After a year of fierce debate and wrangling, Congress has finally done something that many of the people who cover politics for a living in New York and Washington, D.C. have been telling the country had little chance of happening: it sent the Patient Protection and Affordable Care act to President Obama’s desk to be signed into law.
The legislation, which ultimately passed without a single Republican vote, is designed to gradually provide coverage to millions of uninsured Americans and better protection for those who already have insurance.

Read Story

On a recent afternoon, five of my friends came over for an evening of Risk, beer and chick flicks. I don’t play Risk, and I don’t drink beer; but the boys of the group had decided it was time for an evening of world domination, so the girls of the group decided we needed movies that didn’t have to be heard over the yelling.

Read Story

I recently attended a fundraiser for a local organization, and it reminded me of why I usually try to avoid those kinds of things. There wasn’t anything particularly wrong with the presentation, and just like in figure skating it contained the required technical elements, while the extra points for style had to be earned.

Read Story

Tuesday afternoon I went to a job fair at the Seattle Center. Even though I ‘pre-registered’ two weeks ago, it wasn’t until that morning, while rewriting my resume for the third time, that I decided to go. On the one hand, it didn’t seem like the place to find the kind of jobs I was looking for. On the other hand, it didn’t seem like my online application strategy was finding me any jobs at all.

Read Story

About the only local political issues worth talking about these days are the massive new developments planned by YarrowBay in Black Diamond and Maple Valley. Sorry, employee non-salary benefit review; you’re just not sexy enough for the front page.

Read Story

For much of our state’s recent political history, colorful and exciting top-of-the-ticket races have been a staple of the electoral landscape. Consider the Slade Gorton/Maria Cantwell battle of 2000, the epic Christine Gregoire/Dino Rossi slugfests in 2004 and 2008, George Nethercutt’s challenge to Patty Murray in 2004, or Mike McGavick’s attempt to unseat Maria Cantwell in 2006.

Read Story

I’m not sure what I expected when I walked into Workforce Renton Tuesday afternoon. Actually, that’s a lie. Considering the description of the class I was attending ended with a thorough explanation of their first-come, first-serve policy, with no seating allowed five minutes before the start and a strong recommendation for being at least one hour early, I did have a vague mental picture involving Department of Motor Vehicle-proportion lines full of zombies just waiting to snap me into a pair of shackles and a shredded checkered fleece.

Read Story

After watching our local governments in action recently, I’m convinced that the spirit of the Wild West is still among us. Only nowadays, we’re using lawyers instead of guns. The saloon poker games have been replaced by conference calls and depositions, and peace treaties with neighboring tribes are now called interlocal agreements.

Read Story

No matter where you stand politically, sometimes you have to marvel when you see how free markets work. What Morgan Spurlock, the filmmaker of “Super Size Me,” could not achieve with his anti-fast-food crusade, is happening now: McDonald’s has jumped on the bandwagon of health-conscious eating. Most likely in response to Taco Bell’s heavily advertised Drive-Thru Diet, McDonald’s has decided to team up with Weight Watchers, the weight management giant, and has promptly received their seal of approval for three meals. For starters, the new partnership is currently being tested in New Zealand only.

Read Story

I understand as well as anyone the gravity of the financial condition we are currently in. Need is being most keenly felt today and indeed the impacts are beyond anything we have seen since the Great Depression. Unemployment numbers don’t lie. Families, businesses and those relying on critical government services have all seen resources being reduced to critical levels.

Read Story

Sometimes I sit in my office and think, “when are people going to figure out that my company is just a big phony”.
The company doesn’t seem all that complicated. There are a handful of computers, some office furniture, phones and tables with some merchandise sitting on them. I made a Web site, but there’s nothing ground-breaking on it. It was put together with an old software program that hasn’t even been made for over eight years.

Read Story

I agree with Mr. Houskeeper that regulations add to the cost to a home. But there needs to be a more honest dialog about the balance of such regulation and its relation to our overall quality of life. Unfortunately the editorial contribution of Mr. Houskeeper simply fires a volley of anti-regulatory sentiment, joined with overly simplistic examples to emphasis his point.

Read Story

Cheating on your spouse is a deal-breaker. I’ve seen the shows and read the articles where certain couples were able to forgive their partners and continue on in a life together, and every time all I could think to myself was, “Where is your self respect?”

Read Story

What gets someone so upset that they’ll burn their own house down and make a suicide run with a plane into an office building? If you listened to the media this week, the leading reasons that Joe Stack re-enacted 9/11 are because he was enraged at the IRS, upset that his wife left him and angry at big corporations and the Catholic church.

Read Story

For Presidents Day, my husband and I decided to go to Bellevue to use the last of our Christmas gift cards on some good old home entertainment. Gift cards are one of my husband’s favorite things in life, right next to hockey and Xbox on the list of mankind’s greatest recent inventions, so we have a lot of them. He loves to give them. He loves to get them. He loves to give them to me for safekeeping.

Read Story

My forehead did feel a little warm, and after taking my temperature it was confirmed: I have Olympic fever.
I tried to pretend that I didn’t have it. I told myself, “Don’t buy into this! This elitist event is nothing more than a subsidized ski vacation for corporate sponsors, Olympic committee hacks, and local dignitaries at the expense of Vancouver taxpayers!”

Read Story

More than 320,000 people in Washington are out of work, the highest unemployment in our state in more than two decades. In November, nearly 6,500 people filed for unemployment benefits within the 31st Legislative District. To put that in perspective, that’s far more people unemployed in the district than live in the entire city of Buckley.

Read Story

If you ever happen to be 2-1/2 months overdue for an oil change, please – do not try to squeeze in a quick trip to the post office seven days before Christmas. Especially if it’s our post office. And especially if you park up front.

Read Story

You might have noticed the news item last week that our state Senate passed an update to the cell phone law to make it a “primary offense” to use a cell phone while driving. I’m sure you’re all resting easier now that this public menace is finally under control. The streets will finally be safe again!

Read Story

I like being busy.
My best friend sent me a text a couple days ago asking me how life is these days and the first thing that popped into my head was “busy.”
In high school, I had the best grades my sophomore year, when I was quite busy as well as quite motivated.

Read Story