The Seattle Times now has my letter online.

I think they did a decent job of editing it. They did a great job of presentation — the letter is laid out in a separate grid, with this editorial cartoon by the Christian Science Monitor‘s Clay Bennett on top of my text. Here’s the original post, and here’s their version :

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Potential fallout over Bush’s vetoes

Meet DOP: Destructive Old Party

Editor, The Times:

It seems like only a short time ago that President Bush was trying to establish a one-party state, with the Republicans in charge. Increasingly, though, Bush now appears to want the Republican party to completely self-destruct solely out of loyalty to him.

I’m referring to Bush’s threatened veto of any Iraq war-funding bill that comes his way with a timetable for withdrawal. It’s conventional wisdom that the Republican lawmakers in both chambers will sustain any veto Bush signs. I’m not so sure, though.

Consider U.S. Rep. Dave Reichert, our local congressman in Redmond, who was re-elected over challenger Darcy Burner by a mere 3 percentage points.

A bill with a plan for leaving Iraq has an approval rating of 59 percent — almost twice that of the president’s rating.

Just how “courageous” are Republicans in marginal districts like Reichert supposed to be? This isn’t 2003 — a vote to sustain a veto in favor of a never-ending occupation of Iraq may well be called “The Forced Retirement of Republicans Act of 2007.”

There’s little doubt in my mind that every Republican who sustains such a veto will get wall-to-wall negative campaign ads on the matter come 2008. A stark choice presents itself to rank-and-file Republicans: Support Bush and get the worst defeat to the GOP since 1932, or vote against the veto and try to salvage something of the party and their own political careers.

— Hal O’Brien, Redmond

This is what I’ve been told about this post, which I sent in as a Letter to the Editor of the Seattle Times:

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Thank you, Mr. O’Brien. Your letter will appear as the lead letter in Sunday’s Times.

Jennifer Chancellor
Letters

It seems like only a short time ago that Bush was trying to establish a one-party state, with the Republicans in charge. Increasingly, though, Bush now appears to want the Republican party to completely self-destruct out of a sense of loyalty to him.

I’m referring to Bush’s threatened veto of any Iraq funding bill that comes his way with a timetable for withdrawal. Which is another way of saying, of finally holding him responsible for putting together a plan for Iraq, as goals without a timetable are mere wishful thinking.

It’s currently conventional wisdom that the Republican Congresscritters in both chambers will sustain any veto Bush signs. I’m not so sure, though.

Consider Dave Reichert, our local Congressman in Redmond. Reichert got re-elected over Democratic challenger Darcy Burner by only 3 percentage points (51.5 to 48.5).

Bush’s approval rating is right around the same neighborhood as gay marriage. Further, a bill with a plan for leaving Iraq has an approval rating of 59% — well above that of the President.

Antony Jay and Jonathan Lynn have their archtypal civil servant Sir Humphrey Appleby say in Yes, Minister, “”‘Controversial’ only means this will lose you votes; ‘courageous’ means this will lose you the election.”

Just how ‘courageous’ are Republicans in marginal districts like Reichert supposed to be? This isn’t 2003 — a vote to sustain a veto in favor of a neverending occupation of Iraq may well be called, “The Forced Retirement of Republicans Act of 2007.” There’s very little doubt in my mind that every Republican who sustains such a veto will get wall-to-wall negative campaign ads on the matter come 2008.

A very stark choice presents itself to rank-and-file elected Republicans: Support Bush and get the worst defeat to the GOP since 1932 — or vote against the veto, and try to salvage something of the party (and their own political careers).

I’d been watching all the fun from the sidelines, but pecunium came up with a cool idea: Contribute a photo.

This one hasn’t been seen for a while, and I desperately need to rescan it to touch up the resolution and the contrast, but… This is Anthony Perkins, in 1988. The venue was Pauley Pavilion on UCLA, the night before the Presidential election, at a rally for Mike Dukakis.

David Weinberger has a post on McCain singing, “Bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb, bomb Iran,” to the tune of the Beach Boys’ “Barbara Ann.”

Leaving aside the political implications, what’s interesting to me about that is it shows John McCain is a closet Dr. Demento listener. That song was released by Vince Vance & The Valiants in 1980, and got a fair amount of airplay at the time. I always associate it with “Leader of Iraq” (to the tune of “Leader of the Pack”), of which there appears to be many versions, but the Dr. Demento playlist search engine tells me is by Loose Bruce Kerr.

