poor service skills. There needs to be a balance. In the meantime, I'm taking care of my staff and trying to help them as best as possible.

Just, please, people open your eyes to poverty. It might even live next door to you.

Tell me lies

2009-06-05T05:54:00.000-07:00

Tell me sweet little lies.

This week at work I've heard 2 people tell me the following: "I hear Obama wants to tax our health care benefits, now." I'm not sure where this tidbit of misinformation came from, but I imagine it was Rush or Fox or some equally deceitful media.

Fact: Obama never proposed any such method to fund his health care initiative. Indeed, he has a totally different mechanism. The proposal was made by Senator Max Baucus this week to Obama and the President said that he's open to discussing that option, but preferred to stick to his original plan. Indeed, Mr. Baucus' proposal is idiotic beyond contemplation as it would surely deep six any health care changes and it's regressive.

Another fact: This proposal would only tax health care premiums; not actual costs. So, for instance, the elderly man in my store yesterday whose wife had a rare condition that cost $100,000+ to treat would not pay taxes on the $100,000, but rather on whatever premium he and his wife paid to their insurer. The difference is significant.

I doubt this proposal will make it into any version of the final bill. Obama would be wise to let the Senator know that this is unacceptable. His folks would also be wise to get out in public ahead of this lie and let the people know that it's unacceptable. I am not a fan of Obama's health care plan in that I don't think it goes far enough. I'd prefer a single payer system as it's the only way that I can see to reduce costs, expand coverage, and provide modest comfort to the aging boomer population. I think the patchwork being considered is ridiculous and is doomed to failure. However, I don't need lies to debate it either.

RIP, Koko Taylor

2009-06-05T05:52:00.000-07:00

Pictures from the yard

2009-05-26T05:52:00.000-07:00

Shallots

Tayberry Blossom

Berry Patch

Tomato Bed

Economy fail

2009-04-21T06:55:00.000-07:00

I've noticed the economic problems in the store. Sales are off slightly and that's to be expected. People are still buying, but they are scaling down in quantity and quality. We're selling a lot more "airplane bottles" than we used to and low end booze is moving faster than we had seen in the past.

Add to that is the number of people who have come in looking for jobs. In the past month I've spoken to 3 people about it. Two of them had already put in applications on our website and were just doing follow up work (smart). In the prior 6 months I probably haven't spoken to that many people about needing work.

Yesterday, two friends of mine were laid off. One lives in Minnesota; the other lives in South Carolina. I feel bad for both of them. They are both good people and good workers. Later in the afternoon I was walking to my mailbox. My neighbor was working in his yard and I stopped to compliment his efforts. He got laid off on Friday afternoon. I spent extra time listening and chatting with him and it's clear that he's a little shell-shocked at the moment. I loaned him a ladder so he can work on some projects around his house.

Word in the newspaper is that some economists and some members of the Obama administration think that we're seeing some light in the economic problems. I would like to think they are right, but I have my severe doubts. There's still too little transparency and not enough regulations to protect the average person. What may look good right now is an optimistic Wall Street trying to stave off further regulation and, in their minds, further punishment. From the perspective of someone out in the rest of the country that light is non-existent. Hoping for it won't make it happen.

berry patch

2009-04-20T10:31:00.001-07:00

berry patch
Originally uploaded by B.D.'s world

I bought fence posts at Dell's and some wire. Our berry bushes have gotten so large that we need to pull them off of the ground. To the left are our 2 red raspberry bushes. Towards the right is a black raspberry, a tayberry, and 2 quince bushes.

Scott's tulips

2009-04-20T10:29:00.001-07:00

Scott's tulips
Originally uploaded by B.D.'s world

These are the tulips that Scott gifted Shawn last year coming up in bloom. Really lovely and a nice reminder of him.

garden bed 1

2009-04-20T10:28:00.003-07:00

garden bed 1
Originally uploaded by B.D.'s world

Plants that did survive the winter: bee balm, strawberries, and thyme.

Azaleas

2009-04-20T10:28:00.001-07:00

Azaleas
Originally uploaded by B.D.'s world

Our rosemary bushes that formed a hedge in front of our front porch all died this winter. In fact, that's a common tale around Seattle this year. Even old, well-established plants died. We're replacing them with these azaleas which we hope will be more hardy. Two of them will bloom in purple and one in white.

Cherry blossoms

2009-04-20T10:26:00.001-07:00

Cherry blossoms
Originally uploaded by B.D.'s world

Our cherry tree is just getting to the end of it's blooming season. I snapped this photo before it bloomed out.

Tango

2009-02-20T04:36:00.001-08:00

I love to dance the tango with Love.
This is not a metaphor.
I refer to Love as a being, an entity that fills our universe.
A powerful force, this Love.
It moves me across the dance floor exhibiting fierceness and sensuality.
It shares a rose to my teeth and I bite.
Love taps it's feet hard against the floor
Love's arms move in swift, exacting manners.
Love's hips, so precise in their sway.
Love moves me and I follow it's calculated steps.
It's a never-ending dance.
Ooooooo, yeaaaaa...

Let me break it down for you:
I love to dance.
Tango is the dance of love.
Tango is a demonstration of fierce passion, sensuality, and the beautiful rhythms of two souls in synch with each other's movements.
Tango is a metaphor for Love.
The whole thing is self-referential.
Love itself is so BIG.
It surrounds me. It surrounds everything.
I can only hope to glimpse pieces of it by bringing moments of it into my life.
Through dance. Through Tango. Through love and fierce sensuality.
Flow with it, baby.
You've got to flow with it.

Song fragment

2009-02-19T04:43:00.000-08:00

If I were to call your name
Would you turn and face me again
If I were to follow at a rapid pace
Would I get to see your face

All I want is one more look at you
I know it's selfish, but what can I do?
I want to see the pain and tears on your face
Then, I'll know it's over...

*was driving into work and the words entered my mind from the ether

Vacation

2009-01-28T06:11:00.001-08:00

P1000128
Originally uploaded by B.D.'s world

We went on a short holiday to Ocean Park on the Long Beach Peninsula in Washington. We found a room for $54/night with kitchenette and ocean view. This is the view from our balcony on our last morning there. We had the best weather in the state with 50 degrees and sunny, calm skies.

The rest of the set is here.

Note our idea of roughing it with the dinner photos.

Absinthe

2009-01-03T07:17:00.000-08:00

I've had the homemade stuff. Pretty decent, if not an exact copy. I think the appeal is more the high alcohol content which should be cut with water. I also think that the real reason that people like Van Gogh had problems with absinthe is because he was a drunk who didn't cut the alcohol with water. Absinthe is typically 120+ proof. Not 151 firewater, but potent in any case.

I have not tried any of the newly permissible products (the U.S. government recently ruled that they were never illegal). We carry them in the store, of course. I carry Lucid and the original Pernod. Licorice is not my favorite flavor so I tend to avoid alcohols flavored that way.

Absinthe is still riding the wave of the curiosity seekers. We get customers in who are intrigued by it simply from it's mysterious history. They are seeking a different high. Of course, there isn't anything psychoactive in the potion other than the alcohol, but that doesn't deter the interest. As such, absinthe commands some hefty prices in the marketplace. Lucid runs $55 and Pernod runs $64 and there are no mini bottles to be had.

Eventually I expect the allure to wear off. At that time prices will fall and minis will be offered. Consider current buyers to be early adopters. As in television sets, they are paying the big bucks to get the newest and best while those with patience will reap the rewards of their efforts down the line with lower prices and better quality. I can certainly wait.

The NY Times had an article today on the topic. It had this funny passage:

If absinthe were a band, it would be Interpol, third-hand piffle masquerading as transgressive pop culture. If absinthe were sneakers, it would be a pair of laceless Chuck Taylors designed by John Varvatos for Converse. If it were facial hair, it would be the soul patch. If absinthe were a finish on kitchen and bath fixtures, it would be brushed nickel.

The absinthe available over the counter nowadays is neither dangerous — in fact, it’s debatable whether it ever was — nor illegal (and whether it ever was is also unclear, but that, apparently, is a really long story).

In 2007, 95 years of prohibition ended, but instead of giving us Rimbaud and Baudrillard, modern-day absinthe has given newspaper editors the opportunity to assign articles on the drink’s mysterious, romantic history — drawn, perhaps to the opportunity it presented headline and caption writers for J.V.-level wordplay (“Absinthe of Malice,” “The Greening of America,” “Going Verte-ical”).

Yuki napping

2008-12-27T05:05:00.001-08:00

Yuki napping
Originally uploaded by B.D.'s world

She decided to cuddle up on one of my presents right before I was planning on snuggling under it to watch a movie.

Tree

2008-12-27T05:04:00.001-08:00

Tree
Originally uploaded by B.D.'s world

This year's tree is a noble fir. We ended up decorating it mostly with star figures.

Pets

2008-12-27T05:03:00.001-08:00

Pets
Originally uploaded by B.D.'s world

Baraka getting kitty noogies...his favorite.

Chaiyo

2008-12-27T05:02:00.001-08:00

Chaiyo
Originally uploaded by B.D.'s world

Rare Chaiyo sighting...munching down on a treat.

Rosemary in ice

2008-12-27T05:01:00.001-08:00

Rosemary in ice
Originally uploaded by B.D.'s world

Along with tin mantis in background.

Christmas Cactus in bloom

2008-12-27T05:00:00.001-08:00

Christmas Cactus in bloom
Originally uploaded by B.D.'s world

Just in time for the holly daze!

More Xmas Cheer

2008-12-25T07:08:00.000-08:00

Junkies Christmas by Burroughs

2008-12-25T06:51:00.000-08:00

A classic:

Happy Holly-daze

2008-12-25T06:34:00.001-08:00

What's the Use of Won'drin'? -Amanda Palmer & Vermilion Lies- from Amanda Palmer on Vimeo.

Democrats and teh gays

2008-12-20T05:43:00.000-08:00

On my birthday in November of 1992, President-elect Bill Clinton reaffirmed his stance that homosexual folks should be allowed to serve openly in the U.S. military. A political storm ensued and by January, after only 2 weeks in office, Clinton was backpedaling. By the fall of 2003 we had in place the deplorable "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" bigotry policy.

Since leaving office Clinton has said he regrets that decision. Indeed, when his wife was running for president, they both denounced the policy. Hillary Clinton pledged to change the policy if elected to the presidency. Barack Obama also pledged to repeal the rule, but has since said that such a repeal might be delayed until 2010, after consulting with the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Obama might want to rush that policy a little after this week. As with his Democratic predecessor Obama campaigned heavily with the gay community. He sought their votes and more importantly he sought their donations. He promised during the campaign to be supportive of their rights and to be inclusive in policy determinations. And, just like his Democratic predecessor, once the campaign was over, Obama delivered the political equivalent to a kick in the crotch of this community by proposing not only a delay in dealing with DADT, but also by inviting Rick Warren to deliver the invocation at his inaugeral ceremony.

By now you've probably read some of the statements that Warren and/or his church have made regarding homosexuals. The statements are ignorant and openly support bigotry. In addition, Warren supported Proposition 8 which repealed marriage rights for homosexuals in California (this in spite of the fact that Warren claims that one of his problems with homosexuals is their lack of commitment to one mate). In other words, Obama could hardly have made a worse choice.

What is it with Democrats and teh gays? Are gay folks only good enough to deliver money and votes for office, but not good enough to take a moral stance for their rights once in office? Is it moral for the Democrats to take that money and not deliver a legal expansion of rights that, just like everyone, homosexuals deserve? Why is it that Democrats are so willing to throw gays under the bus? How long are gay folks expected to put up with this crap? How long are teh gays expected to open their wallets only to be slapped in the face with astounding alacrity and hypocrisy?

