Posted Wed, Apr 25, 1:12 p.m.

It's virtuous to help the people who are homeless because they are down on their luck. They will return to being productive members of society. But homelessness will never go away as long as a certain percentage of the people, whether due to mental instability or simply laziness, choose to ...

Posted Wed, Apr 25, 1:05 p.m.

Mr. Jackson must not be too fearful of "gun-toters" or he wouldn't adopt such a sarcastic attitude towards them.

Posted Tue, Apr 24, 9:16 a.m.

Everything Mossback says here makes eminent good sense. Therefore, his plan is doomed to failure... But seriously, I get so sick and tired of urban planners who move people around on city maps as if they were generals' tank columns in a war room. People are not fungible. They are ...

Posted Mon, Apr 23, 8:12 p.m.

"NickBob" writes: "Big Government was erected at least in part as a counter to the power of Big Business. Now that Big Business has captured and turned Big Government, my question to you is that after having dismantled Big Government, do you expect to like living in a world run ...

Posted Mon, Apr 23, 12:33 p.m.

I think these incidents are examples at the margins of an insidious (in the real sense of the term - slow-moving and apparently inconsequential but over time dangerous) change in the mindset of those in positions of power in government. Such people see themselves less and less as servants of ...

Posted Thu, Apr 19, 2:28 p.m.

I saw "Cats" years ago at the Paramount. I didn't get it then and I don't get it now. But then, I don't get the whole "cat culture." I'm allergic to the damned things.

Posted Thu, Apr 19, 11:42 a.m.

There was a holly orchard about a half mile from my house. It was there for decades and the holly never spread. Then about 20 years ago it started seeding everywhere. Now holly saplings are as common are fir saplings. It definitely has become a weed. Of course, the state ...

Posted Wed, Apr 18, 8:09 p.m.

I've finally seen this program, and I'm more enthusiastic than ever, with one glaring exception. Please, PLEASE tell whoever is editing this show, do not take 3:4 video and squish it down to simulate 16:9 video! There's nothing that screams "some clueless guy in his basement editing video on an ...

Posted Wed, Apr 18, 1:24 p.m.

Thanks for the clarification, Mossback. I had also heard well-known architectural dilettante Price Charles mentioned this morning on the radio as the Needle's denigrator (might have been KUOW). So when I read about Hohenzollern carpetbaggers mouthing off on the Colonial architecture, I naturally thought of him, not his old man. ...

Posted Wed, Apr 18, 9:19 a.m.

Painting the roof the original color is fine, as gimmicks go. But it would be really nice to see the Space Needle again in all of its original colors. The main tripod was definitely a pale yellow, and it made the bright orange of the roof less jarring in that ...

Posted Tue, Apr 17, 12:06 p.m.

It's a shame they don't repaint the entire Space Needle in its original colors. The orange roof is nice, but it's only one element of the original color scheme.

Posted Tue, Apr 17, 9:36 a.m.

I hope this show prospers, but my pleasure in seeing thoughtful talk programs make it to air is circumscribed by a Pavlovian induced-cynicism as to their longevity. Public broadcasters, despite protestations to the contrary, are just as ratings-driven as commercial stations. Witness the flight of "Firing Line" from commercial to ...

Posted Mon, Apr 16, 1:11 p.m.

It actually is difficult to administer multiple properties. In fact it's the kind of thing people get paid good money to do. You might even call it a job.

Posted Fri, Apr 13, 10:03 a.m.

Your haughty urbanist elitism is showing, Mossback. There are plenty of middle and low income rural girls that play with horses, including the dreaded demonic dressagists. The area I grew up in was lousy with them.

Posted Wed, Apr 11, 12:53 p.m.

What this country needs is genuine tax reform, not an increase in tax-law complexity. Real reform broadens the tax base, eliminates targets and exemptions, and reduces rates. A perfect example of how messed up our tax code is can be found with the business tax. The US has the highest ...

Posted Tue, Apr 10, 9:43 a.m.

Europe is supposed to be the model for Puget Sound's brave new car-free world, isn't it? Yet in much of Europe, if you find a high speed rail station, guess what's beside it? A big commuter parking lot. Even with Europe's population density and lack of suburbs, high speed rail ...

Posted Tue, Apr 10, 9:23 a.m.

Didn't Crosscut publish an article with basically this same premise (which I'll characterize as "You should be paralyzed with fear while driving") last year?

Posted Mon, Apr 9, 11:22 a.m.

It should be noted that although the Tacoma Mall nearly killed the Broadway retail district, the final nail was put in the coffin by the city itself, by converting the street into the 1970s icon of misguided development, a "Pedestrian Mall." (Pedestrian shopping areas can work when you already have ...

Posted Thu, Apr 5, 7:20 a.m.

Europe has a leg up with mass transit, especially trains, because everybody lives in cities and towns. Virtually nobody lives in the tracts of forest and farmland between these centers. I've ridden on the high-speed German ICE system and it is indeed wonderful, but it is also expensive. An 18-minute ...

Posted Wed, Apr 4, 3:37 p.m.

Some people just don't know the difference between condescension and wit.

Posted Tue, Apr 3, 1 p.m.

And building on what Ms. Lightfoot says above, our overcrowded freeways and crawling rush hour speeds are a testament to the fact that a tremendous number of people who work in King County cannot afford to live there. We're paying for hyper-regulated housing by spewing far more pollutants into the ...

Posted Tue, Apr 3, 12:53 p.m.

You'd have to go way back into the history of the English language, which started as a German dialect in the first millennium BC. Along the way, German adopted a number of sound shifts (B became P, D became T, G became K, etc) which English did not. Right off ...

Posted Tue, Apr 3, 9:58 a.m.

An old acquaintance of mine, who taught English at a German Gymnasium (not a place where you work out) told me that the purest form of English in the world is spoken in the Pacific Northwest. There is only one constituent to a Northwest accent, and it's so pronounced that ...

Posted Fri, Mar 30, 7:31 a.m.

"Still, given the election decision in 2000, one remembers that politics can trump the Constitution." It certainly did in the 1930s, but do we want to live in a country where a majority in Washington DC can enact their every whim into law? And if popularity is the measure of ...

Posted Thu, Mar 29, 1:22 p.m.

Is there some significance attached to spelling "nerd" as "nurd"?

Posted Wed, Mar 28, 9:18 a.m.

In reply to BlueLight (if that really is his name): As someone who has always been by nature a dissenting "commenter" I've never felt the need to hide behind an assumed name. The only reason my full name isn't displayed here is because when I signed up for Crosscut, the ...

Posted Tue, Mar 27, 9:11 a.m.

It certainly would be ironic if the only paper serving the Seattle market ended up being the Tacoma News Tribune.

Posted Thu, Mar 22, 2:46 p.m.

No president is able to control gas prices short of raising or lowering taxes and those effects are usually not dramatic. But the fact remains that the voters tend to hold the president responsible for things in the economy that they don't like, and fair or not that's a reality ...

Posted Thu, Mar 22, 9:45 a.m.

The Space Needle is not just Seattle's iconic monumental tower, it's America's just as the Eiffel Tower is Europe's. A German friend of mine was surprised and impressed to learn that the Space Needle was inspired by the Stuttgart radio tower. He hadn't considered that something so American had come ...

Posted Thu, Mar 22, 9:34 a.m.

The Jelly Bean reminds me of the United States pavilion from Expo 74 (the one with the big pile of garbage in the middle - how 70s). Light and ephemeral and almost impossible to maintain. I'll bet if it's built it goes from grand vision to abandoned ruin in less ...

Posted Tue, Mar 20, 4:06 p.m.

Mossback writes: "Fairs are dead in North America, still flourishing elsewhere, but the records of "success" and legacy are still mixed." But isn't a major reason the fact that the US is no longer part of the World's Fair system? It's awfully hard to plan such an event, and get ...

Posted Tue, Mar 20, 3:54 p.m.

"ruffner" writes: "It seems that there is a negative correlation between the economy and gas prices, when one falls the other goes up." That's because oil is a commodity traded around the world but priced in US dollars. When the US economy, and therefore the dollar, is weak the number ...

Posted Fri, Mar 16, 8:08 a.m.

"Safety advocates demand trigger locks or criminal penalties for parents who provide easy access to loaded weapons to children under 12." My parents gave me my first gun, a Montgomery-Wards bolt-acion .22 rifle, (with, of course, ammunition) when I was 11. Am I to assume that, under this law, they ...

Posted Wed, Mar 14, 2:35 p.m.

From the late nineties until the early aughts I commuted to downtown Seattle via the ferry from Bremerton. The amazingly precise way in which the ferry and the waterfront streetcar were synchronized was truly a marvel to behold. Without fail, the streetcar always left the station just as foot passengers ...

Posted Mon, Mar 12, 11:59 a.m.

The condition of roads in this state, especially the Interstate Freeways in the Puget Sound area, is atrocious. I've done a lot of driving in Germany, and roads there carry "road damage" or "ruts in pavement" warning signs that would be considered in very good condition in this state. The ...

Posted Sat, Mar 10, 4:16 p.m.

This is rich. It's "all's fair in business" when Frank Russell decamps to the Queen City, but when the City of Destiny lures a few shipping lines down to the much better run Port of Tacoma, we hear cries of "Puget Sound ports not to compete with one another" from ...

Posted Thu, Mar 8, 11:56 a.m.

The popular press, of course, has a vested interest in propagating "Romney can't win" stories because they are trying to fashion a self-fulfilling prophecy. Something like 80% of the "traditional" press corps reliably vote democratic, and they see Obama's election as a grand historic moment that must be perpetuated. (The ...

Posted Thu, Mar 8, 9:06 a.m.

When congress pushed out DST in 2007 it created the biggest IT headache since Y2K. In addition to that, most counties that observe "summer time" do it on the schedule the US had before the 2007 change. So now we have a period of several weeks, twice a year, when ...

Posted Wed, Mar 7, 10:57 a.m.

Having the government act as re-insurer for private insurance companies and self-insured employers would solve both these problems. Please see my comments above (before it got taken off on a tangent).

Posted Tue, Mar 6, 8:01 p.m.

This certainly good news. I'm sure that the Museum of Neon Art in Los Angeles would be salivating at the prospect of obtaining this treasure. Hopefully it can take up residence next to the Rainier "R" (which was always backwards for those coming into Seattle) in the MOHAI collection.

Posted Tue, Mar 6, 3:25 p.m.

Mr. Meyer, I did not mean to imply that the German system is on a par with the disastrous British one. Government is, however the organizing force behind the provision of health care. In that sense, the provision of health care is very much in governmental hands. Does that clear ...

Posted Tue, Mar 6, noon

Currently there is a tremendous barrier to entry (and therefore to more competition) in the insurance market: catastrophic care. An insurance company would need to be tremendously large to absorb the cost of a few patients who require very expensive treatment. If the government is to play a role in ...

Posted Fri, Mar 2, 8:51 a.m.

I think McKenna was rather prescient in refusing to endorse a candidate. After all, unless something really amazing happens, Republicans will be selecting the least worst of the four remaining contenders at their convention. And if something amazing does happen, the candidate will be someone McKenna didn't endorse.

Posted Fri, Mar 2, 8:42 a.m.

Perhaps Crosscut's editors could give Mr. Kirk his own column so he'd be easier to avoid.

Posted Thu, Mar 1, 12:16 p.m.

I'd gladly pay to drive swiftly across the 520 bridge if I didn't have to slog my way through Seattle to get to and from it! For people who don't live or work in downtown Seattle, 520 is effectively a bridge to nowhere.

Posted Wed, Feb 29, 2:50 p.m.

"cascadian" writes: "I didn't call Tacoma a suburb." The original article did.

Posted Wed, Feb 29, 2:46 p.m.

It's hard to know exactly what the objectionable language in the ballot title is, since the article doesn't directly quote it. However, if people are up in arms because it describes the bill as redefining marriage, I'd be interested to know what the alternative description would be. After all, before ...

Posted Tue, Feb 28, 12:43 p.m.

Tacoma is a suburb or Seattle? Really? Rather a snooty attitude, I'd say.

Posted Mon, Feb 27, 10:07 a.m.

"Yet in conservative eyes, such sins are not boycott-worthy, and they are accepted by most Republicans as simply good business practices." I hope that Mossback intends this sentence to be sarcastic. I'm neither a Republican nor a conservative, but I do understand that bad behavior is part of the human ...

Posted Fri, Feb 24, 7:17 a.m.

Once again, Seattle's anti-Tacoma fixation comes to the fore. We'll see who is quivering in their tracks when Tacoma snatches some more shipping traffic from the perennially inept Port of Seattle. SO THERE!

Posted Thu, Feb 23, 5:05 p.m.

Seems as though the venerated Professor Domke's comments (whoever he is) as quoted by Mr. Meyer could just as easily pertain to liberals. However, I'm sure since he is a college professor, those comments are not just a glib opinion, but rather the result of years of dispassionate research peer-reviewed ...

Posted Thu, Feb 23, 1:29 p.m.

Perhaps rather than Nixon, Reardon is taking a page from Clinton's book. Now there's an ego as big as all outdoors, a man who's life's motto seems to be "It's all about me."

Posted Thu, Feb 23, 8:06 a.m.

"This time around, visitors will buy timed tickets to help eliminate the long lines." I recall time-stamped tickets at the 1978 Tut show. My friends and I bought our tickets and went off the see a laser hologram exhibit at the Science Center while we waited for our time to ...

Posted Wed, Feb 22, 9:46 a.m.

"State Capitalism" as practiced by the Chinese has a much older name, and one that should not be forgotten: Fascism. The fact that China could morph from a Communist to a Fascist economy without passing through a period of freedom shows that political space is indeed curved. If you go ...

Posted Wed, Feb 22, 9:36 a.m.

This story is a great example of how and why "people power" is entirely different from, and far more competent than government power. It brings to mind the ferry system, which will not allow private vessels to use its facilities. A government monopoly is a very hard thing to break.

Posted Fri, Feb 10, 10:59 a.m.

My understanding is that a lot of this highly radioactive waste (as opposed to things like medical isotopes) can be reprocessed into fuel for reactors designed to use it. But since nuclear power is Eeevil, a potential source of energy far cleaner than what is in storage now will go ...

Posted Tue, Feb 7, 3:53 p.m.

The central question here is whether the federal government can compel private organizations to engage in activities which those organizations consider immoral. I don't agree with the Pope that birth control is immoral, but neither do I believe that I have the right to settle that argument with him at ...

Posted Mon, Feb 6, 12:03 p.m.

Gingrich loves to speak of Reagan and his perceived similarities to the "Great Communicator" but blatantly ignores Reagan's famed "11th Commandment" of GOP politics: "Thou shalt not speak ill of any fellow Republican." Reagan saw how the Republican party had ripped itself apart in the 1964 campaign, with East Coast ...

Posted Thu, Feb 2, 2:56 p.m.

French wine in a box isn't so bizarre. You should try Prosecco Garganega del Veneto, the Italian "Champagne" that comes in a can!

Posted Wed, Feb 1, 9:40 a.m.

NickBob, like so many "silly dirty hippies", you seem to be a little humor impaired. As far as the Museum of Flight goes, we have donated my father's collection of WWII aviation memorabilia to them, so there will probably be some display or other that will benefit from my family's ...

Posted Tue, Jan 31, 11 a.m.

A moon base as an end in itself, like our current space station built as an end in itself, does little to expand exploration. The recommendation made by Buzz Aldrin that we focus on non-landing missions to comets, asteroids, the Lagrangian points and a moon of Mars (from which surface ...

Posted Thu, Jan 26, 12:15 p.m.

Forget about prayer cards. Alaska Airlines hasn't been the same since they cut out the free champagne.

Posted Wed, Jan 25, 3:50 p.m.

At one time former KOMO anchorman Bill Brubaker was attempting to start a Northwest museum of broadcasting. Last I heard anything about it was almost 20 years ago, so I assume the plan was dropped. It's a shame because the Puget Sound area has a media culture which, while it ...

Posted Wed, Jan 25, 12:38 p.m.

Why can't the US move toward the model that many European nations use: A high school student going on to college attends school through the 13th grade, and graduates with the equivalent of an associate's degree. All that's needed at that point is two years in college to get a ...

Posted Tue, Jan 24, 12:24 p.m.

My point, anorthwood, is that many on the left are quick to perceive a racist motivation in what might be a totally benign statement on the part of a conservative or Republican speaker. The speaker and his target audience may be completely oblivious that the words they are speaking are ...

Posted Tue, Jan 24, 10:30 a.m.

So I've heard, anorthwood.

Posted Tue, Jan 24, 10:28 a.m.

"louploup" writes: "A fundamental flaw of capitalism is that the primary driver of corporate behavior is the maximization of wealth, not any other social benefit." Funny, I always saw that as one of capitalism's great strengths. The pursuit of enlightened self interest is the engine of prosperity and progress. Everyone ...

Posted Tue, Jan 24, 10:11 a.m.

As the last Jim Crow generation dies out, "white guilt" will become a weaker weapon in the liberal arsenal. It will become harder to shut down opponents by shouting "racist!" and daring them to refute it (since, in the liberal world view, attempting to deny the racism in a comment ...

Posted Mon, Jan 23, 2:54 p.m.

I'd bet that 3/4 of the people who trot out the "corporations are people" trope are not even aware to what extent rights extend from the stock holders to the corporation, what rights are inherent in the corporation separate from the stock holders, nor the reason why a corporation requires ...

Posted Fri, Jan 20, 8:32 a.m.

Government jobs do not drive prosperity. Suppose everyone worked for the government. Could we maintain an economy selling each other permits?

Posted Tue, Jan 17, 5:53 p.m.

Why is the state sending business to out-of-state banks in the first place? And why go into competition with Washington's banks? This "state bank" proposal is so bizarre that it could only come from Olympia's empire-building Democratic power brokers -- or, maybe, their even crazier role models in Sacramento.

Posted Mon, Jan 16, 9:43 a.m.

I've found printed phone books to be far more reliable than the web-based equivalent. Probably because, just like with the Yellow Pages, there is no revenue stream associated with web-based white pages, so updates are sporadic at best. Eliminate phone books? "Not all change is progress."

Posted Mon, Jan 9, 4:14 p.m.

"jniles" writes: "We can purchase [an anonymous Good To Go RFID device] for cash at a walk-in Good-to-Go service center, but the option is not publicized and inconvenient to boot." This comes as a pleasant surprise. When the state announced this tolling system for the Narrows Bridge I explicitly asked ...

Posted Mon, Jan 9, 12:46 p.m.

