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On average, buses are far worse than cars for energy efficiency because of the low average load factor.

On what data is this assertion based? I spent a few minutes seeing if such data exist. I could not find data to support your claim that buses are far worse.

I found the following. A bus fuel efficiency is about 5 mpg [1]. That is with fifty-five passengers, which is the maximum capacity and therefore our lower bound. In my county, the average load-factor over all of 2012 was 479 million passenger miles divided by 44 million vehicle miles, or 10 passengers per mile.

Our average fuel consumption over number of passengers then is 50 mpg, which is not far worse than cars for energy efficiency. In 2006, the average mpg of a private vehicle on the road was about 20 mpg. Even with two people in such a vehicle, the average-loaded bus is better.

I did not dig very deeply; I was more trying to find your data and stumbled into data that seems to paint a different picture. It's quite possible that my data paints the wrong picture and you were using much more sound data, but because you did not provide it, I must ask for a citation now.

Which data had you used?

[1] http://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy00o...
[2] http://metro.kingcounty.gov/am...
[3] http://www.project.org/info.ph...

And how do you know that your vote was received and accurately counted?

To verify your vote was received: That would depend on where you live. In my county you go to https://info.kingcounty.gov/el... and check if they received your ballot and whether your signature passed verification.

To verify your vote was accurately counted: You stand in the room where they are looking at each ballot and adding to the tally for each race. If you do not wish to spend two weeks standing in said room while they count the ballots you may send a representative on your behalf. In fact, in my county, there are always many interested citizens watching the process as the elections here are observable by the public.

A vital detail that those outside the city (and many within it) don't know - and of course won't get from the inflammatory OMG! NANNY STATE! headline/summary - is that the City of Seattle doesn't have a local landfill. Hasn't for many years; there's no nearby space. Instead, all garbage is loaded onto train cars - hundreds of them a day - and sent by rail to a landfill in rural Oregon, about 250 miles away. That was the cheapest alternative for the city, even though it involves paying twice (once to transport it, and again to the landfill operator). But it's still expensive. Given that it's in the best interest of the City _and_ its ratepayers to reduce the amount of landfillable waste (aka number of train cars) in favor of more economic alternatives; specifically, recycling and composting, both of which are able to be handled within a few dozen miles of the city, at much lower cost than the landfill trains. The alternative is to have even more and longer trains and higher rates for garbage for everyone. Kind of the opposite of a nanny state; this is pure and simple economics. If the spectre of a few $1 fines for the few residents who can't be bothered to separate their greasy pizza boxes into another bin makes everyone's garbage rates lower, then I'm all for it.

Thats BS. Seattle has no landfill because it doesn't want one. Not because there is no space. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_City_Light
http://faculty.georgetown.edu/...
http://www.economist.com/node/...
(from 2007) http://seattletimes.com/.../20...
(2012) http://your.kingcounty.gov/sol...
OP is referencing this: http://www.seattle.gov/finance...
That's the problem: wastefull goverment mismanagement when they could make a deal with those nearby.

I'm speaking from memory of a tour of the facility that I took last year. I did a quick search for the biosolids portion of tour, and found this on their website: http://www.kingcounty.gov/envi... and http://www.kingcounty.gov/envi... If I recall correctly, the biosolids are treated for everything except viruses, and that's what the third party takes on. That said, I'm speaking from memory, which while good, is not something I'd hold up in court. I also work at the Bullitt Center (http://www.bullittcenter.org/), which has composting toilets that they are sending out to the same third party company when the on-site composting is complete. Both the water treatment plant and the BC have a wide array of treatment systems to filter out dangerous pathogens, chemicals, etc. Fun fact, the BC actually was required to become it's own water municipality to be off the grid.

The grass clippings, I do not know. I'm speaking only on the wastewater treatment. However, I do know that the city collects yard waste for composting purposes. I'll leave the extra research up to you.

I'm speaking from memory of a tour of the facility that I took last year. I did a quick search for the biosolids portion of tour, and found this on their website: http://www.kingcounty.gov/envi... and http://www.kingcounty.gov/envi... If I recall correctly, the biosolids are treated for everything except viruses, and that's what the third party takes on. That said, I'm speaking from memory, which while good, is not something I'd hold up in court. I also work at the Bullitt Center (http://www.bullittcenter.org/), which has composting toilets that they are sending out to the same third party company when the on-site composting is complete. Both the water treatment plant and the BC have a wide array of treatment systems to filter out dangerous pathogens, chemicals, etc. Fun fact, the BC actually was required to become it's own water municipality to be off the grid.

