Rudy–of all people to get personal!!! Those are desperate comments…but I suppose we can forgive you. You are still in shock about the results of the Governors race.
You know, I happen to know several transgender people. Well, not exactly transgender…but serious cross-dressers anyway. Have you ever worn womans undergarments Rudy?? Do you have them on now??

Very good news, but I believed that many other countes shoud star their recount on saturday. Why?

Rudy & Goldy–you 2 are a real pair of left-wing jewels. The Rudy “conspiracy theory” about 4 precindts in Snohomish County being overcounted turned out to be false. The Dems forgot to look at new registrations!!! Fuzzy math! No more wrist-flapping Rudy until all facts are in.

Hey Cynicla-di-da… oh… why bother refuting you when you keep attacking me for things I never said….

I think Christine should just resign, she has fu**ed up this great state for far 2 long. I am determined she wanted to win whatever, she kept having the reounts until she won. Well as u know she did and now shes trying to call it hers. SHe also wants Dino Rossi to resign now, I as a tax payer don’t want to see this. Have another election or push it all the way to the Supreme COurt in DC.

Oh come off it Chucky… Nixon didn’t contest Illinois and Texas, because then Kennedy would have contested California. Both sides cheated.

And… this rumor, unsubstantiated that it is, doesn’t necessarily suggest cheating… it suggests errors. Incompetence is much easier to carry out than conspiracy.

Kennedy contesting California would be like Lurch contesting Texas. You can call it errors if you want but cheating fits better.

Goldy- I understand what you are doing- my comments were aimed at the commenters- too few of whom are willing to give any more source info than does Dan Rather. Of course, we could play an Olympia game, start a rumor and see how it spreads…

Goldie & Jim–
Please see my comments on the Pre-recount recap.
I’m not a cheerleader for BIAW but I do see the incredible job they have done balancing things. I also hate to see things about this Retro rebate program misrepresented and repeated. Rebates are earned!!!

If the County Auditors are doing their jobs, they are reconciling the voter registration list total by precindt with the # of ballots counted. Every vote that comes in (absentee and polls) are logged into the system. At any time, you can request alist of who has and who has not yet voted. Theoretically, if these reconciliations are required before certification. There should be no uncounted ballots.
Overvotes are outstacked when counted and inspected and dealt with seperately. No story here.
Lastly, the vote counting equipment and programming should be repeatedly tested for accuracy by auditors. These tests prevent a situation where ballots are miscounted for 1 candidate vs. another. Grays Harbor caught their error doing normal testing although they must have been a little lax. Still they would have caught this before the final certification. It was embarrassing to a very experienced auditor but they have it right before certification. This is the important thing.
All that said…stuff can happen, but not likely.
By the way, I am a CPA (for almost 30 years) and have been an observor in a highly Democratic County.

The point is, most members join because of the safety and claim services- services that SHOULD be provided competently without having to join a private association, but are not. Many BIAW members disagree with BIAW politics, but have little effective voice, but remain members because it is economic suicide NOT to belong- again, because the state is incompetent in its safety and claim services.

It is a terrible coercion, with the power of the state behind it (because one MUST provide workers comp through the state monopoly, unless one is big enough to self-insure) compounded by economic reality. And the BIAW did not create this- organized labor did.

The BIAW sees how to benefit from it. And does.

Jim–businesses have many choices other than BIAW. It’s just that BIAW does a fine job. Yes Washington is a monopolistic Workers Comp State but Retro is optional and their are other choices besides BIAW.
Labor on the other hand requires members to pay dues with no control over the political spending.
I used to think the State needed to be the end-all of Workers Comp but its the individual businesses money. They must get involved in return to work and light duty program. The incentive is there. Businesses who control costs can not only get big Retro returns but remember future premiums are based on “experience rating”. Less claims= lower future rates.

Mr. Cynical… answer me this: Why the fuck am I bothering to engage in a dialectic here if I am as close-minded and and happily ignorant as you imply?

Yes, I understand the basics of workers comp… I understand who pays the premiums and who it benefits. But unlike Tim Eyman, I prefer to develop a certain level of expertise on an issue before I bother to propose policy.

What I do know is that the BIAW is using workers comp as a money trough to feed partisan campaigns, and I intend to cut that fat out of the system.

