Can’t Bring Yourself to Type the Word “Ass”?
Eager to share our brilliant political commentary and blunt media criticism, but too genteel to link to horsesass.org? Well, good news, ladies: we also answer to HASeattle.com, because, you know, whatever. You're welcome!
Sickos:
http://thinkprogress.org/2007/.....eme-frost/
Bad ad…it sounds like 4204 raises taxes to pay for books, teachers, smaller class size when it really just allows the simple majority vote.
Yeh, pass this and you will see Massive Bloated School Levies follow, driving property taxes out of this world.
It’s a Hell No!
Hey Sandy Berger works for her highness! Interesting…
Now this is funny:
http://businessandmedia.org/ar.....15044.aspx
“Say Hello to Bulgarian Hooker Shortages – ‘Brothel owners in Bulgaria are blaming global warming for staff shortages. They claim their best girls are working in ski resorts because a lack of snow has forced tourists to seek other pleasures.’”
Fair use which y’all know about!
OMG:
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10.....nted=print
This is interesting.
I’m sure glad you guys are so proud of the Stalinist plank of your platform of Stalinism, Socialism, and Surrender.
“Rep. Henry Waxman has asked his investigative staff to begin compiling reports on Limbaugh, and fellow radio hosts Sean Hannity and Mark Levin based on transcripts from their shows, and to call in Federal Communications Commission chairman Kevin Martin to discuss the so-called “Fairness Doctrine.”
“Limbaugh isn’t the only one who needs to be made uncomfortable about what he says on the radio,” says a House leadership source. “We don’t have as big a megaphone as these guys, but this all political, and we’ll do what we can to gain the advantage. If we can take them off their game for a while, it will help our folks out there on the campaign trail.”
Keep it up guys. This is great. Murka needs to know that you want to shitcan Free Speech. Kinda hard to argue with the truth isn’t it.
Interesting Poll
http://abcnews.go.com/images/U.....panics.pdf
Majorities of Republicans (55 percent) and independents (60 percent) say illegal immigrants do more to hurt the country than help; Democrats split on this question, 47 percent to 44 percent.
But I thought only evil Republicans hate immigrants. More Democrats say so too.
When the legal immigration helps the economy, the Republicans think legal immigration benefits the economy more than Democrats.
But I thought only evil Republicans hate immigrants. Apparently Democrats don’t like legal immigrants either!
Amazing!
Hell NOOOO! from me as well!
They just can’t figure out enough ways to pluck the Golden Goose nekkid, trying to toss us homeowners living on a fixed income, or on lower incomes, out in the streets to mingle with the homeless.
For years I was getting both the P.I. and the Fishwrapper, reading both daily. Always noticed that NOTHING was said about special school elections held in the spring – while all the school kids were sent packing frequent notices to parents via their little backpacks. (Yeah, I had friends with kiddies.)
Then, the very day of the election, there would be a smallish notice on the editorial pages saying “Be sure to remember to vote today!” when people weren’t likely to plan to get to the booths. I always made it a point to hustle my gams over to vote after work. But of course, always outnumbered. THAT’s why we needed the 60% majority, just to save us from the relentless scam year after year after year!
Now, with many people doing Absentee Voting and the ballot showing up a couple of weeks before, that little ‘silence tactic’ isn’t as effective.
I so wish Joel Connelly would give us an update on exactly HOW many levies Seattle/King County people are presently supporting (before November’s ballots appear this year). A couple of years ago, I believe he said it was 17 levies active for Seattle alone, in addition to our State/King/City/Port taxes. Seems like Nichols and Sims have some sort of competition going between them, as to how many levies they can create and hawk.
RTID Choices….
After a lkot of thought, It seems to me that we are being offered two choices:
Yes: The loyal citizen choice. From what you wrote and my reading the RTID is reasonable. Yes supports a blank check without a plan for long term financing or a complete regional transportation proposal.
No: A Luddite choice. This would defund work that really needs to be done in the HOPE that the “system” will rise to the challenge by giving us a better proposal.
