MegaAwesome

As I’m sure you’ve heard by now 4204 (Simple Majority) has sneaked ahead and now looks like it’s going to be law. That and I67 (Insurance) are the two big wins this time around. There’s been some talk about how I960 (Stupid Nonsense) was narrowing and might wind up in recount land, or even lose, but I think that’s just wishful thinking.

The Stranger has done some excellent leg work in trying to get Chris Gregoire to explain why she did not endorse the Democrat running in the King County Prosecutor’s race. It’s a good lesson, illustrating that elected Democrats can disappoint on every scale, not just national. I don’t know what the reasoning is behind this, but for the love of God the Democrats cannot afford to ignore a serious challenge in their backyard.

It would have been embarrassing if a whole slate of prominent Democrats stood up and fought for Sherman and he lost anyway, but it’s so much worse to have those same Democrats stay out of it. Now, instead of just a major win for the state R’s in King County, the D’s look like idiots and Gregoire’s spokespeople can’t seem to figure out why she stayed out of it. This was an opportunity to stand up, show herself as a leader of both the party and the state, and get some free press going into next year’s election.

I’m somewhat nervous about the upcoming Gubernatorial election. Gregoire has been a great governor and has the skills and experience to deserve another term, but this is politics and qualifications aren’t enough. I hope that she’s got some great people in her corner, people who know how to play the game, or she might be in trouble.

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The Slog reports that MOHAI is moving to new digs in the South Lake Union area. That makes me a little sad, as I love it’s current location right next to the weird series of waterfront trails and that giant artillery gun.

MOHAI is a great museum, and unless there was a school field trip there it was never really crowded. I went there all the time, years ago, because a friend of mine was in group that recorded radio plays in their auditorium. Though I didn’t see the exhibits very often they always had interesting things and got some amazing touring shows. The last time I was there was to see the Declaration of Independence, in 2003 if I recall.

The only thing I didn’t like about the old location was that it was a real pain to walk to from the University District. I hope that the new spot is on the bus line.

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From the Everett Herald:

Comcast Corp. is paying $7.5 million in cash and advertising for a decade of naming rights to the Everett Events Center, home of the Everett Silvertips hockey team.

Well, they were going to sell it to someone. I guess it could be worse, and they already had their name on the building (the Comcast Community Ice Rink).

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Stolen Courtesy of NWCitizen, here’s a link to the results so far: http://www.co.whatcom.wa.us/purl/elections/results/2007/08/21/html/

Right now the Mayors race looks like it’s between Dan Pike (23.75%) and Dan McShane (26.45%), both endorsed by the local Democratic organization. It’s not my district but Stan Snapp has a pretty gigantic lead (43.34%) in his three-way race for City Council ward 4. My only interaction with Snapp has been through the Bellingham Herald’s comment boards, but he seems like a stand up guy.

Louise Bjornson is also enjoying a massive lead in the city council at large race with 53.01%. There won’t be any further updates from the Auditor until 4:30PM tomorrow, which seems like forever.

Snohomish County is currently showing a 19.53% voter turnout rate, which is stunning. Aaron Reardon, running unopposed on the D ticket for SnoCo executive, drew 408 write in votes (1.12%), which will make my Everett friends smile. John Lovick is currently leading the race for SnoCo Sheriff by 3.5%.

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The executive and council in Snohomish County are at odds over graffiti, from the Everett Herald:

A graffiti crackdown proposed by Snohomish County Executive Aaron Reardon faces stiff opposition from the County Council, which has say over whether new rules are approved.

County Councilman Dave Somers said Reardon’s ordinance goes too far by charging innocent property owners with daily fines if graffiti isn’t swiftly cleaned up.

This is a big issue, but I’m not sure that it’s big enough to justify charging business owners $100 per day to deal with. Certainly long standing graffiti is a bad sign, showing that the area doesn’t really care enough to remove it, but so are boarded up windows and run-down storefronts, neither of which are in short supply in the county.
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I haven’t been to a Hemp-Fest in some time, not since I went to see Sir Mix-A-Lot and he got bumped or something. It was very dissapointing, although I was able to pick up a copy of his new album Daddy’s Home. Ever since then I’ve been boycotting it, but that’s all over this year where Rick Steves will be speaking.

I’m a big fan of Rick Steves. I like his television series a lot, and he’s stood up for a great many admirable causes. Sadly, I’m going to be up here in Bellingham (where every day is apparently hemp fest, downtown at least), but if you’re in the Seattle area you can catch him on either Saturday or Sunday.

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There a few interesting articles in the PI recently about renewable energy projects in the region. I’m a big fan of the energy security movement and volunteered to get I-937 passed, in fact I don’t think it went anywhere near far enough.

The first article (for my purposes) is about biomass.

Experts expect to see the most growth with manure projects such as Reiner’s.

“If that single farm can heat 15 to 20 homes in electricity in a whole year, in a large scale it might not mean anything,” said Craig Frear, lead author of a Washington State University study that tallied up the potential for biomass energy. “But in a small scale, it does.”

I’m not too confident in biomass to solve any long-term energy programs, but I do think that it’s worth investing in for the side benefits. The article points out that as energy prices increase it will be give more incentive to dairy farmers to branch out in this direction and increase the value of their entire operation.

It also is another step in what I hope will become the new energy movement in the country. After energy independence is accomplished on a national scale my vision would be for the next push to be for regional security. Operations like these can help their community meet it’s energy needs and provide a bridge between the current system and something more productive.

Something, that is, like geothermal power. Read the rest of this entry »

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I spent most of my birthday weekend running around the greater Seattle area. Got to see some family and friends and was able to borrow a camera to take pictures around Everett (see the Flickr sidebar).

Also made it out to Trader Joe’s for goodies like their new (to me) Organic Tea & Lemonade which is excellent. I also was able to pick up some of their new-ish energy drinks and those are awesome. At only 99 cents a can they are easily the cheapest I’ve ever seen and they taste quite good, especially the citrus one.

Only a month and a half to go before the Bellingham Trader Joe’s is open…

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Woohoo! From Sunday until the 18th all WTA rides are free. The purpose, I assume, is to get people out to the Northwest Washington Fair, which I’m looking forward to.

Edited: Links are good!

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No, no no no.

Over at the Secretary of State’s website they’ve got a number of little images you can add to your myspace page to remind people to vote, and I’m very dissapointed in all of them. Below you can see the images and my brief commentary. The images are all animated so I’ve thumbnailed them, if you want to see their full dancing glory just click them.

I think that this is the least offensive of them. It would be great as a static image, but the silly animation ruins it.

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