I’m posting the weekly open thread a little early today, because I’m trying write another piece on Hurricane Katrina, and I’m finding it exceedingly difficult to put the horror into words. But talk about whatever you want here.
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!
Mmm… Let them eat cake..
Worst. President. Ever.
It will take our country at least 10 years to rebuild itself………after we get rid of these idiotic neocons and right wing idiots that have flushed our nation down the toilet for the past 5 years. Can we last 3 more years of them?
that photo does say it all Clueless. Same basic situation as GWB getting lost in his pet goat book during 911. What an imbecile
t
See you in D.C. 9/24.
March for Impeachment.
I’ve noticed lately that gas prices are getting very high…..
Am wondering if the liberal left still thinks the gas tax was such a smart idea?
A story came through last night from a New Orleans hospital. Doctors and nurses who had been on duty there since the hurricane struck have been moving patients to higher floors as the looters invade the floors below them. These hospitals have helicopter pads on the roofs. These are hospitals, dammit. Why aren’t helicopters landing troops on the roofs of these hospitals to find these predatory looters and kill them? [Democrats at play! Aren’t they a hoot?]
prr @ 7
The gas tax, at 3.5 cents per , year barely represents a 1% rise in the overall cost for one gallon of gas. And you bitch.
But, in one year gas has risen 100%, oil companies are raking in $7 billioin dollars per month of PROFIT, with no additional costs to refining gasoline. Not a word from you.
And you infer were stupid?
It’s the right’s inability to separate fact from fiction, what really impacts our economy and what doesn’t that prevents you from seeing the truth for what it is: Republicans cannot run a sound economy.
Is this “fuzzy math” too much for you? It seems to make sense to our misleader.
ATLANTA Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue said he will sign an executive order Friday that will exempt consumers from state motor fuel taxes through the end of September to “relieve some of the financial burden” in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The order will remove the 7.5-cents-a-gallon tax and a 4 percent sales tax on gas, the governor said, and was set to begin at midnight. [Oh no!!! Where is Al Gore’s 50 cent extra gas tax? [hehe]]
Sept. 2 — U.S. employers added 169,000 workers in August, signaling a confidence in the economy that will be tested following Hurricane Katrina. The unemployment rate fell to 4.9 percent, the lowest in four years. [Thank God Clinton is still President!! Oh……….He’s not? Never mind! Goldy]
@7
Gas prices rose overnight by more than the tax. And you’re bitching about repairing a viaduct that someday will collapse onto surrounding buildings and kill a bunch of people?
“Don’t go to New Orleans, prr will bring New Orleans to you”
[How Can This Be?? Al Gore Said This Could Never Happen!] VIENNA, Austria – Iran has produced nearly seven tons of the gas used in uranium enrichment since last month, a U.N. report said Friday. Experts said that amount was enough to produce a nuclear bomb.
In unusually strong language, the report also said questions remain about key aspects of 18 years of clandestine nuclear activity on Iran’s part despite more than two years of investigation by the International Atomic Energy Agency.
“The agency is not yet in a position to clarify some important outstanding issues after 2 1/2 years of intensive inspections and investigation,” according to the confidential document, which was seen by The Associated Press. “Iran’s full transparency is indispensable and overdue.”
The report, prepared by IAEA head Mohamed ElBaradei, came on the eve of an informal deadline for Iran to cease conversion activities at a nuclear facility in central Iran.
It said Iran had produced about 15,000 pounds of uranium hexafluoride, the gaseous feed stock that is spun by centrifuge into enriched uranium. Depending on the level of enrichment, that substance can be used either as a source of power or as the core of nuclear weapons.
The document did not make a finding on whether Iran was pursuing such a weapon, and Tehran insists its intentions are only to generate nuclear power. But former IAEA nuclear inspector David Albright said that — were Tehran to use the material for weapons purposes — it would be enough for one atomic bomb.
I heard we need a levee too, to protect this new viaduct
I heard we need a levee too, to protect this new viaduct -Comment by righton— 9/2/05 @ 4:23 pm
Would that be before or after the tsunami warning system needed on Lake Union… or the bazillion dollar building we need to guarantee clean elections (snicker)?
