My day job intruded tonight with some after hours hi pri stuff, so this will be short.

One of the things that seems to be more and more prevalent is the nannyism of government.  Not just econannies, but also social nannies.

The operative principle of the government right now seems to be “let us do that for you, because you cannot be trusted to do it your self…”

They want to mandate the rules around as many aspects of our lives as they can.

Some of their works are necessary, I have to admit.  But things like the Yard Sale post bring home the fact that in the eyes of our Government, we are too stupid and ignorant to control our own lives.

I personally resent that.  I believe I have sufficient capacity to decide for myself most of the choices I want to make.

One way that really pisses me off in this state is alcohol.  We have to buy any hard liquor we want from the state run liquor stores.  State run means fixed prices, extra taxes and a limited stock and selection., W e get to buy what they think we want.

As I drove around Olympia, I saw a beautiful historic building.  See below:

I thought it looked great and took several shots.

I then saw the sign labeling the building:

The Office of the Superintendent of Public Instruction (OSPI).

So now we know why so many Washington Education policies are written like fairy tales:

The OSPI lives in a freaking castle.

No wonder….

( yes I know it is the old State Capital, but honestly…what does it look like to you?)

So far I have seen two ads promoting incumbent governor Chris Gregoire, and both had the same theme:  George Bush.

In both ads a comparison was made to how Gregoire was nothing like George Bush.

I have one question:  Did I miss something, or is Bush running for Governor of Washington?

Seriously, the ads are frankly no better than the Better Then Bush sentiments in the 2004 presidential elections.

One of the ads does carry it further and that provides the connection:  they are trying to pain challenger Dino Rossi as “another George Bush” thereby scaring us into not voting for him.

Dino’s ad, by comparison targets the Washington’s government at it;s weakest areas, traffic, taxes, small businesses and education.

David Postman of the Seattle Times caught the comparison and the flaws:

Gregoire ad is off-base on Rossi v. Roe v. Wade

Gov. Christine Gregoire is airing a radio ad that tries to draw an ideological connection between her opponent, Republican Dino Rossi, and President George W. Bush.

UPDATED BELOW WITH THE LATEST NEWS RELEASE

I am posting this unedited from the Evergreen Freedom Foundation.  I offer the disclaimer that I do not generally like unions a whole lot.

Governor Gregoire “preserves union power” at the expense of teachers and voters; signs union “baill-out” bill into law

Today, Governor Gregoire signed House Bill 2079. The bill amends a statute that requires unions to get permission from nonmembers before spending their fees on political activity. The U.S. Supreme Court is currently reviewing the constitutionality of this statute in two cases brought by teachers and the state Attorney General against the Washington Education Association.

During committee hearings legislators disregarded the Attorney General’s office warnings that the bill is vulnerable to a Constitutional challenge. In a letter sent to lawmakers, the Office of the Attorney General warned that HB 2079 could expose the state to further litigation by adopting a “constitutionally forbidden” accounting practice.

The law uses a flawed accounting system that the U.S. Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional in both the cases of International Association of Machinists v. Street (1961) and Abood v. Detroit Board of Education (1977).

That is only half right, since I agree with Ken’s Schrammies about half the time, even as I agree with Ken about half the time he opens his pie hole on the radio or on TV.

But this time, Ken gets complete Schramnesty from me:

The Schrammie: Rolling the political dice

Some “Schrammies” just can’t wait until Wednesday.

For instance…

I’m scratching my head trying to figure out the point and purpose of the state Democratic Party walking to the edge of the political precipice to do nothing but take a pointless stand.

So, would Dwight Pelz, the Big Kahuna of the state D’s, put the donkey back in the barn and come on down?

Seems Dwight and company - that would be the party’s central committee - recently decided to throw some political weight behind Ehren Watada - that would be the Army lieutenant up on charges for refusing to serve in Iraq.

A resolution commending Watada was passed with a healthy show of hands.

Watada was praised for his moral leadership and - are you ready for this? - for his commitment to duty.

In what I see as the second major blow to her authority as Speaker, Pelosi will not be installing Rep Alcee "Impeached but not Convicted" Hastings to the Chair of the House Intelligence Committee.

Hastings, Harman Rejected for Chairmanship: Pelosi Decides Against Both of House Intelligence Panel’s Top Two Democrats

House Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has decided against naming either Rep. Jane Harman (Calif.), the senior Democrat on the House intelligence committee, or Rep. Alcee L. Hastings (Fla.), the panel’s No. 2 Democrat, to chair the pivotal committee next year.

