Haq sentenced

SEATTLE — A judge has sentenced Naveed Haq to life in prison without release on his convictions for killing one woman and wounding five others in a rampage at a Seattle Jewish Federation office.

Mental illness impaired Naveed Haq's judgment but not seriously, Judge Paris Kallas said.

"Mr. Haq understood his plan, knew it was wrong, and carried it out anyway," she said.

Good enough.

In theory death would be better justice, but in practice a "death sentence" is just a vastly more expensive life sentence. At least the insanity defense didn't work this time.

= = = = =

Semi-related: Wash Gov Gregoire has proposed a new law that would allow the Scottish verdict of "guilty AND insane" instead of the traditional "innocent by reason of insanity." The distinction is more than semantic: when the defendant is defined as innocent he still has "rights" and can't be properly and fully restrained.

This proposal results directly from the Phillip Paul escape last summer. Paul, who had killed an old lady on the commands of his delusional voices, was "innocent by insanity", thus entitled to go on field trips. After careful planning (including sexual bribes to a male guard) he escaped during one of these field trips. Gov Gregoire was correctly enraged by this fiasco, and (totally unlike the Federal response to fiascos) she actually fired the people responsible. Later she introduced new regulations for the state insane asylums, and now she wants to change the basic law.

DAMNED GOOD governance by a DAMNED GOOD governor. I very rarely admire or respect leaders, but I confess to absolutely admiring Gregoire. She has the same "lioness" quality as Maggie Thatcher: the ferocious mother ready to claw and bite through all obstacles to protect the people of her state.
  ¶ 11:21 AM

  Rare bit of truth
On CNN just now, Evan Thomas said: "California is locked-up and ungovernable."

The host tried to dismiss him with a chuckle, but it's the plain truth. Same for our federal government. Frozen in place, incapable of taking the obvious steps to fix the problem, only able to spend more more more more more more more more more more more imaginary "money".

Most of the states are still functioning, but Calif and USA have already collapsed.

= = = = =

Washington state is an outstanding example of a still-functioning state. We're looking at a small deficit; small because Gov Gregoire has been cautious and frugal while maintaining a fairly liberal set of social programs and a tolerable level of taxation. Yesterday Gregoire gave a speech defining what the state and the people must do now, to minimize the deficit and survive the mess.

Video here.

A few highlights:

"What we're doing today is a representation of this Washington. And this Washington has passed these bills in a bipartisan way. ... We're determined that we're going to end up in the black. We still have a rainy day fund, that we've not touched, that's got about $430 million in it. That's very good news. Most states that are struggling don't have any additional resource to tap. We do."

California, Kansas, and other states with incompetent or insane governors really need to study Christine Gregoire. This is how a perfectly competent governor works.
  ¶ 9:37 AM

  Slow going
Been 'under the weather' in a literal sense. Trudging through snow to the grocery store, shoveling walks, raking the roof, and trying to break up ice dams, have sapped my physical and mental energy. No spare neurons available. Good old cabin fever!

One interesting item: It appears that Wash Gov Gregoire is being vetted for an Obama cabinet appointment. Polistra has observed before that Gregoire has a unique talent for handling emergencies, and would be a great FEMA director. News conference expected tomorrow, so we shall see.

= = = = =

Later: Apparently the Gregoire rumors were unfounded. She's staying on as Governor. This is good for the state, though it would be interesting to see her in a national position.
  ¶ 10:28 AM

  Where is Gary Locke now?
Locke, who is half Chinese, was governor of Wash in the '90s. He did a pretty decent job, but clearly didn't like politics and seemed happy to get out. His first replacement was Christine Gregoire, who did an excellent job and also seemed happy to get the hell out. She was replaced by Superdemon Inslee, who LOVES ruining and burning and harming and KILLING AND KILLING AND KILLING.

Gregoire vs Inslee is a perfect comparison. Gregoire was a specialist in handling emergencies and saving lives. Inslee is a specialist in CREATING emergencies and KILLING AND KILLING AND KILLING.

Politics doesn't exist. Ideology doesn't exist. Personality is the only thing that counts.

I've halfway wondered what happened to Locke. Wolf fills it in today:

AMC ended Friday in afterhours trading at $43.72. So Locke had timed his sale very well.

