HorsesAss.Org

So, it turns out homeowners often see their property taxes rising faster than I-747’s one percent limit on existing construction.

In the seven years since voters statewide slapped a 1 percent limit on the annual increase in regular property taxes, plenty of homeowners have seen their taxes rise a lot faster than that.

Geez… I guess voters must be pissed.  Looks like we might have another property tax revolt brewing, right?  Um… maybe not:

[T]he biggest reason is voters themselves: They’ve shown a notable willingness to support tax increases put before them on the ballot, which are exceptions allowed to the 1 percent cap.

Holy crap… how the hell did that happen?

“When voters consider these things, their passage rate is pretty high,” King County Assessor Scott Noble said.

In November, Seattle voters approved two “lid lifts,” which are proposals to increase property taxes beyond the 1 percent annual limit, or lid: One will raise $73 million over six years for repairs to Pike Place Market, and the other will generate $146 million over six years for improvements to parks, playgrounds and museums. Together, the two measures will add $125 to the annual tax bill of the owner of a $450,000 home.

But that’s just a couple of property tax levies… you know… a bunch of goddamn, ungrateful renters voting to raise taxes on their landlords.  The majority of folks would never vote to raise taxes on themselves…

Beyond that, voters in the urban areas of King, Pierce and Snohomish counties agreed to an increase of 0.5 percentage points in their sales tax rate to finance the expansion of Sound Transit’s light rail system. Although not subject to the same kind of cap as property taxes, most local sales tax increases also require voter approval.

And in recent years local voters also approved a host of other property tax levies, plus a sales tax increase to fund expanded bus service, while statewide voters overwhelmingly rejected repeals of both the estate tax and a gas tax increase.  So I’m guessing by now our politicians are starting to get the message…

Jan Drago, a 15-year veteran of the Seattle City Council, said she was surprised that all three of those tax increase proposals won voter approval.

That’s because Drago spent too much time listening to conventional wisdom, and not enough time listening to actual voters.  Still, in hindsight, she pretty much nails it:

But she said, “If you present a problem and a solution, and articulate the problem and the solution, Seattle voters are very generous.”

That’s right… voters are willing to tax themselves to pay for the government services and infrastructure they want, if they believe they’re going to get the services and infrastructure they’re being asked to pay for, and at a reasonable cost.

So before the Democratic majority in the Legislature agrees to slash funding for K-12 and higher education, simply because there’s no alternative, they might want to consider whether, if they asked voters for a little more money for these popular services, voters might actually say “yes”?

You know, it’s not like your Republican opponents aren’t going to run against you accusing you of raising taxes, regardless of what you do.

The Columbian just hates unions, period. Always has.

Not sure why it’s okay for business interests to aggressively pursue what they want, but not unions who represent mostly regular folks. Just because some regular folks’ job is teaching your kids, clearing your streets or making sure your drinking water is not fouled doesn’t mean they deserve special enmity. And it wasn’t the WEA or AFSCME that caused this economy from hell, it was the smarty-pants neo-liberal bidness guys and gals who fight tooth and nail against most regulations. And The Columbian is calling unions greedy? Talk about chutzpah.

If you follow The Columbian’s logic, contracts don’t actually count if one of the parties is workers who collectively bargain. It continues the newspaper’s long running attack on unions. In the end, essentially, they’re saying unions have no right to exist and are somehow illegitimate. Of course unions aren’t perfect, and one would imagine there will be a great deal of discussion in Olympia about what to do.

But it’s unwarranted and counter-productive for newspaper editorial boards to issue such virulent attacks against unions, and frankly makes the newspaper look silly. But since sacrifice is the order of the day, maybe legislators should start here. It’s time greedy newspaper owners start pulling their weight.

And Bill O’Reilly thinks it’s atheists like me who are the danger….

Every Joo
Down in Joo-ville
Liked Chanukah as such…

But the Kvetch,
Who lived just north of Joo-ville,
… not so much.

