Tony Heyward may want his life back, and the Gulf Coast might want its ecosystem back, and I want my babyback ribs. So what’s the solution? Britons who no longer have a World Cup team to blow vuvuzelas at have come up with a creative solution to the lack of soccer noise and oil spill-plugging that involves an impish form of civil disobedience:
BP is not feeling the pain they are causing in the Gulf. BP is spending millions on PR. In order to put a bit of public pressure on them, we plan to buy 100 vuvuzelas and hire 100 vuvuzela players off Craigslist to play in front of BP’s International Headquarters in London for an entire work day. Ideally, the players will keep coming back every day until they fix the gusher.
It’s pretty crazy. These days, in order to run for Congress- let alone win a spot in it- you have to raise a ton of money. Incumbents, according to noted campaign finance expert Tony Corrado, come up with an average $1.4 million to run their races.
Keep in mind that figure is about incumbents- as you may have heard before, incumbents generally don’t have much trouble getting reelected to the House. Most Congressional districts are engineered by state legislatures to lean heavily in the direction of one of the two parties in a process called gerrymandering. Therefore most Congressional races aren’t competitive. Think about it this way: the only way Rep. Jim McDermott of Seattle is going to get voted out is if someone comes at him from the left. People from Capitol Hill and Fremont aren’t going to vote for a Tea Partier.
Ever since that 2007 VIBE interview when the immortal Big Boi announced details for his second solo album (everyone knows Speakerboxxx/The Love Below was packaged as one album to create the illusion that Outkast had not broken up) produced mostly by southernlegends Organized Noise, and set for release later that year (2007), the hip hop world has been buzzing with excitement. The album was to be titled Sir Luscious Left Foot: The Curious Case of Chico Dusty an awesome name that pushed my interest even further.
When the album wasn’t released in 2007, we blamed his label, Jive Records. Big Boi switched to Def Jam Records and in early 2008 released the excellent “Royal Flush”with former Outkast partner Andre 3000 and Wu-Tang legend Raekwon. The song didn’t get much radio play, but sparked the interest of hip hop heads around the world. Big Boi spent the rest of 2008 hyping the album and releasing an awful pop song called “Ringtone”(bet you can’t guess what that’s about!). Oh yeah, he also jumped on the Obama bandwagon and was one of dozens of rappers/singers to make a song dedicated to our future president (summarized well here).
Pride Fest 2010, for those who missed it, was filled with sequins, paint, and plenty of spandex. It was a wonderful display of humanity in all its glory, something I can truly appreciate. I loved seeing the mix of people, all together in perfect harmony.
The fashions on display were certainly eclectic to say the least. There was everything from turquoise bikini wearing middle aged men to loafer-wearing politicians there to promote their platforms. There was also a bicycle gang wearing nothing at all. They sure let it all hang out.
One of my favorite floats was from Los Hermanos, with the main entertainer shirtless, dressed in chaps and gyrating quite provocatively. Was it for the crowd? Rain City Soccer Club put on quite a show, proving soccer players know how to handle their balls the best (yuk yuk yuk). And who could forget the statuesque Miss Seattle Gay Pride 2010, whose silver outfit was the show stealer, down to a rainbow chiffon inlet in the skirt.
For those of us who came to the parade after attending Sunday services, no problem, there were a few church groups in the parade as well as the great Flying Spaghetti Monster!
Enjoy the photos and cast your vote on your favorite float……
When have we ever liked comedy? Wait, wait, don’t answer that… As a matter of fact, we do like to joke, and we like good people who can make jokes. Another thing we like: good art, and community events that celebrate said things. And we know you do too.
Well guess what – this weekend you can have it all!
This weekend, the Bus and the 2010 Summer Fellows are going to be representing to the maximal at the Artopia Festival in Georgetown, doing signature gathering, voter registration, and very possibly gymnastics (we may have mad that last one up…). Also present at Artopia will be one Bobcat Goldthwait, the dulcet-toned comedian and lovable police trainee from Police Academy (see below).
To top it all off, our friends in the Georgetown arts community have organized a screening of Goldthwait’s cult-classic film Shakes the Clown that conveniently doubles as a fundraiser for the Bus! The man, the myth, the Bobcat himself will be there to do the hosting honors. And yes, the donations are voluntary and there will be booze (or so we’re promised).
Artopia takes over all of Georgetown, and the screening/fundraiser is going down at The Stables Courtyard venue (5907 Airport Way S.) at 10:30 p.m. See you there!
There’s been quite a hubbub in Washington around initiative signatures in the last few days, so it only seemed right to throw a little extra twist onto the story: apparently, you can remove your name from petitions you’ve already signed.
Let me just say that again: you can sign a petition, and then the next week contact Sam Reed, our Secretary of State, and have your name removed from that very same petition.
So why does that matter? Simple: up to ten initiatives may make it onto the November ballot, and a handful of campaigns are already popping up to try and keep those initiatives off. To boot, in addition to more the more traditional “decline to sign” approach, campaigns are using the power of these interwebs to encourage signers to de-sign.