Locke knew what he was doing. The former Governor of Washington State served as Ambassador to China from 2011-2014, the time frame during which Dalian Wanda Group, a Chinese conglomerate, bought a controlling stake in AMC. And Locke became Wanda’s man inside AMC in 2016. But he is up for reelection next month, and with Wanda out of the picture – it had sold nearly its entire stake earlier this year – he is likely outa there.

In other words, Locke found a home in the classic Chinese form of corruption, betting and gambling. Chinese immigrants have never been prominent in political corruption, even in cities like Seattle where they dominate everything else.
  ¶ 10:37 PM

  Gregoire the realist
Wash gov Gregoire has guts. Faced with the unbreakable need to cut spending, she's made some extremely hard choices.

Eliminate the Basic Health program

Consolidate and eliminate many state agencies

Cut food stamps drastically

Stop automatic rises in pensions

Cut deep in education:

— About $1.1 billion would be saved by not paying for two voter-backed education initiatives for class size reduction and teacher pay.

— Another $1 billion would be saved by cutting college scholarship programs and outreach to future college students from underserved communities.

— The lack of investment in education reform would save an estimated $600 million.

— Another $99.5 million would be saved by suspending annual bonuses for National Board-certified teachers.

— State support for higher education would be cut by $344.7 million, but most of those losses would be offset by major tuition increases and scholarship money.

Slashing education is especially gutsy for a Democrat politician, unless you think in terms of the dog-bowl rule. By that rule, only a Dem politician can cut education.



Polistra's law of dog-bowls: Politicians are like two dogs with two food bowls, or two babies with two toys. Each party only wants the voters and lobbyists in the other party's bowl. Repooflicans get no money from lawyers, but they want money from lawyers, so they never try tort reform. Repooflicans get no votes from blacks and Mexicans, but they want votes from blacks and Mexicans, so they suck up to blacks and Mexicans while neglecting whites.

= = = = =

Aside from speculation about motive, Gregoire's cuts will be good in the long run.

Less education money will lead to better education.

The state cuts will ripple downward, and local schools will have to make their own hard choices. At some point they will run out of teachers to fire, and they will grudgingly have to cut one or two administrators because there won't be any alternative. Some districts may even decide to disobey Federal mandates because Federal mandates cost more than they bring in. And when that decision happens, education will finally begin to improve.

More broadly, the state will now be in a better position to attract business because its regulators will be weaker and less able to squash any sign of incipient life.

But this won't last long unless the underlying Nazi environmental laws are repealed. As soon as the moment of maximum crisis has passed, the fascist bureaucrats will resume their tumorous multiplication and resume sucking the state's blood.
  ¶ 7:17 AM

  Gregoire decides not to run
Wash gov Gregoire is retiring after this term. Can't blame her; this is a completely insane time to be in politics.

I don't see an adequate replacement. Likely candidates are current AG Rod McKenna and Congresscritter Jay Inslee. Both are sort of wispy and watery in comparison to Iron Lioness Gregoire.
  ¶ 12:17 PM

  BBC on Gregoire
BBC runs an excellent feature on Wash Gov Gregoire today. The interview brings out her best qualities.

As I've observed many times here, Gregoire is a lioness protecting the people of her state. When economic or natural disasters threaten, she's at the front fighting. Though I disagree with her on several ideological points, I have to acknowledge that she's the sanest and strongest politician in this unfortunate country.
  ¶ 5:21 PM

  The Emperor visits
Emperor Vicente is visiting Washington and Oregon today, in an attempt to keep the local Governors-General firmly in line.

Good coverage here.

One line from that story catches the basic elite misunderstanding of the problem:

"Some say all the talk of immigration reform misses the biggest point: without economic reform in Mexico, any attempts at a border crackdown could be futile."

Some may say that, but it's precisely backwards. The best reason for tightening the border is that the current setup gives Mexico no reason to reform. With tighter borders to the north, Mexico will have to rely more on its own resources, which are potentially tremendous.

One basic rule works equally for individual humans or countries: You won't get better behavior until you remove welfare. This applies to a ghetto gangster relying on his harem's monthly checks; it applies to Arab countries where oil money is so abundant that nobody actually needs to work; and it applies to Mexico where remittances from Norteamericano employment keep a corrupt system afloat.