This makes me feel that I am being forced to vote for RTID while holding my nose. It also confirms my distaste for Gregoire. The more I see of this sort of incompetent leadership by the Guv, the more I really wish the Republicans would swear of the yellow liquid (Kool-Aid? Lemon aide? Urine?) and give me a real candidate for Guv.
To the Nooooos in this thread:
There’s something called a “Levy Lid”. Every municipality has one. You should check it out.
4204 makes it easier to get a levy passed. The quantity removed from your pocket, however, remains fixed based on a percentage of appraised values, etc.
There was a ballot afoot a few years ago to raise the levy lid in Seattle so that much more money could be funneled to the schools. It failed.
I just posted a ong piece on the role of the UW as a teaching school at SeattleJewThis is a response to a post at SP attacking the UW.
What’s Good About Public Transit
1) It’s an efficient way to move people.
2) No downtown parking hassles or expenses.
3) Often faster than crawling through traffic.
4) Cheaper than driving (thanks to subsidized fares).
What’s Bad About Public Transit
1) Typically inconvenient.
2) Often takes much longer than a car to get anywhere, with arrival times unpredictable. In our frenetic society where everyone is time-stressed and under heavy pressure to arrive on time for appointments, this is a deal breaker. 3) No privacy — you have to put up with other passengers’ chatter, nudging and shoving, gum chewing, rude behavior, body odor, etc. This is also a deal breaker for a vast majority of car owners (see below).
4) An even bigger deal breaker for many — a major source of “no way, no how” attitudes toward public transportation — is safety concerns. You have little or no choice about riding with drunks, criminals, social misfits, and/or people with mental problems; and you may be put at risk of being harassed, assaulted, or robbed. Some notorious bus route are aptly described as a “zoo.” Incidents and police responses are common; and there will never be enough security, because the cost of stationing police on every vehicle is prohibitive.
5) Limited cargo capacity — a wheelchair, bicycle, briefcase, carry-on airline luggage, or a couple of shopping bags is feasible, but more substantial cargo is not.
From the user perspective, mass transit is good for two things: Commuting from the ‘burbs to a job in the downtown core, and alternative transportation for the chronically or temporarily carless (e.g., students, the poor, and the elderly and disabled). Buses might, for example, provide temporary backup transportation for a one-car family when their vehicle is in the shop for service or repairs.
But most middle class car-owning Americans will never be enticed out of their cars onto mass transit, no matter how bad traffic congestion gets. The major reason: Privacy.
The whole concept of “private property” is poorly understood by our wingnut friends, who consistently misinterpret it to mean they can do whatever they want with anything they “own.” This is not, and never has been, true in any society that recognizes the existence of “private property.”
In law school, I was taught that the principle and defining attribute of private property is “the right to exclude.” Landowners have the right to keep others off their property; and owners of private vehicles have the right to decide who, if anyone, can ride in the vehicle and on what terms.
The big — overwhelming — attraction of private cars is that you don’t have to ride next to some gum-snapping bimbo (unless she’s your wife) or some creepy-looking guy who may be high on drugs and packing a knife (unless he’s your son), and you can blow your nose without listening to some stranger make snide remarks about it. In other words, in your own car, you can shut the rest of the world out and don’t have to take shit from anyone. No public transportation can offer this privacy; and because of the compulsive desire we all have to simply be left alone, no public transportation can compete with private cars in the marketplace of transportation alternatives, no matter how convenient or cost-effective it may be. Thus, for the vast majority of people who have a choice between public or private transportation, mass transit will always be viewed as a last resort — and as something they don’t want to pay taxes for, because for them, by-and-large, it’s just an additional tax burden with little or no personal benefit in return.
Private cars aren’t inevitable. Europe relies on them much less, and on public transportation much more, than we do; but they have different geography and more orderly cultures. The notion of every household owning its own car is uniquely American, and is deeply ingrained, but in my opinion won’t last in its present form. For one thing, the oil powering our vast fleet of vehicles is going to run out someday. Climate change, wingnut denial notwithstanding, may bring about the end of the internal combustion engine even before the fuel supply is exhausted.
