Three tourists from Rhode Island were beaten, burned and robbed outside the 3rd Avenue transit tunnel entrance on Monday night. Why am I not surprised?

The 3rd and Pike area is so terrible that it has it’s own Twitter feed. On most days the tunnel entrance and sidewalk outside are full of drug dealers and thugs who fuck with people coming in and out of the tunnel. I stopped using that tunnel entrance and now use the one across the street next to Macy’s because of this reason. The King County Sheriff department seems to be less interested in providing security and more interested in getting themselves fired. The city and SPD have tried with the 9 1/2 block strategy to reform the area, and it has had some success, apparently not as much as could have been hoped for.

My favorite part (if you want to call it that) of the incident is this:

Police arrived at the scene, but the group of suspects had fled. However, officers did arrest one man at the scene after he interfered with medics’ efforts to treat the victims, and told the victims they “deserved’ to be beaten and robbed. Police are investigating whether the man was also involved in the robbery.

If you have anything to share regarding the crime, you can contact the SPD Robbery Unit at (206) 684-5535.

Literally:

Hirabayashi Place will be a mixed use, transit oriented, workforce housing development that includes 96 apartments and a childcare center. Units will be studio, 1-bedroom, and 2-bedroom apartments affordable for households with incomes at or below 40%, 50%, and 60% of Area Mean Income.

Please visit the rental website for an application for the housing lottery. The application has two parts and must be received by September 15, 2015.

(Emphasis mine)

There is such a huge demand for these kind of buildings. The non-profits who develop these projects (InterIm CDA, Bellwether Housing, Capitol Hill Housing are three such developers) open maybe one new affordable building a year. Their collective efforts are appreciated, but they suffer from a lack of resources and muscle and can’t compete with for-profit developers. Either the government has to get involved to even the odds or we’re going to have to give up the pretension that we care about this issue in the first place.

When if comes to critique of religion, folks on the left have a nasty habit of tying themselves in ecumenical knots. For example, if you want to see these knots tied in front of you, simply criticize Islam in mixed conversation. Eyes will flicker, and someone in the group will say, “well, Christians have been just as bad.” Even the president gets in on the act. It’s an understandable habit.

Christopher Hitchens didn’t care much for this predilection. This video is an example of this. Hitch was supposed to appear on stage at Town Hall in June of 2010. This appearance was canceled due to his cancer diagnosis, which killed him about a year and a half later. In honor of that missed appearance, here’s Hitch in action:

The Seattle City Council yesterday approved the expansion of the Metropolitan Improvement District, the taxing district that funds extra clean-up service and security for a large portion of downtown Seattle, Pioneer Square, the Denny Triangle, and now, Belltown. If you work, live, or otherwise find yourself downtown, you’ve probably encountered folks in yellow jackets cleaning up or otherwise keeping an eye on things. That’s them. What’s new this time is that the taxing district now includes Belltown, the largest of downtown’s area neighborhoods.

Here’s a map:

A fun fact about the MID: they record each instance of “number two” they clean up in the downtown area. This means that someone in their office has a feces-themed map, speckled with dots.

…I’m picking England, 2-1.

Also, I’m participating in the Times’ King of the Cup competition, And you can make your picks for Round One right now. (Somebody has got to take North Korea over Brazil. You could be that person.)

My favorite soccer ads are after the jump.

[Read more…]

Cherisse Luxa has passed away. I didn’t know Cherisse, but others did. Condolences to her family.

Andrew at NPI:

This morning, Washington’s netroots community lost one of its most wonderful and spirited activists when Cherisse Luxa, the founder of Burien Drinking Liberally, succumbed to stomach cancer. Cherisse was sixty two. She resided in the 34th LD, known for its strong and vibrant Democratic Party organization.

Cafecito at Daily Kos:

If you have ever attended Drinking Liberally, you almost certainly know of Cherisse’s incredible energy and her unstoppable drive to make our community a better place. From her decades as a King County Sheriff’s Deputy to her impressive track record as an activist an advocate, Cherisse made a huge difference, both for Burien and for the broader community.

Cherisse, like many of us, got religion with Howard Dean’s run.

Cherisse touched thousands of lives and was a role model for many of us. We will sorely miss her.

[Typed on my Blackberry. Excuse the typos.]

At around 1:10pm, while getting ready to go to work, I stepped on the corner of a garbage bag. In that bag was the lid of a can of olives… My heel met that lid from the olive can, and well… The guy I’m housesitting for is probably going to need a new mat for his back door.

Sitting on this hospital bed at Overlake is giving me the chance to reflect, in real time, about healthcare in the USA.

This visit is going to cost me $125 bucks. Did I try to shop around, maybe to look for a better deal to avoid the ER? I did, but with a shoeful of blood, its tough to comparison shop.

Whats good about the situation is that I’m going to recieve excellent medical care. In America, we don’t ration healthcare. I’m going to get the full boat: tiny stitches, local pain meds, and a flat tube TV on the wall.

In America, we don’t ration healthcare. We ration the access to that healthcare. We run a healthcare system that no serious conservative politician in any country would advocate for. In England, Tory leader David Cameron reaffirmed his support for the NHS after a member of his party made dispariging statements on American TV. Cameron wants to be Prime Minister one day, and he knows that for its flaws, each and every Briton would pick the NHS over America’s broken system any day.

