For more years than I care to count I have been a happy customer of First Tech credit union. Their website has always been top notch and the service I received from them was the best. But now I find myself looking for a new bank and would welcome any suggestions.

My unhappiness started when First Tech's website was down for 5 days, worse yet, a scheduled 5 days, so they could upgrade their online banking. In this day and age to have a 5 day downtime for an upgrade is unacceptable. This is not the 1990s. This isn't even the 2000s.

Things only got worse when, according to their own notice the upgrade failed because after 5 days of being down they got three times their normal traffic and couldn't handle the load. Huh? You were down for 5 days, what the heck did you think was going to happen? Of course you're going to get a load spike! Their solution was to roll all of their website back to the old website so they could get back up and running while they figured out what to do about the extra load. The planning screw ups this situation called for are, well, concerning.

All of this was irritating but then there was the final straw. Their new on-line bill pay system wouldn't work for me. It kept saying my login failed. I sent mail to their help desk and they quickly responded (still good customer service). Their instructions were for me to reset my browser's security settings to accept third party cookies. What? I have to commit one of the most basic privacy mistakes and let everybody on the Internet trivially track me just so I can use your bill pay service?

This is a bank we're talking about. An institution which is supposed to be all about privacy. And they are so clueless that they think it's o.k. to require third party cookies? Their previous behavior already gave me good reason to question their technical competence but this is just over the top.

So does anyone have a recommendation for a bank with a solid web banking system that has a clue about privacy?

I love green tea and its variants such as jasmine and genmaicha. But these teas only taste good to me when made with hot water around 160′s. Anything hotter just turns them into an acid brew. But seriously, sticking a thermometer into a cup to measure the heat just wasn’t working out. I bemoaned the lack of a kettle with a thermostat to save me. Thankfully Wired clued me in to a great solution – the Chef’s Choice SmartKettle Model 688. My wife was nice enough to buy me one, it works great and my green tea tastes outstanding!

Honestly, I don't know why i'm bothering with this. Now that we have gone to an all mail based ballot we have all but guaranteed that over time voter fraud will be the rule. There are just so many easy ways to cause ballots to 'spoil' (before if I screwed up a ballot the machine would tell me, now if there is a mistake I'm just out of luck), to connect who a person is with their ballot, to make ballot purchasing or coercion verifiable and therefore easy, that it's ridiculous. An all mail in ballot system is inherently an illegitimate voting system. We lost folks. There's no way around it. I don't know why I insist on going through the charade that our votes matter. Any system that makes fraud easy will be defrauded and an all mail in ballot system is the very definition of a 'fraud friendly' environment. But my guess is that the fraud will take a little while to start up in full bloom so until then I'll pretend my vote matters. I'll pretend my vote was received. I'll pretend that my vote was counted correctly. Because that's all the system leave me with, pretense.

• Initiative Measure No. 1033 - NO

• Referendum Measure No. 71 - APPROVED

• King County Charter Amendment No. 1 - YES

• King County Charter Amendment No. 2 - YES

• King County Charter Amendment No. 3 - YES

• King County Charter Amendment No. 4 - YES

• King County Executive - Dow Constantine

• Sheriff - Sue Rahr

• King County Assessor - Bob Rosenberger

• Metropolitan King County Council District No. 3 - Kathy Lambert

• Court of Appeals, Division No. 1, District No.1 Judge Position No. 3 - Anne L. Ellington

• Port of Seattle Commissioner Position No. 1 - John Creighton

• Port of Seattle Commissioner Position No. 3 - Rob Holland

• Port of Seattle Commissioner Position No. 4 - Tom Albro

• City of Redmond - Council Position No. 2 - John P. (Pat) Vache

• City of Redmond - Council Position No. 4 - Kim Allen

• City of Redmond - Council Position No. 6 - John Stilin

• Lake Washington School District No. 414 Director District No. 3 - Nancy Phillips Bernard

• Lake Washington School District No. 414 Director District No. 4 - Doug Eglington

• Public Hospital District No. 2 - Commissioner District No. 1 - Al F. DeYoung

• Public Hospital District No. 2 -Commissioner Position No. 4 - Charles A. Pilcher

How do you get a Prius through the snow? I didn't used to care but in the last few years Redmond has had snow sitting on the ground for a week or two. There are low profile chains that will work on a Prius but that's a bad solution for me because the main roads in Seattle will be clear of snow, it's the neighborhood roads and side streets that will be covered. So after a mile or two of driving I would have to take the chains off. Studded tires could work but most of the time there is no snow on the ground and having to have my wheels put on and off is a pain. Snow tires could work but the snow season is only a month long and temperatures go all over the place, besides we get more water than ice/snow towards the end of the down fall and snow tires do badly on that. In the end I found and have tried out a reasonable solution to my problem âÄì The Autosock.

