Yeah, but would you have blown a .115?

isn't it illegal to photgraph a ballot?

Did you vote for Thurston Howell III over Tom Rasmussen for city council?

Not if it's yours.

I voted the same, Josh. Mailed my ballot today.

@3 - I was hoping that was Thurston Moore.

But dId you drive 50mph down Market?

That's real neat.

...

So you heard it here first, folks. The Stranger fully endorses drinking and driving.

That piss you took when you got home? That was your credibility.

@8

Nice. Nice.

Hey "Wow", while you're still here (cuz you're so outta here, I'll bet), why don't you lean over and flush the toilet.

How come everybody here votes absentee, even though they're not going to be out of town?

Josh Feit:

I voted over the course of the weekend: For example, I voted against the $17.8 billion roads and transit measure live on David Goldstein’s radio show last Saturday night in an attempt to give Goldy a stroke.

Well, we've known for about three months where Josh Feit was on this.

What's odd is that, on Goldy's show, neither Josh nor Erica Barnett would directly answer Goldy's question whether there was a split vote by The Stranger's election control board on Prop. 1. Instead Josh just finessed around the question with something like, "We all struggled with it."

Anyway, I'd be interested to know how Dan Savage is voting on Prop. 1, although it sure seems obvious.

#11: Because people here aren't for tradition (going to the voting booth) for the sake of tradition.

You didn't mention the other 6 drinks you needed to slam before casting your vote in the Burgess-Della race.

@12: We weren't avoiding the question. It was a split vote. Thought that was implied in our answers.

@11: I vote absentee because I prefer to have more time to sit down with the ballot. I can take it home, flip through the voter's guide, do some research, have a beer, and look at endorsements, all without having to use those damn cramped and ill-lit cubicles at the voting booth. Plus, I can spread out the process over the weekend. This is especially helpful for the super-boring school district races, which I can only deal with a few at a time.

I love how people continue to believe the claim that Venus only had 2 drinks. Funny, that's the same number Hague claimed too.

I haven't kept up with the latest on this. A couple days ago, her supporters were swearing that she did indeed only have two drinks at The Matador. And Velazquez says she only had two drinks at BalMar.

I haven't been there: are they they same place? Did she have two drinks at each one? Were they never at The Matador?

18. Maybe she had two drinks at each, which would technically make her claim that she had two drinks at the Matador 'not a lie.'

Nice.

In the Rasmussen race I voted for Quentin Crisp.

Yeah, @17, but Jane's a mean drunk.

Your proud no vote on Prop. 1 is par for the course for the muddled transit thinkers at the Stranger. Lets recap the Stranger's history on transit issues over the last ten years, shall we?

1996-2001--The Stranger was harshly critical of the infant Sound Transit, spilling barrels of ink examining every right-wing charge by John Niles and the wingnuts at CETA. The Stranger's unbalanced coverage during this period helped to reduce the public confidence in light rail and this agency and sewed many of the seeds for the opposition to Sound Transit today.

2002--The Stranger endorses Tim Eyman's initiative 776 which would pull Sound Transit's funding authority.

2001-2006--The harsh opposition to ST encouraged light rail haters like Peter Sherwin to think they had a better idea, the Seattle Monorail. The Stranger was a big cheerleader when the SMP hired their campaign manager, Joel Horn, as executive director. This despite the fact that he had NO experience either as head of a major agency or in transportation itself. The Stranger sat silent as the SMP then proceeded to promise us an opening date, turned back some of the taxes they could have used to finance the plan, appointed a lapdog board without the ability or resources to provide oversight, and made scores of other mistakes due to the inexperience of the agency. Perhaps if the Stranger had been as consistent in critically examining the Monorail as they were with Sound Transit, they wouldn't have gotten as far down the road to incompetence as they did. Instead, the Stranger and the SMP only served to further voter cynicism about transit.

2005-2007--The Stranger and Slog post many articles critical of Metro, further increasing voter distrust of transit. This despite the fact that transit ridership was increasing 7% a year with largely flat revenues causing overcrowding and schedule problems.

2002-2007--The Stranger fails to follow or even attend a ST board meeting for five years as the reformed agency rights itself and builds light rail.

