Referendum and Amendments

Well, I am kind of proud of myself - I managed to get through all the initiatives just in time for the ballots to come out. Now all I have to do is check with my Voters' Pamphlets (there are two in King County - one for the state, one for the county) and ...

... What's this? There are MORE?

Yep, and here's what I know about them.

The big one you probably have heard about is Referendum 52. Referendums are different than initiatives in that they are referred to the voters by the legislature, as opposed to initiatives that are proposed by the people (They also require half the number of signatures, so they are easier to put onto the ballot). R-52 allows capital improvements to schools, providing environmental improvements, through selling bonds. These bonds are in turn financed by extending a sales tax on bottled water that is due to sunset in 2013.

I refer to such measures as "Cute Puppy" bills - we really need the money for the cute puppy (education, public safety, parks) but we understand if you don't want to fund it, but then we have to toss the cute puppy in wood chipper. This cute, sad-eyed puppy. I mean, we don't get to vote on sweetheart deals or loopholes for corporations, but THIS we get to vote on. Yeah, I think it is a worthy cause and say vote Yes but this particular approach to revenue increase is about at the end of its tether.

Senate Joint Resolution 8225 should have a lot more attention than it is getting, but then it doesn't have some huge financial juggernauts with a vested interest. A Joint Resolution (whether it origins in the House or Senate) is an already-passed bill presented to the people to be voted on. This particular one allows the state to re-figure its debt limits in order to take advantage of federal programs to subsidize the interest on the state's behalf. In other words, the feds are offering to cover some of the vig, and by changing the language, we can borrow more without topping out at the interest limit.

The opposition cries Shenanigans! on this, but similar things have been done on highway projects, bringing them in at a bargain. I am a Yes vote on this.

Engrossed Substitute House Joint Resolution 4220 allows judges to deny bail to the accused in cases where the crime in punishable by life (including Class A felonies) and there is sufficient reason to fear for public safety. This comes in the wake of the Maurice Clemons shootings and it is specific enough to justify a Yes vote (I would probably have added wording on flight risks). No, I don't know why some of these resolutions are engrossed and others are not.

That's a the state level. Let's look at the King County level. The first three are charter amendments, meaning they are changing the language of the county's charter. Some are major, some are less so.

Charter Amendment 1 changes the Preamble (for those people who get into a really good preamble). It tweaks the language to bring the charter into line with what the council is doing anyway, so when it says "insure responsibility and accountability" it means that this applies to "local and regional governance and services" and when it intends to "preserve a healthy environment' it really means "preserve a healthy rural and urban environment and economy". Hmmm it feels like it pits environment against business and gives the council legal wiggle room to come down on the side of business, I say No on this one, but yeah, it's just the Preamble.

Charter Amendment 2 allows the filing of campaign receipts and expenditures with the Washington State Public Disclosure Commission satisfies the requires as stated in the Charter. Sounds like a simplification of now-duplicated effort, so Yes.

Charter Amendment 3 is an oddball. Currently the county heads up collective bargaining with the public safety unions and guilds. This will leave compensation and benefits negotiation in the hands of the county, but move everything else (like working conditions) under control of Sheriff. This sounds ... Odd. The idea of giving the public safety department two masters feels like a recipe for disaster. I'm working on it, but I go for No

Finally, King County Proposition No. 1 is the county-level version of the Cute Puppy proposition. In this case, it is a sales tax increase for public safety, criminal justice, and other government. If it doesn't happen, we're looking at layoffs and reduced services (that would be the wood chipper). The language of the bill is such that only a third of the new revenues are guaranteed to go to the Cute Puppy, even though 70% of the county budget is for public safety. The numbers bug me, but I can muster the meekest of Yes votes on this one.

And THAT finishes all the initiatives, amendments, and referendums that I can vote. Yes, there are more in your local area, including ANOTHER attempt to annex Fairwood into Renton. But if you think I'm walking into that snake pit, you're crazier than I've been.

More later (including a summary sheet for easy voting).

1107

I am mildly irritated about sin taxes. Not because I feel bad about charging people more for engaging in activities of which I do not approve (that doesn't bother me). And not because I worry that part of the taxable flock is being culled out for a specific shearing (I'm good with that as well).

No, the source of my unease stems from the idea that when the state begins to tax something, they become part of the problem as opposed to part of solution. If this stuff is sinful and bad, then should they really be pulling a chair up to table and dealing themselves in? Eventually the government relies upon it as a dependable income source, so that if everyone gave up cigs tomorrow, the state would be in deep trouble (a note to anti-tax folk - stop smoking and starve the beast).

But despite this mild concern I'm really ambivalent about I-1107, which will overturn taxes recently placed on sodas and candy. And that is odd since it is MY particular ox that is being gored, as over the past few years I have been drinking sodas in amounts that lab rats would turn down. So shouldn't I be lining up to support this initiative, which (as so many others on the ballots this year) supposedly keeps government at bay?

Well, to be frank, I'm pretty good with the taxes as they stand. In fact, if it encourages me to stop poaching the M&Ms in the break area, it would probably be a good thing for my general health. And if this tax reduces or transforms the amount of soda and candy in the break room, that's a cross I shall bear (though as a note to the management, should they be reading this: Ree wants us to bring back the Wheat Thins. They wouldn't be taxed under this plan. Just saying).

In addition to rolling back a tax installed to help with the current shortfall, the measure re-opens a loophole that had just been closed. Remember loopholes? Back when Olympia was fussing about the budget, there was popular sentiment to close loopholes to taxes. This was one, for processed products (like chili). For this measure, this closed loophole is a fig-leaf behind which rest of the initiative can cower behind, and it's a big part of the "They're taxing food!" scare you're getting from that nice actor who looks like a grocer from forty years back.

And that commercial is part of a 16 million dollar campaign that is heavily supported by Big Beverage - the cola companies that are petrified that expense may move some of the docile consumers away.

You heard that right. 16 million dollar. Someone figured out that would be three Diet Cokes for every man, woman, and child in the state.

And I suppose that's the big reason I'm going No on this one. All the push here is coming from the American Beverage Association, and it is such overkill that it threatens to drown out anything that sounds like a reasonable discussion. And obviously they're doing well enough that they can drop 16 huge on a race like this.

But it also gets me to thinking ...

I think I want to run an initiative myself that all moneys spent on a state initiative campaign must be spent in Washington State. None of this "ad shot in Chicago" or "uses the leftover pamphlets from a similar measure in California". Heck, we can turn it into profit center - launching initiatives that threaten powerful out-of-state interests, then sit back and watch the cash flow in to defeat them.

That's just a thought. In the meantime, vote No on this foolishness.

More later,

1100 and 1105

Back to the slog. You guys SO have to buy me a beer after this, because these two initiatives make me want to start drinking.

If I-1053 is the Mad Hatter and I-1082 is the March Hare, I's 1105 and 1107 are the Tweedledee and Tweedledum of this particular tea party. Similar initiatives with the same stated goals slugging it out in public.

The goal of both initiatives is to put the state liquor stores out of business. In Washington state, hard liquor (but not beer or wine) are only available at state-run venues. Obviously, this is yet another case of the government getting all up in your grill and telling you what you can and cannot do, and saddles you with horrible, horrible bureaucracy.

Is it that bad? No, not really. In fact, the liquor control board does pretty well, and the limited amount of booze dispensers has not turned us into a dreary prison camp suitable only for mocking by Banksy at the start of The Simpsons. I am originally from Pennsylvania, and if you want badly-run state liquor, that's your utopia. The only question when I visit Pittsburgh is whether the latest scandal revolves around the State Stores or the Allegheny County Coroner's Office. But I digress.

No, the state of Washington's crime is apparently that they are standing in the way of OTHER people making money off booze, and that's why we have this terrible twosome on the ballot, depending on who wants to be standing beneath the downspout when the money storm starts.

I-1100 gets the state out of direct sales and distribution by allowing anyone, for a fee, to become a liquor distributor, including would-be liquor retailers. That means a large operation that can operate on economies of scale count make a deal with wholesalers, then sell it themselves or distribute to smaller operations. This one has strong support from large operations like Costco.

I-1105 gets the state out of direct sales and distribution but keeps the distributors and retailers as separate provinces and allows the state to set price controls. This one if favored by the smaller distributors who would be hurt by the landrush that I-1000 would create.

Both are pretty foolish initiatives, consisting of powerful interests who are looking for a big payday at the expense of everybody else. The state will lose money on the deal at a time when cash is tight - the only question is how much. Worse yet, if both pass, we have no procedure for resolving two competing initiatives that affect the same issue. AND, if we pass the I-1053, any rejiggering of the state system could be seen as a new tax and require the massive mega-majority.

I don't think these two are doing to do well. In the first place, their differences are so nuanced (and I had to do some digging to figure out which did what) that most voters will shoot them both down. Second, Washington has always had a problem with voter-approved sin (the first Initiative back in 1914 was a Prohibition initiative (which passed)). Third, it is easier to mobilize a push against BOTH amendments than either individual one. And lastly, that push, for all of its wrapping in protecting communities and maintaining state services, has its own sugar daddies - the beer and wine distributors, who will see their market share get seriously impacted if they have to share shelf space with hard liquor.

Now, if you want to read a really poorly-written, poorly-researched article in FAVOR of this mess, head over this Stranger article, and read the comments as its few facts are disassembled. After all the yelling, it all boils down to a desire to be able to buy liquor at 7 PM on a Sunday. And as writers and other professional alcoholics will tell you, if you run out booze before you run out of weekend, that's just poor planning on your part.

