Went to Canada, but Came Back

No, the election didn’t have anything to do with it. We spent two days in Victoria, B.C.; made the reservations several months ago.

Anyway, when you’re surrounded by carnage and mayhem, it’s best to focus on the silver linings. But for the grace of God, we could’ve had Ken Buck, Sharron Angle, Christine O’Donnell and Carly Failurina in the Senate.

And Dino Rossi appears to be failing in his third run for elective office. Two runs for governor of Washington — Poof!!! And Patty Murray is favored to win re-election to the Senate, but the results aren’t final yet. Dino Rossi likes to portray himself as an “outsider” because he can’t get elected to anything. Sort of like a homeless person who brags about not being materialistic.

California voters showed that — in some cases at least — there aren’t enough billions of dollars in the world to buy their votes. A few Texas oil tycoons tried to trick California voters into overturning the state’s clean energy law that was signed by Governor Schwarzenegger several years ago (Proposition 23). If Proposition 23 passed, millions of jobs would appear out of the ether, and California would instantly become the most prosperous place in the history of the universe. Fortunately the voters didn’t fall for it. Meg Whitman was in favor of Proposition 23 and she went down in flames with it.

Washington State also had a few sickfuck ballot initiatives that crashed and burned. Privatizing workers’ compensation insurance? Riiight. Wouldn’t you just love to have your workers’ comp claim be processed by a bunch of profit-driven go-getters who can make more money if they find a way to deny your claim. Thank God the voters saw through that bullshit. I’ll take a clock-watching bureaucrat any day; somebody who has nothing to gain by denying people’s claims and/or making the smallest possible payments.

And Costco was pushing for an initiative to privatize Washington’s liquor industry, to make it more like California and Arizona (among other states). Sure, I like being able to walk into any grocery store, supermarket or mini-mart — at any time of day or night — and buy some booze. But Washington’s version works just fine too. You have to buy your booze from a state-run liquor store that closes at 9 p.m. It can be sort of a pain, but I’ve never seen anyone going through the DTs because they didn’t get to the liquor store on time. (You can buy beer and wine almost anywhere, just not booze.) Another oddity about Washington is that almost every restaurant — anything that’s a proper restaurant and not just a café or coffee shop — has a full liquor license. Sort of the opposite of California, where you can buy booze everywhere, but a liquor license is something that restaurants will kill for.

When you go to the liquor store with any sort of regularity, the people who work there aren’t faceless bureaucrats. They’re real people. They’re acquaintances; your neighbors. Like everybody else, they’re supporting families; making rent/mortgage payments. And if that liquor privatization initiative had passed, they all would have lost their jobs — just so a few Costco executives could become even fatter.

So, pretty good election results, no? Well, you know, other than…