Nor is the notion of people driving their own vehicles carved in stone. The next logical step in the evolution of transportation technology, it seems to me, is computer-guided vehicles operating without a driver, possibly from signals transmitted by cables embedded in roadways. And this technology could easily lead to a crossover kind of transportation modality that replaces (and displaces) both private vehicles and public transportation as we know it today. You would still choose the vehicle you use — based on the passenger and cargo loads you need to transport — and you would choose when and where you would go. Possibly you would continue to drive the vehicle from your home on feeder streets to the arterials. But once on the arterial, the computer would take over; all you will do is tell the computer where to go.
This system would allow higher speeds and much denser traffic. Computer-guided vehicles could be packed into existing arterial and highway lanes with hardly any separation between vehicles. This would be a highly cost-effective way to add traffic capacity to the existing roadway system because you would get the equivalent of additional lanes without expanding the right-of-way or pouring any new concrete. You would get higher traffic speeds and lower travel times. And accidents, traffic blockages, drunk driving, and road rage will be nearly eliminated. (I say “nearly” because, as with any techology, there are likely to be glitches and breakdowns, and so there probably would be some accidents. Even the Seattle Center monorail has accidents.)
I mention this because we are being asked to invest tens of billions of dollars of new taxes in highway and light rail projects that represent dying transportation technologies and modalities, the modern equivalent of horse-drawn buggies. Is light rail a good investment when the technology already exists to combine the functions of private cars and mass transit?
Another problem is that it’s awfully difficult and expensive to pick move the rails when population shifts and economic development make old routes useless. That’s a principle reason why streetcars and railroads died out in the face of competition from motorized vehicles in the last century, and it won’t be different in this century.
In other words, the new taxes we’re being asked to invest in RTID/ST2 will buy only stopgap solutions to our transportation needs that will be displaced by evolving transportation technologies well within the design life of what will be constructed. I predict that within two or three decades, much of this will be scrapped and taxpayers will be asked to pay all over again for new-generation transportation systems. It’s somewhat like buying a Beta tape player. These billions will go into an old, clunky, inefficient transportation system — and will contribute nothing to bringing new transportation technologies to fruition.
@6 “Fair use which y’all know about!”
How about giving credit where it’s due, asshole! Why are you so mean-spirited and self-entered that you can’t bring yourself to say:
“Fair use which y’all know about thanks to Roger Rabbit!”
At least the trollfuck @6 isn’t plagiarizing me anymore, but we’ll have to wait and see how long that last.
@7 It isn’t any of Congress’ business what Limbaugh says on the radio. Keep government out of free speech! This is a job for an angry mob of veterans and their families instead. Someone bring tar and feathers.
We don’t need Waxman’s help to take care of Limbaugh. We’ll do it ourselves.
On the other hand, since Republicans like to fuck with our free speech rights, I like the notion of congressional harassment of Limbaugh as a sort of reciprocal thing.
I’m sure you, of all people, know how this works Redneck. If your team breaks our running back’s leg, our team is gonna break your quarterback’s arm. As the Mafiosi would say, don’t take it personal; it’s just business.
@10 At least Gregoire is doing SOMETHING to deal with our state’s problems, even though the solutions she supports aren’t the perfect ones. What makes you think a Republican would do anything besides tax you to give money to their business cronies? Realistically, you ought to have very limited expectations of a party that has given you “choices” of, in succession, John Carlson, Ellen Craswell, and Dino Rossi. The Dan Evans days are long gone; THAT Republican Party doesn’t exist anymore. There is no chance in hell that the gaggle of fanatics and thieves banded together in the present GOP will ever offer you a candidate who is any more reasonable than a typical Taliban chieftan.