I-1105 is better than I-1100, but in the end, both are bad ideas. No to the pair of them.

More later,

Play: Smart People Acting Stupid

We interrupt this slog through the initiative system for the following review:

God of Carnage by Yasmina Reza, Translated by Christopher Hampton, Directed by Wilson Milam. Seattle REP through 24 October.

The Lovely Bride and I have season tickets for the Seattle Repertory, which means I often see plays that I would not otherwise get out of the house for. Sorry, I don't wake up on a Sunday morning with an overriding desire to watch a play about multigenerational females living in the same house or chance encounters in an Irish pub. Season tickets are already committed to, and just as important, paid for. For the most part, things work out, I pick up some things, and at worst I feel challenged and improved for my participation.

And sometimes it just doesn't work out. God of Carnage is like that.

The play itself is pretty basic. Two couples are brought together by an incident between their children (one thwacked the other with a stick and damaged his teeth). Soon, everything quickly unspools as each character gets to play accuser and accused, alliances form and dissolve, and the kids are quite forgotten, because everyone is shallow and selfish and deeply unhappy. And soon the participants are crushed and screaming and bound together by the experience.

Couple number one is Michael and Veronica Novak (Hans Altiwies and Amy Thone). Michael is a just-folks household-supply store manager. Veronica is a brittle advocate for civilization who is pushed too far. The parents of the other kid are the Raleighs, cell-phone wielding lawyer Alan and vapid wealth-manager Annette (Denis Arndt and Bhama Roget).

And if it sounds like Who's Afraid of Virginia Wolfe by Edward Albee, you aren't the first to pick up on this (both the Lovely Bride and the Seattle Times made the connections). But this is a comedy and the wit is brighter, but at some point you wonder why you are laughing and you feel first sorry and then irritated with them. It's a short play for a reason.

So it's a loss? Not really, because this is an actor's play, and the actors are very, very good. Each one shines in their roll, balancing their virtues and their petty villainy. Hans plays Michael as both agreeable facilitator and repressed thug. Thone as Veronica keeps that knife-point edge, a verbal assault that can go off at any moment. Arndt as Alan is first out of the chute as villain, is both patriarch and patronizing, and shows depth and even affection for the character. And Roget as Annette has great comedic timing and reactions, layering more to what feels like a vacuous character. With takes, double-takes, and nasty slow boils, Roget digs in deep.

The problem is, these characters don't have a lot to do. The point of this type of thing is to keep the motion and emotion rolling forward, not giving the audience the chance to think things through and try to find their own solutions. Characters keep moving towards the door and escape, but that would end the play, so no one ever reaches escape velocity (it is Xeno's Exit - you go but never get there). There are moments when if someone just acts like an adult, things will calm down, but that adult never arrives because if it should, then the play is over as well. So the continual bickering exists as its own reason-for-being, and let nothing set it asunder. It is claustrophobic and painful at the same time, like a horrible meal with horrible people.

So it is a mixed bag - great actors, all of whom have trod the Rep's boards before and all of whom make me happy to see them in a new piece. But the play itself is a bit of stumble (Tony winner be damned), and feels like an echo of the 60s when the idea of squabbling couples on stage was fresher. Now it just leaves me with the feeling of relief for having escaped these horrible people, and thinking unpleasantly of being that petty in the past.

More later,

1098

So this is the only initiative I can get behind, even in a tentative way. But I have to point out, that like all the others, it is backed by individuals with deep pockets, and I will give it the same warts and all fisking that you're used to.

Initiative 1098 places an income tax on natives of Washington State. EVERYBODY PANIC!

OK, wait a minute. The initiative puts an income tax of 4% on folk making $200,000 ($400,000 filing jointly). And it reduces the odious B&O tax to the point of nonexistence for small businesses. And it reduces property taxes by 20%. And the money is earmarked for education and health care. So ... everybody panic in a more measured, reasonable fashion.

When I first moved out here to Washington State, one sell point I heard a number of times was "We don't have an income tax". Now, I never thought the PA or WI income taxes were particularly horrible in the first place, but hey, it was a sell point. What I wasn't told that was we DID have nasty sales taxes in place, along with tough property taxes. I guess it pays to read the fine print.

In fact, our sales tax is one of the most regressive ones around - and by regressive, I mean it hits the poor harder than the wealthy. A bigger percentage of the middle class paycheck goes into taxes as opposed to higher income brackets. In addition, the sales and property taxes are tied deeply into the market - the fact that so many government services are being cut is not a reflection on government waste (They've been pretty good at handling that) but the mere fact that there are less sales, and therefore less sales tax, to pay people with.

So I'm good with an income tax. If fact, if you come up with one that reduces the sales tax, I'd even sign on for one that affects all Washingtonians, not just the wealthiest. But until that bit of enlightened lunacy shows up, I'll have to support the one that is on the ballot. So consider this a Yes on the initiative.

But I said that the initiative system is invested with people with money, and 1098 is no different. In this case, the moneybags are centered on - Bill Gates Sr.

Say what? The guy pushing us to tax the rich is the father of one of the wealthiest men on the planet, and no slouch on his own. And he's got his son on board as well (Paul Allen and Microsoft itself are against the plan, which should make for some frosty moments at the next company picnic).

But still, Bill Gates, father and son. It is hard to call it a class war when some of the upper class is providing artillery support for the poor folk.

This initiative has produced some interesting commercials at least. The pro-side puts the elder Gates in a dunk tank. The anti-side lumbers in with a riff on the Mor furniture ads "TIRED of not paying enough taxes?" with enough scare quotes for a Halloween haunted mansion. In fact, the Seattle Times, which doesn't like its rich owners to pay taxes, pretty much went morally bankrupt trying to say nice things about the advert, and then only after extreme contortions could they get it to "half-true" (alas, the paper's examination of the political ads so far have been pretty horrible, even when I agree with their conclusions).

Now I know some Washington State natives who WOULD be affected by this tax, and in general I have found them to be open, progressive, and as concerned about education (where this funding is going) as anyone else. But even so, I'd understand if they voted against this at the ballot box. But I will note that if this goes down in flames, they're buying the drinks from here on out.

More later,

1082

I-1082 privatizes workman's comp insurance. If that alone doesn't send you running towards the No button, nothing I say here will convince you of changing from your poor, damned path.

Workman's compensation is a state-collected and managed fund which covers workers with workplace injuries and lost-time compensation. We all kick into the fund as part of the money from our paychecks. It is a disaster insurance to some degree. It is actually well-run and does what it is supposed to do.

So naturally it makes sense to take such a thing out of the hands of the big bad government, which is in theory supposed to be responsive to its citizens, and put it in the hands of an insurance company based out of Boston with an ultimate responsibility to their bottom line. I'm sure nothing bad would come of THAT.

So who's behind this bit of weirdness? That would be the BIAW, the Building Industry Association of Washington. The BIAW usually collects and co-ordinates workman's comp in the construction industry, skims a bit off the top, and then plows that money into conservative campaigns - weakening environmental legislation, reducing government effectiveness, and eliminating oversight. You know the usual stuff. The BIAW is one of the most powerful lobbying groups in the state, and purchases judges with regularity.

Alas, time has not been kind to the BIAW. The economic downturn and its attendant lack of new housing starts has kicked it in the shorts. Plus the fact that the legislature has chosen to actually reduce its easy money-making schemes. Plus the fact that its biggest component pieces, the Master Builders Association of King and Snohomish counties, is mad at it has set up their own operation, and went to court to get their money out of the BIAW. Plus it lost a court case on mishandling funds put into their trust. Oh, and plus the fact it has a half-million-plus-dollar fine on it for its shenanigans on behalf of Dino Rossi in that pol's LAST election.

And that's only in the past year. And THESE are the guys telling you the STATE can't handle its finances well (would it surprise you to find out they work out of a mansion in Olympia?).

But what do you do when the political climate turns cold on you? You engage in a little electoral terraforming. So this bill takes workman's comp out of the hands of the state and puts it in the hands of the BIAW's NEW best friends, the insurance companies, like Liberty Mutual and AIG.

AIG. Wow. First BP and now AIG. It's like ALL the corporate villains of the past year have teamed up and decided to buy the Washington elections.

The BIAW is very open about its goal of chasing government out of its business of building whatever and wherever it chooses, and this bill has an equal honesty about how it is totally anti-government, without passing along that it would leave workers much of a safety net. You can almost see the insurance company execs tying on their little bibs, each with a guy in a construction helmet on it.

This is not about privatizing workman's comp, it is about profitizing it. And that means paying more money for less return for Washington and more cash going to the BIAW's new BFFs. So yeah, you might want to vote No on this.

More later,

1053

So we're going in numerical order here, and the first out of the chute is our regular Eyeman Initiative.

Tim Eyeman often inspires eye-rolling and teeth-gnashing, but you have to admit that he has figured out how to turn a profit on the initiative system (one more reason to fix the damned thing). Every election cycle, he lofts a new initiative or three onto the ballot, usually backed by one or more donors with deep pockets. Said initiatives are usually intended to a) cripple state government and b)give everyone a pony. Oh, and c) served as a profit center for Tim Eyeman.

Here's the initiative in a nutshell: All state tax increases require a two-thirds majority to pass, as opposed to 51% for ordinary legislation.

