One massive taxpayer giveaway down, one to go: As Paul noted rather exuberantly yesterday, Seattleites will get their first chance to pay for a ride on the SLUT this morning. A slow ride, too. And expensive: The $1.50 ticket for 1.3 miles (much of which is in Metro’s Ride Free Zone) is on top of the $52 million (and counting) Seattle taxpayers are already shelling out, or about $100 per Seattle resident for a pork barrel project designed solely to benefit Paul Allen’s South Lake Union development projects. But never fear: the P-I has some shameless boosterism to put your mind at ease. (Did you know that “retailers…expect business to increase when the streetcars start running”!! Well, compared to the last year of construction chaos, yes.)
And like any good parasite, Allen wants more. As Real Change puts it,
Vulcan (Paul Allen’s development company) is seeking approval from the City to build higher in South Lake Union. Legislation before the Council would provide that allowance, if they pay $5 million dollars for affordable housing for moderate wage workers.
This afternoon, the Urban Development and Planning Committee votes on chair Peter Steinbrueck’s proposal to require, as part of that package, $7.7 million (as opposed to the current $5 million) from Vulcan for affordable housing. The committee will also vote on a one-year study and possible subsequent launching of a rental housing inspection program, to do something about the city’s persistent slumlord problem.
Also in city council news, as of Monday, harassing a homeless person is now a hate crime. No word on whether the city will arrest itself (or Mayor Nickels) the next time an encampment is torn down and private possessions seized. And as if to underscore our region’s contempt for the homeless, an unnamed “transient” was found dead in Myrtle Edwards Park Tuesday, and the Bothell Seattle Times gave it an unbylined article of exactly 58 words.
Barack Obama was back in town last night, playing, er, orating a rock star-like gig at the Showbox (tickets: $100). Unlike most other states, Obama has a sizable fundraising advantage over his rivals in Washington state, which is why his surging campaign made time for the brief Seattle stop. 23 days ’til the Iowa caucuses.
One man campaigns for a job, another loses his: Univ. of Washington Athletic Director Todd Turner was fired, er, “resigned” yesterday because only three and a half years after inheriting a complete train wreck of a department, the football team still sucks. Art Thiel has a good column in today’s P-I on Turner’s undoing: the former A.D.’s naïve belief that things other than the football team winning games should also matter at a university.
Idiot of the day: The Marysville father who gave his two-month old daughter OxyContin. She nearly OD’d. The guy’s in jail now on that and other child abuse charges.
Elsewhere on the planet, Al-Qaeda — you remember Al-Qaeda, don’t you? — set off two suicide car bombs that killed dozens in Algeria. So much, again, for the “we’ll lure them all to Iraq and they won’t be a threat anywhere else” theory.
But not all is grim in the world. Former (U.S.-backed) Peruvian dictator Alberto Fujimori was sentenced to six years in prison Tuesday in the first of several trials he faces on corruption and human rights charges. Pity that more world leaders who shred laws and abuse their citizens’ trust don’t end up doing time. No names.
And there’s this: Some rock stars, unlike Barack Obama, really are rock stars. Led Zeppelin played their first full concert in 27 years in London last night, with deceased original drummer John Bonham capably replaced by his son, Jason. Word is they can still kick it.
…and the city will roll over so long as they get increased tax revenues out of the deal.
Geov
Good point on the UW. Why the fuck do we have athletic teams? Ha anyone looked to see whether his Dept is erving most UW kids?
I do not bject to the UW running an amusement venue, but I do object t evaluating it as if we were Romans and the Huskies played in the Coliseum,
Why do we have athletic teams? Simple. Money. This is supposedly (cough) about giving ‘team values’ and similar good group skills to kids via team sports. But in a University of tens of thousands, how many kids participate in UW football…20, 30? Pardon me, but that doesn’t seem like a good return on investment…giving team/group skills to 30 some kids out of 30 thousand. Of course it’s NOT about the kids, it’s about the money athletic teams generic in ticket sales, merchandise, gifts/graft to coaches and players, etc…it’s money money money. I don’t have a PROBLEM with it, it’s fun to watch, but just ADMIT it’s semi-pro money making venue that has nothing what-so-ever to do with the University (just happens to be located there). Stop pretending “it’s for the children”. It’s for the Benjamins.
@3 No $$$ from Huskies
Sorry the Huskies raise $$ is a myth. There have been a umber of studies but college sports teams almost always LOSE money,
The arguement depends on whether you consider the capital investments in buildings and land free and do not consider overhead, police, faculty, etc.