The decisions came despite lobbying by conservative Democrats on Harman’s behalf and a full-throttled campaign by Hastings to overcome the stigma of the 1988 impeachment that drove him from his federal judgeship.

The fight over the top spot on the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence has exposed the kind of factional politics that bedeviled House Democrats before they were swept from control in 1994. Harman, a moderate, strong-on-defense "Blue Dog" Democrat, had angered liberals with her reluctance to challenge the Bush administration’s use of intelligence. Hastings, an African American, was strongly backed by the Congressional Black Caucus but was ardently opposed by the Blue Dogs, who said his removal from the bench disqualifies him from such a sensitive post.

Sounds harsh, but true.  A student who refused to answer a WASL question was suspended.

Has the State and its flawed WASL gone too far?

Via Bloomberg 

Tyler Stoken was a well-behaved fourth grader who enjoyed school, earned A’s and B’s and performed well on standardized tests.

In May 2005, he’d completed five of the six days of the Washington State Assessment of Student Learning exam, called WASL, part of the state’s No Child Left Behind test.

Then Tyler came upon this question: “While looking out the window one day at school, you notice the principal flying in the air. In several paragraphs, write a story telling what happens.”

The nine-year-old was afraid to answer the question about his principal, Olivia McCarthy. “I didn’t want to make fun of her,” he says, explaining he was taught to write the first thing that entered his mind on the state writing test.

A while back I blogged my disgust at what I felt was the lamest state marketing slogan, the "Say WA"campaign.

Read it here:  SayWa (…ht the hell?) to the new State Slogan

Well the campaign, as I predicted was a brilliant flop, a marketing failure.

The Insider: State says ‘bah’ to ‘Say WA’ tourism slogan

What may go down in the books as one of the shortest-lived and least-loved tourism promotion slogans ever is officially kaput.

The Washington Department of Community, Trade and Economic Development says the state will no longer use the controversial tag line in its ads.

"Say WA" was unveiled earlier this year for a series of magazine ads that ran in Sunset, Smithsonian, Travel & Leisure and Budget Travel. Devised by ad agency Foote Cone & Belding, Say WA was a play on the two-letter postal designation for the state. The campaign was supposed to evoke those tourism moments when, to quote an earlier press release, "an experience becomes emotional. In Washington state, these moments form a plentitude, a series of endless discoveries, and each will make you Say WA in a new and different way."

Let me preface this by saying that Possum at Roadkill and I generally have a good deal of respect for each other, even when we disagree.

One thing we have butted heads on is alignment.

Politically, I am a fiscal conservative social moderate, which usually labels me a centrist.  But the word moderate to Possum means you have to have a perfectly middle of the road philosophy, which in his opinion apparently translates to "hate everyone".   So when ever I lean a little to the right, which I admittedly do, I am hounded by him as a moderate in training.

Well Possum is MINO, a moderate in name only because he seems to fly far out to the left fringe at a moments notice, then springs back toward the middle for a while.

Unlike me though he seems determined to maintain the fiction that he is moderate.  I encourage the reader to review his comments in my blog and see how moderate he is.

Tuesday he posted a blog about the President Clinton/Chris Wallace interview.  Here is how he opened:

REPUBLICAN PARTY SUICIDE - THE NEW REALITY SHOW

Some of the local elections have featured some good and bad things.

Mike McGavick, running against Maria Cantwell has hit upon a new strategy:  Ideas.

While he started in the time honored fashion of "look how bad She is" he moved on and is not denouncing the entire Washington DC culture.  As Eric at Sound Politics said:

Mike McGavick has a relatively new radio ad (the 4th option under "ads" here) up with is worth a listen. The ad hits Congress, and members of both parties, for lack of spending restraint in Washington, DC. It also opposes tax increases (including presumably opposing efforts to keep the Bush tax cuts from being made permanent).

It’s an effective ad for several reasons. One, despite the value of the civility theme in an anti-incumbent year, we’re at the point in the race where candidates need to be talking about issues. Two, the ad hits on an issue where there is cross-party consensus: federal spending has run amuck. Third, it touches on an issue that stokes the Republican base: protecting the tax cuts which are actually lowering the deficit and stimulating economic growth.