Happy Festivus! Here’s Gov. Jim Doyle (D-WI) with his Festivus pole.
- EFFin’ Unsound is fast becoming a must-read, in large part to it’s author Carl Ballard and contributor TheHim. The both of them never let a stupid post at a conservative blog go unmocked. Here’s a recent gem.
- Public financing of judicial races isn’t enough, says Lynn.
My question is, “Why stop there?” The timing is good to jump on public financing for the judicial races given the insane amounts of money that was spent on the three Supreme Court races between the primary and the general elections. I understand that. Plus, Gregoire is cautious by disposition. But what an opportunity to go all the way and ask for public financing of all statewide and legislative races.
I’m very interested in any blogger who has a credible arguement AGAINST public finance, as I’m sure one exists.
- If you have iTunes, download this now, while it’s still free.
- There’s been excessive spinning over whether or not the Governor actually made a decision regarding the Viaduct. Dan’s satisfied:
The fact is, if she had decided to take it upon herself alone to decide a matter that’s more a Seattle concern than anyone else’s, she would have been lambasted for overstepping her authority and power.
If she had chosen in favor of a replacement viaduct, she would have pissed off one half of the people, and if she had decided on a tunnel she would have pissed off the other side.
Count me as one of those that thinks she made the correct decision[…]
If the replacement option is “financial viable”, and the tunnel option isn’t (according to the Governor herself), why vote between the two? Why present voters an option that isn’t paid for? No, I think the real “punt” the Governor made was by advocating that Seattle vote between two options, only one of which is feasable. As Josh Feit says, this will result in selection of the rebuild option. The Seattle City Council, which lists another Viaduct as its third choice, ought to be sharpening their knives over the Governor’s actions.
- How to replace a popular county executive: Pierce County Edition.
campaign finance laws = incumbant boosting laws…And, we could easily dedicate the 3 million towards education.
Yup, that pole should cover just about every religion, non-religion, and anti-religion out there. Is that hole in the top for smoking dope?
So according to Federal Way Conservative (linked above), we’re supposed to believe Bush is as smart as God, shut up and not criticize anything he does, and if we dare to exercise our constitutional right of free speech — we should be put in concentration camps? This is a joke, right? (click-click) It’s only sicko Ann Coulter humor, correct? (metallic noise of safety snapping off)
Hey Federal Way Conservative — you can TRY to arrest me any time you want! Call 1-800-DEAD-FWC for an appointment. Bring a pine box.*
* Just kidding! This is only sicko Ann Coulter humor. Hell, if you guys can do it, why can’t I? Why should sick, twisted, ignorant, paranoid wingnuts who flunked 7th-grade Civics 3 times have a monopoly on concentration camp jokes? But just in case … these guys are serious … ya never know … LIBERALS MUST ARM!!!
Will, I think public financing of judicial campaigns is a good idea, but we should have a backup plan in case it doesn’t fly legislatively … namely, DEFUNDING BIAW! Why the hell should BIAW be allowed to use L & I taxes paid to benefit injured workers to buy anti-worker judges?
I wonder if the Governor underestimated the demonstrated capacity of Washington voters to vote FOR something, and on the same ballot, vote AGAINST the taxes needed to pay for it?
The masses are asses, God love ’em.
Comment #7, like all great art, is enigmatic and susceptible of varying interpretations depending on the intellectual position of the beholder.
I don’t see how Josh Feit concludes that an added four-lane road along the current Viaduct footprint will alleviate the congestion problem from the surface street proposal. WSDOT considered a six-lane Alaskan Way and determined that is would result in 40 to 50 percent less traffic capacity.
http://tinyurl.com/yyagy7
Until the surface option comes up with a realistic way to move traffic to and from West Seattle, Ballard and Aurora, it isn’t a solution.
@9 Remember AWV is limited access. If you replace it with a surface street, you will have increased traffic from short-trip downtown drivers who presently use surface streets instead of SR-99. You might need an extra lane in each direction to absorb this traffic, so it would take an 8-lane surface street to avoid losing through-traffic capacity.
I’m very interested in any blogger who has a credible arguement AGAINST public finance, as I’m sure one exists.
