Posted Wed, Nov 30, 10:09 a.m.

"An over-sanitized urban dead zone requiring major public subsidy..." When I renewed my license tabs, I noticed a box on the receipt labeled "TBD" with a $20 charge which is added to the cost of the tabs. The clerk told me that TBD stands for "Transportation Benefit District." Given the ...

Posted Tue, Nov 1, 10:36 a.m.

Herman Cain predicted that he might be the target of a "high-tech lynching." Let's hope that the public's revulsion at such smear tactics makes the Politico hit-piece the last burning cross on Mr. Cain's path.

Posted Thu, Aug 18, 10:37 a.m.

Simple resource-allocation study which will not cost the city anything: On your way to and from work, count the number of motor vehicles, and the number of bicycles. Tally the percentage of motor vehicles versus bicycles. Send your results to the city council and ask them to allocate public resources ...

Posted Thu, Aug 18, 10:26 a.m.

When do we wake up and admit: "We're outta money folks?" When the viaduct is torn down. Tunnel unfinished. Traffic snarled. Pretty, billion-dollar, slow-moving trains (streetcars really) that nobody rides - either sitting idle or moving along, slowly, empty. Sky-high property taxes and regulatory fees. Bankrupt city coffers. We could ...

Posted Fri, Jul 29, 9:30 p.m.

"And the end result is more housing, something we desperately need in the city." Not exactly. Look at the Thornton Place development next to the Northgate bus terminal in the Roosevelt area where the light rail station will be built. The developer initially spent $millions for a dream urban condominium ...

Posted Fri, Jul 29, 9:07 p.m.

"[W]e can expand Medicare to cover every American and remove the insurance companies from the equation — saving the program because of the addition of young and healthy taxpayers." That may have been true about 40 years ago. But demographically, given the aging baby-boomer bubble, it is impossible today. Social ...

Posted Tue, Jul 12, 8:31 a.m.

"'That is the most difficult part — creating public will and the urgency. Right now, we are creating a pipeline to poverty, or worse, to prison, for nearly half our children of color in Seattle,' she added. 'We can and must do better, and the community has to get engaged ...

Posted Tue, Jun 28, 11:36 a.m.

"Attorney General Rob McKenna, who has been hungering for the governorship almost as long as Inslee (which is to say since college), is not portraying himself as the tax-cutting, regulation-trimming, free-market fellow that he is but rather as the man who will dramatically restore education funding to the glory days ...

Posted Thu, Jun 9, 10:36 a.m.

nickwelch: "As you rightly point out, preferences for single family housing hasn't changed and families have accordingly moved to the suburbs. Is it possible that as oil prices continue to rise and the benefits of density become more well understood, these preferences will change and families will come back to ...

Posted Mon, Jun 6, 12:10 p.m.

Sounds like a lot of more grandiose planning to get taxpayers to part with their hard-earned wages. Consider the recent history of our neighbor to the north: The City of Everett. Just a few short years ago, at the height of Washington's dot.com boom, the Port of Everett embarked on ...

Posted Mon, May 23, 12:25 p.m.

Just take a look at that WSDOT drawing of the proposed waterfront tunnel. That tunnel does not even have half the capacity of the current viaduct. And, who wants to travel in such a claustrophobic environment? Mayor McGinn needs to change the focus of the debate to what Seattle will ...

Posted Wed, May 18, 9:51 a.m.

Thank you articulating your observations regarding the massive wastes of taxpayer dollars. Especially of interest are your caption commentaries on the photo slideshow. The comparison/contrast between the new Federal building and the downtown Kool-house library should make all of us sick to our stomachs. Maybe we will even demand more ...

Posted Tue, May 10, 9:58 a.m.

You are in debt over your eyeballs. You have more maxed-out credit cards than you can count. Hospital bills by the thousand pour in each month - you are in poor health. Your home is "underwater" and you owe hundreds of thousands more than it is worth. You are not ...

Posted Wed, Apr 20, 11:21 a.m.

