Watch these two clips from tonight’s debate. I’m not saying any more about them until my feature is done, but these two clips, in which Clinton makes the same, very interesting argument in two different ways—well, they say it all.

Via Ben Smith.

Not all politically-active young people are working for Obama. Local LaRouchies were outside of Nordstrom on Pine today singing, um, impeachment carols, I guess. Which chromosome do you have to be missing to dedicate your life to Lyndon LaRouche?

Two tough moments, in my opinion, for her during tonight’s debate. One was her shrill attack on Obama, calling him a “flip-flopper.” Why would she want to associate herself with Bush rhetoric?

The second was her being questioned about Obama being inherently more likeable. Obama’s comment, “she’s likeable enough,” was a low blow as well.

Still, the entire Democratic party seems much more serious and ready to lead than the Republicans. Go us!

Your thoughts?

Don’t forget to listen to Eli on 710AM, at 8pm tonight.

It’s one thing to direct reporters to a well-reported story about Obama’s “present” votes in the Illinois state senate. It’s another thing to send voters a histrionic mailer that blatantly distorts the facts.

The mailer:

Text: “Hillary Clinton has fought efforts by far-right Republicans to limit or overturn Roe v. Wade. An original co-sponsor of the Freedom of Choice Act—federal legislation that would guarantee the right to choose for every American woman. Secured FDA decision on the over-the-counter sale of Plan B emergency contraception.”

Yes, good job, HRC, especially on the emergency contraception pressure (kudos to our very own Patty Murray, too). That was awesome. Not quite so awesome: turning on your pro-choice allies.

Text: “Barack Obama. Unwilling to take a stand on choice. Seven times he had the opportunity to stand up against Republican anti-choice legislation in the Illinois State Senate. Seven times he voted ‘present’—not ‘yes’ or ‘no,’ but ‘present.’ Being there is not enough to protect choice.”

As the New York Times reports, these present votes were part of a strategy devised by Planned Parenthood to protest Republican pressure tactics on Ds representing conservative districts:

In at least 45 instances, Mr. Obama voted [“present”] with large numbers of fellow Democrats as part of the tactical skirmishing with Republicans over the budget.

Seven other times, he voted that way as part of a broad strategy devised by abortion rights advocates to counter anti-abortion bills.

Pam Sutherland, president of Illinois Planned Parenthood Council, said Mr. Obama was one of the senators with a strong stand for abortion rights whom the organization approached about using the strategy. Ms. Sutherland said the Republicans were trying to force Democrats from conservative districts to register politically controversial no votes.

Ms. Sutherland said Mr. Obama had initially resisted the strategy because he wanted to vote against the anti-abortion measures.

“He said, ‘I’m opposed to this,’” she recalled.

But the organization argued that a present vote would be difficult for Republicans to use in campaign literature against Democrats from moderate and conservative districts who favored abortion rights.

Lisa Madigan, the Illinois attorney general who was in the Illinois Senate with Mr. Obama from 1998 through 2002, said she and Mr. Obama voted present on the anti-abortion bills.

“It’s just plain wrong to imply that voting present reflected a lack of leadership,” Ms. Madigan said. “In fact, it was the exact opposite.”

Taking marching orders from Planned Parenthood now counts as being anti-choice? Hillary, please find another issue on which to distinguish yourself from the new frontrunner. (I hear the ladies are against nuclear power.) Obama has a 100% rating from NARAL Pro-Choice America. Lay off it.

PS: Remember “sad, even tragic”? Not so long ago, really.

Despite flirting with a collapse in the fourth quarter (Hasselbeck? Two INTs in four passing attempts? Really?), the Seahawks beat Washington 35-14. The Hawks D was brutal.

Lord Favre and the Packers are next, so expect heavy rotation of Hasselbeck’s infamous “we’re gonna score!” clip for the next 7 days.

Go Hawks!

Since no one else who cares seems to be around a computer, and it’s driving me nuts, let’s talk football. A little late, I know.

YES!!! Touchdown Trufant! Whew. We were freaking out over here for a little while there.

Anyway, discuss.

Apparently you can get away with shoving Barack Obama’s campaign staffers—with the candidate himself standing nearby, and packs of Secret Service agents everywhere. You can shove Obama staffers all you want and no one’s going to arrest you or tase you or shoot you dead on the spot. So long as you’re Bill O’Reilly.

I’m here at the bar of the Hotel Fort Des Moines in Iowa, where I’ll be doing what I’m calling a “lazy live-blogging” of tonight’s Democratic and Republican debates on ABC. I’m fried from five days on the trail and I have a feature to start writing, but first I need to watch this bit of political theater—and so do you, if you’re a political junkie.

You should know the drill by now: Send me comments through the liveblogging widget, and if they’re worthy I’ll drop them into the liveblog in progress. I need your comments now more than ever, Slog readers! The trail has turned my mind to mush.

UPDATE: Well, that was a big mess. Something’s bad with either the liveblogging app or my internet connection. Sorry. Liveblog over.

Tune it tonight at 8pm for a special installment of the Stranger News Hour on KIRO 710am.

Eli will talk with KIRO’s David Goldstein from the presidential campaign trail.

And cc’ed to The Stranger (and the Seattle Times, the PI, King 5, and Komo 4):

To whom it may concern,

My family and I live in Belltown, very near the new Olympic Sculpture Park. I am writing because I am very concerned about the way the security staff treats visitors to the park.

