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Good Morning, Happy Friday.

This definitely puts a damper on flash mobs:. A Lakewood state senator is trying to get ahead of a weird twist on flash mobs. Flash mobs, as you probably know, are groups of people who gather at a set time and place and begin, say, dancing in a well choreographed manner. Flash robs are altogether different.  These are groups of people who gather and rob places. This has happened from Portland to Chicago. Sen. Mike Carrell, R-Lakewood, has offered a bill in Olympia — SB 5178 — that would toughen up on those who use email or text to organize themselves and steal $250 or more of merchandise from a store.

Below is one of the better uses of this organizational and technological phenomenon, the famous flash mob in Belgium.

U.S. Rep. Denny Heck,

 U.S. Rep Denny Heck’s observations from D.C. (Shout out to The Olympian for excellent. blog fodder, by the by). The Olympian interviewed new U.S. Rep. Denny Heck, the representative from Washington’s brand new 10th Congressional District. He has been in office less than a month and is surprised to find the partisanship in the nation’s capital even more pronounced than he expected. And Heck knows stuff.

Valentine’s Day with Al Gore. Darn, the Seattle Arts & Lectures event featuring Al Gore is sold out. The former vice president is coming to Seattle for a conversation with Professor David Domke, chairman of the University of Washington Department of Communications. The event is billed as a clear-eyed discussion of the emerging forces shaping our world.  Gore has had a rough week following the sale of his network, Current TV, to Al Jazeera.  Comedian Jon Stewart interviewed, I mean, grilled, Gore this week on his show.

Is she or isn’t she? PubliCola asks a good question. Is Washington Transportation Secretary Paula Hammond, who occupies a very important profile position with so much happening in transportation around the state, staying or going in the new Gov, Jay Inslee administration? Worth watching.

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The Seattle Times politics team invites you to join us Wednesday from 6 to 7:30 p.m. for our live chat on the presidential debate between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney. We will be joined this evening by David Domke, political communications expert and chairman of the Department of Communication at the University of Washington. Also with us for this exciting event will be Times’ political reporter Jim Brunner, Times political editor Richard Wagoner, Elizabeth Wiley, contributor to UW Election Eye blog and myself.

Questions, comments, critiques all welcome and encouraged.

We’re also asking readers and viewers to join a research project led by University of Missouri professors Mitchell S. McKinner and J. Brian Houston examining how viewers throughout the nation respond via Twitter to the candidates and their performances tonight.

Debate tweeters can participate by using the hashtag #STdebate.

The professors are hoping to develop an approach to understand, analyze and interpret Twitter and social media reactions to political events.

Houston and McKinney are hoping that their analysis will give them an idea of key issues and moments during the debate and the relative responses of males and females to each candidate.