I believe it’s called the first amendment to the constitution.
Will opined:
No, the Governor is simply telling Seattle that if they want a tunnel, then Seattle will have to pony up the extra money. She’s not going to make the rest of the state pay more in order to beautify Seattle.
No, she’s advocating that Seattle vote on whether they want to spend billions of local tax dollars on a civic beautification project. (The state is willing to pitch in what it would cost to rebuild the current structure and add the extra capacity that we need.)
Not only is this the right thing to do (hey, it’s your city, and the viaduct works just fine as a transportation corridor) but it’s the smart political move as well.
Essentially, if she were to use state transportation money to build you folks a tunnel, then the only county she would carry in the next election would be King County, and maybe not even that once folks out in North Bend, Tukwila, Seatac, Federal Way and even the eastern part of Seattle figured out that we all got to pay so that the downtown Seattle business district could have a better view.
Knowing how our state’s Republican party works, we would probably not end up with Governor Rossi. They’d run someone even further to the right, and still win the election. Can you say “Governor McMahan”? How about “Governor Boehme”? The very concept is enough to frighten me.
Looking at just how much fun Boston has had with its tunnel project, I tend to think that it’s a bad idea. Still, if Seattle taxpayers are willing to come up with the extra bucks that a tunnel will cost, then I don’t think that I have the right to tell them what their city needs.
I just wish that Seattle would have extended that same courtesy to us, when they decided that we needed an extra bridge, and that we would get to pay for it ourselves.
John-
If only it worked that way.
The Govenor’s decision will lead to a new viaduct. Sommers, Chopp and others are going to do their level best to see that the tunnel, if approved in April, gets squeezed out of the RTID package which will go to voters in November. What plan do you think they’ll fall back on when this happens? The rebuild plan.
The City of Seattle has stated that the rebuild option is THIRD on their list, with tunnel first and roads+transit second. Funnily enough, the Gov gave roads+transit short shrift.
Will- You do understand that whole First Amendment Problem don’t you ?
Shortfall to slow some highway projects
http://seattletimes.nwsource.c.....way23.html
Well hey now, let’s build a tunnel!
Will said:
Well, that would be because highway 99 is a major part of the state’s transportation grid. Downtown Seattle may not mind if people and goods in Tacoma cannot reach Bellingham (and vice versa) but the rest of us do, and the studies indicate that I-5 cannot take the additional burden.
Not to mention the traffic nightmare that would be caused in Seattle. Some folks (yours truly included) think that the “roads+transit” idea is simply a way of getting the rest of the state to pay for the tunnel once the viaduct is gone. Essentially, downtown Seattle could hold the rest of the state’s economy hostage.
Of course, much of Seattle would also suffer, but the folks that own all that real estate down by the waterfront would make a killing.
While I would like to see an efficient, regional transit system, cutting the capacity of our already overtaxed road system is a non-starter as far as the rest of the state is concerned.
It figures that a male who enjoys pink and red carpets likes bare aluminum poles, wrestling and insulting your family and friends…….
It also figures that there are people in America who celebrate bogus holidays made up by Television writers.
Gregoire and the legislature need to refocus the transportation dollars to projects that will benefit the State and can get built without the star-struck Seattle leaders who don’t know how to do anything but continue to fight like spoiled rotten brats.
As for it being a state highway – the legislature needs to undesignate it as a state route and a state responsibility.
Her punt to the Seattle voters was NOT the first time that she said the voters should decide – it was the second time. The Seattle City Council and Major Nichols decided not to do what she wanted and now she’s asked again!
What will she do when the Seattle City council decides to defy her again? Her spokeswoman stated that the legislature would have something to say if the voters don’t get to decide before the legislature ends………….
@15
If the legislature would stop giving transportation dollars to fund the stupid streetcar in Seattle – they might not have to “re-rack” so much!
sgmmac asked:
Actually, the answer is pretty simple. The legislature simply allocates enough money to rebuild the viaduct and announces that construction will commence on that section of State Highway 99 by a certain date.
Within the allocation bill is a paragraph that allows the City of Seattle to add additional funds to place the highway underground.
