HorsesAss.Org

Classes will stop region wide and throughout the nation Tuesday morning, as school officials give students a chance to watch the historic swearing in of Barack Obama, our first African American president.  Except down in Federal Way, where kids will have to find something else to do unless they bring in a signed permission form from their parents.

Hell… I’m all for parental control and participation, but I can’t really imagine a good reason for a parent to deny permission for their child to watch history in action, and I can’t imagine a good reason for a school district to give parents that option.  But then, this is Federal Way, the same school district that imposed a moratorium on the showing of Al Gore’s documentary An Inconvenient Truth .

Forget Obama… it’s time to inaugurate a new Federal Way school board.

With Obama pledging a massive infrastructure investment, I think we can all identify the main car related stimulus projects. I would still hope that some other things are in the discussion. While most of the examples below could apply to the rest of the state and much of the country, this a few suggestions for Seattle and suburbs. Of course, people with more knowledge of Spokane and the Tri-Cities can chime in if they want.

– Sidewalks: As people who’ve been reading me here and elsewhere for a while know, this is a bit of a hobbyhorse of mine. Specifically, Seattle North of 85th needs sidewalks, and many downtown sidewalks are in need of repair.

– Bus Pay Stations: I’d like to be able to pay for the bus before it gets there, and then either have a token or a card or whatever and just use that instead of trying to put that bill in the feeder and fish out the right change from my wallet while people are lining up behind me. This would speed up bus service and make the bus easier for casual users.

– Other Bus Improvements: Metro buses already have GPS systems installed, and it’s neat to be able to see where the buses are. And if your phone is more advanced than mine, it’s even better. Still, it would be nice to put the technology to more use: We could have more bus stops tell you when the next buses are coming. It would also be good for passengers (again casual ones especially) to be able to have an on-bus display of where they are and what the next stop is. These are probably too expensive for Metro right now, but I don’t see why couldn’t be included in a stimulus package.

– Ferries. We need to replace our fleet, and frankly I don’t see how we get the money to do that in a post I-695 world. This could be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get some new boats in the water.

The League of Education Voters has released it’s annual Citizen’s Report Card , and Washington’s education system is far from making the honor roll:

And that’s an improvement from the previous two report cards.

But, you know, if that’s good enough for Washington’s children, it’s better to just cut education funding rather than even starting a conversation about raising additional revenues.

I’ve been neck deep in tech stuff recently, preparing for some cool new stuff in the HA universe, so I haven’t been writing much recently.  But I will again.  And soon.

So please be patient.

So if “everything is on the table” at all levels because everything is completely SNAFU, budget-wise, are we still going to stupidly spend tons of money arresting and locking up pot smokers?

In related, Atrios points out ending prohibition is the current number two issue at change.gov.

UPDATE [Lee]: Jon, the answer is no for the state legislators who introduced this bill today.

Okay, not to rain on the tunnel parade but Seattle isn’t the only metropolitan area in the Pacific Northwest with a pressing mega-project in waiting.

Combine river, wind, eco-friendliness and smooth sailing across the Columbia River and what do you have? A new Interstate 5 bridge with wind turbines generating electricity.

You read that right: The latest bridge design features vertically spinning turbines that would generate an unknown amount of juice while proclaiming loudly that the Portland-Vancouver area is the sustainability center of the world.

Personally, since I don’t live in Seattle, I’ve refrained from commenting much on the whole tunnel versus surface thing. You folks who live there should get the major say.

But since you can’t put wind turbines in your tunnel, you lose the coolness war. Sorry.

Now fork over some more money for down here too. Whaaaa? Money is tight to non-existent?

Oh. Could we have a rowboat or something?

This is bad any way you slice it:

Retail sales plunged far more than expected in December, a record sixth straight monthly decline as consumers were battered by a recession, a severe credit crisis and soaring job losses, none of which are likely to ease anytime soon.

The Commerce Department reported Wednesday that retail sales dropped 2.7 percent last month, more than double the 1.2 percent decline that Wall Street expected.

And it’s especially bad for a border county.

Retail sales in Clark County experienced a sharp decline in last year’s third quarter as the effect of the housing slowdown continued to seep into the local economy.

According to a report Tuesday from the Washington Department of Revenue, the county’s store-only sales totalled $499.9 million in the three months ending in September. That was down 7.9 percent from $542.6 million spent at retail stores in the third quarter in 2007, and weaker than statewide trend.

Store-only taxable retail sales throughout Washington declined by 6.2 percent to $12.4 billion.

State lawmakers and local governments are chasing a constantly moving revenue target, and the target is going down, down, down.

That’s what happens when your system of taxation relies far too heavily on a regressive sales tax. By the time new revenue estimates are available, they’re most likely already outdated.

People are understandably worried about their own personal pocketbooks. I’m not so sure the wider public truly understands the huge impact on things we all take for granted, like schools, roads, police, parks and other basic services.

Our system of taxation never made much sense, and now it is just going to make things worse. And down here where a short drive over the river takes one to sales tax free Oregon, the trend is likely to accelerate.

Deep thought: usually recessions are relatively short and the state’s coffers are replenished. Is anyone talking much about what will happen in an extended downturn of say, two to four years?

Crying in your beer over the impending demise of the Seattle P-I?  Well join the sobfest tonight at the Seattle chapter of Drinking Liberally, which meets every Tuesday night from 8PM onwards at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. As always, 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.

How things change…

1/17/2007:

Last month, Gregoire issued her findings on the viaduct options, saying the state could afford the $2.8 billion elevated highway but said the finance plan for the $4.6 billion, six-lane tunnel didn’t pencil out.

1/13/2009:

The overall project is estimated at $4.25 billion, with $2.8 billion coming from state gas taxes and federal bridge funds. That is supposed to cover the tunnel construction, as well as most of an interchange and elevated segment in Sodo.

How can “not having the money” be grounds to spike a tunnel in 2007, but not in 2009? What has changed, other than time?

In any case, back in 2007, State Sen. Ed Murray (D-43) seems to have nailed it:

Murray said he doesn’t believe the idea of eventually building a tunnel is dead yet.

“We’re not done,” he said.

The Seattle Federal Home Loan Bank has problems.

The Federal Home Loan Bank of Seattle joined its San Francisco counterpart in suspending dividends and “excess” stock repurchases, after devalued mortgage bonds dropped its capital below a regulatory requirement.

The likely shortfall on Dec. 31 was caused by “unrealized market value losses” on home-loan securities without government backing, the Seattle bank cooperative said in a filing with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission today.

Calculated Risk says uh-oh and quotes Congressional testimony (PDF) by Nouriel Roubini from February of last year:

[T]he widespread use of the FHLB system to provide liquidity – but more clearly bail out insolvent mortgage lenders – has been outright reckless. … A system that usually provides a lending stock of about $150 billion has forked out loans amounting to over $750 billion in the last year with very little oversight of such staggering lending. The risk that this stealth bailout of many insolvent mortgage lenders will end up costing massive amounts of public money is now rising.

So as state and local governments struggle with the crashing economy, and individuals struggle with uncertainty, unemployment, the loss of homes and debt, we still don’t really know the extent of the damage by this insane financial disaster.

It’s like the car has gone off a cliff and we’re somehow going to suspend it in mid-air by giving people $500. Folks may like the money, and the very serious people who have been wrong about everything for eight years will insist the car can be suspended, but most folks won’t have much time to enjoy the dough. The ground is coming up at them too fast.

UPDATE: Looks like embedding isn’t working right now, video is here.

UPDATE 2: A happy ending to an ugly saga involving a local police officer who had the courage to speak out against the drug war.

Consensus reached.