When the park first opened my family and I had no trouble at all and my two-and-a-half year old son fell in love with his trips to “see the art.” And, even though he is very young, he understands when we tell him “no touching.”

We live so close to the park that we thought it would be a park, where we could play and run and engage “park”activities.

Instead we are approached when we are merely minding our own business, by security guards, clad in very police-like uniforms, and reminded not to touch what we are not touching and not to do what we are not doing.

On three different occasions, my son has been told not to touch the art, when he was not touching the art.

I could understand this heavy-handed security guard behavior in a museum or a store or an airport, but not at a park.

Most of us in America have a strong cultural reference to what a park is and what we can do there. The security guards behavior either needs to change, or the word park should be removed from the name of the Olympic Sculpture “Museum?”

My son is now scared to go in the park, he tells me hears fears the security guards and doesn’t want to go there any more.

This is sad for him to be afraid of uniformed men so early in life, especially when that fear was generated in a place where most of us feel free to play.

The Museum needs to publicly announce it’s mistakes and correct them, or I will persist in making the very borderline behavior of the security staff public.

Sincerely,
Paco Jones

*Non-unpaid intern version

In New Hampshire: Candidates race toward Tuesday finish.

In Iraq: Iraqi soldier “killed US troops.”

In Kenya: President offers unity government.

In really, really bad ideas: McCain/Lieberman?

Surging: Obama, according to at least one poll.

Going Negative: Hillary, according to Bill.

Uh-Oh: Economy maybe fucked.

Released!: Britney’s at large.

Along the West Coast: It’s raining, and people lack power.

In Sports: There’s some sort of game going on.

The stakes couldn’t be higher. If Obama wins the debate, and goes on to win the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday, the nomination is most likely his. Is there anything Clinton can do to push back against the Obama phenomenon? Can Edwards do anything to break through? The Democratic debate starts at 5:30 p.m. PST on ABC (there’s a Republican debate, too, and it starts at 4 p.m PST).

I’ll definitely do some live-blogging of the Democrats, and probably of the Republicans as well, from my hotel bar here in Des Moines. See you then.

…Obama supporters are going to hurt their candidate if they run around New Hampshire booing Hillary Clinton. Aggressive, young, obnoxious supporters—they did real damage to Dean in ‘04, and they could hurt Obama in ‘08.

Back when polls showed Hillary Clinton with a comfortable lead—back when she was the “presumptive nominee”—Barack Obama was raising three times as much money in Washington state as Clinton. Eli Sanders wrote this column about the first signs of an Obama’s surge in Washington state:

“There’s something going on in Washington,” says Peter Masundire, 47, a health-care consultant from South Seattle who acts as communications coordinator for Washington for Obama, an organization that operates independent of Obama’s official campaign….

King County Executive Ron Sims, who recently endorsed Clinton and signed on as her campaign cochair for this state, wouldn’t bite on the question of why Obama’s been doing so well in Washington. Instead, Sims simply repeated one pro-Clinton talking point: “Any poll that’s been done shows that she’s ahead, even here.” I asked: What about Obama’s money momentum in Washington? Sims: “The fact is, Senator Clinton leads in the polls in this state.” I asked: What about Obama’s strong grassroots support here? Sims: “Senator Clinton is the poll leader here.”

Knowing that there have been few polls of Washington State voters on the Democratic primary slate, I asked Sims what “polls” he was referring to. He had only one: a SurveyUSA poll from May showing Clinton at 38 percent, Obama at 30 percent, and Edwards at 19 percent.

A four-month-old poll is hardly a definitive rebuttal to the sense that Obama has become Washington’s man. And in any case, Masundire told me that he believes any poll focused on likely Democratic primary voters (that is, people who have voted in Democratic primaries in the past) is going to miss a lot of Obama support. Among the Obama enthusiasts, here and around the country, who Masundire believes are going uncounted: young new voters, people who only have cell phones (and thus aren’t on pollsters’ call lists), and people who haven’t voted in recent elections but will vote next year because of Obama.

Speaking of the D.C. prognosticators and their designation of Clinton as the front-runner, Masundire told me: “I think when the primaries come, they are really going to be surprised.”

From Flickr pool contributor broianbro.

Music

The Lashes at Vera Project

• See what else is happening in Music on Saturday »
• More Stranger Suggests for this week »

…according to latest polls. So things don’t look so good for Hillary. The Republican candidates debate tonight on ABC at 4 PM PST, the Dem candidates debate at 5:30 PM PST. And according to The Note, all the candidates, R and D, will share the stage for a few terrifyingly awkward moments during the transition from the R debate to the D debate. I’m tuning in for that.

It’s in the PI.

M. Coy Books & Espresso will shut its doors within the next month after 18 years on Pine Street, just a block from Pike Place Market.

Partners Michael Coy and Michael Brasky have fought the good indie fight at a difficult location, but a lost lease under their building’s new ownership forced them to recognize that their store’s struggles did not justify relocation.

Does the Seattle Times really need to qualify the word “psychic” with the word “phony”? Not all phonies are psychics, of course, but certainly all psychics are phonies.

Evon and Lee persuaded the victim, a recent immigrant from China, that she could free her boyfriend from the curse and be reunited with him by allowing them to pray over all the cash she could get her hands on, prosecutors said.

Despite her “doubts,” the victim withdrew more than $200,000 cash from her savings account and her parents’ retirement account and entrusted it to the two.