"The governor is willing to toss thousands of working poor people off the state’s Basic Health Care Plan, cut back services for the elderly and mentally ill...but she won’t insist that state employees pay more than 15 percent of their health care plan. Most people in the private sector pay ...

Posted Wed, Apr 20, 10:51 a.m.

Sidewalks also provide a good place for bicycles to travel safely and not clog up motor vehicle traffic. Why not? It works at Greenlake. In most parts of Seattle, you hardly ever see a pedestrian on the sidewalk. Let the bicyclists use them. And those silly bicycles painted on the ...

Posted Tue, Apr 19, 11:40 a.m.

"From the bottom up. We take care of each other — and we feed each other." What nonsense.

Posted Tue, Mar 22, 10:25 a.m.

[S]ources already put the (death toll) figure at 300,000 and sometimes 400,000. The final toll will not be known in our lifetime, and not in our children's lifetime." http://www.consumedland.com/videos/video4.mpg Elena Filatova has documented the vast emptiness, which encompasses hundreds of square miles surrounding the Chernobyl nuclear disaster site, known as ...

Posted Tue, Mar 8, 9:44 a.m.

Yes. Yes. Let's take our time. When it comes to public education - that's just the way it is. We've grown used to scandals and squandered funds being de rigueur. After all, we never did anything in 2002 when Seattle schools came up with millions of dollars in unaccounted for ...

Posted Fri, Mar 4, 1:27 p.m.

As long as public education remains a monopoly, with no choice, no real competition, and political influence peddling by entrenched union cronyism on state and federal levels, there cannot be any real, meaningful change. That's why the same problems keep resurfacing year-after-year. Even before John Stanford was hired from out-of-town ...

Posted Thu, Feb 17, 11:22 a.m.

The whole idea that we need to tear down the viaduct and build a tunnel because the viaduct may be dangerous when "The Big One" earthquake hits is laughable. There have been proposals for retrofitting the viaduct, to make it safer in an earthquake, for a fraction of the cost ...

Posted Tue, Feb 15, 10:52 a.m.

"If people do go, they pay a premium for parking. It all adds up to limiting theater to the 'haves' and cutting out the 'have-nots.'” That is becoming more and more true about the entire city, not just Seattle Center. Placing theaters near light-rail (slow-rail) will not help. Only the ...

Posted Mon, Feb 14, 10:18 a.m.

"If the heritage community has to live with drastic cuts...A downside is if the re-org turns the arts and heritage community against itself..." So there is a "heritage" community" and an "arts and heritage" community? Wow. So many communities; so little money.

Posted Thu, Feb 10, 11:14 a.m.

"We need backyard cottages, corner stores..." Yes! But with the punitive city and state tax and regulatory structure, it ain't gonna happen.

Posted Fri, Jan 28, 8:47 a.m.

"Could a court strike down the creation of a ferry district by finding that it's a sham attempt to stymie the voters?" Whether or not the court "finds" that it is - it is.

Posted Tue, Jan 25, 11:36 a.m.

Restore funding? From where? As a state, we cannot just print more money like the federal government to temporarily stave-off the inevitable. The state is broke, and so is the federal government - we cannot appeal to the federal government for anymore bailouts. So, shall the funds to "restore" spending ...

Posted Tue, Jan 11, 11:33 a.m.

ddmiller wrote: "Public employees make less money than people with similar responsibility in the private sector." Since when? http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2010-03-04-federal-pay_N.htm .

Posted Tue, Jan 11, 11:24 a.m.

"I know the counter-argument. Don’t blame the rhetoric because the Tucson shooter was a disturbed young man. That may be. But that doesn’t..." ...stop you from using this horrible mass-murder to self-righteously make a finger-wagging political statement implying the mass guilt of law-abiding citizens (who may be exercising their First ...

Posted Thu, Jan 6, 10:04 a.m.

A "horrible misjudgment"? Perhaps not. Maybe they just wanted to make a statement that Starbucks is all "green" now. But the new naked logo, sans text, has a sterile, vapid appearance.

Posted Tue, Dec 28, 3:52 p.m.

