1. On September 20, Pierce Transit plans to cut 28 percent of its remaining bus hours—a reduction that will, Tacoma Tomorrow notes, bring service levels back to where they were in 1980. According to US Census data, the county's population that year was just over 485,000, compared to nearly 800,000 in 2010, so another way of looking at the reduction is that it's the equivalent of reducing per-capita service by about half over those 30 years.  

2. KIRO TV catches on to something I editorialized about early last year: The city's decision to lower parking rates in the International District/Chinatown in response to complaints from restaurants (who said higher parking rates and later parking hours were destroying their businesses) was based on anecdotes, not data. At yesterday's city council transportation committee, city council member Tim Burgess argued that Chinatown was getting special treatment because they complained louder than other neighborhoods. 

3. Based on scorecards from the Washington Conservation Voters, the Washington State Labor Council, Facing Race; and the Washington Conservative Union, 36th District state Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles has been named the most proressive member of the state senate by the Progressive Democrats of America, MyBallard reports. Congratulations, Sen. Kohl-Welles. 

4, Bruce Ramsey at the Seattle Times, apparently driving his waaaaaaaahmbulance, complains on the Times' editorial blog that he got pulled over for speeding (by seven mph) in a school zone. After all, he notes, he didn't see any kids—because speed limits only apply, of course, when you're actually putting someone's life in danger. 

5. Dear KOMO News headline and story writers: A 21-year-old man cannot "have sex" with a 12-year-old. The story does eventually acknowledge that sex with a child is actually rape—in the last line of the story, after implying not only that the sex was consensual (under the law, a 12-year-old child cannot consent to sex with a 21-year-old adult), noting that she was "dressed provocatively," and saying she "admitted to" having sex with the man—a virtual triumvrate of victim-blaming bad journalism.