Hey! Where’s the illegitimate queen chrissy (iqc) and why isn’t she in front of a camera whining we need a hurrican warning sytem too??
Actually righton and ass, we do need a seawall to protect the foundation of the viaduct.
Messy facts which probably confuse you. Infrastructure does need to be maintained.
righton@10 –
The purpose of making the AWV a tunnel is just what you suggested: to make a five-lane seawall out of it.
It’s a good idea, and after seeing what kind of disasters can happen at the shoreline, one that we need to follow through on.
Yay for the five-lane seawall idea! Boo for the people who want to build another towering structure on wet sawdust!
Does anyone have the URL to offer your home to a displaced family? I can’t find it anywhere…. I had three beers. My friends down south think I am the internet all being and are asking. Frick if I remember but I did see it.
e-mail me at jim@mccranium.org
Hurricane Katrina has wiped out 10% of US gasoline production capacity:
http://today.reuters.com/busin.....=nN0296395
My response is: can we do our part to help the entire nation by cutting each of our gasoline consumption by 10% or more?
One idea might be to work 10×4 days, so as to commute 20% fewer days. Another idea might be to ride a bus one workday each week. Carpooling one day a week, saves 10% overall when you divide the gains up between two people.
Heath – No need to do all that. The invisible hand is already on it. A new equilibrium point is here.
Mark@20 –
Your belief in the invisible hand is so disappointing. For one thing, you seem harder to fool than that simple analogy’s powers. But yet it has you in its spell.
The invisible hand was visible today, for example. You could see it in a cloud break when the European members of the International Energy Agency shipped us a bunch of gasoline and gasoline options dropped.
That’s a limited resource, Mark. This isn’t equilibrium, yet. The invisible hand is still moving, and if you look at any time, you can see it.
Redneck@20 –
Also, riddle me this:
Why are conservatives always so quick to explain why it’s OK not to conserve?
Heath – WTF is wrong with you? Are you really so economically illiterate? Fercrissakes, go take an econ class at one of the universities that my tax dollars go to. Market pricing ALWAYS matches supply with demand. Always. There is no need for fucking idiots like you to try to manage it and fuck it up in the process.
WTF would you do? Nationalize oil companies and tell them how much to produce? Would you produce ration coupons? If so, how would you allocate them? How would you handle black market coupons? Got news for you… planned economies have been tried, and they always always always fail.
Honest question: How many senior management types at the American Red Cross make 6 figures plus benefits? Looks to me like lots of $$$ to expensive overhead. Your thoughts?
Redneck@23 –
No WTF is wrong with you? I understand what you wrote above, but you missed my point.
By matching supply with demand in this case, the following happens: (a) the price goes up because demand is the same and supply has fallen, (b) the demand goes down as people can’t afford the higher price.
Yes, there will be inflation because of this. Some industries, like farming and shipping, will have to pass on the cost. If all of us conserve, the inflation will be less. If we don’t conserve, there will be more inflation.
Gasoline is a basic commodity. The rise in gasoline prices is not caused by inflation. It’s the other way around: the rising cost of buying gasoline to do business causes inflation.
This is what you miss about the glorious ‘equilibrium.’
I know you’re rich. You’ve told us a million times how very rich you are. I figure you work at BCS, and probably are pretty rich.
Since you’re rich, I figure you think, “Great! I can afford more gasoline, and poor moonbats cannot.”
The problem with your selfish attitude, aside from buying you a ticket to a certain kind of afterlife, is that it hurts you just as much as you think it helps you. In other words, it’s not a smart way to be selfish.
And I should not have asked you about conservatives. No sane conservative would argue against conserving gasoline during a national shortage where we are receiving foreign support.
I did my part. I bought a bus pass and sent my left over gas money to the red cross.
Trotter@25 –
Nice! How much is the pass? My work subsidizes mine.
35 dollars but I bought it off a friend who’d rahter drive so I got it for 15.
GBS & Rabbit.
Firstly, in light of the recent Gas increases. I-912 is going to crush Queen Christines midnight end run on the voters rights in this state. As to the 3.5 cents comment…. That’s added on to all the other additional taxes already in place on our gas.