Pellethead:
Didya read the British Press lately?
http://newparty.co.uk/articles.....-gore.html – An Inconvenient Truth – The Inconvenient Lawsuit which will not see the light of day in the US. Ol’ Puddy delivers it to your eyes in one post, not fifteen as Pellethead does:
In order for the film to be shown, the Government must first amend their Guidance Notes to Teachers to make clear that 1.) The Film is a political work and promotes only one side of the argument.
2.) If teachers present the Film without making this plain they may be in breach of section 406 of the Education Act 1996 and guilty of political indoctrination.
3.) Eleven inaccuracies have to be specifically drawn to the attention of school children.
And the Eleven inaccuracies are:
* The film claims that melting snows on Mount Kilimanjaro evidence global warming. The Government’s expert was forced to concede that this is not correct.
* The film suggests that evidence from ice cores proves that rising CO2 causes temperature increases over 650,000 years. The Court found that the film was misleading: over that period the rises in CO2 lagged behind the temperature rises by 800-2000 years.
* The film uses emotive images of Hurricane Katrina and suggests that this has been caused by global warming. The Government’s expert had to accept that it was “not possible” to attribute one-off events to global warming.
* The film shows the drying up of Lake Chad and claims that this was caused by global warming. The Government’s expert had to accept that this was not the case.
* The film claims that a study showed that polar bears had drowned due to disappearing arctic ice. It turned out that Mr Gore had misread the study: in fact four polar bears drowned and this was because of a particularly violent storm.
* The film threatens that global warming could stop the Gulf Stream throwing Europe into an ice age: the Claimant’s evidence was that this was a scientific impossibility.
* The film blames global warming for species losses including coral reef bleaching. The Government could not find any evidence to support this claim.
* The film suggests that the Greenland ice covering could melt causing sea levels to rise dangerously. The evidence is that Greenland will not melt for millennia.
* The film suggests that the Antarctic ice covering is melting, the evidence was that it is in fact increasing.
* The film suggests that sea levels could rise by 7m causing the displacement of millions of people. In fact the evidence is that sea levels are expected to rise by about 40cm over the next hundred years and that there is no such threat of massive migration.
* The film claims that rising sea levels has caused the evacuation of certain Pacific islands to New Zealand. The Government are unable to substantiate this and the Court observed that this appears to be a false claim.
Wow, now that’s an eyeful!
I wonder when the mourning (spelled correctly) news shows will post that inconvenient news bit?
Evidently sockpuppets believe a British libertarian party press release is “the British Press.”
4204 will help us in three ways:
1. Save tax payer money– every time a district has to rerun a failed levy, its costs us, the taxpayers money for the election– often $30,000 or more. This could be better used on lets’ say…EDUCATION!
2. It makes everyone’s vote count equally
3. Communities can spend less volunteer time and money on elections and more on the subject of…EDUCATION
4202 will not increase the levies in most districts as most are maxed out to their lids. It will however protect communities from the costs of repeated elections and loss of staff in districts with successive failures.
@20 Roger Rabbit ..
I could not agree more that the Reprican party is in the hands of Qaeda infected incompetents. That hardly endorses Gov. Gregoire.
I also suggest that her weakness is an opening for the opposition and would not be sure that the opposition will be so bizar as to be unelectable. Rove managed to get Bush appointed, no? If you look uner “Right Flight” at SeattleJewm I have been documenting the surr surr ofr efforts to take over the shipwreck following the 09 de4bacle.
Gingrish has already built a embryonib grassroots organization in waiting Dobson-Roves army still has its arms. S’negger has charm, ambition, and access to megabucks. The good news is that these tribes might bicker enough to tear the GOP into Iraq style fragments. The abd news is that histry, in this country, supports the like of Gingrich taking over the party. and … unlike Bush who may be an incompetent, Gumpish leader of a naifs, Gingrich is a truly evil, Machiavellian politician capable of using a Rovian army in a far more effective fashion.
On the other hand, as a naif myself, I like to imagine this as an opportunity for a Clinton-like centrist to reform the GOP.