The Kvetch hated Chanukah, the whole Chanukah season.
Now don’t ask me why. What? Should I know the reason?
It could be he wasn’t a mensch, that is all.
Or his petzel, perhaps, was two sizes too small.
Such meshug’as comes from one thing or another,
But like most Joo-ish boys, we should just blame his mother!

But,
The reason, whatever,
His mom or his putz,
The Kvetch hated Chanukah. Oy, what a yutz!
For he knew every Joo down in Joo-ville tonight
Was busy preparing menorahs to light.

“And they’re giving out gelt!” he sighed as he said
“I need waxy chocolate like holes in my head!”
Then he nervously whined as his fingers tapped horas,
“I MUST stop the Joos from igniting menorahs!”

For,
The Kvetch knew that soon…

… All the Joo girls and boys
Would say the baruch’ha, then unwrap their toys!
And then! Oh, the oys! Oh, the Oys! Oys! Oys! Oys!
If it’s not what they wanted, the OYS! OYS! OYS! OYS!

Then the Joos, young and old, would sit down for a nosh.
And they’d nosh! And they’d nosh!
And they’d NOSH! NOSH! NOSH! NOSH!
They would nosh on Joo-latkes, and Gefilte-Joo-Fish,
Which was surely the Kvetch’s least favorite dish!

And THEN
They’d do something
Which made the Kvetch plotz!
Every Joo down in Joo-ville, Bar Mitzvahed or not,
Would sit down together, their proud ponim’s grinning.
Then dreidels in hand, all the Joos would start spinning!

They’d spin! And they’d spin!
AND they’d SPIN! SPIN! SPIN! SPIN!
And the more the Kvetch thought of this Joo-Dreidel-Spin,
The more the Kvetch thought, “I can’t let this begin!
“Oy, for fifty-three years I’ve put up with it now!
“Chanukah, Schmanukah! Stop it!
… But HOW?”

Then he got an idea!
And the moment he had,
He said
“I’m no Einstein, but this… not half bad!”

“I know just what to do!” Then he donned an old sheet,
And dug up some sandals to wear on his feet.
“I’m the Prophet Elijiah! They’ve set me a plate!”
(For the Kvetch couldn’t keep Joo-ish holidays straight.)
“The Joos ‘ll oblige ol’ Elijiah, no doubt!
“I will simply walk in. Then I’ll clean the place out!”

“All I need is a camel…”
He looked far and near,
But this wasn’t the desert, and camels are dear.
Did that stop the old Kvetch…?
That pischer? No, never:
“If I can’t find a camel,” the Kvetch said, “…whatever.”
So he called his dog, Max. Then he took an old sack
And he tied a hump onto the front of his back.

THEN
He climbed on this
dog-dromedaryish mammal.
You never have seen
Such a schmuck on a camel.

Then the Kvetch cried “Oy vey!”
As old Max started down
Toward the homes, while the Joos
Where still schmoozing in town.

All their driveways were empty. Just SUV tracks.
All the Joos were out last-minute-shopping at Saks,
As he rode to a not-so-small house on old Max.
“It’s a good thing I brought” the old Prophet Kvetch thought,
“All these bags with to stuff all the stuff the Joos bought.”

Then he looked at the chimney. It seemed quite a stretch
That a fat goy like Santa could fit, thought the Kvetch,
“Still, the goyim believe stranger things, that’s for sure.”
Then the Kvetch shrugged his shoulders, and walked through the door
Where the little Joo dreidels were all strewn about.
“These dreidels,” he grinned, “are the first to go out!”

And he schvitzed, as he shlepped, with an odor unpleasant,
Around the whole house, as he took every present!
Barbie dolls! Mountain bikes! Brios! And blocks!
Pokemon! GameBoys! And all of that shlock!
And he stuffed them in bags. Then his arms spread akimbo,
He shlepped all the bags, one by one, out the wimbo!