When the victim returned for an appointment with Evon and Lee two days later, she found the psychics and the money gone.

And if the Seattle Times is going to qualify “psychic” with “phony,” shouldn’t they qualify “victim” with “idiot”?

My reasons for preferring Obama to Clinton and Edwards are, I’ve admitted, not exclusively related to policy. I think Edwards comes off as a phony and I hate the idea that the first woman to have a real shot at the presidency is running on the achievements of her husband; meanwhile, Obama is thoughtful and persuasive, and his background suggests his personal politics are to the left of his primary D rivals. At the same time, he appeals to Rs and independents and may yet stave off a Bloomberg run (which I think hurts Ds). He’d make kickass nominations to the Supreme Court.

But I’m happy to talk about ECB’s policy contentions:

1. Obama’s environmental record speaks for itself. Obama received a rating of 96 from the League of Conservation Voters. Clinton is at a respectable 90, but Edwards received a ridiculous 63. Edwards is a Johnny-come-lately on environmental issues. I’m glad he’s led the field on energy, but when it comes down to it, I don’t trust him. Obama’s past support for corn-based ethanol and “clean” coal is troubling, I agree, but he’s from a Midwestern state and he was campaigning in Iowa—there’s still room for him to move on ethanol and he’s already yielded to environmentalist pressure on coal. On the big issues, the field is more or less level: Edwards wants to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 80% by 2050—so do Obama and Clinton. Each of the three candidates supports an auction-based cap-and-trade system for greenhouse gas emissions; Obama and Clinton would auction off 100% of the credits, while Edwards reserves the latitude to give some away. Even Edwards extols “clean” coal (“Edwards will invest $1 billion a year to research ways to burn coal cleanly and recycle its carbon underground permanently”) and corn-based ethanol (“Produce 65 Billion Gallons of Ethanol a Year by 2025: However, although millions of ethanol-ready cars are on the roads, only about 600 of the 169,000 gas stations have pumps for E85, a blend of ethanol and gasoline. Edwards will require oil companies to install ethanol pumps at 25 percent of their gas stations and require all new cars sold after 2010 to be “flex fuel” cars running on either gasoline or biofuel”). The enviro suspicion of Obama comes mainly from the fact that he was last to release his energy plan and he supports nuclear energy, with safety/storage caveats. The candidates really aren’t all that different, once you control for the states they represented in the Senate.

2. Politically, he’s pragmatic. It’s unfortunate that Obama didn’t directly apologize for the McClurkin incident, just like it’s too bad that Clinton didn’t admit she was wrong on the war. Which is a bigger lapse in judgment? The New York Times has been great on reviewing Obama’s canny state senate career: Read this piece on race politics and this one on those much maligned ‘present’ votes. In Illinois, Obama was known as a liberal who worked with Republicans to get things done. I’m a partisan D, but I have no problem with electing someone with that kind of record. Better that, in fact, than a centrist who refuses to work with Republicans as a matter of principle.

3. Paul Krugman is a rabid Obama hater. Obama was not fanning the flames by calling Social Security a crisis; he was suggesting some changes need to be made—and they’re progressive changes! If you can raise the ceiling on Social Security taxes by talking about solvency, why wouldn’t you do that? Let’s all chill out a little.

4. Here I actually disagree with ECB. None of the plans proposed by the major Dem candidates could supply universal health care. Universal health care will happen when we suck it up and agree that we’re willing to pay for a single-payer system through a progressive tax. Not before. All of the D plans will increase the number of Americans who have health insurance. The question is: Do you want to alienate prospective D voters by forcing them to pay money out of their own pockets to a third-party insurer? Until the candidates nail down a price for premiums and show me the subsidies for people who can’t afford it, I will never support a mandate. It’s political suicide. It won’t pass Congress, and it will hurt the Democratic party.

I’d like to get around to my policy reasons for supporting Obama this weekend. For now, have at it.

I don’t know how I got on Mitt Romney’s mailing list, but the emails keep coming. This just in:

Please join your fellow Team Mitt members from across the nation for a special Call at Home day, this Monday, January 7th, from 2 p.m. - 8:30 p.m. EST. Just email “count me in” to CallAtHome@MittRomney.com to participate in this nationwide rally of support and volunteerism for Governor Romney. We will be reminding Romney supporters to turn out for the New Hampshire primary on Tuesday, January 8.

Who: You and your fellow Team Mitt members. Goal: 5,000 callers.

What: New Hampshire Get-out-the-Vote Day

When: Monday, January 7, from 2pm – 8:30pm EST

Where: From the comfort of your home

Why: Send Governor Romney to Victory in New Hampshire and on his way to the White House!

How: By emailing “count me in” to CallAtHome@MittRomney.com. You will then receive a USER NAME and PASSWORD and simple instructions.
Please ask your friends and family to make calls from home too. For those of you who participated in this high tech program in the past, you know how easy it is—spread the word!

Okay, okay—I’m spreading the word, Mitt!

If you would like a list of the home phone numbers of Romney supporters in New Hampshire—and, really, who wouldn’t?—simply email “count me in” to CallAtHome@MittRomney.com.

Now Mitt Romney trusts that you won’t call his supporters in the middle of the night, or remind them that Mormons wear funny underpants and believe that Satan and Jesus are brothers and used to hate black people like that Obama dude and his wife and kids, or that Romney spent $17 million of his own money trying to buy Iowa and lost to that rube Huckabee and now Romney thinks he can buy New Hampshire. You shouldn’t do or say any of that. Governor Romney is trusting you with a valuable campaign asset—the home phone numbers of his supporters in New Hampshire—and you shouldn’t abuse the trust of a man that only wants to be president so he can double the size of Gitmo, continue to torture people, ban abortion, prevent your gay friends from marrying or adopting, etc.