Jim–Right on!!! But there are other options…like individual retros (but I don’t recommend that route when their is a great group program like BIAW). And BIAW does have a very well-managed health program too. I know hundreds of contractors that are in that program and over the long haul its great.
Goldy–obviously I have hit a nerve with you. I suppose sometimes it must feel good for you to paint BIAW as the evil empire. What in the world is wrong with funding candidates that are willing to stand up to big labor. Listen, BIAW has never attacked Big Labors funding to my knowledge. But they have constantly screwed with Retro for no reason other than to try to dig at that. The truth is, BIAW is way bigger than Retro and has many other funding sources. WHY??? Because businesses believe in what they stand for. Goldy, clearly you are opposed to what they stand for. If you were attacking tham on this funding principle….well, you would also be attacking the unions for forcing members to pay dues that go to Dem candidates 100% of the time even though approx 45% of labor is now R or R leaning. You would be attacking the trial attorneys who use huge ambulance chasing settlements to fund Dems 100%. You would attack woman who fund Dem woman no matter how qualified, based solely on political affiliation and genetilia.
Goldy, I don’t think you are close minded and you are far from ignorant. You just are quick to jump to conclusions before you get all the facts. You can do better. This blog is perfect to expand your horizons.

Yeah, well, nice try Cynical, but you really have no idea who I am. Keep guessing, though.

And brilliant deduction, that I’m opposed to what the BIAW stands for. Perhaps maybe that explains my desire to defund them, huh? But there’s much more to it than just that… I pick my targets carefully.

Rumors, rumors, rumors… Since when did a recount change the results of a state election?

Besides, as I advise the polemicists on SoundPolitics.com they’re observers from both parties closely watching and scrutineering the whole thing. There already have been legal challenges and there will be more.

Josef

Jeseph- did you miss the Snoho0mish county auditor on King 5 live interview- said that had MANY jams in their counting scanners and that he thought the count was off since when he solved the jams he didn’t know if they forgot to count or couned again. I think he is covring his butt as he knows in a fine tune recount , his county will change. Of course this is the person in charge of ballots in his county, what the hell could he know compared to those who are acared of the results of a recount.

Wait for the hand count of King County aftr the mechnical if the numbers look like it is even tighter. All experts agree a hand count with good teams, strong oberservers- every ballot in focius- is very accurate, might be rumor but King County seemed to break well for the womon..

GO CHRISTINE
Shohomish will

Goldy, FACT THIS!!!
FACT THIS:

So, whom should we hold accountable?

The totally inept governor, the attorney general or maybe the legislature? They’ve all kept us from having the much needed Performance Audit, something every other state has to check on where money’s wasted; where it’s being properly spent/invested. Candidly, I don’t think there’s very much of the latter. Ethics either.

Attorney General with the Most Remarkable Pay Raise (to my knowledge)—Christine Gregoire; hmmmmm… is it any coincidence that she let the powerful Washington Education Association off the hook in a lawsuit brought by the Evergreen Freedom Foundation??? Attorney General who lost the most tax dollars in state history—Again, Christine!

America’s Most Confused Police Department—The Seattle Police Department, the REAL anarchists in Seattle’s WTO follies, some of whom have been accused of illicit undercover filming of whistle-blowers and reform activists, murder, theft, rape and helping at least one rapist escape.

Most Corrupt Media—Hmmm… would that be the Seattle Post-Intelligencer, which smeared (and possibly framed) a teacher, possibly contributing to his suicide, or the Seattle Times, which protected the late Seattle Schools attorney turned judge (oh yes… and pedophile) Gary Little and recently knowingly hired a sex offender to deliver papers to customers’ homes?

The public votes on car license tabs. The public’s ignored; they’re raised regardless. Don’t like the “light-rail” fiasco? Screw ’em, they say, build it anyway. The public votes “no” on a stadium. The city fathers and mothers build one anyway. Their contempt for us, the unmitigated gall, is thoroughly sickening. Sound Transit spent $2.16 million to buy the Wells Fargo bank at 14th and Madison, though there is little chance that light rail will ever pass beneath it.

And, seriously, we are driving on the worst highways imaginable while a group of misfits holding office in Seattle and Olympia struggle to maintain the Sound Transit abortion, the crummiest boondoggle imaginable. They’ve built, what, 70 or so highway miles in the last decade or so, while the mileage traveled increased by over 2-1/2 million? In the meantime, the transportation bureaucracy is about twice that of Michigan, which has, ironically, about double the highway miles. And the cost to build each highway mile in Washington is, I read, something like 40% above the national average? If those numbers are accurate, that’s ugly. Very!

And, on that topic, symptomatic of the whole Washington fiscal and political scene, the late Kingdome was built for 55-mil, right? But when it was knocked down 25 years later, what was owed? Something like $127 million, correct? And who admits responsibility? Or doesn’t the apathetic public give a damn? And, if they did care, would anything change? Doubtful. Aside from three on the Seattle City Council, removed for strip-club silliness, I don’t believe anyone’s been kicked out of office. In fact, you continually elect/re-elect/re-appoint these nitwits.

