History, politics, people of Oly WA
While I still need you to be around, you’ve been doing some writing for the Seattle Times magazine. Of course, not a publication I get to read very often.
Older, Richer, Bigger: Grand schemes and dying dreams on Bainbridge
Images become treasures to grieving parents
David Ishii, Bookseller: In his life and in his store, he chronicles the city’s story
Taming The Next Big Thing: Beyond the booms and busts, the story of our selves
Paul Allen is in the mix.
There are jersey designs even. The above one is my favorite, but I could live with any of them. Even the orange one strangely enough.
And, of course, the leak.
If my emotions are any guide, I’ll be with at opening day 2009 with the family in Qwest Field watching the Sounders take the field. Speaking of “Sounders,” a naming contest is a bad bad idea. Even my militantly anti-soccer sports fans friends agree, if you’re to bring a soccer team to Seattle, you have to call them the Sounders.
One thing I’m seriously considering if MLS happens this week. One, get really serious about Puget’s Crew, the South Sound entry for a regional supporters club. The other is to join the Sounders blogosphere by starting a new blog.
Lou goes way past government interference in politics:
All political contributions should be banned!
I believe a constitutional amendment is needed to ban donations of any size to persons who run for public office.
Public campaigns? B’ah!
Fairness Doctrine? Too damn weak!
Just force newspapers and everyone else in the media to cover every single candidate.
If I was a conservative in the northwest, I’d be downright embarrassed by this guy. But, I’m not so its just funny.
Getting lost along the way of Rossi’s faux campaign, the Washington Idea Bank forgot that it was supposed to be about everyone else’s ideas, not his.
Now that Rossi is gone from the Idea Bank and the Forward Washington, they finally figured out they were supposed to be post people’s ideas on the site, which they did for the first time since early summer a couple of days ago.
But, that’s just about keeping up appearances, still not about your ideas or actually doing anything with them. Gone is the feature where you can actually rate the ideas. They’re just up there as if anyone actually cares. You can still assume that the best ides will “included in a working document that the Foundation will present to the legislature next January,” but I doubt they’ll be the ones that the users of the site actually like.
Speaking of Rossi’s lame idea website, it, like one its main idea guys, loves big government:
Craig from Longview writes:
The state needs to fully fund the Family Caregiver Support Program so seniors & adults with disabilities can be cared for at home by their loved ones and thus aviod being institutionalized, which would cost taxpayers more in the long run.
susan from port angeles writes:
We really have alot of black ice here in washington. I suggest you hire some one to create a small thing that would resemble the green address markers people put on the side of the road to mark their house numbers. The marker would be colored white in wheather above freezing. At zero and below there would be a chemical reaction in the marker and it would turn to a black and white striped marker. It would be zebra for zero. You would place them on corners that often have accident because of black ice. They could be taller than the markers are now so they could be seen in higher snow. It would give people a reminder in the winter when we have the black ice to just be a bit more cautious. Thanks Susan
John from Vancouver writes:
School levies that are voted on by the electorate should require only a simple majority to pass instead of the 2/3 requirement that is often in place. Too often, a majority of residents of a school district support a levy, but the 2/3 threshold is too high to meet, so the levies fail. A simple majority would allow these levies to pass and new schools to be constructed.
Phill from Tacoma writes:
The state should provide free or reduced university tuition for combat veterans returning from conflicts abroad. This would keep these residents from leaving the state and would spur state-wide help economic growth.
Mark writes:
We need a single state “transportation” tzar. An individual appointed by the governor who serves as the CEO of the state’s transportation needs and oversees all the hundreds of committees that are involved in transportation decisions. Each county also has their ‘tzar’ who report directly to the states CEO. The buck starts and stops with the tzar. Bottom line, we need specific accountability for transportation decisions, intiative and action.
There is some out of place heartburn over at the Faith and Freedom blog about moderating comments. Strange though how Gary gets the terminology wrong, he’s talking about moderating comments, but he says “posts.” Oh well, I wish they had open posts at FFB the way the had at washblog and even Sound Politics, that would be interesting.