Go Team Mitt!

Stranger Iowa caucus correspondent (aka Iowa caucus voter and former Stranger news intern) Sarah Mirk has an article up on our home page about her caucus day decision to leave Edwards’ progressive specifics behind for Obama’s candidacy of hope.

A new voter registers in Iowa, so he can caucus for Obama.

And in cases where the actual mother and father can’t raise a child, it’s crucial that a child have male and female role models in the home. A child needs mother figures and a father figures. Having two parents of the same sex simply isn’t in the best interests of a child. It’s just wrong. It’s unjust. And I’m sure this child—who lives in Florida, where gays and lesbians are unable to adopt—will one day understand that, if you’re going to have your skin burned off, it’s better to have your skin burned off in a traditional heterosexual household.

A Central Florida man is accused of pouring hot cooking oil on a 17-month-old and using a hair dryer to burn his skin off because the toddler apparently would not stop crying and whining. Police said Darlanne Toussaint was charged with felony attempted murder on suspicion he abused his girlfriend’s son in an Apopka apartment building Thursday.

The mother of the child, Marlita S. Stokes, 23, was arrested on Friday and faces charges of child neglect and providing false information to police.

According to a charging affidavit, Toussaint poured the hot cooking oil on the boy, shook him hard for 10 minutes and then burned him with a blow dryer to the point that his skin fell off, Local 6 reported.

Via Pam’s House Blend, where RadicalRuss says…

Thank goodness some states, like Florida, don’t let gay couples adopt and others are considering or have considered bans on gay adoption. Why, who knows what awful parents gay people would be, what with their awful gayness. The poor kid might get gay cooties or something.

Better we just let the straights in Florida keep up their fine examples of parenting.

What’s that, Mitt “Dead Man Running” Romney?

“I believe that the development of children is enhanced by having a male and a female as part of their upbringing in their home. Even when there’s a divorce, you still have a mom and a dad. And even where one member of the partnership may pass away, the memory and the characteristics of that gender, of that partner influence the development of a child.”

So take comfort, little 17-month-old burn victim in Florida. Like Mitt says, even if one member of the opposite-sex partnership raising you is sent away for life, you’ll always have those memories to cherish.

Last night, I was told that the controversy over stem cell research is over.

The person who told me this, knows me well enough to understand that this was a low blow. (For, it’s true, and it stings.)

However, there is an exciting development in the world of cloning today that keeps the blessed technology relevant: The FDA is set to approve cloned livestock.

And, while the implications for extending the science to humans isn’t clear, at least they’re making similes to the human experience. The conversation begins anew!

The great problem of selling meat in restaurants is that, as in dating, there is no way to guarantee that you’ll get someone (or someone’s aged carcass) that you really like. So an ideal solution is to find one that you know is great and clone it.

Skaters rejoice! The Woodland Park Skatepark is well on its way to completion.

The project could be finished as early as the end of the month, or as late as March if something goes wrong. Keep your fingers crossed.

The Seattle Parks Department plans to have a big ol’ fancy party for the skatepark’s grand opening. No word on whether Mayor Nickels will be in attendance to show off his wicked kick-flip skillz.

Photos by Matthew Lee Johnston via Seattleskateparks.org

Hi Stranger,

I’m writing to thank you, and to show you how a pile of your old newspapers inspired me to take better care of the environment. Architects and designers here in Seattle, my roommate and I couldn’t help but notice a gallery call for “chairs made of recycled materials.” Admittedly, we enjoy letting Strangers pile up beside the couch as much as we enjoy reading them, so we put two and two together and the idea matured as a reminder of an important problem we all face today—the current state of our environment.

“Making a chair out of Stranger issues” quickly became “giving garbage new life.” Waste can equal food. It must, actually. So, I thought I would share our progress with you. There are some videos on our blog showing how we’re using your newspapers and some old cardboard. The gallery opens February 15th, and there will be a Stranger scrap chair in your honor.

Thank you for writing about local environmental issues.

Jonathan

Here’s a mock-up.

Prospects for the Golden Globes next weekend are looking dismal, but at least we have another thrilling political debate!

New in theaters this week:

Bradley Steinbacher’s review of this week’s most exciting release, There Will Be Blood, appears in On Screen: “Tempering his usual fireworks, Paul Thomas Anderson has crafted a true American epic.” Also in On Screen: Charles Mudede’s preview of Northwest Film Forum’s series on the early work of Béla Tarr, which starts next Tuesday (“The most important thing that Tarr’s early movies have contributed to cinema is the art of the long conversation”), Lindy West on The Orphanage (“What exactly is a baby ghost going to DO to me after it crawls into my bed at night and I think it’s my handsome-ish husband? Cuddle me TO DEATH?”), and me on He Was a Quiet Man (it’s “efficiently directed, and the low-budget CGI—mostly devoted to animating Bob’s chatty pet fish—is admirably unobtrusive. But the script is a travesty”).

Limited Runs this week include a second week of Diva at SIFF Cinema, the locally produced experimental feature All My Love at NWFF, Blazing Saddles at Egyptian late nights, the Chinese male weepie Sunflower at Grand Illusion, and more. See Get Out for complete movie times.