The grass clippings, I do not know. I'm speaking only on the wastewater treatment. However, I do know that the city collects yard waste for composting purposes. I'll leave the extra research up to you.

So what you're saying is, if I want to figure out how dangerous it is to buy a house in a certain area, and want reliable data, I should compare house insurance rates to other areas of interest?

By the way, King county in WA (which is where I live) does publish the landslide hazard map. Granted, how many people bother to look for such things? I, for one, did not until the Oso landslide (just in time, too, as I'm looking to buy a house within the next year or so).

In Seattle, we do use paper and pens! See a ballot.

Received my ballot in the mail about a month ago. Filled it out while reading the numerous newspaper endorsements online and our State's online voter's guide with all the Pro/Con arguments.

I dropped it in our outgoing letter box the next day... realized seconds later that I had forgot to put a stamp on it and ran up to our office, grabbed a post-in note and asked if the mail man could bring it up when he came.

A couple hours later the mailman stopped by the office, I popped a stamp on it and off he went.

A week or two later I checked in to our ballot tracker http://info.kingcounty.gov/elections/ballottracker.aspx and saw that it was received and processed. No uncertainty if I'll be counted.

Washington State has its shit together. The only thing I could improve upon the system would be to have the ballot be a bulk-mailer and not require a stamp.

> In the State of Oregon, all voting is done by absentee ballot.

And also in WA. The ironic thing is that the liberals here that pushed for it that thought it would help hide their massive voter fraud got caught red handed when it clearly exposed one of their usual tricks. For example, their trick of throwing away Republican ballots in certain Seattle neighborhoods was exposed. When a neighborhood polls one way at 2 to 1 but the crooked election commission here claims a 4 to 1 margin or greater in an election, you know there's fraud. For example, if you live in King county, you can see if your vote was thrown away by going to:

http://info.kingcounty.gov/elections/ballottracker.aspx

All you need is someone's name and DOB to see if they voted. This is public information as rjh correctly pointed out. If you live here, it's interesting to go through the names of several friends to see if their votes were thrown away. You'll find that the vast majority of conservative voters here have their votes thrown away.

> There is a paper trail. It can be re-counted.

No, I've lived in King County, WA for over five years, and my vote hasn't counted a single time. The web site to check to see if your vote was thrown away:

http://info.kingcounty.gov/elections/ballottracker.aspx

I checked the site (all you need is name and DOB) for several dozen of my friends, and not a one of them that's a conservative had their vote counted.

It's easy to understand how the city of Seattle claims to have 80% voting for the Democratic Party when votes for Republicans are thrown in the trash.

Microsoft promotional materials showed photos of the New York subway signs to illustrate the big bold fonts and clutter-free design they were after.

Most Microsoft promo materials on Metro shows photos of King County Metro transit system signs. That's where the name was derived from.

Also note that Metro was first used to describe the new UI in Windows Phone, long before Win8.

TFA calls them Rainbow Trout, but usually the anadromous variety are called Steelhead Trout. Kind of interesting that the name was given to them long before anyone knew their heads contain little magnets.

recognizable iconography you'd find at airports and train (metro, get it?) stations.

The "metro" in Metro actually refers specifically to King County Metro Transit, and the typographic style they use for many of their signs.

Yes. I strongly favour education over any sort of "banning". I am very for consumer choice. Just look at this.

If the government really cared about our health, well, not only would they pass true healthcare reform, but they'd deal with the poverty issue which I believe leads to unhealthy eating. Compare the food cost and preparation time of healthy eating versus a quick fix. I would so love to see fruits and vegetables subsidized down to a much lower cost.

I searched for all court cases involving a company named Apple in King county, WA and I found one filed in small claims court. Case number 125-00818 was filed March 1, 2012 (which matches up with a blog entry he made). The details of cases aren't available online for free, they charge $0.25 per page here, and that's pretty much where I stopped. I'm not going to spend the cash to find out more.

In fact, it will help because your property tax will decrease.