And now in 2007, Josh and Erica proudly proclaim their vote against 50 miles of light rail. The Roads and Transit ballot measure was the result of five years of negotiations by regional leaders. The anti-transit legislature forced Roads and Transit to the ballot together and came within a few votes of disbanding Sound Transit last session. But the moonbats at the Sierra Club and Josh and Erica are convinced that if they just vote no, than transit will return to the ballot unscathed and those roads won't be built. Since they don't really cover ST or the legislature in any meaningful way, one has to question their prognostication. What is far more likely is the dissolution of Sound Transit and new taxes out of the road-loving legislature to fund the roads in the RTID package.

With transit friends like this, who needs enemies?

Ignore the shortsighted thinking of the Kemper Freeman/Stranger/Sierra Club/Tim Eyman crowd and vote yes on Roads and Transit.

What's wrong with Harrell again? He's not Venus?

50 mph?

50 mph?

50 mph?

that's reckless. And she hasn't denied it. She hasn't even really apologized.

@5

Correct. And I voted for Kim in another race.

Maybe people would be more likely to vote for Venus if people were more informed on why her *challenger should not be elected instead*? I plan to do my own research on each candidate anyway, but for those who are just going to skim the voter pamphlets, in 20 words or less, will Seattle crumble if Venus's challenger wins? I'll vote for a Ballard floozy if she will prevent SEATTLE FROM CRUMBLING.

Please stop fucking the city! PLEASE!!!

BalMar is a great place. Lots and lots of old exposed original Ballard brick. Nice lounge upstairs, too.

Josh,
You are just TOO witty and hip!
Had a drink, and another! at the Venus bar.

Then drove....but it was in a Flexcar! That makes it okay.

Wow, such a hipster!

Such a dipstick.

Grow up.

Yeah, I don't get it.

I mean, is this a drunk drivers for Venus ad?

@21. I'd rather take my chances with a mean drunk behind the wheel than a speeding drunk if I am sharing the road.

ECB @15:

@12: We weren't avoiding the question. It was a split vote. Thought that was implied in our answers.

Erica, thanks for clarifying. "We all struggled with it" does not in any way imply "It was a split vote."

I guess it's safe to infer then that Dan Savage was in the minority opinion. Thank goodness then for Dan Savage.

Am I the only one who thinks that Stranger staff is okay with drunk driving as long as no one gets killed??? That is totally fucked up.

BTW Josh, clean your puke out of the Flexcar after you get home from your drunk driving binges!!!

To Cressona, who is obsessing over Dan Savage's opinion and my phrase about "struggling" with the decision.

I used that phrase not to gloss over any disagreements on the board, but to characterize how people were dealing with the vote. I think it's safe to say that a majority of the ed board was torn.

And indeed, our vote at the ed board debate itself was split right down the middle. We argued, cajoled, argued, laughed, and came up with a decision.

That's how it works.

I, for one, "struggled." I'm sorry that word reads funny to you, but it's the best word I can come up with. In the intro to our endorsements, I called this year's choices "vexing" ... mostly in reference to Prop. 1.

The reason I "avoided" the question on the radio is because it's not my place to speak for others or say where other people on the board are at. And generally, once we make an endorsement, the dissenting board members go along like adults.

Our process is pretty open here on Slog (I posted video of our debate) and so, I think your demand for a full accounting is excessive and weird.

I would like to ask all you "Holier than Thou" out there a question. Can truthfully say that you have never gotten behind the wheel impaired before, whether it be too much to drink,lack of sleep, or using your cell phone? I am not condoning what she did, but I do believe that all of us have made a mistake or two in our lifetimes. Let's keep politics and stupid mistakes seperate, after all show me a squeeky clean politician! Venus is the BEST canidate!

Josh Feit @35:

The reason I "avoided" the question on the radio is because it's not my place to say where other people on the board are at, and generally, once we make an endorsement, the dissenting board members go along like adults.

Then why not just decline to answer the question like an adult? I appreciate your posting the debate footage, but Goldy's radio show is another forum, and it's hard not to notice a non-answer.

Anyway, I don't mind that the likes of Josh Feit throw words like "obsessive," "excessive," and "weird" my way. He's already called me paranoid for calling out his attempt to conflate the Sierra Club with the environmental community.

I'm not sure what's left for Josh to call me. Creepy?

...your demand for a full accounting is excessive and weird."

Message to public officials or anyone just happening to get an annoying call from Dan, ECB, Josh etc:

Read that back to them.

What a hypocrite.

@36: Anyone who's had a pop or two and gotten behind the wheel should know better than to do 50 down Market. This woman's a fool.

@36

My biggest problem is that floating around the top of SLOG is a link to an article written by Erica Barnett BLASTING one council member for his drinking. Then, less than a week later she excusing a condidate after they get busted DRIVING DRUNK because, "We've all done it".