What is interestng is that neither Gingrich nor S’negger is likely to ever by Prexy. However, Putin seems to be rewriting the book on how to appear to be a democracy while the KCB runs everything.
ATJ I posted it from the Dailymail (lefty site) last week…
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pag.....ge_id=1811
Dismissed by his own stupidity!
Now ATJ Look at how MSNBC told the story:
http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/21103729/
The spin from MSMNB: “The judge said, however, that he felt the film promoted “partisan political views.” He did not elaborate.”
He did elaborate and I posted it above.
Dismissed and proven stupid again!
MSNBC not MSMNB but MSM No Brains works too.
Going to work now libbies.
Rog @ 13:
Public transit as it is done in Seattle is uncomfortable and a good reason to drive.
Come up to Vancouver and I’ll show you around. There are a few little tricks they know in Lotus Land which makes riding the bus or the train much more pleasant.
The overarching theory is that the city fathers of Metro Vancouver are not interested in building roads. Yes, goods need to come in and out, and when roads have to get built, they get built. They have decided that they will not build roads so that every yuppie with a job in Vancouver or Burnaby should drive their car to and from work. Now, the tradeoff is, if you want people with proper jobs to park their cars and take transit, you have to make it worthwhile to do so. The twin sticks of $20/day parking and $4/gallon gasoline will only go so far. Here’s how it’s done.
1) No ride-free zone. While there is a de facto ride-free zone taking the Skytrain into the downtown core (there are so many people, and the stops are so close together that fare-checking becomes impractical), there is no place on the transit system where the homeless and deranged have a God-given right to sit down and annoy everyone else.
2) Tickets are expensive. No, they’re not bank-breaking. $2.25 gets you around town. $8 will allow you to ride all day. If you have a dollar in your jeans, it works. If you’re looking for a place to sit and nod off your last fix, the alleys in the Downtown Eastside are cheaper by far.
3) Keep it clean, keep it orderly. Fare checks are frequent, the ubiquitous transit supervisors have little sense of humor for anyone making a disturbance, and if you won’t go willingly, a series of nice men with guns and handcuffs are never more than a phone call away.
4) Make it quick. The train is the fastest way, bar none, into the downtown core. I cannot drive from East Vancouver to Robson Street as fast as the train will get me there. Once you’ve fought traffic lights, one-way streets, parking, blah blah, you’re miles ahead taking the train. Most destinations in Vancouver and Burnaby (Canadian for Renton) are the same way.
My point is, it’s not an unsolvable problem. It’s more a decision on the part of transit management as to whether the purpose of mass transit is to provide a means of getting from here to there for people with no other way to get around, or if it is a choice for people who have several ways to get around which works as well or better than other choices.
ATJ I posted it from the Dailymail (lefty site) last week
And you posted it from a New Party press release this week. Silly sockpuppets…
* sigh *
Pud, if you look at this story you’ve posted, you’ll notice every wingnut site on the planet has posted it, and it has appeared almost nowhere else. There are two conceivable reasons for this:
1) There is a gigantic conspiracy to protect Al Gore and the Gigantic Global Warming Swindle. I myself am getting checks to write on behalf of His Goreness.
2) This is a technical ruling, which does not invalidate the entire film, or the phenomenon of global warming. What it does point out is that there are parts of the film where the scientific evidence is inconclusive or contradictory, and that the information packet given to teachers must reflect this.
Also bear in mind that the UK, like most Commonwealth countries have what are called “prior restraint” laws. What this means at the end of the day is that free speech in the Commonwealth is not an absolute Allah-given right like in the US. The crown has substantial power to curtail it at will. If the film had been found to be propaganda with no scientific value, Justice Burton would have ruled as such (which was the intended outcome), the film would have been pulled from acceptable British educational curricula, and that would end it.
Problem is, that didn’t happen.
Justice Burton asked the information pack presented to teachers to be modified, and that was it.
But believe what you want.
Hey, can I have a network packet which is lightweight like UDP but guarantees delivery like TCP? That would be cool.