The logic behind this proposal is attractive but flawed - if state government uses its money poorly, we should make it harder for them to get money to play with. Sounds good on the surface, but the past couple years they have had a LOT less money to play with, and as a result they have ... cut essential services.

Hmmm. That didn't work out the way we planned.

One of the reasons that the state has been woefully unprepared? A big part of it is our regressive tax system (but that argument is for another post), but another part has been I-960, a previous initiative which put similar constraints on the legislature. When the pro forces argue to "reinstate" earlier law, they are talking about this piece of steaming legislation (which was passed, you know, with 51% of the vote - democracy is apparently for chumps).

The end result of all this is akin to tying a couple anvils to Apolo Ohno and then complaining about his time trials (which can only be solved by -- More Anvils!).

Now, here's the twist - usually the annual Eyeman Initiative is funded by a couple of rich guys who fell for a power point presentation. This time, however, we're looking at major backing from the likes of BP, Tesaro, other oil companies, and banks. Yeah, BP, which you already know from the bang-up job they did in the gulf, and Tesaro, who ran that refinery up in Anacortes which blew up back around Easter, and who have been accused of criminal negligence.

So why are the oil companies wading in on this one? It's actually a bit of a trick shot for them. There has been popular movement in the legislature to up Big Oil's responsibility for cleanup for their messes, and that would be an increase in "tax" for them. So if they require any increase of tax to require a two-thirds majority, they have to buy fewer legislators. Profit! Sorry about sticking the rest of you with the bill.

Actually, it gets even better from a corporate standpoint. Close a loophole that's been bleeding the state dry? Sorry, that's a tax increase! You need a supermajority! Profit!

It's a great scam, and I only regret that I can't get in on it. Needless to say, since I can't get in on it (and neither can you), I'll strongly recommend you vote No.

More later,

Taking the Initiatives

I've been living in Washington State for well over a decade now, and after watching its political process, I think I am capable of wading in with an opinion on the Initiative system, which this year lofts an impressive 6 items onto the ballot for your consideration. Here's the opinion of the current system:

It's broken.

Broken, I say. More broken than a World of Warcraft exploit. More Baroquen than a Mozart concerto. And like many broken things, it worked perfectly well at one time.

Here was the idea: For various reasons, important issues may not come up in the state legislature (often because those in charge were either wealthy or actively courting the favors of those who were). So citizens, of their own sweat and blood, could put initiatives onto the ballot for voting by the general populace.

Cut out the middle-man. Make the state more responsible to the people. Reduce the corrupt influence of petty payola. Brilliant!

The problem, of course, comes from the fact that they need a threshold of signatures to put it on the ballot, that threshold being 8% of the number of people who voted for governor in the last gubernatorial election. That is a non-insignificant number, and runs this election to 241,153 people. That is about the population of Spokane and Olympia combined - every man, woman, and child. In nerd terms, with that much experience, you'd be a 22nd level Warlord.

So to gather that many signatures, you need to have some kind of organization, or at least some system of hiring large chunks of professional signature gatherers. Which means you need money. And you know where this is going, right?

Right. All of the initiatives have somebody with deep pockets standing behind them, pushing hard. In fact, this year in particular, the folk paying for most of the initiatives are pretty much big guys. The citizen voter is pretty much cut of the deal, except as rubber stamp.

Too cynical? Perhaps. But I do note that one of the few initiatives that came close but failed to make it to the ballot was one to decriminalize marijuana. Certain usually dependable lefty strongholds (Democrats, unions) failed to push this one, and as a result, it had to rely on the little people. Who didn't get enough signatures to push it through. Yay, democracy.

So this is a season of autocratic initiatives, each claiming to care about the common man but having very few common men behind them. Simply put, I'm going to (spoiler alert) tell you to vote NO on the bulk of them, with one exception (yeah, that's a tease). You can usually figure out who benefits from it all by looking at who is doling out the money here.

But what we really need is an initiative to fix the initiative process.

More later,

Scalzi

So John Scalzi impresses. He writes excellent science fiction. He is the current president of SFWA. He is a creative consultant for Stargate: Universe. He also keeps his own blog, invites comments, and has no problem with smacking down the fools that he does not tolerate kindly (he refers to said smacking down as "the Gentle Mallet of Correction").

And recently he wrote about Atlas Shrugged, and makes a number of good points about the book both as a book and as a philosophy. And here is one of them:

All of this is fine, if one recognizes that the idealized world Ayn Rand has created to facilitate her wishful theorizing has no more logical connection to our real one than a world in which an author has imagined humanity ruled by intelligent cups of yogurt.

All of which is all fine and good. But John Scalzi, being John Scalzi, then proceeds to write a short story ABOUT humanity being ruled by intelligent cups of yogurt.

And here it is.

Like I said. John Scalzi impresses. More later.

Fall Cleaning

So I've made a few tweaks to the blog - no, I'm not screwing around the formatting, since the one thing that irritates people more about a poor, boring design is CHANGING that poor blog design, but I have made a few tweaks to the blogroll off to house right.

The Alliterates are pretty much all there, though to be honest I'm tempted to winnow through them, since many of them haven't been updated for a year. Ditto on the Friends and Colleagues, as some of them have devolved into little more than twitter relays. And some are just hanging on the borderline with only a few posts in the past few months. And some have changed addresses without sending out a note, and I've caught up with that. Y'all know who you are.

Stuff I'm reading is just that: stuff I'm reading. When I stop paying attention, that's when they go (and since I get this question: Mt. Lebanon PA is where I grew up and how I knew they had a massive windstorm this past week).

Larger changes are in the funny pixels section. Gone is Doodlestan, only because Stan! has stopped doing it for a while (he is still doing 10x10 Toons). Added to the list are:
- Abominable Charles Christopher I put this next to Freakangels, since it is a weekly, but has great art and has talking animals and is something I don't normally follow but it is really, really good. All the talking animals are presented as real animals with human problems, while the protagonist is a mute bigfoot of a creature. Worth following from the begins.
- Scenes from a Multiverse is daily Mon-Fri, and very weird and enjoyable, each cartoon taking place in a different plane of existence. Except when they repeat. Like the stuff with the Empress of the Universe who is about to invade a planet just for the antiquing.
- Surviving the World is similar to the Tree Lobsters and xkcd in that it deals with science. In this case it consists of a guy in a lab coat with a baseball hat and chalkboard. Wonder where he could find a chalkboard in this age of whiteboards and markers.
- 9 Chickweed Lane I know what you're thinking - "Hey, this is a newspaper strip!" Well, it's not in MY newspaper anymore, and is one of the sexiest strips still in the business, along with one of the few that actually runs longer story arcs. At its best when it is talking about dancing, arts, and the hallmarks of felinity.

That's about it. It is a rainy Sunday afternoon and, despite their best efforts, the Seahawks won against the Chargers. And I know I'm going to have to start talking initiatives Real Soon Now - just don't rush me.

More later,

FR vs. DL

Over at the SF/Fantasy site Grasping for the Wind former TSR/WotC editor Phil Athans delivers a freaking brilliant article on the differences and similarities between Dragonlance and Forgotten Realms as intellectual properties, with quotes from Ed Greenwood and Tracy Hickman. Go read it.

More later,

Cowgirls and Empire

Despite living in the Seattle region, I'm not a coffee drinker. I prefer tea, and have done so since long before Jean-Luc Picard radically nerdized my favorite brew by ordering "Earl Grey, Hot". But despite that, I am aware of the spread of the Cowgirls Espresso chain. Most recently, I've noticed two of the espresso shacks on my commute - LP's down on Park Place and The Boulevard Bean near Gene Coulon Park, have suddenly undergone a rename and a repaint, boasting now the black and white Holstein marks of the Cowgirls line.

Drive-through espresso joints are relatively ubiquitous out here - they are relatively small, and can be fit on odd-shaped chunks of land and in the middle of parking lots. They are pretty much local operations, lurking like mammals in the shadow of the Starbucks brand, which occupies more pricey real estate. They also don't require much in the way of training, supplies, or oversight.

The drive-through joints make their goal speed and convenience, are relatively low-cost, and as such have popped up everywhere in the same manner (and for the same reasons) as all those photo huts back in the 70s (and some are on the same sites and in the same buildings). So we see an explosion of corporate organisms into the various niches. And now we see the more organized and successful ones consuming the less-successful ones. Corporate nature, red in ink and claw.

So why is Cowgirls taking over other former independents? Well, it looks like they are taking the "Hooters" approach - a perfectly serviceable product is made more enticing when provided by attractive young women in scanty outfits. Yep, Cowgirls has combined a dramatic exterior (the black and white buildings) with the sexy baristas. And on "fantasy fridays" they have sexy nurses or naughty schoolgirls (or so declare their signs).

And while it is probably wrong to ascribe Darwinian principles to social and economic models (others have done so, with predictably miserable results), the encroaching corporatized sensuality pushed by Cowgirls has allowed it to succeed and thereby expand its niche of corporate evolution. It will be interesting to see if this adaptation fuels future expansion, or if some other trait (corporate organization, or franchising, or local laws) will intercede and place other limitations on its growth.

But I'll leave further research on the matter to others. The idea of driving about with hot liquid between my thighs just leaves me cold, if you pardon the mixed metaphor.

More later,

Adventure: Pulp Tentacles III

Shadows of Leningrad by Mike Ferguson, an Age of Cthulhu Adventure from Goodman Games.