Jon Sayer said, "We'll all be thankful we did this when carbon fuels jump in price." Maybe. Even if carbon fuels become more expensive, they will still be cheaper than "alternative" energy sources. And, if there were any less costly alternatives, private industry would be leading the research and funding ...

Posted Fri, Nov 5, 11:23 a.m.

Some more possible reasons for why Seattle afterhours is "dead-as-a-doorknob"... Demographics - Seattle is graying, and, although the cliche is over-used, Seattle probably does have more dogs than children. Seattle is not the youthful, vibrant, growing city it was. And, the cost of living here, i.e.: taxes, real estate, fees ...

Posted Wed, Nov 3, 9:29 a.m.

"Pick some principles that relate to the outcome you want first, and then put some facts underneath them." You mean as in 'the end justifies the means'? Doesn't yesterday's vote make it clear that the people are sick and tired of unprincipled politicians who do just what you suggest they ...

Posted Tue, Nov 2, 8:43 a.m.

Strangely, the proposed Rahpsody Partners building, designed by Arthur Chang, appears to be a copy-cat of the existing Rehki Building on the northeast corner of 125th and Lake City Way. http://parkprojects.com/2001news/0102feb/newslc.html .

Posted Sun, Oct 31, 9:17 a.m.

Oil companies bad. High taxes and big government good. Puh-leeze. Stop the platitudes and sloganeering. High taxes, licensing and regulatory fees, revenue generating traffic laws, etc. impact the poor the hardest. Whatever good work Ms. Ortega's charity does, it hurts its own constituents by not demanding lower taxes and less ...

Posted Sun, Oct 31, 8:53 a.m.

"As these mount up, they give independents pause about throwing out rascals if you're getting such a zoo in exchange." Not really. What we have is a zoo already. And, the beasts have been out of their cages for too long - trashing the Constitution, raising taxes, and bankrupting our ...

Posted Fri, Oct 15, 9:51 a.m.

"Gregoire says...she doesn't have a better idea." Is it any wonder that voters feel betrayed and fed-up?

Posted Mon, Sep 27, 10:44 a.m.

"15 percent who either walk or bike to school in the United States, down, alarmingly, from 50 percent in 1970, according to the National Center for Safe Routes to School program." So, why are the bike racks at our schools empty? The article leaves out a very glaring issue: How ...

Posted Mon, Sep 27, 9:47 a.m.

"Kinsley...blithely states, 'It was the Boomers, not the Greats (of the Greatest Generation), who forced the nation to address civil rights.' "Not so. Most Boomers were in grade school when the Greats and we Depression kids put themselves at risk on the road to passage of the Civil Rights Act ...

Posted Fri, Sep 24, 12:10 p.m.

It never ceases to amaze how government control over our lives and pocketbooks grows - not by overt force of arms or violence, but incrementally by the willing acquiescence of the educated and learned.

Posted Thu, Sep 23, 12:16 p.m.

Changing the constitution for this? Nonsense. For too long, taxpayers have been lead down the lightrail fairy-tale path for years, and a bureaucracy is now set firmly in place to ensure that tens of billions of dollars are wasted on this massive government boondoggle. Let's not forget that even before ...

Posted Fri, Sep 10, 9:08 a.m.

"The strange thing, of course, is that what Pastor Terry Jones and his bunch are doing is the mirror image of terrorists also do." With all due respect, Mr. Robinson, your saying that this misguided pastor's symbolic protest mirrors the actions of terrorists would be laughable if it was not ...

Posted Wed, Aug 18, 8 a.m.

Let's not just blame GM for destroying transit. In the Puget Sound area, as in other parts of the US, perfectly usable railroad right-of-ways with usable tracks were ripped up, the rails, ties and ballast scrapped, and the right-of-ways converted to foot paths, i.e.: "Rails to Trails." Stupidity. Recently, Highway ...

Posted Thu, Aug 5, 10:42 p.m.

Anonymous publication is a time-honored tradition that has figured prominently in America's literary and political landscape. Early American political philosophy was heavily influenced by Thomas Paine's anonymous pamphlet Common Sense, and by Cato's Letters, which were anonymously published by British writers John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon. Some of America's greatest ...

