BlatherWatch

BlatherWatch endorsements 2006: you retort, we decide

Who cares BlatherWatch endorses in the election? That question is probably the most important one asked by our many dozens of readers this election season..

(If you are amongst that tiny sample of humanity, you already know who we like and are already sick of the whole blithering deal. You can go over to YouTube and amuse yourself while we straighten out the rest of these people, 'kay? ).

We can't help it- it's just that we believe: THIS IS THE MOST IMPORTANT ELECTION SINCE 2004!

There's an overbalance of power and an underbalance of integrity in Washington DC, and it's a time for everyone John McCain and left to vote for Democrats, no matter how cranky you might be about them.

(Goddam it, the political game is played on the 2-party playing field, (as the right-wing knows so well) and the only way to hold the incompetent, amoral right-wing Republican government accountable is to replace it with Democrats. We're so close to making the GOP a minority in one or both houses, that voting for a Loser-tarian or a Green is as stoopid as pissing into the air conditioning).

But you know that.

Jim mcdermott is so yesterday, linnea noreen is so tomorrow

We gotta be honest: we're straying from the Democratic fold to endorse independent candidate Linnea Noreen against Rep. Jim McDermott in Seattle's 7th district.

(The token Republican running against McDermott is Steve Beren, a furious little ex-Trotskyite whose anal canal was stitched up sometime in the late 1980's).

We, for one, have grown weary of the lack of energy, the platitudinous and sometimes embarrassing meanderings from Sunny Jim.

Horsesass radio tonight: multimillionaires relief fund, Sandeep; Eric Oemig, Yvonne Ward; Barack Obama, Andrew Villaneuve

This from David Goldstein on his show tonight on KIRO at 7p:

7p: Do multimillionaires need yet another tax break? Multimillionaire Seattle developer Martin Selig has sunk nearly a million dollars into estate tax repeal Initiative 920, and multimillionaire Seattle Times publisher Frank Blethen has contributed the blood, sweat and rhetorical tears of his entire editorial board. But in a state with the most regressive tax structure in the nation (by far) can one possibly justify making estate tax repeal a top priority? No on 920 spokesman Sandeep Kaushik will join me to field your questions, and hammer a few more nails into the initiative’s coffin. Kaushik, a former newspaperman himself, will also join me in ranting on the way this self-serving initiative has distorted the editorial process at many of our state’s leading newspapers.

8p: What can we expect from a Democratic Senate? Um… a Democratic state Senate, that is. Washington Dems currently hold a nominal 2-seat majority in the state Senate, with two conservative Dems often voting with the Republicans on key issues. But Dems are poised to pick up as many as five seats in close races throughout the state. Two of the party’s most promising new candidates, Eric Oemig (45th LD) and Yvonne Ward (31st LD) join me to talk about their races, and what we might expect from a real Democratic majority.

9p: Obama-rama hit town this week. Did Seattle just meet the next President of the United States? Illinois Sen. Barack Obama was greeted by standing-room-only crowds in the wake of his kinda-sorta announcement that he might in fact be considering a run for the White House. Obama was in town hawking his book and campaigning for Darcy Burner and Maria Cantwell, and local blogger Andrew Villeneuve will give us a firsthand account of the big rally. Can Obama win? Is America ready to elect its first black president? Do you just not get the whole Obama thing? Give me a call and share your thoughts.

KUOW debate: darcy dares & delivers; dave ducks & dithers

We just got word that 8th District challenger Darcy Burner will appear on KUOW's Weekday with Steve Scher, Monday from 9-10a, but getting Rep. Dave Reichert to appear with her has again proved futile.

Even though Reichert says "I've had people have pointed guns at me," this isn't the first time Reichert has chickened out and ducked Burner in such forums. His handlers have kept him away from venues where his and the smarticulate upstart's aptitudes can be compared by voters side by side.

KUOW producers will cobble together a "virtual Dave" for Darcy to debate using tape from his past interviews and an old stuffed shirt they'll prop up in a chair. The canned mock-up couldn't be more boring than having him in studio.

Media analysts say that a problem Reichert has with the medium of radio is that audiences can't see Reichert's hair (it's magnificent) which, unfortunately for 8th District voters, is about 67% of the candidate's total package.

"Just listening to him, you'd think he was a football coach, not a congressman," said  media critic Edgar "Choch" Manana, of the Bellevue American.

Mike Malloy is back on KPTK!

Truth seekers will be happy to hear that Mike Malloy will return to AM1090 KPTK. Although he's not on the schedule yet, management promises he'll be there "in the next week or two."