So, as I was installing a number of drivers the other day, I realized there’s at least one PC hardware company that sounds like it’s been taken over by a Sith lord.

I refer, of course, to Darth nVidia.

{blink}

Has just the right quasi-latinate ring, don’t you think?

Satire, that is. Though it may be on life support.

I was literally laughing out loud at lunch today when reading The Onion‘s piece, “U.S. Counter-Counterterrorism Unit Successfully Destroys Washington Monument”. The point where I lost it:

“After taking control of the area (around the base of the Washington Monument), Payton tested his counterterrorism adversaries by demanding the release of all Guantanamo Bay detainees. When U.S. hostage negotiators said they would “see what they could do,” they were shot dead by accompanying CCU agents for breaking a strict DHS policy against negotiating with terrorists.”

It started by browsing through Kottke.org

I haven’t read Jason’s page in a while. It seems to be much more like the kind of thing I’d like to read these days than how I remember it. I’m not sure if that means he’s changed, I’ve changed, or both.

So, he has this post about Miranda July’s new web site. The site is absolutely charming. It’s all done as a series of images. Jason talks about how it breaks almost every current web usability rule, but you know something? Seems to me this kind of site was much more common back in the day. Say, 1995 through 2000 or so. When people (meaning, for example, urlgirl) were more willing to experiment with the web as a medium.

But go look at it. At once. No, I mean now.

Miranda July made a quirky little movie called, Me and You and Everyone We Know. She definitely has a voice of her own. The new web site promotes her book, No One Belongs Here More Than You.

And I can now tell you my favorite part of the website. Favorite enough that I’ve mirrored it in this post. It’s when she says the first word of the book is, “it.” The last word is, “triumphant.”

Microsoft just announced plans to expand in the nearby suburb Bellevue.

So, I’ve sent a Letter to the Editor:

Regarding “Hey, downtown Bellevue: Make room for Microsoft,” by Benjamin J. Romano:

This is a tremendous lost opportunity, for the region and for Microsoft shareholders.

It is painfully obvious from traffic patterns on the 520 bridge that a large number of Microsoft employees live in Seattle, and commute to Redmond.

Paul Allen has large tracts of South Lake Union, in the forlorn hope that a biotech boom will come along, and he’ll be able to convert the area to mixed use at that time.

A much better and more efficient solution would be for Microsoft to build a major campus in South Lake Union instead. Integration to main campus in Redmond could be achieved either through video conferencing (who better than Microsoft?), and/or an expansion of the company’s existing shuttle bus fleet. Downtown is closer to Redmond than Microsoft’s existing Sammammish campus in Issaquah, which already has such links.

If Microsoft were to build a downtown campus, it could well accomplish many things:

* Reduction of traffic in the region, as employees could work much closer to where they live.

* Less fatigue and greater job satisfaction by employees, leading to greater productivity, and increased shareholder value. (And let’s not forget that many Microsoft employees are shareholders themselves, leading to a substantial win-win on this front.)

* An opportunity to make the South Lake Union neighborhood a vibrant mixed-use center today, rather than waiting for a nebulous business development that may well never come.

* Increased tax revenue for the city of Seattle.

* Reduced peak traffic stress for the entire region.

* Reduced wear-and-tear on the 520 bridge.

* Mitigation of impacts from the eventual bridge closure during its rebuild.

* Greatly reduced environmental footprint by tens of thousands of people.

* Greatly reduced gasoline consumption by tens of thousands of cars. That’s the kind of number that could even arguably have a national security impact.

I can think of no other single decision by a single entity that could have a more positive effect on the entire region.

Looking at all the gains possible, the decision to use Bellevue for expansion can only be a disappointing one.

Sincerely,

Hal O’Brien, etc.

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I’ve been meaning to do a slushpile piece on this topic for a while now. It’s probably too late to have any real impact. Which is a pity, because, as I say above, the number of parties who would win through a Microsoft campus downtown would far outnumber the losers.

So, at least I sent it in. {shrug}

No real news, just doing something to show I can…

Welcome from the line 66 bus.

It was weird enough reading my friends list on the way in… but using the Treo to post from the bus feels genuinely stfnal.

That’s all. Move along. These are not the ‘droids you’re…