I was mightily pissed at Bill Clinton's decision. It was the end of my love affair with his presidency. His spineless actions were explained as necessary for greater battles. What did he deliver? Health care? Nope. Instead we got "Welfare reform" and a Republican Congress. Gee, thanks for that. So, what's in Obama's future and what will his excuse be? We may never know as Rachael Maddow noted, the mainstream media isn't following up:

Visit msnbc.com for Breaking News, World News, and News about the Economy

Frankly, I'm not optimistic about this. Next election, gays should keep their wallets closed and screw the Democratic party. Queers should be tired of being fucked over by the Democrats.

Retale

2008-12-20T04:53:00.000-08:00

Across the parking lot from my store sits a large empty building. It used to house a Big Kmart. When that company went bankrupt in 2002, the Bellevue store was one of the ones that they shuttered. It's a very large building and it's been empty for so long that people, including myself, seem to remember it being closed for longer than it has. It's an eyesore that has served no purpose other than as a parking lot for a local car dealership and an icon for directions. "We're in the shopping center where the old Kmart used to be."

Costco has flirted with that location. In 2003 they announced plans to put a gourmet food shop there. It was supposed to be a trial store where they'd give food items a go as a tester for the regular stores. Plans for that fell through the same year as a local neighborhood association disapproved of the traffic and noise that the store might generate. A great deal of consternation followed as many people in that area could use the jobs and many others were happy with the idea of a Costco food shop in their back yard. The neighborhood association is chaired by some powerful residents, however, who are generally opposed to change.

Costco again flirted with the idea of a store there in 2007. They contacted Bellevue city officials. There was a new sticking point - there's a creek the runs under the parking lot that the city said needed to be restored. Costco balked at paying for the restoration and did it's own study. The Costco study found that the creek did badly need some restoration and, after several months of negotiation they announced that they had come to an agreement with the city. In November 2007 a news release stated that Costco planned on beginning a new building the following year and that they would pay for the restoration. City officials were delighted.

In September 2008 the whole deal fell through. Officially, it was the economy that did it in and there's some truth to that. Other rumors fly, though. I've heard from people associated with Costco that the city of Bellevue wasn't forthcoming with permits. Then there was word from city workers that Costco balked at the city's plan for restoration and parking. Finally came the rumor from several who said that they were "in the know" that the neighborhood association was behind the city's stalling and that they were pulling the strings. I've met one of those folks from the neighborhood association and he was gleeful that the deal was sunk.

Whatever the reason, the building sits empty. It's still an icon and a 120,000 square foot eyesore. It's also the cause of much speculation and conversation such as the one I had this week with a gentleman who shopped my store. He was an older fellow in his early 70s. He wasn't a regular customer of mine. In fact, he normally shopped the Kirkland store, but he found himself in my neighborhood and decided to stop by and get his holiday shopping done early. He was a pleasant man, unpretentious, but with the casual air of wealth. We exchanged good conversation before he asked the inevitable question:

"What are they ever going to do with that old Kmart building over there? Heard anything about it?"

"Well, there was some discussion of putting a brothel in there." I was, of course, teasing him. I was in a good mood and having a good time and decided to try some mischief.

Much to my surprise, he didn't bat an eye at my comment. In fact, he looked like he was seriously considering my words when he replied, "It's too big for that."

Further amused, I quickly followed up with "The Olympics are coming in 2010."

Not to be outdone, he said, "The state could use the revenue these days."

And I ended it with, "That's just one of the many ways to fill that $5 billion hole."

By this point my assistant manager who had been listening to the exchange was laughing very hard. The customer and I stared at each other with smirks on our faces and twinkles in our eyes. "Good talking with you, Richard. I'll be back" he said and he patted me on the shoulder on his way out.

Yet more snow storm pix

2008-12-19T04:50:00.000-08:00

More snow storm pics

2008-12-19T04:48:00.000-08:00

Winter snow storm

2008-12-19T04:43:00.000-08:00

Pictures from the snow storm. It began to snow on the afternoon of December 17, 2008. It snowed all night and the next day. I made it to and from work. By the time I got home on the 18th, we had over a foot of snow in the driveway.

RIP - Bettie Page

2008-12-12T05:17:00.000-08:00

Quickies

2008-12-08T06:32:00.000-08:00

Sorry for the lack of posts. It's the busy season at work and I've been attempting to stay away from the computer while off. For instance, yesterday I had breakfast, went grocery shopping, and then came home and made a crab souffle using the fresh crab that I bought and cleaned. Oh, and we listened to Xmas music while the co-signer made Xmas cookies for work.

A couple of things, however, sent nasty outrage shivers up my spine this morning. First, the RIAA is suing an ill, disabled girl. Secondly, a 10 year old with mental disabilities has been labeled a sex offender.

Really odd transition

2008-12-01T09:04:00.000-08:00

I've mentioned this to a couple of friends, but I found myself just amazed at it again this morning. I was watching the Obama press conference on the television. Once again he gave a nod to the current administration for their cooperation during the transfer of office. I rarely applaud the Bush administration, but give credit where it's due and thusfar it appears to be due.

However, I am struck by how quickly this transition is taking place. Bush is hardly mentioned anywhere. Sure, he gets his coverage when he goes on a trip or has a few words to say about Mumbai (another absolutely amazing thing - the press is calling it "Mumbai" instead of "Bombay"...something they've refused to do for years), but it's so obvious that when it comes to anything substantial, the press has moved on.

Clearly, this just isn't because he's an unliked president. I recall when Carter left office. He wasn't well liked at the time and yet he wasn't completely ignored in the way Bush has been. Reagan was not a very well liked person either, contrary to what some would have you believe. Not as bad off as Carter by a long shot, but Reagan wasn't particularly popular and the country was ready to move on and yet, he wasn't ignored. Al Gore ran away from the support of Bill Clinton. Clinton was loved in his own party, but the country was tired of the controversies he caused. Still, he wasn't ignored as a lame duck president.

Never in my observations have I seen a president so quickly reduced to a footnote on the day's news. Going back to Mumbai, Bush said a few words and sent Kindasleazy Rice over to diffuse any problems with Pakistan. Still, who got the main coverage? Obama and his words did. Of course, it didn't hurt that he was announcing his national security staff nominations. Even so, the press went to him for leadership and he's not in office yet. A lot could go wrong between now and Inauguration Day, but the press looked to him.

The week prior, Wall Street looked to Obama for financial leadership. Indeed, they gave the thumb's up initially for the appointments. I'm not certain, but I think what we're seeing is unprecedented.

Even people that I speak with daily talk about Obama and his thoughts. Some die hard conservatives that I know are talking about him and not the president. The media, it seems to me, is reflecting the mood of the country. We're ready to move on. We've been ready. Even the conservatives have dumped Bush, though they don't particularly care for Obama. No one is stepping forward in the Republican Party as it's voice and it's leader. McCain has been relugated to the sidelines. Palin is a joke amongst serious conservatives. Romney is seen with suspicion.

Into this void comes a person with an intellectual nature and a calm presentation. He's speaking and we're listening. We're tired of the idiot who we can share that beer with during the college bull session and we're ready to be presented with seriousness and vision. It gives me a shade of hope.

We'll see. As time goes on I expect to find much to disagree with the incoming administration about. But for now I seem to be like the rest of the country - just grateful for the moment.

Overheard in Retail

2008-11-27T07:37:00.000-08:00

The day before Thanksgiving is one of the busiest days of the year in our business. It's followed closely by the day before Christmas, Mother's Day, and Father's Day. What do all of these days have in common? They are tied closely to family. Seriously, I cannot convey how many times I hear people come in who say that they are buying alcohol to "deal with" their family. It far outnumbers those who come in and tell me that they are sharing a joyful drink with the skelatives.

So, we were busy yesterday - extremely busy. On top of the crowds I had to take in a new truckload of merchandise and place an order for next week's truckload without the benefit of the report I use to do this accounting for the merchandise I was about to receive. It's a ton of sweat labor and poor programming adding to more stress on the day.

During these types of days I look for a moment that will bring joy to the day. It lessens the stress, adds the proper amount of cheer, allows me a respite from the chaos, and generally keeps me from looking down upon the nastier figures who come in. Such a moment was visited upon me around 4:30 yesterday. My junior clerk is a Native American. A customer she was waiting on was all a twitter about the holiday. The customer paused and said, "Oh, do you people celebrate Thanksgiving?" (Note the use of the phrase "you people", meaning "other", meaning, "not quite our people or my people"...in another person's world it could be considerably offensive, but my clerk is smart and kind enough to know this and yet forgive). Her reply, which lit my day:

We tried that once and look what happened to us. So, we don't do that anymore.

The customer smiled. I laughed, literally, aloud. My customer laughed, literally, aloud. As soon as her customer left, I turned to her and said, "That's fabulous." She made my day.

Playing with LaLa

2008-11-24T06:14:00.001-08:00

Some recent faves

Medieval Baebes have a new song!

2008-11-24T05:55:00.001-08:00

I love this tune

Greenwald

2008-11-17T04:34:00.001-08:00

Glen Greenwald has a very good column in Salon regarding some early indications from the Obama presidency. Basically, he's criticizing Obama, the Democrats, and the Congress for continuing down the path to a stronger presidency. I expressed concerns about this during the campaign before we knew who the Democratic nominee would be. It's a bad model to follow. When Congress did this under Clinton they were voted out during the following election en masse. One of the frustrations of voters during the past election was that the Democratic Congress didn't take control properly and force more issues of change upon the administration. They had best not play toady with Obama and Obama should encourage them to take back their authority. Snippet:

Here's what Obama's transition chief, John Podesta, said about that:

There's a lot that the president can do using his executive authority without waiting for congressional action, and I think we'll see the president do that. I think that he feels like he has a real mandate for change. We need to get off the course that the Bush administration has set.

Podesta's infatuation with the power of executive orders recalls the infamous comment made by Clinton aide Paul Begala regarding the robust use of executive orders by the Clinton administration to make policy: "Stroke of the pen. Law of the land. Kinda cool."
That isn't actually how things are supposed to work. The Constitution doesn't vest the President with the power to make laws with the "stroke of the pen," and it's not "kinda cool" that we've allowed it to happen. It's actually quite dangerous and anti-democratic, as James Madison warned in Federalist No. 47:

The accumulation of all powers legislative, executive and judiciary in the same hands, whether of one, a few or many, and whether hereditary, self appointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny.

As Madison explained in that paper, it was only because the Constitution separated those powers among the branches -- with the legislative power (the power to make laws) assigned exclusively to Congress and the executive power (the power to execute those laws) assigned to the President -- was Madison convinced that the presidency created by the Constitution, deprived of lawmaking power, would pose no threat to republican liberty.

Go read the whole post. It's worth the time and it's nice to see someone on the left attempting to frame this.

birthday accomplished

2008-11-15T07:34:00.000-08:00

We began our evening with a pilgrimage to Jerry Traunfeld's new restaurant, Poppy. I didn't have reservations, but we were early enough to grab one of the 3 tables in the bar. The bar area actually has quite a bit of seating and they serve full menus there. The rest of the restaurant was booked until 10PM, so I'd say that Jerry is doing well in his post-Herb Farm incarnation. On our way in, we walked past the herb garden Jerry has set up for the restaurant. Four large beds filled with all sorts of herbs, gated to keep people out in off hours and secluded near the back entrance of the restaurant.

