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The latest battle over sound growth management practices and unchecked development in Snohomish County has just been launched with a full frontal assault against Snohomish County Council Chair, Dave Somers. According to this post from Jerry Cornfield on his "Petri Dish":

Developer Dave Barnett teamed up with powerful consultant Ron Dotzauer of Strategies 360 to mail a flier to homes and launch the Web site Keep Snohomish County Affordable. Both accuse County Council Chairman Dave Somers of backing urban sprawl by opposing high-density developments known as "fully contained communities."

At issue is Barnett's proposed 6,000+ home development he would insert into the rural country side around Lake Roesiger and a pending vote by the County Council that might establish a moratorium on accepting applications for these so called fully contained communities until further study can be done to determine their viability in the county.

[UPDATE - 09-17-08] - Barnett and Dotzauer strike again!
A new flyer (and update to their website) has been issued that claims Dave Somers supports Global Warming! What a joke. In the mailer, Dotzauer claims that FCCs promote "Green Building" but fails to address the concerns of eliminating thousands of trees and the amounts of green house gases that will be pumped into the atmosphere during the building process.

Give Dave a call (425 388-3411) and offer whatever support you can. Tell him the Left Shue sent you.

Cross posted atThe Left Shue

Imagine that you are a young woman; married, with five children. You are a staunch conservative with strong family values. One of your children has Down syndrome and another is 17, unmarried, and pregnant. Imagine also that you are the governor of a sparsely populated northern state which already requires a certain level of family disruption. Add to your plate the fact that you are being investigated for ethics violations and possible abuse of power (which could lead to your impeachment from office). Now imagine that your party's candidate for POTUS asks you to be his running mate and, if elected, serve just one heartbeat away from the most stress filled and demanding job in the world. What do you say? Hmmmm.

For those of you who have not seen this from the Seattle Times, I have taken Mr. Westneat to task just a bit over at my new gig.

Here's just a sampling of Baird's complaints:

"After all that extraordinary outrage directed at me, not one person has called me up and said 'Hey, Brian, it looks like you might have had a point after all,' " said Baird, in Denver for his party's national convention this week."

and there's this little gem:

""We ought to just say that it worked. People were understandably skeptical of the administration at the time. But we have to acknowledge reality. Do you stay with a political position because it's popular even if it doesn't square with the facts?""

As always, comments are always encouraged. In fact, I would very much like to know what the Washblog readers think about the "success" of "the surge."

Peace,
Chad (The Left) Shue

I have posted here on occasion about the darker side of human/civil rights concerns in Snohomish County. You can review some of these stories, here, here, and here. While I am admittedly tardy in bringing you this next story, I am proud to shine a light on some truly inspiring people and their effort to address these issues.

On an August evening in 2007 Snohomish County Councilman, Dave Somers, then Snohomish County Sheriff Rick Bart, and Community Activist (and my personal friend) Luis Moscoso convened a public meeting to discuss issues of diversity and minority community relations in Snohomish County. On June 2nd, the Snohomish County Citizens Committee for Human Rights presented the Snohomish County Council a proposed ordinance to create a Human Rights Commission that would be the first of its kind outside of Olympia.

More below the fold..........

A few weeks ago, in a totally off topic comment to a post on The Left Shue, I was contacted by a recruiter for the online venture Examiner.com. Laura Vecsey, a former sports writer for the Seattle PI and now content director for the newly created Seattle portal told me that she was interested in talking to me about posting on the site. She suggested that I take a look at what was there currently and that I would get an idea of what my potential role might be. It didn't take long.

Continue.........

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Cross poted from The Left Shue as an extended comment to both Lietta's and Arthur's recent posts concerning Peak Oil and Off Shore Drilling.

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Troubling news from Pew Research (as reported by the Associated Press):

Gas prices change views on energy
By H. JOSEF HEBERT

" WASHINGTON (AP) -- High gasoline prices have dramatically changed Americans' views on energy and the environment with more people now viewing oil drilling and new power plants as a greater priority than energy conservation than they did five months ago, according to a new survey.

The poll released Tuesday by the Pew Research Center shows nearly half of those surveyed -- or 47 percent -- now rate energy exploration, drilling and building new power plants as the top priority, compared with 35 percent who believed that five months ago..."

Even with all the emphasis on Global Climate Change and more experts willing to go on the record about Peak Oil it seems that the folks over at Big Oil seem to be winning the battle of the ad wars.

On Saturday morning Jason Osgood got up early and made the drive to Everett to give his very first "stump speech" as a Democratic candidate for Washington Secretary of State. His efforts were rewarded with the endorsement of the Snohomish County Democrats.

More below...

Originally posted here

Democracy for Snohomish County (DFSC) Vice-Chair and Peak Oil Advocate, Jackie Minchew, submitted the following letter (re-printed here at the request of the author) to the readership of the Everett Herald:

Published: Monday, June 2, 2008

"Since the first of the year, the price of crude oil has risen by more than 30 percent (after a 60 percent increase in 2007.) The question of how best to respond to this precipitous rise in energy costs is not a simple one. We could look for someone to blame, I suppose. (Big Oil? Congress?) There is surely some degree of market manipulation and exploitation taking place. But from an economic system that is driven by the twin demons of fear and greed, while completely lacking a moral compass to guide it, what should we expect?