My every-so-often Call of Cthulhu game has become more often than not, in part because of the increasing amount of CoC material available. As a result, we have a number of GMs and a number of adventures running at the same time. So it is with little surprise that we broke from an increasingly serious Delta Green campaign to uncork the whupass that is a more pulpier version.

We've been following the Goodman games series for a while now, with adventures in London and Luxor. Now we continue the "What the "L" tour" with moving onto Leningrad, which only recently (in the game era) was St. Petersburg. The regular group, centered around a novelist and her world-adventurer partner, along with their long-term house-guest, a mobster "on vacation" from Chicago and a few others of their circle with ability in the art world, were in attendance.

The adventure is complete and stands alone, despite the Vol. III on the cover, and includes pregen characters for the one- or two-evening adventures (It tends to span two nights for our bunch). Missing (without anyone noticing much) is the overplot that started in Luxor and got a head-nod in London. It is a self-contained adventure within itself (mild spoilers follow0.

The adventure has the same basic framework as the previous two Goodman Games in plot. You are invited to a distant location by a knowledgeable acquaintance, who is dead/dying when you get there. In this case, the acquaintance is artist Charlotte Geoffrey, who is (good news) already dead before you set out. There are a number of plot hooks to bring the PCs in, and we used the one involving getting hold of her latest works - gothic, creepily realistic artworks that the State is all-too-willing to get rid of. Upon arrival in St. Pete's, um Leningrad, they meet a collection of characters, both odd and mundane, all of whom have something to do with the scenes to come.

The middle part of the adventure is what Goodman Games does very well - a collection of scenes that can be encountered in any order. In our case, the players keyed in on something that, to my generation, was not unusual, but to them stuck out like a sore thumb, which led them into an area ahead of schedule, and later they skipped a section entirely (which is just as well, since a lot of the sections end with "Bwah-hah! The bad guys just left!"). And, as fate would have it, one of their number went a bit wobbly in the brain and went to the State Police to warn them of monsters about the same time that the party was going to check out that sanitarium, anyway. So though they did not follow the plot in anything like the reasonable order, they still got the gist of the adventure and a good time was had by all.

The finale also followed the general plan of the previous adventures - a plan to let into our world something that should not be. With our semi-established group, they have a handle on this (the world-traveling adventurer packs a sniper rifle now, chiefly for picking off high priests at a distance). The level of previous success can effect the lethality of the final encounter, and even at lower levels, it can chew through parties. In our case, the investigators managed to convince the State Police that there WAS something going on, meriting their expedition being accompanied by two trucks of cannon fodder police. Even then, they had to use the vehicles as weapons in order to defeat the monsters, which were not even statted with all of their official nastiness.

So how did it go? Pretty good - much better than London and even a step up from Luxor. Playing a pulp campaign, I went the cinematic rule that everyone understands Russian (like in the movies) unless they don't. Though to be honest, I have but two Russian accents - Boris and Yakov (In Russia, Sanity loses YOU!).

Presentation values are good, though I would have loved to have had a period map of Leningrad, particularly since most of the locations are historically accurate - I did some digging and found that they had the correct names of the ballet and the museums and hotels for that era, and getting them squirreled away in my brain as far as their locations would have helped. As it was, I added to the adventure a car and driver, provided courtesy of the State, to help them (They could get around by streetcar - Leningrad was a modern city of the time - but there were a couple places where they have to get out into the 'burbs and beyond). The maps that were there were complete and blissfully free of maddening typos, odd doors, or things that did not agree with the text.

Shadows of Leningrad is an improvement over previous entries and the best of the series so far from Goodman Games. It combined both cthulhian menace with exotic location and a dash of historical relevance. It may also be the first Russian adventure that I've played that does not go to Baba Yaga right off the bat. If anything, it may have two monsters too many, since there were a plethora of creepies, any two of which could have held their own in a night's adventure.

Worth playing, and the group hopes to see more.

More later,

Nine Years

More later,

The PAX Report

So I have been off-line for the past weekend, attending PAX in realtime meatspace. PAX is the Penny Arcade Expo, a conclave of nerds, geeks, and gamers that descends upon the convention center in a cavalcade of wonkiness. Of course, if you read the Seattle Times, which ignored the event, nothing of import occurred at all downtown ("This just in! It is STILL RAINING at Bumbershoot!").

Here are some general notes:

 - We got a lot of attention for Guild Wars 2 at the show, and I thank everyone who stopped by to play the demo, sometimes waiting hours for the shot at playing the game for 40 minutes. We ran an introductory human quest chain and a mid-level charr assault on a boss monster called The Shatterer. The response was phenomenal, and the booth was packed for much of the three days. Thanks to all.

- We were not the only ones to get a lot of fan appreciation at the con. Portal 2 got a good-sized mob, as did Dragonage 2, but the game (at least, the game by someone else) I'm looking forward to in the near-term is Epic Mickey , designed by TSR Alum Warren Spector. Loved the booth (which looked like papers falling) and loved what I saw of the game.

- On the other hand Duke Nukem Forever will finally see the light of day. Really? Will I be able to play it on my Atari ST?

- Of my appointed tasks, I had a great time with RPG panel, mooring down the "ancient paper gaming" side of the equation, and discussing a number of challenges facing the computerized version. I also signed a lot of books at the booth on Saturday, and apparently people who did not get a signing kept circling back to the booth to see if I was there.

- Of course, part of the challenge for those looking for me was protective coloration. We were all decked out in our ArenaNet soccer shirts, white and emblazoned with our massive dragon-shaped "2" in red. They're really cool looking, and make us stand out against the hordes of darker-dressed gamers ("I will stop wearing black when I find a darker color"), but it does give us a uniform look, such that pulling me out of a crowd is difficult. I may have to go back to wearing loud Hawaiian shirts.

- About half the time I was in the booth doing interviews with websites. We had a press room upstairs for full demos, but had so many sites interested (including sites who we had never talked to before who wanted to know what all the hubbub was about) that we carved out a small space in some of the lesser pandemonium of the booth to talk and show off the game. I am surprised I can still talk after this.

- We also designed an event at the convention. Now THIS is insane. We did a quiz show at the booth for a limited number of tickets to the panel, and for those lucky 50 or so we (Lead Designer Eric Flannum, Content Lead Colin Johanson, and myself) sat down and proceeded to design an event that will go into the game. Yeah, we designed part of the game at a convention with the fans. I have said before that we are creatively fearless as a company, but this just blows the doors off everything.

- There was a fan party (again, limited by those who grabbed tickets by the quiz show) at the Hard Rock, and I had a friend (now known as Anne the Enabler) who kept pressing mojitos into my hand throughout the evening. Still, I survived the event and got home safely that evening.

- I did get to have lunch with Warren, and trade stories about our mutual long strange trips.

- On the boardgame side, a big hit was the Castle Ravenloft boardgame from WotC. It is a massive box, and those hauling it around in their official WotC forklifts left a wake of stunned onlookers who wanted to get their own copies.I've played it, both at the start of the design cycle and as a finished project, and I like it as a tough, cooperative game.

- I did NOT get to D&D Bus, a psychedelic explosion of vintage Sutherland art, but that was pretty cool as well. 

- And I survived without the deadly consars, also called the Pax Pox or  the AntraPax, that haunted last year's festivities. And was able to run a gaming day here at the house for a bunch of friends on Labor Day. And now, finally, I get to lay down my tools and rest for a brief while, before taking up the crusade again.

- But seriously, the convention was great for the game and great for the staff.  We have been concentrating on the game for so long, and the outpouring of attention and positive excitement has made it all worthwhile. We're really charged up (as well as really, really tired - but that will pass).

- Thanks to our hosts (Jerry/Tycho and Mike/Gabe) for putting together this Nerdstock, and to all the fans.

More later,

Convention Duty

This coming weekend, I and most of compatriots will be at PAX, the Penny Arcade Expo in downtown Seattle. We will be showing off GW2 for the first time to North American audiences, talking to fans, giving away books, and a plethora of other activities.

My personal schedule as far as major appearances is as follows:

 

Beyond Pen & Paper: RPGs, Videogames, and the Mainstream

Friday, 5:00 PM - 6:00 PM, Wolfman Theatre

Role Playing Games - RPGs - have been around for decades now, evolving from their pen & paper roots to computers and consoles of all kinds. However, what started out as a niche genre has now crept into titles with mainstream appeal - Fallout 3, Mass Effect, and Oblivion. How did this jump happen? What differentiates the development of an RPG from other game genres, like shooters or platformers? Is it positive or negative to be an RPG game with their roots in pen & paper? And how in the heck do you go about defining what a "role-playing game" is to BEGIN with?? These questions and more will be discussed! Boundaries will be broken! Horizons will be expanded! And someone might actually use the term "THAC0"! Come roll twenties with us!

Panelists include: Brian Mitsoda [lead designer/founder, DoubleBear Games], Annie VanderMeer Mitsoda [game designer, ArenaNet], Tim Cain [design director, Carbine], Jeff Grubb [game designer, ArenaNet]

Guild Wars 2: Designing Dynamic Events

Saturday - 10:00 AM - 11:30 AM, Room 304

What does it take to create MMO content? Veteran game designers Eric Flannum. Jeff Grubb and Colin Johanson, key creators behind ArenaNet's upcoming Guild Wars 2, will give audience members a unique perspective on designing MMO content in this fascinating talk and workshop. In an informal presentation, Eric, Jeff, and Colin will show you how Guild Wars 2 designers create events in the dynamic, living game world and the many factors to consider when designing any kind of MMO content. Attendees will leave with a greater insight into the work of game designers and a deeper understanding of the Guild Wars 2 dynamic event system.
This session is a ticketed event with limited attendance. Please stop by the Guild Wars 2 Booth #642 to find out how you could get a ticket.