An entity styles as "LRT?" writes: "Today’s cars have amazing computer systems, and could easily collect enough information to make year to year decisions on how that vehicle is being used – miles and time of day. Couple that with spot check cameras to validate location data, and you can ...

Posted Fri, Jan 6, 4:45 p.m.

In partial response to Nancy White, most members of Hitler's inner circle considered his doctor a quack, and even belittled him in Hitler's absence, dubbing him the "Injektionminister." Albert Speer wrote about this in detail in his memoirs. Unfortunately, it's awfully hard to pull your boss aside and question his ...

Posted Fri, Jan 6, 8:49 a.m.

Apropos this interesting article, I came across this quote from Martin Luther King Jr. in, of all places, the current issue of Car and Driver magazine: "Human salvation lies in the hands of the creatively maladjusted."

Posted Wed, Jan 4, 1:13 p.m.

The word "libertarian" was coined because "liberal" had become so debased.

Posted Tue, Jan 3, 11:40 a.m.

The author seems to be railing against the taxpayers of Washington themselves. He words his argument as if he is defending a sympathetic endangered class against a greedy usurper, but in point of fact his "enemy" is the people of this state who bridle at the thought of ever higher ...

Posted Sun, Jan 1, 7:15 p.m.

Good thing Obama is repealing all the excesses of the Bush administration, just like he promised. He did promise that, didn't he?

Posted Sun, Jan 1, 7:12 p.m.

It's easy to forget that before the World's Fair, Washington simply didn't exist in the national psyche. Any company that had a presence in the Pacific Northwest; any government agency, similarly, established itself in Portland. Some time in the mid to late 1960s, that started to change. Seattle in The ...

Posted Sat, Dec 31, 5:40 p.m.

The reason Seattle no longer has Almost Live (or any other local programming) is because the Bullitt family decided it was a better use of their time and resources to hug trees than maintain a tradition of local broadcasting. It's too bad, because Seattle used to be a broadcasting city. ...

Posted Wed, Dec 21, 9:25 a.m.

If Horsey leaves, who's going to make his famous sauce for Arby's?

Posted Thu, Dec 15, 10:55 a.m.

The dead of Winter is by its very nature depressing. Many people die this time of year (as have most of the members of my family of the preceding two generations). Given that, it's not surprising that for countless thousands of years, people have brightened the season with celebration. But ...

Posted Wed, Dec 14, 10:07 a.m.

"boblgumm" writes: "I am really beginning to think that Seattelites' mom's don't teach them how to cross a street when they are young." I don't think anybody's parents teach traffic safety anymore. I grew up in a semi-rural area, and it was drummed into our heads that you ride a ...

Posted Tue, Dec 13, 10:29 a.m.

The author writes: "The other night I was pedaling up to the intersection of Virginia Street and Boren Avenue... I started slowly into the marked crosswalk, then stopped while two cars whizzed past." Let's cut right to the chase here: When you are riding your bicycle, are you a pedestrian? ...

Posted Mon, Dec 12, 1:52 p.m.

“How did we become a country that says ‘I got mine; you're on your own?’” she asked. Who, exactly, is saying this, other than the caricatures of businessmen common in the movies? The problem with Ms. Warren's "narrative" is that it equates more government with better government. Government should be ...

Posted Mon, Dec 12, 8:07 a.m.

It seems to me that three blindingly obvious names for Seattle alleys would be Wedes, Boreson and McCune. These three men had a far greater influence on the lives of baby-boomers and immediate-post-baby-boomers (like me) than any political figure.

Posted Thu, Dec 8, 8:05 a.m.

The thing that strikes me is that many if not most of these "occupiers" have no clue how either government or business work. You can't just stand around shouting slogans and expect something magic to happen. You have to get involved in the process yourself to make a difference. Power-brokering ...

Posted Mon, Dec 5, 9:14 a.m.

Germany has been able to keep it's finances in order despite the crushing burden of absorbing the former East Germany, where "good enough for government work" was the overarching economic principle for more than a generation. Germans have deferred gratification, endured higher taxes and given in to demands that they ...

Posted Fri, Dec 2, 2:17 p.m.

"woofer" writes: "If he gets the nomination and starts to move toward the center for the general election, right-wingers will stay at home or defect to fringe super-patriot third parties in droves." Well, if that were the case, then it would repudiate the electoral strategy first expounded by Richard Nixon: ...

Posted Thu, Dec 1, 7:29 p.m.

The abbreviation "Xmas" was first coined by Christians in the 16th century. That said, the holiday we call Christmas is an amalgam of winter holidays extending back into the mists of time. Some traditions wax and some wane. Advent is a big observation in many European countries, and used to ...

Posted Wed, Nov 30, 12:06 p.m.

This has gone from protest to tantrum. The fact that these demonstrators use the terminology of warfare, to occupy a venue, is indicative of trouble to come. The Democrats are foolish to embrace these people. There are going to be riots at the party conventions this summer.

Posted Wed, Nov 30, 9:54 a.m.

The best thing about the current waterfront is the row of piers with their restaurants and shops, and the shelter from wind and rain that they and their awnings provide from October to June. Rather than replace piers with goose latrines (waterfront lawns) why not use them to house more ...

Posted Tue, Nov 29, 4:47 p.m.

"gabowker" writes: "Spit out those sour grapes and imagine actually seeing Elliot Bay from all over downtown." Not with all those trees in the way. But the author is right. What's being proposed here is a wasteland. Once the seagulls and even worse, geese, take over those lawns, who's going ...

Posted Mon, Nov 28, 7:49 p.m.

I think that this article misses the point as much as most of the occupiers do. The prime mover behind crony capitalism is government. The people in government are power brokers. Timid big business interests, afraid to compete in the marketplace, line up to buy a chunk of the power ...

Posted Thu, Nov 24, 12:35 p.m.

Why do otherwise sane people want to go out at three in the morning to shop for toys, small appliances or name brand underwear? I've never understood that. But, I don't understand why people watch "Two and a Half Men", either; yet both activities seem to be popular.

Posted Tue, Nov 22, 3:40 p.m.

Do you mean Aldi? There are actually two Aldis, one for each brother, with separate territories (Aldi Nord and Aldi Süd). Trader Joe's is part of Aldi Nord (brother Theo Albrecht, the former owner died last year). And in Germany, "Right Wing" means Neonazi. I assume you mean conservative, as ...

Posted Tue, Nov 22, 2:12 p.m.

Those Republicans in Congress who signed the "Norquist pledge" were fools. But then, that hardly distinguishes them from their colleagues. So let's turn to the Democrats... The blame that the Democrats share is in their similar inability to agree to a solution that didn't raise tax rates. They were so ...

Posted Mon, Nov 21, 8:06 a.m.

I currently have Comcast digital cable. I don't know if it's branded Xfinity or not, but I can tell you that the first thing Comcast needs to do if they want to get a reputation for quality is to dial back on the level of signal compression. Stair-stepped gray scales ...

Posted Fri, Nov 18, 10:23 a.m.

I remember being in a Ralph's store in Palm Springs my senior year in high school. The checker put my two 2-liter bottles of Tab into one of those sacks of the future. Not three steps from the check stand, the bottles fell through the bottom of the bag and ...

Posted Fri, Nov 18, 10:14 a.m.

Gingrich is a smart guy, well-educated; an intellectual, an "idea man". The last GOP president we had that fit that mold, most people forget, was Herbert Hoover. It wasn't Hoover's lack of action that pushed the 1929 panic into the Great Depression, it was his "solution of the week" attempt ...

Posted Thu, Nov 17, 1:14 p.m.

These protesters have been occupying Seattle for decades. That they have influence in city government is as much of a revelation as discovering that the Mormons have influence in Salt Lake City.

Posted Thu, Nov 17, 12:55 p.m.

I share the author's concern about "coal powered cars." Has a study been done to determine which produces more pollution, a gasoline engine car or an electric car charged from a coal-fired power plant? The disposal of used battery packs could also be an environmental nightmare. But once I see ...

Posted Tue, Nov 15, 9:06 p.m.

NPR engages in typical Orwellian doublethink. The say that they only rely on government for a small fraction of their operating expenses, and yet they also claim that the fact that they are supported by taxpayer dollars makes them pure and above the fray of other broadcast outlets. I get ...

Posted Tue, Nov 15, 5:13 p.m.

"Olaf" writes: "...Juan Williams was fired for saying something conservative, i.e., that he had qualms about getting on a plane with people dressed in 'Muslim garb.'" For that to be a "conservative" statement, you would have to posit that either: 1) Conservatives have a unique, innate distrust of people dressed ...

Posted Tue, Nov 15, 10:10 a.m.

Man, those NPR types are wordy. Curran's sign in the photo above could simply have said "Fraud has no place in business."

Posted Mon, Nov 14, 7:22 a.m.

An entity styles as "2cents" writes: "Perhaps if everyone was forced to vote more educated voters would vote." I'd be fascinated to know how coercing people who don't gave a damn into voting (if it were constitutional to do so) would lead to a more enlightened electorate .

Posted Fri, Nov 11, 4:48 p.m.

Washington did have a struggling but viable third party (which even elected the occasional legislator): the Libertarians. The top-two primary killed it, just like it will kill any third party. The only way a third party can hope to survive now is if Washington goes back to an all caucus ...

Posted Fri, Nov 11, 12:09 p.m.

And sorry, both, that I confused your names in my reply.

Posted Fri, Nov 11, 11:41 a.m.

If you want people to vote, bring back election day. How many of the now-required absentee ballots (by the way, the most fraud-prone method of voting there is) get lost under stacks of junk mail as the deadline comes and goes? I almost lost mine. Hard to misplace a polling ...

Posted Wed, Nov 9, 3:46 p.m.

To address Mr. Jackson's points: The most recent states to get out of the liquor business, Iowa and West Virginia, saw no significant change either way in liquor consumption. And in California, where liquor stores seem to be on every street corner, hard liquor consumption is less than in Washington. ...

Posted Wed, Nov 9, 12:18 p.m.

Mr. Jackson's rather cynical analysis of the passage of Initiative 1183 ignores the proverbial elephant in the liquor cabinet: selling liquor is not a core function of government. (Neither is running a numbers racket, but we can save that reform for a future date.) And despite the fact that a ...

Posted Wed, Nov 9, noon

On this morning's Diane Rehm show, Rehm introduced the hour by claiming that from coast to coast, voters had dealt a resounding defeat to "conservative" issues and candidates at the polls. Her guests, however, came in with analysis more in sync with Mr. Van Dyk's above. If I can detect ...

Posted Tue, Nov 8, 5:08 p.m.

Heidelberg and Lucky were better beers than Rainier or Olympia, but Rainier Ale (although brewed with untergärig lager yeast and therefore not a real ale) was actually quite good for a "factory beer." Mr. Lukoff is correct, it and regular Rainier are now brewed in California by Miller, and Rainier ...

Posted Tue, Nov 8, 10:35 a.m.

Mossback's newspaper ad isn't the only piece of Olympia advertising attacked by the thought police. In the 70s, Olympia had a TV commercial featuring the Tumwater High School marching band playing the Olympia theme. As they marched and played down the street, the announcer said things like "There's Tommy. His ...

Posted Fri, Nov 4, 11:33 a.m.

After reading the voters' pamphlet for and against statements, I find both sides making dubious arguments, and my rule of thumb is that if an initiative does not do clear, positive good, I vote no. I just wish there was a way to vote no and kill light rail across ...

Posted Fri, Nov 4, 6:47 a.m.

Since we're talking light bulbs, I liken a lot of present day politicians to those spiral CFLs. They say they're about efficiency, but they actually cost a lot and they give you a headache.

Posted Wed, Nov 2, 3:33 p.m.

An entity styled as "bigyaz" writes: "Talking about motive is just an attempt to distract attention from the truth." It's nothing of the sort. The motive is part of the story. There have been instances in the past of the Perry and Obama campaigns cooperating to uncover dirt on Romney. ...

Posted Tue, Nov 1, 4 p.m.

I've been to plenty of Aldi stores in Europe. I had no idea that they had expanded to the US. Interesting.

Posted Tue, Nov 1, 3:04 p.m.

There was a whole hour done on this story this morning on "The Diane Rehm Show." One of the panelists was a reporter from The Politico, which broke the story. He said several times that he "could not [meaning would not] confirm or deny" that their original tip came from ...

Posted Tue, Nov 1, 12:45 p.m.

"orino" writes: "Trader Joe's is proof there is such a thing as brainwashing... there is nothing there that isn't better AND cheaper anywhere else." This matches my observation that there's no compelling reason to go out of the way to Trader Joe's. They are a "boutique" store on top of ...

Posted Tue, Nov 1, 12:30 p.m.

Tell them what, sarah90?

Posted Tue, Nov 1, 10:02 a.m.

"If the legislature wished, it could figure out a way of funding the $1.5 billion gap by closing all the damaging tax loopholes and adding taxes on luxury items that are out of reach of the vast majority of Washington citizens." Does the author not remember what happened when the ...

Posted Tue, Oct 25, 12:40 p.m.

If this company called Boeing really was Boeing, there'd be no question that the plant would be located here. But it's not really Boeing; it's McDonnell-Douglas in drag.

Posted Mon, Oct 24, 8:44 a.m.

GaryP writes: "A government that works only for the corporations is by definition a fascist state." That's a common misconception about fascism. Fascism is a system under which the government allows the private ownership of business, but retains a veto power over the decisions of the business owners, even removing ...

Posted Fri, Oct 21, 5:35 p.m.

"bkochis" writes: "Atheism and agnosticism have no built-in morality that they can refer to." Is a morality based on fear (ie, "Do what God says or boy will He be pissed!") really a morality? Those who are not religious do have a moral compass, the belief that all people's rights ...

Posted Fri, Oct 21, 9:58 a.m.

I've never met a Mormon who was a jerk. On the other hand, I've met many evangelicals who are. ...And they call the Mormons a cult. Romney wouldn't be my first choice for president. But I've only had the luxury of voting for my first choice in one candidate in ...

Posted Thu, Oct 20, 7:49 p.m.

If anyone wants to get a taste of what life under the much-ballyhooed "surface option" would be like, please try to drive through Seattle next week. Case closed.

Posted Tue, Oct 18, 3:12 p.m.

It's been a long time since I was under 21, but in my experience (and that of my friends), it was no more difficult to "pass" at a state liquor store than at a supermarket. The commercial convenience stores were the most likely to card you; the Mom'n'Pop store in ...

Posted Tue, Oct 18, 10:47 a.m.

Washington was one of the first states to adopt Prohibition, and never really gave it up. I'm old enough to remember when women weren't allowed to sit at bars, beer couldn't be sold on Sundays until after church was out, and there were even laws governing how many windows a ...

Posted Mon, Oct 17, 8:47 a.m.

Interesting to read about this part of Seattle history. It's something I was completely unaware of as a child. During the late 1930s, my grandfather ran the Standard Oil (of CA, now Chevron) fuel depot in Eatonville. Two of his best friends were Mr. Galbraith, who owned the mill and ...

Posted Mon, Oct 17, 8:30 a.m.

Mossback talks a lot in this piece about "regional" leadership, but cites only Seattle. Is the expectation that whatever Seattle proposes, the rest of Pugetopolis will or should follow? It's awfully hard to have "regional coherence" led by Seattle when Seattle itself is frequently so incoherent.

Posted Thu, Oct 13, 7:38 p.m.

Mr. McKay, I'm not suggesting that violence will break out because of the war in Afghanistan, I'm suggesting that it will break out as part of the protesters' war on "Wall Street", whatever that is (besides an address).

Posted Thu, Oct 13, 4:25 p.m.

I'm not part of the 1% or the 99%. There's something wrong with their math.

Posted Thu, Oct 13, 4:20 p.m.

There is also the possibility that, thanks to the "Occupy Wall Street" types, the 2012 Democratic convention in Chicago may come to resemble the one 44 years earlier.

Posted Mon, Oct 10, 7:59 a.m.

"But Columbus also was a man of his time..." And that's the key realization missing from so many modern assessments of historical figures. Even 100 years ago, the western world was a far crueler, meaner, more dangerous place than it is today. What's happened in the intervening years is called ...

Posted Fri, Oct 7, 5:24 p.m.

Decriminalizing pot is not a partisan issue. Republicans favor the War on Pot because of their puritanical morals (characterized as "The awful feeling that somewhere, somebody might be having a good time"). Democrats favor the War because it allows government to get bigger, more powerful and more intrusive. I haven't ...

Posted Fri, Oct 7, 12:07 p.m.

There are a lot of things wrong with the provision of health care in the US, but the profit motive isn't one of them. Why should you, as a patient, give more of your trust to a provider who is treating you under government coercion, or "from the goodness of ...

Posted Wed, Oct 5, 11:29 a.m.

"afreeman" writes: "you need to recognize the distinction between 'Seattle issues' and 'Seattle residents,' who, if we are talking in large round numbers, are for the most part asleep about not only their own issues but those of the rest of the state." If I was unclear, by "Seattle issues" ...

Posted Tue, Oct 4, 12:43 p.m.

This is an excellent article, and it highlights many "Seattle issues" that residents of the Queen City are bound to reject indignantly. However, for those of us in The Rest of the State, these issues are axiomatic.

Posted Sun, Oct 2, 7:53 p.m.

When people on the left loose the intellectual argument, they invariably resort to school yard taunts. Since liberalism is the ideology of "feeling good" about your motives rather than solving problems, most liberals seem to feel that attempting to make an opponent feel bad is tantamount to winning the argument, ...

Posted Sun, Oct 2, 10:07 a.m.

Neither is it debatable that he took a bad situation and made it worse.

Posted Thu, Sep 29, 3 p.m.

"You’d think the 'Don’t tread on me' crowd would be more upset about this, but everybody in this country seems awfully quiet about these intrusions by the state. Procedures that were unimaginable only a few years ago have become our new normal." This is truly ironic, and it is shameful ...

Posted Thu, Sep 29, 12:19 p.m.

The picture included in this article leads the reader to assume that unstated, but implicit in the article is the conjecture that President Obama would be a more effective leader if he had more effective followers. This was the same excuse made for Jimmy Carter circa 1979. A person can ...

Posted Tue, Sep 20, 10:24 a.m.

tburley, Thanks for the information. I certainly intend to get a copy. The World's Fair was a pivotal event in my life. I have a lot of memories from it, even though I was only three at the time. It inspired what over the years became my deep-seated belief in ...

Posted Mon, Sep 19, 7:52 a.m.

Steve E. writes "...China subsidized its solar PV manufacturing sector to the tune of about $16 billion in 2010 alone. That's why the price of PV has been dropping precipitously... And please, no blathering about the magic marketplace deciding that China can more efficiently manufacture PV cells and panels than ...