I am holier than thou on driving while drunk because I have not done it. Period. I also had to bury two friends who were killed by drunk drivers (one of the drivers did not think they were all that drunk, just buzzed)

So if you drive while drunk you are an asshole. Pure and simple. And those who think they get away with it do until they ram into someone's car carrying a kid. So like #8 said, Josh flushed the Stranger's credibilty down the toilet when he took that piss.

@38,

Oh brother.

We aren't paid by public tax dollars. We aren't a public agency. We aren't elected officials. When we demand a full accounting, it's from politicians who are doing the public's business on the public's dime.

Our endorsements are obviously an editorial opinion that you are free to ignore. You aren't paying us to write our endorsements for you.

Hey Clint,

Read the article. I certainly do not "blast" Richard for drinking. I drink. Everyone I know drinks. My story was about whether McIver has a drinking problem that may have contributed to the fight that night, and the larger context of the culture of drinking in city politics. That's not the same thing as saying that it's a problem any time anyone drinks.

Hey Erica, here is a simple question.

Is drunk driving right or wrong?

It's okay everyone, they were ironically drinking and driving!

@45, your comment is delicious.

I did read the article. You basically call the guy an alcoholic and question his ability to do his job. But I guess because you take the time to wonder aloud whether it is his drinking or old age (or maybe just because he is old) its all good. Just seems like a double standard to me.

@44: Of course drunk driving is wrong. But (depending on gender, size, metabolism, etc.) having two drinks doesn't necessarily make you drunk.

Train cars lay wrecked all along this comment thread.

Josh's comment was what it was, nothing more, nothing veiled, and I think both the writers and we readers know where each other stand.

Venus was pulled over for driving erratically, blew a .115, refused the in-station test (which is more accurate), and is now in court.

She drove drunk.

You're basing your entire defense of her by taking her for her absolute word that she only had two drinks.

If she is convicted, will you condemn her for not only driving drunk, but for lying about it?

Also, for both you and Josh, please don't make a habit of this driving around after going to the bar just to make a point. You're sending the wrong message.

Josh,

@35 you said the ed board vote was split right down the middle. So how did you decide on "No?"

Just curious.

@ 45,

Nothing ironic going on. Literal as the day.

Velazquez was an idiot to do what she did. I blasted her on Goldy's radio show for it.

However, the wild outrage and shock that's coming in (especially here on comments) is juvenile.

My point of voting for Velazquez while having two drinks and driving home was to show how common it is.

The shock is just silly.

@51,

Check the second part of what I wrote:

"We argued, cajoled, argued, laughed, and came up with a decision."

You're right, Josh - driving while impaired is common. So are fatal car accidents.

Funny coincidence.

Tens of thousands of people die every year because of drunk driving. It's such a big problem because drunk driving is so common. That is what is so troubling about your attitude towards drinking and driving. That it is so common is PRECISELY the problem. Do you not GET that? Shocking, indeed.

Reinforcing the idea that you can drive if you feel like you're fine is a pretty crazy position to take. The whole danger of alcohol is that it impairs your judgment.

So it doesn't really matter how you "feel" if you've had more than a few drinks. And you don't blow a .115 on a few drinks.

You don't need to diminish people's concerns w/ drunk driving to try to save face.

Can we have an impromptu reader poll?

Which is more dangerous: Driving a car after a night out or riding a fixed gear bike?

Just curious.

Everybody, what Josh did was very brave. He is trying to wake Seattle up to what a grave injustice it is that drunk drivers get their feelings hurt when you meanies gang up on them for their so-called "irresponsible behavior." It couldn't possibly be irresponsible if everybody does it, people!

Getting testy, Josh?

Sometimes that hipster thing just backfires, short guy.

@ECB: Given your last comment what was Josh's BAC when he was driving?

Yeah, hipster irresponsibility: It is just so cool!!!

Just a word of advise for Josh, next time you do it (and we know you will since you see nothing wrong with it) try not to kill anyone.

@8, yours is still the best comment on this entire thread. The Best!

Arriba! It's Speedy Velazquez! Andole! Andole al BalMar!

I'm glad that some people are picking up on the "2 drinks" issue. As a former bartender, what the drinks are matters a great deal. Long Island Ice Tea is the equivalent of 3 oz. alcohol (2 shots) - and many bartenders overpour them. Martinis, likewise, are at least 3 oz. alcohol, but more likely over that. Hell, anyone can order a double and call it "one drink".