More below the fold:

Cross-posted Here

So on Tuesday I came home to what I thought must have been a prank call on my answering machine. A man who identified himself as Rep. Rick Larsen (WA 2nd CD) left a message asking for my support at the upcoming 2nd CD "Nominating Convention" on Saturday. The reason I suspected a prank call was that most folks that know me, including (I assumed) Congressman Larsen know that, even if I were going to said convention, I certainly would not be voting to nominate Rick Larsen. In fact I had just voted against his endorsement at my 38th LD meeting on the previous Tuesday.

Then, today, I received an email from Congressman Larsen, via Brooke Davis at his re-election campaign, asking me again to attend the convention and vote to nominate him for his upcoming walk through election. I could not help but send Brooke/Rick some of my concerns:

"Brooke,

    We should all have Rick's job security. Odd isn't it that he fails to mention the single issue that holds this nation hostage to a failing economy and a generational debt that will be be a harsh burden for my children and my granddaughter. Rick's failure to take a strong leadership role (from his position on the Armed Forces Committee) to end our continuing occupation of Iraq; indeed his co-ownership of this travesty that he signed on to when he failed to support the only bill that has been offered to date to demand a draw down in American forces leaves me cold and resolute in my refusal to add my name in any way that might encourage support for him.

    Rick's refusal to support actions that would lead to the impeachment of George W Bush and Dick Cheney by claiming that he finds no evidence of lawlessness simply begs the question, "Which constitution did he swear an oath to protect?" The fact that he is even concerned about FISA is in direct realtionship to Bush's admission that he ordered warrentless wiretapping of American citizens. The fact that top administration officials devised and ordered specific torture techniques to be used against uncharged, untried, prisoners apparently is a justifiable violation of the Geneva Conventions and other international treaties to which the United States is a signee to Rep. Larsen.

    As I say, we should all have Rick's job security. He should be glad that he does not need my vote."

 And then, only moments later, the icing on the cake--- Below the fold

From Rick Perlstein at The Campaign for America's Future comes this acknowledgement of the passing of Mildred Loving;

"Mildred Loving was a black woman who married a white man in Virginia, which was against the law in the state. She took her case all the way up to the Supreme Court, which struck down interracial marriage bans in the 1967 Loving v. Virginia decision. Today it was announced that she has died at the age of 68. But what her AP obituary doesn't mention--hopefully others will correct the oversight--is that last year Mildred Loving came out foursquare for marriage equality for same-sex couples as well, and insisted you should, too."

Her statement from June 12, 2007 is below the fold:

The first review of David Sirota's new book, "The Uprising: An Unauthorized Tour of the Populist Revolt Scaring Wall Street and Washington" is in and it should come as no surprise that the news is good.

From Jerry Cornfield at The Petri Dish comes the story of Andrew Funk:

"Andrew Funk, who is studying accounting and business at Edmonds Community College, plans to run as a Republican against Rep. Marko Liias, D-Mukilteo.

Funk, 18, said he was getting discouraged that no one in the Grand Old Party stepped forward in the 21st Legislative District so he decided he would."

Oh the impetuous nature of Republican youth.

While I would never want to discourage the youth of today from becoming more involved in their communities and politics, there are more than just a couple of things wrong with this picture - not the least of which is the fact that Mr. Funk has chosen to challenge one of the true rising stars in the Democratic Party and the Washington State Legislature in Marko Liias.

More below the fold.......

So some five years and four thousand American troop deaths later, the New York Times has discovered more "Breaking News" about the invasion and occupation of Iraq. It seems that some of the talking heads, operating under the title of "Military Analyst" on our nightly news were actually mouth pieces for the Pentagon and the Bush Administration! OMG, I mean, WHO KNEW?

Originally posted here.  Brought to Washblog due to recent Washington State twist.

This morning I received the following email alert from "The Hill":

Pelosi to prevent Colombia vote

By Alexander Bolton
Posted: 04/09/08 11:56 AM [ET]

"House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) announced Wednesday that Democrats will use House rules to prevent a vote on the controversial Colombia free trade agreement.
Pelosi said Democrats decided in a closed-door caucus meeting Wednesday morning to vote on a rule this week to postpone consideration of the controversial trade deal..."

More below the fold......

Forty years ago today Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis Tennessee. Just the night before he was shot to death outside his motel room, he delivered a prophetic speech to a crowd of people who had come to hear him speak in support of striking sanitation workers in that city. Our good friend Luis Moscoso forwarded me a reminder of that speech ( "I've Been to the Mountain Top") yesterday. I have to admit that I needed the memory jolt. Not that I haven't been thinking about the current state of racism in our country.

In fact, not since the days of Richard Nixon and his so-called "Southern Strategy" has there been such overt reference to racism in a presidential election cycle. Under the convenient title of "Immigration Reform" the Republicans spent much of their early campaigns spewing their particular brand of racial venom that covered the bases from pitting blacks against browns in the battle for jobs to equating Mexicans with Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda. However, with the recent obsession over Barrack Obama's former pastor, Jeremiah Wright, and certain statements made from his pulpit; the issue of racism has been brought back into the public arena in a way that it has not been in many years. In one of the best pieces done on these pages in recent times, diarist "fake consultant" wrote "On Truth, Or, An Open Letter To A Reverend" Most recently I have been following a column from David Sirota and some of the responses that to that column from folks in my neck of the woods in Snohomish County.