Is there anything better to do at the office than read the Bainbridge Conversation blog?

If you answered “do actual work” you are probably too productive and hard working to care about Internet radio. According to leading Internet radio provider Pandora, most of the 7 million folks who snap their fingers and tap their feet to their online service are sitting at a cubicled computer.

It’s for those folks that Rep. Jay Inslee has some hopeful news. The Bainbridge Democrat (who once admitted to me that KEXP frequently streams into his D.C. office via the Net) earned unanimous approval in the House this week for a measure that may save Internet radio stations from crippling rate increases.

Read my story below.

While you’re at it, read my story from last September about Inslee teaming up with Indie rockers to save Internet radio.

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In a 23rd Legislative District Senate debate Tuesday, the Republican candidate let loose this provocative comment:

“I think it’s very arrogant at the taxpayers’ cost to think that the state of Washington can make any kind of difference in global warming,” said Connie Lord, a Poulsbo city councilwoman seeking to unseat state Sen. Phil Rockefeller, a Bainbridge Island Democrat.

And, according Steven Gardener’s coverage of the event, Lord asserted that the science is still out on the global warming issue, and that Kyoto Protocol standards proposed nearly a decade ago would have little impact.

Rockefeller, who has championed legislation to curb greenhouse gasses, disagreed.

“The science is not still out,” he said. “It is overwhelmingly clear that we are having an impact and it’s not a good one.”

Islander columnist Becky Fox Marshall reminisces about the old days, before “digital natives,” Facebook, IMing and LoL-ing.

Reclining on the dentist’s chair after a particularly intense session last week, I was coming down off the effects of nitrous thanks to a thorough flushing of oxygen when the dentist took over from the hygienist.

He explained to this relative newcomer to the office that I was “an old timer.” He mentioned that I often write about the “old days” and frequently say “I remember when…”

I just about choked on my gauze.

An old timer? Seriously? Have I become one of those? When did THAT happen?

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Rep. Jay Inslee on Monday helped kill President Bush’s $700 billion bailout of some of the nation’s biggest financial institutions.

The Bainbridge Island Democrat’s vote in the narrow, 228-205 defeat ran counter to the urgings of both parties’ leaders.

“For all the talk of protecting the taxpayer, there were only limited promises that the taxpayers’ $700 billion investment would be paid back and there were no provisions to help struggling homeowners,” said Inslee in a statement released shortly after the House vote.

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