Then the Seattle City Council passes a resolution condemning the Governor’s “heavy handed” approach, makes some appropriate squawking noises, and construction of the new viaduct commences.
I was never Ms. Gregoire’s biggest fan, but I’m beginning to like her.
16
Tacoma to Bellingham? That’s where your facts are wrong. Thirty percent of the traffic on the two mile stretch of 99 that is the viaduct even goes through Seattle. Most traffic stays in Seattle.
As for traffic nightmare: of all the cities where supposedly “vital” freeways are torn down at the end of their useful lives, there has never been the “traffic nightmare” that was predicted. Never once.
It’s true that some landowners will benefit, but that benefit will be dwarfed by the benefits gained by the city as a whole.
19
The City of Seattle will have to issue the permits for construction, and the building of elevated freeways on Seattle’s waterfront is currently against landuse code.
If the Governor wants to take on (at least part) of her political base over a landuse issue, she’s welcome to it. She either wins votes or loses them.
Smeg: What will she do when the Seattle City council decides to defy her again?
She’ll rebuild it. That is why she talked to Nickels first. She’s a negotiator. She knows what she’s doing.
Will: It’s true that some landowners will benefit . . .
some landowners . . . that’s the understatement of the year.
22
Lots of downtown property near the soon-to-fall-down viaduct is already built up. (Just walk along Western Ave any ol time).
Besides, don’t be such a Marxist.
22
What a shame it would be if waterfront-adjacent parking lots and shuttered old buildings were remade into apartments, condos, offices, parks, and most heinous of all, taverns. What a fucking crime!! Assclowns, all of them!!
/snark
Skagit–The tunnel isn’t about making people rich, it is really about not building another even more hideous structure in the heart of Seattle. Your conspiracy theories are pedantic and tiresome.
I thought we needed a tunnel to maintain capacity, still do, but I will fight any effort to put up an elevated structure. And I commute in everyday from West Seattle.
Screw you if you think Seattle “owes” the state a freeway in this corridor. Give us Seattle folks better surface options to get downtown and some transit and the rest of you can suffer on I-5 and 405.
This issue epitomizes a region which bashes Seattle non stop and then expects Seattle to take all of their sex offenders, addicts, and anything unpalatable to rural and suburban folks.
20.
Good alternative routes do not exist for most AWV users, including freight trips. A majority of trips on the AWV – about 70% — are passing through the downtown area. The downtown street grid is designed and intended to accommodate local access, not longer distance trips through the city. I-5 and connecting streets do not have sufficient capacity to effectively accommodate AWV traffic, which is a limitation that cannot be solved by the improvements identified in this study,
WSDOT – AWV No Replacement Concept Summary
http://tinyurl.com/lw4x3
That WSDOT link didn’t work, the report should be at
http://tinyurl.com/lw4x3
Screw it, it’s here
http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/NR/rdo.....Report.pdf
For YLB-C: This is from the libtard MSM. Why do libtards like to tear down people? Because they have no clue – Clueless!
http://www.washingtonpost.com/.....00875.html
“Lewinsky, 33, is known more for her audacious coquetry than for her intellectual heft, and the notion of her earning a master of science degree in social psychology at the prestigious London university is jarring, akin to finding a rip in the time-space continuum, or discovering that Kim Jong Il is a natural blond.
Even more staggering, the same bubbly gal who once described the act of flashing her thong at the president as a “small, subtle, flirtatious gesture” has now written a lofty-sounding thesis. Its title, according to Reuters: “In Search of the Impartial Juror: An Exploration of the Third Person Effect and Pre-Trial Publicity.”
Monica! We hardly knew ye!
A revelation on this order suggests Lewinsky belongs to a fascinating subspecies, dumb-but-smart. Dumb-but-smart folks defy our low expectations. They appear dull or ditzy but possess unpredictable pockets of intelligence.”
STUUUUUUUUUUUUUPIIIIIIIIIIIIIIID is as STUPID does!
Hey Moonbat!s be sure to take Lufthansa when flying to Germany!
http://www.spiegel.de/internat.....20,00.html