Even with Athletic Dept. accounting, the UW team most ears at best breaks even.
One arguement is that the Huskies bring in $$ from alums but my guess is most fo those dollars go back to the program.
Bottom line … the uW maintains several public niceties .. the Burke, the arboreturm, the Henry, performances at Kane Hall, and the Huskies.
My biggest gripe? WE do not offer much in the way of atheletics for the real students.
So at $50 million for one mile and $2 million a year in operating costs we could restore the old trolley system — it was about 100 miles may we assume it –for $5 billion and an annual operating cost of $200 million.
Total cost in 20 years, uninflated: $9 billion.
To have a larger system that is as slow as a bus today.
??? This would prevent the opportunity for a rapid transit system.
Ok, even worse…if the UW football program doesn’t make money, then why bother with it? I like sports, fun to watch, but that’s why we have pro sports. But this is enormously expensive, has nothing to do directly with academics except in the team skills aspect, but again that only benefits a handful of kids out of tens of thousands.
The Burke, arboretum, the Henry Art museum are directly related to academic programs (history/archeology/agriculture/biology/art) and can be used by everyone (not just 30 students).
What is this dumb attack on the beginning of our streetcar network? Goldy, who is this guy? Bad call.
Right, Ben. God forbid a few inconvenient facts should get in the way of a rose-colored glasses view of Paul Allen’s new streetcar.
Do tell – do you support extending the streetcar up to the UW and undermining all of the ridership (and hence revenue) projections for LINK light rail, too?
Geov typed: ‘city’s persistent slumlord problem”
Wait a minute? Can’t liberals persuade other liberals to provide adequate shelter for the poor masses? I bet many of these “slumlords” are rich voters to the Moonbat cause! Probably vote in the same do nothing Seattle City Council…
Geov also typed:”Elsewhere on the planet, Al-Qaeda — you remember Al-Qaeda, don’t you? — set off two suicide car bombs that killed dozens in Algeria. So much, again, for the “we’ll lure them all to Iraq and they won’t be a threat anywhere else” theory.”
Ummm no it doesn’t. Not everyone can afford to travel to Iraq. Al Qaeda in North Africa has been there for a long time. Why are they attacking Algeria Geov?
Do you know anyone from Algeria Geov? Did you speak to them before drinking the white sticky kool-aid allotment for today?
Do you have a clue or is the stupid gene operating in full force today?
Wow Geov: “But not all is grim in the world. Former (U.S.-backed) Peruvian dictator Alberto Fujimori was sentenced to six years in prison Tuesday in the first of several trials he faces on corruption and human rights charges. Pity that more world leaders who shred laws and abuse their citizens’ trust don’t end up doing time. No names.”
Who was president the vast majority of time Fujimori was Peruvian president? Don’t spend too much time on it. Your single celled brain might collapse.
“harassing a homeless person is now a hate crime.” Wow Geov, you better tell your liberal friends to stop doing this hateful activity!
No names? I’ll give you one: Bill Clinton (abused women AND the citizens’ trust, etc)
I hardly think you could blame Clinton for Fujimori. Of course, morons like you would blame Clinton if you woke up constipated. Fujimori is really more in the Nixonian/Reaganite mold of banana-republic dictators, and first came to power during Bush I, and it was that administration that approved of his ‘self-coup’ of the elected Peruvian government. But to be quite honest, the other choices at that time were far worse:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sendero_Luminoso
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/T.....y_Movement
And while Peru, like most of South America, has moved to the left after the restoration of democracy (a natural aftereffect of rightist dictatorship) at least the current Peruvian leadership (like most of their counterparts) has seen through, and distanced themselves from the little nutcase Chavez. Peru’s current president, Alan Garcia, has already delivered several verbal beatdowns to Chavez, though recently he’s been playing nice to Chavez (albeit with fingers likely crossed behind his back).
The dog that didn’t bark: Another day goes by without an Iraq headline. Must mean that the Surge is really and truly working, and that a reasonable facsimile of stability is happening. Maybe things are so sublime in Al Anbar Province that al-Qaeda thinks it can get better suck-up press in Algeria.
Or maybe the limited and profoundly effective use of waterboarding by our government has dispersed the terror network to other venues.