One might have thought that those in the Offices of Such Importance (Locke, Gregoire, Sims, et al) might have learned something from those upsetting nuclear plant financial disasters of a few decades ago. But no wonder there’s so much discontent among the area businesses, large and small – a completely disreputable state government, which, if it’s not actually corrupt, has definitely gone bonkers in terms of efficiency – or the lack thereof. Safeco would leave if it feasibly could; Boeing has – despite the goofy governor’s belated attempts to foster some “semblance of understanding.” Or, perhaps that masquerades as a bribe. Or, bribes, plural? Certainly hasn’t worked. And we haven’t even touched on the bureaucratic red tape, licenses and over-regulation that make this such an Unfriendly To Business state of affairs. Businesses have only begun to leave Washington.

But there’s so much more – the sum of its parts makes Washington intolerable. The sum of only some of its parts makes it laughable. Almost. It’s so very frustrating!

Like, a felon with a rap sheet a mile long tries to run over a cop. He’s shot. His sympathizers tie up traffic on the freeway for hours. No one arrested.

Car thieves have to be nabbed seven times before they face any “serious time?” They seem to forget: If You Commit A Crime, You’re Guilty. Period.

People do Mardi Gras partying downtown and some thugs beat up some people. One young man gets killed by a creep who is, appropriately, named Slaughter, right? A young woman battered by a bunch of punks, clobbered. No one wants to admit that they’re racially motivated – wouldn’t be Politically Correct. The police are afraid to inflame emotions? Or something. And a bunch of criminals get away with it! Despite brass knuckles, a judge releases Slaughter so he can beat up someone else a short time later at The Gorge. Other weird or warped judges release convicted rapists, while a drunken member of the State Supremes skates after a hit-and-run “mishap” – no jail time either.

And all along we thought that a little jail time was mandatory. Not if you’re Bobbie Bridges. Other so-called prosecutors want to cut-a-deal/plea-bargain rather than do their jobs. So sad.

Annnd, lest we forget, that same Supreme Court in a virtual plethora of other loony decisions, ‘most all in favor of larger government and higher taxation. Or letting murderers off. Shameful.

Then, Judy, Heidi, Lacata and the other supercilious souls on the Seattle City Council were a tad more concerned with salmon on the Snake River than solving the city’s multitude of problems. Resolutions on the Iraqi war and circus animals were among their other priorities; too little of any real or positive substance. Seattle, Ron Sims-and-friends want to build an expensive new flop-house allowing drunks to drink in a city run “refuge” for alcoholics. Unfathomable! $600,000 blown on some portable toilets, subsidized art in garbage transfer stations; and the driving-without-a-license law becomes less than a misdemeanor; not even a slap on the wrist. The cops’ hands are tied – they can’t even ask if the driver is in our country legally! Or illegally. It might be laughable if it weren’t so damned tragic.

Still, other questions come to mind.

When will Bill Gates (1) get his tax-increasing – big government, semi-socialist pop to shut-the-hell-up or move to France? And (2) might he refuse to accept a paycheck until he’s able to solve that idiotic “You’ve Conducted An Illegal Operation/you’re Shut Down” problem? A pox upon his operation.

Why were there defenders of those totally dishonest high school “counselors” who inflated grades? They should have been axed. Yet they’re defended?

About 60% of the high school graduates require remedial work when they step into junior college – often “A” and “B” students who were conned by their teachers to believe that they’d actually been taught something are amazed to find out that they’re ill equipped to handle real work (but, wow, their self-esteem is outstanding!). Hell, over 30% of Seattle parents were so dissatisfied they reportedly pulled their kids from public schools to get them educated in private schools, afford it or no – even before vouchers were approved! One teachers’ union, the hideously misnamed Maryville Education Association, owns that sad little town; the kids are the victims. In fact, unions have such a disproportionate share of influence statewide, no wonder Washington is failing to attract new business. They’ve priced the state out of business, and there’s no “right to work” law. Again, sad.

One could thank God that Gary Locke’s not running again, but consider the alternatives: Christine Gregoire’s mishandling of the Boys Ranch mess, and the tobacco loot, among other things (like not insisting that striking teachers return to work, be fined or fired as they were in violation of the law) – and she expects you to elect her governor?

Oh, and on the subject of embarrassments, haven’t even mentioned demented Jim McDermott. Or the ungodly department of so-called Health & Human Services. ‘Til now. ‘Nuff said.

