1. In its ongoing series about the serious oversupply of urban parking, Sightline focuses today on a disturbing fact: Most urban areas in Cascadia (defined, broadly, as the area reaching from approximately Vancouver, B.C. to the western part of Iowa to southern Oregon) require more space, through regulations, to park cars than to sleep in.

Through median space requirements of around 1.5 car spots for every bedroom, cities in the Northwest grant more space to cars than to human beings. (Caveat, though: Although we're no fans of minimum parking requirements, we're also fans of small living spaces like aPodments, so far be it from us to argue for larger minimum bedroom requirements.)

2, The Puget Sound Business Journal reports on yesterday's Seattle mayoral forum in Redmond (which we mentioned in Fizz this morning). In addition to former city council member Peter Steinbrueck's (apparently mistaken) opposition to non-voter-approved transit funding, the PSBJ reports that: Steinbrueck expressed support for replacing the SR-520 bridge even if Sound Transit hasn't solidified its plans to build light rail across the parallel bridge to the Eastside, I-90; that Kate Martin thinks the state should extend the sales tax to all industries; and that Bruce Harrell's wife works at Microsoft.

(Harrell and his wife, as we first reported, own a condo in Bellevue in addition to their house in Seward Park.) 

3. The PI.com reports that the U.S. House appropriations committee, which includes Washington state Republican Rep. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-WA, 3), voted yesterday to slash funding for the federal Land and Water Conservation Fund—a privately-funded pot of money that pays for things like energy efficiency, wildlife presrevation, and recreation land and habitat protection. 

4. Finally, on the national front: The WaPo's Ezra Klein reports that former treasurury secretary Larry Summers (who you may remember as the dude who said women are genetically worse at math and science, plus they just "choose" to take care of kids while their husbands go out and do important man-stuff) is reportedly Obama's top choice to head up the Federal Reserve.

Summers is favored over the far more qualified Fed vice chair, Janet Yellen, because the adminstration considers her too "soft-spoken," "passive" and lacking in "toughness." I mean, unlike Summers and the rest of the deregulatory cabal, she did predict the 2008 financial meltdown, but whatever: She just lacks this certain ... genitalia? I mean: gravitas. What a neat choice, Mr. President!