-----

One official who won't receive a visit from the Emperor is the sheriff of Umatilla County in Oregon, who has sent a $300K invoice to the Emperor for the costs of imprisoning illegal immigrants.

-----

Update:

Emperor Vicente and Wash Gov Christine Gregoire had a little speechy lovefest event in an orchard in Yakima. Gregoire sounds exactly like Viceroy Jorge ... not surprising since they're both liberals ... but with one exception. Gregoire, to her credit, asked the Emperor for a favor: relief from a Mexican import tariff on apples, since almost everyone involved in producing the apples is Mexican anyway. (Funny, I thought NAFTA was supposed to eliminate tariffs. I guess it only eliminates tariffs that benefit the colony, not those that favor the motherland.)

The Emperor refused to grant the favor, saying instead that the Mexican orchardists in Washington should talk with the Mexican orchardists in Mexico.
  ¶ 8:45 AM

  Extry, extry, read almost nothing about it!
In the stupid Election Contest hearing for Washington governor, Judge Bridges has ruled that the election stands, and Thief-In-Chief Gregoire remains as Governor.

Good.

His main point: Dems actually showed that a few of the illegal votes went to Rossi; Reps did not actually show that any illegal votes went to Gregoire.

Overall, I'd rather have Judge Bridges as governor than either of these two candidates. He is calm, rigorous, humorous, and deeply commonsensical.

The decision will, of course, be reviewed by the State Supremes, who are also surprisingly commonsensical folks.

I've said it before and I'll say it again: follow John Fund. "If it ain't close, they can't cheat." Republicans have to win by winning, not by manipulation. Leave the sneaky stuff and the court action to The Party, which knows how to do it. Most people know the difference between honest winning and manipulation; if both sides are seen as equally sneaky, there's simply no point in having two parties.

Unfortunately, the state Republican 'party' has now wasted 1/8 of Gregoire's term with this idiocy; during this time she has taken full advantage of opposition distraction to pass lots of bad legislation.
  ¶ 9:50 AM

  Sometimes I wonder ...
Chuck's rule usually works to defeat idiots.

Chuck was a colleague of mine at DeVry in Kansas City. Chuck was an old Army tech sergeant with a lot of old Army stories, and he loved to tell them. He'd pull up a chair; plant it carefully to block me into my desk space; pull out an unfiltered Pall Mall; tap it on his wristwatch until it was so round, so firm, so fully packed; pull out his lifetime-guaranteed Zippo; fire up the unfiltered Pall Mall; and then start the stories.

All of Chuck's stories had the same plotline. Some pencil-necked second lieutenant was making trouble for the men by requiring them to follow some idiotic procedure that would cause utter chaos if truly implemented. Chuck and the men tried to keep things working while mollifying the pencil-necked 2Lt, but finally Chuck rebelled.

"So I sez Ho Kay. We'll do it your way."

And the men would then do exactly what the pencil-necked 2Lt wanted, utter chaos would ensue, and the pencil-necked 2Lt would back off.

So now I sez: Why do the brand-R politicians insist on doing things their own way? They only differ with brand-D on a few minor points, which don't nearly justify all the team cheering and jeering. If all brand-R politicians declared themselves to be Democrats, the most intransigent elements of our system would be flummoxed. The pencil-necked bureaucrats who love to make rules favoring one party would lose all their fun. The arrogant union leaders who rebel at everything with the R label would have to distinguish more carefully. The media on both sides would be unable to automatically pick their Good Guys and Bad Guys by label; they'd have to ask real questions and think consistently about real ideology.

Why do I sez it just now? Because Wash gov Gregoire has already extracted bigger concessions from the teachers union than the concessions proposed by Wisc gov Walker. The unions grudgingly but quietly went along with the cuts in benefits here because Gregoire wears the D. The unions are causing mass revolt in Wisc, over a smaller set of cuts, because Walker wears the R.
  ¶ 1:02 PM

  Quiet semantic secession
Continuing the theme of oddness in modern life. Here's a significant event that happened in Wash four years ago, which should have made a big splash. It didn't. It's also a PERFECT example of Semantic Secession. Snatching a good thing out of Satan's hands by changing its name and definition. Best of all, it WORKED!