Then he shlepped to the kitchen. He took every dish.
He took the Joo-latkes. The Gefilte-Joo-Fish.
He cleaned out the Sub-Zero so nimbly and neat,
Careful to separate dairy from meat.
Then he shlepped the Joo-nosh right out the front door-a.
“And NOW!” kvelled the Kvetch, “I will shlep the menorah!”

And he grabbed the menorah, and started to shlep on,
When he heard a whine, like a cat being stepped on.
He spun ‘round with shpilkes, and coming his way,
It was Ruth Levy-Joo, who was two, if a day.

The Kvetch had been caught by this small shaina maidel,
Who’d been watching TV on her big RCA’dle.
“The Prophet Elijiah?” she quizzed the old fool,
“You visit on Pesach, they taught us in shul.”

And although the old Kvetch was surprised and confused,
It’s not hard to lie to a girl in her twos.
“Bubbeleh… sweatheart…” he started his tale,
“Your dad paid full price, when this all was on sale!
“And like any good merchant, I just want to please ya.
“I’ll ring it up right, then I’ll refund your VISA.”

Then he patted her tush. Put a Barney tape in.
And she spaced-out as fast as the spindle could spin.
And as Ruth Levy-Joo watched her mauve dinosaura,
HE went to the door and shlepped out the menorah!

Then the match for the shamas
Was last to be filched!
Then he shlepped himself out to continue his pillage.
On the walls he left nothing at all. Bubkes. Zilch.
And the one speck of food
That he left in the house
Was a matzoh ball even too dense for a mouse.

Then
He did the same schtick
In the other Joo’s houses.

Leaving knaidlach
Too dense
For the other Joo’s mouses!

It was quarter to dusk…
All the Joos, still at Saks,
All the Joos, still a-shmooze
When he packed up old Max,
Packed him up with their presents! The gelt and the dreidels!
The chotchkes and latkes! The knish and the knaidels!

He hauled it all up to his condo in haste!
(A Grinch might have dumped it, but why go to waste?)
“Shtup you!” to the Joos, the Kvetch loudly cheered,
“They’re finding out Chanukah’s cancelled this year!
“They’re just coming home! I know just what they’ll say!
“They’ll ask their homeowners insurance to pay,
“Then the Joos down in Joo-ville will all cry OY VEY!”

“All those Oys,” kvelled the Kvetch,
“Now THIS I must hear!”
So he paused. And the Kvetch put his hand to his ear.
And he did hear a sound rising up from the shtetl.
It started to grow. Then the Kvetch grew unsettled…

Why the sound wasn’t sad,
It was more like the noise
Of a UPS trucker
Delivering toys!

He stared down at Joo-ville!
And then the Kvetch shook,
As truck after truck
Replaced all that he took!

Every Joo down in Joo-ville, the Golds and the Steins,
Re-ordered their presents by going online!

Chanukah HADN’T been cancelled!
IT CAME!
…On UPS trucks… but it came just the same!

Then the Kvetch, staring down at the gifts where they sat,
Stood kvitching and kvetching: “For this, I did that?
“It came without traffic! It came without tax!
“It came without shopping at Bloomie’s or Saks!”
And he kvetched on and on, til he started to shvitz,
Then the Kvetch thought of something which might make him rich!
“Maybe stores,” thought the Kvetch, “don’t need mortar and bricks.
“Maybe toys can be bought with a few well-placed clicks!”

And what happened then…?
Well… in Joo-ville they say
That the Kvetch raised
Ten million in venture that day!
And the minute his web site was ready to go,
He raised ten billion more on his new IPO!
He sold back the toys to the homes they came from!
And he…

… he the Kvetch…!
Founded YA-JOO.COM!

©2000 by David Goldstein
All rights reserved

[An HA holiday tradition, with apologies to the late, great Dr. Seuss—but not to the greedy, litigious bastards at Dr. Seuss Enterprises, LLC. So there. Happy Christmukah.]

This is just one guy.

