It’s always exciting posting to HA, so when preparing notes for this entry last night I felt a slight roll and jolt, I figured it was just Goldy and the gang egging me on. Turns out there was a mild 4.0 earthquake on the peninsula at 10:18 p.m., and if you did not feel it, you probably weren’t sitting in front of your computer and have a lot more interesting life than I do. O the sacrifices we endure to supply you with your morning fiber. Turns out there has been a passel of teeny quakes in recent days, which you can read as a buildup to The Big One or minor ventings so as to avert The Big One. I prefer the latter, it being loads easier to prepare for The Little One (get in front of the computer and wait till the coffee mug stops shaking).
Maybe Mother Nature was trying to nudge me to say something positive, like Dick Cheney’s irregular heartbeat being fixed. Now if they could just do something about his irregular heart. Or how about this: The mayor’s war on the homeless being put on hold. Our friends at Real Change have been all over this like…well, like cops on an encampment, with Rev. Rich Lang issuing a
Be the first mayor to be bluntly honest, and plainly practical in ending the problem of homelessness.
Forget about these half measured machete attacks.
Stand up to the problem, and implement the final solution.
Be bold Greg. Just kill the poor.
Rich may be facetious, but you have to wonder if Nickels isn’t just spreading holiday cheer while waiting for the spirit of Christmas to recede before going back to his same old ways. What exactly is a “more uniform protocol for dismantling the camps,” as one of his lackeys put it, if not cop talk for clearin’ ’em out.
Or perhaps some will find glad tidings in a proposal to defer up to 25 percent of property taxes, supposedly enabling middle-class homeowners to keep the roofs over their head. And this at a time when property values are actually going down? Is there another election coming up already? We saw this movie in California with Prop 13, and it weren’t pretty. Maybe one of our enterprising media will look at the detritus of tax deferral down there and ask, Could it happen here?? D’ya think?
And of course, for all us Mac users, the best news is that Windows Vista has been declared the worst software in the world, apologies to Keith Olbermann (double apologies if he’s a Windoze user).
Try as I might, though, I could not come up with the positive spin on the stock market tanking (down more than 10 percent in six weeks), the worsening recession, or the fact that the Seattle Marathon doesn’t actually give money to charity, which has The Times mad as heck and not going to take it much longer! But let’s close on a cheerful note: Writer Stephen King has suggested that Jenna Bush be waterboarded so Dad and his henchman can have a first-hand, trusted-source determination of whether it constitutes torture. Perhaps no image can better inform our preparations for this season of goodwill to men.
Paul, Paul, Paul try as hard as you can to be relevant on this political commentary website, you can’t help but screw it all up with yet another worthless tech reference. We all know you are just another Apple fanboy who worships at the feet of the almighty Jobs. There is already more than enough of that crap on the web, please- we beg you- knock it off. If you want to comment on technology and its interaction with politics in the Puget Sound area- fine. If you want to comment on politics in the Puget Sound area from your perspective in the Bay Area- fine. Just knock off the Apple worship bullshit or shut the hell up.
Let’s waterboard Goldy and clean the shit out of his ears!
@1…RIL (or is it RII? Hard to tell)…
Leave the poor boy alone, he’s relatively new at this! Of course it is surprising that some of the other Gatesian techapparatchiks haven’t as yet consigned him to the HA Happy Hooligulag, but I supppose it’s only a matter of time since genuine diversity is neither welcome nor tolerated here.
Those who deviate from the netroot/DailyKus/MediaWitch/HA orthodoxy, like poor Joe Klein, whose only crime was to remind Democrats that you poke a political stick in the eye of the larger national security issue at considerable electoral risk, are pounced upon much the same way the hyenas in The Lion King scarfed on all the offal offed their way.
To tell the truth, I could never trust a ‘puter named after a McDonald’s meal offering. Whenever you go to an Apple store, aren’t you asked, “Want fries with your Mac?”
I did, however, like Paul’s use of the word “worst” in the same sentence as “Olbermann,” and I don’t find the usage to be redundent in the slightest. Even so, you have to admit al-Olbermann has done well after getting that mail order certificate from the Baghdad Bob School of Hate America Journalism.