Panelists include: Eric Flannum, Colin Johanson, Jeff Grubb

Ghosts of Ascalon Book Signing

Saturday, 12:00 PM - 12:45 PM, ArenaNet Booth

We will be giving away and signing copies of Ghosts of Ascalon.

 

I also will be in the booth for a number of shifts for interviews. Come by and see us!

More later,

 

 

Blessed are the Cheesemakers

So yesterday, hot on the heels of my aviation triumph, I planned on just crashing. But then I saw a note in the Seattle Times that the American Cheese Society was selling off its leftovers at the Palace Ballroom in Belltown, at five bucks a hunk. Since I was thinking about hitting Pike Place Market that day anyway, I altered my plan, intent on getting some Gruyere.

And it was a zoo - locals and people brought in by the article and a news bit on KOMO. And the wrapped hunks of cheese were on tables and shelves all around the room, with no organization. How would I find Gruyere in this madness?

"Would you like some Gruyere?" said a man in a T-shirt saying "For the Love of Cheese!", who handed me two pounds of Gruyere and recommended I check out the butters as well. I ended up with a Vermont butter with sea salt, a pound of Romano, a pound or Parm (we go through a lot of that), and the aforementioned Gruyere. And with my swag, I retreated from the cheese-inspired madness, and picked up some garlic rosemary bread from the Three Girls bakery, visited a couple game stores, and then and only then crashed and took an afternoon nap.

Eventually my time will be fully shifted back to here.

More later,

Zoos and Zeppelins

The long-term readers around here know that I don't like to spend my birthday in the office, but rather try to get away and do new things, liking climbing relatively short mountains, getting hot stone massages, going on art hunts or sinkingd kayaks. This year I cheated a bit an ran things over into the next day, with a strange and brilliant day to wrap up my 53rd year and start my 54th.

The Lovely Bride and I started out in Tacoma, at the Point Defiance Zoo and Aquarium, which we had never been to before. The grounds spill down a hillside overlooking the sound, and this may be the most kid-friendly zoo I have ever seen. Many of the best vantage points (and some entire displays) were set at the 3-foot-high level. It is small zoo, but does have some unique creatures (walruses swimming upsides down, nurse sharks brooding in the depths of their tanks). It has a great Pacific Northwest Ocean exhibit. And as a bonus, the LB and I spent about a half hour watching a pair of zookeepers socializing a 6 month old clouded leopard cub. It was like playing with the housecat, except the cat in this case was at least 60 lbs.

From the zoo, a quick change into respectable dubs and to my favorite very very expensive restaurant, Canlis, for a long leisurely dinner, watching the sun set and the moon rise over Lake Union, and pretty much closing the joint. As is my wont, I went with the tasting menu with a flight of wines, which was wonderful. In this case, the tasting menu had a lot of molecular gastronomy in it (better cooking through chemistry). I usually post the menu, but in this case it does not do the meal justice, in the prosciutto course included both paper thin cuts and toasted wafers of the ham, served with vaguely identifiable but succulent cantaloupe and figs, or that the chicken course included homemade chicken sausage with a creamy texture like mozzarella, or that the ginger beer had encapsulated (reconstituted and re-formed) cherries in it. I could go into further details, but I went with the wine pairings, which were perfect and brilliant and left me a bit woozy at the end of it all. Of course, we had prepared for this eventuality, and caught a cab back to the suite we were staying in near the Seattle Center (with fireplace).

And then, the next morning, the Zeppelin. Yeah, you guys already know that airships can be blimps (no frame) and dirigibles (internal frame), and that Zeppelin is a model name (like Boeing or Ford). There is an outfit out of San Francisco called Airship Ventures which runs airship tours over the bay area, and they chose to come up here to Seattle to promote themselves. There was an article in the Seattle Times talking about it, and the Lovely Bride, sounding like a characgter from "Phineas and Ferb"said "I Know what we're going to do this Saturday - We're going on a zeppelin ride!".

We took the short (45-minute, merely hideously expensive) ride as opposed to the deluxe (90-minute, heart-stoppingly pricey) version. We took off from Paine Field, flew over the Boeing plant and the USS Lincoln aircraft carrier, made a long circuit over Possession Sound and Tulalip Bay, circled Gedney island, flew over Widby and Camano islands, sailed over the ferries, and back to our starting post. Boeing was test-flying the 787 while we were in the air, and we got to see that as well in flight.

And how was it? Amazing. I've ballooned, but that has always had the feeling of a stable platform at a height. The airship (the world's biggest, by the way - size of a 747 but much more manueverable) felt more like real flight. Oh, and you can put your head out the window, giving your hair a case of "zep-head". The initial takeoff and landing felt incredibly exciting, and in the air you could feel yourself cut through the sky. Plus the fact that the gondola was the size of a small bus, with room for a dozen people to move around relatively comfortable, and that windows were huge (including the entire rear of the gondola, giving an incredible view).

It was, all in all, a wonderful experience. The company will be out here until Labor Day, but the flights are apparently all booked up. They will be back in 2012, planning to take a sojourn east to the Oshkosh fly-in next year.

And it was a wonderful birthday, so wonderful that I actually fell asleep that evening in the middle of a Call of Cthulhu game. Yeah, I was all tuckered out, so much so that eldritch beasts could not rouse me from my slumber.

Thanks to everyone who has wished me a happy birthday (and John and Janice for the cake), and yeah, this was one of the best.

More later,

Political Desk: Redux and Reax

So while I was gone, we had a primary here in Washington State. And remember when the conventional wisdom was that the incumbents were all in trouble because a new wind was breaking across our land? Well, forget about that, because things ended up pretty much as expected, and now there is a NEW conventional wisdom in place. Let's do the numbers:

The big number, a week after the polls close, is 40%. That's the turnout for the election. Not great, but not bad by any means. King county ranked in at 37%, which means that we need to do some work.


United States Senator: The top of the ticket will be Patty Murray (46 %) versus Dino Rossi (33%) with more conservative Clint Didier (12%) dropping out of the final. The conventional wisdom says this is a defeat for the Democrat, because an incumbent must have more than 50% of the primary vote to have any chance in the general.
I will note that Norma Gruber, who did nothing on her voter's profile, did better than most of the minor candidates because she was first in line. Just saying.

United States Representative Congressional District No. 8: The general will be Dave Reichert (47%) against Suzan BelDene (26%), and the conventional wisdom says this is a defeat for the Democrat because the incumbent got a larger percentage vote, even if he didn't get a majority. Didn't the conventional wisdom just say that the incumbent must get at least 50%. Yeah,but  the conventional wisdom hates Democrats - I thought you knew that.
Alas, my favorite candidate, Caleb Love Mardini, scraped by with a mere .61% of the vote.

Legislative District No. 47 State Senator Will be Joe Fain (56%) against incumbent Claudia Kauffman (44%). Ahah! rebellion against the incumbents. Well, actually, Fain has been blanketing the area with a strong ground game of pamphlets and yard signs, hitting early and often. A lot of cash being dropped here.

Legislative District No. 47 Representative Position No. 1: Will be traditional GOP candidate Mark Hargrove (40%) against Geoff Simpson (39%), with Seattle-Times endorsed Nancy Wyatt getting only 21% (It is the yard signs, I tell you).

Legislative District No. 47 Representative Position No. 2: Pat Sullivan (54%) against Rodrigro Yanez (45%)

State Supreme Court, Judicial Position No. 1: Jim Johnson (61%) keeps his job without further consideration. Why yes, we ARE comfortable with an incumbent owned by the BIAW. Thanks for asking.

State Supreme Court, Judicial Position No. 6: Richard Saunders (47%) against Charles Wiggins (40%) with Bryan Chuchcoff taking 12% and dropping out. Again, Conventional wisdom figures the slightly-more conservative incumbent is going to win it, but then, conventional wisdom has been hitting the sauce as of late.

And that's it, with a general election shaping up consisting of all the people we thought would be in the general election. But it will COMPLETELY DIFFERENT this time because we're looking at Initiatives this time!

More later,

Köln and Gamescom

And I'm back.

I have spent the past week in Cologne (Köln) Germany for Gamescom with a large group of ArenaNet employees. We were debuting Guild Wars 2 for public, hands-on consumption, and it was a zoo. The consumer booth was mobbed for most of the time, and worse when we were giving a public demo of the game. We all did Q&A sessions and threw T-shirts out into the crowd. And apparently the top-rated news show in Germany gave us a shout-out, and everyone decided to check out what the deal was. It was madness, I tell you, madness!

Oh, and we won the best MMO of the show as well.

My main task was doing demos and interviews up in the business office (a separate hall for press and business people), and signing copies of the german translation of Ghosts of Ascalon (Die Geister von Ascalon) on the show floor. And so from the former my voice is now shot, and from the latter I have a twinge in my right hand (we signed a LOT of books, and shook a LOT of hands). I also dropped in on my German translator, Panini, who had a booth there, and signed a bunch of books for him (and he sold out - three times - over the course of the show - he gave me a beer, which was nice). Oh. and answering questions from fans and throwing out t-shirts.