I’d vote for it – really. If and only if they would put levies on the general election ballot.
Until then, no yes votes for me for any school or other regular tax.
Seems pretty sneaky to me, and who pays for those special elections?
Eric @ 34:
Levies are done by your local school district. The elections are conducted by the county elections department, same as everything else.
Generally, the timing of the elections simply has to do with the duration of the levy, and when it comes up for renewal. Seattle’s levies are for a duration of 3 years, and can not by law be for any longer. They are up for renewal in February. The Board could (I suppose) choose to do a levy for 2 years, 9 months, which would cause the next levy to appear at the same time as the general, but only every 3 years (not 2 or 4).
Here in the Big Wicked City, you can attend school board meetings and bring up issues like this. Maybe where you are, all school board meetings are conducted in a star chamber, and you can’t do this, so you’re forced to resort to conspiracy theories about why they’re held at weird times.
Maybe we should have 60% majority for every , not just for tax increases.
JSA: Never said it invalidates the movie. WHere did I say that? What I said was it was determined to be a political statement and unlike America, there must be a counter argument.
Why do you liberals try to spin it so you all look good? Just look at the facts as they are for a change instead of spinning everything.
Terrorist @ 37,
First, while you didn’t explicitly state that the UK ruling invalidates the movie, that certainly is the conclusion you want people to draw. Addressing that conclusion up front doesn’t constitute “spin.”
Second, In common usage, the word “spin” refers to the act of picking and choosing facts that support one’s conclusion while ignoring other facts. JSA’s statement of the facts was more complete than yours, yet you accuse him of “spin.” Your use of the word “spin” is rapidly degenerating into the same realm as your use of the word “moonbat.”
Don Joe: Do you read?
1.) The Film is a political work and promotes only one side of the argument.
2.) If teachers present the Film without making this plain they may be in breach of section 406 of the Education Act 1996 and guilty of political indoctrination.
3.) Eleven inaccuracies have to be specifically drawn to the attention of school children.
So where did the conclusion you draw come from as “spin”. I stated facts from the judge. You choose to spin the facts.
The judge’s statement impugns your hero worship. Well that sucks in your mind so you try to “spin” it. What a moe-ron!
Don Joe: Thanks for the new name. I’ll use Carl’s on you.
Good try Moe-ron!
Terrorist @ 39,
Of course I read, but apparently you don’t think. JSA pointed out facts that you failed to include in your diatribe. Now, you justify your claim that his post is “spin” while yours is not by pointing out that he didn’t restate all the facts that you’d already stated? You could have done the honest thing, and conceded that your post was, by any objective standard, at least as much “spin” as anything else people have posted here, but that, clearly, conflicts with your self-image as a Crusader for Truth(TM).
By the way, I wouldn’t consider Al Gore a “hero”. I’m just not at all into the hero worship thing. He is, however, a decent human being who is intelligent, articulate and deeply concerned about the well-being of everyone living on this planet. Shall we compare and contrast Al Gore with the likes of Rush Limbaugh, Michelle Malkin and Bill O’Reilly?
By the way, I don’t mind you calling me a Moe-ron at all, but I should point out that my calling you a terrorist comes from applying an objective definition of the word “terrorist” to your behavior. It bears repeating that I will stop calling you a terrorist as soon as you disavow your use of fear to achieve a political end. I dare say that you will continue to call me a Moe-ron for the forseable future regardless of the number of times I kick your butt in debate (which is just about every time you and I have clashed in these comment threads).
The general election does not work well for school levies because of school being out during the critical months before the date. Having chaired a levy campaign before, it is impossible to coordinate volunteers, speaker’s bureaus etc. when school is out or just starting up which is what the time frame would be for November voting. We need to get out to the entire community to explain what is up for consideration and the volunteers are busy parenting their kids in August-September. Campigns take many months of planning, not just a few weeks before th ballot comes out.Besides, there is nothing stealth in running a election during any of the allowable dates anymore since more than half the voters get their ballots in the mail now.