A North West View

Being able to control one’s own finances is one of the important parts of being able to be a independent adult, and is something that is supposed to come along with being one as well.  It means being able to live within a budget and spending one's money wisely within that budget.  It also means having a realistic idea about what your income is and how much money you have to spend and being able to weigh that against financial decisions and the merits of purchases that one wishes to make keeping in mind the required purchase that one has to make and the cost of them.   Which is why the realization that I seem to be utterly incapable of controlling my finances is coming as such a blow,

One of the newest groups to throw their support behind marriage equality in Washington state and take an official stance that Ref 74 should be a proved is the Seattle Chamber Of Commerce which represents 2,200 company's, it joins the ranks of company's like Microsoft and Starbucks, as well as many faith groups and Labor groups like my union UFCW 21, in voicing their support for the right of all citizens of Washington to be able to marry.   Of course being the chamber of commerce their reason boils down to the economics of it, in that it creates a simpler system of providing benefits to employees who have same sex partners, as well as helping to make it easier to attract and keep talent, especially when competing with other states (and countries) that have marriage equality. In addition to gaining another voice for equality Washington United For Marriage has started their new Raising Millions For Marriage campaign where individuals (and groups) can set fundraising goa

Well on Tuesday the backers of Initiative 1192 other wise know as I 1192 conceded that they did not and would not have enough signatures by the deadline of July 6th to make it onto the November ballot.  The backer of the  241,000     which would have changed state law to once again read that marriage is between one man and one women.  The backer of the measure S tephen Pidgeon, who is also a candidate for the state attorney generals office, (How unseemly) blamed the inability to collect enough signatures on the backers of Ref 74, and went so far as to say that the backers of Ref 74 chorused signature gathers to sabotage his Initiative campaign!  What this means though is that there is only one fight to be fought now on the November ballot and that is Ref 74.  Of-course like everything in this fight this is both good new and also some bad news at the same time.