This is a signature-saturated environment, and signature-gatherers often carry up to four initiatives at a time, leading to a lot of confusing information, and that may result in voters putting their names down next to issues they disagree with.
The opposition campaigns are hoping that a significant percentage of signers, given more information about the bills, will change their minds and look to remove their signatures. It’s an uphill battle to hit numbers that would flip an initiative, and requires a high number of voters to be highly proactive.
The most aggressive campaign working this approach is No on 1107 (1107 is a Tim Eyman beverage industry-funded initiative that would roll back new funding sources from soda, candy and beverage taxes), who have set up an easily-downloadable retraction form and have organizers gathering them back up and submitting them to the Secretary of State’s office (speaking of which, check out the SoS’s initiative website to get more info on all the initiatives that have been filed in 2010).
UPDATE: via David Ammons from the Secretary of State’s office, and our very own blog comments, here’s the SoS’s response to the de-signing process:
We offer this important response to this blog post and to efforts by some of persuade people to withdraw their initiative signatures from amongst the thousands that are submitted by sponsors to the Secretary of State for checking. While allowing withdrawal of signatures might seem like a logical and easy practice, in fact we do not remove signatures.
Individuals who signed a petition may send a note to our office indicating that they did not mean to sign the petition, thought they had signed a different petition, were mislead, changed their mind, etc. We will keep these on file as part of the public record for the ballot measure in question.
We have no mechanism for searching among over 300,000 names to find one specific voter who wishes to withdraw his/her name. That could take hours or days to go through 20,000 or more petitions — literally needle in a haystack. The July deadline for submitting initiatives is in the Constitution and begins a time-crunch leading up to publishing and sending ballots.
There is an old Attorney General’s Opinion that says we MAY establish rules for withdrawals, but it does not say we are REQUIRED to accept withdrawals. We don’t.
Aha – this is an important distinction: that you contacting the State means you’re on file in case of a legal challenge, it isn’t a one hundred percent guarantee. Super huge, and thanks to the good folks at the SoS for the clarification!
How effective will it be? Time will tell – but regardless, it’s an interesting strategy, and certainly a light bulb going off in the head for this guy. Plus, how could we not use that post title?
Good news from the Supes! Not the SuperSonics- they don’t exist anymore– but the Supreme Court. The Bus has beefed with this version of the Supremes (and not only because Diana Ross is no longer a member), but they definitely got this ruling right.
This ruling, the decision of Doe v. Reed, declares that the signatures required to get an initiative on the ballot should be included in the public record. The Bus is all about transparency and openness- our beef with the Supes came when they messed up on those lines (don’t worry, though; we’re all about the judicial system- we don’t shoot guns). The case emerged in our own great state and made its way to the Other Washington to contribute positively to Our Great Nation’s jurisprudence.
Props to AG McKenna for a case well-argued. High fives for everybody. Here’s s’more (you’re killing me Smalls!) articles if you’re interested:
The time has come. The day is here. Our great task is upon us.
Let us get Buzzed.
Join us tonight, Thursday, Juneuary 24, from 6-8 pm at the Moe Bar for an Hour (two hours, really) of Happiness.
We will talk politics and eat fish from Pike Street Fish Fry and drink beer from cans delicious sources. Or, if you’re not 21+ yet, you can drink not beer, because the Buzz (as always) is all ages. Heck yes.
We’ll see you there!
The Washington Buzz
Thursday, June 24th, 6-8pm
Moe Bar – 1425 10th Ave
Free, all ages, historic
Earlier this week before leaving on my cross country trip to the East Coast, I obtained a few albums I had been waiting to hear for quite a long time. One of the albums I was especially excited to hear was Ratatat’s brand new album LP4. I’ve been a huge Ratatat fan since I first saw the duo at Neumos in 2006 and have enjoyed just about everything they’ve released. I loved Ratatat, enjoyed Classics even more and appreciated LP3 even though it didn’t contain nearly as many creative, head-nodding tracks as the other two albums. So why would I waste my time by writing a review of an album by a group that I unequivocally love?
This review had to be written because of my profound disappointment in the duo’s recent effort. After listening to LP4 in entirety, not one song stuck out. Now I’m not claiming that any of these songs are awful, but it appears that the duo has lost their creative edge.
Earlier this week before leaving on my cross country trip to the East Coast, I obtained a few albums I had been waiting to hear for quite a long time. One of the albums I was especially excited to hear was Ratatat’s brand new album LP4. I’ve been a huge Ratatat fan since I first saw the duo at Neumos in 2006 and have enjoyed just about everything they’ve released. I loved Ratatat, enjoyed Classics even more and appreciated LP3 even though it didn’t contain nearly as many creative, head-nodding tracks as the other two albums. So why would I waste my time by writing a review of an album by a group that I unequivocally love?
Hella Bus 