From Seattle Times as pointed by GetReligion. The article is mainly about the success of Christian MediShare plans, and it's written in an unexpectedly positive style. Along the way it mentions a familiar evil figure who tried to create chaos as usual, but was stopped by an UNUSUAL event.

But critics of the groups, including Washington state Insurance Commissioner Mike Kreidler, say they’re concerned that health-care-sharing plans offer an illusion of insurance but none of the guarantees of regulation.

“The part that makes me apprehensive just thinking about consumer protection is who stands behind this if you’re making your payments,” Kreidler said. “They don’t have any way of knowing for sure that their bills will be covered.”

Kreidler issued a cease-and-desist order in 2011 to force Samaritan Ministries to stop operating in Washington state on the grounds that the group was acting as an unauthorized insurance company. Within days, however, the state Legislature passed a bill declaring the health-care ministry was not, in fact, insurance, and Gov. Chris Gregoire signed it into law.

Since then, 29 states have enacted similar safe-harbor laws declaring that the practices are protected and don’t qualify as health insurance that falls ­under regulatory authority.

Kreidler's part in this is normal and expected. Kreidler is a massively evil Inquisitor who goes to extreme lengths to destroy heretics. If he sees any speck of goodness in the world, he will try hard to EXTERMINATE EXTERMINATE EXTERMINATE it.

The legislature's part is NOT normal. Standing up to a monster with a 'D' on his shirt takes serious guts, and the state legislature is NOT gutsy. Especially when the opposing interests are lowly Untouchables like Christians. This may be the only case on record when the legislature showed courage.

Gregoire's part is closer to normal. She has plenty of guts, and she is eminently sane.

Again the oddest part of all is that the legislators didn't advertise their rare courage. A normal politician would naturally see Untouchables as icky, but he would also recognize that they are the majority of his constituents and a source of votes and money.

I checked the archives of the local "newspaper"; found that they had cheered Monster Kreidler's destructive act, but completely omitted the legislature's brave counterforce. Normal.
  ¶ 1:19 AM

  Snowed in
The Spokane area is basically out of commission this week because of heavy snow. Not up to Buffalo standards, but still tiresome. We normally get about 50 inches of snow in a winter, but it's normally spaced out evenly, two or three inches per week. Gives time to melt and shovel easily. This time we got a couple of big storms in a row, and the infrastructure isn't coping well.

Wash governor Christine Gregoire flew over the mountains to check things and plan a state-level emergency response. I must say, she is extremely good at this sort of thing. In other areas of governance she's competent enough: frugal, responsive to needs, no big ideas. But she truly knows how to handle an emergency. Knows how to avoid panic, how to explain things honestly and directly. One interesting thing she mentioned just now ... the Feds are entirely out of money for emergencies, told her the state was on its own. This isn't nationally known.

Gregoire would be a good choice for FEMA director under Hillary.
  ¶ 3:48 PM

  McKenna
Now that Gregoire is retiring as Wash gov, the likely candidates are current Congressman Inslee for brand-D and current state atty gen Rob McKenna for brand-R. Both are weak and slippery in comparison to the Iron Lioness Gregoire.

I've always been ... bemused? ... by McKenna. He reminds me of Calif cong Darrell Issa. Both are capable of being tough and unyielding, which is a good quality, but both always pick the oddest things to get tough about. Issa can doggedly pursue a bad witness in hearings on corruption, but his pursuit leads to an incomprehensible place.

Earlier, McKenna appeared to consider the "integrity" of the state's open-meetings law more important than the lives of people who were threatened by leftist activists. He pursued the case all the way up to the Supremes, successfully guaranteeing a complete loss of privacy by non-leftists.

Now McKenna is showing his oddness in a big way.

Rob McKenna became president of the National Association of Attorneys Generals, currently meeting in Chicago. McKenna has unveiled a nationwide campaign to crack down on human trafficking.

The initiative encourages attorneys general across the country to speak out against human trafficking and push for tougher punishments within their states.

WHAT? Is that really the most important problem we have? Does that really require the full attention of all state governments? As far as I can tell, it's only a problem in California, with Chinese and Filipino sweatshops. Not significant elsewhere.
  ¶ 5:16 PM

  Good news, sorta maybe halfway almost.
Long quote from an AP news article.