Enough said.

I can hear someone in the future saying something like this: “You know how bad Bush was? He was so bad, so hopeless, so ignorant, he made white folks vote for a black president. You can’t get no worse than that. No siree!”

“We are Seabiscuit!” — John Edwards.

“I feel like Seabiscuit!” — Mike Huckabee.

After 51 years, Seattle’s best bowling alley, the Sunset Bowl, is closing. For real.

Rumors of Sunset Bowl’s demise have been floating around for years but, this time, General Manager Verl Lowry confirms this is the real deal.

“We’ve been sold,” he says. “I don’t know who the new owners are.” Lowry says the staff only found out about the sale two days ago.

King County records do not indicate who the new owner of the $3 million property might be.

Sunset Bowl will likely close by the middle of April, Lowry says.

Photo by Katkrieg via Flickr.

First, a caveat: Obviously, like 98 percent of the Democrats I know, I’ll be thrilled to vote for any of the three frontrunners come November. But of the three, Obama excites me the least—primarily on policy grounds (‘cause I’m a wonk like that) but also on personality. Anyway, here are a few reasons Obama’s not my guy.

1) His energy plan is the least progressive and most status quo of the three. The plan, released last October, includes every pale-green, fake-environmentalist scheme you can imagine: Expanded nuclear, doubling or tripling of corn production for ethanol, a carbon sequestration scheme that relies on technologies that don’t yet exist, and so-called “clean coal,” which isn’t really clean at all. Yes, his plan does pay lip service to greener technologies like cellulosic ethanol and plug-in hybrids; and yes, he would implement a fully auctioned cap-and-trade system whose proceeds would pay for investments in clean energy development. But on the whole, Obama’s done little more than pay lip service to clean energy and environmental reforms—speaking out against mining reforms, for example, that would have eliminated a notorious mining law that allows companies to mine public lands for free. He also attacked Clinton for being anti-ethanol.

2) Politically, he’s an appeaser. He issued a convoluted response when news broke that he was touring with Donnie McClurkin, an “ex-gay” homophobe, then allowed McClurkin to use his campaign as a platform to spread his homophobic message to thousands of African-Americans. He’s attempted to reach out to Republicans, both by triangulating on several key Republican issues and by stating directly that he would include Republicans in his administration. In 2005, he even wrote that Republicans were not, contrary to what Democrats believed, a “sharply partisan, radically conservative, take-no-prisoners” party, calling those descriptions mere “labels” and “jargon.” Maybe his positions have changed since then, but I find it alarming that Obama would dismiss as “labels” a description of the Republican Party that was and is undeniably true.

3) And speaking of parroting Republicans (and their talking points) … He’s bought into the false idea that Social Security is in a “crisis,” going so far as to use that word. Social Security is not in a crisis. To quote Paul Krugman, “This isn’t 1992. The DLC isn’t the Democratic party’s leading edge. The center isn’t somewhere between Joe Lieberman and John McCain. I can’t understand how Obama can be this out of touch.”

4) His health care plan, unlike his opponents’, wouldn’t cover everyone. Unlike Edwards’ and Clinton’s plans, Obama’s would not include a mandate that every American participate (it contains a mandate for children, but not adults); without a mandate, the plan would not qualify as universal health care. The whole point of universal health care is that everyone pays into the system, even if they don’t think they need health care at the time; in return, everyone gets coverage when they need it. Without a mandate, healthy people could choose to wait until they have a health problem to buy in, forcing those who bought insurance when they were healthy to subsidize those who waited until they weren’t.

Light Sensitive: ER docs more likely to prescribe painkillers to whites.

Fixing Stupid: Clinical trials for cocaine vaccine.

Bumpin’: Traffickers hiring flat-chested women to smuggle cocaine in their bras.

Pass the Fucking Dutchie: Man killed after Bogarting that joint.

All Shook Down: Chicago cops sentenced to prison for stealing and dealing.

Unstuck: D.C. to spend $650,000 on needle exchange after federal ban lifted.

Big High Country: Montana wants to ban medical marijuana for sick parolees.

Lure or Cheap Cut? US “flooding” with ecstasy cut with meth.

Brewing Violence: Kenya yielding coffee crops despite warfare.

Someone’s got to Eat All that Ice Cream: Governor considering decriminalizing marijuana in Vermont.

Salvia: Legal in Indiana and Kentucky, a felony in Illinois.

The White Powder Album: The DEA’s year in pictures.

The former owners of Kincora have moved into the former home of Sugar to open a new live-music venue on Capitol Hill. The King Cobra is expected to open for business in a couple weeks.

“There is already great live music almost every night of the week thanks to Neumo’s, the Comet Tavern, and Chop Suey. We want to complement what is already going on, and hopefully add something new,” says owner Che Sabado. “We want people to know whoever they are, if they come to 10th and Pike they’re going to have a good time.”

The place is keeping a majority of the staff from Kincora. According to booker Jason Rothman, he’ll be bringing in local and national acts of just about every variety, from hiphop to indie rock, and working with established local bookers to keep things diverse. Sound will be engineered by “Paul the Sound Viking” and “Greedy Greg, who worked sound at Neumo’s forever.”

Seattle’s burgeoning “entertainment district” continues to grow.

Full story on Line Out.