The interior is rather roomy. Brick walls remain on the outer shell. Nice wood beams throughout. Jerry took his inspiration for the place from an Indian manner of dining. To match it he has orange and yellow (poppy colored) color scheme. The bar and chairs have a natural wood color to them. The kitchen is rather large and it has a viewing window positioned so that staff can keep an eye on their customers.

We ordered drinks. The co-signer got a Bourbon Sour (and it lived up to the Sour part!). I got "The Elite" which was a cocktail made with Finlandia vodka, St Germain liqueur, Clear Creek Distillery's Framboise (a dry raspberry liqueur unlike the sweet stuff so often found), and a dash of lemon. My drink was perfectly balanced and refreshing, so I had another. ;-)

To start, we ordered some eggplant fries. These really are julienned eggplant strips that are deep fried in oil, then topped with blackberry honey and a touch of salt. And, man oh man are they good. It's a small plate that we split. The honey lightens the flavor of the eggplant and the salt adds another savory layer. The food blogger for the Seattle Times said that these were not to be missed and she was right.

We then moved on to the main meal. Poppy is designed around the Indian concept of Thalis. Basically, you get little samples or small portions of a lot of items. With Jerry managing the menu it's a bit like getting a small version of an Herbfarm meal that doesn't take 4.5 hours to consume (typical time for The Herbfarm), doesn't come with wines, and comes at a fraction of the cost. It's a prix fix experience, however there are options. So, the main set of Thalis costs $32 per plate. There is an option to by one Thali which comes with a few side dishes and that runs $22 per plate. There's also the bar menu to munch from which has things like the eggplant fries, but also offers up tandori chicken with slaw and naan for $12 or spiced berkshire pork ribs with smashed chickpeas for $16. Nothing is cheap, but compared to the Herbfarm, which is charging $150 per person for the 4.5 hour 8 course meal with wines, it's a big savings. Plus, the last time we were at the Herbfarm, with Jerry in charge, I think things were slipping. Jerry's meal was fabulous, but the wine pairings were not nearly as sophisticated. So, we were here for the full Thali experience.

We order the Thali flight of wines to have with the meal. Each glass came with 2 ounces of wine. There were 3 wines: a white Bordeaux, A to Z Pinot Noir from Oregon, and a Malbec from Chile. All were excellent choices that paired well with a variety of foods from the Thalis. We began the meal with the carrot coriander soup. God, is this good, warming stuff for a fall evening. The nice thing about the THali concept is you get just enough to feel you've had a real taste and enjoyed some of it, but there's still room for more. Next up was a salad of persimmon, fresh huckleberries, and shaved fennel. It was divine and I mean amazingly so. The sweet huckleberries were tempered by the fennel which also added some crunch and allowed the persimmon to shine through. This was followed by a spiced beet-yogurt salad (delish and so homey).

The co-signer next had the spice rubbed duck with red cabbage and Pomegranate. Baked in the Tandori oven, the duck had a slightly charred skin, but was moist on the inside. The cabbage was done, but crisp and the co-signer said that the whole thing worked really well (and paired nicely with the Malbec). There were 2 areas on the Thali menu where you could substitute what was being served. I chose to opt out of the duck, but I kept the scallops. In other words, you could make it a vegetarian outing if you wanted to do so. Instead of duck I had chanterelle and borlotti bean gratin. This was covered with fresh toasted and seasoned bread crumbs. The mushrooms were a very nice pairing with the beans and the earthy flavors melded well with the Pinot Noir.

Our next course was butternut squash puree made with ginger and rosemary and topped with a surprisingly spicy toasted coconut. The rosemary is a subtle addition, but once you find it in the dish you really appreciate it in the background. It's one of those sublime dishes that demonstrate how Jerry has mastered the art of cooking with herbs. Next was a dry chutney of roasted cauliflower, apple, dill and celery. Nicely done and tasty, but it didn't jump out at me. Then we got to the B.C. scallops with celery root cider sauce and shallots. The celery root cider sauce added a nice fall feel to this preparation. The shallots were fried crisp. Take a bite of scallop, swirl it in the celery root cider puree, get a shallot on there and munch down for a very satisfying moment, then wash it down with that white Bordeaux. That's good eating! Now, I could have opted out of the scallop and ordered the chestnut, leek, and porcini blintz, but I wanted that small sample of seafood.

Also served with the meal was a small piece of fresh naan, saffron rice, and a chutney made with fennel, lemon, and black mustard seed (sweet and delish).

The wait staff gave us a moment to come up for air (terrific staff, by the way...very relaxed and friendly...everyone wearing jeans and black shirts with aprons). We each took a turn in the bathroom. When I came back (I went first) I said to the co-signer, "And they've got the coolest hand dryers in the entire world. In fact, paper was not an option. Wave your hands in this thing and it warms them, dries them, and collects the water blown off of them. It's motion controlled, too.

After a few moments of consideration, I settled on a dessert. It's my birthday weekend and I get to choose. One of the options was a pear clafouti made with maple syrup and rosemary. Jerry has that in The Herbfarm Cookbook and I've made it several times. It's a favorite, but sticking to my rule that it needs to be something I can't or won't make at home, I decided against it. So, I got the dark chocolate terrine with roasted pistachios, creme anglaise, toasted sesame seeds, and candied ginger strips. It sounds like a lot (and after all of the Thalis, it is), but the portion is quite small - perfect for 2 after the large meal. I got a 10 year old tawny port to pair with it and they went very well together.

The bill? With drinks and tax the whole thing came to $134 plus change and tip. We ate there for less than half what it would have cost us to eat at The Herbfarm. It's not some place that we would stop into every day, but it was perfect for a special occasion. If I lived in Seattle proper, I wouldn't hesitate going to the bar once in a while and munching on appetizers and exploring their drink list.

After the meal we picked up the co-signer's car in Bellevue, then drove to Woodinville for the new Bond film. We were there an hour before show time, so it allowed us the opportunity to get a coffee nearby and hang out. The theater was packed before the movie. It was a good film. Not in the top 5 of Bond movies, but I like the new style a lot. The film is a character study. The plot is very vague. Daniel Craig makes a very good Bond. The director and/or the writers do the audience a favor and treat them intelligently. For instance, we learn that a main character saw her house burned down with her inside when she was a child. We later see her having a traumatic reaction to a building that is burning with her in it. No dialogue was necessary to convey that reaction and observant viewers picked up on it. Nor did we need to have explained to us the scars on her back which came from that original house fire. That's good film making and I like to see it rather than having everything pointed out for me. But not to get bogged down in that stuff. It is a Bond film, after all, and it's filled with car, boat, and plane action scenes as well as torture and rape. There's also Judy Dench as M and she's wonderful. Her scenes with Craig are amongst the meatiest in the movie. Definitely worthwhile to see this film on the big screen.

And the floodgates of fear open

2008-11-10T06:07:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I was having a conversation with my mother. It was the first time that we have spoken since the election. As I suspected she wasn't thrilled with the outcome. FWIW, she also didn't care for McCain, though I'm pretty sure she voted for him. She's nervous about what President Obama will do and, at the same time, she expects more of the same ("They're all just politicians.")

However, it was the following line that was most telling of her mindset:

I don't think we'll have another white president.

The line was casually dropped. There was a sense of foreboding in her voice. I asked her, "I don't believe that will be the case. Whites will still be the majority in this country for a number of decades and they are bound to vote another candidate in at some time. Also, minorities don't vote strictly on racial lines. Even so, the Senate is almost all white and the House mostly so. What I have to ask is, so what if we don't?"

Silence. Change of topic. Say goodbyes quickly.

I suspect that a large number of people share my mother's obsession/concern. These next 4 years shall be interesting. Despite her concerns expressed above, she also asked in an equally anxious tone if I thought Obama might face an assassination attempt. Let's be clear, she wasn't for such a thing. In fact, she's appalled and scared at the idea. However, she brought up the subject and it's one that I've heard discussed in a number of circles. As if it were comforting, I pointed out that Reagan and Clinton both faced assassination attempts. Oddly enough, it did seem to calm her. Like I said - interesting.

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Now playing on Windows Media Player: Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings - Humble Me
via FoxyTunes

Good read

2008-11-09T12:47:00.001-08:00

From the Wall Street Journal, no less.

I always respected the William F. Buckley wing of the Republican party. Like the Barry Goldwater wing it had it's base in reason. To be sure I disagreed with them on numerous issues, but I appreciated their intellectual prowess and their adherence to principles. Why do I use the past tense to describe these things? Well, read the article which, I think, makes clear that by the 1980s these things were being tossed aside for the shallow mess that we have today. Snippet:

Over the next 25 years there grew up a new generation of conservative writers who cultivated none of their elders' intellectual virtues -- indeed, who saw themselves as counter-intellectuals. Most are well-educated and many have attended Ivy League universities; in fact, one of the masterminds of the Palin nomination was once a Harvard professor. But their function within the conservative movement is no longer to educate and ennoble a populist political tendency, it is to defend that tendency against the supposedly monolithic and uniformly hostile educated classes. They mock the advice of Nobel Prize-winning economists and praise the financial acumen of plumbers and builders. They ridicule ambassadors and diplomats while promoting jingoistic journalists who have never lived abroad and speak no foreign languages. And with the rise of shock radio and television, they have found a large, popular audience that eagerly absorbs their contempt for intellectual elites. They hoped to shape that audience, but the truth is that their audience has now shaped them.

Adding to the Prop 8 discourse

2008-11-08T07:33:00.000-08:00

A good article in The Nation. It's short, but I'll give the shorter version: Anti-Prop 8 folks were outmaneuvered on their organizing efforts.

This is a problem endemic in the gay movement (well, to society in general which is reflected in the gay movement). Leaders in the gay community like to talk about diversity, but they've all too often portrayed their community as overwhelmingly upper middle class and white in order to project a vision of "normality" to the straight community. Blacks, Latinos, Asians, Drag Queens, Leather folks, transvestites, transexuals, bisexuals, working class, lower class, and so on are a crucial part of the community and are indeed some of it's most ardent supporters. Yet, when it comes to pushing the image of homosexuality in a positive light, it's predominantly "We're just like you - white and upper middle class."

Now, part of this is just folks working in our particular media environment which is dominated by white and middle to upper middle class imagery. But this critique is hardly new and it's been ignored and dismissed for years. If there is validity in the position put forth in the article above, then it appears as if such bias penetrated deeply into the No on 8 organizers. Hopefully in defeat they will have learned a much needed lesson. Too bad it had to come about this way.

Progress

2008-11-06T06:33:00.000-08:00

Damn, am I so happy about this. In 1975 I was one of the among the first students to participate in court ordered desegregation in Louisville, KY. I recall the morning that my bus left my middle school for the school in downtown Louisville. Our bus driver was a black woman named Rosie and she was one of the bravest people I had met to that moment in my life. As we pulled away, parents - all white - lined the side of the road. Police pushed people from being in front of the bus. The parents and protesters screamed, shouted things like "Save our children", "Don't do this to our future!", and "Keep the niggers away!". They pounded the side of the bus with signs, hands, fists. They were angry and there wasn't a person on the bus who wasn't scared - of the anger, let alone what images their parents put in their minds about what was happening.

My parents weren't happy about the busing, but not for stated reasons of racism. It would be a few years before my mother's racism would yield it's ugly head and almost 20 years before I heard my father tell me, quite casually, "Martin Luther King was nothing but an uppity nigger until he got shot and they martyred him." But at this point in my life they chose not to indulge those thoughts. Their argument was that they moved to an area with good schools and that the inner city schools were inferior. Of course, that was part of the point of desegregation.