I hear the press freaking out about how this is Bush’s fault. Why am I not hearing about an inept Democrtaic stronghold that has been suckling off of the funding it it has received for decades because of this problem?
How many past demecratic state agencies have made a living off of this tragedy?
Has it occurred to any of you market simpletons one of Europe’s advantages is the tax on gas, being so proportionally high, affords the opportunity to leverage by fiat?
Sound Transit may be able to relieve congestion on the first Afternoon and Last Morning Runs on SOUNDER on the TACOMA-SEATTLE corridor, as they are now adding a 4th Train. Leaves Freighthouse Square at 7:10AM, and KING STREET STATION at 4:20PM. I noticed in timetables and other literature, Sound Transit keeps offering the idea of mix and match commutes. Even if the trains are just two-car scoots(2 Coaches and a Locomotive), they will carry more passengers than a couple articulated-buses.
EvergreenRailfan @30 –
Good point. The buses are getting crowded these days, too – SRO.
Heath – So you would NOT nationalize oil companies and start rationing to meet your conservation objectives? Tell me you’re not that dumb…
Mark –
No, I would not. I am not dumb.
I would like to see us people who are not in the oil business cooperate, all across the nation. So, sort of the opposite of nationalizing oil companies. I am suggesting we voluntarily act in cooperation to user 10%+ less gasoline.
We cannot get emergency ‘fixes’ of gasoline from European allies indefinitely. With 10% of production down, we need to hunker down, IMO.
I don’t know what to think about Natural Gas supplies coming up, but overall my Leninist Agenda from the LEFT has to do with us taking the edge off of our latest national disaster. Nationalizing the oil industry would be adding insult to injury.
Putting the oil industry under multiple auditing, though. I might give you that one.
Heath – Ok. Whew… so we’ve at least set some lower limits on naivete.
But don’t you see… prices have already done what you propose. It happened, and you didn’t even know it. No central planner had to do anything.
What do you mean by “multiple auditing”? In a GAP/FASB kind of way or something else. Now don’t go off the deep end on me…
30
Don’t let righton (wrongone) know about that. His worldview might come crashing down.
Redneck@34 –
Let’s discard the diversion regarding auditing for now.
I want to dispute whether prices have already reacted to the damage done by Katrina. I think the fact that futures dropped today, in response to the International ‘fix’ being shipped to us, is a bad sign.
And besides, the $0.50 increase of the last week is something we could try to turn back.
Heath @ 36 – I’m gonna turn you into a free marketer yet, just like I did Wabbit. Buy some stock in oil companies like he did and make a big profit. Nothing like makin’ money to free you from left wing kookballism…
The story I saw on Yeehaw was the IEA releasing 2MBPD of oil and gas from the reserves. Is that what you’re talking about? They didn’t do it ’cause they’re nice guys… they did it to tap into the high price that’s out there. Remember it’s a global market. That’s exactly what is supposed to happen. That’s what always happens. Supply goes up; demand goes down; new equilibrium found; everybody happy. Ain’t nature beautiful?
Mark The Redneck @ 37
“Supply goes up; demand goes down”
You’ve never had an economics course, have you MTR?
30 and 35.
You know you could charter some 747s to help in your quest for more free transit capacity…ooops, not free to anybody, just as the trains aren’t
What’s the cost per rider, even when mostly full? $1000 or so?
DJ – Let me explain… real sloooooowly.
When prices go up, demand goes down and supply goes up. See? What is so fucking hard to understand about that?
Gee Mark, does the gasoline just materialize? Sure, eventually more capacity may come on line, but in the interim, prices go up and consumers get squeezed.
You know you could charter some 747s to help in your quest for more free transit capacity-Comment by righton— 9/2/05 @ 9:55 pm
You’d have to charter USED ones, as the union thugs are succeeding in shutting down the assembly lines… and eventually, Seattle.
Of course, you could just BUY a sleek, sweet Airbus A330, which my spouse happily flew to Amsterdam and back.
Do Democrats do anything other than bitch and use other people’s money? [Yes, they loot in New Orleans]
People are dying and that is horrible. I would like to say that first. No one likes to see people die for a stupid reason.