SPOKANE, Wash. - The Western states' era of massive dam construction -- which tamed rivers, swallowed towns, and created irrigated agriculture, cheap hydropower and environmental problems -- effectively ended in 1966 with the completion of Glen Canyon Dam.


But the region's booming population and growing fears about climate change have governments once again studying construction of dams to capture more winter rain and spring snowmelt for use in dry summer months.

"The West and the Northwest are increasing in population growth like never before," said John Redding, regional spokesman for the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation in Boise. "How do you quench the thirst of the hungry masses?"


Ironically, consideration of new dams comes even as older ones are being torn down across the country because of environmental concerns -- worries that will likely pose big obstacles to new construction. In Oregon, a deal has been struck to remove four dams on the Klamath River to restore struggling salmon runs.

There are lots of other ideas for increasing water supplies in the West. They include conservation, storing water in natural underground aquifers, pipelines to carry water from the mountains, desalination plants to make drinking water from the ocean, small dams to serve local areas.

Most of those ideas are much more popular than big new dams.

Washington's Democratic Gov. Christine Gregoire put together a coalition of business, government and environmental groups to create the Columbia River Management Plan, which calls for spending $200 million to study various proposals for finding more water for arid eastern Washington.

Jay Manning, director of the Washington state Department of Ecology, believes that huge new dams on the main stems of rivers are unlikely. But it is quite possible that tributaries will be dammed.

"It is inevitable we will take steps to increase water supply," Manning said. "Storage is part of that solution."

With demand for water already high, pressure is being increased by fears that climate change will produce rain instead of snow in winter, reducing the slow-melting snowpack that provides water in dry summer months.

Gregoire's plan drew the support of many environmentalists by including many ideas they prefer, including conservation measures and metering more uses of water.

But the state also is studying dams, drawing opposition from some environmentalists, particularly a group called the Center for Environmental Law and Policy.

"Our water future doesn't lie with new dams," said Dr. John Osborn, a Spokane physician and chairman of the Sierra Club chapter in Spokane. "It's water conservation."

Three notes:

1. This could be a good thing if the NET number of dams actually increases.... if the construction to serve humans outpaces the terrorism to serve salmon. (Terrorism? Yes. Breaching dams is an act of war, whether it's done by an enemy power speaking a foreign language or by "our own" government. The worst irony of all is that we have National Guard personnel guarding dams against breaching by foreign-language-speaking terrorists. What are the soldiers supposed to do when the dam is bombed by "our own" government?)

2. The article makes no mention of adding generators to the new dams. I assume this is because hydropower has been defined by the Earth Goddess as "non-renewable", in order to guarantee our continued dependence on "clean and renewable" Russian and Venezuelan oil.

3. Note the dateline is Spokane, even though none of the major players are in Spokane. The article is discussing plans made by four state governments, and Spokane is not the capital of any of them. Hmmmmmmm. Wonder who the AP reporter was talking to? Wonder why the reporter was writing the article in Spokane? Can't begin to guess. Total mystery.
  ¶ 9:07 AM

  4loko ban worked.
Last November I noted:

For example, this year Spokane has suffered a dramatic sequence of berserk driving. Every two weeks or so, a young dickhead zooms off a curve and smashes into a house or power pole at 100 MPH. Previously this happened twice a year, not twice a month. Several of these crashes were known to involve 4loko.

After a whole party of college kids got close to death, Wash gov Gregoire decided to ban the product. A similar event happened in North Carolina.

I hadn't thought about the subject until today. (Writing about a subject tends to clear it from memory.)

During a small thunderstorm this afternoon, a lightning flash made the power blink for a moment. This got me thinking: What happened to all those outages last year? Despite lots of wind, snow, Donnergraupel, and other nasty stuff, there hasn't been a real outage in 2011, because no dickheads have flown into poles in 2011!

I'd say the 4loko ban has worked admirably. Saved lots of expense for homeowners and utilities, probably saved a few dickhead lives. Good for Gregoire!

A few minutes later: Turns out the power blink here echoed a major outage in the downtown area, which was sort of storm-related but not lightning. A wind gust blew a trampoline from a yard onto the main transformers at Avista, shorting out a large part of town.
  ¶ 4:43 PM

  Language update for Feb


Professor Polistra has gathered a pretty good load of verbal ratshit for this season's Language Update.