Posted Thu, Jul 29, 1:59 p.m.

Yes. Yes. Bash someone who wants to question saddling taxpayers with massive tax increases and debt, "obstructionist." Somewhere in this debate, a sarcastic reference was made to re-opening the monorail vote - as if Sound Transit somehow is the cure to our transportation ills. A lot of folks, especially our ...

Posted Thu, Jul 29, 10:36 a.m.

The whole idea that we need to tear down the viaduct and build a tunnel because the viaduct may be dangerous when "The Big One" earthquake hits is laughable. There have been proposals for retrofitting the viaduct, to make it safer in an earthquake, for a fraction of the cost ...

Posted Mon, Jul 26, 3:26 p.m.

Just one block up the hill from Pioneer Square sits the King County Courthouse, with its verdant sprawling green lawn and mature shade trees -a wonderful urban oasis at one time. Today, it is a giant crash pad for homeless street folks and drunks sleeping off their binges. On any ...

Posted Wed, Jul 21, 11:34 a.m.

Whatever one's political preferences, let's not resort to ad hominem attacks. Ellen Craswell honorably served over 16 years in the Washington state legislature. She was appointed as the first female president pro tempore of the Senate, a position she held until the end of her career. Ellen Craswell passed away ...

Posted Wed, Jul 14, 1:48 p.m.

Create more bicycle lanes at the expense of automobile lanes. No more cars - make it impossible to get around in one. Conceal one of the most scenic automoble thruways in the world inside a multi-billion dollar taxpayer-financed underground tunnel. Jack public parking rates sky-high, install computerized meters, charge usurous ...

Posted Wed, Jul 14, 11:26 a.m.

Gary Locke ran for governor as "The Education Candidate." His lackluster performance as governor was dismal. Taxes, government spending and regulations went up. Gas tax - up. License tab fees - up. The climate for small-business start-ups went down. Boeing offices closed - moved to Chicago. Education? LOL.

Posted Mon, May 24, 10 a.m.

45 bucks for one dinner, for one person, in Ballard? Good luck.

Posted Tue, May 11, 11:24 a.m.

Too bad Congressman Obey and most of his colleagues never read or applied the economic and sociological analysis of Ludwig von Mises of the Austrian School of Economics as detailed in his treatise published in 1951. For the benefit of Crosscut readers, Mr. Van Dyk, and others who desire to ...

Posted Fri, Mar 26, 10:38 a.m.

Today's New York Times: "And for all the vaunted efficiencies of health care organizations, there are signs that the trend toward them is actually a big factor in the rising cost of private health insurance. In much of the country, health systems are known by another name: monopolies. With these ...

Posted Thu, Mar 25, 10:29 a.m.

I just love how we wax nostalgic over the Viet Nam era anti-war movement - yet, what was the lasting imagery which the movement cloaked itself in? I was actually swept up in the crowds at some of the largest demonstrations during that time. I was in Chicago in 1968 ...

Posted Fri, Mar 12, 7:43 a.m.

"It seems absurd we are even having the argument." Yes it does, Ted. Our founding fathers settled the argument. Get over it.

Posted Thu, Mar 11, 2:44 p.m.

"We cannot talk about this issue without talking about Israel’s "secret" nuclear arms openly." Yes. And what about the hundreds, perhaps thousands, of bombings and mass-murders of innocent civilians in tourist plazas, buses, pizza shops, sidewalk cafes, not to mention airplane hijackings, committed by radical Israeli terrorists?!!

Posted Thu, Mar 11, 1:57 p.m.

The killer used the element of surprise to murder those four police officers, and then he walked out of that coffee shop unharmed - his exit unhindered by disarmed law-abiding citizens. Too bad one of them could not have "surprised" him with a few rounds of hot lead as he ...

Posted Thu, Mar 11, 1:41 p.m.

Seattle has been criticized as being unfriendly to families and children. Tearing out the fun forest and building this "museum", which will only be accessible to those able to pay the exhorbitant admissions fee, underscores that criticism.

Posted Wed, Mar 10, 8:35 a.m.