Posted Mon, Sep 19, 7:48 a.m.

I just checked on Amazon and The Future Remembered is not listed for pre-purchase. Is it only available through historylink.org?

Posted Sun, Sep 18, 7:52 p.m.

Moyers seems to suffer from "Minister's Son Syndrome"; that is, he rebels against his parents by rebelling against "traditional" society. He doesn't at first blush appear to be a reactionary dullard (his somewhat self-serving campaign to make Joseph Campbell a household name demonstrates that). But his opinions are too predictable ...

Posted Fri, Sep 16, 11:21 a.m.

There had better be a special place in Hell reserved for the producers of Sesame Street and other early "public broadcasting" children's programs for hounding local children's programming off the air. It's not that they merely supplanted local shows with a slicker package, they actually set out to ruin local ...

Posted Tue, Sep 13, 3:33 p.m.

There are certainly some people who see the government as their enemy, just as there are people who see the oil or drug companies as their enemies. Each has done a lot to make our lives better, but that does not mean that thoughtful people would like to have their ...

Posted Mon, Sep 12, 12:27 p.m.

I remember staring out the window of my office building at the Space Needle, just a few blocks away, on the morning of 9/11. There were still rumors flying around that targets in the West were yet to be hit, and I just wanted to drink in the image of ...

Posted Mon, Sep 12, 12:20 p.m.

Certainly the PI globe and Elephant Car Wash sign, but I'd add two more pieces of monumental neon, one gone and one extant. First, the "R" atop the Rainier Brewery, sadly gone (and the "Green T" is no substitute). It always told you you had arrived in Seattle for folks ...

Posted Sat, Sep 10, 9:17 a.m.

Personally, I think it's obvious why Building 7 was blown up. Seven is a prime number, as is 11. The odd number immediately between them is 9. Get it? 7 - 9 / 11. It was just too much for Dick Cheney, the Trilateral Commission and the space aliens to ...

Posted Thu, Sep 8, 6:40 p.m.

The 1930s were a time of dictators. Democracy was considered by many in the yammering classes as a quaint, failed experiment in nostalgia for classical times. Dictatorship was swift, streamlined, modern. FDR was simply the least successful of the charismatic dictators who overtook the democracies of the early 20th century. ...

Posted Thu, Sep 8, 10:53 a.m.

The problem with the World Trade Center was that the simple ornament of the buildings which works so well with the Science Center was lost in in the WTC's vast scale. With the golden anniversary of the World's Fair approaching, it would be wonderful if the Science Center would clean ...

Posted Wed, Sep 7, 2:06 p.m.

Let's hope that in the future, this year will be seen as the one in which the McDonnell-Douglas way of doing things gets the heave-ho it so richly deserves, and upper management lets Boeing be Boeing again.

Posted Tue, Sep 6, 2:55 p.m.

"Now, whenever I'm in a car, insulated by metal and the power to speed through the world, I try to drive more slowly than almost anybody else." I hope you are allowing almost everybody else to pass.

Posted Tue, Aug 30, 12:08 p.m.

What does FEMA do that a check cut to a state agency or the Red Cross couldn't do more efficiently? I'm getting so tried of this trope from the left that the only way to demonstrate that you care about an issue is to set up another federal government bureaucracy. ...

Posted Wed, Aug 24, 2:48 p.m.

The social conservatives have been making steady progress in driving a whole host of people out of the Republican party. Libertarians, atheists, gays and now (apparently) scientists who might otherwise be attracted to the traditional Republican creed of personal freedom and personal responsibility are being held to a religious litmus ...

Posted Tue, Aug 23, 12:15 p.m.

Most loved Northwest brands? Rainier Beer, Adams Peanut Butter, Nalley's Foods... Oh wait, they're all gone.

Posted Mon, Aug 22, 7:36 a.m.

"Rich people don’t have to be price conscious. They can buy an American-made product that may be of equal or better quality and pay more." But they don't. Some of the cheapest people I know are rich. The best way to get businesses to return to the US is to ...

Posted Sun, Aug 21, 11:06 a.m.

HP's computer business has been on a downward slide for over 10 years, since Carly Fiorina killed off the PA-RISC chipset in favor of IA-64, canceled integration of DEC's Tru64 Unix features into HP-UX, and marginalized another DEC OS product, VMS. Her term as CEO also saw the end of ...

Posted Fri, Aug 19, 5:37 p.m.

I have ancestors, and a few living relatives, who are Mormon. In fact, I have a clock in my living room that came west with Brigham Young's party. So I've never considered Mormons to be mysterious or to have a belief system that's any more "weird" than that of, say, ...

Posted Wed, Aug 17, 10:01 p.m.

Any chance we can get a Super-Duper Committee to review the work of the Super Committee? I remember when Radio Luxembourg used to remind their female listeners that the Bay City Rollers were "Simply Soopah, Guhls!" By that standard of measurement, Ms. Tennis Shoes is far from Soopah. I have ...

Posted Wed, Aug 17, 10:51 a.m.

Wait a minute - They lure Godzilla across the Olympics? How would he see the flares on the other side? Shouldn't they lure him up Puget Sound and out the Straight? In fact, wouldn't the best strategy be to build light rail (OK, he's pretty big, so medium rail) to ...

Posted Mon, Aug 15, 8:12 a.m.

"A Gallup Poll conducted earlier this year found that a majority of Americans support the energy efficiency bulb law and that most Americans have already switched to more energy efficient bulbs." Then why is this law necessary? Why not just tax incandescent bulbs so that they cost as much as ...

Posted Fri, Aug 12, 9:02 p.m.

Thank you, orino, for pointing this out. I've NEVER seen a moped in North America. When I was in high school in Germany they were extremely popular because they were regulated as bicycles rather than motor vehicles. (The driving age in most European countries then, maybe all of them today, ...

Posted Fri, Aug 12, 3:20 p.m.

Apropos GaryP's comment -- What ever happened to mopeds? They were all the rage a generation ago (although not in the US). I haven't seen one in years. Seems like they'd be the perfect answer for non-Tour-de-France-conditioned riders in hilly areas like Seattle.

Posted Fri, Aug 12, 9:47 a.m.

"Bullies only flourish if everyone on the playground cowers. It’s better to die on your feet than live on your knees. Who will stand up?" Funny, that's what I thought the Tea Party was all about.

Posted Fri, Aug 12, 8:47 a.m.

My principal experience driving outside the US and Canada is in Germany. The roads there are excellent. On two-lane roads between towns you'll occasionally see signs that warn "Straßenschäden" (road damage) or "Spurrillen" (ruts) on roads that in this state would be considered in excellent condition. Seattle's anti-auto sentiment seems ...

Posted Wed, Aug 10, 4:17 p.m.

Isn't there something a little strange in the situation we have in which, whenever income taxes are debated, almost half of the population can say "I don't care; it doesn't effect me"? Everybody should have to pay some kind of income tax, even if it's a token amount. Only when ...

Posted Tue, Aug 9, 9:35 a.m.

"smacgry" writes: " dbreneman: You seem to be among those who persist in the idea that 'separate but equal' is valid." I may seem that way to you, but I am no such thing. Students are students, and their race is irrelevant. If you say that all students are getting ...

Posted Tue, Aug 9, 9:25 a.m.

The quote from Barbara Tuchman shows exactly why it is folly to expect government to be able to solve all (or even most) of our problems. There are some things government does well, but a whole bushel basket of things it does poorly. The liberal conceit that all we need ...

Posted Mon, Aug 8, 9:48 a.m.

Logical question, spock, and that's one of the reasons why a discussion is so desirable. Marriage benefits were based on the assumption that a married couple consisted of a breadwinner husband and a homemaker wife. Today that's the exception, not the rule.

Posted Mon, Aug 8, 8:41 a.m.

It's interesting to see some posit that we need to ignore the debt and work on reviving business. The problem with that position is that the reason the debt is so high, and that the business climate is so weak, are the same: A decade of phenomenal growth in the ...

Posted Mon, Aug 8, 8:19 a.m.

"Call it “same-sex union” instead of “gay marriage” and the heat goes right out of the fight." And this is the elemental part of the debate that the popular press insists on glossing over. "Marriage" is a term that has a definite and well-accepted meaning amongst a vast majority of ...

Posted Fri, Aug 5, 11:47 a.m.

Business is so distasteful. Mr. Gering obviously has an unhealthy obsession with business that is just greedy capitalism run amok. And anyone who drives a car is a self-centered elitist who must be taught the virtue of sacrificing himself to the demands of the opinion-making professionally dispossessed. Seattle can lead ...

Posted Thu, Aug 4, 8:29 a.m.

Interesting piece. I can just imagine the headline this article would receive in the popular press: Hover Cars in Your Future? Scientists Say Newton Tricked Einstein on Theory of Gravity"

Posted Wed, Aug 3, 10:01 a.m.

David Brewster writes: "As for the origins of the tunnel idea, it's not fair to say it's flawed because the Discovery Institute has Republicans in it and likes intelligent design." Are we talking "intelligent design" as it relates to creationism or civil engineering?

Posted Tue, Aug 2, 11:57 a.m.

This was a very interesting piece, and it was useful to learn that there is more to this story than just a tale of single-issue dullards staggering towards a least-efficient solution. The one line I found fascinating was "...how unpopular Seattle is in Olympia...". That certainly isn't the impression one ...

Posted Mon, Aug 1, 8:20 a.m.

It's the flip side of "Build it and they will come." "Tear it down and they will leave." Seattle is really doing everything within its power to make itself a place to avoid. The operative phrases in this article are: "[The viaducts] were built in 1972 as the first part ...

Posted Fri, Jul 29, 7:44 a.m.

Greece is in trouble precisely because its government has promised every citizen not just a welfare state, but a gravy train state. The government is incapable of paying for everything it has promised. This is the fate the US faces. You can't just keep relying on the government to cater ...

Posted Tue, Jul 26, 12:39 p.m.

People hook their rain gutters into municipal sewer systems? I never would have guessed that. Then again, I've never lived on a sewer system.

Posted Tue, Jul 26, 12:35 p.m.

And if the worker refuses to join this ersatz union? Will they still pay her the benefit from the "bank" they are "managing?" ...Yeah, I thought so.

Posted Fri, Jul 22, 10:09 a.m.

All too often, when the state does a cost/benefit study (which isn't all to often), the only thing examined is the costs and benefits to the state, not to the people. So, for instance, a massively expensive advertising campaign for the numbers racket... uh... lottery continues, while the tourism office ...

Posted Tue, Jul 19, 5:29 p.m.

Again it bears repeating that the vast majority of traffic on the Viaduct is going through Seattle, not within Seattle. That traffic can't just disappear into buses and bike lanes. It will move to I-5, I-405 and the ferry system. Money will need to be spent upgrading those, or people ...

Posted Tue, Jul 19, 12:03 p.m.

It's encouraging that some of the most aggressive US reporting on this scandal is being done by the Wall Street Journal. Murdoch promised a "fire wall" of sorts between his "halo" American publication and the more tawdry press outlets he oversees. So far, it seems to be working.

Posted Wed, Jul 13, 1:50 p.m.

That was a sweeping generalization on my part. I should have said "...when many on the left..."

Posted Wed, Jul 13, 12:50 p.m.

It all goes to demonstrate that when those on the left complain about abuses of government power, what they really detest is a Republican at the controls of the monster. The monster is just great; but keep the GOP away from its controls. The problem is that the monster exists ...

Posted Tue, Jul 12, 6:32 p.m.

At a time when Social Security is careening towards insolvency, it seems non sequitur to talk about cutting the tax that funds it. I think it's also a fallacy to say that only the self-employed "pay twice." Even though the mechanism of having employers pay half of the payroll tax ...

Posted Tue, Jul 12, 11:44 a.m.

Here's some that might work: Amtsgebäude (Office buildings) Arbeitsfreude (Enjoyment of work) Betriebsgebäude (Premises) Wiedersehensfreude (Happiness in seeing again) (Although I assume the question was rhetorical)

Posted Mon, Jul 11, 8:21 a.m.

There's no revelation in the fact that many on the left see the Eeeevil Mr. Murdoch's troubles as a vindication of their hatred of Fox News. And yet America's most scandal-crossed paper, the New York Times, just keeps churning the issues out. Good thing they know their audience.

Posted Mon, Jul 11, 8:02 a.m.

Part of the problem with the future that never was, was that both the presidents who started and ended the moon program, Kennedy and Nixon, had cynical (or at least divided) reasons for supporting space exploration in the first place. Kennedy didn't care a whit for pushing mankind to the ...

Posted Sat, Jul 9, 8:54 a.m.

Every few years, the state trots out some study or other that purports to show what a wonderful business environment Washington has. These reports always leave me scratching my head; they sound soothing and reassuring, but they don't reflect the situation on the ground. And that's their problem. They reflect ...

Posted Mon, Jul 4, 7:32 a.m.

A streamlined government, in which every whim of the majority party becomes law, would be the death of freedom in this country. Did the single-party-rule days of the Bush and Obama administrations teach the author nothing? I much prefer the slow, plodding, inefficient, constrained government of our founders. They understood ...

Posted Sun, Jul 3, 11:17 a.m.

The overcast is our friend. In the winter it's a warm comfy blanket we pull over us which prevents us from becoming Minnesota. In summer it's, as my grandfather called it, our "natural air conditioning" which kicks in after a few days in the 80s and 90s, so we can ...

Posted Fri, Jul 1, 1:50 p.m.

Even if Sonntag's primary chances of success in King County (and therefore statewide in the Seattle-dominated Democratic party) are poor, it would be nice to see him compete as the Democrats' Ron Paul. That is, the underdog "conscience" of the party who has no fear of raising uncomfortable questions. Of ...

Posted Thu, Jun 30, 9:52 a.m.

Carlson is exactly right about Sonntag, He's the best possible candidate for governor, exactly because he would clean house, and that has the comfortable mediocrities in Olympia scared to death. Therefore, he has countless enemies in the establishment. It's really a shame, but I don't think our King County overlords ...

Posted Wed, Jun 29, 11:35 a.m.

Puget Sound is a major shipping center. It's a big component of our economy. If you find the trains inconvenient, you may find the economic decline that accompanies their disappearance downright distressing.

Posted Fri, Jun 24, 9:46 a.m.

Uh oh. If I agree with pepper2000, something very, very strange is going on... Gas prices are stable; they're even going down. There is no shortage in supply. To what end was this done? It makes no sense... ...well, I suppose if you are a president with absolutely no understanding ...

Posted Thu, Jun 23, 1:08 p.m.

How about Pacific Northwest Bell?

Posted Wed, Jun 22, 1:07 p.m.

Well, if you grew up on the lower Kitsap Peninsula or Vashon Island, CenturyTel^H^H^HLink or one of it's predecessors (PTI Communications, Telephone Utilities of Washington, Island Empire Telephone, etc.) has been your phone company forever. Maybe it should be dubbed "Finholm's Field" - the Finholm family owned the first phone ...

Posted Fri, Jun 17, 7:19 a.m.

Knute, since you must be talking to a lot of people involved in the 50th anniversary, is there any talk of painting the Space Needle in its original colors for the event? And are there any pictures of the diorama from the Coliseum? Sadly, that is one part of the ...

Posted Thu, Jun 16, 9:10 a.m.

"sarah90" writes: "I don't know how many commenters actually went to Century 21 or were even alive then, but those who did go didn't think of it as the world of the future." That's an awfully sweeping generalization, isn't it? I went to the fair. I was three years old. ...

Posted Wed, Jun 15, 2:29 p.m.

So all the entrenched establishment types are lining up to oppose Sonntag? All the more reason to vote for him. Inslee is one of the people who got the state into this mess. It's hard to imagine that voters would opt for more of the same, but Washington voters do ...

Posted Wed, Jun 15, 1:23 p.m.

The difference between the vision of the future presented by the Fair, and the one presented by modern urban planners is stark. In "The World of Century 21", the world was an inviting place. Interesting, clean, beautiful and full of adventure. People were enticed to live there of their own ...

Posted Wed, Jun 15, 12:02 p.m.

I'm having a hard time understanding how "Tax Increment Financing" is any different from the housing speculation bubble that kicked off this financial panic in the first place.

Posted Tue, Jun 14, 1:21 p.m.

...Britain's Great City Attractions, which planned to move, build and operate the wheel, hasn't been able to secure liability insurance. Isn't that always the case in the US? Just think how much fun we've been deprived of simply because of the fear of ambulance chasing lawyers. Hopefully the waterfront wheel ...

Posted Mon, Jun 13, 1:32 p.m.

Don't forget one of Huntington's non-sports related contributions to Puget Sound culture, KLAY-FM, the groundbreaking "progressive rock" station of the 1970s! Friends of mine got FM converters for their cars just to listen to that station. Speaking of announcers covering out of town games, please don't forget Bob Robertson who ...

Posted Mon, Jun 13, 8:20 a.m.

Sonntag is the one shining star in a state government filled with empire-building bureaucrats and power-hungry legislators. Of course the Democrats hate him. If we were a Republican-run state, the Republicans would hate him, too. The reason is simple: he finds the tentacles of power and corruption woven into the ...

Posted Wed, Jun 1, 9:50 a.m.

It's still hard to understand exactly what Sarah Palin wants to do with her life, besides being famous.

Posted Wed, Jun 1, 9:32 a.m.

The irony in all this is that the tunnel was originally offered as an expensive sop to Seattle residents who squealed like harpooned penguins at the prospect of the Viaduct not coming down. Now they seem to want to have their cake and refuse it, too. There are only two ...

Posted Fri, May 27, 8:35 p.m.

Conservative? What makes you think I'm a conservative?

Posted Fri, May 27, 6:12 a.m.

lorenbliss writes: "Yep, it's all just capitalism in action." That is certainly an interesting and entertaining interpretation of capitalism. (At least, as entertaining as trying to read a 106-word sentence can be at 6:00 in the morning.) But all the things you complain about are government actions, not the actions ...

Posted Thu, May 26, 7:56 a.m.

"As a result, costs to employers are among the bottom third for states..." If that's the case, then why is the expense of Washington's plan so frequently cited as one of the major disadvantages of doing business in this state?

Posted Thu, May 26, 7:33 a.m.

To say that Gregoire's stance on marijuana is evidence that she "acts like a Republican" ignores the fact that The War on Drugs has always been a bipartisan abuse of government power. If anything, one could argue that this state had a much more tolerant drug enforcement policy under Dan ...

Posted Tue, May 24, 9:39 a.m.