Stick to baseball cards, Keith.
But as to this alleged recession? Tell it to the millions upon millions of holiday shoppers. So far they’re layin’ it down 5% over last year.
Stock markets correct, and it’s not unusual for them to correct this time of year. Additionally, wishful-thinking, self-fulfilling prophecy Chicken Little talk of a recession as the Prexy election season comes upon is is…uhm…”convenient” when proffered by those who favor the party out of power.
Kind of hard to talk about “defeat” in Iraq when things are improving, so why not trash something else that’s successful? Love those Dems!
Just spent 30 on the phone with the staff sergeant who sends his barbs to you all. Since he lives in Germany and has for nearly two-years, I asked him about how we’re regarded there given Goldy’s recent “next to” thread on German public opinion.
Oh…”next to?” Anyone who travels eventually sits “next to” someone who has all the answers, has written a book articulating them, and proceeds to sell you consulting services to implement them in your life/business/home/sex life. Never fails, thought, that the current “next to” is soon to be replaced by the next “next to,” an inevitability as sure as death and taxes.
Anyway, the staff sergeant said in re whether Germans loath us:
– They have the 3rd or 4th largest NATO contingent in the Stan, so they’re on board against terrorism;
– Most all of them still remember and appreciate the Marshall Plan;
– They regard us as slightly imperialist, but so what? It goes with the last remaining super power territory, and they understand that;
– Many of those with a burr in their leiderhosen are college students, and college students don’t like anyone or anything;
– Dubya isn’t popular with them, but right now he isn’t popular with anyone, including a lot of Republicans. Then again, Congress is even less popular, so what else is new?
– Consider, though, what a bitch life would be under Sudanese or Saudi rule? How about that 56-year old teacher and her teddy bear, Mohammed? Or the rape victim in Saudi condemned to more jail time for being out with her brother-in-law than those who raped her? Consider: the types we fight (al-Quida, insurgents, etc.) want us to end up like them, or worse! Yet there are those whose primary concern is playing kissy face with Gitmo detainees and doing all they can to thwart efforts designed to forestall another 9/11-scale attack. Soldiers say to them, “Screw you!”
The staff sergeant, when told of the Ol’ Piper’s HA experiences, expressed some interest in joining the fray. You think I’m nasty? Dude, you ain’t seen nothin’!
And I didn’t have to “next to” anyone; this comes from all in the family!
The Piper
RLL must work over on the east side of 148th.
Jenna Bush shouldn’t be punished for her choice of parents, nor should anyone else.
“Feds in Wisconsin withdraw request for Amazon.com records
“MADISON, Wis. — Federal prosecutors in Madison, Wisconsin, have withdrawn a subpoena that asked Amazon.com to identify thousands of buyers of used books.
“Newly unsealed court records show the government withdrew the subpoena … after a judge ruled the customers have a First Amendment right to keep their reading habits secret from the government. …
“Federal prosecutors want the information as part of an investigation into a former city of Madison official who used the Web site.”
Quoted under fair use; for complete story and/or copyright info see http://seattletimes.nwsource.c.....7VL00.html
Roger Rabbit Commentary: I have a simple question. Why do prosecutors think they need to invade the privacy of “thousands” of customers in order to prosecute one corrupt municipal official?
Simply withdrawing the subpoena is not good enough. There should be an investigation of that U.S. Attorney’s office, and there should be disciplinary action taken against whoever authorized that subpoena.
“Turns out there has been a passel of teeny quakes in recent days, which you can read as a buildup to The Big One or minor ventings so as to avert The Big One.”
It probably means there will soon be a 16,000 foot volcano sticking up where Puget Sound used to be.
@4
Actually, I live and work out past what Erica at the Stranger calls rural Federal Way. Must be wilderness.
My wife’s laptop runs Vista, and we have no problems with it. So there.
8:
If Erica considers the Way ‘rural’, I wonder how she’d do in Port Angeles, or maybe Omak? How about Anatone? I wager she’d come into town half expecting Bear Grylls to pop up and offer her some bugs to eat……..
dollar loan payday till till faxing loan payday