Rick Bender, president of the state Labor Council, on the high marks Forbes magazine and some other measures give to the state's business climate these days:A few short years ago, it was fashionable among business lobbyists to declare -- as former Boeing executive Alan Mulally…
Here's a comment from Will, at horsesass.org, on the indignities that politicians (in this case, Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels) must periodically endure:I can tell you that if I was heckled by morons on a public TV show, I’d drop the f-bomb and resign my office.
It was wrong for a dentist's insurance company to refuse to defend him after a practical joke – photographing an unconscious patient with fake boar tusks protruding from her mouth – turned into a lawsuit.So said the state Supreme Court Thursday, ruling that Fireman's Fund…
The state Supremes are slated to release two rulings tomorrow morning. One is a major case, the other is just bizarre.Major one first: Madison v. State: This is a challenge to Washington's now-suspended policy of denying the right to vote to felons who've served their…
At the Seattle Weekly, writer Aimee Curl smartly checked the Public Disclosure Commission filings of the state party legislative campaign committees and emerged with a this striking fact:House Democrats: more than $450,000House Republicans: $40,621
At Crosscut, public radio's Austin Jenkins has a good story about the fact that Gov. Gregoire has gone through three speechwriters so far.Part of the problem is it's hard for a younger, even very smart speechwriter to write for a governor who's a lawyer and…
After a bad year, it's been a good couple of weeks for ballot measure veteran Tim Eyman. Last year, he had two high-profile failures, falling short of enough signatures on both ballot measures he worked on. This month, he and allies Mike and Jack Fagan…
Some trivia about Gov. Chris Gregoire:-She and her husband own a cabin on Hayden Lake, Idaho, a home (besides the governor's mansion) in Olympia, and a time-share condo at a Whistler, B.C. ski lodge.-She has a $200 hand-carved wooden canoe (presumably a miniature one) given…
Filling in for a sick Gov. Chris Gregoire at her press conference yesterday were three state officials, including Gregoire's Chief of Staff Tom Fitzsimmons, who managed to use the word "great" a dozen times when describing aspects of Gregoire's leadership and current events. (A sampling:…
This from the Seattle Times yesterday:All single-family homes in Seattle must sign up for table-scrap recycling in 2009, the City Council decided Monday.The story's here.
The state auditor's office raises its eyebrows at a $3,824 trip by the Annapolis Water District Commissioners to gather information regarding sewage treatment systems......in Europe."We could find no mention in meeting minutes of any discussion on the decision to make the trip."the state audit report…
An effort by the environmental group Futurewise and the Service Employees International Union to head off Tim Eyman's latest initiative has apparently failed.King County Superior Court Judge Catherine Shaffer this morning refused to halt the measure, Eyman said by phone shortly after the ruling.Opponents of…
Nine months after the conservative Evergreen Freedom Foundation filed a records request for notes and other documents from union contract negotiations with state officials, a judge has overruled union objections and ordered that the records be made public."These records are of interest to the citizens…
THIS DAY IN WASHINGTON HISTORY7/11/1889People living on the North Side of Spokane complained that unsupervised prisoners from chain gangs were roving around the city, bothering and frightening people. Some had roved so far that no one could find them.
Yes, a shipwreck is admittedly pretty far afield for what's supposed to be a political blog, but so many Northwesterners have memories of clambering around on the beached steamer SS Catala over the decades that I figured I'd post a recent story I did on…
As promised, Gov. Chris Gregoire is apparently in full pitchwoman mode on her trade mission to Mexico. She's touting the state's apples, cherries, wines, beef and other products at a Mexico City Costco today.A sampling from the schedule:11:25 a.m.: Starbucks promotion12:05 p.m.: Washington wine promotion…
From the governor's press office a few minutes ago:Governor Chris Gregoire today proclaimed July 9, 2007 as Aeroméxico Day in honor of the new direct flight from Seattle to Mexico City. Governor Gregoire departed today with a delegation of Washington business, agriculture and education representatives…
The Coeur d'Alene Tribe's push to replace the word "squaw" with modern, less-controversial names on Washington's maps has been stalled by a tussle over a new name for the Whitman County community of Squaw Canyon.The word "squaw," tribal members and their supporters say, is a…
The state Department of Corrections has released its much-awaited "preliminary list" of counties that aren't getting their share of work-release prisoners, or, in DOC's wording, that "have an unmet need for additional work-release facilities."The counties, or groups of counties, are:-Chelan/Douglas/Kittitas-Clark/Skamania-Grays Harbor/Mason-Lewis-SnohomishThe list stems from a…
.ʇxǝʇ ɹnoʎ sdı1ɟ ʇɐɥʇ ǝʇısqǝʍ ɐ ɹoɟ ǝɹǝɥ ʞɔı1ɔ(The link gets you to a website that inverts any text you type in. You can then cut and paste the upside-down text into documents, websites, etc.)
At Crosscut, Knute Berger has an outstanding description of -- if not explanation for -- Seattle's peculiar distaste for the sorts of confrontational politics and that much of the rest of the country considers simply the noisy foundry of policy-making.From the column:"An online critic recently…
Oh, where to begin...How about with MTV's roundup of actual darkhorse presidential candidates, the slate of which is summed up well by the article's headline:'Star Trek' Extra, Fascist, Horseshoer, Dark Priest: The Other Presidential CandidatesAmong the contenders:From the "Vampires, Witches, and Pagans Party," we have…