= = = = =

Curating:

Formerly just museums, now suddenly applies to any type of organizing or collecting activity.

"One big benefit of curating your Facebook feed..."

"Absolut Soni explores the past 20 years with curating space with mixed media installations from audio-visual to sculptures and couture..."

"Although we'd like to think that nothing genuine can come from curating a bevy of social media platforms..."

= = = = =

BCE / CE:

Secular tyrants have taken this up with a vengeance lately.

"The earthquake happened in 529 BCE. That means Before The Common Era."

They always specify what BCE means, so that we unwashed unenlightened unprogressive religious yahoos can perhaps gain a slight vague glimmering of the Enlightened Progressive Secular Scientific Gift that has been bestowed upon our lowly undeserving ears.

YOU AGGRESSIVE CONDESCENDING MOTHERFUCKING SCHOOLYARD BULLIES, WE ALREADY KNOW PERFECTLY FUCKING WELL WHAT BCE MEANS. BCE MEANS "I'M A HIGH PRIEST WITH MANY GRADUATE DEGREES, AND YOU'RE A DUMB FUCKING IGNORANT LOSER." LISTEN, ASSHOLES, IF YOU ACTUALLY WANTED TO COMMUNICATE FACTS TO US, YOU WOULD SPEAK NORMAL FUCKING ENGLISH. IN NORMAL FUCKING ENGLISH, THE TWO ERAS ARE CALLED BC AND AD, NOT BCE AND CE.

These monsters smash civilization with every single fucking toxic nasty filthy word they utter, and then they wonder why HUMANS fail to respect them.

Tumbril time, citoyens.

= = = = =

Contextualize:

100% Pure buzzword. Zero calories, zero semantics.


"But those fires were in the forests of south-east Australia – nowhere near the savannahs of northern Australia where you propose introducing elephants. We had to contextualise."

"The post has been expanded to better contextualize Sen. Jeff Sessions’ remarks."

"As for Mr. Payne, he responded curtly when asked about Searchlight’s shifting strategy this week. 'Ask the studio,' he said. 'I just make them. I don’t contextualize them.'"

"In that way, we can all reap the privilege of being able to contextualize ourselves through life’s toughest hurdles."

= = = = =

Personal Journey / Evolve:

Another name for re-education, another name for Room 101. The end of every Personal Journey is I Love Die-Versity, I Love Fag Marriage, I Love Free Trade, I Love Open Borders. Not one iota of thought remains in my vacuum-packed brain after my Personal Journey. My vacuum-packed brain functions only to receive and implement today's Official Diktat from every single program on my Official Cable TV Telescreen.

The endpoint of Evolving is the same. Humans are rapidly Evolving in the direction of total chaos and destruction of our species. Darwinists should be protesting loudly at the abuse of Evolving to mean Eliminating reproduction, but they won't protest because they are not really Darwinists at all. They're just bloodsucking Death Fetishists like the rest of the mass-slaughtering ruling class.

One question to you Commie fuckheads: If you're really Darwinists, how come you believe that your own personal belief set as of this millisecond is the ultimate absolute final conclusive goal of all conceivable evolution? And if you look back to, say, last year, you also felt that your own personal belief set as of that millisecond was the ultimate absolute final conclusive goal of all conceivable evolution. No further progress was possible. What happens if your personal belief set, rigidly obeying the commands of your 500-foot plasma telescreen, adopts a different belief next week? Since this week's belief is the ultimate, does that mean next week's belief is impossible?

Classic example of both from Gov Gregoire:

Governor Chris Gregoire of Washington wishes she'd supported marriage equality for gays and lesbians years ago -- and she hopes President Obama evolves in his thinking soon. But she respects the president’s “personal journey” and asked people to “give him the time” to see it through.

= = = = =

Tri-Yoka:

Probably unique, but worth recording and watching because pronunciations spread through the elite. The latest futile effort to keep Greece enslaved by the monstrous EU conspiracy is run by EU itself, IMF and Euro Central Bank. This Gang Of Three calls itself the Troika for some reason. One commentator on Bloomberg this morning pronounced it "Tri-Yoka", which is accidentally appropriate. Troika literally means a sled or vehicle pulled by a yoke of three horses.

