Blog

Love the feel of rubber glove-covered hands of Transporation Security Administration (TSA) personnel running over your thighs and threatening to invade your underwear when you're rushing to make a flight and have little time for state-mandated groping?
Miss those days when, if you are a relatively attractive young woman, you could count on continually being treated as a major security threat on a par with Mohammed Atta and made to pass through the "auto-porn" machine by predominantly male...

> More

So yesterday, I posted this item noting how the Commerce Department was instituting new tariffs (bad in themselves) that would discourage purchase and installation of a key green technology that the administration supposedly wants people to use (doubly bad).
Today, comes the news that these new tariffs are-- you guessed it-- generating significant worry that we're kicking off a trade war with China over green technology. From Politico's Morning Tech:
SOLAR FLARE: TRADE TENSIONS...

> More

So, longtime readers of this blog/Twitter followers of mine will know that I'm a little bit crunchy and green compared to your average Republican. I'm pretty rabid about recycling. I drive a clean diesel car that gets 50 mpg on road trips. I buy a lot of organic. I buy our bath and many of our personal hygiene products at the Body Shop because I worry about animal testing. I like taking the DC metro and Amtrak, instead of driving or flying, respectively (well, except for when there are massive...

> More

For the past couple of years, I've been banging on a bit about how changes in women's role in society potentially have impacted, and stand to impact, our economy, culture, and so on (and the impact they're having on the relevance of certain political debates involving what we have traditionally come to refer to as "women's issues"-- something that, by the way, increasingly strikes me as a rather outdated, outmoded and not particularly meaningful term).
In this Atlantic piece, some of...

> More

The gubernatorial race is well underway in Washington, with Jay Inslee having left Congress last week in order to focus full-time on running to replace outgoing Gov. Christine Gregoire, and Rob McKenna running while, well, continuing to do his job as Washington’s Attorney General. This week, as it happens, perhaps offers something of an indicator of the nature of the contest, with thanks to the eagle-eyed reader who tipped me off to a couple of interesting tidbits.
Beginning...

> More

The gubernatorial race is well underway in Washington, with Jay Inslee having left Congress last week in order to focus full-time on running to replace outgoing Gov. Christine Gregoire, and Rob McKenna running while, well, continuing to do his job as Washington’s Attorney General. This week, as it happens, perhaps offers something of an indicator of the nature of the contest, with thanks to the eagle-eyed reader who tipped me off to a couple of interesting tidbits.
Beginning...

> More

In my inbox, from Sen. Mike Enzi's office:
[...] The Rural America Preservation Act of 2012 would limit annual per farm commodity subsidy payments and marketing loans to $250,000 for married couples. Individual farmers would be capped at $150,000.
[...]
“There’s no better time than when our nation is in deep debt to stop making payments to people who don’t need it. Under the current system the federal government is making payments to people who don’t...

> More

From the AP, about an hour ago:
New Hampshire lawmakers on Wednesday rejected a bill that would have made their state legislature the first one to repeal a gay marriage law, handing gay-rights supporters a key victory in the Northeast, where same-sex marriage is prevalent.
The state House voted 211-116 to kill the measure, ending a push by its new Republican majority to rescind New Hampshire’s 2-year-old gay marriage law. Nevertheless, both sides are pledging to continue...

> More

(It might surprise you.)
As the Republican primary bumbles forward, with Mitt Romney (on my read, anyway) the inevitable nominee but a weaker frontrunner than his supporters had hoped and one who is having to fight off the surprisingly large nuisance of Rick Santorum, I’ve done a lot of thinking about where I stand on these two candidates and why.
To put it kindly, I have major issues with both of them.
In the case of Santorum, these are, where philosophy is...

> More

Happy early birthday me, or something. Gov. Gregoire has signed the gay marriage bill into law, and gay couples will be able to marry as of June 7. 
Congrats to couples planning to marry, and to the Evergreen State-- both for taking a lead here, and for doing this the right way, i.e., via legislative, as opposed to judicial, action.

> More