The show itself was amazing. People expected great things from us - it has been a year since we were last at the show, talking about lore and showing off our art pieces. I think we exceeded all expectations, and showed people what we were actually talking about with the game. The end result is that everyone (including the folk back here in Seattle, whose work-hours shifted to match Cologne time) is both incredibly pumped up and completely exhausted at this point.

I would have told you about this in real-time, but I was very busy with everything during the day, and in the evening, the Internet service sucked. I mean really, really, serious sucked rocks. The hotel staff (Hotel Barcelo, where their wake-up call software had to have worked off an old atari 800) was apologetic, but it left most of us without communication capacity.

So in the wake of all the news and excitement, I am a little achey and jet-lagged, and going to spend a day or two getting both my voice and mind back. But I have to tell you, it was very, very cool.

More later,

Taking Five

So, after all that work on the primaries (so go vote already, folks), I've been taking a rest from the blog (in part because the Lovely Bride is back from vacation with her mom, in part because of really cool stuff with the day job). And it doesn't look like I'll have anything immediately major coming up on this site, since it is my turn to go out of town for a while.

So in the meantime, I have this really cute drawing from Zav, a French GW player.  Enjoy.

More later,

On The Road Again: Wilburton Redux

So long ago and far away, I talked about the demise of the Wilburton Tunnel in Bellevue, just north of the concrete tangle where I-405 meets I-90. The reason for the removal was more lanes and better traffic flow, but it hasn't worked out that way.

Let me lay out the current situation. If you're coming southbound on I-405, you have for a brief stretch six lanes of traffic. Left to right, they are:
 - Lane 1: An HOV lane continuing south on 405
 - Lanes 2 and 3: Regular occupancy lanes continuing south on 405
 - Lane 4: Regular occupancy lane that becomes an exit to I-90 East (towards Spokane and, legends have it, Chicago).
 - Lane 5: Regular occupancy lane that becomes an exit to I-90 West (towards Seattle), And ...
 - Lane 6: An HOV lane that joins the HOV lane on I-90 West.

Got that in your mind? Good. Now, getting on the highway from 8th, the southernmost of the Bellevue exits, after you merge, you're in Lane 5. If you want to head south to, say, Renton, you have to get to Lane 3. And with all these lanes, you should be able to easily, right?

But, ah, there's the rub. There is apparently something wrong with the entrance on I-90 East, where Lane 4 enters onto the highway. Something so wrong that the traffic backs up onto I-405 South, and forms a Wall of Internal Combustion (which is an old Magic: The Gathering card) between Lanes 3 and 5. Which means that everyone has to negotiate the changeovers between the lanes, slowing down traffic in those adjacent lanes as well. Add to that people from lanes 2 and 3 trying to get over to lanes 4 and 5, and the HOVs in Lane 1 trying to exit, and you have an unholy mess, as nasty as it was when we had only four lanes and a big concrete tunnel in the way.

Yeah, they will have to address this one, but it reminds me that working on highways is like doing the plumbing in an old house. Yeah, you may replace the leaky pipes in one area, but the change in pressure will spring the seams in a dozen more places.

More later,

The Jeff Recommends: Primary

So you've sat (well, scrolled), through my tour of the Voters' Guide (no, I'm not going to do it again for the general election). And the Stranger, Seattle Times, and Publicola have all made their endorsements (though the Times is not summarizing online. Thanks, guys). So here are the recommendations of the blog (positions with one candidate have no endorsement).

United States Senator: Patty Murray
United States Representative Congressional District No. 8: Caleb Love Mardini (OK, I'm a sucker for a good position statement).

Legislative District No. 47 State Senator Claudia Kauffman
Legislative District No. 47 Representative Position No. 1: No endorsement (choose which irritates you more: the incumbent's messy personal life or the GOP's sleazy attempts to capitalize on it).
Legislative District No. 47 Representative Position No. 2: Pat Sullivan

State Supreme Court, Judicial Position No. 1: Stan Rumbaugh
State Supreme Court, Judicial Position No. 6: Charles Wiggins (remember, if a court candidate gets 50%+ of the vote, they win right there. Yeah, it sounds strange and mildly unfair, but that's the nature of our elections right now).

So, the ballots are due in on the 17th, but do yourself a favor, go over to the pile of mail you've been meaning to sort through, dig out the ballot, and Vote, already.

More later,

Roux the Day

So of course, all this posting has been the result of my dedication to local municipal matters, right?

Well, actually it's because the Lovely Bride has been out of town for the past week, touring Yellowstone with her mom. So I've had some time on my hands.

Yep, it is true: I've been batching it for the past week or so, and it has been pretty darn quiet. I've spent one or more nights crashed in front of the tube, vegging out, but for the most part I've been living a quiet, relatively low-maintenance life - light dinners, reading or working in the evening, and retiring early.

Of course, every time the LB is out of town, I want to try something from a culinary side. Usually I run through a dozen eggs in an attempt to make increasingly less-sad omelets. But this time I decided to go with making homemade macaroni and cheese.

I went with a recipe from here. I ended up at this particularly blog because the chef was on Chopped, a Food Network show that is a ramped-up, low-budget Iron Chef ("Two competitors? - Four competitors!" "Celebrity judges? - Food Network judges! "One mystery ingredient? - Three baskets full of mystery ingredients!"). And I wanted mac and cheese, but really didn't want to deal with the whole "Guy left alone cooks Kraft mac and cheese" thing (though when I do, I chop up little hot dogs into it).

So how did it go? Not bad. Didn't screw anything up too bad, though I was winging it making a half-recipe (and still had leftovers). Low-level chefs should be told that you should start the water to boil before you start the cheese sauce if you want things to time out OK. Oh, and if you are going to assume that your reader doesn't know what a roux is, you might want to indicate the kind of herbs you throw in on the end. But those are quibbles.

On the other hand, it was a first experience working with Gruyere, a cheese more expensive than I would otherwise try. And the idea of toasting breadcrumbs as a topping was a new thing for me that I will try more often. So I'd say it was a success, and adds one more thing to my culinary repertoire.

More later, 

Political Desk: Bits and Pieces

Grubb Street will post its recommendations (such as they are) for the Primary late on Sunday. In the meantime, there have been some updates:

Remember when I talked yard signs, about how you don't put red on blue because it vibrates and is hard to read? I'm talking to you, Jim Postma and Nancy Wyatt. Your graphic designer is not being your friend.

The morning of the day I posted about the challenges facing State Rep. Geoff Simpson, the Seattle Times launches its own article on page 1, section 2, beneath the fold. Not on the charges facing the incumbent Representative per se (which is "old news"), but on the attack video launched focusing on the situation. This was an immediate and rapid approach for a newspaper that usually lets such things ... marinate ... for a while before wading in. Almost as if someone at GOPAC had flagged them at the start, so they could be first in line. (Rereading the article, it only promises that the attack ad WILL be running on local channels, not that it HAS run - at the time of the article, the ad was purely an online creation).

In response, the candidate's mom called me. Well, she robo-called, and said her son was a good man and that this was a horrible attack. She sounds like a nice person. We're still in the primary, and we've already reached the "mom" stage on this race.

As for the Times, it created its own buzz a few days later by not endorsing incumbent Dave Reichert for USRep. Instead they split their endorsement between anointed Democrat Suzan DelBene and Tim Dillon. DelBene I knew about, but Dillon has left so light an impression on me I had to go back to see where he came from. It turns out he is also a technocrat similar to DelBene, but also a councilman from Yarrow Point. And I then had to go look up Yarrow Point, to discover it to be an affluent community of about a thousand barnacled onto the side of Bellvue.

Anyway, there was much aflutter in the blogosphere about the whys of all this. Some have suggested that the Times is serious about its reboot 2010, while others point out that only now, after six years, the Times has realized that the 8th needs to upgrade its operating system. Regardless of its conservative bent in all things tax-related, the Times is very strong on its environmental reporting, and the idea that Reichert's devotion to conservation might be only skin-deep may have struck a nerve.

Instead, I think they are inoculating themselves with the dual choice. Reading through their reasoning, they lay out some traps for Ms. DelBene that they can later return to, should they decide to return to a more conservative candidate (her voting record is spotty). And by presenting a viable alternate GOP choice, they can still support their conservative heritage. Indeed, while they strive to put both forth as independent, viable technocrats, DelBene's and Dillon's politics seem poles apart.

Other than that, things have been pretty quiet here, about a week out from the election. A few more fliers from Sullivan and DelBene, and a robo-call about Jim Johnson's firm judicial support of his donors, but that's about it.

So, endorsements. More later,

Sixty-Five Years Ago

More later,

Political Desk: Feedback Loop

My lunch partner says "I've been reading your blog posts."

And I stop chewing, not knowing what is about to come next.

You see, I use the blogosphere as a broadcast medium as opposed to an interactive one. I don't allow comments. I don't track traffic. I don't find out what search terms get you to here. I try not to think about who is reading it, because when I do, I find I suddenly freeze up. I don't feel the need to provide a platform for every bozo (sorry, for every bozo-but-ME) to grind his axeware. I feel that when I realize that people read this stuff, itgets in the way, and that I start tailoring the message to the audience (I do that professionally, by the way, but here is where I get a chance to go out and play).

However, as a result of this, I often have the subject pop up, either in person or in emails. And I consider that par for the course, but it always surprises me.