The inner city school was inferior in many ways. It was downwind from the slaughter house across the street. The stench would reach such portions on hot, sticky days, that the officials would not allow the kids to play outside and would order the windows closed, which only mitigated matters slightly. The text books were not in proper supply - we often shared - and were out of date. The band program and teacher was 3 years behind my suburban middle school. The food was marginal and most of the white kids brought their lunch. In every academic way the school was playing catch up.

Yet, there was one important lesson that relied on none of that, for me. It was the interaction in that environment. I became comfortable around black folks. Until that time, I hadn't met any...only seen them on television. I learned to empathize with poverty and to loathe it. I learned about the disparities of our society and how far from fair we really were. I also learned that a powerful bus driver like Rosie was someone to not only respect, but hold in high esteem. These lessons would later inspire my mother to say, "You always take the side of the underdog."

I cried yesterday when the results were final. My friend hugged me and asked why. Never in my life could I have imagined seeing a black American elected to President. Oh, sure, my liberal roots would always talk about the possibility, but it was always theoretical. My past experiences just wouldn't let me believe that it would happen. I'd seen too much racism. From those early days of school busing programs to my parent's revelations to other revelations from family and associates to the suffering felt in almost every inch of the Detroit area - suffering caused by heightened racial tensions - it was just too big a dream. Now that dream has come to pass.

I've seen history in my life. I can recall the news of King's assassination. I recall the news of Bobby Kennedy's assassination. Man on the moon, the Nixon impeachment, the Berlin Wall falling, Russians standing peacefully for their freedom. Yesterday, I saw the most moving and perhaps greatest event so far. The fact that it also comes as an end to the worst 8 years of politics that I have seen in this country - the devolution of human rights, the attempts to shred the Constitution, the hatred and fear and anti-spiritual meanness makes it all the more poignant. But even without the worst period in America that I have seen, this is still one great fucking moment. I am happy that I was around to participate and see something so immensely beautiful.

Vote

2008-11-04T04:46:00.000-08:00

Make your voice heard!

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Now playing on Windows Media Player: DJ Umer Khan - Ahista Ahista (Smooth Raaga Mix)
via FoxyTunes

Politics and music

2008-11-02T06:53:00.000-08:00

Three political topics today. First, a judge has ordered Bush's Justice department to produce the memos that underlined the basis of Bush's wiretapping. That's some possible good news for the public. The judge didn't buy the Justice Department's claim of attorney-client privilege, calling it "too vague".

Secondly, CBS reports that the National debt soared another $500 billion in under one month. Thanks, fiscal conservatives! For the record, that's a dig at both parties.

Finally, a music video from Amanda Fucking Palmer. Note the pink coat hanger if you're questioning the political nature.

Vote over

2008-10-27T09:48:00.000-07:00

We voted yesterday. As is our habit, we sat down together after breakfast with our ballots and voter guide nearby and discussed the candidates and issues before us. Unlike the primary we mostly agreed on the choices. Now we can excuse ourselves from the advertising and other political nonsense until November 4th.

"Pro America" by Olbermann

2008-10-21T07:28:00.000-07:00

Really good commentary.

A powerful message for the Palindronp

2008-10-20T10:24:00.000-07:00

McQueeg's temper

2008-10-09T05:37:00.000-07:00

A hard hitting short film.

Nina Kinert and Ladyhawke

2008-10-06T04:35:00.001-07:00

There are times when a pop song really catches my ear. Here's a couple of examples. First up is Nina Kinert. I came across her today on these Internets. After doing a little research, I was reminded of the vocal track she laid down for Steve Jansen's fine release last year, Slope. Ms. Kinert is from Sweden. This track is from her third and latest album. She is a mere 24 years old. More from Wikipedia here. What I like about this song is the way it builds. From the simple piano and (excellent) vocal to the double drum set towards the end. It's a lovely pop song and well above the usual standard.

Next up is Ladyhawke. This band hails from New Zealand. The lead singer was described in the Guardian as what Stevie Nicks would have looked like had she had a punk make over. They've been heralded by Peaches. What's great about this pop tune? Well, like the Nina Kinert track, the lyric isn't so good, but the vocals are excellent. Plus, it's definitely got the retro-80s/dance pop feel going on. There's a slight update of that sound in the production of the song. Bottom line, though, it's catchy as all hell as is the rest of the album. I love how the video is very retro-80s as well. Perfect matching of the two.

Near Highway 20

2008-10-05T04:50:00.001-07:00

Near Highway 20
Originally uploaded by B.D.'s world

Pictures from our holiday. This one taken off of Highway 20 at a rather random pull off stop for us. We got off at a spot where the road through was closed. We parked the car, admired the scenery, and stretched our legs before heading off to Winthrop and Twisp to find a B&B. More photos here.

Like much of our vacation, this trip was mostly unplanned. We decided to wander a bit with no agenda. The first day was a late start on a drive on Highway 20 through the mountains. The photo is from the one stop we made along the way. Our arrival in Winthrop was in the early evening. Upon a recommendation from our host at the Chewuch Bed and Breakfast (we rented a cabin with a kitchenette), we went into Twisp to dine at the Twisp River Pub. The dinner was really good, but sadly, as with many places, there was too much food, so we packed it before heading home. We strolled through downtown Winthrop before heading back to the B&B.

The next day, after a good breakfast, we drove back through Twisp along Highway 20. It was a pleasant, if grey, morning. We passed through Okanogan and went into Omak. It was there that the co-signer's library fetish kicked in. She wanted a picture. I wanted a bathroom. As it turned out a restaurant that I had read the menu from at the B&B that morning was across the street from the library. The Breadline Cafe is a kitschy sort of place from the decor. The building it is rather large and it needs to be in order to house the kitchen, the bar, the dining room, and the bakery (not to mention all of the nostalgic items placed everywhere). We stopped in to look, but rather than eat (still full from breakfast) we headed up Highway 20/97 to Tonasket (another library stop) and Oroville.

We stopped in Oroville to snap another library picture. Across the street from the library is a wine tasting room for Okanogan Estates winery. Our pourer knew the basics about the wines, but not a whole lot more. Luckily, the wines spoke for themselves. There were a couple that were quite good. We grabbed a bottle each of their Gewurztraminer and Bench Rock (Bordeaux blend). Not much further down the road was Lake Crest Winery's tasting room. We weren't as thrilled with most of their wines, but they had an outstanding Syrah Ice Wine. I don't normally go for the dessert wines, but this one was very good. The flavors of the syrah grapes really tamed the sugars of the ice wine style. Very nice.

Our visit to Oroville's lake side park was cut brief by some rain falling. We did stop and would have gotten a picture, but there was too much rain and fog for it. Before we left for the holiday I had gone looking for my birth certificate in order to cross into Canada (damn, stupid, idiotic Fatherland Security regulations). Unfortunately, I couldn't locate it anywhere. It wasn't in the place I normally keep it. This was particularly distressful since I was planning on applying for a passport soon. Since I didn't have my documentation, the co-signer didn't bring hers either. We discussed going across the border with the owner of Lake Crest Winery (she cursed the regulations as well noting that she's known some of the border guards her entire life and they still are required to ask her "Where do you live?"), but ultimately decided not to chance it. That turned out to be rather fortuitous.

Instead we drove north and west through the country side on the Loomis-Oroville road. After passing through Nighthawk we drove south along the same road. The country is gorgeous here. Golden Rolling hills and jagged peaks, green patches where farming takes place along a riverside. Eventually, we pulled off to the side of the road at the north end of Palmer Lake. Here we enjoyed a picnic lunch of cheese and crackers and snapped a few pictures. We then drove to the south end where there's a park and snapped a few more pictures. We drove through Loomis south along the Sinlahekin Road into National forest land. Along the way we saw lots of pheasants and some wild turkeys (sadly, no mountain goats, which were hoping to come across). Of course, we saw deer as well, but that was a common site around Twisp and Winthrop, so we were less awed by that. We eventually came upon Forde Lake which is a gorgeous little spot along a dirt road. There was little to no traffic on the road at this time, so we had the place to ourselves. It was lovely and quiet.

Eventually we passed through the resort area of Conconully. A few cabins, but not much else to see here. The lake looks nice, but compared to where we came from, it also looked crowded. By this point we needed gas so we took the Conconully Road back to Highway 20 and Omak. We stopped off at the Breadline Cafe for our dinner that evening. The co-signer enjoyed a rather tasty pear cider with her meal. The breads were delish. My shrimp jambalaya could have been spicier, but it was still tasty. We shared a brandied bread pudding for dessert and it was very good. After dinner we headed back to our base in Winthrop. We stopped at Hank's along the way to pick up some coffee (for me) and tea with the idea that we'd stay up and watch the VP debate. However, we missed the circus.

The next day was also quite nice. We stopped for coffee at The Local 98856 (a really nice spot...the decor isn't what makes it, but rather that you can buy local, organic products here from chevre, to milk and eggs, to sanwiches, flour, honey, and more). I'ld link, but they don't appear to have a site. Saveur rated them highly recently. We then walked around Twisp, stopping at the Cinnamon Twisp Bakery (where we bought some yummy fresh baked bread and brownies) and the Glover Street Market (natural food store where I bought some flour - no linkage available). We shot some photos and headed on home along Highway 20 again. I took a bit of a detour on the way home and drove south through Darington along the Mountain Loop "Highway". That led to some more lovely scenery as we eventually made our way along some 1 lane roads through the Mount Baker forest and ended up connecting to the Mountain Loop "Highway" again heading into Granite Falls.

All in all, a lovely and leisurely holiday.

Driving through the state and being heartened

2008-10-04T07:27:00.000-07:00

The holiday drive was lovely. Pictures will be forthcoming. But one thing that we didn't capture in pictures was a bit of a surprise and a pleasant one at that.

Washington is often described as a divided state. The Puget Sound area is the most populous section. It is also more liberal leaning that most of the rest of the state (exceptions being Bellingham, north of Seattle; a tiny corner of the southeast section near Washington State University; and the area around Vancouver, Washington - south, near Portland, Oregon). When a populist politician on the right wants to bash the liberals she usually chooses to bash Seattle as the figurehead of liberal politics here. Indeed, the Seattle area is much more progressive than even other liberal areas of the state, so it's a good target. But things are always more complicated than that. For instance, Bellevue, until recently, was historically conservative. In fact, it still is considered conservative, but looks like it might flip to Democrats in the near future (if not this election, then perhaps the next). Microsoft's hiring has changed the demographics in the area greatly, yet one should note that even so Microsoft employs a fair number of conservatives. Again, it's not so easy.

Outside of the Puget Sound region the state is mostly conservative. I recall that during the last gubernatorial election that side of the state was covered with signs urging the election of Dino Rossi, the Republican. In fact, Rossi almost won that election. In the first counts he did win the election, but the Democrats sued and in the recount by hand Chris Gregoire won the race by under 500 votes. To this day there's a good number of people who grouse that she stole the election. I've heard a lot of people tell me that they can't wait to vote her ass out of office.

The trouble is for those people that Gregoire has been a pretty good governor. Sure, she passed through some major Democratic priorities, but the most costly of those benefited schools. She's also been very good at bringing opposing sides of an issue to the table and hammering out a compromise. When flooding hit Central Washington this past year Gregoire's government received high praise from conservatives over it's response. Still, these accomplishments and more will not quell the naysayers who feel that their vote was unjustly nullified.