= = = = =

Labels: Language update

  ¶ 4:52 AM

  Fiery Spokane
A surprise windstorm slapped eastern Washington yesterday. Started a number of fires across the state, including one in the eastern suburbs of Spokane. At this point it's mostly controlled, after destroying a square mile of land and a dozen expensive houses.

The fire started at 5 PM, exploded into danger at 5:30. By 9:30 PM Gov Gregoire had flown into town to coordinate the emergency effort with state agencies. As I've noted before, she is a solid executive and an absolute champion in emergencies.

In a sane country, a highly competent governor like Gregoire would be the automatic brand-D candidate for President. Since this is not a sane country, we're stuck with incompetent treasonous Senators on both sides of the "election".

KREM TV has excellent videos, including one eerie shot of broken natural-gas lines forming torches that mark the location of flattened houses.
  ¶ 9:31 AM

  It's always the delta
The Repooflican brand has exactly one Prime Directive: Zero Tax Is The Purpose And Meaning Of Life. Zero Tax Means Infinite Revenue.

Of course that's nonsense. In certain circumstances a cut can bring in a burst of revenue, but it's the delta that matters, not the rate itself. As with every aspect of life, steady-state sensations are adapted to zero, and only changes are salient.

The same is true with regulations, as Wash State found out with a pleasant surprise.

An amnesty program for Washington businesses with overdue taxes has brought in a surge of funds that far surpassed state expectations.

Gov. Chris Gregoire said Tuesday that the three-month program brought in $263 million for the state. That's about 10 times the amount that officials had initially projected. Gregoire says more than 10,000 businesses applied to pay their back taxes while waiving any penalties and interest. This included unregistered businesses that the state may not have ever identified.

The amnesty program also brought in $57 million for local jurisdictions.

And that ain't peanuts. The state is trying to close a $5 billion deficit, and an extra $200 million is a big part of that number.
  ¶ 6:17 AM

  Wash Gov recount case
Just for variety, I'm going to live-blog the Wash Gov election recount case, now being shown on state public-access cable TV. The Repub party is asking for a new election. This will be shorthand-ish.

---------

Opening statement by Repub lawyer:

Each recount increased Gregoire share in King dramaticaly
Orig: Greg 59.
1st recount: Greg 59 -> 63
2nd rec: Greg 63 -> 66

"This is not sloppy, this is a case of election fraud by the upper management of
King county elections."

[Objection by Dem: overruled]

Even before the election, Nicole Way[sp?}, official in charge of mail ballots wrote an email to her supervisor, saying that the computer system (nicely named DIMS) was not working in any respect. None of its reports agreed with reality.

King County counted 875 more absentee ballots than absentee voters. That is enough by itself to overturn.

After the election, Way and her boss agreed knowingly to send a false report. "We discussed how to fill out this report because we didn't have an accurate count of ballots returned." So they added in a fake number.

Good phrase: "This election was stolen by a bizarre combination of illegal voters and bungling bureaucrats"

Hundreds of provisional ballots went unchecked: they were supposed to be placed in a separate box where officials could later verify them, but instead the voters just stuck them directly in the regular box, where they were counted normally.

Showed specifics of several dead voters, and several who voted both here and in Calif.

King cty has admitted that it allowed 785 provisional votes to be directly cast. About 400 more are known but not officially admitted. Total 1155. We will prove all of these are illegal, but not that all were just shoved into machine.

Law requires county auditors to keep paper trail on absentee ballots: Number received must equal number counted + number rejected. King submitted a report which didn't do this.

Failing to track absentee is not just illegal, it opens the door for ballots to be removed or added before counting.

We will show that these removals and additions are not random.

The stats will show that in the precincts with highest Greg, more votes were counted than were cast; in the precincts with highest Rossi, fewer votes were counted than were cast.

Long discussion of why it's neither necessary nor possible to connect each vote to one voter; ballots are secret, which means that the law does not and cannot require such precise links to overturn an election.

Showing detailed court record of one felon, which concludes with "this defendant is not entitled to restoration of rights." He voted in King. "We have hundreds of records like this."

King has started (after the election!) to purge such records, and has already sent out 504 such letters of revocation, which shows that the invalid vote is not just by our say-so.