In a seemingly unprecedented move, President George W. Bush on Wednesday revoked a pardon he had issued just 24 hours earlier for a politically connected real estate developer who defrauded hundreds of low-income home buyers—acknowledging that White House aides had not fully described the scope of the crimes committed and the context of the clemency application.

The unexpected Christmas Eve reversal came after it was discovered that the pardon of Isaac Toussie had not met Justice Department guidelines and that Toussie’s father had donated $28,500 to the Republican National Committee, prompting some of Toussie’s victims to complain he had been bailed out thanks to White House ties.

That legacy thing isn’t going so well.

How many more scumbags are there that we’ll never know about? How many of them are in Washington state? Will the remains of the traditional media here endeavor to tell us? The house building, selling and financing industry needs to be held accountable. You shouldn’t be able to wreck an economy and get away with it, at least if you’re name isn’t Stalin.

Here Bush is trying to pardon a kleptocrat and the only way he gets called on it is because house owners who got screwed called foul. We could use some of that moxie here.

Perhaps it’s because I’m not gay.  Or maybe it’s because I’m not a woman.  But I’ve had a hard time getting all riled up about Barack Obama’s choice of the anti-gay, anti-woman Rev. Rick Warren to deliver the inaugural invocation, and I can’t help but agree with Carla over at Blue Oregon in wondering if this type of symbolic litmus test is really worth our collective energy and outrage:

There are a lot of excellent bloggers who know how to take the fight to the halls of DC and beyond. The ability to stir things up is a hallmark of what some of us love to do. But the ability to do this stirring has its limits. Our political capital is finite. Do we really want to spend it in an attempt to influence Obama to dump Rick Warren’s Inaugural invocation? Really?

I know, maybe it’s because I’m not Christian (or even a theist for that matter), and so I find the whole notion of a religious invocation or benediction at any political event unappealing, regardless of who delivers it, but in answer to Carla’s question, I guess I’d say, um… no.  Actual policy, well that’s worth a fight, but this… well… not really.

Not that my fellow progressive bloggers shouldn’t feel free to express their outrage if that’s what yanks their chain, but as Carla demonstrates, mainstream observers would be mistaken to view the netroots as some sort of group-think monolith, and should avoid mistaking loudness for leadership.  Even the name brand national bloggers speak only for themselves; if you don’t believe me, just read their comment threads.

Meanwhile, Carla is dead-on in pointing out that the political capital of the netroots is finite, though I’d elaborate by saying that it’s also rather limited when it comes to influencing the White House, regardless of the occupant.  Maybe it’s because I’m just a lowly local blogger, but it’s hard to see why I’d bother wasting my time trying to persuade Obama to hire a different preacher?

Or… maybe not.

Yesterday’s Seattle Times piece on Seattle DOT’s salt-free snow removal policy apparently struck a nerve with frustrated readers, at least judging by the four follow-up stories and editorials in today’s edition, plus two more in today’s Seattle P-I.

Huh.  It turns out the lack of salt can cause high blood pressure too.  Who knew?

Mayor Nickels better hope the city thaws out soon, before the nascent Frozenwatergate scandal threatens his reelection prospects.  But for all the calls for the city to change its no-salt policy, it’s likely way too late for the current storm system, if not much of the winter season.  A no-salt policy means that the city stockpiles… um… no salt.  And anybody who’s trekked to their local Home Depot this week in hopes of buying some rock salt knows that it is usually in shortest supply when it is needed most.

With many of the city’s major arterials glaciated over the past week, including much of the downtown, the city will no doubt reevaluate its no-salt policy.  But deciding to use salt, and having it available to use are two different things, so for now we’ll just have to wait for rain and warmer weather to melt our icy streets.

[via The Agitator]

I love snow. I always have. And it’s snowing. Again. It’s beautiful. I should be thrilled.

Instead, I’m just pissed off. We live on a hill, in Fremont, that’s been a skating rink for nearly a week now. I understand when side streets don’t get plowed during an emergency. But impassable for a week?