Venus, who has at least 11 previous citations, has a history of problems. Sure, 5 of the citations were for "no proof of insurance" -- but how did the cop find out? Yeah, because they pulled her over for something else. Good thing she shacks up with a lawyer.

Someone asked why to vote for Bruce Harrell. Bruce has been endorsed by a ton of great people and organizations, including the King County Democrats (38-1!) and the King County Building Trades. He has a ton of unions supporting him, as well as Ron Sims, Norm Rice, Wes Ulhman, 3 city councilmembers, and a ton of state legislators. Bruce won $65 million for thousands of women employees from Boeing in a class action lawsuit against their employer. He's represented unions, small businesses, and people of color as a plaintiff's attorney. Bruce's mom is Japanese, who was interred at Minidoka, and his dad is an African American who came to Seattle from New Orleans when he was a kid. Bruce, his parents and his son all graduated from Garfield.

This is a choice between the "local boy makes good" v. "the woman who drinks and drives and discriminates".

Venus Dui Milo

Josh, being a cynical, nihilistic atheist, I hold no real shock or outrage over this whole affair.

Drinking and driving *is* a common behavior. Doesn't make it acceptable, or ethical in your case, though. No, you aren't a public official, in that you do not perform your work on the taxpayer dime. But you are a public figure, giving a voice on behalf of a large and diverse reader community. And your actions and words are running counter to what many in this reader community feel is prudent.

I'm not saying you always have to fall in lockstep with majority opinion or change your mind every time reader opinion doesn't go your way. That of course runs counter to complete journalistic freedom and it's what makes Slog great...unfiltered access to the thoughts of The Stranger and a constant dialogue between reader and writer, with no punches held and no apologies given. However in this case you and ECB are displaying something close to contempt for a large portion of your reader base.

You say you were proving a point? To what end? To put us lowly, "juvenile" Slog readers in our place? Probably not. But I'm having a hard time coming up with another reason.

If anything, you've only proven how more juvenile and irresponsible you are than many of your younger readers.

Idiot.

I forgot to add: What point would be at stake had you been pulled over for speeding, weaving, or worse? Would you go completely gonzo and go down as a martyr for the cause of repealing DUI laws, or be contrite and own up to your mistake?

He'd apologize for not taking a cab, then plead not guilty to DUI.

DUH!

IT'S COMMON PLACE! JUMP ON THE BANDWAGON.

Cocktail Hour,

I asked The Stranger or commenters specifically and rhetorically why *we should NOT vote for Harrell* because there has been very little talk on Harrell.

But your slightly racist pro-Harrell press release comment didn't really help at all. Sorry

("Arriba!"? Who the fuck are you, Cocktail Hour? Hopefully not working for Harrell's campaign for his sake.)

Flex car should cancel your contract.

This is ugly stuff - all to say you still like the Drunk Lady Venus?

Wow, is there a lack of news? Venus looks stupid and now you folks look stupider.

I just saw that they are handing out Free Beer at Gasworks park right now to anyone who believes that Venus only had two drinks!!! Better hop in that Flexcar, Josh.

Laterite @63,

My comment about the public dime was in reference to our endorsements—not in reference to drinking two drinks @ BalMar.

So again, re: Endorsements. One commenter keeps demanding that I explain the behind the scenes ins and outs of our endorsements and another commenter suggested that we weren't offering the same transparency we demand of story subjects.

I explained that we demand transparency from public officials who are doing the public's business on the public's dime, while our endorsements are for the public to read or not and take our advice or not. The public isn't paying us for those endorsements.

The important thing about our endorsements, the reasoning, is explained in the write ups themselves.

Racist, my fat Latina ass. Let me get this straight, Matthew Fisher Wilder, Venus can spew racist crap for months and is allowed to do so, and someone makes a little joke "Arriba!" and you claim racism?? You are too precious even for liberal Seattle. And no, I don't work for Bruce, but my hot Latina blood was sure willing to vote for him, if only because he is a quiet, decent man of reason and intelligence. Traits sorely lacking on our city council.

See my URL above for an interesting article out of Chicago.

Here are some choice excerpts:

In May, a DuPage County prosecutor was killed in an accident where her BAC was later determined to be .25 percent. The driver in an Oswego crash in February that killed five teenagers is accused of having a BAC of around .084. A trial began last week for the alleged driver in a 2006 triple-fatal crash, where at least one report put his BAC at .18.

