Catchup roundup

We have a new Governor-elect. Rossi won by 261 votes after Paul Berendt cried on television (what the hell??!), Mr. Vance sued King County to throw out provisional ballots, then turned around and said Dems are seeking to overturn a fair election when they demanded a manual recount, and everybody with free time spent a week knocking on doors and calling people who thought they were done with politics for the year. So, congrats to Governor Rossi, who I’m sure will tell us about his new mandate any day now. And thanks to Chris Gregoire, for running such a strong campaign that she managed to end a 20-year winning streak for Democrats. Hey Chris: All you had to do was stand up and say what you believed. Just stand for something. That’s all you needed to do. But you ran on your record, and frankly, it just ain’t that great.

Next stop: Vance v. Cantwell, 2006 Senate. Woo hoo! Others, perhaps: Inslee v. Rossi for Gov (2008), Ruderman v. ?? for WA-1 in 2008. Heidi BB v. Reichert in 2006 (sigh).

Hee hee! College Republicans are screwed. I love when these morons get exposed. My favorite bit: the CRNC Chair, Eric Hoplin, put out a memo:

Hoplin's memo said the media were simply trying to bash Republicans the week before the election and claimed the stories were full of "lies and distortions written by a well-known liberal who is out to get us."

Those Republicans, never afraid to whine and cry about liberals in the media. Poor babies.

After two babies were found starved and dehydrated to death in a Kent apartment, surrounded by a sleeping Mom and 370 beer cans in varying states of consumption, the CPS is again under fire. This woman and her children were under investigation, but apparently no one had checked on them in more than 90 days. How do we get this damn agency either fixed or a better PR person? I put it this way because when the media covers things like this, it is difficult to really discern what has been done wrong and what just appears to be wrong.

12 million families went hungry or were in danger of going hungry in 2003. Fortunately, that’s about the same number as 2002, so hooray Bush administration! Not letting things get worse as far as 12 million people being hungry. Nice work! Apparently, a third of these families actually didn’t have enough food all or some of the time, and as for the rest:

The other two-thirds of families avoided hunger by reducing the variety of foods they ate, participating in federal food assistance programs or getting supplies from community food banks.

Reducing the variety of foods they ate means eating mac and cheese, beans, hot dogs, and ramen. It also means they got fatter and less healthy. Natch, since they ain’t gots money for food, they ain’t gots no insurance either. And so the cycle of poverty goes.

We get poor, we eat unhealthy food because it’s cheap, we don’t exercise because we have to work harder for minimum wage, we get fat, our heart gives us problems, we got to the hospital which we can’t afford, and now we’re keeping less of our money because we’re paying hospital bills so we have less money for food so we “reduce the variety” of our foods again, and down and down we go.

The $388 billion budget has almost passed Congress. Natch, education spending has a 2 percent increase, less than needed and less than cost of living increases. Ironically, the National Endowment for Democracy took a $20 million cut, and a program to promote clean-burning power plants got one-thirteenth of the proposed amount. Bush himself proposed the initial request for money on this project, but if he really wanted that money, he would have gotten it. The fact that it’s been cut from $234 million to $18 million tells you what the backdoor dealings were like. Tom Delay, he of the newly minted rule changes and high ethical standards, managed to wrangle an extra $300 million for NASA (natch, this money goes to Houston), bringing their take to $16 billion. Space exploration trumps education and social services any freakin’ day. Douchebags.

The Jayhawks barely survived Vermont on their home floor, but I’m not going to start rolling my eyes yet. Vermont was 22-9 last year and returns four of their starters, so they’re legit. Still, 68-61 at home, to Vermont? This may be a bad sign…watch and see…

The Sonics won their 9th straight, further convincing locals that they’re for real. They’re not, folks. They may pull of 45 wins or so, but they are not the shooters that you’re seeing right now. They will continue to rebound well, and they will stay competitive. Ridnour will play acceptable ball most nights. But Rashard will tire out, Fortson will foul out in a lot of big games, and their shooting will come back to earth. And their defense will be exposed. That said, they’re clearly better than last year, and better than everyone thought, so go Sonics!

Okay, I just needed to post to let everyone know I’m still here, and I’ll post something insightful and/or pithy later tonight.