Do you really think Mossback is a stooge for "Big Charity"?

Posted Mon, May 23, 12:39 p.m.

Agreed. I had to go to Mass' blog to discover what this teaser was referring to.

Posted Fri, May 20, 12:16 p.m.

It appears from the picture that the plan is to relocate Alaskan Way east to where the Viaduct is now, and push the sea wall east as well, to create a beach. Is that correct? And that beach is supposed to be a pleasant place to be? How is that ...

Posted Wed, May 18, 10:12 a.m.

"Seattle Parks and Rec says the structures 'promoted unwelcome activities,' so all but one gave way to flat concrete pavement with the park’s redo in 2005." I think this is the gist of it. Seattle's coddling attitude towards vagrants and addicts leaves the city with a surfeit of people prone ...

Posted Tue, May 17, 12:15 p.m.

Gingrich has about as much chance of being elected as Ralph Nader. He claims to be deeply religious, yet he's now on his third religion as well as his third wife. Either he's venue-shopping, or God is playing real head games with him. He's intelligent, but he's also flighty in ...

Posted Tue, May 17, 11:48 a.m.

Two or three times a day, the city would turn blue and need to be rebooted.

Posted Wed, May 11, 1:13 p.m.

"It was not the coast we know today, but the coast that was flooded when the ice melted and sea level rose." One is tempted to make a joke about the first victims of global warming... However, this is genuinely fascinating stuff. Any time scientific discoveries force us to reexamine ...

Posted Mon, May 9, 2:46 p.m.

According to my Dad, who was in the Army reserve, the best S-O-S was served at the Fort Lawton Officers' Club.

Posted Sat, May 7, 8:29 p.m.

(I don't get this "@" stuff, so here we go without it... :-) ) Still curious on your views of how a simple majority can enact extra-constitutional restrictions on the legislatures powers. Extra-constitutional? Can't be done. That doesn't mean that the Constitution cannot be more protective of our rights than ...

Posted Sat, May 7, 1:06 p.m.

"Correct me if I'm wrong..." OK, here's how you're wrong in characterizing (or more accurately, burlesquing) what I said. Taxes aren't theft, but they do harm people. Government needs a certain amount of tax revenue to function, but government does not have a moral right to take anything that the ...

Posted Sat, May 7, 8:41 a.m.

I choose to look at it this way: If someone wants to take something of mine by force, they'd better be able to make a damned good argument for it. An argument so good that it might convince, say, a supermajority of listeners that their need for my money outweighs ...

Posted Thu, May 5, 1:08 p.m.

Raising taxes is not a neutral matter, like declaring Seagull Appreciation Week. Higher taxes hurt people. Is requiring a supermajority to raise taxes undemocratic? Yes, but in the strict sense of the word, democracy is just mob rule with the force of law. We live in a Republic. Under that ...

Posted Wed, May 4, 11:38 a.m.

Mossback writes: "It galls the American right wing that Obama did what George W. Bush could not." I have not heard any of this galled response from those on the right. In fact, I've read that even Dick Cheney and Rush Limbaugh congratulated the president. It's a fallacious argument, anyway, ...

Posted Mon, May 2, 5:36 a.m.

Bobo, huh? Once again Seattle tries to play catch-up to Tacoma. Ivan at the B and I Circus Store is obviously the gorilla Puget Sound loved best.

Posted Fri, Apr 29, 8:15 a.m.

Just because Trump is a scummy guy involved in business, it doesn't make business scummy. Free enterprise has lifted mankind out of the dark ages and into a world where even people below the poverty level have TV sets and automobiles. There are greedy and parasitic actors in government as ...

Posted Thu, Apr 21, 8:20 p.m.

Huh?

Posted Tue, Apr 19, 4:45 p.m.

What a great idea. I'm really looking forward to this book. I wish they'd repaint the Space Needle in its original colors for the anniversary.

Posted Mon, Apr 18, 8:10 a.m.

I suppose that by the standards of the Seattle latte swilling elite, any piece that is even handed and not shrill in tone must be a GOP campaign piece. Obviously the long knives are out for Rob McKenna already.

Posted Wed, Apr 13, 10:10 a.m.

The thing I found striking about this article is the reminder of the stupendous progress in manned space exploration made in the 20 years between Gagarin's flight and the Shuttle's first mission, and the almost total absence of such progress in the next 30 years. And now the meager remnant ...

Posted Tue, Apr 12, 2:36 p.m.

Anyone who believes that people can be "engineered", like machinery or environments, need only look at the three most enthusiastic practitioners of social engineering in the last century: Joseph Stalin, Adolph Hitler and Mao Zedong. This isn't name-calling, it's a simple fact of history. You cannot remake man in the ...

Posted Mon, Apr 11, 8:35 a.m.

"The state labor council’s 'demand letter' [claims] 'The state currently has 567 tax breaks on the books that cost taxpayers billions of dollars every year.' " Tax breaks cost the taxpayers billions? This kind of language is a perfect example of why the majority of taxpayers see these "public servant" ...

Posted Sun, Apr 10, 8:21 a.m.

And yet, so far no one has died. The technology is essentially safe.

Posted Fri, Apr 8, 2:12 p.m.

If there's a vote, it should include all the people in Western Washington, just like the vote for the third Narrows Bridge. Retrofitting the viaduct will win, as it should.

Posted Thu, Apr 7, 11:36 a.m.

Radiation measuring devices are incredibly sensitive. They can detect changes that are barely there. Even if the background radiation level increases several hundred percent above normal, it's only equivalent to about what you get from using CFL instead of incandescent lamps in your home, and we all know how environmentally ...

Posted Wed, Apr 6, 11:47 a.m.

Of all the Northwest train stations, Tacoma's Union Station is certainly the nicest and most beautiful (Portland comes in second). Unfortunately, it's no longer a train station. Amtrak now sets out from a hunkering little brick building near the Tideflats that makes a Trailways bus terminal look like a palace. ...

Posted Mon, Apr 4, 7:57 a.m.

Yes, renaming Mt. Rainier is extremely unlikely. Seattle civic leaders fought a long time for that name, and they would do anything to deny the hated Tacoma such a victory.

Posted Mon, Apr 4, 7:53 a.m.

That Bill Gates is a jerk, the David Sarnoff of his generation, is no revelation. That the press would treat it as one is itself a revelation. Everyone in Seattle culture loves to hate the evil businessman, even if he's not evil. But if he's paying their bills, they'll overlook ...

Posted Wed, Mar 30, 7:06 a.m.

The problem with the ersatz "surface option" is that it's no option at all. Highway 99 takes people through Seattle, not within it. All those cars can't be dumped onto city streets, and the drivers aren't going to be able to jump on a bus for two miles of their ...

Posted Tue, Mar 29, 10:18 a.m.

Was the Pacific Coast League really a Triple-A league in those days, or was it just shut out by the East Coast baseball syndicate when the American League and National Leagued merged?

Posted Tue, Mar 29, 9:58 a.m.

In the grand scheme of things, the amount of money necessary to make the hull of the Kalakala sound is trivial, and the amount necessary to do at least a visual restoration is small beer. I think part of the problem in raising such money is that there is no ...

Posted Mon, Mar 28, 8:35 a.m.

"Undocumented worker" sounds like someone who forgot his union card at home.

Posted Thu, Mar 24, 7:33 p.m.

"malamute" writes: "Actually, the 'individual mandate' enjoys a long history in the US, going back all the way to the Militia Act of 1792..." The article in the link says: "Within six months, every citizen enrolled and notified of his required militia service had to equip himself [with a firearm ...

Posted Thu, Mar 24, 10:02 a.m.

Mr. Meyer, the federal government has never required anyone to purchase a good or service from a private party before, and nowhere in the Constitution are they granted that authority. If this stands, it is in effect saying that citizens are engaging in interstate commerce just by virtue of the ...

Posted Wed, Mar 23, 12:38 p.m.

I'm not surprised that Mr. Holmes, in his hyperbolic essay, seems to be little concerned that the individual mandate is an unconstitutional abuse of federal power. Those on the left-wing of the spectrum, like those on the far right, typically care little for the Constitution and its limits on federal ...

Posted Fri, Mar 18, 1:51 p.m.

"Writer Matt Fikse lives in Seattle." So why does he care what's in the New York Times?

Posted Wed, Mar 16, 2:58 a.m.

"Even if it passed and were upheld by the courts, though, it wouldn't legally bar the state from doing whatever it wanted to do." And that neatly summarizes the entire article. This is one instance in which The Rest of the State is going to lead Seattle, not the other ...

Posted Sat, Mar 12, 12:33 a.m.

Hmmm. I still don't get the whole Seattle coffee thing. Seattle's a beer town. The coffee thing just seems so... uh... California.

Posted Thu, Mar 10, 8:43 a.m.

It's ironic that about 10 years earlier, another entrepreneur was inspired by Tivoli to create a family friendly destination that featured dining, entertainment and amusements. It was called Disneyland. In the 1980s, the Disney parks organization offered to help Seattle improve the Center. The offer, of course, was treated as ...

Posted Sat, Feb 26, 8:52 p.m.

I've been taking stereo pictures since the mid 70s, and I can tell you that the biggest impediment to stereo video will be that the people who shoot this stuff will not understand: The importance of the stereo window in space and how its location effects composition. The importance of ...

Posted Thu, Feb 24, 5:09 a.m.

"The Roman government must be a leader in keeping Rome competitive and employing our citizens." Government can do neither. Ergo the fall of Rome.

Posted Wed, Feb 23, 12:43 p.m.

That Reagan would beat out FDR is an indication that the political center in this country is closer to where it was in the 1920s than in the 1960s. I believe that Reagan will go down in history as FDR's equal. Reviled by his opponents but respected for his ability ...

Posted Wed, Feb 23, 8:59 a.m.

The fact is, sarah90, that sustainability is the zeitgeist of our current social paradigm. It's a form of synergy through teaming, don'tcha know.

Posted Tue, Feb 22, 2:12 p.m.

"Republicans tend to see transportation alternatives like mass transit as social engineering." Most people, except mass transit activists, seem to see mass transit as social engineering, and the reason for that is plain. In this state, mass transit has been the handmaiden of the social engineers. It doesn't need to ...

Posted Wed, Feb 16, 4:03 p.m.

The public station I listen to more than any other is KXOT, which owner KUOW seems to treat as an afterthought. KXOT's "castoff shows" are frequently better than the featured network fare on either KUOW or KPLU. Here's to benign neglect.

Posted Wed, Feb 16, 9:35 a.m.

For people who commuted to downtown Seattle like I once did, by ferry, the Waterfront Streetcar was the most useful piece of mass transit I've ever experienced. That is, is was useful mostly by accident. The streetcar was carefully timed to be pulling away from its station right as ferry ...

Posted Tue, Feb 15, 10:36 a.m.

TLacci writes: "In the process they destroyed what was reported to be the third most visited venue of its' type behind the two Disney parks.". And to add insult to injury, the City Fathers received a plan by Disney to refurbish the Center with shock and outrage. "How dare such ...

Posted Mon, Feb 14, 8:20 a.m.

If strip malls are going away, does that mean that one day Federal Way will simply disappear? I remember, as a little kid growing up in the Tacoma area, when all the department stores were downtown. Rhodes, the Bon, People's, Sears, etc. They all lured customers by building large parking ...

Posted Sat, Feb 12, 8:17 a.m.

"We believe that city life — lots of people living close together — is healthier, creates less damage to our air and water, is a more efficient use of land and energy, and fosters social cohesion and community." A freestanding house with a well and septic system uses far less ...

Posted Fri, Feb 11, 5:09 p.m.

Are you saying, mhayes, that the only honest commentary is a negative commentary?

Posted Fri, Feb 11, 3:10 p.m.

Certainly in Seattle the space capsule could be replaced with a surface option.

Posted Fri, Feb 11, 9:31 a.m.

What made Reagan revolutionary was that his philosophy and programs flew in the face of the perceived wisdom of the establishment Left. Obama's philosophy and programs fly with the flock of that establishment. But whereas FDR's policies were daring and even reckless in their day, Obama's are merely a return ...

Posted Wed, Feb 9, 2:59 p.m.

The "Millennium Bomber" was caught by Customs Service agents with years of experience looking for suspicious people. In essence, they use profiling (gasp!) as a tool to weed out people who are likely lawbreakers. The ham-fisted shock troops of the "Homeland" Security Department had nothing to do with that intervention, ...

Posted Tue, Feb 8, 12:05 p.m.

Referencing politicians frequent claims that "the border is overrun with violence and is out of control," Napolitano said: "This statement, often made to score political points, is just plain wrong.” Is anyone saying this about the border with Canada? The real reason that people fear border violence is because Mexico ...

Posted Thu, Feb 3, 8:51 a.m.

Ah, the Sputnik Moment. Of course, with Sputnik, the nation knew it was in a Sputnik Moment, and demanded government action. Now we have to be told when we are in a Sputnik Moment, because otherwise nobody would know. (And after ten years of ceaseless government action, people are getting ...

Posted Wed, Feb 2, 1:47 p.m.

Ted_Van_Dyk writes: "People who argue the loudest for free enterprise---many of them receiving tax subsidies---would find themselves having to practice it." And that's what separates true capitalists from influence peddlers and rent seekers. A lower tax schedule without artificial incentives, applied equally to all businesses, would be the best and ...

Posted Wed, Feb 2, 10:14 a.m.

The author posits that "...Best left for another day... is the question whether, in addition to tax policy, there are alternative tools available to state government that would increase long-term economic development and job creation?" However, if the state is to foster a more hostile business environment by raising taxes ...

Posted Tue, Feb 1, noon

I'm not clear on how savings would be realized by consolidating poor counties. There would be fewer county governments, but there would still be a need for an equal number of courts, police, fire fighters, roads, and building inspectors. In essence, all you're eliminating is "upper management." What percentage of ...

Posted Mon, Jan 31, 9:27 a.m.

Washington is a right to work state, isn't it?

Posted Thu, Jan 27, 9:22 a.m.

If John Keister is old Seattle, what does that make Bea Donovan?

Posted Tue, Jan 25, 10:34 a.m.

"GaryP" faults Republicans for "representing... insurance" and claims that "Rob McKenna has showed [sic] his true colors by opposing the Health Care bill. He's swinging right to get the GOP firmly under him..." This analysis ignores the fact that the "individual mandate" (the constitutionality of which McKenna is challenging) was ...

Posted Mon, Jan 24, 11:35 a.m.

I've got "The Black Ball Ferry Line" in the jukebox in my living room. It's by Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters, although it was covered by a couple other bands that I know of. Of all the ferries mentioned in the song, the last ones still in service were ...

Posted Mon, Jan 24, 9:48 a.m.

"jmrolls" writes: "Wouldn't you make sure you could pay for the basics before you started ordering the leopard skin couches?" If you could find a way to make ferries run on rails, government officials would be jumping all over each other to fund them.

Posted Mon, Jan 24, 8:45 a.m.

I'm curious: If socialism and libertarianism are "the far left and far right", then were does religious conservatism of the type espoused by the likes of Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson fit into the mix? Liberals and conservatives both see a role for government in limiting personal freedom and personal ...

Posted Fri, Jan 21, 3:24 p.m.

"seattlelifer" writes: "To start with, the Black Ball line was taken over because they were going to raise rates on the boats higher than people wanted to pay and they wanted to remove minor routes." There's more to the story than this. All throughout WWII, the employees of the Black ...

Posted Wed, Jan 19, 10:58 a.m.

"Quatermass" writes" "First, understand that 'McDonnell Douglas' was McDonnell, and then added Douglas. Second, 'McDonnell Douglas' stopped being 'McDonnell Douglas' when John F. McDonnell took over from 'Sandy' McDonnell. [Then they] let that offensive jackass Stonecipher in..." Which team was in charge when DC-10s were dropping out of the skies ...

Posted Tue, Jan 18, 2:33 p.m.

"Great Recession?" What's great about a recession? "Recession" was a word invented by politicians to imply something less worse than a depression. You can't have a great recession any more than you can have a towering dwarf or a gigantic pebble. If it's merely a recession, call it a recession; ...

Posted Tue, Jan 18, 11:05 a.m.

This article covers a lot of ground, but I take its message to be that political correctness, whether in the passive form of exercising the "N-word" from Twain's work (a word which he usually puts in scare quotes in his personal writings), or the active form of recently blaming conservative ...

Posted Sat, Jan 15, 12:11 p.m.

(Meant to write thanks for a thoughtful piece.)

Posted Sat, Jan 15, 12:10 p.m.

So, the Arizona shooter isn't working for Sarah Palin?! Damn! Seriously, that's for a thoughtful piece. After this week, it's refreshing.

Posted Tue, Jan 11, 4:14 p.m.

Yarrow, I don't believe that you are one of the opportunists. But there seem to be a lot of them out there. Maybe you have heard more from the likes of Limbaugh, Beck, et al, than I have. But I've never heard any of them say that the people who ...

Posted Mon, Jan 10, 8:44 p.m.

The losingest team to ever make the playoffs. How Totally Seattle. That's not an insult... ...much.

Posted Mon, Jan 10, 7:53 p.m.

Self proclaimed "mental health professional" Yarrow writes: "But these days in this country it is so-called conservatives like Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Pailin [sic] who are pushing the envelope on a mode of public discourse that is edgy, filled with contempt and fear and scapegoating and violent metaphors. ...

Posted Mon, Jan 10, 8:54 a.m.

"...the truth is, both sides are guilty of fanning the flames." ...Including Mr. Robinson. I realize that for many people, Sarah Palin is the biggest threat facing our nation today, but to suggest that she apologize for the actions of a madman is itself mad. Ms. Palin's "gunsights" look ominously ...

Posted Mon, Jan 10, 8:10 a.m.

"I knew a man who believed that his every thought was tapped by the government." Oh, so you've met my former brother in law. My condolences. But seriously... I'd be interested in knowing, Knute, how you would compare the insanity you credit the political right with today with the insanity ...

Posted Fri, Jan 7, 8:55 a.m.

"orino" writes: "We might even get to see network musical chairs again, just like in 1995 when CBS moved to channel 11." KTNT (11) was the Puget Sound market's CBS affiliate until 1958, and for several years KTVW (13) was the NBC affiliate. That meant that the two major networks ...

Posted Fri, Jan 7, 8:49 a.m.

"...and the name taken from the real Mister Starbucks, first mate on the fictional Pequod in Moby Dick, reinforced that." And here I'd always thought is was named after Dirk Benedict's character on "Battlestar Galactica."

Posted Wed, Jan 5, 10:37 a.m.