The governor is taking action—swift and terrible action!—and, with God as her witness, no foolin’, don’t try to stop her, she is going to tear the goddamn Alaska Way Viaduct down. In 2012—just eleven short years after the Nisqually Earthquake damaged the viaduct in February of 2001.

“It’s coming down in 2012. I’m taking it down—the middle,” she said, referring to the elevated portion of the span that runs roughly from Battery Street Tunnel to Pioneer Square, which has been the most vexing and controversial piece of the transportation puzzle.

“That’s the timeline. I’m not going to fudge on it. And if we don’t have some alternative by then, boy are we going to have a mess on our hands because it’s coming down.”

Asked if she, as governor, could trump the state’s largest city and county and unilaterally tear down a highway that carries more than 100,000 vehicles a day through the heart of Seattle, Gregoire said:

“Yeah, watch me.”

Wait… I thought we had all agreed to wait until the viaduct fell down? Well, there’s still time. If an act of God doesn’t bring down the viaduct in the next 48 months, the governor will.

Throwing a sweet party this weekend? Want it to get covered in the paper? It’s the first weekend of the year; don’t tell me you blew your whole load on Monday. Send the details to partycrasher@thestranger.com and we can get to having a good time.

Scientists to Make Cows Fart Like Kangaroos to Cool the Planet

Cow farts are a source of greenhouse gases, while kangaroo farts are methane free thanks to a particular bacteria in their stomachs. Now, in a bizarre twist of science-reality, scientists from Australia are trying to neutralize cow-produced methane by transferring that kangaroo bacteria to cattle and sheep’s guts.

Via BoingBoing.

Josh has his pro-Hillary spin; here’s my anti-Hillary spin. Not to say that I don’t like Hillary — she’s currently my second favorite (more on why I’m not an Obama fan later today)—but the numbers indicate she faces one serious obstacle: Men don’t like her. What’s worse, women’s support isn’t strong enough to make up the difference. In last night’s Iowa caucuses, Obama narrowly bested Clinton among women (Clinton 30 percent; Obama 35 percent). But men voted overwhelmingly for Obama—35 percent supported him, compared to Clinton’s 23 percent. (Second-place Edwards took 24 percent of the male vote). Those numbers are bad news for Clinton, who needs stronger support from the ladies to make up for her poor showing among men.

Wev with the kids.

Here’s the pro-Clinton news—that you won’t see teased out of the numbers* in the press because well, they hate her. (For example, going in to last night, the press said she was supposed to come in an embarrassing 3rd place. The fact that she’s neck and neck with Edwards for 2nd in Iowa should be a story. It isn’t).

Anyway, here’s my pro-Clinton spin.

Look at the vote last night broken down by county. (Second chart on this link.)

Clinton rocks the rural areas—that is, the long coveted pick-up truck turf that Howard Dean tried to prioritize. This is the vote Democrats must win back to win nationally.

We already have the cities and much of the inner burbs (an idea we clung to in our rousing Urban Archipelago concession speech.

That’s right, concession speech. That issue made us all feel good about being Democrats. But it was also a band aid for the real issue: We lost.

I slogged back in January 2007 that Hillary Clinton was strong with this important bloc by crunching the numbers from her New York wins. And the results last night bear me out. From Monoma County (38%) to Harrison (40%) to Pottawattamie (42%) to Mills (42%) to Fremont (42%) to Wennebago (35%) to Worth (35%) to Mitchell (38%) to Howard (42%) Clinton crushed in these areas.

*It turns out there is a brief write up about this in the NYT (sorry link is blocked, but it’s on their Caucus blog.) But they simply say Obama lost to Clinton and Edwards in these Counties, while failing to mention that Clinton actually won them. Decisively.

I just got a desperate email from Mitt Romney. Not a personal email (we’re no longer friends), but a mass email from Romney’s reeling campaign. Mitt says it’s not over—he’s right, of course, as there are plenty more humiliating defeats coming his way before this is over—and asks me to invite five friends to join Team Mitt.

But what’s in it for me?

I’ll even record a customized voicemail greeting for your cell phone if you’d like. Imagine the surprise your friends will get when they call.

And Mitt will record a customized voicemail greeting for your cell phone too—for a contribution of $25. Just click here.

Even though it came out a bit blurry on the Stranger camera, this is my favorite picture from my experience in Iowa:

I took it last night at the caucus site I observed in Des Moines. The woman in the foreground wearing the yellow sweater is Olivia Johnson, 26, part of the huge influx of young voters who pushed Obama to victory.

I talked to Olivia during the horse-trading session of the caucus meeting—which, by the way, was held inside Grace United Methodist Church:

Where placards lined the aisles…

…and Obama supporters packed the left bank of pews…

…and observers watched, calculators at the ready for use in double-checking the complicated caucus math:

While we’re speaking of math, an aside: As Dan relayed yesterday, the numbers at my caucus site were fascinating and, it turns out, representative of what happened in Iowa as a whole. First of all, turnout at the site was up significantly, from 278 caucus-goers in 2004 to 322 this year—a small piece of the big Democratic picture in Iowa, which was record-shattering turnout, especially among younger voters like Olivia.