And on the subject of politics, while I’m no “staunch” Republican, I did vote for Bush (nor Kerry!), I’ve never witnessed such unbridled hate as I’ve observed here in Western Washington, directed toward Dubya. Lies, misstatements, exaggerations. Unhealthy? Yeah. But the extreme left has pulled the plug of good taste. Marginal taste, even. Can you say disgusting? Placed in context, it’s like a bad dream – enough to make an optimist like me cringe.

Maybe a final example will summarize and illustrate the sheer stupidity of what we’re going to joyfully leave behind when we leave the area — the totally repulsive waste of money “invested” by spendthrifts who purchased idiotic signs which can be noted in Everett (among other places, I’d wager): “You Are Now Entering A Drug Free Zone” — as if, before crossing the street, we’d just been willingly hob-knobbing with cocaine dealers and assorted pot-heads? Political correctness run amuck, like proclaiming a “Nuclear-Free” zone? That’ll do you a lot of good, I’m sure… Although those signs are only a small, penny-ante example, it’s just too typical of the mindset; spending money on such lunacy is beyond dumb. How much did they cost, and who paid whom to write and design? Install, etc. It would appear as if some deranged bureaucrat or city-councilman proposed ’em. But somebody signed-off and approved them, right? Somebody you might vote out of office next time? Very doubtful — it’s ludicrous!

So, whom should we hold accountable?

The totally inept governor, the attorney general or maybe the legislature? They’ve all kept us from having the much needed Performance Audit, something every other state has to check on where money’s wasted; where it’s being properly spent/invested. Candidly, I don’t think there’s very much of the latter. Ethics either.

Somebody needs a chill pill…

I hear they’re available in Canada.

Regarding:

“And the cost to build each highway mile in Washington is,
I read, something like 40% above the national average?
If those numbers are accurate, that?s ugly. Very!”

Topographically and coastline challenged states like Washington have transportation costs that exceed the national average due to more engineering and construction obstacles (literally), and to some extent, higher land acquisition costs. Its much easier, technically and financially, to build 10 miles of highway in Kansas, but most (if not all) of those costs don’t have anything to do with bureaucracy.

Tim-It is a fair assessment to say that the most “welfare” dependent counties in this state vote consistently R — which is quite hypocritical. I think an easy fix (though impossible to pass in the legislature) would be to allow counties to manage and keep 100% of all of their tax revenues, instead of the current Robinhood system. Many of those revenue poor counties love to hate the “liberal coast” (King County), but one could imagine the uproar if they were taken off the gravy train. I wonder if they even realize the irony of their politics?

However, your comment about Mercer Island, while economically correct, it somewhat politically old-fashioned since they have been trending democratic, and even booted out their somewhat moderate republican state senator.

Geez-

First- most of that last five miles of I-90, and most of that cost, was Seattle, not Mercer Island- anyone ever notice the tunnel they enter as they come into Seattle from Mercer Island…?

Second, the warped numbers indicate the red counties are welfare basketcases are quite twisted and completely laughable. Take just one example- in these analysis, the costs of I-90 in Kittitas County are treated as of benefit ONLY to the residents of Kittitas County. However, much more population moves on I-90 THROUGH Kittitas County, and of those who use I-90 to GET TO Kittitas County, most are students going to Central- who are residents elsewhere in the state. There is example after example like this- through all state programs- and the end result is that these games are ludicrous. This state has many interdependencies- not to mention codependencies- and it is time to listen to ALL sectors of the state as to their needs.

Maybe technically correct…..

“First- most of that last five miles of I-90, and most of that cost, was Seattle, not Mercer Island- anyone ever notice the tunnel they enter as they come into Seattle from Mercer Island…?”

but…..while the Seattle portion of the tunnel was a technical necessity (there’s actually a hill there) and was an original project component from the ’40s, the Mercer Island segment was an optional beautification scheme. I have no problem spending money on those types of things, but the “lids” on both sides of the lake (there is a “lid” on the Seattle side adjacent to the true tunnel)are not of structural importance. However, in the end, Mercer Island’s special needs did add costs, and they probably had more design input than other similarly sized communities. I say great, but I wish the same standard applied everywhere.

And talk about laughable…..your Kittitas county I-90 example doesn’t really put a dent in the way tax dollars flow within the state (and nation)….and the fact that much of the red county infrastructure (especially the super-ag counties) is dependent upon urban tax dollars. Hey, I’m a liberal, so I don’t mind this redistribution system, but I hate the “holier than thou” (hypocritical?) tax and spend ethos from the red portions of this state. “They” definitely need us more than “we” need them, financially speaking. Undoubtedly, there are dependencies on all sides, but it’s intellectually dishonest to ignore the “socialist” policies we are all benefiting from.