Huntingdon’s offer puts the value of Fisher’s holdings at about $211 million. Oh come now, Dan Lewis' hair is worth more than that!

Posted Tue, Jan 4, 10:03 a.m.

Public sector unions are not the same as private sector unions. In the private sector, the employers and unions form an adversarial check and balance of each other's power over the (presumably) hapless employees. In the public sector, the employers are elected by the workers and their unions. They have ...

Posted Tue, Jan 4, 9:57 a.m.

There is plenty of waste in Washington government, but the issue is not addressed by closing down libraries, parks and museums. These are core services of government and amount to a pittance in the budget when compared to the lavish benefits packages that the government's ruling elite, the public employees' ...

Posted Mon, Jan 3, 8:55 a.m.

I sent my last two rolls of Kodachrome, shot on my Stereo Realist, in to be processed a couple weeks ago. The last shot on the last roll was a time exposure of my Christmas tree. Digital cameras are great for getting images on the web fast, but I still ...

Posted Wed, Dec 29, 9:37 a.m.

Stewart is a darling of the popular press, and so they ascribe more influence to him than he actually has. This is the first I've heard that he even has an opinion at all about the welfare of New York's first responders. I'd bet that 95% of my fellow citizens ...

Posted Tue, Dec 28, 10:49 a.m.

Hydro doesn't add to the "carbon footprint" either. So why treat it the same as energy sources which do? If 100% (rather than 73%) of our power came from hydroelectricity, we'd have a zero carbon footprint. A cynic might speculate that the only reason hydro power isn't considered "green" is ...

Posted Tue, Dec 28, 8:51 a.m.

The law should be changed to include hydro power as renewable. The Legislature has no qualms about modifying or repealing other citizen initiatives, why not this one? The fact that this law has remained uncorrected shows that this is more feel-good pop-enviro psychotherapy than energy policy. As a Peninsula Light ...

Posted Wed, Dec 22, 9 a.m.

"GaryP" writes: "What is totally ridiculous is that "Christmas Trees" are a Druid tradition that was taken over by modern Christians." And many of the other traditions we associate with Christmas, such as partying, giving gifts and decorating homes, come from Saturnalia. I always get a laugh when some rather ...

Posted Tue, Dec 21, 10:48 a.m.

I wish I could find a recording of "Christmas in Seattle". He always sang that on his show. The only line I remember is something about "The lights on the KING-5 TV tower, the star on the Bon Marche." Macy's. Bah - Humbug!

Posted Mon, Dec 20, 8:34 a.m.

I think Stan Boreson's best Christmas album is his first (with Doug Setterberg): "Stan and Doug Yust Go Nuts at Christmas." It features all the songs I remember him playing on his show (in addition to the title song). "I was Santa Claus at the Schoolhouse", "Ho, Ho, Ho, Don't ...

Posted Fri, Dec 17, 10:19 a.m.

This is a fascinating story. I'd always heard of Canlis, but never given it much of a second thought; it was a "Seattle thing" that didn't seem relevant to those of us in the South Sound. Now I might give it a try.

Posted Fri, Dec 17, 9:45 a.m.

It's pretty safe to assume that neither Boeing nor Microsoft would be as prosperous without their tax breaks. Or, they might be prosperous, but no longer based in Washington. (Yeah, yeah, Boeing's in Chicago, but that could change when the McDonnel-Douglas deadwood gets weeded out.) The big question is why ...

Posted Thu, Dec 16, 8:56 p.m.

An entity self-styled as "marine_mammal" writes: "As the 1/2% for arts is a program component of another budget (the transportation budget and not the general fund which is the budget under the axe now) it is not applicable to this discussion." Bovine feces. It all comes out of the taxpayers' ...

Posted Thu, Dec 16, 9:16 a.m.

It's the same old story. Punish the voters by closing libraries, cutting back on police and fire protection, longer lines for permits and licenses. How many new vehicles has the state bought in the last two years? How much new office furniture? What about "1% (or whatever the percentage is) ...

Posted Wed, Dec 15, 9:15 p.m.

"R on Beacon Hill" writes: "Conservatives rage against high marginal tax rates, claiming they 'are not good for an economy', and if that's true, how come the economy did so well in the 1950's when the top rate was something like 90%?" Because most of the rest of the industrialized ...

Posted Wed, Dec 15, 10:35 a.m.

Sorry for the insult, pepper2000, but someone who knows something about economics should know that confiscatory levels of taxation are not good for an economy, and that's what you suggested. My guess may have been a wild one, but it did have a basis in what you wrote. Years ago ...

Posted Wed, Dec 15, 6:23 a.m.

"pepper2000" writes: "I would set 70% as a fair highest tax bracket, to set in at perhaps one million dollars. The economy was doing better--lower unemployment, more affordable cost of living, etc.--when we are at this level than now." You're confusing correlation with causation. I'll go out on a limb ...

Posted Tue, Dec 14, 2:50 p.m.

I was waiting for the author to tell us what the perfect, fair and just tax rate for "the rich and very rich" is, but it's nowhere to be found. So apparently, he believes that it's simply more. This reminds one of the scene in "Key Largo" in which Frank ...

Posted Wed, Dec 8, 3:06 p.m.

Portland to Vancouver BC is the low hanging fruit of high speed rail, like New York to DC. I'm waiting to see how this transit model plays out in the context of, say, Chicago to Dallas or even Spokane to Missoula.

Posted Mon, Dec 6, 7:51 a.m.

The German system is instructive (no pun intended). High school kids going on to college receive a 13th year of public education, and graduate with the equivalent of a community college Associate's degree. Those who wish to go on to vocational training can graduate after 11 or twelve years (depending ...

Posted Sat, Dec 4, 9:01 a.m.

The Puget Sound Region's mass transportation plan is not supposed to clear up congestion. Its purpose it to make owning a motor vehicle as painful as possible. Once you understand that, it all makes sense.

Posted Fri, Dec 3, 9:11 a.m.

I don't think Socialists should be tortured, GaryP. They should be executed on the spot. :-)

Posted Fri, Dec 3, 9:05 a.m.

"More than a century later local governments can't stoke local economic development by lowering the cost of capital expenditures for a business that wants to locate in the state or for homeowners who want to make energy efficiencies in their home." Funny, I'd have worded this statement a little differently: ...

Posted Fri, Dec 3, 8:58 a.m.

How timely! I need a new umbrella. And a couple spares. Maybe I'll swing through Seattle and take some. And a few to give as Christmas presents. Everyone loves logo'ed clothing and accessories. Thanks, Seattle taxpayers!

Posted Wed, Dec 1, 9:50 a.m.

If we're going to train them to be successful leaders in their countries of origin, we'd better start teaching them how to be bloodthirsty mobsters and corrupt politicians. Countries like Mexico are failed states.

Posted Wed, Dec 1, 9:46 a.m.

The state should not be providing a service that private industry can provide. That's the way a free society works. That simple truth may not be popular in these environs, but that doesn't make it wrong.

Posted Tue, Nov 30, 7:10 a.m.

"This story originally appeared in the Los Angeles Times." Ah, well that explains the irrelevant reference to the California Supreme Court. Kids like this are effectively American, but their parents are still illegal aliens. As long as this program does not allow the parents to do an end-run around the ...

Posted Tue, Nov 23, 2:33 p.m.

What's in that phone-book-sized health care bill that Congress just passed, Mr. Fox? There's a whole heck of a lot more there than just "setting minimum standards and requiring full participation." I'd say that you and I simply have different definitions of how much intrusion into a market constitutes "running" ...

Posted Tue, Nov 23, 12:25 p.m.

I agree with Mr. St Clair. The problem with both the student and the parent is that they seem to be conditioned above all else to see themselves as victims and therefore they can't see past that to perceive the irony in the writing. This mindset is resulting in a ...

Posted Tue, Nov 23, 10:04 a.m.

Are you saying, R, that Dino Rossi is the Al Gore of Washington politics?

Posted Tue, Nov 23, 9:57 a.m.

The government may not be the insurer, Mr. Fox, but it is definitely running the system.

Posted Tue, Nov 23, 9:09 a.m.

Next up: Incompetent, corrupt bureaucrats demand the "suspension" of Atlas Shrugged because it casts aspersions on their chosen profession. That is, if it isn't banned already.

Posted Mon, Nov 22, 8:19 a.m.

The damage done to this state's Republican party by Ellen Craswell and her fall-on-their-swords supporters is only now starting to dissipate, and the reason is certainly the top-two primary system. After Craswell's troops took over the caucuses and conventions in this state, there was a tremendous surge in popularity of ...

Posted Sat, Nov 20, 10:13 a.m.

Yarrow, I too believe in strong and vigorous enforcement in areas where it has a positive impact. The problem is one of diminishing returns. Government regulators seem to use the number of regulations passed as a positive measure of their performance. However, one can make the case that "All the ...

Posted Fri, Nov 19, 8:47 a.m.

Yarrow writes: "That's like having the head of the plumbers' union declare that because the city's having too many sewage backups, there will be a moratorium on plumbing work for a year." That would be a good analogy if most state regulations were beneficial, but unfortunately, most are onerous and ...

Posted Thu, Nov 18, 7:40 a.m.

"But the problem with Gregoire's approach is that is undercuts the notion that government is part of the solution, not part of the problem." I may not have been paying much attention, but I missed which of our current problems government has not been part of. That may sound flip, ...

Posted Thu, Nov 18, 7:25 a.m.

The truly surprising thing about this article is that the author was himself surprised by the fact that the oh-so-very-provincial New York Times doesn't know there's anything west of the Mississippi except California. Why does anyone outside New York read that newspaper?

Posted Sun, Nov 14, 3:36 p.m.

"shoreline" writes: "Really sad that so much of the Hispanic community is embracing lawlessness and dependancy, rather than self-reliance and the rule of law." Sad, yes; but not surprising, given that that's the culture they grew up with in Mexico. In the past, people came to America to become Americans. ...

Posted Wed, Nov 10, 12:58 p.m.

I've got to agree with "pika" that it's mistaken to characterize Tacoma as a sort of homogenous suburb of Seattle. Tacoma is the hub of its own social and economic region that encompasses everything from the southern Kitsap Peninsula to Mount Rainier. And there is a whole mosaic of socioeconomic ...

Posted Mon, Nov 8, 8:41 a.m.

I don't see a "...a greater isolation of the urban centers from their state legislature..." in Olympia. On the contrary, King County seems to call the shots in Olympia as well. Look at the rash of tax-repealing initiatives in this election. That was a direct reaction to the Governor's and ...

Posted Sat, Nov 6, 12:08 p.m.

"I order chicken fried steak with sausage gravy, eggs, and hash browns, the kind of thing you would order in no other place. It is in its own way disgusting; it is in its own way incredibly delicious and I wolf it down." I've eaten at Randy's exactly once. It ...

Posted Thu, Nov 4, 4:33 p.m.

Gotta hand it to you Mossback, you took an election cycle that was largely a repudiation of the current crop of Democrats and their return to the New Deal, and turned it into an end zone dance for ersatz progressives. Skillful writing.

Posted Wed, Nov 3, 1:32 p.m.

GaryP writes: "...there are plenty of observations that those on the right, have gathered in their tent the group that believes God created the earth about 6,000 years ago." True enough. But there are plenty of crackpots to go around; the right has not cornered the market in that regard. ...

Posted Wed, Nov 3, 11:53 a.m.

The problem with the author's analysis is the assumption that those on the left are motivated by science and reason, and those on the right are motivated by emotion and a simplistic world outlook. There's a word for this: Hubris. There is little to indicate that those on the left ...

Posted Tue, Nov 2, 4:03 p.m.

An entity self-styled as "reverandmoney" writes: "...or we can have a guy (Rossi) with zero seniority whose only power will be to do what he is told by the big boys and take the scraps they allow him to have." And this would make him substantially different from Murray in ...

Posted Mon, Nov 1, 7:57 a.m.

I watched most of this as I worked around the house, so I wasn't riveted to the screen. That would have been a little painful (even metaphorically speaking) as the show did not come off well. It had the feeling of a hastily thrown-together USO show or high school talent ...

Posted Sat, Oct 30, 8:36 p.m.

...And I apologize to everyone for the typos.

Posted Sat, Oct 30, 8:34 p.m.

Back when I worked in downtown Seattle, the trolley line seemed like a lifesaver. Unfortunately, for those of us who rode the Bremerton ferry, the trolley line was devoted to Bainbridge passengers, so if you saw the trolley at the station when the ferry landed, you'd be assured that it ...

Posted Fri, Oct 29, 4:40 p.m.

"...so far Republican areas of the state are returning their ballots at a higher rate than are Democratic areas of the state... I heard a report on Fox News yesterday that ballots from Republican strongholds are coming in slower than expected, and they blamed Rossi's distancing of himself from the ...

Posted Thu, Oct 28, 12:05 p.m.

andy, I think you have a good point. My point was that atheist is a terrible word for these people; something different is needed. And to David Sucher, I think we do basically agree, as apparently does Benjamin Lukoff. The problem with the people Havel decries is that they don't ...

Posted Thu, Oct 28, 11:51 a.m.

Universal absentee voting is a bad idea, period. I'm very glad to live in Pierce County where I can and do vote at a polling place, on election day, with all the facts at my disposal, and with my neighbors. But for the vast majority of Washingtonians, the phrase "Election ...

Posted Thu, Oct 28, 7:55 a.m.

David Sucher writes: "But you are talking about whether atheism is 'petty and counter-productive.'¨ What I'm saying is that the antitheists, those who rail against religion, are engaged in a battle that is frequently petty and counter-productive. I'm not sure if they have awe in anything other than their own ...

Posted Wed, Oct 27, 3:08 p.m.

David Sucher writes: "So what examples can you offer?" In addition to what I mentioned in my original post, I'm talking about the types of frivolous lawsuits designed to get "In God We Trust" off our currency, or to prevent religious groups from using school facilities for private meetings, or ...

Posted Wed, Oct 27, 1:50 p.m.

The "massive fiscal stimulus" that the government engaged in beginning in 1939 was in the form of purchasing products from companies. That is much different from the type of "stimulus" that's been going on in this cycle. The need to get the economy running again was the reason that FDR ...

Posted Wed, Oct 27, 11:42 a.m.

I don't know what they feel in their hearts and minds; all I know is their actions. I fault them for their vendetta against religion. I'm not a religious person, but I don't consider religion my enemy, and I have plenty of awe and wonder about the world. I don't ...

Posted Wed, Oct 27, 10:21 a.m.

I think that Havel's definition of atheism is quite applicable to the Madalyn Murray O'Hair style of atheists who you frequently see protesting about a manger scene in the town square or who want to tear down war memorials that feature crosses. But these people aren't atheistic at all. Religion ...

Posted Wed, Oct 27, 9:54 a.m.

I'm talking about a stable regulatory environment. If the rules of the game change from week to week, it's very difficult to know what kind of environment you're going to be operating in months or years down the road.

Posted Tue, Oct 26, 9:58 a.m.

Ohmygawd -- And here I thought the author was talking about the crash of 2008 -- but no! He's actually talking about the crash on 1929! The awesomeness of this irony is almost too great a burden for this reader to bear! :-) But seriously, what's the point of repeating ...

Posted Sun, Oct 24, 7:28 a.m.

"The conversation that followed showed him to be extremely well versed in economics, healthcare, education reform, the media, and politics." I'll grant that the president is well-versed in healthcare, education reform, the media, and politics. But economics? He's done nothing to indicate any grasp of that subject. He persists in ...

Posted Sun, Oct 24, 7:17 a.m.

So, I get the impression that friend Quinn is very big on this Harry Potter stuff.

Posted Sun, Oct 24, 6:40 a.m.

There are no campaign signs in people's yards in my neighborhood this year. The typical "volunteer thickets" at stop signs are there, but no personal signs (except my Sanders for Supreme Court sign). Signage in the area around here in the past has averaged a ratio of 2 Democratic to ...

Posted Fri, Oct 22, 8:31 p.m.

My god, does science count for nothing at the Pacific Science Center? In addition to all the latter-day junk cluttering up the courtyard, let's add the Stevens' house from "Betwitched", or some of Erich von Däniken's ancient astronauts, or maybe even some stained glass windows explaining creationism. I'm trying to ...

Posted Thu, Oct 21, 7:18 p.m.

By the way, I've found KXOT (91.7) to be far and away the most interesting public station in the Puget Sound region. By taking the scraps that KUOW won't broadcast, they get most of my in-car listening time.

Posted Thu, Oct 21, 7:14 p.m.

My opinion of NPR took a nosedive today on news that they unceremoniously sacked veteran news analyst Juan Williams for daring to suggest that he (and by extrapolation, other regular Americans) might feel anxiety at seeing people in traditional Muslim dress at an airport. For daring to give voice to ...

Posted Thu, Oct 14, 2:24 p.m.

Speaking to what "Pythagoras" said, I think there's a lot to Richard Florida's theory; in fact I'd go so far as to say it's rather obvious. As an example, there were creative people before the Renaissance, but they weren't able to accomplish much until a creative atmosphere surrounded them. Capitalism ...

Posted Thu, Oct 14, 2:08 p.m.

I'm not a right-winger, busterg. But I oppose any income tax unless it is part of a comprehensive tax reform package. Just adding one more tax is not reform.

Posted Thu, Oct 14, 9:27 a.m.

"Boeing defines us." And McDonnell-Douglas executives define Boeing. But in all fairness, the Jews in Auschwitz weren't weren't sent there for blowing up German buildings. They were sent there simply for being Jewish. Many terrorists were relying on turning western culture's native virtues into a weapon against us. We wouldn't ...

Posted Thu, Oct 14, 8:59 a.m.

I don't understand why a boomer can't also be a sticker. Is the point of this theory that the people who drive business expansion are mostly out-of-towners who pillage and plunder like vikings and leave the "stickers" to clean up the mess? I see precious few examples of that in ...

Posted Wed, Oct 13, 8:32 p.m.

"Soda"? Do you mean the chemical element Na? After reading the article, it seems we're talking about pop here.

Posted Fri, Oct 8, 9:52 a.m.

A correction to my first comment: The scrubbing equipment shed is to the LEFT of the cylindrical tower in the color picture.

Posted Fri, Oct 8, 9:47 a.m.

"kilgoretrout" asks "Is THIS the source of the infamous 'aroma of Tacoma'?" No. There was a lot of industry on the Tideflats that contributed to it, but the smelter wasn't part of it. I never associated a sulfurous smell in the mix, but there was a lot of industry there, ...

Posted Fri, Oct 8, 8:52 a.m.