"In 2010 we all favor some form of health care reform..." Yes. And most of us favor the government getting the hell out of it! Maybe some leaders are beginning to get the message. "The Civil Rights Act had a moral clarity about it, which, in the end, could generate ...

Posted Wed, Mar 10, 2:20 a.m.

"In fact, spare me from Starbucks." O, spare us your incessant whining and blaming President Bush for all society's ills. In fact, if more coffee shops encouraged their law-abiding patrons to openly carry sidearms, four police officers lives may have been spared.

Posted Tue, Mar 9, 9:28 a.m.

With all due respect, alexander-craghead, you are mistaken. "CHICAGO — In a pool of water just a football field away from Lake Michigan, about 1,000 tons of highly radioactive fuel from the scuttled Zion Nuclear Power Station are waiting for someplace else to spend a few thousand years. The wait ...

Posted Tue, Mar 9, 9:07 a.m.

The easy answer: let's just continue to store our nuclear waste "on-site," at temporary repositories all over the United States and the rest of the world, as we have continued to do for decades, and pawn the problem off on future generations to figure out. In the meantime, there is ...

Posted Thu, Mar 4, 9:52 a.m.

$36 million for land and building. How much for heat/cooling, electricity, utilities, maintenance, etc.? Carbon footprint?

Posted Mon, Mar 1, 11:28 a.m.

"a temporary boost..." They say this stuff with straight face, and we believe them.

Posted Mon, Mar 1, 11:24 a.m.

"Don't raise taxes. Cut the budget." A no brainer. If our elected leaders don't get it by now, they deserve to be thrown out next election day.

Posted Tue, Feb 23, 7:38 a.m.

David: You forgot to mention how, when California wildfires were releasing tons of greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere, Seattle's leaders were proposing banning beach fires at Golden Gardens so that we could all "do our part" to stop "global warming."

Posted Tue, Feb 9, 8:45 a.m.

"Mercier suggests that the legislature could lay all the controversy to rest if it put the supermajority before the voters as a constitutional amendment. If the people said yes, there would be no more argument about its constitutionality, no more chance for legislators to wait two years and then use ...

Posted Fri, Jan 22, 9:35 a.m.

Wilbur was "much farther to the right"? So they replaced him with Laura Ingraham?

Posted Fri, Jan 22, 9:08 a.m.

From the corner of Denny and Aurora (near the Pink Elephant), you used to be able to see the Space Needle. Not any more. One more vantage point of Seattle's trademark irreplaceable and priceless vista has beeen obscured by another huge block of architectural trash. Sad.

Posted Mon, Jan 18, 2:03 p.m.

"Why is it that people even care whether or not other people are religious? What important difference does it make?" -- badbounder It makes all the difference in the world. But let's scrap the word "religious" and "religion." Let's just refer to these notions as opinions - opinions about what ...

Posted Tue, Dec 29, 8:15 a.m.

Thanks for mentioning the Collins Building in Everett. There is nothing else like it in this region. It is awe-inspiring when you consider how much it would cost to build an all-wood structure like it today. Impossible. Yet, the Port of Everett wants to rip it down - even though ...

Posted Wed, Dec 2, 9:22 a.m.

No gun laws would have stopped such a deranged predatory animal like Maurice Clemmons. A well-armed, law-abiding citizen might have. Our founding fathers recognized that a well-armed citizenry is the final bulwark against tyranny both from outside our borders and within. Unfortunately, an armed citizenry is not encouraged nor properly ...

Posted Wed, Oct 21, 9:51 a.m.

"Some people still cling to the idea that the viaduct can be retrofitted or rebuilt in situ, but...that cause many years of paralyzing, expensive gridlock in downtown Seattle" Well, just look at the drawing of the proposed tunnel. Does it look like it holds any more traffic than the current ...

Posted Wed, Oct 21, 9:36 a.m.

On September 14, I wrote, "Before the primary, the mindset of Seattle voters was 'anybody but Nickels.' The two guys with Irish-sounding names won, even though most voters were not really familiar with either one. After the election, folks started to pay more attention, Mallahan started to get a lot ...