That said, i would like to point out something i came to realize earlier today. What we are seeing in New Orleans is natural slection. The people who didnt evacuate when they were warned days in advance, didnt do it because they were either too poor, too stupid or too sick. We are witnessing evolution at work.
Once again, it’s horrible. Our society is designed so that people who shouldn’t survive, can. However, this storm was large enough to literally destroy society in New Orleans and now it is pure survival of the fittest. This is nature.
Sound Transit may be able to relieve congestion on the first Afternoon and Last Morning Runs on SOUNDER on the TACOMA-SEATTLE corridor, as they are now adding a 4th Train. Leaves Freighthouse Square at 7:10AM, and KING STREET STATION at 4:20PM. I noticed in timetables and other literature, Sound Transit keeps offering the idea of mix and match commutes. Even if the trains are just two-car scoots(2 Coaches and a Locomotive), they will carry more passengers than a couple articulated-buses.
Comment by EvergreenRailfan— 9/2/05 @ 7:10 pm
Stick your bus up your ass, along with the light rail no one includeing Mayor Ives will ride the shit to work, so pull your social heads out your ass and come up with a better plan.
Those stupid premature babies. THey should have known better
You know the best thing about this blog – it’s the best free loony entertainment around – no taxes to this shitty state of WA and crappy King county, no supporting the liberal loonies from Hollyweird, no wasting gas to get to a theatre, no sitting on some sticky, disgusting seat, the popcorn is terrific without usury prices and at least half the “characters” (the right half, in case you were wondering) are credible, while the other half (you know who you are DonnaLucyBunnybutt) are at least semi-amusing comic relief.
You comics need to work on a new riff though – B O R I N G would be a good descriptive of the repetitive BlameBushNaziNeocon blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, thing you do.
And ps to you-know-who-Mr-Remedial-English: there IS a difference between these words (no, know, there, their, they’re)… dictionary.com, babe.
More Than Half Of State’s Sophomores Flunked WASL
ANOTHER not quite accurate headline from the useless Seattle media.
A more ACCURATE headline would have been: More Than Half Of State’s PUBLIC SCHOOL EDUCATED Sophomores Flunked WASL
My child, who was a sophmore last year did not take the WASL…and will not take the WASL, nor did any/will any of the other students attending Catholic schools in WA.
Too bad though, it sure looks like the WASL results would have benefitted from the superiority of privately educated kids.
I said that wrong. I freely admit it.
It should have been: Too bad though, it sure looks like the WASL results would have benefitted from the superior education that privately educated kids receive.
I apologize.
32
I rode the 39 to get to the SPL-Central Branch to return some books today, and it was near empty all-right, from where I boarded in the Seward Park-Genessee Park area to the VA Hospital, and then it was full the rest of the way into Downtown. Went by one station that was $2.95 per gallon for regular, and another that was $2.99 per gallon. Also, it went by a Light Rail Construction site in SODO, and get this, rails have now been installed on one segment, and they are working on it.
I take offense when some call Transit Social Engineering, because thse are the same people that 50 years ago would have been supporting GM’s Social Engineering of America. I am not knocking the Interstate Highway System, because this week in the South, it worked as intended. One of the reasons it was built for, was Civil and National Defense. They were supposed to be able to help evacuate cities in an emergency.
Seattle once had Light Rail, a streetcar system that had it not been sold to the city at an inflated price($15 million, when it was worth only $5 million), it might have been financially solvent to have been able to make some major expansions. Many areas South of N 85th St were developed by them, they influenced development patterns in a better way than Highways did.
A Sounder Car can carry around 140 Passengers. There is one manufacturer in Colorado that has managed to develop some self-propelled railcars that use two 600HP Detroit Diesels, and the double-deck model can seat 188, and an un-powered trailer can seat 218. Problem is, the other arm of their buisness, tourist railcars have them busy, but I bet if they got orders, they could build the transit cars faster. Some of Colorado Railcar’s tourist cars pass through here when new, en-route to Alaska.
@38: That’s called profiteering. You are evil. Here’s hoping you & yours die in the upcoming oil wars.