Seattle's Bike Nazis are, as a whole, a pretty insufferable bunch of narcissistic jerks. If the City of Seattle needs more revenue, license and tax bicycles, and make them behave like vehicles. As a pedestrian or a motorist, I can't decide from one moment to another which one I wish ...

Posted Thu, Oct 7, 10 a.m.

I think we taxpayers have absorbed about as much of "the national agenda" that we can take in one year. Please, please, voters, bring us back the stability and safety of divided government. Single-party rule is for tyrants, no matter which single party they belong to. Congress is in recess ...

Posted Thu, Oct 7, 9:53 a.m.

The "smokestack" in the color picture is actually part of the scrubbing equipment (more of which was located in and around the shed to its right) that in later years removed much of the pollution from the output of the plant. Very little smoke emerged from the smokestack in the ...

Posted Tue, Oct 5, 5:25 p.m.

If I felt “at home" here, it was because I had friends and meaningful work here, and everything was so familiar I didn't think about it much. Isn't that the essence if feeling at home someplace? I've lived on the Kitsap Peninsula all my life, and my family has been ...

Posted Sat, Oct 2, 12:43 p.m.

Even if I accept your premise, Cameron, that Mr. Vance is a political shill (and I see no evidence of that except for your assertion), that "fact" in and of itself does not mean that he cannot be trusted to analyze poll numbers. Are you implying that he is making ...

Posted Sat, Oct 2, 9:26 a.m.

Still isn't cleared up for me. What in the world does all of this have to do with the story?

Posted Fri, Oct 1, 9:30 a.m.

What in the world does that have to do with this story?

Posted Sat, Sep 25, 10:19 a.m.

The problem with your argument, "benmc", is that you are addressing a group of people who are by and large so narcissistic that they cannot feel empathy for anyone, especially those whose prosperity they resent, for the simple fact that it is not their own.

Posted Fri, Sep 24, 9:05 a.m.

So, if you pass an unconstitutional law, the solution is to change the Constitution, not the law? I may be a worrywart here, but it just seems to me that this might be a bad precedent. Just maybe. And I can't help but notice that the photo caption says, intriguingly, ...

Posted Fri, Sep 24, 8:57 a.m.

In the final analysis, this is just one more tax that, once implemented, will be spread to a wider and wider base and raised along with all the rest. This state needs real tax reform, not just the piling on of more taxes. The people can't afford more government. We ...

Posted Fri, Sep 24, 8:45 a.m.

Professor Lazowska's statement "Yes, the legislature should be smarter about how it spends money, and may monkey with 1098 after a few years. (So, it’s your legislature — elect a different one!)" is dripping with disingenuousness. He should know that as long as Seattle dominates our state's politics, the chance ...

Posted Fri, Sep 17, 9:12 p.m.

"kieth" writes: "Cars are really pretty efficient if you have the full passenger load. I'm not talking about Corvettes or Miatas..." Actually, traditional roadsters (like the Miata) are rather efficient. Corvettes, on the other hand...

Posted Fri, Sep 17, 3:55 p.m.

"seattlelifer" writes: "When will people realize that we subsidize roads for truck traffic? We don’t need hiways built the way they are, except for the truck traffic." I'm not sure how the construction of our highways is specifically optimized for trucks. Can you give an example? But there are way ...

Posted Fri, Sep 17, 12:11 p.m.

There used to be Grey Line bus service from Tacoma to Mt. Rainier. Was that discontinued? I know that using such a service would require Seattleites to actually go to Tacoma, but thousands of people a day go to Tacoma, and somehow their self esteem survives. There are rail lines ...

Posted Fri, Sep 17, 11:32 a.m.

Which Armory are we talking about? The one in the Seattle Center known as the Food Circus? If so, moving the museum to the Center seems like a very good idea.

Posted Thu, Sep 16, 3:55 p.m.

"arties4453" writes: "Many capital improvements were accomplished (I-5 for one) to be ready for the Fair." In 1962, I-5 ended in Tukwila, didn't it? I-5 wasn't completed through Seattle until the mid-60s. What was completed in time for the fair was SR-599, which connects I-5 to then-US-99. But I agree ...

Posted Mon, Sep 13, 7:43 p.m.

The tunnel was proposed as a sop to those in Seattle who wanted the viaduct gone at any expense (and what it expense it will be), while still allowing traffic to move on this state highway relatively unimpeded. If Seattle doesn't want the tunnel, fine. There is an option which, ...

Posted Mon, Sep 13, 7:34 p.m.

Sorry I missed that, Mike.

Posted Mon, Sep 13, 9:15 a.m.

Well, the "a href" link didn't work. Part one is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dkT2iLetCTc

Posted Mon, Sep 13, 9:14 a.m.

Well, ignoring the fact that Disney World is thousands of miles away from Anaheim, California, this is an issue that Walt Disney himself thought a lot about. Anyone who wants to see a real urban planning visionary pitch his scheme should watch Disney's video about (the original) EPCOT. The first ...

Posted Mon, Sep 13, 9:01 a.m.

Unlike the personal decision to stand in line for pizza, Seattle's meddling in the SR-99 project is a burden on The Rest of the State. Has the State started billing Seattle for the cost overruns yet?

Posted Mon, Sep 13, 8:33 a.m.

The Tacoma Rainiers are the Pacific Coast League's Pacific Conference champions. I know it would be surprising for a Seattle writer to give a damn about Tacoma, but the Rainiers are playing their playoff games at Safeco Field. If Seattle fans want to see a winning ball club play, now's ...

Posted Fri, Sep 10, 8:19 a.m.

An income tax might be a better way to finance state and local government, but only if it is applied equally to everyone, and only if the sales and property taxes are completely eliminated in the process. Otherwise, an income tax is just one more tax to be incremented up ...

Posted Thu, Sep 9, 8:40 a.m.

If it were cost-effective and profitable to build such trains in the US, someone would be doing it. If, on the other hand, the administration wants to take a command-economy approach to the issue, they can simply order the government's car company, GM, to produce the trains.

Posted Wed, Sep 8, 10:49 a.m.

...That's Kitsap Peninsula residents under 60.

Posted Wed, Sep 8, 10:48 a.m.

No mention of the 26th? For the first time in their voting lifetimes for Kitsap Peninsula under 60, their US Representative may not be named Norm Dicks.

Posted Thu, Sep 2, 11:19 a.m.

If Seattle fans want to see a good ball club play, it looks like the Tacoma Rainiers will be playing their home playoff games at Safeco Field because Cheney Stadium is undergoing renovation. The Rainiers usually win.

Posted Wed, Sep 1, 2:04 p.m.

The Hinderburg was designed to use helium for bouyancy, but the Roosevelt administration embargoed the gas, fearing the airships would be used for military purposes. There were plans to add extra staterooms to the Hindenburg, to take advantage of hydrogen's greater lifting capacity, at the end of that season. Of ...

Posted Mon, Aug 30, 8:25 p.m.

The Space Needle is built in what is traditionally a residential and light industrial area. There should be no problem in protecting the surrounding area from encroachment if the zoning remains the same, and the city has the will (something it typically lacks). As someone who has always seen the ...

Posted Sat, Aug 28, 8:58 p.m.

The point, Sarah, is that in a free society, people shouldn't have to worry about "getting in trouble" with fundamentalists of any stripe, foreign or domestic. The "professionally offended", no matter what their agenda, should be impotent. Sadly, we're ceding them too much power over us. [[:->

Posted Fri, Aug 27, 2:12 p.m.

"seanp" writes: "If someone drives more, they're statistically more likely to get in an accident. So why shouldn't they pay more for insurance? Right now their insurance rates are subsidized by people who don't drive that much." That's simply not true. Insurance companies do penalize drivers with longer commutes. They ...

Posted Fri, Aug 27, 9:47 a.m.

The reason that "...neither U.S. senator from Washington nor the governor nor Molly Norris's member of Congress, Rep. Jim McDermott..." has offered her support is simple. All are modern liberals (well, maybe not McDermott - he's just totally bonkers, which doesn't map well on a one-dimensional political scale). One of ...

Posted Wed, Aug 25, 5:54 p.m.

I didn't say it didn't.

Posted Wed, Aug 25, 5:52 p.m.

"LotusRally" makes a sage point. If miles driven corresponded in a positive way to probability of incurring an accident, the freeways would be littered with commercial trucks.

Posted Wed, Aug 25, 12:06 p.m.

Once again, it bears repeating that people are not just little plastic soldiers to be moved about on a central planner's map. People are individuals. They have their own priorities, goals, dreams, ambitions, likes, dislikes, feelings, emotions and desires. They are not a fungible mass that can be shaped into ...

Posted Wed, Aug 25, 9:55 a.m.

I've long said that I would support a universal income tax if the sales and property taxes were completely eliminated in the bargain. However, except for me, nobody except the good Major, above, seems to be proposing that. The proposal is always to institute an income tax along with the ...

Posted Tue, Aug 24, 2:20 p.m.

And eneity styled as "Super_Steve" writes: "As far as the Legislature tinkering with I-1098 two years after it passes, I seriously doubt that they've got the courage to do that." I'd really like to know what discernable trend in the actions of the Legislature causes you to be so sanguine. ...

Posted Mon, Aug 23, 5:54 a.m.

It should be noted that unlike the "robber barons" that preceded him, James J. Hill did not rely on political pull or monopolist protection laws from the government to build his railroad. He and his investors paid for it themselves. He was the first and last truly capitalist railroad magnate.

Posted Wed, Aug 18, 12:43 p.m.

There's a picture of the Space Needle with the torch lit in this article: http://www.vintageseattle.org/2008/12/05/erecting-the-needle-pt-4/

Posted Wed, Aug 18, 12:39 p.m.

sean98125, you forget that the Black Ball Line was heavily regulated by the Washington Utilities and Transportation Commission. There was a great deal of "public control" of the ferry fleet. In fact, enough control that the Commission could intentionally drive the Black Ball Line into bankruptcy so that the state ...

Posted Wed, Aug 18, 9:20 a.m.

The Secret Service should be able to take all reasonable precautions to protect the president. However, the operative word is reasonable. To have federal officials swoop into town and bully around people who just want to get their work done crosses the line into unreasonable territory. This is different than ...

Posted Tue, Aug 17, 11:42 a.m.

If there's a "Restore the Needle" petition going around, I'll sign it! It was beautiful in its original colors, and restored to those colors (if only to be subsequently painted over on the next go-round) it would better dominate the skyline that's grown up around it. It's current "smog beige" ...

Posted Mon, Aug 16, 6:32 p.m.

Francis Gaze, did you not see how this year's legislature brushed aside the initiative-passed requirement that all tax hikes required a supermajority, or a referendum to the people? To assume that the money-grubbing elite in Olympia would not treat this law similarly is merely wishful thinking.

Posted Mon, Aug 16, 8:25 a.m.

One thing the Journal editorial failed to mention was that our sales tax was itself implemented as a temporary measure to offset revenue shortfalls during the Great Depression, although they did mention that it's now grown to be one of the highest in the country. Mr. Gates may not be ...

Posted Mon, Aug 16, 8:17 a.m.

The Space Needle is something rare in the world: a truly beautiful monumental tower. How many of them are there? The Eiffel Tower certainly, the Washington Monument, maybe. And the Space Needle. Every tower that has come since looks like either a microphone or a marshmallow on a stick. The ...

Posted Tue, Aug 10, 12:33 p.m.

Knute Berger writes: "Whatever happened to darkening the city, eliminating light pollution? Shouldn't Seattle be turning off the lights?" I'd love to see less light pollution. When I was a kid, sitting in my grandparents' yard, I remember easily seeing the Milky Way. I even saw the Northern Lights a ...

Posted Mon, Aug 9, 11:14 a.m.

"sean98125", don't forget the Camlin Hotel or Key Arena.

Posted Mon, Aug 9, 8:41 a.m.

Two Words: ADD BARDAHL

Posted Thu, Aug 5, 3:07 p.m.

Quinn, I've seen that video before, and it is funny. It's also ironic, in that Shatner himself is often parodied for being overly dramatic. What I found ironic in the comments of "common1sense" is that [he/she/it] speaks glowingly of the virtues of anonymous posting, rhapsodizing about the transcendent nature of ...

Posted Thu, Aug 5, 8:15 a.m.

An entity self-styled as "common1sense" writes: "...If [a person who usually signs his name] writes incognito, something deep and meaningfully brilliant, we might actually be impressed and thoughtful. ...I'll use that moron Sarah Palin as an example... Maybe I wouldn't think she was so creepy." The unintentional irony in these ...

Posted Wed, Aug 4, 10:20 a.m.

T.M. Sell writes: "Meanwhile, in response to dbreneman, I'm not sure how believing that government has a positive role to play in society equates to 'big government,' let alone Hitler and death camps." Did I say that? All I said was that "good government" types frequently don't care what government ...

Posted Wed, Aug 4, 9:57 a.m.

I've been engaging in so-called "on line" discussions since Usenet in the 80s. Back then, people included a .sig file with their name, employer, email address, phone number and frequently much, much much more (the infamous warlord .sigs). In those days, the fact that you had access to the forum ...

Posted Wed, Aug 4, 9:29 a.m.

I'd like to see Gorst the Friendly Furple interview Bigfoot.

Posted Tue, Aug 3, 10:27 a.m.

Back in the paleolithic era, when I was on the Pierce County Charter Review Commission, we heard testimony from several people who were advocates of "good government." They were all about process and seemed to have (on the surface) very little interest in policy. However, it soon became apparent that ...

Posted Sat, Jul 31, 9:08 a.m.

Ah, for the good old days, when "red" meant "socialist".(In every other country in the world, it still does.)

Posted Fri, Jul 30, 10:03 a.m.

It's time for the state to get on with repairing and retrofitting the viaduct. The Noble Experiment of letting Seattle get involved in this project has proven that the city leaders are incapable of making these kinds of decisions. All the while Seattle activists and politicians are throwing one roadblock ...

Posted Thu, Jul 29, 8:27 a.m.

If the people of the entire state get to vote on this issue, the winner will certainly (and logically) be to rebuild the viaduct. The tunnel was proposed as a sop to Seattle residents who demanded the removal of the viaduct. So Seattle doesn't want the tunnel? Fine. Let's get ...

Posted Wed, Jul 28, 4:05 p.m.

State Route 99 is not a local Seattle city street. It is a state highway. It is the property of all the taxpayers of Washington. The mayor and the Seattle city council should be aware that as far as those of us in The Rest of the State are concerned, ...

Posted Sun, Jul 25, 9:42 a.m.

Mister Borkowski, what makes you competent to categorize me? How do you divine a love of war profiteers as an "apparent" kindred philosophy with opposition to wasteful transit projects? Unlike you, who seem by your comments to hate me sight unseen, I have hatred for no one. Nor do I ...

Posted Fri, Jul 23, 11:02 a.m.

A generation-long problem with the Legislature is that it sees windfalls as perpetual revenue streams and plans accordingly. Economic boom time? That money will keep rolling in forever! Tobacco lawsuit payout? Time to start more permanent programs. If you built your household budget around the assumption that you'd get a ...

Posted Thu, Jul 22, 11:41 a.m.

Richard Borkowski writes: "[McKenna] tried for years to kill off light rail and Sound Transit, always faking concern for fiscal responsibility." How lazy of him to resort to fakery when the supporting facts were right there all along.

Posted Thu, Jul 22, 11:25 a.m.

The Hindenberg disaster was strictly political in its origin. The airship had been designed from the start to use helium, but at the last minute the Roosevelt administration refused to sell helium (the US has a virtual monopoly on the gas) to the Zeppelin Company for fear the Nazi government ...

Posted Wed, Jul 21, 1:54 p.m.

Ellen Craswell was a Bible-thumper of the first order. The kind of politician my late grandfather (such a loyal Republican that he wore a black armband to work when FDR won his third term) called a "Sky Pilot". She was the kind of in-your-face religious right type that drove thousands ...

Posted Wed, Jul 21, 12:40 p.m.

It's obvious that Sonntag is the enemy of entrenched interests in Olympia. They do everything within their power to thwart his mandate to perform performance audits. It's also obvious that even in the current "throw the bums out" political climate, it would be extremely difficult for a Republican to be ...

Posted Mon, Jul 19, 2:27 p.m.

Self-styled "serial_catowner" writes: "The modern forward-looking workforce quite arguably made Seattle different from Tacoma, with the results we see today." Wow, thank God Tacoma dodged that bullet!

Posted Thu, Jul 15, 2:23 p.m.

Any vote on this issue should involve the entire state, not just Seattle. SR-99 is a state highway not a Seattle city street. Frankly, most of us in The Rest of The State do not care what Seattle wants in this regard. We just want to make sure that we ...

Posted Mon, Jul 12, 12:24 p.m.

The notion that crimes against property are insignificant is obscene. People give up their lives, in the sweat of their brows or the work of their minds, to produce the income that they use to buy their personal property. If you steal someone's property, you are stealing his life, bit ...

Posted Mon, Jul 12, 8:03 a.m.

The "spirit of cooperation" and the virtue of being a chump spoken of by the author sounds an awful lot like the infamous line, "From each according to his abilities; to each according to his needs" from that well-known chump monger Karl Marx. People will only put aside their self ...

Posted Fri, Jul 9, 10:42 a.m.

This reminds me a lot of the USSR pavilion at Expo 74 in Spokane. Inside the door was a dramatically lit faux stainless steel bust of Lenin over 10 feet tall. Flanking that was an equally monumental photo of Leonid Brezhnev waving benevolently at the guests. There were several large ...

Posted Wed, Jun 30, 12:07 p.m.

"Dewams" writes: "Such studies have been made for decades and always identify WA as one of the more regressive." Your link shows that the lowest 20% of income earners pay 17.3% of the taxes, and the top 1% pay 2.6% of taxes. That may not be progressive enough for your ...

Posted Wed, Jun 30, noon

Jim McDermott ran for governor? Did he campaign outside Seattle?

Posted Mon, Jun 28, 8:26 a.m.

The biggest lie I keep hearing in regard to I-1098 is that it will reduce property taxes by 20%. It will do no such thing. This whole initiative is founded on a campaign of deceit and class warfare. Saying that "the wealthy" don't "pay their fair share" in a state ...

Posted Fri, Jun 25, 12:09 p.m.

I haven't commuted by ferry for eight years, and after reading this, I'm glad. The celebrity announcements sound like they're too clever by half. And the increased security presence just makes it harder to sneak on your own beer. And don't get me started on the idiots who set their ...

Posted Thu, Jun 24, 3:23 p.m.