After I’ve been patched up and sent on my way, the hospital will ring up my charges and bill my insurance. They will bill at the highest rate possible to recoup for uncompensated care. You see, the simple fact that some don’t have insurance makes the insurance I do have more expensive. Whats more, my health insurance company will spend %12 of every dollar on paperwork, processing, and other overhead. Medicare, The Great Healthcare Satan, spends far less.

For all the monkeytalk coming out of DC these days, its easy to lose track of the reality of a broken healthcare system, and how regular Americans must navigate it every day, Americans of all stripes.

The doctor is on his way in, so I’ll close by saying this:

Universal health insurance is no more a socialist plot that universal car insurance.

[Typed on my Blackberry. Excuse the typos.]

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jETv3NURwLc[/youtube]

In honor of the 545 bus (the last bus of the night back to Redmond!!!) that never showed up on Saturday night, Seattle will no longer be the “Emerald City.”

It will now be called “The City That Sleeps.” Because a transit system that stops working at midnight on a Saturday is totally Squaresville, baby.

The SPD will be cracking down on crosswalk violations this summer. Let me sidestep the usual “stupid pedestrians” versus “stupid drivers” argument and say that I like being safe in a crosswalk as much as the next guy, but I can understand how difficult it is for a driver to safely get through a crosswalk, especially at a “left turn” situation.

But that’s not why I’m posting this. Guess who they nailed in one of their stings?

Seattle driver Peter Sherwin, a former monorail activist, got ticketed on Stone Way North and says he’ll dispute the $124 fine. He said his view was obstructed by a parked SUV and that he had only 60 feet to react once the decoy, a woman wearing white, stepped off the curb.

“There was no way, at the point when I saw her, that I could stop, without being through the crosswalk,” said Sherwin.

But what really ices the cake is this:

Sherwin wondered why the stings aren’t more publicized. “This isn’t producing safety. This is producing revenue,” he said.

Because if anyone knows revenue, it’s one of those monorail guys, right?

[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/4140910[/vimeo]

Such a common sense proposal… I’m sure we can find a reason why “this will never work” in Washington (or Seattle, for that matter).

Mike McGinn is running for mayor of Seattle. According to lots of people (including Publicola’s Josh Feit), McGinn rides his electric-assist bike all over Seattle:

Where’d you get that bike, Mike? Where does one get an electric bike around here?

When the film Star Trek Nemesis laid an egg at the box office, the brass at Paramount were perplexed. A flop at the box office, panned by critics, yawned at by hard core fans, ignored by non-nerd movie goers, the fabled franchise made famous by Shatner and Nimoy finally ran out of gas.

Movie execs are creatures of habit. This explains Godfather: Part III. It explains the two Alien Vs. Predator movies. It explains Adam Sandler’s film career. Given a choice, movie executives will go for the safe, dumb, moderately profitable choice versus the visionary, ground-breaking choice.

A few years after the flop of Nemesis, Star Trek’s corporate parents, Paramount, declined to make the safe choice, and instead put their brand in the hands of someone outside the company.

February 24, 2007 After months of speculation, J.J. Abrams has signed on to direct the next installment of the “Star Trek” feature franchise, sources said late Friday. “Star Trek XI” revolves around a young James T. Kirk and Mr. Spock, chronicling their first meeting at Starfleet Academy and their first space mission.

J.J. Abrams (creator of Lost, and Alias) decided to take the film series in an entirely new direction. He rebooted the franchise, recasting the characters from the much-loved original series as their younger selves. The new film, titled quite simply as Star Trek, hits theaters in May, and at $150 million has the largest budget of any Trek film to date. Talk about boldly going…

What does all of this have to do with newspapers? It’s simple. Recast the entire newspaper with younger, fresher talent. And not with journalists, either. Recast them with younger actors playing journalists. Something to make younger readers pay attention. You know, like Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert.

We don’t need new media, and we don’t need new journalists. What we need are actors playing the part of journalists. Because if America has learned anything in the last few years, it’s this:

1) Don’t eat peanut butter.

2) The people running our banks are insane.

3) Actors can be trusted to bring you the news.

It’s March, so you know what that means, right?

Right?

No?

It’s time for the Municipal League of King County’s 50th Annual Civic Awards!

Still nothing?

Allow me to explain… The Muni League has been around for a long time. They’re known for their candidate ratings, their independent research, and their quiche. Every year they give out awards to people who have done something useful for the community. They invite everyone in Sen. Fred Jarrett’s rolodex over to a nice venue for finger food and $9.00 Diet Cokes.

WHERE: Seattle Art Museum
WHEN: March 25 from 6 to 8:30 p.m
HOW MUCH: $70 general admission, $60 Municipal League Members

(Admission includes 2009 Membership and a “Jim Vesely column Decoder Ring,” beer, wine, passed hors d’ouevres and a dessert gift bag at the end of the evening.)

I found this paragraph in co-blogger Paul Andrews’ great post about a proposed apartment building in his neighborhood of Phinney Ridge. Some of the neighbors aren’t happy with the condo’s design, and they met with the Northwest Design Review Board to have their voices heard.

Among those voicing concern was Bruce Ramsey of The Seattle Times, himself a Phinney resident.

“We have a garden, apple trees, plum tree, plants in our windows — that’s a lot of shade,” said next-door neighbor Bruce Ramsey. Step-back upper stories, he said, “and we would get a little more sun.”

After laughing out loud, it made me wonder… Can a principled libertarian fight regulation on the “macro” level, only to embrace nanny-state, ticky-tack regulation locally?