Posted Thu, Oct 8, 10:36 a.m.

'Send in the clowns.' They're already in charge of city government, and more on the way in this next election. As for your article, just evidence of more smug, Seattle-ite, racist elitism. Just substitute "hillbilly" for "black" or "Mexican" or "Polack" or "Jew" or whatever: "Import hillbilly labor from South ...

Posted Wed, Sep 23, 10:38 a.m.

Doesn't sound like the Seattle schools are doing anything novel here. Hasn't a "D" always been a "passing" grade? In all the public schools I attended, as well as college, a "D" was always considered a "passing" grade - although it would ruin your GPA. An "F" stood for "failed" ...

Posted Mon, Sep 14, 11:35 a.m.

Before the primary, the mindset of Seattle voters was "anybody but Nickels." The two guys with Irish-sounding names won, even though most voters were not really familiar with either one. After the election, folks started to pay more attention, Mallahan started to get a lot of airtime, and his radical ...

Posted Wed, Jul 22, 8:05 a.m.

kedamono: "If Mr Eyman wants to run government, do it the decent way and run for office and take responsibility for his decisions." Yes. Just like our current bunch of politicians, eh?

Posted Wed, Jul 22, 7:55 a.m.

"And let us not forget, the once proud Golden State was brought there by citizen initiatives that limited the state’s ability to raise money in a down economy to pay for programs and services that, in many cases, were voted in by citizen initiative without regard for where the money ...

Posted Wed, Jun 17, 9:37 a.m.

One of the reasons the Amsterdam neighborhood works so well is the narrowness of the streets, no big front yards. The doors open up to the street, people mingle. It is a pedestrian atmosphere alive with sights and sounds, and smells, unique to older urban areas that have not been ...

Posted Mon, Jun 15, 9:39 a.m.

It is not exactly clear what we are to make of this. Is the writer implying that Washington legislators are cowardly for holding the line on taxes? The writer's statement, "The difference may be in the willingness of a governor to lead the battle for taxes to heal the economic ...

Posted Tue, May 26, 10:44 a.m.

"But the carbon footprint of new construction is huge. As they say, the greenest building is one that is already built." Classic example: The new, $72 million Seattle City Hall at 600 Fourth Avenue. The first thing one notices is the "Stairway to Heaven" hillclimb entrance - a looming monument ...

Posted Mon, Apr 27, 7:52 a.m.

. "Take a drive through a local National Forest, and..." See what the vision of a protofascist looks like. .

Posted Mon, Feb 16, 10:09 a.m.

"President Barack Obama will sign the $800-billion economic stimulus bill Tuesday." And in doing so, he will betray the trust of millions of his fellow citizens who voted for him, and saddle their children with a debt and tax burden that they will not be able to pay off in ...

Posted Mon, Feb 2, 2:01 p.m.

What do you propose as an alternative to these levies? No more taxes - period. Close more schools? Maybe. Make them all "neighborhood" schools so that parents can be more involved. End busing. Slash the public-safety budgets even more? Yes. Stop paving roads? Nope. Build more. We can by making ...

Posted Wed, Jan 14, 8:54 a.m.

. "Mayor Greg Nickels, an admirer of Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley's machine politics...Seattle citizens, the County Council, Executive Ron Sims, Seattle City Council, Seattle's Mayor Nickels, Gov. Chris Gregoire, along with dozens of agencies..." Guess what almost everyone mentioned has in common? They are all members of the same ...

Posted Mon, Dec 29, 10:31 a.m.

"If public transportation is to succeed and get automobiles off the road..." Once public officials and journalists disabuse themselves of this silly notion, maybe we'll make some progress in solving our region's transportation problems.

Posted Fri, Dec 26, 9:53 a.m.

Well, one thing this record snowstorm did that our mayor and city council have not been able to do: it got the people "out of their cars"! But seriously, here are three sensible things that should be done to prevent shutting down the city in the future: 1. We absolutely ...

Posted Wed, Dec 24, 9:32 a.m.