Thanks for the correction, Benjamin. In my defense I'll say that it's an excusable false etymology in that people who have a few shots of Mezcal in them frequently behave as if they're on mescaline. It's not that I'm a prude, but next to Absinthe, Mezcal has to be one ...

Posted Wed, Jun 23, 9:17 a.m.

So, now our wise Olympia overlords are pushing mescaline-laced tequila as the healthy beverage of professional athletes? I thought that one of the "virtues" of the state's monopoly on liquor sales was supposed to be to free the public of the tawdry display of commercial marketing which accompanies sales in ...

Posted Tue, Jun 8, 3:56 p.m.

lorenbliss writes: "...Washington is already notorious as the most venomously anti-transit state in the U.S. (and quite possibly on the entire planet)." I doubt if I'm alone in saying that that statement strains credulity.

Posted Tue, Jun 8, 12:47 p.m.

Sorry the URL didn't stand out better http://www.thenewstribune.com/2010/06/06/1215034/racial-box-checking-not-easy-for.html

Posted Tue, Jun 8, 12:46 p.m.

An entity styled as "BlueLight" writes: "While not "geographic", our state's ferry system has - almost completely - gone native." I assume that this will surprise you, but with few exceptions, the practice of giving ferries Indian names goes back to the WSF's predecessor, the privately run Black Ball Line, ...

Posted Tue, Jun 8, 10:45 a.m.

So there are people here who can write humor!

Posted Mon, Jun 7, 8:01 a.m.

Bill Clinton, I understand, was no stranger to the razor blade and mirror. Does the fact that he was a lawyer make up for that? Interesting concept.

Posted Sat, Jun 5, 10:27 a.m.

I think part of the reason that the US government has lost interest in World's Fairs is a certain timidity in the professional diplomat class. Even in the aftermath of 9/11, when the Bush White House was projecting a "Just go on home, folks, and let the Sheriff take care ...

Posted Thu, Jun 3, 10:39 a.m.

If Medicare keeps reducing payments to doctors, more and more doctors will opt out of the system. Then how will the government provide care to these people? Set up government clinics? A definite bifurcation of medical care will result. People who can afford to pay doctors will get better treatment ...

Posted Thu, Jun 3, 9:26 a.m.

Rossi did the Governor bit. He clearly lost in his second attempt. Better to move on to something else (ie, the US Senate) than risk becoming the Harold Stassen of Olympia politics.

Posted Tue, Jun 1, 1:17 p.m.

It's more than just the B&O; tax, and of course the taxes that we "don't have" are on the drawing board. It's also freeway gridlock, regulatory burdens, zoning, environmental zealotry, and a whole host of other tings. I'd hardly say I'm "fixating" on the B&O; tax as I'm not the ...

Posted Tue, Jun 1, 6:40 a.m.

"dbreneman - do you think the local economy will lag behind the rest of the country in pulling out of the recession? Why might that be?" Yes, I do, and the reason is clear: The hostile business climate. The strangling of golden geese seems to be a favorite pastime in ...

Posted Mon, May 31, 4:25 p.m.

Columbia Bank, founded by executives and employees of Puget Sound National Bank (when that bank was bought out by Key Bank) seems to be doing very well. They've been expanding their territory by buying out several of the failed banks.

Posted Fri, May 28, 3:14 p.m.

My understanding is that by and large, the original inhabitants and the newcomers got along well; or at least as well as many of the tribes got along with each other. It wasn't until governments started trying to establish sole jurisdiction over their geographic areas that the tribes became a ...

Posted Fri, May 28, 8:20 a.m.

The ersatz cop in this silly video starts out by saying that he's "broadening the scope" of the Arizona measure. Yet the Arizona law contains many safeguards against "racial" (even though "Mexican" isn't a race) profiling. The fact that the vast majority of illegal aliens in Arizona are Mexican means ...

Posted Thu, May 27, 2:29 p.m.

I find it fascinating how many people here, who post under assumed names, defend that practice as actually being virtuous. The idea that someone's made-up identity serves as a sort of respected "trademark", or that there is a "value" in being able to comment without being held accountable for your ...

Posted Thu, May 27, 1:42 p.m.

A Monarch is a Mercury, and a Belvedere is a Plymouth. But seriously, Mr. Sayer, what is so nefarious about a company pushing for a change in the law that would benefit it? Now, if they were pushing for a change in the law that would harm it, that would ...

Posted Wed, May 26, 3:42 p.m.

I was going to spell out my full name when I signed up on Crosscut. Unfortunately, the first question asked was "login ID" without revealing that this was how I would be identified in my posts. Still, anyone with an ounce of sense and access to qwestdex can figure out ...

Posted Wed, May 26, 12:41 p.m.

Maybe now that Rossi is officially in the race, Crosscut can find a picture of him that looks a little better than a YouTube frame grab.

Posted Wed, May 26, 11:39 a.m.

What better place to spend the wait for the evening ferry home than happy hour in the bar at Ivar's Acres of Clams? With a clear view of the dock, you can savor your beer with no fear of missing the boat. And what's not to like about a bartender ...

Posted Tue, May 25, 10:33 a.m.

In a free society, if Mr. Harris found a landlord who would rent space to him, and the landlord agreed to the transaction, the issue would be closed. This situation is an indictment of aggressive zoning laws, nothing else. Obviously, some zoning is necessary to protect property values. Nobody wants ...

Posted Sun, May 23, 12:50 p.m.

Every time I hear someone talk about "people being stopped on the street merely because of the color of their skin" I have to wonder: Have all of these critics, from the president on down, bothered to read the Arizona law?

Posted Fri, May 21, 11:45 a.m.

Since the Arizona law simply lifts language from US immigration law directly, it would seem far more appropriate for the City of Seattle to go strait to the source and boycott the United States of America.

Posted Wed, May 19, 12:51 p.m.

The Republican party needs to return to being the party of personal freedom and personal responsibility. Big Government Bush laid the groundwork for Bigger Government Obama, and unless the Republican challengers demonstrate to the voters that they learned the lessons of the 2006 and 2008 elections they will be seen ...

Posted Tue, May 18, 5:19 p.m.

The issue, Harris (if I may be so familiar), is that people aren't allowed to buy insurance across state lines, the way they can buy, say, refrigerators or canned goods. I'd question whether a compact entered into between states, to offer a product that can only be purchased through the ...

Posted Tue, May 18, 10:11 a.m.

Wouldn't it be ironic if Congress' unwillingness to pass one of the biggest cost-savings measures proposed, allowing people to buy insurance across state lines, scuttles the individual mandate requirement. If a person who lives in a high insurance-cost state (say, because the state requires policies to cover sex change operations ...

Posted Fri, May 14, 3:54 p.m.

I took a look at the Australian Pie Company web site, and damn, those things look good! I'm going by there Monday after work. Now I've got somewhere in Burien to go on the odd-numbered weeks that I don't stop by Hans' Sausage, the only place I've found with Zwiebelwurst.

Posted Thu, May 13, 8:19 a.m.

All new buses must be built to accommodate light rail! I don't know what that means, but it sure sounds like a Seattle type of answer.

Posted Tue, May 11, 12:35 p.m.

I once worked for an employer (now out of business) who used to give all new employees a reprint of an article from a national business journal. The article touted the virtue of companies knowing their niche and sticking to it. Companies must have one niche, one focus, and stick ...

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

Fascinating article. I'm looking forward to part two. One question: Why are there archaeologists on the staff of the DOT? Do other departments have their own archaeologists as well? Wouldn't a lot of efficiency (not to mention exchange of knowledge) be gained by having a standalone historical and archaeological agency ...

Posted Mon, May 10, 7:51 a.m.

There was certainly a heartening display of social ritual at the service for James Sanders on Saturday. A parade of a hundred construction vehicles, led by his excavator, traveled in a procession to the church where the service was held. It was inspiring and moving. Maybe not as impressive as ...

Posted Sat, May 8, 11:45 a.m.

The mayor's actions themselves are proof enough of why the taxpayers of the state need to be protected from the caprices of Seattle's anti-car crowd. Seattle politics will be the source of most problems with this project, and therefore Seattle must indemnify the taxpayers against the expense of these political ...

Posted Tue, May 4, 1:23 p.m.

Is the author contending that the PI did not have a liberal bias? Has "liberal" become such a dirty word that even the standard bearers of that political philosophy are deserting it?

Posted Mon, May 3, 4:55 p.m.

"George" writes: "I don't see a reduction in property taxes leading to big gains for low and middle income taxpayers." Their's would be the biggest gain of all. The property tax is regressive because it's based on the assumption that just because you own a house, you have the affluence ...

Posted Mon, May 3, 1:23 p.m.

Please recall that the state lottery was sold to the people as a way to raise revenue for schools. Yet every penny goes into the general fund. An income tax will just be one more tax to be raised along with all the rest. Let's talk about eliminating some taxes ...

Posted Fri, Apr 30, 12:48 p.m.

Quinn, last time I checked, there were three major races. They correspond to the three cradles of civilization. They are Asian, African, and Indo-European (also known as Caucasian). I don't see what's so difficult to understand. To look at this year's census form, you'd think that there were scads of ...

Posted Fri, Apr 30, 8:17 a.m.

The amazing thing in all this talk of "racism" is how many people think that "Latino" is a race. The vast majority of these people are just as caucasian as the Queen of England.

Posted Wed, Apr 28, 11:20 a.m.

Washington was founded by progressives. Back then, progressives were people who feared the concentration of power in any large institution, especially railroads and government. One might dare to say that today's Tea Party demonstrators are their modern-day heirs. The people who began calling themselves progressives during the Dub'ya years are ...

Posted Mon, Apr 26, 8:29 a.m.

The voters will not trust any tax "reform" that is not true reform and is not comprehensive. A universal income tax, paid by all wage earners, coupled with elimination of the property, sales and B & O taxes would be a good start. Only if those taxes are eliminated constitutionally ...

Posted Sat, Apr 24, 10:20 a.m.

"Imagine a president today saying [what Lincoln said about the Civil War]. What would happen?" If it was George Bush, he'd be accused by the left of being totally schizophrenic or perhaps even sociopathic. "The bible-thumping alchie has come totally unhinged!" If it was Barack Obama, he'd be accused by ...

Posted Fri, Apr 23, 10:51 a.m.

Mr. Gates, Sr., is a Man of the Establishment if there ever was one in this state. He has made a very prosperous living siding with the powerful against the weak at many turns. It's not surprising that he's very happy to give a "kickback" to one of his most ...

Posted Wed, Apr 21, 4:36 p.m.

Is the new busy spending more resources on ad campaigns than on beta testing your software?

Posted Tue, Apr 20, 11:03 a.m.

A mis-placed html tag made the first "paragraph" above a little messy. Too bad we can't preview these posts before they are set in stone.

Posted Tue, Apr 20, 11:02 a.m.

The entity describing itself as "seattlelifer" says: "People might be forced to live in the neighborhood where they work. Very good for the environment." Yeah, but how good is it for the people? All of these rail-centric plans assume that people are fungible; that they are, to borrow a phrase ...

Posted Mon, Apr 19, 8:11 a.m.

The typical Seattle voter's phobia of rubber-tired vehicles will ultimately spell the economic decline of the Puget Sound region. I just hope we can stumble on for another 20 years. Then I'll be retired and they can all go to hell in their eco-friendly hand basket.

Posted Sun, Apr 18, 9:25 a.m.

In light of recent news stories, I can't help but think that the Lusty Lady would not be in financial trouble if Seattle was more welcoming of Republicans.

Posted Sat, Apr 17, 9:55 p.m.

Bop Street? Gotta check that out!

Posted Sat, Apr 17, 11:58 a.m.

Now that Fillipi's is gone, I find myself mostly driving through, rather than to, Seattle.

Posted Fri, Apr 16, 3:02 p.m.

I'm partial to the Skansie net shed. Not only is it in a poor state of repair, it is one of a dwindling number of structures built over the water, a type of construction that is almost impossible today due to regulation. In my life I've seen many stores, ferry ...

Posted Fri, Apr 16, 2:44 p.m.

I think that one of the roots of the problem is that it is the clerks that should be thanking you for your business, not you thanking them for their service. I find myself saying "Thank you" in situations where I should be the one receiving thanks, simply because someone ...

Posted Tue, Apr 13, 4:05 p.m.

I never knew anyone with a bomb shelter, but on the Peninsula we had our own piece of cold war architecture: The Nike missile base in Olalla. It used to be pretty easy to get in there and explore. Now I think it's being used as some kind of church ...

Posted Mon, Apr 12, 9:31 a.m.

If it was a union job then this is troubling because one of the unions' often-cited raisons d'être is quality construction. There's an old saying that "unions make the worst employers" because they are frequently more parsimonious with their employees than the companies they criticize. It's not to their credit ...

Posted Mon, Apr 12, 7:58 a.m.

FDR should have never run for a fourth term. Practically everyone who saw him in 1944 commented on how gaunt, weak and pale he looked. He didn't even have the strength to attend the Democratic convention. Yet he did nothing to prepare Truman to take over the job and kept ...

Posted Mon, Apr 12, 7:48 a.m.

So, the obvious question not addressed by the article is, Was this building built by union workers?

Posted Fri, Apr 9, 9:35 a.m.

Light rail proposals all boil down to this. They mainly benefit people who live or work in Seattle. It's the old Metro Transit hub and spoke model. Everyone, in their view is traveling in, within, or out of Seattle. If you want to get, say, from Federal Way to Redmond, ...

Posted Fri, Apr 9, 9:09 a.m.

I haven't seen anything in this session to suggest that "Sen. Majority Leader Lisa Brown is a smart, courageous legislator...". She definitely believes in a government that intrudes more into peoples' lives, costs more, and is less accountable. I suppose that may sound like bravery in the liberal salons of ...

Posted Fri, Apr 9, 8:56 a.m.

The only time I've ever eaten at the Space Needle was almost 10 years ago. It was breakfast. A group of us walked there from work to celebrate a successful software deployment. The company (uncharacteristically) paid for it. I had a great time, but not entirely because I was with ...

Posted Thu, Apr 8, 12:44 p.m.

I don't really understand the point of this article, either. Walt Disney called Disneyland (and, had he lived to see it opened, Disney World) the "Magic Kingdom", not the "Magic Representative Democracy." Disney was the king. If you didn't like his kingdom, you din't have to go there. People living ...

Posted Wed, Apr 7, 10:18 a.m.

The 520 bridge is not part of Seattle's street system. It is a state highway. The vast majority of people who cross it would never be able to take advantage of a light rail line between Seattle and Bellevue because the bridge is, for them, just one leg of a ...

Posted Tue, Apr 6, 12:15 p.m.

Great list, "hacknflack". But from my perspective, the Columbus Day storm, Alaska quake or Mt. St. Helens weren't "Seattle" events. I would consider them all to be important moments in my life, but I experienced all of them in the Peninsula/Tacoma area. From the Columbus Day storm, I remember my ...

Posted Sun, Apr 4, 11:52 a.m.

Will George Ray get the afternoon drive time slot?

Posted Sun, Apr 4, 11:50 a.m.

For those of us who have never seen this van, can you provide some of the Hitler quotes?

Posted Thu, Apr 1, 10:49 a.m.

It wasn't exactly a "moment" but the World's Fair made a tremendous impression on me. I was only three years old, but there are parts of it I remember vividly. I think one of the tragic losses to our culture is the shared belief and expectation that the future will ...

Posted Thu, Apr 1, 10:42 a.m.

I don't want to be on that bridge when it turns blue.

Posted Wed, Mar 31, 12:55 p.m.

Fascinating article. I think that there is still a lot more to be learned about Chinese exploration in the time before they shut themselves off from the rest of the world. If they hadn't turned inward, perhaps today Seattle's International District, not Ballard, would be the home of the Svenskahoovians.

Posted Mon, Mar 29, 8:03 a.m.

Say what you like about Bush, but at least he rejected the idea of a national ID card. Personally, I plan to burn mine. As far as proof of citizenship goes, you'll have an awfully hard time getting the illegal alien vote if you promote that. The state now requires ...

Posted Wed, Mar 24, 4:16 p.m.

PJS, you forget that lorenbliss can't get a well paying job because the evil capitalists who enshrine greed as the ultimate goal won't hire him, for some reason. So it's up to us to support him, I guess. To each, according to his paranoia...

Posted Wed, Mar 24, 1:26 p.m.

As someone who grew up watching the stylish protesters of the 60s on TV (and I'd guess I'm about a decade younger than Mossback) the thing that struck me, even as a kid, was what a narcistic behavior it was. People were always protesting against something, anything, and many of ...

Posted Tue, Mar 23, 11:41 a.m.

"Seneca" writes that McKenna is "...disappointing to those who hope for a more rational and affordable health care system (squarely within the constitutional powers of Congress to establish)." I am among those waiting for a rational and affordable health care system, (and one which the Congress can establish within its ...

Posted Tue, Mar 23, 10:05 a.m.

Mr. Brewster, why are you playing this as mere politics when there are in fact two constitution issues here? The first one, the federal one, is the contention that provisions of this law are unconstitutional under the 10 Amendment of the Bill of Rights. This is a legitimate issue, not ...

Posted Mon, Mar 22, 7:43 a.m.

As one who's frequently found Mr. Clifford's writing singularly devoid of wit, I have to congratulate him on writing a good one. That saying bugs the hell out of me, too.

Posted Wed, Mar 17, 8:35 a.m.

Howard Baldwin writes: "I was going to rail that numbered streets were not just for the mathematically challenged. They are a great comfort to both newcomers and the directionally challenged." That's why the DOT should put up big signs around town reminding people that "Jesus Christ Made Seattle Under Pressure." ...

Posted Mon, Mar 15, 8 a.m.

The fact that prosperous citizens of other countries with socialized medicine travel to the US for treatment indicates that the market has spoken. People who can afford to do so will pay more to be treated in the US. The problem in the US is not our health care, which ...

Posted Fri, Mar 12, 3:13 p.m.

Somehow, I just can't imagine agnostics getting all in a lather over a disagreement like this.

Posted Thu, Mar 11, 3:38 p.m.

"Lutefisk? I won't allow it in my house." -- Stan Boreson

Posted Wed, Mar 10, 10:11 a.m.

Cooperation has been difficult because Reid and Pelosi seem to think (at least, they project this) that anyone who disagrees with them is simply motivated by a sinister intent. Pelosi, especially, gets in front of the cameras with her thousand yard stare and lecturing tone and makes silly assertions like ...

Posted Tue, Mar 9, 9:09 p.m.

You obviously grade on a curve.