I tried out the autosock on my car last winter and this winter. Both times they worked really well. They gave me excellent traction both on packed and loose snow. They take literally 60 seconds to put on and take off. They aren't perfect but they work pretty well. Where I ran into problems with them is on slushy snow. I had to rock the car several times, driving back and forth, to get through a few really slushy patches. And when the snow started to seriously melt the autosock met it's match and stopped working. But so long as the snow was reasonably solid (e.g. power or packed) they worked well. I tried them on the steep hills around my home and they gave excellent traction both going up and down hills. Besides the looks on people's faces as a Prius with what looked like a shower cap on its wheels confidently drove past in the two foot snow was priceless.

I have never driven a four wheel drive but my guess is that autosocks are no substitute for a four wheel drive or real snow tires. But they got me around just fine and the cost is certainly right.

I guess I got lucky because all the folks I voted for made it to the general election so I don't have to go back and revisit those choices. The big choices then were President, which I covered in a separate article and the various initiatives which I cover below.

• President/Vice President- Ralph Nader/Matt Gonzalez

• United States Representative – Congressional District No. 1 – Jay Inslee

• Governor – Christine Gregoire

• Lieutenant Governor – Marcia McCraw

• Secretary of State – Jason Osgood

• State Treasurer – Allan Martin

• State Auditor – Brian Sonntag

• Attorney General – Rob McKenna

• Commissioner of Public Lands – Peter J. Goldmark

• Superintendent of Public Instruction – Randy Dorn

• Insurance Commissioner – Mike Kreidler

• State Representative – Legislative Dist No. 45 – Position 1 – Roger Goodman

• State Representative – Legislative Dist No. 45 – Position 2 – Larry Springer

• State Supreme Court – Justices of the Supreme Court – Position 3 – Mary Fairhurst

• State Supreme Court – Justices of the Supreme Court – Position 4 – Charles W. Johnson

• State Supreme Court – Justices of the Supreme Court – Position 7 – Debra L. Stephens

• Court of Appeals, Division No. 1 – District No. 1 – Judge Position 5 – Lau, Linda

• Court of Appeals, Division No. 1 – District No. 1 – Judge Position 6 – Ann Schindler

• Superior Court – Judges of the Superior Court – Position 1 – Tim Bradshaw

• Superior Court – Judges of the Superior Court – Position 22 – Julia Garratt

• Superior Court – Judges of the Superior Court – Position 37 – Jean Rietschel

• Initiative Measure No. 985 – No

• Initiative Measure No. 1000 – Yes

• Initiative Measure No. 1029 – No

• King County Charter Amendment No.1 – No

• King County Charter Amendment No. 2 – Yes

• King County Charter Amendment No. 3 – Yes

• King County Charter Amendment No. 4 – No

• King County Charter Amendment No. 5 – Yes

• King County Charter Amendment No. 6 – Yes

• King County Charter Amendment No. 7 – No

• King County Charter Amendment No. 8 – No

• Sound Transit – Proposition No. 1 – No

(more…)

Those I have told my intention to vote for Mr. Nader have generally had one of two reactions. Either they said I was throwing away my vote or they said that I was helping McCain to win. My response to these accusations is that my vote is about indicating where I want this country to go and I don't want it to go to the same corporate owned, poll driven, pork barrel politics we have had to date. I am confident that neither Obama nor McCain will make any substantive changes to what ails this country so I feel duty bound to vote for someone who I think will make a real difference. Therefore I am voting for Ralph Nader.

(more…)

The denial of service attack continues. By putting such a large number of candidates on the ballot the only conceivable result is less effective representation. Unless one dedicates one's life to reviewing candidates (and how does on review judges anyway?) there is no way to give effective overview to so many candidates. The only practical result I can see from this deluge of candidates is less people voting and for those who do vote, less attention being paid to each candidate.

• United States Representative – Congressional District No. 1 – Jay Inslee

• Governor – Christine Gregoire

• Lieutenant Governor – Marcia McCraw

• Secretary of State – Jason Osgood

• State Treasurer – Allan Martin

• State Auditor – Brian Sonntag

• Attorney General – Rob McKenna

• Commissioner of Public Lands – Peter J. Goldmark

• Superintendent of Public Instruction – Randy Dorn

• Insurance Commissioner – Mike Kreidler

• State Representative – Legislative Dist No. 45 – Position 1 – Roger Goodman

• State Representative – Legislative Dist No. 45 – Position 2 – Larry Springer

• State Supreme Court – Justices of the Supreme Court – Position 3 – Mary Fairhurst

• State Supreme Court – Justices of the Supreme Court – Position 4 – Charles W. Johnson

• State Supreme Court – Justices of the Supreme Court – Position 7 – Debra L. Stephens