Moderating comments is a good thing. I don’t publish every comment that is sent over here, mostly because there is some just dumb stuff that doesn’t add anything.
The most interesting part was the comments that Gary left up on his post about moderating comments:
I have left comments occassionally. It seems as if anytime Christians have a voice, the left wing elitists try to silence it. I think any and every Christian voice needs to be heard, and this blog is a very important venue.
Geese, ok, just moderate your comments already.
Lou Guzzo, Dino Rossi’s idea man, is surprised that he (gasp) agrees with a liberal. Shouldn’t be a surprise, Lou’s a secret liberal.
Well, not so secret. The guy is really into big-government solutions.
First of all (and just to get this out of the way) he worked for the Lyndon LaRouche of Washington State politics, Democratic governor Dixy Lee Ray. Gov. Ray was so unpopular with Democrats by the end of her first term that it took long time Dem powerhouse Warren Magnuson to usher her out of the race back in 1980 before she could be nominated again.
Anyway, Lou seems to bring that old time liberalism of Ray weirdness into his new job as conservative weirdo.
Take for example:
Corporate U.S. should provide day care for employees’ children — Not exactly big government, but the nanny-corporate state certainly steps in to take care of my son. Sort of like employee based health care system we have that is working so well right now. Sounds like a gateway drug to the government taking care of the little tyke.
Incentive program needed to bring out the lazy non-voters — because unlike most conservatives, you don’t believe that people should just vote because they want to.
Congress needs to crack down on greedy pro-sport owners — Its easy for him to argue for a crack down on team owners, but as a conservative could he make the same argument for a crack down on greed energy company owners? Or, insurance company owners?
Check out the list of fan owned teams and add your own. I know, the Green Bay Packer aren’t even up there yet or the few minor league baseball teams owned by their fans. Put them up there if you know what I’m talking about.
Curt Pavola, a former member of the Olympia city council calls out Baird:
My duty as a citizen at this time in history…the most important moment in my life as a free person in a democratic society…is to vote for, advocate for and fund a progressive candidate for Congress who will represent me and work against the political-economic machinery of war.
Like current city council member TJ Johnson before him, Curt toes the line to say that HE’D actually run against Baird, but backs away.
False info from Save Our Sonics:
Q. Let’s buy the teams and have public ownership.
A. False: The situation in Green Bay is unique in sports. Leagues have rules to prevent it from happening again.With NBA teams suffering operating losses it is imposible for a team to exist owned by the people in a city. Here, of course, it’s even worse because the City of Seattle can’t find the money to fix potholes, much less cover the operating losses of an NBA team.
Owners like Howard Shultz recover their losses when they sell the teams and that defeats the purpose of public ownership.
Of course that again assumes that the new owner would consider selling and that isn’t apt to happen.
Actually, the Green Bay Packers aren’t owned by the city of Green Bay, but rather individual stock owners. And, while every major sports league in the United States ban non-profit or government ownership of teams, only the NFL bans corporate ownership to prevent stock sales of teams.
But, the NBA totally allows stock ownership systems. Both the Boston Celtics and the Cleveland Cavaliers.
So, what’s stopping anyone from filing a corporation with the Secretary of State’s office and selling stock to try to buy the Sonics. Nothing at all.
The Olympian must have thought Russ was a really smart guy for someone who went to North Thurston, so they gave him the nod in his race against secret Christian Jason Hearn.
One thing about the endorsement did puzzle me was Hearn’s description of traffic on College St:
…he lives 1.6 miles from the Lacey library and on certain days it can take 17 minutes to get there.
Ok, I looked it up, and Hearn lives in a neighborhood south on College down by Chambers Lake. If he walked to the library it would take him about 30 minutes each way. Well can’t do that.
If he bought a bike, it would take him 12 minutes each way (being charitable). Driving up and down College during heavy traffic takes more time than it would to bike the same distance.
College Street is already built out as much as possible, there is no adding lanes to get more cars in there. If Hearn really wants to lessen the time to get from his house to the library, maybe suggesting alternative modes of travel would be a good idea. True, biking up and down College would suck (because of all the traffic), but the road does have pretty wide sidewalks.
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