History, politics, people of Oly WA

Month: August 2008 (Page 2 of 3)

Election day China thoughts

Other than some early morning soccer games, I watched the first night of Olympics last night, pushing these thoughts to the front.

From one of the best political books I’ve read:

For those concerned about democracy and freedom in our world, there is no more important place than China. …A decisive step by China onto the road to democracy would by itself — in population terms — be no less significant than each of the previous “waves” of global democratization. Indeed, it might well bring many of the remaining dictatorships in the world through to democracy.

From President George W. Bush’s second inaugural:

The survival of liberty in our land increasingly depends on the success of liberty in other lands. The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world.

Sigh.

Oh, that Pam Pugel!

Joe Nilsson, via email:

Folks,

I’m sure many have seen the BIAW front group’s anti-Christine ads focused on transportation. They feature a woman, identified as Pam Pugel, talking about living on a tight budget and slamming the Governor on taxes and transportation.

All is not as it seems. Googling Mrs. Pugel and a little net surfing reveal she is a Republican PCO who lives in a $935,000 Mercer Island home. Her husband works for a high end construction outfit and she works for a Texas based military supply company. She also provides a web testimonial for her tennis coach – I don’t think she clips coupons.

I share this as an FYI and in case anyone wishes to pen letters to the editor to the Times, P-I, TNT, or Olympian.

In Solidarity,
Joe Nilsson

Her work in the defense industry

On citizen journalism and this blog

Chill out indeed:

Do you make any effort whatsoever to gather facts before you make statements, or do you just type whatever pops into your head? Because the leaders of the opponents to the rezone, people like Bonnie Jacobs, Bob Jacobs, Thad Curtz, Barbara Gooding, etc., were certainly not participants in the Port protests. There’s very little overlap between resistance to the “rezone for sale” of the isthmus, and Oly PMR. It just astonishes me that you would write something so ridiculous, that has no basis in fact. So much for citizen journalism.

Good point that none of the actual leaders of the “don’t wall” groups where down at the protests, but dude, chill.

Its still my opinion that we’re riding a wave of emotion in Olympia, pitting the people who supported the protests, to those who didn’t.

And, this blog isn’t for any sort of citizen journalism stuff, I never claimed that. I do try to do that sort of stuff at Olyblog.

So called “frivolous” lawsuit upheld by State Supreme Court

Hey, R. Scott, frivolous (and here, here) lawsuits don’t get upheld by the State Supreme Court (even partially):

We affirm the Court of Appeals in part and reverse in part. We hold a party may challenge a county’s failures to revise aspects of a comprehensive plan that are directly affected by new or recently amended GMA provisions if a petition is filed within 60 days after publication of the county’s seven year update. We hold a party may challenge a county’s failure to revise its UGA designations following a 10 year update only if there is a different OFM population projection for the county. We reverse the Court of Appeals’ holding that a county must identify and justify the use of a land market supply factor in its comprehensive plan. We remand the case to the Board to determine whether a land market supply factor was used and whether, Thurston County v. W. Wash. Growth Mgmt. Hearings Bd., No. 80115-1 based on local circumstances, the County’s UGA designations were clearly erroneous. We reverse the Court of Appeals’ ruling that densities greater than one dwelling unit per five acres cannot be considered in determining whether a comprehensive plan provides for a variety of rural densities. We remand the case to the Board to consider whether the various densities identified by the County in the rural element and/or the use of innovative zoning techniques are sufficient to achieve a variety of rural densities.

So, the summarize:

The State Supreme Court mostly upheld the decision which seems to be the crux of the Tim Ford vs. Robin Hunt Appeals Court race (Hunt was on the appeals court that originally made the decision considered by the court).

R. Scott’s dumb argument, no matter how or how many times its copied, its still dumb.

The State Supreme Court’s email notification tool is freaking awesome.