The polls said that Gregoire held a 15% lead over the summer. That was cut recently to 7%. Given the amount of bitching I heard at the store over the past couple of years and the fact that the state is looking at a $3.2 billion deficit next biennium (our budgets are 2 years in length), I expected to see a ton of Rossi signs again. What I found actually surprised me. Yes, there were a number of Rossi signs, usually coupled with McCain/Palin signs. However, I also saw a large number of Gregoire signs and they were always coupled with Obama/Biden signs. I saw more signs supporting the Democratic candidates for office than I have ever seen on that side of the state. And it wasn't just in medium sized communities or those known for their liberal leanings. Rather, I saw them all over and everywhere.

My take on it is this - it won't just be the Puget Sound area that goes heavy for Obama. He's going to receive a lot of support from elsewhere in this state. McCain might still take those eastern regions, but it's going to be close. Rossi? He should throw in the towel, now. There was too much support for Gregoire out there. She's going to carry the traditional liberal areas and she's going to eat into his traditional base in a big way. The whole trip made me feel much better about the upcoming election day. If Obama/Biden can carry that much influence and make people that excited in areas of this state that are very conservative, then they are probably doing the same throughout the country and that bodes well for those of us who want to see them elected.

It also helps explain why McCain pulled out of Michigan this week. He's losing independents and he's bleeding from his base as well.

Financial Mess

2008-10-01T08:31:00.000-07:00

Some 192 economists signed a letter asking the president and Congress to take a calm and measured approach to the financial crisis. What was reportedly the reply from Bush?

I don't care what somebody on some college campus says.

Idiot or evasive

2008-10-01T07:44:00.000-07:00

Or both. Here's the Palindrone discussing her sources for international and national issues with Katie Couric:

I'm betting that she does read something, but that she doesn't want to reveal what it is because people will jump on it and note that she's a wacko. In fact, I'm not sure which is worse - that she reads nothing or that she reads wingnut propaganda.

Getting Saucy

2008-10-01T05:57:00.001-07:00

Saucy
Originally uploaded by B.D.'s world

Tomato sauce before it was frozen for enjoyment throughout the winter.

Tomatoes and Wine

2008-10-01T05:56:00.003-07:00

Tomatoes and Wine
Originally uploaded by B.D.'s world

After getting home we picked some tomatoes.

Wining

2008-10-01T05:56:00.001-07:00

Wining
Originally uploaded by B.D.'s world

Vacation wining.

Beginning Vacation

2008-10-01T05:55:00.001-07:00

Beginning Vacation
Originally uploaded by B.D.'s world

We're on vacation this week. On Sunday, we wandered through Woodinville. We went to the Cider Mill, then a farm, and then wine tasting. It wasn't planned and it was more enjoyable that way.

The drone continues

2008-09-30T06:44:00.000-07:00

Apparently CBS is sitting on at least one and possibly 2 more clips of her interview with Katie Couric. The reason that they are sitting on these things is because they want to use it in their Wednesday and Thursday lead up to the VP debates. The Palindrone's campaign has leaked the substance of one of the clips:

Of concern to McCain's campaign, however, is a remaining and still-undisclosed clip from Palin's interview with Couric last week that has the political world buzzing.

The Palin aide, after first noting how "infuriating" it was for CBS to purportedly leak word about the gaffe, revealed that it came in response to a question about Supreme Court decisions.

After noting Roe vs. Wade, Palin was apparently unable to discuss any major court cases. There was no verbal fumbling with this particular question as there was with some others, the aide said, but rather silence.

OK, got that? She lacks curiosity to the extent that her entire focus on Supreme Court cases is Roe. One would think that to be president or vice president there should be some knowledge beyond one case. Hell, since she doesn't "believe" in evolution, you'd think the idiot would've named Scopes! Scopes, for the record, never made it to the Supreme Court of the US (only the Tennessee Supreme Court), but a Scopes related trial - Epperson vs. Arkansas - that challenged the state's right to pass and enforce a bill the prohibited the teaching of evolution did make it to the Supreme Court in 1968 (within Palin's lifetime) and was struck down. How about Brown vs Board of Education? The challenge for the Nixon tapes? Loving vs Virginia? Any ruling during the past year? Amazingly stupid. I can't wait to see it. Only Dan Quayle and G.W. Bush have been, perhaps, as ignorant.

I read this about Palin today. It's an old joke, but an appropriate one:

While suturing a cut on the hand of a 75 year old Texas rancher, a doctor struck up a conversation. Eventually the topic got around to Sarah Palin.

The old rancher said, "Well, you know, Palin is a post turtle.'"

Not being familiar with the term, the doctor asked him, "What's a post turtle?"

The old rancher said, "When you're driving down a country road and you come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that's a post turtle."

The doctor looked puzzled, so the old rancher explained, "You know she didn't get up there by herself, she doesn't belong up there, she doesn't know what to do while she is up there, and you just wonder what kind of dumb ass put her up there to begin with."

Then, there's this piece in Salon:

I don't want to be played by the girl-strings anymore. Shaking our heads and wringing our hands in sympathy with Sarah Palin is a disservice to every woman who has ever been unfairly dismissed based on her gender, because this is an utterly fair dismissal, based on an utter lack of ability and readiness. It's a disservice to minority populations of every stripe whose place in the political spectrum has been unfairly spotlighted as mere tokenism; it is a disservice to women throughout this country who have gone from watching a woman who -- love her or hate her -- was able to show us what female leadership could look like to squirming in front of their televisions as they watch the woman sent to replace her struggle to string a complete sentence together.

In fact, the only people I feel sorry for are Americans who invested in a hopeful, progressive vision of female leadership, but who are now stuck watching, verbatim, a "Saturday Night Live" skit.

Palin is tough as nails. She will bite the head off a moose and move on. So, no, I don't feel sorry for her. I feel sorry for women who have to live with what she and her running mate have wrought.

Excellent commentary

2008-09-29T06:33:00.000-07:00

McCain's response to government coffers depleted by the bailout isn't to rescind his tax cut but to freeze spending on everything but defence, veterans and entitlements - a military financial complex. Obama has conceded that his plans to expand access to healthcare, education and to make America energy-independent will have to be trimmed. Finally, the American political class has embraced a redistributive agenda. The trouble is they are about to divert public money from the poor to the bankers and financiers.
"Capitalists can buy themselves out of any crisis, so long as they make the workers pay," said Lenin. It is rarely regarded as common sense to quote him in polite company. Yet as a description of what is taking place right now, it is the most sense I've heard in a long time.

Whole thing here.

Coffee talk

2008-09-27T06:09:00.001-07:00

I've spent the past couple of mornings in coffee shops. I've gotten my training done at work and had an hour or 2 to kill. On Thursday I spent that time at the Starbuck's near work. On Friday I sipped coffee at Victor's in Redmond (a lovely spot, by the way with much better coffee and food). The common denominator in both instances was discussion of politics. Thursday's topic at a couple of tables was McQueeg's campaign ploy of "suspending the campaign". I put that in quotes because he lied (again) and didn't really suspend his campaign. Rather, he just went to Washington while his surrogates marched on. The people I heard at nearby tables weren't buying it. They sided with Letterman and thought that the whole thing was a sham. It was heartening to listen in.

Friday's topic was the Palindrone's interview with Katie Couric. A couple of people nearby were speaking about how vapid the woman is and how she doesn't seem to have a brain in her head. "It was awful and it made me sick to think that anyone would consider her Vice Presidential, let alone Presidential material. People like that have a low opinion of women." This statement from a woman who noticed that I was nodding along with her.

Now, granted, I live in a more liberal area of the country with a strong progressive movement, but it was really heartening to me to hear people talking politics as if it mattered and not buying into the Republican bullshit from this campaign.

Oh my

2008-09-26T07:01:00.000-07:00

Two good reads. First:

“I didn’t know I was going to be the referee for an internal G.O.P. ideological civil war,” Mr. Frank said, according to The A.P.Thursday, in the Roosevelt Room after the session, the Treasury secretary, Henry M. Paulson Jr., literally bent down on one knee as he pleaded with Nancy Pelosi, the House Speaker, not to “blow it up” by withdrawing her party’s support for the package over what Ms. Pelosi derided as a Republican betrayal.
“I didn’t know you were Catholic,” Ms. Pelosi said, a wry reference to Mr. Paulson’s kneeling, according to someone who observed the exchange. She went on: “It’s not me blowing this up, it’s the Republicans.”
Mr. Paulson sighed. “I know. I know.”
It was the very outcome the White House had said it intended to avoid, with partisan presidential politics appearing to trample what had been exceedingly delicate Congressional negotiations.
Senator Christopher J. Dodd, Democrat of Connecticut and chairman of the Senate banking committee, denounced the session as “a rescue plan for John McCain,” and proclaimed it a waste of precious hours that could have been spent negotiating.

The second read confirms that about McQueeg, Putting Country Last:

I never doubted, however, that McCain's motives in pushing America into war were honorable. Nor do I question his motives in championing Georgia against Russia or in rattling the sabers against Iran. I question his judgment and wouldn't want him as president. But I do question his motives in inserting himself into the attempt by the Treasury Department, Federal Reserve, and the Congressional leadership (excluding the usual suspects from the Republican House delegation) to fashion a plan for preventing a Wall Street crash. He has shown a willingness to put the success of his campaign ahead of the country's welfare. And it's not over a relatively minor matter--like offshore drilling or creationism in schools.

...That's a long way of saying that it is simply unpatriotic--it's an insult to flag, country, and all the things that McCain claims to hold dear--for McCain to hold this financial crisis hostage to his political ambitions. McCain doesn't know a thing about finance and is no position to help work out an agreement. If we do suffer a serious bank run, or a run on the dollar, it can be laid directly at his feet. As I said to friends last night, if McCain had been president at this point, I would have wanted to impeach him.
That brings me back to David Brooks' column. David thinks that beneath the surface of McCain the craven campaigner, that the man who nominated an ill-prepared Sarah Palin as his possible successor and has lent his energies to blocking a financial bailout, there still sits a "real McCain" who could govern fairly and effectively as president. I doubt it. I really doubt it. Whether because of age or overreaching ambition, McCain has become the kind of man he earlier railed against. He has become the Bush of 2000 against whom he campaigned or the Senate and House Republicans whom he despised. His defeat is now imperative.

Game, match, set

2008-09-25T05:26:00.000-07:00

McQueeg likes to play it loose and take gambles. In fact, he's known to gamble high stakes in Vegas. Of course, it's mostly his wife's money he's gambling. With a chance to win the White House, McQueeg could have had an opportunity to actually earn a good enough salary after he left, and add to that, the prestige, that he might earn a little more respect from his wife. Still, yesterday, I think he played a long shot and lost.

His cynical ploy to change the subject that was hitting the news - he's down by 9 points in the polls and his campaign manager has long ties to Freddie and Fannie - by suggesting that he suspend the campaign and postpone debates is going to bury him. It was a big gamble. Sarah Palin was a big gamble, but she paid off well. This, however, ain't gonna fly.

First of all, we found out afterwards that it was Obama who called the McQueeg campaign and asked for a joint statement before this nonsense. McQueeg attempted to trump him by making himself look like the originator of this idea - a maverick, indeed if not, in deed. Then McQueeg comes out and provides a statement to the press and leaves (much like a Palindrone visit to the UN). Obama comes out next and gives a full press conference and notes that the issue is too important for the American public not to hear from the 2 candidates who want to lead the nation through the crisis in debate. Then Obama notes that they both own airplanes and can do the people's business while they debate the people's future. Game, match, set - Obama.