Back to the lunch. It was a very pleasant conversation, in which we talked about audiences, and my three laws of politics, and the difficulties of the 47th District Position One. But I do get feedback in the form of emails and links and Facebook (back when Facebook could actually rebroadcast the feed - they've changed something (again) and I can't get it to work). Some of it is insightful. Some of it is in all caps. Some of it demands equal time. Some of it is a list of links demanding I review them all before ever posting on the subject again. And some of it has brought me in contact with interesting people - actors, politicians, the parent of actors, other writers, and so on.

And mostly I listen but do not comment on this blog (broadcast media, right?.) On occasion there is something I get that I feel is worth passing on. And that brings me to Caleb Love Mardini.

I made fun of Mr. Mardini's Voters' Guide entry along with the rest of the shambling horde of candidates for U.S.Rep, 8th district. And Caleb he sent me a nice email, along with something he has posted on his site, refining his message.

And I have to say, this is pretty darn impressive. Go read it. All of it,. I'll wait. Back? It is well-defined, well-organized, well-argued, and a good piece of writing in addition to being a crystallization of why he is in the race and what he hopes to achieve. I am very impressed with this, both as a political statement and as an independent work. Even if Caleb Love Mardini gets the "Miss Congeniality" prize out of this particular race, he has served notice that he knows what he is doing, what he is saying, and what he wants.

Which is one of the little gems of doing all this.

In closing, there is one reader of this blog who I am always paying attention to, regardless of if she says "I've been reading you're posts" or not. I'm not sure she reads everything (particularly the deep nerdy posts) or not. But that person keeps me from going too far overboard, from being to too harsh, and reminds me that I was brought up to treat people better than they would normally expect.

And to her, I can only say is, "Hi, Mom!"

More later,

Poltical Desk: Precinct Committee Officers

So, there's one last thing, then I will boil it all down to the recommendations.

There's something I either never noticed or is new on the ballot, something new and confusing (as opposed to the rest of the ballot, which is old and confusing). I am being asked to vote for a Political Precinct Committee Officer.

Actually, the heading says: "Precinct Committee Officer is a position in each major political party. For this office only: If you consider yourself a Democrat or Republican, you may vote for a candidate of that party."

And I blink at it a moment as say, "Excuse me?"

The rest of these ballotary process has been driving towards making things non-partisan, and here we are asked to vote for political officers? And only for major parties? Are the Greens too dispersed to manage a race? Is this another way of putting a GOP name on the ballot? Is the state giving the parties this space and ink for free, or do they have to chip in for the cost of printing?

And for my neck of the woods, why are there only GOP candidates. Have the Democrats already chosen theirs? Does only one person (or no people) want the job? It is a plot to announce to the world that we have a lot of shadow Republicans, since the requirement on the voting is "If you consider yourself" one? And how do they check on this? Even initiatives have more of a check and balance system.

Since I don't consider myself a member of an organized party (which means I'm a Democrat*), I'm ignoring it, but I found this one most passing strange.

More later,

*Thank you Will Rogers, whenever you are.

Political Desk: The Ground Game

The color of this year's primary is blue. You can see it in the yard signs.

And yard sign, by the way, is a bit of misnomer. I have seen some of them on yards, but most of them occupy stretches of public and/or unclaimed land along major thoroughfares. They blossom along routes like Bellevue Way, such that it is a high point of my morning commute, seeing which new flowers have been added to the mix.

Anyway, blue. For a while, it was easy to identify the two parties - Democratic blue and Republican red. Now, it is almost awash in all shades of blue - navies and sapphires and teals and deeps. Blue/White makes a very readable sign (and is cheap, being one color on white), and seems more mellow than red/white (which has been taken over by people in Bellevue against light rail in their neighborhood).

Some of the blues are blue by heritage - Dino Rossi has always been a blue background kinda guy, as has Mark Hargrove (Geoff Simpson goes for a white background, as does Clint Didier, who eschews the blue). Others take advantage of the increasingly murky nonpartisan nature of positions like judges to appear safe and nonthreatening.

I am seeing red/white/blue signs, but the red is often used as an accent or a division between parts of the sign. Red on blue vibrates, which defeats the message of the traffic zipping past at 25 mph. Stan Rumbaugh just launched a r/w/b sign that works out very nicely.

Lastly, there are exceptions - oranges seem to be the radical color this season, which hope to stand out from all the OTHER blue signs. But blue feels like the color of the age, which is OK by me.

More later,

Political Desk: 47th State Legislature

We delve down deeper, and as we do so, what we find affects fewer and fewer people, but those people are closer and closer to home. Everyone in the state has a direct interest in the Senatorial race. Fewer people are in the 8th, though those results will have a direct result on a larger whole. And fewer still are in our district, the 47th, which includes parts of Kent, Auburn, Renton, a hunk of still-unincorporated King County, Black Diamond, and Covington, and is about as local as we're going to get this year.

All three of our legislative slots open at the same time. I don't understand it either, but it does, with the result that we have the regular shot of reviewing and replacing. We open up on the State Senator slot, Joe Fain versus Claudia Kauffman.

Joe Fain started the race early with mailers to introduce himself to the voting community, and in his statement wastes no time in laying directly into his opponent. She is responsible for spending 800 million dollars in new taxes (for very broad values of the word "Taxes"). Bad politician - spending money. She is also responsible to larger class sizes. Bad politician - not spending money on our kids! Take a look at this double-whammy, incumbents. Yeah, you're expected to provide a balanced budget, and then made to pay the price for it.

Claudia Kaufmann is said incumbent in this case, and has her defenses up. She voted against higher taxes (The same taxes her opponent accuses her of spending? It is possible both are saying the same thing with different definitions). She puts in a personal story of her own cost-cutting (no reimbursement in special session). You get a better idea of the person running here, but I'm not sure if that will withstand the hammering.

For State Rep Slot #1, the current situation makes me said, since it is an example of the first law of the manifesto - Don't embarrass us. Geoff Simpson is the incumbent, and has been a strong progressive voice. He also has been engaged in a very messy personal life, which has resulted in a charge of gross misdemeanor assault in connection with a domestic violence incident. Mr. Simpson has been very up front about his situation, and has not sought to hide or sugar-coat. The fact remains, he is up on a charge, and if other candidates' personal lives are basis for decision (George Nethercutt's DUI charge comes to mind), then so too it should be in this case. He is challenged by two Republicans.

Nancy Wyatt packs a good resume, the type you look for in State Legislatures. She gets the Very Good rating from the Municipal League. Her problem? First line of her statement - "It's time to say no to the failed policies of our current elected officials!" The problem is, in Washington State and elsewhere, there has been too much saying no, and not enough viable plans. Pull that together and she's a strong contender.

Geoff Simpson's statement is short and sweet - all the progressive good stuff (transparent but frugal government) leavened with a bit of tough on crime, and the hot-button issue in our neck of the woods - traffic congestion (no, I'm not making this up). The Munis usually give him a Very Good, but have dropped him to a Adequate this time, likely because of his current legal situation.

Mark Hargove also goes short and sweet - much more of an introduction of the man as opposed to his politics. He was a lot more detailed in the 2008 campaign, but that was hard-fought all around, and may be looking a more accessible approach this time. Much of it is the boilerplate you see elsewhere (help small business, make government transparent). I disagree with the idea that you should expect the legislature to legislate while denying it the available tools (but then, I don't think we need new taxes, I think we need across-the-board tax reform), but he is solid and direct. No jokes, here. (He gets a Good from the Munis)

For Position #2, I have to sidetrack into Incumbent Pat Sullivan's mailers. I have warmed to Mr. Sullivan over the years, and his first mailer of the season indicates a string of awards he has been given. Which is a different set than in 2008, which was a different set in 2006. Does this guy have a U-Store-it somewhere in Auburn that is filled with awards?

Pat Sullivan shows what I expect to see across the board from the incumbents this year - a personal story about how they are tightening their belts in the face of the shortfall. That, plus promises of accountability makes him a solid contender with the Muni's rating of Outstanding.

Rodrigo Yanez is not a professional politician, which is cool in my book for the position he's running for. For the state legislature, a part-time body operating under restrictions, not being a professional politician may be a good way to survive the legislature. He introduces us from his business side and says that should carry over into government. He also thinks of the children. The easy joke aside, this year's crop has been light on those thinking of the children.

And that's it for the Voter's Guide. There are a couple other weirdnesses for the ballot I want to delve into, and a bit about the ground game, but we'll do the endorsements and get back to important stuff. Like collectible quarters.

More later,

Political Desk: 8th District U.S.Rep - Bonus Round

So for the senatorial candidates I filtered them all through the "I Write Like" Program. I tried the same for the congressional candidates, but ... well ... let's just say that there is a whole lot of Lovecrafting going on around here.

Instead, I decided to feed all their statements into the Flesch-Kincaid Grade Level, and the results were actually interesting.

The two highest-rated candidates on the list, which would require the greatest reading comprehension, were the two major party candidates, Mr. Reichert and Ms. DelBene, who are aimed at sophomores in college. I'm not making any judgments here, but I am going to guess that they had their messages gone over a couple times by seasoned professionals.

The bulk of the candidates are writing at the junior and senior in high school. The lowest of these (and low can be a good thing from reading comprehension) is Caleb Love Chachi Mardini, who comes in at the sophomore level.

The easiest to read? Robin Adair, who comes in at a 5th grade level.

Just one more piece of irrelevant information for the ongoing campaign.