51
Last year, the King County Metro adjusted the 39 by lopping off the emptiest and most wasteful leg, Ranier Beach-Southcenter. I rode that part a few times, and it was often 3 passengers on the bus. That move freed up service hours to allow the bus’s limited Sunday Hours to be extended through to Downtown, accomodating the busiest portion of the route. During Rush Hour, in the route’s commute direction, it does fill up in Downtown Seattle.
Evergreen;
Great; mega capacity cars; means more empty seats cuz they end up putting them on routes that garner little demand, plus they are slow
But you guys don’t care about ‘rapid’, just “mass”
Dan @ 52 – Since you don’t like (or understand) free markets, what’s your approach? Price controls? Rationing? Take all the money rich people have and redistribute to bad choice crowd? Tell me, I’d love to hear how moonbat economics works.
Comic Book Guy @2
Why the fuck are we STILL talking about Jimmy Carter?
Leave him alone.
(Memo to Jimmy…if you don’t want people looking at your dismal record on Foreign Policy, the economy, or domestic policy I’d suggest you shut the fuck up too!)
@55
Mark LeRedneck is a one-trick pony. He spends all of his waking hours pretending to be a victim.
Railfan, I am not sure that I agree that the Interstate system worked all that well. Ten was pretty much a parking lot. Some of the folks who didn’t get out didn’t get out cause there was only one interstate highway out of NO and it was bumper to bumper.
I’ve been trying to figure out why there werent more trains coming out of NO in those two days, they’ve got the extra cars and extra engines sitting sidelined in Nashville. The trains that did run were at capacity.
Can someone explain to my why and how criticizing FEMA’s response is politicising the situation? I mean the president himself said that the agencies response was unacceptible, as have many congressional Republican leaders.
Also can somone explain why the right wing keeps making assumptions that anyone criticizing any action by the current administration is a Democrat and are only doing so to get votes?
righton, I have been trying to figure something out. Do you you object to mass transit as an idea or do you object to the current versions in Seattle, ie bus and train?
You’ve mentioned that you want rapid transit instead. Do you have an idea of what that would look like and how it would get paid for?
Respectfully, I think saying that you want what they have in Paris and Tokyo is a non-starter unless you want to hand a local agency the same budget as the ones in Paris and Tokyo. But if you’ve some idea for how a local agency could work with that type of budget, I am all ears.
errr, sorry, that last line should have been ‘how a local agency could get that type of budget without raising taxes’.
Wabbit @ 57 – Geez, yer really hitting below the belt with that “le Redneck” thing. I mean… I don’t mind being called a selfish greedy immoral asshole, but to to put a FRENCH thing on me is going a little too far.
Bill;
Neither of us really knows if the budget here vs budget overseas is comparable, and/or allows good transit. That is, we are both guessing that Frankfurt trolleys get more gov’t money than does Metro Sound transit. I suspect the difference is actually close, but complicated cuz of free right of ways, govt and private agency cooperation, etc.
I guess i want combo of the following
a) Focus is on providing a experience roughly on par with top tier transit systems (that is, some standard that says we want timlieness, prices, etc to be on par with paris or pick your city)
b) Focus on end user, not on filling the buses. This is sort of the rapid vs mass point. Look at the Sounder; they are really proud of all the capacity, but they offer a pathetic deal to the end user. Slower, less frequent, etc than either a car or bus. But ST is happy to have capacity, and on paper their stuff sounds good.
c) I just wish we had way to incent people to make it more pleasant. We have like 30 or more airlines, all hustling to try. when flights are late we yell and complain, we move our business to better airlines, etc.
d) I listed some big cities w/ good transit. But man I could list some small towns in Western Europe also with strong and great bus systems.
e) I actually ride Metro about 1/every 2 weeks, and hate its “island/mexican” lack of rigid timetables…
I don’t know righton, I guess for some reason we have had very different experiences on the busses. Nonetheless, maybe its just my suspicious nature, but I have gotten the feeling that nothing like that could ever happen in this city.
Even if we came up with a good plan to raze the existing system and create a new one that met all your criteria (a list I think would all be good to impliment). It would never get implimented in this city.