Of course Geov will put Iraq back in the Roundup if there’s the slightest hint of a coalition atrocity or “atrocity.” And of course he’ll forget or has already forgotten that Harry Mormon Reid and Granny Pelosi and Waterboarded Teddy said the Surge had failed. Or that St. Jack Murtha, in a weak moment, admitted recently that it has worked.
Oh, almost forgot: eat your own damn state.
How does a streetcar “increase business”? It seems to me that consumers have X dollars to spend, therefore retailing must be a zero-sum game, in which one retailer’s increased business must necessarily come from another retailer’s loss of business. E.g., Amazon.com taking business away from a bricks-and-mortar bookstore. Thus, unless the streetcar somehow magically puts more dollars in consumers’ pockets, it merely (at most) shifts business from some retailers to other retailers.
At the rate Allen burns through his own money, he needs ours too. He’s lost at least half of his Microsoft windfall in money-losing ventures; at last report, he’s down to his last $20 billion. Allen has lost more money in business than any other single individual in the history of the galaxy. He’s not much of a businessman.
You whiny bitches could have had a world-class 61-acre park stretching from downtown Seattle to Lake Union called The Seattle Commons where Allen’s buildings now stand, but you voted down the The Commons levy in 1995. So this is what you get. Idiots.
Why should I pay taxes for a 61-acre park when I’ve already got a 323-acre park?
$5 million buys how much affordable housing? 20 units? This is going to solve Seattle’s affordable housing problem?
That’s fine. Just don’t whine about all of Allen’s buildings that are now sitting where the park would have been.
@3 “semi-pro money”
Delete the “semi” and you’re there.
Broadway Joe: Curiously I couldn’t find anything negative from Clinton on Fujimori until it was waaaaaaaaaaaaay to late for Fujimori to survive.
Hmmmm………?
@4 “WE do not offer much in the way of atheletics for the real students.”
I would submit that UW offers more (intramural) athletic opportunities to its (non-athletically-gifted) students than it has students interested in taking advantage of them.
UW also has a wide array of team sports available to other-than-football athletes including track, tennis, gymnastics, swimming, baseball, golf, etc. …
@6 But it does make money. Lots and lots of money. That’s the whole point of having it. Football not only supports itself but also supports ALL the other athletic program, including intramural sports (including, in addition to those listed above, volleyball, soccer, crew, cycling …).
@14 “I hardly think you could blame Clinton for Fujimori.”
Of course they can! On the planet of Wingnuttia, Clinton is to blame for everything! Wingnuts have never yet let facts define a debate, and they’re not about to start now.
@21 Where did I whine about Allen’s buildings? Cite please.
No, we don’t blame Clinton for everything. We blame Clinton, Clinton, and Carter for everything. Hillary and Jimmy get everything that Billy didn’t bitch up already.
Football is fun to watch. Also, it’s hard to rally around a math class.
“You whiny bitches could have had a world-class 61-acre park stretching from downtown Seattle to Lake Union called The Seattle Commons where Allen’s buildings now stand, but you voted down the The Commons levy in 1995.”
HEAR HEAR. That (like the monorail, and original 1960’s rail) were once in a lifetime opportunities we threw away. No matter WHAT we do, the bitchy ‘never satisfied’ crowd comes out. Make it park…no, too expensive. Develop it for office buildings, no not environmental and public enough. Make up your damn minds. If it can’t be a park, and it can’t be offices…what do you want then? One giant free ‘tent city’? Fine, as soon as you give away your house/land your personal money paid for, then we can ask others to do the same thing.
@14: Fujimori was elected to office in 1990. He shut down the Peruvian Congress and the courts and suspended the Peruvian constitution in April 1992 – on Bush Sr.’s watch – and so the choices weren’t between Fujimori and Shining Path or Tupac (which were admittedly horrific). They were between Fujimori the democratically elected President and Fujimori the dictator, and both GHWB and (for nearly eight years thereafter) Bill Clinton were just fine with the brutal dictatorship (and kleptocracy) Fujimori created.
@15: Iraq’s not in the roundup because I’ve never included the steady drip of bombs and death squad killings in the roundups. They are not, in the long run, significant in themselves (a triple bombing this afternoon just killed a bunch of people, btw – does that mean the surge is no longer working?). It’s the long-term trends that matter. Nor has anything changed lately with the stalemated, irrelevant Iraqi government. I hope the surge works (but I doubt it will) – but I’m taking my cue from most objective (i.e., non-Bush-employed) ME experts who say it’s too early to tell. It looks better than it did two months ago, but still the best one can say is that killings are at least for the moment down but there’s still no political progress toward any sort of viable resolution. And the Iraqi government is (over US objections) encouraging internal refugees to return to Baghdad, which may jumpstart the sectarian killing again. Is that too nuanced for you? Or does it just mean that you’d make a crappy newsroom editor?
