NPI's Cascadia Advocate

Offering commentary and analysis from Washington, Oregon, and Idaho, The Cascadia Advocate provides the Northwest Progressive Institute's uplifting perspective on world, national, and local politics.

Monthly Archives: May 2013

The “Tim Eyman Memorial Bridge” meme: Why it got started, why it’s taken off

Excerpt: Last week, in the after­math of the col­lapse of a key span of the Inter­state 5 bridge over the Skag­it Riv­er, a friend of NPI’s (Wu Ming) sug­gest­ed in a diary on Dai­ly Kos that we begin refer­ring to the out-of-ser­vice cross­ing as the “Tim Eyman Memo­r­i­al Bridge”. We ran with the meme, cre­at­ing a […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Economic Security, Elections, Humor & Satire, Legislative Advocacy, Policy Topics, Public Planning
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Inslee: We have a plan for making I‑5’s Skagit River Bridge driveable again by mid-June

Excerpt: The Wash­ing­ton State Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion (WSDOT) has devised a plan to make Inter­state 5 between Mount Ver­non and Burling­ton pass­able again by mid-June, Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee announced this afternoon. State bridge engi­neers have been work­ing fever­ish­ly to fig­ure out how the bridge that car­ries Inter­state 5 over the Skag­it Riv­er might be repaired. The […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:National Defense, Policy Topics, Public Planning
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Time to give the failed I‑5 Skagit River span a new name: The Tim Eyman Memorial Bridge

Excerpt: Yes­ter­day after­noon on Dai­ly Kos, pro­gres­sive activist Wu Ming sug­gest­ed that, in the wake of the fail­ure of Inter­state 5’s Skag­it Riv­er cross­ing, which car­ries more than sev­en­ty thou­sand vehi­cles a day, it would be appro­pri­ate to give the span a new name: The Tim Eyman Memo­r­i­al Bridge. Ming wrote: As I watched the cov­er­age […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Policy Topics, Public Planning
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Hurray for Amtrak! Third daily Cascades train between Seattle and Bellingham is coming

Excerpt: A big kudos to WSDOT, Burling­ton North­ern San­ta Fe, and Sound Tran­sit for fig­ur­ing out how to pull this new ser­vice togeth­er on short notice: To assist trav­el­ers affect­ed by yesterday’s I‑5 high­way bridge col­lapse in Skag­it Coun­ty, Amtrak Cas­cades will add one round trip route between Seat­tle and Belling­ham, Wash., in the com­ing weeks. Amtrak, […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:National Defense, Policy Topics, Public Planning
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Governor Inslee: Repair of collapsed I‑5 Skagit River Bridge is estimated at $15 million

Excerpt: It’s only been six­teen hours since a sec­tion of the bridge that car­ries Inter­state 5 over the Skag­it Riv­er col­lapsed, but already the Wash­ing­ton State Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion (WSDOT) is work­ing on a plan to put the span back together. Experts have esti­mat­ed the cost of a bridge repair at around $15 mil­lion, accord­ing to […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:National Defense, Policy Topics, Public Planning
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Washington’s elected leaders respond to collapse of I‑5 bridge over Skagit River

Excerpt: As the evening goes on, more and more elect­ed lead­ers are react­ing to tonight’s break­ing news out of Skag­it Coun­ty. A sec­tion of the bridge that car­ries Inter­state 5 over the Skag­it Riv­er, just north of Mount Ver­non, has col­lapsed into the water. The cause of the dis­as­ter is believed to be an over­height truck […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Breaking News, National Defense, Policy Topics, Public Planning
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BREAKING: A section of the Interstate 5 bridge over Skagit River has collapsed

Excerpt: Break­ing, huge­ly con­se­quen­tial news out of Skag­it Coun­ty tonight: A sec­tion of the Inter­state 5 bridge over the Skag­it Riv­er near Mount Ver­non has col­lapsed, accord­ing to the State Patrol and eye­wit­ness reports on Twitter. The Seat­tle Times has an even more remark­able pho­to. The struc­tur­al fail­ure occurred just before 7 PM, the State Patrol […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Breaking News, National Defense, Policy Topics, Public Planning
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U.S. House passes bill to take decision on Keystone XL pipeline out of president’s hands