First you’d have a devil of a time getting anyone in the city aware of it. Next, you’d put it in front of voters. It would of course get voted for 5 times before anyone began any work. But as soon as you started, everyone and their brother would start tacking their own pet projects onto it. Then they will criticize you for having those extra projects as part of your plan.
Then whatever party is opposite of yours would start saying you’ve started a boondogle and start a vote to remove all funding for the plan. If you’ve no party affiliation, you have no chance at all, both parties will say you’re on the ‘other side’.
I think our current bad government and deadlock can be traced right back to both parties, they are so determined to discredit the other side that they are sabatoging each others work so often we all keep ending up with the worst system possible.
I think the party system is broken and the parties should be outlawed.
Actually righton and ass, we do need a seawall to protect the foundation of the viaduct.
Over the next 10 years, the Army Corps of Engineers, tasked with carrying out SELA, spent $430 million on shoring up levees and building pumping stations, with $50 million in local aid. But at least $250 million in crucial projects remained, even as hurricane activity in the Atlantic Basin increased dramatically and the levees surrounding New Orleans continued to subside.
Yet after 2003, the flow of federal dollars toward SELA dropped to a trickle.
Gee, why can’t we get the federal government to pay for 90% of our seawall/viaduct, then complain that they didn’t pay enough when it fails.
I guess I-10 and other routes west are still in bad shape in Louisiana that Amtrak has now been called in to be a train-bridge from New Orleans and Lafayette, Louisiana. It’s about time. Last year when one Hurricane headed for New Orleans, the last gate in the Levee to close before the Hurricane came was the one on the Illinois Central(now Canadian National) line leading out of the New Orleans Union Passenger Terminal headed North. Amtrak was running the City Of New Orleans with extra coaches from the deadheading Crescent(NY-NO), and those coaches were considered in revenue service and added seats to the train, over 700 people left on it.
Here is an interesting streetcar tidbit, New Orleans was home to some of the last surviving 1920s era streetcars in regular revenue service. The Perley-Thomas cars, built in the Twenties, were immortalized in the Tennesee Williams Play “A Streetcar Named Desire”, and although New Orleans Public Service Incorporated asked, and was granted, permission to abandon that particular line, one line along St.Charles Ave survived until today, on the National Register of Historic Places, and were run 24-7, not for tourists, but actual everyday transit use. They had just brought the Canal St. Line back(Using Replicas that had wheelchair lifts and modern trucks), and the next link in the system planned to bring back, was Desire Ave. On one website, I heard that New Orleans RTA, since they build these replica cars in their own shops, was considering a new revenuce source, of building standard-gauge cars(New Oreleans Streetcars use Broad-Gauge), for other cities.
Bill; what if Metro and/or Sound Railroad gave Starbucks, Tullys, Gap, Compusa or somebody the rights to the I 90 or 520 routes for 5 years (totally making this up). But since we already hugely subsidize a broken system, why not offer same subsidy to a private outfit and see what they do. I know there are flaws…
But if you had to fly to Oakland or LA, who do you think might offer better value and service… Port of Oakland airline, King County/Metro airline, or……Horizon Airlines or Southwest Airlines..
Again, huge hypotheticals, but you won’t get suburban white commuters to fund the buses if they never use them. KC/Sound, etc used to be able to fib that they’d solve congestion, but now with very limited rail route, budget constraints, nobody believs that “mass” transit offers them anything. Great to help someone in U district get to 2nd avenue, but does zip for the Redmond, Woodinville, Kent or Auburn folks.
Nice plan if you can pull it off. But I see two real problems that may be insurmoutable. First I really don’t see any companies stepping forward and asking for that contract right now. I mean there just aren’t any companies in that business.
That means you are going to be making a company and end up with the kind of outfit running the dome.
Second, look at everyone screaming about southwest (?) coming into Boing field. Folks living in Hawaii are logging on to bitch about it. Either the mayor is corrupt and handing the contract to a crony or the mayor is . . . (I am sure if there weren’t a hurricane recovery going on I could find more)
What did you think would happen if someone started offering that kind of contract to a company. It would be both a republican givaway and a democrat cronyism. I suspect you’d hear the screaming in Shanghai.