Agreed on Iraq. By April Fools Day 2003 I knew that the Savage-Schmader invasion of Iraq had failed the first test of a Just War: we couldn’t spin it as a win. Whatever happens with the surge and insurgents, the war is irrevocably lost. It’s the biggest blunder since the Bay of Pigs. Maybe the biggest blunder ever. We were able to muddle back from Vietnam; we’re mired in Iraq’s quagmire forever. I’m amused, tho, by the facility with which you and the rest of Big Media, BM, move on to other things when convenient.
Then there’s this: “(B)oth GHWB and (for nearly eight years thereafter) Bill Clinton were just fine with the brutal dictatorship (and kleptocracy) Fujimori created …” So, you think we should have invaded to set things right?
The world is filled with nasty brutish kleptocrats. Saddam was one. Fujimori another. Most are on the left. Maybe GHWB (with Saddam and Fujimori), and Clinton with all the above, were wise to let them skate and to let things slide.
Geov, you failed to get it. I wasn’t condoning Fujimori’s takeover. A democracy would’ve been the better option, but Fujimori removed that from the table. And the Khmer Rouge tactics of Sendero Luminoso and Tupac Amaru made the worst excesses of Fujimori look like a church picnic. And they were no one’s democrats, by any definition of the word.
And for Anton the Undercover Brother, while I’m sure someone in the State Department was keeping an eye on Peru for Bill, your insinuation is at best asinine, and at worst, just a robotic ‘blame Clinton’ reflex action. Bill had bigger things on his mind, namely defending himself from the Vast Right-Wing Conspiracy spending billions of dollars throwing political spaghetti at the wall to see what would stick, settling on prosecuting him over lying about a blowjob.
Yes, the VRWC is real. How else do you think that utter loser Dumbya got into office? That will change. And I’m helping to destroy it (and you), one brick at a time.
The Matrix has you, Anton. Follow the white rabbit……..
Hey Broadway Joe: Most people can’t comprehend your posts. Can you dig it?
And you can’t comprehend the law. Susan Weber Wright nailed Bill for lying under oath, not a blowjob.
You live in a fantasy world. Movies are your frame of reference. Wow, The Matrix har har har.
So if a Republican has bigger things on his mind than some 3rd country in another hemisphere you’ll give them a pass BJ? I doubt it. I call it selective memory or is it politics or is it justice or is it something else.
@34 The law is an ass! Why should Clinton be punished for lying about a blowjob when the law won’t enforce Mark the Welsher’s gambling debt to Goldy? What’s worse, telling a partisan prosecutor you didn’t get sucked off when you did, or not paying a $100 debt? The Mafia never killed anyone for lying about a blowjob.
The Difference Between Young Guys And Old Guys
Young Guy says he got a blowjob when he didn’t.
Old Guys says he didn’t get a blowjob when he did.
Puddybud, maybe Al qaeda would bomb a little further away
if they had light rail. Come to think of it what the hell
have any middle eastern or muslim contributed to mankind?
Maybe we should learn how to drill for oil at a slight angle
and take the oil from the underside. Then we could sell them wheat for 200 a barrel. What goes around comes around.
Okay Anton, just this once I’ll refer to you with the moniker you chose for yourself:
Puddy, the only person in dreamland is you, and I look forward to the day when I revel in your utter humiliation…..oh wait a minute, I already do that just about every day.
Maybe I should refer to you as your fellow Rethuglicans do when you’re not around. Which racial slur do you prefer? It’s what they call you, anyway. Got a problem with it? Come on down to Reno and get your beating.
Welcome to the new reality – where Republicans are targets.
The sluts are the Democrats that give Allen whatever he wants. Liberals are such liars. They spew all this “for the common man” crap and then turn around and rob the “common man” to pay for Allen’s trolley toys.
I looks like the intellectual level of the conversation at the equine anal blog is still the same. Somethings never change.
35: I’m having second thoughts about this Goldstein person, and am feeling his pain. Somebody (Goldstein, me) who likes P.J. O’Rourke can’t be all bad.
If someone owes money to my good friend Goldstein, someone must pay.