And it’s not just side streets. The nearest arterial is less than three blocks away. It’s flat. It connects to other streets that are flat (or, in one case, gently sloping). By all appearances, that street hasn’t been plowed, either. Or salted. Or even sanded. The bus, needless to say, doesn’t come.

Read some of the over 250 comments on Joel Connelly’s latest column and you’ll quickly deduce that this situation is happening all over the region, and especially in the cities of Seattle, Bellevue, and Redmond. And there’s no excuse. None.

“But Seattle has hills!” So does Pittsburgh. And Boston. And any number of other cities that get snow regularly. They cope. “But it’s rare here!” I’ve lived in any number of places in the South – Houston, Memphis, South Carolina, Virginia – where it snowed in amounts roughly comparable to Seattle: a couple times a year, maybe, and one big storm a decade. Some of these places have hills, too. They cope. Mind you, we’re talking the South, where local governments are loathe to tax or to provide any services, and where buses are something the black maids use to get to the suburbs each morning. They handle this shit better than Seattle. “Salt hurts the environment!” Once or twice a year? I can live with that. But then, I could live with sand on the roads, too, and I’m not seeing that, either. After seven fucking days.

It’s preposterous that in the 21st century, a metropolitan area of nearly four million people — one of the wealthiest metropolitan areas in the world, I might add — can be nearly paralyzed for a week or more by a few inches of snow.

Oh, speaking of the P-I, one other thought: we haven’t gotten home delivery of our newspaper since Friday, and, guess what? We haven’t missed it. Everything we need is online. Wonder how many other households will reach the same conclusion this week?

Kudos to Arizona’s Attorney General Terry Goddard for starting to figure out how we can defeat Mexico’s drug cartels:

Attorney General Terry Goddard said Tuesday he might be willing to consider legalizing marijuana if a way can be found to control its distribution – and figure out who has been smoking it.

Goddard said marijuana sales make up 75 percent of the money that Mexican cartels use for other operations, including smuggling other drugs and fighting the Mexican army and police.

He said that makes fighting drug distribution here important to cut off that cash. He acknowledged those profits could be slashed if possession of marijuana were not a crime in Arizona.

This is the first time I can recall a state Attorney General publicly – and accurately – commenting on the connection between the power of Mexico’s cartels (which are terrorizing the U.S.-Mexico border) and the fact that marijuana prohibition gives them the billions of dollars that make them so powerful. Figuring out how to regulate the sale of marijuana to adults is a minor challenge for state governments when compared to the benefits from increased tax revenue and the significant drop in money going to armed gangs along our southern border.

UPDATE: A longer version of the same article is here, which contains this classic comment from U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement Agent Matthew Allen:

“But if we’re going to go down that road, what is the acceptable amount of marijuana that you want a bus driver to have in their system?” [Allen] continued.

“I believe it’s zero,” Goddard said later.

I do too. Just like alcohol, which is legally sold to adults.

The trailer for Joel Connelly’s latest column is out. “Just get me there!”

Mount the studded snow tires, slap on the chains, borrow the neighbor’s Hummer, or strap on your cross country skis. Whatever it takes, please join us for a pre-holiday evening of politics under the influence at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally. We start at 8:00 pm at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Some folks will show up earlier for dinner.

If you’re not in the Seattle area, no worries. check out the Drinking Liberally web site for dates and times of a chapter within snowshoeing distance from you.

Apparently, unlike the state Department of Transportation, and transportation officials in most major cities, Seattle refuses to apply salt to city’s icy roads, for fear of runoff into Puget Sound… which is, of course, salty.  Huh.

Whatever.

No doubt our city’s salt-free road clearing policy is an inconvenience to folks like me without four-wheel drive, but there is a side benefit that every car owner enjoys… our cars last longer out here.  A helluva lot longer.