Lincoln fought a war and ran a campaign. Roosevelt had the Great Depression and ran a campaign. Roosevelt fought a war and ran a campaign. George W. Bush fought a war and ran a campaign for orbsakes and McQueeg can't do even that?!!? He must be more feeble than we expected. Either that or it's just a cynical ploy to get votes and change the topic. My guess? This is the moment his campaign blew up. A big gamble and a huge loss. Don't believe me? Watch this:

Trouble for McQueeg

2008-09-24T06:35:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, McQueeg told the NY Times that his campaign manager, Rick Davis, hadn't lobbied for Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac since 2005. He then went on the campaign trail to condemn lobbyists for the 2 failed thrifts. From Roll Call:

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac emerged as issues in the presidential race last week because of turmoil in the financial markets. In a radio address from Green Bay, Wis., on Saturday, McCain blamed the companies and their political clout for creating the housing mess now roiling Wall Street. “At the center of the problem were the lobbyists, politicians and bureaucrats who succeeded in persuading Congress and the administration to ignore the festering problems at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac,’’ he said. “Using money and influence, they prevented reforms that would have curbed their power and limited their ability to damage our economy. And now, as ever, the American taxpayers are left to pay the price for Washington’s failure.’’

Got that? Lobbyists are the cause of the Wall Street "melt down" according to McQueeg. He might want to check his campaign manager's credentials out a little more earnestly than he picks a Vice Presidential candidate. Also from Roll Call:

The lobbying firm of Rick Davis, Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) campaign manager, remains on the payroll of mortgage giant Freddie Mac, according to two sources with knowledge of the arrangement.
The firm, Davis Manafort, has collected $15,000 a month from the organization since late 2005, when Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae dissolved a five-year-old advocacy group that Davis earned nearly $2 million leading, the sources said.
The relationship is coming to an end, however, as Fannie and Freddie’s new federal caretaker zeroes out its contracts with political consultants.

Politico has a good story on the Palindrone. Apparently she supported the "Bridge to Nowhere" for far longer than she cares to admit to today. Well, we knew that, but it went on for even longer - after McQueeg had denounced it and it had become a laughing stock for the lower 48. The nice thing about the story linked to is that A) it reveals how long she supported it, B) how she wanted to get the money while Alaska's strong men were still in Congress, C) makes clear how she kept the money rather than let it go to Katrina rebuilding and D) it explains the bridge in it's entirety to the people who have never visited Ketchikan (which, I have).

YAFPF

2008-09-24T05:19:00.000-07:00

Yet another foreign policy failure for the Bush administration. When they came to office in 2001, the Bush administration wasted no time in trashing all things Clinton. One of the first victims was the Clinton administration's approach to North Korea. Bush went saber rattling and before you could wink, North Korea's nuclear program was back on the table.

Then, the World Trade Center bombing occurred. By 2002, North Korea was being labeled part of the "Axis of Evil". More bluster followed, but by 2007 tempers had cooled and the Bush administration hailed a deal that they had made with North Korea. It was a deal that looked remarkably like...the one they had thrown out in 2001. In other words, it was basically the same deal that the Clinton administration had made. For 6 years the world endured the saber rattling of both nations. The Bush administration blinked, we ended up back where we started, and the administration crowed that it had scored a victory. Typical Republican pablum: tell the lie and scream it from the rafters and it must become the Truth. McQueeg is a master of this right now.

However, 2008 is a year of change. North Korea didn't want to be left out and who can blame them? Somehow, what was once hailed as a great foreign policy success is now unraveling. Sure, the Bushies will blame it on North Korea. While North Korea will blame it on the same problem that they had with the Clinton administration - that the U.S. wasn't fulfilling it's promises. There's probably a bit of blame to go around, but considering how incompetent this administration has been about numerous other agenda items, it's hard not to give the North Koreans the edge on this one.

Not that they are right in what they are doing. North Korea should not be using such a potentially dangerous option to extort aid from the west. These actions are immoral and unethical. Such actions only subvert the very soul of a nation and it's people and further distrust throughout the rest of the world. But they may also have a legitimate gripe with the way that the agreement is being administered.

How will this play out in the elections? That's hard to say. McQueeg is likely to consider this a boost to his campaign. He'll mock Obama's willingness to use diplomacy in order to achieve international goals. It will be Obama's response to this that will be crucial. Still, America's currently focused on itself and the economy. Problems abroad are not high on the agenda, though they are also more apparent than in the 2000 election where foreign policy did not rate a debate, sadly. This development will be important to the Obama campaign not so much because it is crucial in American minds, but because his response to it will help shape the opinion of him that Americans will form as a leader. Let's hope that he doesn't fail in the similar ways that Democrats have found to fail in the past.

Taking hits from conservatives

2008-09-23T06:09:00.000-07:00

A good question from a WaPo article:

Yet others, including some sympathetic Republicans, have begun to quietly question whether McCain and Palin are well served by strategists so firmly anchored in the Bush establishment when the candidates are presenting themselves as a "team of mavericks" and agents of change. One Republican with long-standing ties to the Bush administration described the situation as a paradox in which Palin is especially vulnerable.

"If the McCain campaign is trying to prop up Palin as its change agent, and its inoculation against the 'third Bush term' rap, then why on earth is she surrounded by a cast of Bush advisers?" said the Republican loyalist, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. "Since she's been selected, every single one of the senior aides that she's brought on board had prominent roles in Bush's White House or on his campaigns, or both."

It's an easy set of answers. First, they were declared winners in the last 2 elections so they are experienced. Secondly, she ideologically worships Bush and is willing to lie, just like he is, at all costs to win elections. Third, she IS Bush III. Consider a certain lack of curiosity or experience in the world, a value of loyalty and secrecy over all else, a vindictive streak, a lack of honesty, and all founded on the fact that she can make a decision and stick to it because her/his vision of the world is embedded with a moralist view. Right or wrong, damn the torpedos. She's a Republican wet dream.

Speaking of experience, George Will, conservative columnist and not to be confused with a Republican one, has some words on that topic today.

Conservatives who insist that electing McCain is crucial usually start, and increasingly end, by saying he would make excellent judicial selections. But the more one sees of his impulsive, intensely personal reactions to people and events, the less confidence one has that he would select judges by calm reflection and clear principles, having neither patience nor aptitude for either.

It is arguable that, because of his inexperience, Obama is not ready for the presidency. It is arguable that McCain, because of his boiling moralism and bottomless reservoir of certitudes, is not suited to the presidency. Unreadiness can be corrected, although perhaps at great cost, by experience. Can a dismaying temperament be fixed?

McQueeg was for deregulation before he was against it

2008-09-22T04:45:00.001-07:00

The candidate is on the campaign trail decrying the deregulators, but of course he's one of the main advocates of that policy. In fact, as the NY Times reports, a member of his staff was a lobbyist for Fannie and Freddie. You know, the same thing he's trying to smear Obama with. Snippet:

Incensed by the advertisements, several current and former executives of the companies came forward to discuss the role that Rick Davis, Mr. McCain’s campaign manager and longtime adviser, played in helping Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac beat back regulatory challenges when he served as president of their advocacy group, the Homeownership Alliance, formed in the summer of 2000. Some who came forward were Democrats, but Republicans, speaking on the condition of anonymity, confirmed their descriptions.
“The value that he brought to the relationship was the closeness to Senator McCain and the possibility that Senator McCain was going to run for president again,” said Robert McCarson, a former spokesman for Fannie Mae, who said that while he worked there from 2000 to 2002, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac together paid Mr. Davis’s firm $35,000 a month. Mr. Davis “didn’t really do anything,” Mr. McCarson, a Democrat, said.

In other economic news, Treasury secretary cum Banking Czar Henry Paulson is trying to convince the rest of the world that they need to follow the U.S. model for restructuring and regulating the global economies. Snippet:

"I'm going to be pressing our colleagues around the world to design similar programmes for their banks and institutions," said Paulson during a round of interviews on Sunday. "Our system is a global one."

Britain, the article goes on to note, is not having any of it. Why should they?

Meanwhile, the LA Times reports that things aren't so sunny for the Palindrone in Alaska:

The standoff has ended any vestiges of bipartisan goodwill for Palin in Juneau, after just 21 months in office. "The level of money [the McCain campaign] sent up here to attack people is unprecedented in a small state like this. If [McCain] were truly a reformer, he'd end this nonsense and apologize to all the people he's attacked up here," said Rep. Gara, a Democrat.

"I don't know why they're trying to paint this [legislative investigation] as a Democratic partisan attack," said state Sen. Wielechowski. "The thing I constantly remind people of is: Democrats didn't push this. You know who pushed it? It was the Republicans. This is the thing people conveniently forget now. There were no Democrats out there screaming for an investigation."

The House Judiciary Committee vote to endorse the issuance of the subpoenas included five Republicans and two Democrats.

Rape based economy

2008-09-21T06:26:00.001-07:00

Ouch!

McQueeg: Health care should be like banking

2008-09-20T06:06:00.000-07:00

McQueeg is running around the country telling people that he is the scourge of Wall Street. That he'll be the maverick that will bring reforms and regulations to reign in their excesses. Funny, because he wrote an article (pdf) for the September/October issue of Contingencies magazine (an actuarial journal) that says the following:

I would also allow individuals to choose to purchase health
insurance across state lines, when they can find more affordable
and attractive products elsewhere that they prefer. Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition,
as we have done over the last decade in banking, would
provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by
the worst excesses of state-based regulation.

Got that? He thinks that the deregulation of the banking industry was a good thing. He also wants to expand that model to health care. I suppose that there's a nice tie in here with the financial sector being on life support, but it sounds like McQueeg wants to pull the plug on both.

AIG

2008-09-17T06:36:00.000-07:00

Now that we own an insurance company can we please provide health care to everyone? Just a quick thought.

Oh, and it was very stupid to bail out AIG, but that is a much longer and larger discussion. Same with Bear Sterns.

McQueeg watch

2008-09-17T05:45:00.000-07:00

The Washington Independent points to 3 pork barrel projects that McQueeg supported. To be sure, it was 17 years ago, but he's out on the stump saying he's never done that. Snippet:

On the campaign trail, Sen. John McCain frequently decries earmarks and pork-barrel legislation, proudly bragging that he has never requested a single earmark for his home state of Arizona. However, a news article and a scathing editorial from The Arizona Republic during his first-term as the state’s junior senator reveal that McCain did, in fact, go outside the normal legislative process to secure funding for at least one pet project for Arizona. He also supported appropriations for at least two more — three projects that, much to his embarrassment, he later railed against as “pork.”

McQueeg is also trying to tell people, now, that he's for regulation for the financial industry. This is a lie in an attempt to convince voters that he's got a plan and will be in charge if he is elected (Question for McQueeg's folks - why not get their man, W, to implement such a plan now?). It's a lie because, as WaPo points out, he's favored deregulation practically his entire career. Snippet:

A decade ago, Sen. John McCain embraced legislation to broadly deregulate the banking and insurance industries, helping to sweep aside a thicket of rules established over decades in favor of a less restricted financial marketplace that proponents said would result in greater economic growth.

Now, as the Bush administration scrambles to prevent the collapse of the American International Group (AIG), the nation's largest insurance company, and stabilize a tumultuous Wall Street, the Republican presidential nominee is scrambling to recast himself as a champion of regulation to end "reckless conduct, corruption and unbridled greed" on Wall Street.

Ezra points out that McQueeg now says that Wall Street has betrayed America, but just 3 years ago he signed on to putting our social security funds into Wall Street via privatization of that program. He should be asked if he still supports that plan.

