Olympia 2018 Recap: The Death Penalty Is Alive, Gun Control Is Dead

In the annals of Washington lawmaking, 2018 will go down as the year your lawmakers wavered on guns, failed on climate policy, choked on capital punishment, and attempted to hide their own records like weasels. Okay, it wasn't all bad. Bolstered by a new Democratic majority, legislators also passed historic bills on voting rights, pay equity, net neutrality, and sexual harassment. For those of you following for the first time, your state lawmakers meet only once a year for either 60 or 105 days. Since this year ends with an even number, they only had 60 days to move bills through the state's two chambers and onto Governor Jay Inslee's desk. Here's what legislators did—and just as importantly, didn't—get done.(more)

https://www.thestranger.com/features/2018/03/14/25903777/olympia-2018-recap-the-death-penalty-is-alive-gun-control-is-dead

Steny Hoyer unpacks it.

Bath or shower

We want redo a guest bathroom that contains a tub. In the 20 years we've lived here the tub has been used once and I think we should replace it with a shower stall. My wife argues that taking the tub out will make it harder to sell the house because people expect to have a bathtub. Thoughts?

Gotta love The Stranger

When is a good time to talk about it?

Washingron Democrats bailing on gun control?

If you care about this, make a call.

https://twitter.com/walkerorenstein/status/964302844256923648

NY Times Hires, Quickly Fires Journalist With History of Homophobic Tweets

Less than 24 hours after she was hired, The New York Times on Tuesday fired editorial board member Quinn Norton, after a history of homophobic and racially insensitive tweets were uncovered.

Early on Tuesday, the paper announced in a statement that it had hired notable technology writer Quinn Norton as its editorial board’s “lead opinion writer on the power, culture and consequences of technology.” (Norton contributed two tech-related pieces to The Daily Beast in 2014.)

Shortly thereafter, many of Norton’s controversial tweets began to resurface. Twitter users uncovered multiple instances in which she used the n-word, or gay slurs like “faggot” or “fag,” to refer to various users on the social-media platform.

Other critics pointed out her chummy exchanges with a user who’d tweeted numerous anti-Semitic statements, and highlighted old tweets in which she explained that she was proudly friends with neo-Nazi

https://www.thedailybeast.com/ny-times-hires-quickly-fires-quinn-norton-journalist-with-history-of-homophobic-tweets/?via=twitter_page

Dem with a 2300 vote lead

in FL-72 special election with 87% of the votes in.

http://enight.elections.myflorida.com/ElectionResults/?Election=02/13/2018

Democrats over-performed in all four special elections yesterday

Report: Global Coal Demand Drops Second Year in a Row

12/18/2017 | Abby Harvey

Global coal demand fell nearly 2% in 2016, according to the International Energy Agency’s (IEA) Coal 2017 Analysis and Forecasts report, released December 18. “Demand for coal has now dropped by 4.2% since 2014, almost matching the fall of 1990-1992, which was the largest two-year decline recorded since the IEA started compiling statistics more than 40 years ago,” the report says.

Coal demand varies in different areas, of course. However, while demand in places like India increased, it was not enough to offset significant declines in the United States and China.

http://www.powermag.com/report-global-coal-demand-drops-second-year-in-a-row/