The most important article I have read in the Seattle times this year. Copied here to to avoid losing it to the archives…
By David Heath and Hal Bernton
Seattle Times staff reporters
(more…)
A Canadian woman has given birth to extremely rare identical quadruplets.
The four girls were born at a US hospital because there was no space available at Canadian neonatal intensive care units.
Yay socialized medicine!
Via Adventures in Smarshland, a great paper titled “Libertarian Paternalism is not an Oxymoron.” Read it. Lets discuss it.
QUESTION: In 1982, Anwar Sadat traveled to Israel, a trip that resulted in a peace agreement that has lasted ever since.
In the spirit of that type of bold leadership, would you be willing to meet separately, without precondition, during the first year of your administration, in Washington or anywhere else, with the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba and North Korea, in order to bridge the gap that divides our countries?
COOPER: I should also point out that Stephen is in the crowd tonight. Senator Obama?
“I think that it is a disgrace that we have not spoken to them (the leaders of Iran, Syria, Venezuela, Cuba, and North Korea)”OBAMA: I would. And the reason is this, that the notion that somehow not talking to countries is punishment to them — which has been the guiding diplomatic principle of this administration — is ridiculous.
Now, Ronald Reagan and Democratic presidents like JFK constantly spoke to Soviet Union at a time when Ronald Reagan called them an evil empire. And the reason is because they understood that we may not trust them and they may pose an extraordinary danger to this country, but we had the obligation to find areas where we can potentially move forward.
And I think that it is a disgrace that we have not spoken to them. We’ve been talking about Iraq — one of the first things that I would do in terms of moving a diplomatic effort in the region forward is to send a signal that we need to talk to Iran and Syria because they’re going to have responsibilities if Iraq collapses.
QUESTION: Hey, I’m Mike Green from Lexington, South Carolina. And I was wanting to ask all the nominees whether they would send their kids to public school or private school.
“We need a little bit of competition in our system of education”GRAVEL: My children went to public school and private school, and I’m recommend that we need a little bit of competition in our system of education.
Right now, we have 30 percent of our children do not graduate from high school. That is abominable, and that is the problem of both parties.
QUESTION: Hi, I’m Stephanie. We’re in the Bay area, in my bathroom, because this is one of the places where I use compact fluorescent light bulbs. I use these to decrease my personal energy use, and I hear politicians talking about alternative energy to delay — to decrease our energy impact as a whole.
So my question for you is, how is the United States going to decrease its energy consumption in the first place? In other words, how will your policies influence Americans, rather than just using special light bulbs, to do this?
COOPER: Senator Gravel, how do you get Americans to conserve?
“A fair tax where people are taxed on what they spend rather than what they earn… that’s the most significant thing we can do to alter climate change”GRAVEL: Very simple, change our tax structure. Have a fair tax where people are taxed on what they spend rather than what they earn. And our tax system is totally corrupt right now.
And so if we now have a retail sales tax, you’ll take this nation of ours from a consuming nation to a savings nation.
And that’s the most significant thing we can do to alter climate change.
Chip… Chip… Chip away at our rights, until none are left.
When Republicans worry more about staying in government than about limiting government, they get thrown out of government.
When I bike to campus and back, I don’t wear a helmet. This is a conscious choice — I’m aware of the risks and I own a helmet. But I like the freedom of riding without a helmet. Helmets feel stifling, and I probably wouldn’t bike much if I actually had to wear one. This was the one thing I thought I liked about Seattle — my understanding until recently was that although King County had an ordinance requiring helmets, Seattle had an exemption. I thought that was just grand, and often wished that my hometown, Bellevue, would have also exempted the city limits. However, I just learned that in 2003, Seattle made bicycle helmets mandatory. So, officially, there is no longer anything for me to like about Seattle. That is unfortunate.
More unfortunate is the UW’s new campus safety campaign, “Look Up!” I ride a bike for convenience — so when the UW implements new rules that make biking to class less convenient, that makes me unhappy, and, honestly, less liekly to bike at all. They claim it is for safety — but I have never hit or endangered anyone on campus, and I only rarely endanger my own life while biking around campus. Let me state for the record that I would not be opposed to a fine or some other punishment for running into somebody. What I am opposed to is being punished for what someone else may (or may not) have done at some point in the past. When I bike I am conscious of others, and I avoid hitting them — I think that is all I should be required to do.
Instead, I am now told I will have to frequently dismount at certain places on campus (”whenever pedestrians are present,” which means always), I am supposed to yield to all pedestrians and motor vehicles (except when a signal gives me a right-of-way [ie, the driver waving me by isn't good enough]), and am given the clear message that there is no speed limit, but that “any speed deemed unreasonable is a violation.” Who decides what is unreasonable? It’s all a bunch of crap that makes riding less enjoyable. Basically, it is going to suck to ride bikes around campus for a while, until they forget about this or I find out if its easy to ride away from cops — or if its not easy, until I end up in University Jail, or wherever they put violators.
Now get this. On the next page of the pamphlet where I read the announcement of screwing-over-all-bicyclists, I read about a program designed to get more people to ride to campus, called “Ride in the Rain.” They have a competition about who rides to campus more (I ride every day), with prizes and a party at the end of the rainy season to encourage riding. Well I have some advice for these people-in-charge: maybe if you didn’t make it so inconvenient to ride, more people would ride to campus of their own accord, and you wouldn’t need a whole office full of people consuming my money to encourage me. And people wonder why education costs keep going up.