Not true, actually. Your property value does not always determine directly your property tax. In King County, WA, all it determines is the proportion of the levies you owe.
In most cases, this means that if your house value goes down, so does your tax. In the specific case of the housing market crash, however, your taxes remain largely unchanged because all the houses in the area have decreased value, so the proportion you owe of the total levy (which has not decreased) is still the same.
http://www.kingcounty.gov/sites/Assessor/QuickAnswers/Residents.aspx#3582DCBCFB7943938B8B6D4892594C1F

King County, the most populous county in Washington State with 1.1 million voters, has moved to all mail-in ballots. The ballots are mark-sense where you fill in the ovals. They are machine counted, and have the paper copy as a backup. Residents "sign" a form enclosed with the ballot, in order to provide for verifying signatures. They have been doing this for several years now, and the results seem to be good with fewer ballot recounts and "human error" issues. King County now even provides TRACKING of your mail-in ballot: http://info.kingcounty.gov/elections/mailballottracking.aspx. Here is more information, including that you can mail the ballot with a first class stamp, or drop in a "ballot drop box": http://www.kingcounty.gov/elections/voting/mailballots.aspx.

King County, the most populous county in Washington State with 1.1 million voters, has moved to all mail-in ballots. The ballots are mark-sense where you fill in the ovals. They are machine counted, and have the paper copy as a backup. Residents "sign" a form enclosed with the ballot, in order to provide for verifying signatures. They have been doing this for several years now, and the results seem to be good with fewer ballot recounts and "human error" issues. King County now even provides TRACKING of your mail-in ballot: http://info.kingcounty.gov/elections/mailballottracking.aspx. Here is more information, including that you can mail the ballot with a first class stamp, or drop in a "ballot drop box": http://www.kingcounty.gov/elections/voting/mailballots.aspx.

Not if it's a U.S. district court. CA and WA are both in the 9th.

It is not the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. It's the King County Superior Court of King County, WA.

King County already has a vote-by-mail system in place. In fact, the last King County elections were handled entirely by mail.

And actually, I've always learned that warm dishes need to chill down to room temperature before putting them in the fridge because the sudden cool down is even worse when it comes to bacteria etc.

This is wrong. The goal when refrigerating hot food is to have the food in the "danger zone" (41 F to 140 F) for the least amount of time. Letting the dish cool down before refrigeration increases the time the food is in the danger zone.

For example, here is a quote from the King County Health Services page for food handlers:

The first rule to remember about cooling: Cool hot food as fast as you can to 41 F or below, past the "Danger Zone."

So far, this is what I've heard about H1N1:

• Last spring, when cases started turning up in Mexico, it was reported that H1N1 was striking young adults and bypassing the usual 'high risk' groups (children and old people).
• Now, its killing kids (according to press releases).

Novel H1N1 flu has a predilection for killing people with robust immune systems; it hijacks the inflammatory response and happens to kill people in the process, likely attributing for the higher mortality among young adults. Kids (especially under 2) tend to be more vulnerable too (to both novel H1N1 and seasonal flu) than adults.

The first batches of vaccine are being reserved for two groups, kids and health care workers. Because they are at higher risk for complications, or because they pose a higher risk of transmitting virus to others?

Ever heard of Google? Please check your own county's public health site where you will note that kids are indeed at higher risk for complications, and health care workers come into a lot of contact with sick people.

Where health care workers have traditionally partaken of the usual annual flue vaccines, they are not doing so at rates acceptable to the CDC for H1N1. A few hospitals have announced policies wherein workers who refuse the vaccine will be fired, or otherwise disciplined.

I can't any hard data about rate of novel H1N1 influenza inoculation of health care personnel. I can find a local news stories denoting that cafeteria workers and phlebotomists in some places expressed skepticism. I can anecdotally tell you that every physician I know here in Multnomah County (the Portland metropolitan area) is planning on or has gotten vaccinated, and plans on getting their families vaccinated too. I include myself, the 12 other physicians in my practice, my wife, the 12 other physicians in her practice, and all of our socially inbred doctor friends and acquaintances. Cafeteria workers declining the vaccine makes for a good story. People taking care of sick people, however, I suspect are going to have a high vaccination rate for themselves.

A few doctors are hesitant to get involved in the current vaccination program. One I heard on a radio talk show was expressing concerns about the unusual agreements he would have to sign to get involved with the distribution program. He's staying on the sidelines for now.

One doctor you heard on talk radio is staying on the sidelines. Noted.