Second, at my caucus site Hillary Clinton almost didn’t reach first-round viability, an amazingly poor showing for a candidate who is so well-known and well-funded. Clinton needed 49 supporters to be viable, and she only had 48 until the lone Kucinich supporter in the room saw what was going on and helped the Hillary folks out. With that we headed into the second round, in which the only viable camps were Clinton (49 supporters), Edwards (53 supporters), and Obama (151 supporters). Horse-trading ensued as the viable camps competed for the supporters of the non-viable candidates, with Biden and Richardson folks conferring quietly…

…and a Hillary supporter cozying up (unsuccessfully) to a Biden backer:

In the end the Biden supporters went mainly to Obama, the Richardson supporters went mainly to Edwards, and after all the horse-trading the final second-round tally wound up mirroring the larger Iowa standings: Hillary in third with 62 supporters, Edwards in second with 72 supporters, and Obama in first with 175 supporters.

But back to where I started. It was during the horse-trading session that I talked to Olivia…

…who announced very quickly that she would not be moving from the Obama camp. She was eligible to caucus last cycle, but didn’t. This time she felt she had to—that she could not and would not miss the chance.

Olivia was in college in New Orleans during Hurrican Katrina, attending Xavier University where she majored in English. Now she works customer service at a wall-covering distributor in Des Moines. But the experience during Katrina made her see the caucuses as hugely important.

“For me, having went through Hurricane Katrina, it’s time for us to have somebody in power that’s not going to forget about their people,” Olivia told me. “Whether they’re black, white, green, purple, poor, rich, middle class—I feel like I was forgotten.”

What’s interesting here is that Clinton talked on the stump about “invisible” Americans and the shame of Katrina, while Edwards made fiery promises not to neglect the average citizen any longer. But somehow that didn’t move Olivia—or, at least, it didn’t move her as much as hearing a similar message from a voice and presence like Obama. Coming from him, change really meant something. Or, perhaps, it meant more. I asked Olivia why she thought Hillary was losing so badly to Obama at the caucus.

“It’s about change,” she replied. “It’s all about change. He’s not marketing to one specific group. He’s trying to get everybody to come together to be one America. Which is what it’s all about. We are a melting pot of all different nationalities, sexes, races, and it’s all about coming together and doing what’s right to make our country strong again.”

And Hillary wouldn’t bring about that change?

“It’s just all about that movement to get things to be better,” Olivia continued. “And yes, Hillary is a great candidate, but Obama is the one that is speaking the truth. He’s speaking about what needs to be done to bring us together so that we don’t have all of this separatism.”

So much for Edwards’s presentation of himself as the only “truth teller” in the election, and so much for Clinton’s presentation of herself as the real “change agent.” Also, notice that Olivia is speaking only in platitudes and impressions here. I heard this repeatedly in Iowa. For all the focus on issues where the candidates diverge, it seems a lot of Democrats were motivated not by policy difference but primarily by emotion and, yes, something as ephemeral as hope.

When I pressed Olivia to tell me about an issue that had pulled her into the Obama camp she told me it wasn’t about the issues. “Mostly, for me, I like his message,” she said.

Over in the Hillary crowd, William Cotton, 74, joked that maybe all of Obama’s young supporters would skip out between the first and second rounds of caucusing to grab beers and never come back, thus giving Hillary the win. They didn’t.

“It’s a surprise,” Cotton told me. “And I worry that this turnout of young people might skew the whole process for the general election.”

Well, I replied, what if young people turn out to be the pivotal force in the general election that they were on caucus night here in Iowa?

“I’m not so sure about that,” Cotton replied. “I hope that’s true. I have grandchildren that are involved in this, most of them for Obama. I would like to think it’s another Kennedy revolution. That would be my hope. I’m not sure about that, though.”

Slog reader Mickey Mephistopheles is proposing this, er, viral marketing campaign.

Mickey wants patriotic, God-fearin’ Americans everywhere to decorate glory holes carved between public restroom stalls with “Huckabee ‘08.” It’s a natural fit—not only are the men that patronize toilets with glory holes likely to be religious and conservative, and therefore likley Huckabee voters, Huckabee himself is a complete dick.

One hundred and five years ago today, Thomas Edison electrocuted an elephant to try and discredit Westinghouse and Tesla’s alternating current.

Edison’s aggressive campaign to discredit the new current took the macabre form of a series of animal electrocutions using AC (a killing process he referred to snidely as getting “Westinghoused”).

Edison got his big chance, though, when the Luna Park Zoo at Coney Island decided that Topsy, >a cranky female elephant who had squashed three handlers in three years (including one idiot who tried feeding her a lighted cigarette), had to go.

In order to make sure that Topsy emerged from this spectacle more than just singed and angry, she was fed cyanide-laced carrots moments before a 6,600-volt AC charge slammed through her body. Officials needn’t have worried. Topsy was killed instantly.

It’s a gruesome anniversary, but I’m still excited about last night, and it’s hard not to think about it as a good omen.

(Via Wired, Boing Boing, and Mike Daisey, whose new monologue—called How Theater Failed America—is coming soon to CHAC. Everyone buy tickets now.)

UPDATE:

From Mike Daisey: “I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that the reason Edison killed the elephant was to help bolster his monopoly on DC current, which Tesla was upending with his AC current. I bring this up because the monologue MONOPOLY!, which I’m bringing to CHAC, is actually about this very conflict.”

Right you are, sir. I’m so excited for HTFA, I failed to mention the more relevant monologue—MONOPOLY!: Tesla, Edison, Microsoft, Wal•Mart, and the War For Tomorrow, which runs Jan 18 to Feb 3 at CHAC. Buy tickets here.

Watch Morgan Freeman sing while taking a bath in a casket.