Why none of this matters. Snippet:

Yes, the McCain campaign is replete with exaggerations, evasions, and outright fabrications. It’s your responsibility to defeat them, not complain about them. If this means listening to advice you don’t want to hear, and getting out of the "comfort zone," so be it. Three months ago, when you were riding high, the McCain campaign was flat on its back. But give McCain credit: when he was told that to win he had to change, he did. He focused, and he accepted a kind of discipline that he had previously resisted. Now it’s your turn.

As I stated earlier in the week, campaigns are not about talking points or political details. Obama's advertising to date has been the same tired sort of advertising that Gore and Kerry used. He needs hit harder, try humor, be concise. He also needs to understand that what wins campaigns are emotions. Americans will decide over the next month who they are voting for and it will be based on gut reactions formed from a variety of sources. They will also consider the fact that they are likely to be voting in a Democratic Congress and Americans like divided government as a check to each branch (plus, they have in recent memory an example of how horrible a undivided government can truly be). Expect McQueeg to hammer that point home without any sense of irony that his party was that undivided government.

At this point, given Obama's charisma, he should be pounding this one home. The fact that he isn't is example one of how his advisors are failing him. Like Bush in 2000, this should be a slam dunk for Obama. Instead, he's listening to the same old Democratic stylists who have a penchant for losing elections and it is to his, and our, great disservice.

I'm Voting Republican

2008-09-16T07:08:00.001-07:00

*snicker*

Couple of thoughts

2008-09-16T05:06:00.000-07:00

If the Republicans lose this election, what are the odds that they'll blame it on McQueeg picking a woman to run as VP? A certain sector that currently is crying sexism when liberals mention The Palindrone will probably express disgruntlement later on.

So, why are Karl Rove and Fox calling McQueeg out on the lies of his ads? I think it goes back to the candidate's convention speech. That section where he spoke of Washington failing and how he was going to clean it up? Those words could be read as the "Maverick" riding into town to get government back to work for the people or if you've been in charge for some time, understand the game and play it well, then those words could be code for threatening the world in which you operate. I'm thinking that Rove read it as the latter. Sure, he'll be a lap dog when he's asked to do so, but he needs to protect his turf and image in order to maintain his status as political "wunderkind". Also, Rove has read the polls and he understands them. He may know the outcome of the election already.

McQueeg's lies

2008-09-15T05:07:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, Danny Westneat had a good column in The Seattle Times:

Does lying matter anymore? Is it so common that voters will shrug and say: "Oh well, everybody does it. What's the big deal?"

This is the presidency. And this time it isn't lies from an independent group or anonymous blog. It's from the candidate himself.

What happened to McCain? Maybe he has many sides. Or maybe I judged him wrong. But I remember the reason he impressed me was because he showed me, in person, how he believed in something intangible, a principle beyond the game of politics.

Now I can't tell what he believes in. Beyond winning. Any sleazy way he can.

Westneat was a McQueeg admirer. This campaign has turned him sour. The problem is that most people in the press aren't willing to call a lie for what it is. Things are starting to turn, however. Witness Slate's Farhad Manjoo:

Since July, John McCain and his campaign have made 11 political claims that are barely true, eight that are categorically false, and three that you'd have to call pants-on-fire lies—a total of 22 clearly deceptive statements (many of them made repeatedly in ads and stump speeches). Barack Obama and Joe Biden, meanwhile, have put out eight bare truths, four untruths, and zero pants-on-fire lies—12 false claims. These stats and categories come from PolitiFact, but the story looks pretty much the same if you count up fabrications documented by FactCheck.org or the Washington Post's Fact Checker, the other truth-squad operations working the race: During the past two and a half months, McCain has lied more often and more outrageously than Obama.

Libertarians are also taking note. Steve Chapman in Reason magazine:

But McCain has concluded that a fact-based case about Obama isn't enough to prevail in November. So he has chosen to smear his opponent with ridiculous claims that he thinks the American people are gullible enough to believe.

He has charged repeatedly that his opponent is willing to lose a war to win an election. What's McCain willing to lose to become president? Nothing so consequential as a war. Just his soul.

It's good to read that some outlets are calling these folks out (both Obama/Biden and McQueeg/The Palindrone), but back to Westneat's point: Does lying matter? I'm not convinced that it does. For one thing, if lying mattered then the current president would have been tossed in 2004. By that point the American public knew that he had lied about going to war in Iraq, about torture, and about a number of other scandals. It was troubled by that fact, but it didn't stop him from getting into office. Of course, the Democrats gave him a bit of a head start by nominating an exceedingly weak candidate.

Another thing to keep in mind here is that most Americans are not really paying attention to the campaign yet. Oh, they tune in here and there, but only to begin to form opinions. For the pounding away on the lying to sink in the media are going to have to continue to bring it up often and without fail through November. Even so, most of the public is likely to walk away from the current coverage with the message that both candidates lie and not that McQueeg lies egregiously, outrageously, and at almost double the rate of Obama.

Finally, and I've noted this before, presidents are not elected based on such things as policy positions or lies. A candidate could promise to put a new hybrid car in every driveway and a year's supply of beer in the garage and it wouldn't get him elected if he were Michael Dukakis or Gerald Ford. Why? Because he doesn't have the proper personality and charisma. Candidates are elected because people trust that person to do a good job in office. Simple as that. It's a visceral, gut reaction. Policy positions, promises, and lies do not matter a whit.

There's good reason for this reliance on gut reactions. Our system of government is generally designed to prevent any president from really going off the rails by having a legislative body that can prevent that from happening. No matter what the candidates promise, the 535 members of Congress will ultimately write legislation, pass spending bills, and do much to actually make government work (or not). When that doesn't happen, when too often the legislative body is perceived as just being a lap dog for the president, then a correction is voted into office. The 1994 and 2006 elections were just such a correction.

Democrats who are heartened by my analysis of electing a president based on personality and charisma should take pause at the point made in the paragraph above. Obama certainly has the charisma over McQueeg. On the other paw, McQueeg is still selling that "Straight Talk" bullshit and people seem to be buying it. Still, Obama should cream him. He's young, exciting, intelligent, and energizing. McQueeg on the other paw is old, boring, intelligent, and finds orange juice energizing. McQueeg is prone to emotional outbursts of anger - not exactly a trait one wants in a president, but one might find endearing in a sitcom grandfather.

If this were 1996, Obama would defeat McQueeg as badly as Clinton defeated Dole. Unfortunately for Democrats their party controls Congress and it looks as if they are going to get greater control of Congress. That doesn't bode well for Obama. This country likes divided government. It prefers that the legislative body is not a lap dog of the executive branch. We've had recent experience where that was the case and it hurt us in many ways. If the Congress does indeed go to the Democrats, then it becomes more likely that it will prefer the Republican candidate in office to hold that Congress in check.

To my mind that's the real problem for Obama. He's got the goods to be president in most people's minds. But does he have the ability to keep the Congress from giving into it's worst habits? He needs to prove that he can control that body. He also needs to convey some sense of really understanding and managing the economy. We've entered an economic malaise that isn't going to end any time soon if we continue the policies we're pursuing. He needs to offer something different and sprinkle it with a bit of hope. I don't expect that he'll do that so Obama better work on the Congress issue hard.

Tina Fey as the Palindrone

2008-09-14T08:51:00.000-07:00

You can't make this stuff up...or can you?

2008-09-14T08:14:00.000-07:00

One of McQueeg's strong points is that he is perceived to be forthright. That is where the "Straight Talk Express" line comes from. Some people believe he's not afraid to speak truth to power and stand up for their rights. FWIW, I've never thought that even back in 2000 when I thought (erroneously, as it turned out) he was the best person running for president. He's a man and a politician which, almost by definition, means he's a liar. Proof that his campaign is not what he makes it out to be is beginning to appear more often in the media.

For instance, Bloomberg reports that his estimates of the crowds attending his campaign rallies since the Palindrone joined the ticket are fabrications. According to WaPo, the Palindrone is caught again fabricating a story about herself. This time it's in regards to her visit to Iraq. And MSNBC has a round up of the stories last week that both McQueeg and the Palindrone were pushing that were out and out lies. Meanwhile, the ladies of The View grilled McQueeg harder than any reporter that I've seen and he lied directly to Barbara Walter's face.

Fallows on Palin's Interview

2008-09-12T08:15:00.000-07:00

Good blog post. Clip:

Gibson used the word "preemptively" -- but if a knowledgeable person had pushed back on that point ("Well, preemption was what John F. Kennedy had in mind in acting against the imminent threat of Soviet missiles in Cuba"), Gibson would certainly have come back to explain the novelty of the "preventive war" point. Because he knows the issue, a minor mis-choice of words wouldn't get in the way of his real intent.

Sarah Palin did not know this issue, or any part of it. The view she actually expressed -- an endorsement of "preemptive" action -- was fine on its own merits. But it is not the stated doctrine of the Bush Administration, it is not the policy her running mate has endorsed, and it is not the concept under which her own son is going off to Iraq.

How could she not know this? For the same reason I don't know anything about European football/soccer standings, player trades, or intrigue. I am not interested enough. And she evidently has not been interested enough even to follow the news of foreign affairs during the Bush era.

A further point. The truly toxic combination of traits GW Bush brought to decision making was:

1) Ignorance
2) Lack of curiosity
3) "Decisiveness"

That is, he was not broadly informed to begin with (point 1). He did not seek out new information (#2); but he nonetheless prided himself (#3) on making broad, bold decisions quickly, and then sticking to them to show resoluteness.

We don't know for sure about #2 for Palin yet -- she could be a sponge-like absorber of information. But we know about #1 and we can guess, from her demeanor about #3. Most of all we know something about the person who put her in this untenable role.

Time to move on from 9/11

2008-09-12T07:55:00.001-07:00

No lipstick zone

2008-09-11T06:23:00.000-07:00

There was some actual political news yesterday that didn't deal with lipstick. First, the WaPo reports the following:

Government officials in charge of collecting billions of dollars worth of royalties from oil and gas companies accepted gifts, steered contracts to favored clients and engaged in drug use and illicit sex with employees of the energy firms, federal investigators reported yesterday.

The report from Inspector General Earl E. Devaney contains fresh allegations about the practices at the beleaguered royalty-in-kind program of Interior's Minerals Management Service, which last year collected more than $4 billion worth of oil and natural gas from companies given contracts to tap energy on federal and Indian lands and offshore. The revelations come as Congress is set to consider opening the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge and areas off the coast of Florida for drilling.

Now I understand why Republicans were chanting "Drill, drill, drill" at their convention...then again, maybe it wasn't just oil they were talking about? More...

The inspector general's release comprised three separate reports, including one devoted to the program's former director, Smith, 56, who resigned last year. It alleges that Smith improperly worked part time for Geomatrix Consultants, an Oakland, Calif.-based environmental and engineering firm, and marketed the company to government clients.

Additionally, the report said, Smith had an inappropriate sexual relationship with a subordinate whom he paid to buy cocaine, allegedly promising her a $250 bonus in return. The report stated that Smith admitted to the sexual encounter.
Smith, who now works for a private oil company in Denver, did not respond to requests for comment.

Sex and cocaine are really not the issue here. The issues are bribes, graft, and moving into a promotion in the private industry afterward. Still, if I were doing cocaine, then I'd certainly be prosecuted. So, surely, must be this guy, right? Um, not in Bush's land where cocaine is a youthful indiscretion for Republicans like the President. More:

Investigators referred their findings to federal prosecutors, who did not charge Smith with any criminal wrongdoing and declined to comment on their decision.
Justice officials also declined to comment on their decision not to pursue a criminal case against the highest-ranking official named in the report, Lucy Querques Denett, former associate director of the Minerals Management Service, who worked in Washington. She is accused of improperly arranging a million-dollar deal for two retired employees.