Interesting Reading at Washington Independents blog

Not really sure what to make of this blog, other than its written by three pseudonyms and sometimes comes out with something interesting. Recently two posts on Gregoire, one on the race in general and another focusing on GMAP.

I was hoping to write two separate posts responding, but I couldn’t quite get my hands around the two pieces to respond, especially the GMAP one. I’m thinking there is more there for Motel Martin to say, but he just couldn’t get it out.

Anyway, good reading there lately.

RE: Political Parties Reap What They Sow

You can’t pull at the edges of our electoral system and not expect the voters to react:

The Republicans and the Democrats are also complaining about Initiative 872.

Well, that is just two bad for these political parties. They are now reaping what they sowed. They took away the right of the people to vote in a truly democratic manner, and now they complain and whine about the alternative chosen by those self-same voters. There is a movement in King County to make all county elected positions non-partisan. Hopefully, this effort will succeed, and another voter initiative will drive the authoritarian political parties out the door. The parties started this battle, and now the voters need to finish it. The voters need to make every state office, from the governor to the legislature, legally and publicly non-partisan.

From everything I’ve heard, the state parties have decided to continue to challenge the Top Two primary. By nominating our own candidates, we’re supposed to be able to show damages when those candidates don’t make it to the general election ballot.

If the courts then do strike down the Top Two, putting back the Montana Primary, the Grange has said they’re going after a true non-partisan system.

“they should be working to make all citizens more political”

Nafzblog writes about the flip side of the Monica Goodling effect:

In 1992, after the Clinton election, I flew to Washington D.C. with Governor Booth Gardner who met with four western governors to discuss cabinet posts with Clinton’s transition team. Cecil Andrus, Carter Interior Secretary and Governor of Idaho described his frustration in trying to set out a new direction for Interior upon Carter’s election. Every turn or change was thwarted and opposed by the internal bureaucrats. He skillfully laid out the need to root out the embedded Interior bureaucracy that had thrived under 12 years of Republican rule. Bush, facing the same problem after 8 years of Democratic rule met the same charge of “politicizing” government.

While Washington is considered by virtually every governing organization or magazine as one of the top three best managed states, Rossi has a point when he says the same people have ruled Washington’s state government for 25 years. As one of those Democratic insiders, I often wonder why new ideas and approaches are so easily ignored.

Much of the media and good government crowd have spent a lot of time trying to exorcise politics from governing. Instead, they should be working to make all citizens more political. Only through elections and politics is there ever any semblance of changes, creativity, checks and balances.

I wish there was more of a “lay all the cards on the table” sort of attitude towards politics. That, instead of avoiding it as a topic and trying to remove it because its an uncomfortable topic, accept it because it is an important topic. Accept others’ ideas and don’t let them become enemies because you disagree with them.

Except they don’t explain WHY the builders are going after Robin Hunt

So, the Olympian points out builders money going into the Appeals Court races between Robin Hunt and Tim Ford (whose signs look a lot like John McCain’s, btw).

The three cases that the builders are trying to highlight have nothing to do with their typical common refrain of environmental protections being overboard. They’re a public disclosure case, one dealing with a sex predator and another condemnation case (well, I guess that might be close to their wheelhouse).

But, its safe to say that the builders don’t go after a judge because she ruled badly on cases involving public disclosure. They do go after a judge if she ruled on the wrong side of a case involving Thurston County’s comprehensive plan, which governs where people can build things.

From the builders’ perspective, she did (here’s the ruling).

Local conserverative blogger R. Scott has already tried to tie the case to county commision candidate Sandra Romero, who is a board member of the organization that filed the suit. He says that while defending the case that they eventually lost because of Hunt’s ruling, the county spent $1.5 million therby putting the county in deficit.

It isn’t enough for them to go after the person who filed suit against bad growth rules, they’re going after the judge who said the rules were bad.

Washington Land Use Law Blog: Thurston County v. WWGMHB
Oly Master Builders: Futurewise vs. Thurston County Ruling

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