Slow down? While NYC and Chicago are buried in snow but still hustling and bustling these few days before Christmas, Seattle has slowed to less than a crawl. Will merchants ever recover from "The Winter of 2008"?

Posted Thu, Dec 18, 10:16 p.m.

Under Chris Vance's flaccid leadership, the Republican party in Washington has only become more impotent. And now, he purports to lecture on how to inject new life into its ranks?

Posted Sun, Nov 23, 3:40 p.m.

Just an observation: does the lack of comments denote a lack of interest?

Posted Thu, Nov 6, 11:04 a.m.

. Judge Stephen Groome said,"Do you understand I can sentence you to an awful lot of years in the Department of Corrections?...Just because of your economic status you're not going to be given any slack."Hey Judge! Do we understand that you then did not order this miscreant to spend one ...

Posted Wed, Nov 5, 10:48 a.m.

. Despite all the blather about "change", Washington's (and especially Seattle's) one party monopoly was further affirmed and strengthened with last night's vote.

Posted Tue, Sep 30, 9:58 a.m.

Stock Market Up/Oil Prices Down: . With all the hand-wringing about the grave crisis we will face if the bailout of Wall Street is not approved, the sky did not fall yesterday. And today, the stock market is up. The price of a barel of oil is down and going ...

Posted Fri, Aug 29, 6:36 p.m.

"Boondoggle" is an Understatement: We the taxpayers have been lead down the lightrail fairy-tale path for years, and a bureaucracy is now set firmly in place to ensure that tens of billions of dollars are wasted on this massive government boondoggle. Let's not forget that for quite awhile, Sound Transit ...

Posted Mon, Aug 18, 11:09 a.m.

Disappointing Obama forum performance gives Hillary hope: . His disappointing perfomance in the Saddleback Civil Forum this past weekend does not bode well for attracting the swing voters Obama needs to give him a shot at winning the election. In fact, it may make Hillary look attractive again to the ...

Posted Tue, Aug 5, 11:11 a.m.

We've reached the "tipping point": Get ready to hear the belly-aching from all sectors, state county, city - about massive deficits and how we need to raise taxes and fees to meet the "shortfalls." The fact is, our leaders have been spending our tax dollars like drunken sailors on payday, ...

Posted Mon, Jul 28, 4:24 p.m.

Northgate in 12 years - BIG DEAL: > Today, Larry Phillips, on the King County Council, announced this "Historic" news: If the voters vote for a massive tax increase this fall, we will have light rail service to Northgate by 2020 (so long as everything goes according to plan, that ...

Posted Mon, Jul 21, 10:31 a.m.

Why haven't heads rolled?: . Heads should roll. When the idea of these multi-million dollar outhouses was first publicized in the Seattle press, ordinary folks saw it as another city council utopian boondoggle. We did not need any experts, or "blue ribbon" commissions, or committees to state the obvious: these ...

Posted Fri, Jul 18, 9:03 a.m.

Light Rail is not Rapid Transit: . MYTH: Light Rail will get people out of their cars. Funny how everyone thinks, "Gee, once we get the light rail built, we will be able to avoid traffic and get places a lot faster!" Dream on. The Sound Transit light rail is ...

Posted Thu, Jul 10, 10:29 a.m.

The Workingman's Waterfront View: . The viaduct is one of the most beautiful drives in the world - and it is affordable to average working people, unlike so much of Seattle, which is becoming more and more the playground of the wealthy. The viaduct is functional. It helps move large ...

Posted Mon, Jun 23, 10:33 a.m.

Where was Doug?: Too bad Mr. MacDonald did not pipe up when he was Secretary of Transportation and a director of Sound Transit. Instead, the taxpayers have been lead down the lightrail fairy-tale path for years, and a bureaucracy is now set firmly in place to ensure that tens of ...

Posted Thu, Jun 19, 11:27 a.m.

Harbinger of what is to come: Edith Macefield - at least we noticed her. How many of "Old Seattle's" whispy, white-haired octogenarians do we run into at Safeway or on our "World Class" downtown sidewalks? Members of the "Greatest Generation," after they have worked a lifetime to pay-off their mortgages, ...