But if you think it takes an extreme blood-alcohol level to get a DUI conviction, think again.

While it\'s true that .08 is the legal limit for intoxication, drivers can be convicted of drunken driving with BAC as low as .05.

That means some women could be at risk for a drunk-driving conviction after just one drink; all men would be in jeopardy after three drinks consumed in an hour.

...

But you can be charged and convicted of drunk driving if your blood alcohol is between .05 and .079 if prosecutors can prove that your driving was impaired at the time of your stop or accident. (Below .05, drivers are legally presumed to not be intoxicated.)

...

Just thought I\'d throw that out there.

Really Simple, did you skip your meds?

Yep, we're such hipsters. Such hip thirty- and forty-something hip hip hipsters.

From the article...

It\'s not a question of whether you are legally intoxicated, it\'s a question of whether or not it is safe to drive when you have consumed any amount of alcohol. Research shows that impairment begins long before a person reaches the blood alcohol concentration level necessary to be guilty of drunken driving.

... so Erica, you think drunk driving is wrong. And research shows that you can be impaired before .08, and jurisprudence shows that you can be convicted even if you have less than .08 BAC. So how can you and josh possibly justify your actions?

I notice you address the snarky posts, but on the facts, you\'re both mum.

Annoying Simple Person: I'm trying to read my slog and you're crapflooding it. No!

No means no, so cut it out. Go crapflood some other blog for a while.

So...why does You_Gotta_Be_Kidding_Me's one comment get deleted by the Stranger's spam filter, but Really Simple's 6 repeated comments get to fly by?

And comments like this are okay?

And a little less than half of my jesty [sic] comments are acceptable, even when I express that I'm having a bad day and that I'm going to put a cigarette out in Dan Savage's eye, attempt [gross insubordination] to kill children with second hand smoke, and if it doesn't work I'll teach them how to smoke and reward their learning skills with a carton of cigarettes...well, uh, maybe y'all should hire someone to do Slog maintenance, eh?

A lot of these problems are due to the ball sucking blog engine the Stranger uses. You'd think they'd have the sense to use Scoop, like Kos or smokedot.org.

Comment ratings are the answer. Registered users are good. Threading is the bomb. This @94 crap to see who you are replying to is just fucking ghetto.

Adequacy.org was a Scoop site, you know. Just saying.

fixed the multiple posts.

You missed a set at 72-78. Thanks for cleaning up.

@85

Thanks, but what #86 said.

Done - thought I got 'em the first time.

@56
Riding a pit bull after only one drink is most dangerous of all.

@82

Woot! I love you. Thank you for checking up. No, really. I love you, ECB.

(Call me!)

"After my two drinks—I don’t think I was impaired—I drove the Flexcar back home down Market."

OK, OK, OK, forget Velazquez, or Harrell, or RTID, or any of that stuff...

*WOW*.

This is all just a big game for you, huh? All the comments from the Slog readers (not really known for our conservativeness) about how irresponsible we think drunk driving is? We're just blowing smoke, huh? We're just trying to harsh your fun? We're just alllllllllllll closet Harrell staffers and/or new-Victorians (also something the Slog readers aren't known for)?

Wow.

Josh, how much do you weigh?

Venus is by her own description a small woman, so two drinks on her is like six on McIver.

And good one on trumping the Volvo. They're so 1992. The only way I can trump your Flexie is tandem biking while nursing a toddler.

O.K., Josh, enough is enough: it's time to fess up and disclose to us rubes out here that you've written a brilliant piece of Swiftian satire in the vein of "A Modest Proposal." The hilarious last line about driving home in the Flexcar was a dead giveaway: how better to skewer the cluelessness and pretension (Smug Alert! as they say on South Park) of your basic vacuous, "progressive" Seattle [il]liberal. As I said, brilliant.
I'll offer up my own bit of (admittedly lame) satire: I have marked my absentee ballot for Bruce Harrell; although I live in Magnolia (the belly of the capitalist beast), I intend to drive to the Ballard post office in my extremely large, gas-guzzling SUV to mail the ballot; after that, I will drive past the BalMar to the Ballard McDonald's, where I will consume junk food (unfortunately, styrofoam packaging is no longer available); I will not consume any alcoholic beverages, I will obey the speed limit, and my driver's license and proof of insurance will accompany me at all times.
Oh, wait, is that satire?

Erica and Josh - arrogant and stupid beyond words.

Hope the MADD mothers picket your offices.