More later,

Political Desk: 8th District U.S.Rep

Washington's 8th District is a swing district that has never really swung, at least as far as its congressional representative is concerned. It is a large district that straddles King and Pierce counties, and includes the upscale and populous Bellevue and Mercer Island, the sprawling 'burbs of Kent and Renton, and great rural expanses to the south (where, I understand, EVERYBODY VOTES). While everyone makes note that it goes one way or the other in presidential elections, it has safely put a Republican in its seat for every Congress since its creation.

There is a lot less insanity and a lot more earnestness at this level, which is good. Let's move through the Voters Guide, and I will struggle to pull quotes from them, out of context, for your amusement.

Dave Reichert deserves his own writeup, because, in many ways, he is the embodiment of the three laws I set out at the beginning of this. His pull quote is respectable but trips the Irony Alarm - "Today we see two competing philosophies in this country: Those who believe we should grow the size of government and allow its deep intrusion in people's lives, or those who believe the American people already know what's right for them, their families and communities." Oddly, he's endorsed by the party that has increased the size of government and intruded deeply into people's lives.

Tom Cramer (Note, his robocalls remind us that it is Cramer with a "C") is pretty earnest, upping the ante in being anti Wall Street, pro middle-class tax cuts, and pro medicare. Take THAT conservative politics! Also calls out the H1B visa program, which may be what really chafes his hide.

Boleslaw (John) Orlinski has shown up before. Positions himself as a fiscal conservative and a social liberal. Most of his statement tend to lean towards the fiscal conservative part of that political sandwich cookie.

Keith Arnold has the quotable pull-quote of the guide - "Reichert's party of "no" has used their Audacity of Nope to block and reverse anything that benefits the middle or lower class." He also warns that some candidates that claim to be preferring Democrats are flying under false colors. Yes, if only we had SOME way of identifying party preference other than a self-declared preference.

Susan DelBene (Del-BEN-ay - her robot also called) is a progressive technocrat with solid experience in a tech company. Because that trick always works. Here's the pull quote "The incumbent has been in elective office for 14 years. He and his colleagues in Congress have demonstrated they don't have the expertise or the political courage to solve the fiscal and economic challenges we face". True, but he's only been in THIS elective office for 6 years (and he's doing a better job of making the "needs a new broom" argument by touting his 33 years of service).

Ernest Huber is what we used to call a stem-winder. He unleashes on all sides with eloquent machine-gun precision, sparing no one. There are a lot of good bits, but here's his quote: "If you want more of Obama, then vote for Reichert. If you want a lot more of Obama, then vote for DelBene. If you want no more of Obama, then vote for me, Ernest Huber."

Tim Dillon bemoans the end of the American Dream, goes after deficits and budget cuts, and namechecks God. Light on specifics, other then we're going to get through this if we all come together. Right now. Over me. (shap-pock!)

Caleb Love Mardini also cares about the American Dream, and wants to revive it (this is an 8th level clerical spell). He argues well for public funding of political campaigns without using those buzzwords. We're also going to have to come together. Pull quote taken out of context - "We’re going to have to try things." (What are going to try? THINGS! How are we going to try them? TOGETHER!"

Robin Adair provides the most artistic of the Voters' Guide Statements, it is an avant garde work leavened heavily with Significant Capitals and "air quotes", along with the sly corporate irony of using "Goggle" as opposed to "Google" (thought I think Goggling something would be much more fun). There a lot of things I can pull out of context, but I think the most effective is "I have redefined economic Crashes." Good to know.

More later,

The Political Desk: Senator - Bonus Round!

About a month ago, all the blogs were running this "I Write Like" quiz, where you plug is a bunch of text from your blog, it analyzes it, and then tells you who you write like. This was followed by the shocked screams of hundreds of bloggers realizing they wrote like Dan Brown.

It turns out that the quiz was a promotion for a vanity press, and in addition was not a particularly GOOD analytical device, but as I wen through the Voters' Guide, I realized I had a LOT of statements by the candidates and/or their campaigns.

So.....

Here are the results - Is it any surprise the H P Lovecraft comes up most often?

H P Lovecraft - Mohammad Said, Paul Aker, James Mercer, Bob Burr, Dino Rossi (huh?), and Charles Allen.

Arthur C. Clarke - Goodspaceguy (well, duh).

Corey Doctrow - Mike the Mover

Kurt Vonnegut - Mike Latimer, Will Baker

Steven King - William Edward Chovil

George Orwell - Clint Didier

Margaret Mitchell - Shalk Leonard

David Foster Wallace - Patty Murray

Make of this as you see fit.

More later,

The Political Desk: Senator

Now things get interesting.

We have a veritable horde of candidates for US Senator this time. A Democratic incumbent. A couple solid Republicans. Democrats who are protesting the incumbent. Republican who got into the race before the party-sponsored dude showed up. And the Perennials - candidates who regularly show up on the ballot, running for something.

The Muni league will not help us here. Vote-For-Judges? Sorry, not their bailiwick. We are on our own with this one.

We do have the Voters' Guide, which is the various campaigns' level platform to talk to the voters. Everyone gets their turn at the mike. Some use it as chance to connect with their audience. Some use it to introduce and define themselves. Some use it to identify pressing issues. And some use it as a moment to leap off into the abyss.

So into this heart of darkness we go - Oh, one more thing - [Spoiler Alert!]. I'm going to be supporting Patty Murray, the Mom in Sneakers who has grown into quite an effective political elbow-thrower in office. I know, you're surprised.

Norma Gruber has no entry in the Voters' Guide, and as such cannot be mocked. However, she gets top billing on the ballot, and I bet she still gets more votes than some of these people.

Mohammad H. Said is a perennial, ran against Murray six years ago. His statement reads like free verse. Supports Obama (I think), and feels he could have been his Secretary of Health (This just in: We don't have a Secretary of Health at the national level. We have a Secretary of Health and Human Services).

Goodspaceguy is another perennial ("Ten times, voters rejected Goodspaceguy’s economic program!" - he says under "Elected Experience"). He believes that the answer to our problems is in development in spaaaaaace. Should be commended for running for a position that actually has influence in this area.

Mike the Mover, perennial. Uses his space to attack Wall Street and college football coaches. First use of the phrase 'fake boobs' in a Voters' Pamphlet.

Paul Akers is a Republican that actually presents a plan. I have some doubts about how it would work out, but HEY, it's a PLAN. Supports a balanced budget amendment and term limits. I like this. More, please.

Mike Latimer is running a pro-God platform. "We have kicked God out of our schools, out of our government and out of many of our churches along with His laws." Which, except for the Pledge of Allegiance, our money, and all those sermons and politicians invoking her, is pretty accurate.

James (Skip) Mercer is a UW Professor, who wants to deal with the debt, illegal immigration, and keeping Afghanistan from becoming another Viet Nam. Disagree with some of his points, but sounds sane. I'd like to see him and Paul Akers get together and chat.

Clint Didier went to three Super Bowls, has a game plan, is endorsed by Sarah Palin, and is running as an outsider. And I will be honest, he shows an honesty in his beliefs that I can respect, even though I disagree almost completely with those beliefs. He would be a good candidate, bringing a lot to the table for discussion. He also would be a horrible senator.

Shalk Leonard is not talking political donations and the Seattle Weekly has nice things to say about him. America also talks to him. And I think he's dogwhistling isolationism, but he's darned poetic about it.

Patty Murray loves her some italic fonts. What she says is pretty boilerplate - pro job creation, anti Wall Street, pro-education and pro-Veterans, and her resume backs her up. But she sure uses a lot of italics.

Bob Burr wants you to know that we're living in a plutocracy, and that we're not doing enough for financial reform and energy. He also supports public finance for elections.

William Edward Chovil - I give you his statement in full "What kind of America do Americans want? The one our founders planned for us? The one America's anti-founders are giving us now? I am pro-life, pro-liberty, pro-gun, pro-audacity, pro-Sarah Palin, and John Gault, Pro-charter schools and home schools. I am against cap and trade, against Obama Care, and against the new-world-order." Makes Clint Didier look all moderate, doesn't he? (And it is spelled John GALT - please correct that in your home school syllabus).

Dino Rossi is a perennial (two tries for Governor) and a latecomer to this race, but has the advantage that he's the "official" GOP candidate. Condemns the massive deficit, but fails to note that we've piled up the bulk of it in GOP administrations. Starts the statement that we're in trouble but finishes that our best days are ahead of us. In the past has tried to remain as nebulous, happy talking, and nonthreatening as possible, but the presence of viable conservative alternatives have actually made him take some positions as he tries to win the middle without cheesing off the base.

Charles Allen has a list, and it is quite a list: Rebuild our manufacturing base, expand our industries, restore entrepreneurial spirit, dramatically cut Federal spending, reduce our national debt, fight to protect our environment, reform American energy policy, lay the building blocks of a green economy, ending the war, improve health car, make in-state tuition free, fund our teachers, police, and firemen, and be completely transparent. What's not to love?

Will Baker. FACT: Perennial. FACT: Uses his "Community Service" space in the form to lay into Secretary of State Sam Reed for not printing up these Voters' Guides. FACT: Uses his "Statement" space to argue that the biggest issue of the 2010 campaign is whether Obama used political shenanigans in his congressional race of 1996. FACT: He also the word "FACT" a lot.

There you have it, my friend, the fruits of democracy. The problem with it is that they let anyone in.

More later,