There was a suggestion that homeless people in my city (Seattle) be prioritized for the vaccine. Why? They don't make a particularly good vector for flue transmission to the general population. But, since they won't be missed, they make great guinea pigs.

Citation please; this isn't noted on the King County Public Health website, though they do note that the homeless population has a high prevalence of chronic diseases known to increase risk of morbidity for influenza (asthma, COPD/emphysema, heart disease, diabetes, poor access to care, hanging out in shelters).

I'm beginning to think there's something really wrong with this vaccine. And that the CDC is prioritizing stopping the spread of the virus above the health of the afflicted people.

I'm beginning to think that intellectual laziness and being prone to rumors and half-truths is more prevalent than I expected, despite the fact that all sorts of information is available at your fingertips.

Not "Had", actually.

From the Health Services website linked to from the article:
http://www.kingcounty.gov/healthservices/health/preparedness/pandemicflu/swineflu.aspx

"Do not seek medical care if you are not ill or have mild symptoms for which you would not ordinarily seek medical care. If you have more severe symptoms of fever, cough, sore throat, body aches or are feeling more seriously ill, call your health care provider to discuss your symptoms and if you need to be evaluated."

But that's not really the reason the numbers are different.

To compare them from CDC stats:
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/EID/vol12no01/05-0979.htm

An estimated one third of the world's population (or 500 million persons) were infected and had clinically apparent illnesses during the 1918-1919 influenza pandemic. The disease was exceptionally severe. Case-fatality rates were >2.5%, compared to 0.1% in other influenza pandemics. Total deaths were estimated at 50 million (5-7) and were arguably as high as 100 million.

Compared to the recent stats cited in the news:
http://www.indianexpress.com/news/india-tops-h1n1-mortality-rate/509543/

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), as on August 21, there have been 1,799 deaths in total 182,000 laboratory confirmed cases across the world, which makes 0.9 per cent the mortality rate across the world.

But the stats are not all that clear taken as a whole.
From the same article:

With 584 deaths, Brazil tops the list of countries reporting fatalities due to the H1N1 virus. The mortality rate in Brazil is 0.29 per cent. However, if one takes into consideration the 5,206 laboratory confirmed cases, the mortality rate is 10 per cent -- much higher than India's.

The amount of money MS gives the community is far less than 11 million dollars.

[citation needed]

Or, to put it another way, you are making shit up so STFU now.

I did a couple quick google searches. In the fiscal year ending June 30, 2008, Microsoft had about $60 billion in revenue. Based on the Washington state B&O tax rate, I calculate that Microsoft must have paid over $290 million in B&O tax alone. Now, that's paid to the state, not directly to Redmond, but Redmond gets some portion of that, and Redmond gets to collect property tax on microsoft's fucking huge corporate campus, which is prime commercial real estate with lots of improvements (buildings, parking garages, etc).

In August 2007, Redmond's property tax rate was $1.18 per $1,000 of assessed valuation. Currently, Redmond's property tax rate is $1.33 per $1,000. In the 2008 Microsoft annual report, Microsoft said it has over $6 trillion in "property and equipment". If we suppose that only $3 trillion of that is real estate in Redmond, and use the lower $1.18 rate, then Redmond is collecting $3.5 billion in property tax per year. At that rate, $11 million is a little over ONE FUCKING DAY'S WORTH OF TAX.

Then there is the fact that Microsoft employees spend money in Redmond, which means the city collects sales tax and restaurant tax. And the fact that many Microsoft employees live in expensive houses in Redmond, which means more property tax for the city... the city would collect that property tax whether or not the employees lived there, but if Microsoft were not there, the property values would be much lower and the tax revenues much lower as well.

So it looks to me like Washington state and the city of Redmond are getting lots of tax money from Microsoft. And you are making shit up.

http://www.microsoft.com/msft/earnings/FY08/earn_rel_q4_08.mspx

http://dor.wa.gov/Content/FindTaxesAndRates/BAndOTax/BandOrates.aspx

http://www.microsoft.com/msft/reports/ar08/10k_fr_bal.html

http://your.kingcounty.gov/elections/contests/measureinfo.aspx?cid=23329&eid=1219

http://209.85.173.132/search?q=cache:O_VYWHm8NLAJ:https://redmond.gov/insidecityhall/finance/budget/0910AdoptedPDFs/MiscellaneousStatistics.pdf+city+of+redmond+property+tax+1.18&cd=4&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=us