People must have faith in the election itself, must also have faith that the system, when informed of massive fraud, can adjust itself.

End opening statement by Repub lawyer.

-----

My comment: This guy is a good speaker and good explainer.

-----

Opening statement by Dem:

Your evidence about felon voting concentrates on King; felons also voted in other counties. We will show that even under petitioner's unsound statistical inference model, Greg won.

"Election contests should not follow close elections".

[My comment: Tell that to Al Gore, please.]

Law requires contest to show that errors *did* change result, not that *could* change result.

Why didn't R actually count those irregular absentee ballots? They're still sitting in a warehouse.

R can give no evidence of how each individual vote was voted.

R relying on sweeping allegations, not specific proof.

We will bring in actual voters to testify; R didn't depose any voters, observers, precinct workers, etc.

R didn't make discovery: didn't deliver list of illegal voters to D, which is required by law before introducing them into court.

We will disprove the method of statistical inference, and show that even if the method were good, if applied to all counties it would show no change in vote results.

Cites one specific felon who was interviewed: though he lived in a precinct that would have been presumed Dem, he showed us his Republican party membership card, and records of his campaign contributions to Rossi. Though we can't see his ballot, this seems like a better method of inference than just location.

We will show illegal voting in all counties, not just King; the illegalities in R counties more than balance the King irregularities.

Lists a set of irregularities that occur in every election. [My comment: True, but irrelevant; vast majority of elections aren't close. Good argument for cleaning things up in general, which we might have been able to start doing if this distraction hadn't been forced.]

Just a numerical discrepancy in accounting for abs ballots is not sufficient evidence of fraud.

"At the end of the day, R has little more than the fact that King was struggling to implement a new computer system at the same time that it was managing the largest turnout in history."

End D opening statement.

-----

I've said before that the state R party shouldn't have played this game. Now I'm more convinced than ever. The case will most likely fail. If it fails, R party has been wasting its energy and publicity on this useless effort for many months, instead of pointing out Gregoire's bad agenda. She has been able to raise spending and taxes easily because the opposing party has been totally distracted. If the contest succeeds, the state will be thrown into doubt and turmoil. R should be the party of merit, free markets and laws by legislation. Let the Dems OWN gimmickry and rule-by-courts. Don't try to grab it from them!!!!!

  ¶ 9:33 AM

  Crackin' those ACORNs
While the national political mechanism collapses, states are carrying on in their usual fashion, which is sometimes pretty damn good. Here in Wash, the state is finally prosecuting the Communist-front group ACORN for voter fraud, which probably led to the election of brand-D Gregoire in 2004. Can't undo the election, but it's mighty satisfying to see a Leninist group get crunched.

ACORN has been causing nationwide mischief for 35 years, while rarely gaining publicity. It was founded as part of LBJ's welfare entitlement, to help organize welfare recipients into a private army for The Party. It has faded since Clinton phased out the entitlement, but it's still around and still making trouble.

From the Seattle Times:

Workers accused of concocting the biggest voter-registration-fraud scheme in state history said they were under pressure from the community-organizing group that hired them to sign up more voters, according to charging papers filed Thursday.

To boost their output, the defendants allegedly went to the downtown Seattle Public Library, where they filled out voter-registration forms using names they made up or found in phone books, newspapers and baby-naming books.

One defendant "said it was hard work making up all those cards," and another "said he would often sit at home, smoke marijuana and fill out cards," according to a probable-cause statement written by King County sheriff's Detective Christopher Johnson.

Prosecutors in King and Pierce counties filed felony charges Thursday against seven employees of ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, claiming they turned in more than 1,800 phony voter-registration forms, including an estimated 55 in Pierce County.

This is a good example of a phenomenon I've discussed before: each state has a permanent political culture, either honest or dishonest, totally uncorrelated with party affiliation. Wash is on the permanently honest side, which means that voter fraud by the Left gets harshly punished by a totally Dem state government.

I made this observation as I moved back and forth between Kansas and Oklahoma over the years. Kansas gradually shifted from R to D, and Okla shifted the other way, but Kansas remained culturally honest and Okla remained culturally dishonest. Such basic cultural factors are never mentioned, perhaps not understood, by the usual experts and commentators, even though they explain trends and behavior far better than "the issues" or ideology.
  ¶ 12:06 PM