KPTK doesn't say whether he'll be live or not- his show broadcasts from 6-9p PST weeknights, so If he's to be live it would mess with Randi Rhodes and Al Franken.

Malloy comes via the new liberal talk radio network, novaM Radio.

He'll start back on the air in Phoenix live beginning Monday October 30th on novaM" affiliate KPHX; truth seekers can live-stream him here.

GAY MARRIAGE LEGALIZED, 100'S KILLED, NOBODY HURT

Your worst nightmares are what Republicans are trying to raise- not issues.

When the warning, "Re-elect us or the terrorists will bomb your ass" didn't seem to work, the hoary but evergreen cry became, "Reelect us or the fags will grab your kid's ass."

(And your son will marry a florist in a tux in a Unitarian church, then spend your tax dollars on butt-sex education.)

Wheredeggo? Summer Seattle Arbitron ratings: down, down, down

Things don't look so good for anybody in the latest 12+ ratings book.

Over the summer, only 11 stations out of the 33, improved their status, none more than a 10th or so of a percentil

Newstalk stations, except Air America's KPTK took a bath. (We were pretty happy about that- they even overtook KVI this time. But hell, so did Entercom's KTTH, whose demise we've predicted many times).

Poetry corner: Mess-o-potamia

For those of you not up on the geography of the ancient world, Mesopotamia is, of course, the old name for Iraq. While the historical circumstances were different, this poem, published in 1917, has a resonance with Bush's disastrous quagmire.

Kipling, the gung-ho British militarist and colonne, is one of the few poets the right wingers like- but even his sense and sensibilities were affronted by the futile, brutal warring in the harsh "land between the rivers."

Vote for Democrats!

Mesopotamia 
They shall not return to us, the resolute, the young
    The eager and whole-hearted whom we gave:
But the men who left them thriftily to die in their own dung,
    Shall they come with years and honour to the grave?

They shall not return to us, the strong men coldly slain
    In sight of help denied from day to day:
But the men who edged their agonies and chid them in their pain,
    Are they too strong and wise to put away?

Our dead shall not return to us while Day and Night divide-
    Never while the bars of sunset hold.
But the idle-minded overlings who quibbled while they died,
    Shall they thrust for high employments as of old?

Shall we only threaten and be angry for an hour?
    When the storm is ended shall we find
How softly but how swiftly they have sidled back to power
    By the favour and contrivance of their kind?

Even while they soothe us, while they promise large amends,
    Even while they make a show of fear,
Do they call upon their debtors, and take council with their friends,
    To confirm and re-establish each career?

Their lives cannot repay us-their death could not undo-
    The shame that they have laid upon our race.
But the slothfulness that wasted and the arrogance that slew,
    Shall we leave it unabated in its place?
                                                        ~ by Rudyard Kipling

Justice delayed

... will be justice denied for former talk host Mike Webb- at least for a week or so. His fraud retrial date was set to over until next week, after prosecutor Nancy Balin's schedule was delayed by the vagaries of another case.

We should know better by Monday, according to prosecutor's office spokesman, Dan Donohoe.

Read our Mike Webb files by clicking on the eponymous Category in the right-hand column.

Tuesday oddems: political suck as suck would have it; obama gets hannitized; the shark gets jumped; insouciant blah, blah, blabbing; peenises moving without interruption; oldman incest and dryer pigtails at KIRO

~ o radio readers, please bear with us through this political season- election stuff to us is like crack to an investment counselor- we just can't get enough. You aren't the only one complaining, believe us.  We have, throughout our lives, lost plenty because of our jones for politics- wives, families, houses, homes, jobs, intimate articles of clothing, etc. Political cycles that never break; candidates who start campaigning the day after the election; a presidential cycle that starts two years out; 24 hour news channels; Web sites and blogs; all sincerely, searingly, incessantly, insouciantly blah-blah-blabbing the minutiae, have ruined our lives more than once. It's sad and wrong- but fortunately it'll be over briefly come November- and we hope to be in Guatemala.

~ listening to Sean Hannity this ayem we heard a little taste of what's to come for burgeoning superstar Barack Obama, the freshman Democratic senator from Illinois who's walking on water this week. Hannity, who isn't quite ready to bludgeon the charismatic young man of color just yet, (it's not time) reminded listeners that Obama has admitted to using drugs and drinking in college, and that would be something we should all keep in mind before we make a judgment about his political being. (Obama is too good- he'd better look out- liberals who look as good as he does have gotten shot in this country).

~ Here we go again- it's MIKE WEBB WEDNESDAY, 10-25, when Webb returns for his insurance fraud retrial down in Judge Spector's court (rm 733, King Co courthouse) at 9a. If you can't make it, we'll be there.