• Court of Appeals, Division No. 1 – District No. 1 – Judge Position 5 – Lau, Linda

• Court of Appeals, Division No. 1 – District No. 1 – Judge Position 6 – Ann Schindler

• Superior Court – Judges of the Superior Court – Position 1 – Tim Bradshaw

• Superior Court – Judges of the Superior Court – Position 10 – Regina S. Cahan

• Superior Court – Judges of the Superior Court – Position 22 – Julia Garratt

• Superior Court – Judges of the Superior Court – Position 26 – Laura Gene Middaugh

• Superior Court – Judges of the Superior Court – Position 37 – Jean Rietschel

• Superior Court – Judges of the Superior Court – Position 53 – Mariane Spearman

• King County Initiative 26 and Council Proposed Alternative – Question 1 & 2 – No/Council-Proposed Alternative

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So far the most important issue on the ballot is Initiative 25. If you want any possible hope of having a meaningful vote in King County please vote yes for I-25.

This isn't an election, it's a denial of service attack! The whole point of representative democracy is that citizens have neither the time nor the background to make detailed choices about how the day to day activities of government are to be run. But in this election we am being drowned in no less than 9 different measures in addition to 14 different elected offices of which only 3 appeared on the primary. This is just nuts! The only consequence of dumping this many issues and elected offices on the citizenry is to so overload the citizenry that they either don't bother to vote or vote blindly.

• Initiative 960 – Yes

• Referendum Measure 67 – Approved

• Senate Joint Resolution 8206 – Rejected

• Senate Joint Resolution 8212 – Rejected

• House Joint Resolution 4204 – Rejected

• House Joint Resolution 4215 – Rejected

• King County Prosecuting Attorney – Bill Sherman

• King County Assessor – Scott Noble

• Port of Seattle – Commissioner – Position No. 2 – Bob Edwards

• Port of Seattle – Commissioner – Position No. 5 – Alec Fisken

• City of Redmond – Mayor – John Marchione

• City of Redmond – Council Position 1 – Hank Myers

• City of Redmond – Council Position 3 – Dayle (Hank) Margeson

• City of Redmond – Council Position 5 – Richard Cole

• City of Redmond – Council Position 7 – David Carson

• Lake Washington School District No. 414 – Director District 1 – Jackie Pendergrass

• Lake Washington School District No. 414 – Director District 2 – Chris Carlson

• Lake Washington School District No. 414 – Director District 5 – Ravi Shahani

• Public Hospital District No. 4 – Commissioner – Rebecca Hirt

• Public Hospital District No. 5 – Commissioner – Jeanette Greenfield

• King County Initiative 25 – Yes

• King County Proposition No. 1 – Medic One – Approved

• Sound Transit Proposition No. 1 – No

(more…)

Since I do not associate with either the Democratic nor the Republican parties I don't vote in either of their primaries. So I will only be giving my opinion on non-partisan positions and various measures. I went to the King County Voter Guide which generates a custom on-line guide just including positions/issues I'm eligible to vote for. I then checked the voter guide candidate text, check the candidate's web site, check the PI, the Seattle Times, the Stranger, the Municipal League of King County and searched the net.

• Port of Seattle – Commissioner – Position No. 2 – Thom McCann

• Port of Seattle – Commissioner – Position No. 5 – Alec Fisken

• City of Redmond – Mayor – John Marchione

• King County – Proposition No. 1 – Yes

• King County – Proposition No. 2 – Yes

• City of Redmond – Proposition No. 1 – Yes

• City of Redmond – Proposition No. 2 – Yes

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It's voting time! Now why, you might ask would I publish the way I'm planning on voting? Well, if I can convince one other person to vote the way I will then I've doubled the power of my vote. And if someone convinces me to change my vote then I'll have been saved from making a mistake.

As for those who are wondering why a privacy activist like me would publish such private information keep in mind two things. One, I choose to publish this information and choice is the core of privacy. Two, at least until mandatory mail in ballots come to King County in another year or two no one actually knows how I really voted.

• Initiative Measure 920 – NO

• Initiative Measure 933 – NO

• Initiative Measure 937 – YES

• House Joint Resolution 4223 – YES

• United States Senator – Bruce Guthrie

• United States Representative – First Congressional District – Jay Inslee

• State Senator – 45th Legislative District – Toby Nixon

• State Representative – 45th Legislative District – Position 1 – Roger E. Goodman

• State Representative – 45th Legislative District – Position 2 – Tim Lee

• Justice of the Supreme Court – Position 2 – Susan Owens

• King County District Court – Northeast Electoral District – Judge – Position 2 – Frank V. LaSalata

• King County – Proposition No .1 – YES

• King County – Proposition No. 2 – NO

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