Bribes, illegal contracts, sexual harassment, and cocaine and pot use. No prosecutions. Can we call for the Attorney General to step down NOW? "Drill! Drill! Drill!" Makes you wonder what the lobbyists paid for that chant, doesn't it?

The other story is another tale of familiar Republican behavior and it comes from the Michigan Messenger. It deals with voter suppression. It seems that while the Republican candidates for president and vice president are traveling around the country attempting to convince voters that they are friends of the middle class, that they understand their economic and housing woes, that they support equal rights for all and are interested in representing the poor and middle class in swing states, the Republican representatives in at least one state is using that against the voters that McQueeg/Palin say that they want:

The chairman of the Republican Party in Macomb County Michigan, a key swing county in a key swing state, is planning to use a list of foreclosed homes to block people from voting in the upcoming election as part of the state GOP’s effort to challenge some voters on Election Day.
“We will have a list of foreclosed homes and will make sure people aren’t voting from those addresses,” party chairman James Carabelli told Michigan Messenger in a telephone interview earlier this week.
The Macomb GOP’s plans are another indication of how John McCain’s campaign stands to benefit from the burgeoning number of foreclosures in the state. McCain’s regional headquarters are housed in the office building of foreclosure specialists Trott & Trott. The firm’s founder, David A. Trott, has raised between $100,000 and $250,000 for the Republican nominee.

The Macomb County party’s plans to challenge voters who have defaulted on their house payments is likely to disproportionately affect African-Americans who are overwhelmingly Democratic voters. More than 60 percent of all sub-prime loans — the most likely kind of loan to go into default — were made to African-Americans in Michigan, according to a report issued last year by the state’s Department of Labor and Economic Growth.

You see, the Republicans economic plans helped cause this mess. They profited for a number of years and now working class and middle class Americans are getting shafted by it. The profiteers? Well, they're getting bailed out of the mess by the government (a practice supported by both parties). Now, McQueeg and his lobbyist friends want to disenfranchise - or make suffer further - these voters who might want to vote for a change that might offer them some relief from the incompetent policies of the Republican party. Oh, and make no mistake: Michigan is not the only battleground.

Carabelli is not the only Republican Party official to suggest the targeting of foreclosed voters. In Ohio, Doug Preisse, director of elections in Franklin County (around the city of Columbus) and the chair of the local GOP, told The Columbus Dispatch that he has not ruled out challenging voters before the election due to foreclosure-related address issues.

Hebert, the voting-rights lawyer, sees a connection between Priesse’s remarks and Carabelli’s plans.

“At a minimum what you are seeing is a fairly comprehensive effort by the Republican Party, a systematic broad-based effort to put up obstacles for people to vote,” he said. “Nobody is contending that these people are not legally registered to vote.

“When you are comprehensively challenging people to vote,” Hebert went on, “your goals are two-fold: One is you are trying to knock people out from casting ballots; the other is to create a slowdown that will discourage others,” who see a long line and realize they can’t afford to stay and wait.

The enemy of my enemy is my friend

2008-09-10T05:58:00.000-07:00

Remember the 2000 campaign when McQueeg was running against Bush? The whole thing got derailed when a lie was spread amongst the Republican party that McQueeg had fathered an out of wedlock black child that his family had taken in. First, the lie was racism. Secondly, the McQueeg family had done the noble thing of adopting a child from a third world country and providing her with a chance at a better life in the U.S. McQueeg and his campaign were outraged by this nasty, racist, cynical tactic from the Bush campaign, but it worked.

Guess what? McQueeg's campaign hired the guy behind the smear as the point person to manage Sarah Palin's campaign. McQueeg will do anything to get elected.

Obama and Biden better start fighting harder because at the moment, they've lost momentum and they've got some dirty opponents. Hiring this scumbag is but one reason why the lies are flying fast and furious right now. Obama's hiring of the failed representatives of the Clinton/Gore camp may explain why he's not ahead right now.

McQueeg opens mouth and inserts foot and lie disease

2008-09-10T05:32:00.001-07:00

McQueeg, quoted on CNN:

“Of course, now he wants to increase it,” McCain told an audience in Lee’s Summit, Missouri Monday. “But during the primary he told a liberal advocacy group that he’d cut defense spending by tens of billions of dollars. He promised them he would, quote, ‘slow our development of future combat systems.’”

Note: "Future Combat Systems" is a specific weapons program; not all such systems. McQueeg didn't note that to his audience. What Obama really said:

“I will cut tens of billions of dollars in wasteful spending,” Obama said in the video. “I will cut investments in unproven missile defense systems. I will not weaponize space. I will slow our development of Future Combat Systems.”

McQueeg's senior economic advisor provided a plan to the WaPo on July 14, 2008 to balance the budget. Amongst his proposals:

Balance the budget requires slowing outlay growth to 2.4 percent. The roughly $470 billion dollars (by 2013) in slower spending growth come from reduced deployments abroad ($150 billion; consistent with success in Iraq/Afghanistan that permits deployments to be cut by half -- hopefully more), slower discretionary spending in non-defense and Pentagon procurements ($160 billion; there are lots of procurements -- airborne laser, Globemaster, Future Combat System -- that should be ended and the entire Pentagon budget should be scrubbed) and reductions in mandatory spending ($160 billion) from a mix of excessive agricultural and ethanol subsidies, slower health care cost growth, Medicaid savings from the expansion of private insurance, and other reforms.

He was against it before he was for it, I guess. Either that or he can't control his message. Or McQueeg doesn't know what his message is. Or, he's a fucking liar that will say anything to get elected, much like his VP choice. Take your pick.

More Palin

2008-09-09T06:11:00.000-07:00

From WaPo:

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has billed taxpayers for 312 nights spent in her own home during her first 19 months in office, charging a "per diem" allowance intended to cover meals and incidental expenses while traveling on state business.
The governor also has charged the state for travel expenses to take her children on official out-of-town missions. And her husband, Todd, has billed the state for expenses and a daily allowance for trips he makes on official business for his wife.

Palin, who earns $125,000 a year, claimed and received $16,951 as her allowance, which officials say was permitted because her official "duty station" is Juneau, according to an analysis of her travel documents by The Washington Post.

The governor's daughters and husband charged the state $43,490 to travel, and many of the trips were between their house in Wasilla and Juneau, the capital city 600 miles away, the documents show.

Legit, perhaps, but in my class on ethics in government, this would not have been considered ethical. Being paid to live at home must be sweet! There's more break down in the article. I encourage you to read it.

Now, from HuffPo:

Speaking before voters in Colorado Springs, the Republican vice presidential nominee claimed that lending giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac had "gotten too big and too expensive to the taxpayers." The companies, as McClatchy reported, "aren't taxpayer funded but operate as private companies. The takeover may result in a taxpayer bailout during reorganization."

..."Heretofore, if the treasury had a balance sheet there would have been a liability but there was never a taxpayer payment before [the bailout]," said Gerald P. O'Driscoll, an economist with the Cato Institute. "[Fannie and Freddie] were not taxpayer funded. They had taxpayer guarantee, which is worth something, especially in the stock market..."

..."You would like to think that someone who is going to be vice president and conceivable president would know what Fannie and Freddie do," said Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. "These are huge institutions and they are absolutely central to our country's mortgage debt. To not have a clue what they do doesn't speak well for her, I'd say."

Palin reality

2008-09-09T05:42:00.000-07:00

From the Wall Street Journal:

She endorsed the multimillion dollar project during her gubernatorial race in 2006. And while she did take part in stopping the project after it became a national scandal, she did not return the federal money. She just allocated it elsewhere.
"We need to come to the defense of Southeast Alaska when proposals are on the table like the bridge," Gov. Palin said in August 2006, according to the local newspaper, "and not allow the spinmeisters to turn this project or any other into something that's so negative."

The project referred to is the so-called "Bridge to Nowhere". Palin endorsed it before it became a national scandal (thanks, in part, to her running mate) and then dumped it. Rarely does a politician lie about such things, but McQueeg and Palin are doing just that in order to get the perception out there solidified in voter's minds. Obama's folks have made a huge mistake by not attacking this often and early.

That hockey rink Palin is so fond of mentioning? From the Wall Street Journal again:

The biggest project that Sarah Palin undertook as mayor of this small town was an indoor sports complex, where locals played hockey, soccer, and basketball, especially during the long, dark Alaskan winters.
The only catch was that the city began building roads and installing utilities for the project before it had unchallenged title to the land. The misstep led to years of litigation and at least $1.3 million in extra costs for a small municipality with a small budget. What was to be Ms. Palin's legacy has turned into a financial mess that continues to plague Wasilla.
...Last year, the arbitrator ordered the city to pay $836,378 for the 80-acre parcel, far more than the $126,000 Wasilla originally thought it would pay for a piece of land 65 acres larger. The arbitrator also determined that the city owed Mr. Lundgren $336,000 in interest. Wasilla's legal bill since the eminent domain action has come to roughly $250,000 so far, according to Mr. Klinkner, the city attorney.

Now, granted, the litigation that occurred was on a parcel of land that the city claimed as eminent domain after Palin left office. However, it was her administration that chose to begin building on the land before securing the title to it, leaving the next mayor to deal with the mess. As someone in the article notes, Ms. Palin wants to be judged on executive experience. It was her job to know the problems that she was creating and to protect the public's funds and interests in the creation of this project. Instead, she got a tax increase to build this thing that has actually cost the city a lot more than she said it would. In a city of 6,700+ people with a budget of $20 Million, a sports facility that cost $14.7 million plus litigation costs is not a drop in the bucket.

Perhaps the budget constraints placed on the city are the reason for this next tale of the Palin administration. While she was mayor, her police chief argued, presumably with his mayor's backing, that it was ethical to charge rape victims for the costs of their examination to collect evidence. While the news media is currently suggesting that Ms. Palin is a feminist, this specific charge suggests otherwise. From the article:

While the Alaska State Troopers and most municipal police agencies have covered the cost of exams, which cost between $300 to $1,200 apiece, the Wasilla police department does charge the victims of sexual assault for the tests.

Wasilla Police Chief Charlie Fannon does not agree with the new legislation, saying the law will require the city and communities to come up with more funds to cover the costs of the forensic exams.

In the past weve (sic) charged the cost of exams to the victims insurance company when possible. I just dont want to see any more burden put on the taxpayer, Fannon said.
According to Fannon, the new law will cost the Wasilla Police Department approximately $5,000 to $14,000 a year to collect evidence for sexual assault cases.

Ultimately it is the criminal who should bear the burden of the added costs, Fannon said.

Flag waving

2008-09-07T06:54:00.001-07:00

So, the McQueeg campaign has decided to play a little gotcha politics (something that I think is low, but fair) and pick on the Democrats for "throwing away flags". The Dems deny it, of course, and it probably was some low level intern or maybe even the stadium crew itself that just didn't understand the bullshit political hay that would be made of it.

What bullshit political hay? Oh, they are obviously attempting to question the patriotism of every member of the Democratic party, but also Obama in particular. It's the subtext the fuels the racial hatred of the campaign and the flat out false email lies that have been circulating. But it's also true to Republican form in another way. Could it be that they are attempting to distract from their own methods of shredding the Constitution by focusing instead on the flag? Republicans have a history of focusing on symbols rather than the language that founded this country and provided freedoms for most of it's people. Or could it simply be that they want people to focus on the Denver flags rather than these flags:

I think both scenarios are plausible. Got a different one? Leave it in comments.

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