My first car was a 1964 Mercury Comet, which I acquired shortly after moving here in 1992, and it sure wasn’t the oddity it would have been back in Philadelphia or New York, where road salt would have long ago digested its parts into a pile of rust.  Folks simply didn’t drive thirty-year-old cars back East, unless they were well cared for classics, but hunks of steel like the Comet were a pretty common sight back in the 1990’s, before the invasion of the Priuses.  (Prii?)

So I don’t know how much Seattle DOT’s salt-free diet does to save the Sound, but it certainly saves our cars, thus I and my rust-free, 8-year-old Altima have no complaints.

House prices continue in free-fall.

In the past year the median sales price fell 13.2% — the largest decline since data collection began in 1968 and likely since the Great Depression — to $181,300. Separately, the Federal Housing Finance Agency reported that U.S. home prices fell 7.5% over the 12 months ending in October, according to a monthly index that includes prices for houses with mortgages that have been sold to or guaranteed by Fannie Mae… (or Freddie Mac.)

At The Big Picture, Barry Ritholtz observes:

I find the monthly spin from the NAR laughable. They attribute November’s results to a “weak stock market, job losses and low consumer confidence.” They never seem to recall that Real Estate prices remain too high relative to incomes and rental prices. This is the hangover from the credit bubble.

With the always necessary caveat that there are individual real estate agents and builders who are honest, stand-up individuals, the house building and selling industry bears a huge portion of the blame for this hellish economic mess. It strains credulity to think that the absurd loans and absurd prices came about without widespread criminality and malfeasance.

True capitalists will realize that effective regulation is required in the future. Of course, that won’t stop the stink tank denizens from railing against all things governmental, but I still fail to understand why progressives have to be the only pragmatists.

There needs to be a dramatic change in the zeitgeist in this state and country that defines conservatives in terms of their outdated, delusional and dangerous preconceptions about economics. It’s kind of sunk in, but not widely enough. Neo-liberalism was not only wrong, it failed so miserably that I wouldn’t be surprised if historians someday equate it with the demise of Soviet Communism.

The bidness guys and gals have sneered at everyone for so long, with such utter contempt, that this is the perfect time to teach certain corrupt industries that the government is there to protect all the people, including consumers of major purchases like houses. I mean, you buy a car you get a warranty, you buy a house, well, you know, good luck with that! You should have known the plumbing contractor hired summer help and inspected each pipe yourself before you bought it, and you should have waited out the housing bubble even though you like, needed a place to live.

When the corrupt industry starts its facile whining that they are being “punished” and promise doom and gloom forever, as they do with any proposed regulation whatsoever, they can be sternly reminded that basic consumer rights are not a punishment, they are a normal way to regulate industries that have proven they can’t be trusted. And right now there is no industry more untrustworthy than the house building, selling and finance industry. If restoring the house market requires restoring consumer confidence, reform at both the state and national level is urgently required, seeing as we’re throwing trillions of our dollars at the problem.

Bernard Avishai writes about Hebron and the difficulties that lie ahead in negotiating peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

In Afghanistan, it appears that we are dead set on starting a full-fledged civil war. I’m working on a much longer post about how much of a disaster we’ve made there. It should be posted late January.

We often pick on the Seattle Times here for being comically out of touch, but that’s nothing compared to what Scott Henson found in the Dallas News.

It looks like child-rapist Kenneth Freeman will be spending a long time behind bars (some background on my coincidental connection to this case here).

It’s been an adventure riding the buses through the snow this past week. My total commuting time today was 3 1/2 hours. I especially want to give a big fuck you to the 67 driver who refused to stop for me at 78th and Roosevelt this morning. Buses were stopping across the street (on the very slight downhill slope) all morning. But on the other hand, I also want to thank the 271 driver who waited for me as I ran from two blocks away. And to the guy who I bumped into at 50th and Roosevelt this evening who’d walked all the way there from Westlake Center, please feel free to vent in the comments if you see this. You deserve free bus fares for life.