The Dalai Lama has been in Seattle over the last few days for the Seeds of Compassion series of events. Friday evening he had a conversation with Dave Matthews (who then did an acoustic concert with Tim Reynolds). Saturday afternoon there was a big event at Qwest Field. Today the Dalai Lama spoke at an event specifically for school children.  (My 2 grade school kids were there!).  And there were a number of other events, most avaliable on webcast.

I just finished watching today's event on the web and I was struck by this moment in history in which compassion and hope are actually getting people's attention. "We" is getting air time and pushing "me" aside.

Follow me below the fold for a little more on what the Dalai Lama said and how it connects to Barack Obama.

A few paragraphs in this morning's paper caught my eye.

The narrow margin in delegates, and the growing likelihood that it will remain close, stirred concern on Wednesday from the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Howard Dean, who said Tuesday night that Obama and Clinton should avoid taking the nominating fight all the way to the party convention in August.

Dean says he things the Democrats need to have a nominee by mid-March or April.

(I didn't see this in the diaries over the last couple of days.) More below the fold.

In November I sent email to a long list of progressive friends and relatives saying that I am supporting Obama. Last night I sent the followup email. I got some good responses, so I figured I post it here.

Why Barack Obama is my choice for president

As you may know from my earlier email I have been supporting Barack Obama for president since November. Now that the Democratic nomination is down to 2 candidates and with Super Tuesday and the Washington State caucus fast approaching, I want to reiterate my strong support for Obama, encourage you to make a contribution if you can, and provide some information that I hope will answer any questions you may have.

This past week I had the pleasure to attend two fundraising events in Seattle, one for Mark Udall and one for Barack Obama. I’d like to share my impressions of those events.

Although unconnected, both events represent the hope for the beginning of a long span of good progressive government. Both individuals jump out as the kind of people we not only want in Washington, but the kind we need. These are indeed our heroes for a world in need of heroes.

This is not all that surprising, but disappointing nevertheless. The Times often goes both ways on its endorsements, but in key races like this it tends to lean to the right and lean toward incumbants (as long as they haven't totally screwed up).

This particular editorial is pretty nasty.  If you watched the debate you can see the moderator, Jim Vesley was condescending to Darcy, calling her "Ms. Bruner" a number of times. He's the final arbiter on the Seattle Times editorial board. He seems like the type who doesn't like uppity women.

Anyway, here's the full opinion piece. A few more comments are below the fold.

I attended a fundraiser for Darcy Burner this afternoon at the home of Jeri and Greg Rice.  Jim McDermott (WA-07) and his wife Theresa were there along with Trudi Inslee (Jay Inslee's wife (WA-01)). Darcy was there, of course, but headlining the event was Joe Wilson. What a patriot!

Wilson talked about the Valerie Plame affair, of course. He emphasized how outrageous these guys are (Cheney and Rove, especially), that they would jeopardize national security by outing one of their covert agents in order to pay him back for questioning one of their rationales for the Iraq war.

But he also talked a lot about the Middle East.  More below the fold.

A couple of days ago I wrote about the Libertarian in the WA State senate race loaning his campaign over a million dollars: http://www.dailykos.com/.... Now we know why.  He wants a seat at the debate.

Guthrie admitted Monday that he lent $1,181,700 to his ultra-underdog campaign Saturday mainly to appear credible enough for inclusion in the only televised Western Washington debate between the two major candidates. It will be at KING/5 studios in Seattle on Oct. 17.

But get this: it may trigger the "Millionaire's amendment" only for McGavick, but not Cantwell!

However, under the amendment's arcane financing formula, it apparently would let McGavick -- but not Cantwell -- ask supporters for triple the normal individual contribution limit of $2,100, up to a maximum of $840,448 more.
The formula is based largely on how much cash on hand each candidate had Dec. 31, and McGavick had much less than Cantwell -- although the Republican, a wealthy former insurance executive, has since lent his campaign $2 million.

Full story is here: http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/...

Saturday, the Libertarian candidate in the Washington State senate race, Bruce Guthrie, announced he is loaning his campaign over $1 million, according to the Seattle Times. But supposedly this is everything he's worth.
[http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/...]

"It's absolutely everything I could scrape together," he said. "I mortgaged my house, my only house, in Bellingham.  And I put up all the savings that my [deceased] wife and I were able to save in our 17 years of marriage."

So why does a guy mortgage everything he has to spend on a sure-to-lose senate race?  The article says this will trigger the "Millionaire's Amendment" allowing contribution limits to other candidates to increase.  Is that true?  If so, that's a big loophole. This could allow the both candidates to get more from people who are already maxed out.  Could this help Republican, McGavick more?  Usually a Libertarian would take more votes from a Republican, but with anti-war sentiment high it's harder to predict in this race.

As you've seen Karl Rove is in Seattle & environs today to do a fundraiser for Dave Reichert, the incumbent in WA-08, who Darcy Burner hopes to unseat.  Rove visited Microsoft and spoke to a crowd of a couple hundred people.  I went to witness first hand who this person is, although I was tense about it and walked over singing Neil Young's "Living with War" to brace myself.

In summary, Rove didn't give a speech, but instead made a few comments about technology before taking questions.  Except for a couple of questions, most were pretty easy for him and he was humorous and entertaining.  But when asked tough questions about the war in Iraq and the environment, Rove was extremely combative and even disrespectful to the questioners.  In fact, given this audience of mostly highly educated professionals who were very respectful to him, it was surprising that he felt the need to be so abrasive.  Or maybe it wasn't so surprising...details below the fold.

Today's Seattle Times has a major spread on global warming.  They discuss scientists who were skeptical until they checked out lots of alternative explanations, none of which could explain the phenomenon.  Some excerpts:

King County, home of Seattle, is reducing its districts from 13 to 9, due to a successful initiative passed in November.  My diary last week (Here) discussed the timetable (1 week left before council vote on plan) and 4 options presented by the bipartisan citizen's redistricting committee.

The committee has now produced a single "compromise" plan, Proposal X.  The bottom line is, it's not bad.  See below for more detail.  See Maps and Seattle Times article.

You've heard about King County (which includes Seattle) from the Governor's race.  But you may not know that county voters voted to reduce the county council from 13 to 9 members and voted on an accelerated timetable to redistrict by January 15th, 2005 (Yow!).

The council is now 7 Dems and 6 Repugs.  1 of each is not running for reelection (in 2005), leaving 11 incumbants for 9 seats.  Four proposals are out (Maps here) and if you're a KC resident you can comment online.  Public hearings in the next few days, too.  But do it soon.

Seattle PI has an article on in today.    More below.   Update [2005-1-5 16:33:30 by dgb]: New Seattle PI article.

My next door neighbor's brother is up from California visiting for Christmas.  He's in his 70's (I think), is a veteran, and wrote this poem.  When I read it yesterday, I thought it, unfortunately, hit the mark.  Whether Christian or not, I think this is a time of year to visit family, watch the children and grandchildren and wish for Peace on Earth.  We wish our government would truly work toward peace for families all over the globe.

The Night Before Christmas 2004
by Ian Begg

Scene One

'Twas the night before Chistmas and throughout the land
Came militant music from loud, raucous bands

The bombs were all hung 'neath the wings with great care
In hopes we could blow up some poor Arab's lair

I just talked with Samara's finance director who said their poll has both candidates in the mid-thirties, leaving a huge 30% undecided.  They are getting ready to travel the district by Winnebago for the last 72 hours.  They think their opponent lacks a ground game (whereas they have a good one).  They could use just a little more money, of course, and help with the GOTV!  This race still has a lot of potential for a Dem win.  And they really appreciate the DailyKos support!