Excerpt: By a vote of two hun­dred and forty-one to one hun­dred and sev­en­ty-five, the U.S. House tonight opt­ed to approve a Repub­li­can-backed bill that essen­tial­ly seeks to give Cana­di­an petro­le­um giant Tran­sCana­da final approval to build the Key­stone XL pipeline through the Amer­i­can Mid­west (and across the bor­der into Alberta). Nine­teen Democ­rats sided with two […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Breaking News, Economic Security, Legislative Advocacy, Our Environment, Policy Topics
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Monster tornado rips through Moore, Oklahoma, killing at least thirty-seven people

Excerpt: Dis­as­ter strikes again: A mas­sive tor­na­do roared through Moore and south Okla­homa City on Mon­day after­noon, grind­ing up neigh­bor­hoods and rav­aging at least one ele­men­tary school in its path. Ter­ror quick­ly spread as the Emer­gency Med­ical Ser­vices Author­i­ty rushed ambu­lances to Bri­ar­wood Ele­men­tary School in the Moore School Dis­trict and to sev­er­al homes, busi­ness­es and inter­sec­tions […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Breaking News, National Defense, Policy Topics, Public Planning
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Christy Clark declares victory in B.C., but trails the NDP’s David Eby in her own riding

Excerpt: British Colum­bia Pre­mier Christy Clark, whose B.C. Lib­er­als scored a huge upset over the New Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty, has just fin­ished deliv­er­ing her vic­to­ry speech in down­town Van­cou­ver in front of hun­dreds of cheer­ing supporters. Smil­ing broad­ly, Clark declared that her par­ty had won a clear man­date to gov­ern and would move for­ward with its plans […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Elections, Live Coverage
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Not-so liberal Liberals projected to win in British Columbia; score huge upset over NDP

Excerpt: So much for all those pre­dic­tions of a big NDP victory. It’s been an hour and fif­teen min­utes since polls closed in British Columbi­a’s 2013 provin­cial elec­tions, and the New Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty (NDP) has yet to over­take the Lib­er­als in the count of leading/elected MLAs (Mem­bers of the Leg­isla­tive Assem­bly). And it looks like they’re […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Elections
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The Tyee: British Columbia’s New Democratic Party poised for a landslide victory tonight

Excerpt: British Columbi­a’s New Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty (NDP) is on the cusp of a his­toric vic­to­ry tonight over the not-so lib­er­al B.C. Lib­er­als, accord­ing to The Tyee, the province’s best-known online-only publication. The Tyee’s final elec­toral pre­dic­tion breaks down as fol­lows: NDP: Fifty-sev­en seats Lib­er­als: Twen­ty-sev­en seats Inde­pen­dents: One seat The Tyee clas­si­fies thir­ty-four seats as “def­i­nite­ly” NDP, with only […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Elections
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B.C. Journal: A Tsawwassen sunset

Excerpt: One of the joys of trav­el­ing is unex­pect­ed­ly encoun­ter­ing a scene or land­scape that is so beau­ti­ful that it takes your breath away. That hap­pened to me last night as I was jour­ney­ing south towards the Unit­ed States-Cana­da bor­der. I decid­ed to detour off of High­way 99 into Lad­ner and Tsawwassen and came across this sight: I […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Elections, Series & Special Reports
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B.C. Journal: Liberals hold telephone town hall to connect supporters to leader Clark

Excerpt: With less than one hun­dred hours to go until the polls close in British Columbi­a’s 2013 provin­cial elec­tions, par­ty lead­ers Christy Clark and Adri­an Dix are keep­ing busy sched­ules. As I report­ed ear­li­er today, Adri­an is spend­ing most of his Sat­ur­day in the Van­cou­ver sub­urbs. He was in Coquit­lam this morn­ing for the pan­cake break­fast […]
Written by:Andrew Villeneuve
Categories:Elections, Our Environment, Policy Topics, Series & Special Reports
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