Here’s the story on the youth turnout for Obama. (See the Edison Media Research and Mitofsky International entrance poll results—based on a sample of 2,178 Dem voters—at the New York Times, and further analysis of the same poll by The Center for Information & Research on Civic Learning & Engagement.)

Young voters went overwhelmingly for Obama, and 30-44-year-olds loved him too. Meanwhile, Clinton—with her free sandwiches and shoveled walks and volunteer drivers for seniors—won a robust plurality of the 65+ crowd. Edwards eked out a narrow lead among the huge number of voters between 45 and 64, but it was too tiny a margin to deliver a victory.

In other words, the 40% of Iowa caucusgoers who are under the age of 45 delivered the state for Obama. Future primary campaigns will have a much tougher time dismissing younger voters as all enthusiasm and no follow-through.

It’s also interesting to compare turnout over the last three caucuses. 13% of eligible under-30-year-olds turned out for either the R or D caucus yesterday (against 17% of over 30s); this is a huge jump from the 4% turnout of under 30s in 2004 and 3% in 2000. At the same time—even with a huge overall jump in turnout for the Democratic caucus—under 30s increased their proportion of overall caucusgoers from 17% in 2004 to 22% in 2008.

Dems need to turn out younger voters if they’re going to win in 2008. Obama is showing everyone else how it’s done.

From Flickr pooler ~petem~.

Art

Fire Retard Ants at SOIL

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We apologize for the fault in the comments. Those responsible are sweating bullets and working quickly on a resolution. Unfortunately, some of the most recent comments may be lost. Stay tuned.

UPDATE : Ugh. My sincere apologies for this mess. In an attempt to rid the Slog of a series of shitty racist comments, we cast a slightly wider net than necessary. Rest assured that you are no longer all labeled racists. The comments have been restored from our most recent backup, but sadly most comments from this morning were not included in that backup.

I’ll be out front crying if anyone wants to come by and kick me in the head.

The gayest benefit of living in such a relatively fudgepacktastic place as Seattle is this: one is rarely forced to actually divulge one’s gayness to anyone—-to “come out”, as they say. Seattleites in general understand the gay thing instinctively, and only a complete boor would ask you about it to your face.

And this is a true luxury indeed, for “coming out” is an intermindable process for we poor ‘mos. As any whiney 90’s fag with a wedge in his hair will eagerly say to you, everyone is assumed heterosexual by default, and we heterosexuality-deficient are forced to reveal ourselves endlessly to an ever fresh and often rude parade of new people, Jesus, somebody please help me, there’s a 90’s wedge in my hair. The stress of it can be crushing.

I have a five year old niece that we’ll call Katie, for lack of an appropriate pseudonym, and she’s whatcha call a pistol. She is also not a Seattleite, God help her, and, as I said, she’s merely 5 years old. But even with these considerable drawbacks working against her, I though she’d have sorta gotten the big gay message regarding the celebrated homosexuality of her dear Uncle Adrian, especially after witnessing me and her also very out Aunty Robin bringing our same-sex partners home for holidays and vacations, and witnessing us do such gay things as smooch and sleep in the same beds with them. Sadly, this message was somehow lost. Two days before Christmas, in the back seat of a car, we had this adorable and mildly startling conversation:

“Uncle Adrian, why didn’t (“Mr. X”—my ex) come with you for Christmas,” says Katie.

“Well, we broke up,” says I.

At this point she perked up like a Pop Tart, her eyes sprung wider than hubcaps, and she made a precious little perplexed noise that sounded like, “Hmuh?” After a moment she hunkered down close and whispered in my ear, “Does everyone know you’re…GAY?”

“Yes, Kaitlyn, everyone knows I’m gay! Everyone in the world! I thought you knew.”

“Nope. Does my mom know?”

I burst out laughing and assured her again that EVERYONE ON THE PLANET knows, unless, let’s face it, they are deeply stupid and live in a hole. That seemed to satisfy her, and that, as it were, was that.

Or was it?

On Christmas morning, a package marked “To Uncle Adrian, From Kaite” bore this gift:

Yes. She gave me “soap on a rope” for Christmas.

Oh, my niece understands her uncle’s homosexuality now, indeed. And she clearly wants me to be alone forever.

Oregon pollster Bob Moore, who did work for Dino Rossi in 2004 (and also a recent poll that has Rossi neck and neck with Gov. Christine Gregoire) is being accused by the New Hampshire AG of doing negative “Push Polling” against Mitt Romney. Push polling—which mixes negative or positive campaign messaging into polls—is a serious No No. Moore’s polls allegedly knocked Romney for being Mormon.

The Oregonian has the story.

The Washington Public Disclosure Commission shows that Moore Information Inc. billed Rossi about $150,000 for polling work in 2004.

Just before midnight, police were called to Studio One-Sixteen—a rented art space on 1st and Elliot Ave W—after shots broke out at a birthday party, leaving a 17-year-old boy dead and a 13-year-old girl injured.

According to police, two men showed up at the party—filled with over 100 area high-school students—and got into a verbal altercation with the 17-year-old. The uninvited men flashed guns and fired shots into the crowd.

The men fled the party, but police say they may have identified one of the suspects.

Clearly furious at being upstaged by the hubbub in Iowa, Britney Spears ratcheted up the crazy last night, reportedly refusing to hand over her two children to primary parent Keven Federline at the scheduled time, instigating a three-hour standoff with police during which Britney “appeared to be under the influence of an unknown substance” and after which Britney was strapp