This week’s column: I sing the praises of Kevin Calabro.

Another post by me–some silliness with top-10 lists and local political figures.

Huan Hsu used to write for the Weekly but moved to China to work for an Uncle’s business and work on a book. He wrote this entertaining piece on his adolescent struggles with Asian stereotypes and the success of Michael Chang.

My friend Bucky sent me this Washington Post op-ed a couple weeks ago. While one can cherry-pick events to show the similarities between eras, and while the author doesn’t provide much evidence to back his contention that the 1970s federal government was actually more inefficient than previous ones, rather than just perceived as such, he does lay out an uncanny array of ties between 1978 and 2008. It’s an entertaining read.

My friend/former co-worker and employer Doug Hiatt got a much-deserved write-up in the Seattle Times. Philip Dawdy’s longer (and highly entertaining) piece on Hiatt from a couple years ago can be found here.

John McCain may have gotten a little confused about the chronology of the surge and the Anbar Awakening, but CBS bailed him out. In covering the story, the NY Times turns to the ever-reliable war cheerleader Michael O’Hanlon for commentary. (A few questions: If Surge Cola were still around today, what would the surge do to its sales? It would have to help, right? Would they still call it the surge? Would people take the surge less seriously because it was seemingly named after a soft drink? Would Coca-Cola sue?)

Seth Kolloen put together a very funny graphic about former Mariners GM Bill Bavasi.

This week, the state announced that it has increased the list of viaduct replacement options from three to ten. But with the political process seemingly dragging and with removal of the old, unstable structure still four years off, some might wonder: what if an earthquake were to hit in the meantime? After all, it was the 2001 Nisqually Earthquake that set the structure sinking into Elliott Bay, and since then a group of earth sciences and urban planning experts at the University of Washington have repeatedly warned the state to shut it down as soon as possible. If an earthquake were to strike at rush hour tomorrow and a collapsed viaduct killed thousands, would the state end up paying damages on wrongful death lawsuits?

Many states employ “sovereign immunity” to protect their governments from litigation, while others cap the damages their governments can pay. For example, Minnesota, the state with the most recent highway collpase, doesn’t have sovereign immunity, but does cap damages at $1 million per incident. (Bridge victims there are being compensated through a $38 million fund set up by the state legislature.) Washington waived sovereign immunity in 1961–Attorney General Rob McKenna’s recent efforts to curtail the state’s immunity have failed–and places no cap on damages. So, in theory, this hypothetical’s plaintiffs could go ahead with their suits and demand a lot of money. But succeeding would be a tricky prospect.

“If it were a huge earthquake and even new buildings were collapsing, it would be a lot harder to say that the state was negligent with the Viaduct,” says Chuck Paglialunga, whose law firm, Paglialunga and Harris, handles cases involving wrongful deaths and negligent highway design. “On the other hand, if it were a mild earthquake, and the Viaduct still collapsed, that might show it was unreasonably dangerous.”

But the size of the earthquake would be just the beginning. Were there affordable interim measures the state could have taken to lessen the risk? It’s already spending nearly $15 million on emergency repairs; designing and implementing a replacement structure or system will be vastly more expensive. (Of course, the UW experts who called for the Viaduct’s closure noted that a planned interruption is less costly than an emergent one. It may also be worth considering that the costs of steel and cement are expected to continue to rise, as China’s economy continues to grow.)

However, even if the math favored the plaintiffs–that is, that the probability of a disaster multiplied by the cost of damages exceeded the cost of repairs—the state could probably invoke “discretionary immunity.” This court-created doctrine holds that high-level discretionary acts by the government–basically, decisions of policy direction, as opposed to implementation–are immune from lawsuits.

Still, there might be one last angle. “Here’s the kicker,” says Louis Wolcher, a professor of torts at UW Law School. “There are two different kinds of theories a plaintiff can assert. One is, you should have designed it better, retrofitted it, or shut it down. The other is that you should have provided adequate warning.” Wolcher notes that the state might argue that local drivers were aware of the risks, and admits he’s at a loss as to what such warning signs might say. Nevertheless, perhaps the state will want to add this eleventh, interim option to its list.

First, Robert Jamieson details how drunken/disruptive/occasionally violent late night customers and loiterers have led the SODO Denny’s (Seattle’s last) to close it’s doors on late Saturday nights. It’s a bummer of a story, but kudos to Jamieson for using the word “numskulls”; I’d been hoping for “hooligans”, personally, but as always, the piece was boosted by a foray into archaic lexicon.

Also in the P-I, the Landmark Preservation Board is at it again. This time, they’ve held a preliminary vote to designate the 15th and Market Denny’s a landmark, potentially thwarting a big condo development deal. Anybody else detect a whiff of underhanded downzoning—especially given other recent landmarking news (such as Peter Steinbrueck’s sweeping and seemingly rushed list of downtown buildings to preserve)?

PS–Denny’s, if you’re reading this, bring back the Veggie Cheese Melt. I loved that sandwich. So did my mom.