Posted Tue, Mar 9, 6:01 a.m.

lorenbliss writes: "...Washingtonians earning less than $20,000 per year pay 17.3 percent of our family income in sales, excise and property taxes." [accent added -DB ] Maybe if you didn't demonstrate such loathing and contempt of the economic engine of prosperity (a free economy) and the people who provide the ...

Posted Mon, Mar 8, 2:20 p.m.

Actually, it's a lot funnier now that it has foul language. What's humor without a little swearing?

Posted Mon, Mar 8, 1:53 p.m.

"To be accurate, state spending is down. Spending, if you include federal dollars, is up." Mr. Jenkins, I see your point, but why would one not want to include federal dollars? This state has a long history of taking windfalls and treating them like perpetual revenue streams. Besides that, all ...

Posted Mon, Mar 8, 12:17 p.m.

Despite all the talk of agonizing budget cuts, State spending actually increased over a billion dollars as a result of this session. That's added on top of the 33% growth in State spending over the last two sessions. The power-happy oligarchs in Olympia are strangling the golden goose. Eventually, even ...

Posted Fri, Mar 5, 4:14 p.m.

I'm having a hard time believing that a genuinely substantial percentage of the traffic crossing Lake Washington is originating in downtown Seattle and terminating at Microsoft, and vice versa. I cross Lake Washington almost every day. I live on the Peninsula and work in Snohomish County. Eliminating SR-520 would create ...

Posted Fri, Mar 5, 9:25 a.m.

I'm not exactly sure what the hell "a landscape expressing the abundance and sustainability of the earth" would be. Sounds like they'd be moving in exhibits from Expo 74. Remember the big pile of garbage in the US pavilion? Mr. Chihuly produces some stunningly beautiful pieces, and I take every ...

Posted Thu, Mar 4, 4:56 p.m.

Bob Corwin writes: "Because the State 'controls' highway funding doesn’t mean that the State 'controls' Seattle." But cities are chartered under state law, and the state could eliminate the City of Seattle if it saw fit. Maybe Seattle could be split back up into its component neighborhoods if it gets ...

Posted Thu, Mar 4, 12:46 p.m.

People commute to the east side from more places than Seattle. King County is too rich for many people's blood^H^H^H^H^H wallets. Getting to the east side from Pierce County is already problematic. I-405 is frequently impassible. I-5 to I-90 is better, but sometimes not by much. Frequently north-south commuters have ...

Posted Tue, Mar 2, 7:45 a.m.

Should have read "...those functions are all that these tremendous increases..."

Posted Tue, Mar 2, 7:02 a.m.

The comment that "Government isn't an important enough part of most productive people's lives..." is a shallow and misleading statement. Sez you. Government has been educating children and incarcerating criminals in this state since the 1800s, but only a fool would suggest that those functions all that these tremendous increases ...

Posted Mon, Mar 1, 8:55 a.m.

If the Republicans had been in power in the last few sessions, and they had returned tax revenue to the people when the Treasury was flush, they would be justified in now saying "share the wealth == share the sacrifice". The problem is, all that the Democrats in Olympia want ...

Posted Thu, Feb 25, 1:07 p.m.

"sue in desmoines" writes: "Microsoft doesn't own the world, and it doesn't own the Puget Sound area, although they'd like to believe they do. What's good for MS isn't necessarily good for the rest of us..." You know, you could substitute "Seattle" for "Microsoft" in the quote above and have ...

Posted Mon, Feb 22, 8:52 a.m.

The sales tax itself was intended to be temporary when it was passed in 1935. It was intended to compensate for a reduction in State tax revenue caused by the Great Depression. Sound familiar?

Posted Fri, Feb 19, 10:35 a.m.

Bella, I was a Republican at one time. The third generation of my family to be a precinct committeeman in my neighborhood, and a member of the Pierce County Central Committee (headed at that time by the remarkably talented Ben Bettridge). Then came the onslaught of the Jesus Nazis, which ...

Posted Fri, Feb 19, 7:05 a.m.

And yet, Bella, the only one in this exchange who's invoked Reagan favorably is me, and I'm neither a Conservative nor a Republican.

Posted Thu, Feb 18, 8:48 p.m.

"R on Beacon Hill" writes: "dbreneman, you'll have credibility when Republican (or "prefers" Republican) candidates denounce, or apologize for, the excesses their party was responsible for during the W years." Which is, of course, the whole point of what I wrote, isn't it? Or did not you read it? "Tip, ...

Posted Thu, Feb 18, 11:50 a.m.

"R on Beacon Hill" writes: "What was the Republican ("consistent people") track record on deficit spending during the Reagan/Bush years?" Were Tip O'Neill, Jim Wright and Tom Foley Republicans? "and during the W years?" Well, now that's an entirely different matter. The Republicans won control of Congress and after only ...

Posted Wed, Feb 17, 9:08 a.m.

If the Democrats had more moderates in their ranks they wouldn't be in this mess. This is "buyer's remorse" writ large.

Posted Tue, Feb 16, 5:32 p.m.

It's really starting to look like Obama has, not just as his main concern but as his only concern, concentrating power in the national capitol and, by extension, to himself. Something's been bothering me about not just his policies (most of which I disagree with) but with his whole view ...

Posted Fri, Feb 12, 8:48 a.m.

"Bobo" writes: "According to your statement above, Nazi Germany and the former Soviet Union would be categorized as "enlightened societies." I'm having a hard time seeing what I've said that leads to this conclusion. Did either of those governments make great strides in exploration? The Soviet Union was mainly concerned ...

Posted Thu, Feb 11, 10:54 a.m.

NickBob (and "@-@-@" to you, too), There are a few unambiguously virtuous things that enlightened societies do through their governments that are essential for the advancement of civilization. Exploration is one of them. Ultimately, humans must venture out of our solar system if our species is to survive. There's no ...

Posted Wed, Feb 10, 3:11 p.m.

The image of the future are a bright, optimistic, virtuous place has been in decline since the 1970s. We've just lost the manned space program, which is a tragedy of epic proportions. It would be terrible to loose the Kalakala as well.

Posted Mon, Feb 8, 10:41 a.m.

"Steve Clifford writes humor for Crosscut." If you ever publish some, I look forward to reading it. The core of satire is that it must, at some level, have a hint of plausibility. This piece succeeds as a satire of liberal political humor. Maybe it was ghost written by John ...

Posted Thu, Feb 4, 12:55 p.m.

The Ninth Circus is the most overturned Circuit Court in the country, by a wide margin. Just because the judges in this Circuit are able to concoct a tortured rationalization as to why, once again, criminals are the true victims of our legal system, that doesn't make it good jurisprudence. ...

Posted Wed, Feb 3, 3:17 p.m.

Knute writes: "Seattle has Mount Rainier..." Well, Seattle bought the naming rights, but last time I checked, Mt. Rainier was squarely in Pierce County.

Posted Sat, Jan 30, 11:27 a.m.

The entity "Captnp" writes "...Thriftway (a name in this area associated with single owner stores in the old AG wholesale coop)..." Although the Thriftway brand is in decline, at its heyday in the 80s and 90s, Uddenberg's Thriftways based in Gig Harbor owned dozens of stores throughout the Puget Sound ...

Posted Fri, Jan 29, 10:28 a.m.

So, if those people are here because of no income tax, adding an income tax will be an incentive for them to leave, won't it? What a great way to turn the economy around - punish success. After we've driven all the business men and women out of this state, ...

Posted Thu, Jan 28, 2:04 p.m.

Obama's challenge of the Supreme Court in this setting was disturbing. Like the generals, the Court's role is to sit and listen respectfully to the speech. The president did not honor this long-accepted protocol. The fact that Alito's cringe and mouthing of "It will not; That's not true" made headlines ...

Posted Sat, Jan 23, 6:06 p.m.

Rhodes and Limbaugh have the same syndicator? Who needs the Fairness Doctrine?

Posted Sat, Jan 23, 5:56 p.m.

Voters dumped the Republican Congress because they were sick of the way it was throwing money around with wild abandon. They got a Democratic Congress that's throwing money around with wilder abandon. They elected Obama because they saw in him a man who would bring people together and lead from ...

Posted Thu, Jan 21, 9:39 a.m.

I'd give good money to get rid of Ms. Tennisshoes. She's nothing but a party operative and an extremely pliable one at that. But, she's Seattle's senator and that's what Seattle wants in DC. A reliable establishment vote unencumbered by the thought process.

Posted Wed, Jan 20, 1:45 p.m.

The GOP was turned out by the vast middle of the voters because they spent wildly and grew the size and intrusiveness of government substantially. The Democrats are about to get turned out for exactly the same reason. Hopefully for the sake of our country the Republicans who come into ...

Posted Wed, Jan 20, 11:42 a.m.

More than 30 years later, most of my friends from my teens (still my best friends) still live within a 30-mile radius of Peninsula High School in Purdy. I guess we were trend setters and didn't know it.

Posted Tue, Jan 19, 2:19 p.m.

Although Harris Meyer takes Ted Van Dyk to task for falsifying fact, a close read of the objections raised leads one to the conclusion that it is indeed Van Dyk's opinions about the facts, not the facts themselves, that rankle Meyer. Whether one agrees with the analysis or not, the ...

Posted Mon, Jan 18, 1:05 p.m.

Now that Dr. King has a county named after him, he's had to give up religion. There's a severe separation of church and state issue in having a governmental entity named after a preacher.

Posted Mon, Jan 18, 8:44 a.m.

It seems that twice now, when control of the House and Senate has changed hands, the new majority has failed to see what got them into power in the first place. Republicans took control in 1994 because voters were tired of the Democrats' free spending and deal making. The GOP ...

Posted Fri, Jan 15, 12:56 p.m.

Coal tar is very beneficial as a treatment for psoriasis and other skin diseases. It definitely "turns up" in the homes of many dermatologists' patients.

Posted Fri, Jan 15, 11:38 a.m.

After having recently (2001) put in a new bulkhead (aka "seawall") on my property, I can tell you that the permitting process is a nightmare. Soil studies, erosion studies, satellite photos, topographical maps, Department of Fisheries, Corps of Engineers, Peninsula Advisory Committee, Health Department, etc. Each had their own fees, ...

Posted Tue, Jan 12, 8:34 p.m.

Agreed on that point, JLightfoot; I will gladly give credit where it's due.

Posted Tue, Jan 12, 2:08 p.m.

Washington was a pioneer in Prohibition and it's never really gone away. I can't believe that the state will ever willingly give up this coercive power that it has over the people. Governments don't devolve power willingly, and this government has demonstrated time and again that it seeks as much ...

Posted Tue, Jan 12, 9:38 a.m.

Ah, yes, well in the spirit of keeping sheer invective off these august pages, let's also delete the last two paragraphs of the original article.

Posted Mon, Jan 11, 4:12 p.m.

Now, a list of people who didn't predict Palin would end up at Fox - that would be interesting. What a non-story.

Posted Wed, Jan 6, 10:24 a.m.

Yeah, these devices are great until you drop one in the bath tub.

Posted Thu, Dec 31, 8:58 a.m.

I'd never heard of Kroger until merchandise with that name started replacing Western Family products in QFC stores. I guess Kroger is a big name on the East Coast; that doesn't impress me. I don't buy Kroger-brand products because as far as I'm concerned they have no track record for ...

Posted Wed, Dec 30, 2:09 p.m.

alally, the same thing happened to the old Olalla store (between Purdy and Southworth). It seemed to go from fixer-upper to just a handful of pilings in only a couple years. With current Shoreline Management laws, buildings just can't be built over the water anymore. Once they're gone, they're gone.

Posted Wed, Dec 30, 2 p.m.

The question about Murray is, as Seattle's senator, can she scrounge enough votes from The Rest of The State to win. She's considered a rather dim bulb by many voters outside King County, and little more than a party functionary. If the party is held is disrepute, she will suffer. ...

Posted Tue, Dec 29, 10:21 a.m.

I remember a time when QFC operated almost entirely out of King County, and all of their stores were "first generation" supermarkets abandoned by the big chains like Thriftway, Piggly Wiggly, Lucky and Food King. The QFC stores were, almost without exeption, frowzy. But they did have Bob Cram ("The ...

Posted Tue, Dec 29, 9:51 a.m.

For 2010 I nominate the Murray Morgan (11th Street to us natives) Bridge in Tacoma. It's gone from four lanes, to two lanes, to pedestrian only, to now totally closed. The state and city keep handing it off to each other to restore, and it continues to rust away. Traffic ...

Posted Mon, Dec 28, 12:54 p.m.

The problem with video these days is that it's too cheap. Back when you had to use movie film, and 100 feet (less than three minutes) of 16mm cost (as it still does) about $75.00 with processing, brevity was a self-enforcing virtue.

Posted Wed, Dec 23, 3:06 p.m.

David Sucher writes: "Pay the homeless to stand around and act picturesque and 'edgy.' You'd want to set proper behavioral boundaries and make sure that there weren't too many on any one corner -- licensing? -- and set a reasonable dress code." The problem with this approach is that it's ...

Posted Tue, Dec 22, 8:19 p.m.

As fine as that may be, I have a hard time accepting anything as the Definitive Seattle Post-Modern Christmas Extravaganza other than Lisa Koch and Peggy Platt's "Ham for the Holidays" series. Along with Stan Boreson singing "I Yust Go Nuts at Christmas", that's a genuine Seattle Yuletide tradition.

Posted Tue, Dec 15, 11:23 a.m.

Actually, Christmas is, in its foundation, a pagan holiday. December 25 is New Year's Day on the Julian calendar, and many of our Christmas customs come from Saturnalia, celebrated the week prior. Christians didn't adopt December 25th as Jesus' birthday until the Fourth Century. "If you can't beat them, join ...

Posted Tue, Dec 15, 11:11 a.m.

Just imagine how much violence we'd have if it weren't for Prohibition!

Posted Mon, Dec 14, 9:07 a.m.

If Canada wants to claim the Northwest Passage an inland waterway, perhaps the US should do the same for the section of the Pacific Ocean between the west coast and Hawaii.

Posted Sat, Dec 12, 11:48 a.m.

In response to smacgry, I'd say that it's very easy to dismiss the opinions and beliefs of those you don't know (or whose lives you've never experienced) as ignorant or "reactionary" (wow, what a blast from the past that word is). I have virtually nothing in common with urbanites living ...

Posted Fri, Dec 11, 12:34 p.m.

Wow, I wish I could craft an argument with the skill of bkochis! It would certainly elevate the debate here. I guess I'm way out of my league in the presence of such intellectual giants. I was making anti-poor comments and didn't even know it! Gotta go; Cratchit's heading for ...

Posted Fri, Dec 11, 12:25 p.m.

It would be nice if the "click to enlarge" maps actually enlarged when you clicked them. It's awfully hard to make them out at postage stamp size.

Posted Thu, Dec 10, 2:05 p.m.

bthornton is right. A parasitically "progressive" tax structure is exactly what has gotten California into such trouble. The sad fact is that whatever stupid ideas come out of California government eventually enamor lawmakers in Olympia. They will pull us over the same cliff if the true cost of government is ...

Posted Wed, Dec 9, 12:26 p.m.

The SST would have been over twice the size of the Concorde, wouldn't it?

Posted Thu, Dec 3, 8:19 p.m.

NBC, as a subsidiary of RCA, was always a technical innovator and a showcase of new technology. NBC was the first permanent radio network in the world. It was the first television network (the BBC doesn't count, because it was only one station). It was the first all-color network. It ...

Posted Wed, Dec 2, 2:22 p.m.

aallied asks: "What other purpose do handguns, assault rifles, etc. serve other than to kill human beings?" Even if they served no other purpose but to kill human beings, would you ban them because of that? Is self defense not a legitimate right of a free man or woman? If ...

Posted Wed, Dec 2, 10:11 a.m.

Sean - Hammers don't build houses, people do. Hammers can also kill people in the hands of a violent madman. To paraphrase a wise man: To deny that hammers have played any role in violence is equally as absurd as claiming hammers have had no impact on carpentry. For good ...

Posted Tue, Dec 1, 1:04 p.m.

I guess if this madman had run the officers over with a Prius it would be OK? It's not the guns, it's the violence that's the issue.

Posted Sat, Nov 28, 7:39 p.m.

Yarrow writes: "To use your household analogy, the state budget has been stripped of pizza and movies long ago, and is down to choices such as clothing at least some of the kids versus feeding them." That statement strains credulity. State government has grown over 30% in the last two ...

Posted Sat, Nov 28, 7:39 p.m.

Yarrow writes: "To use your household analogy, the state budget has been stripped of pizza and movies long ago, and is down to choices such as clothing at least some of the kids versus feeding them." That statement strains credulity. State government has grown over 30% in the last two ...

Posted Fri, Nov 27, 11:44 a.m.

I've worked in a union job. I never would have thought of equating it with the struggle for personal freedom and self-determination of our founding fathers. On the contrary, it was the most regimented, bureaucratic, cold and adversarial employment experience I've had. (Well, maybe it ties with the stint I ...

Posted Thu, Nov 26, 11:26 a.m.

1958 also marked the year when Seattle finally had more commercial television stations than Tacoma. KMO (now KCPQ) lost the NBC franchise to KOMO in 1953, and KIRO took CBS away from KTNT (now KSTW) in 1958. I believe KING finally wrested the NBC affiliation away from KOMO in 1958 ...

Posted Wed, Nov 25, 9:46 a.m.

Very good, "BlueLight"; I've been advocating that for decades. Maybe a groundswell is forming!

Posted Tue, Nov 24, 10:58 a.m.

Funny that there's no mention of KXOT, aka KUOW-2 (is that a real call sign?), which I find has some of the best programming of all the public stations.

Posted Sat, Nov 21, 8:38 a.m.

The "War on Drugs" is just one more war that the government wages on the people. The Puritan Ethic (the fear on both the right and the left that somewhere, someone might be having a good time) is a strong element of American culture. It will make the necessary reform ...

Posted Wed, Nov 18, 7:16 a.m.

Well, at least we'll be spared Wilbur's annoyingly faux-populist theme music. "This is my pe-poool, and we're ree-oh! We gotta lotta stuff ta do so let's get livin'!" Although the song was obnoxious, Wilbur himself was frequently interesting, displaying an occasional libertarian streak that set him apart from the nationally ...

Posted Sat, Nov 14, 7 a.m.

I vote for the Ayn Rand Elementary School for Objectivism. I wish there'd been an alternative like that when I was a kid. I'd have gotten more out of "We the Living" than "On Cherry Street."

Posted Fri, Nov 13, 5:10 p.m.

George Washington needs to be honored as the namesake of this state if only for the reason that he voluntarily gave up power and went home. If only more of the leaders in this state (and that city) would do the same.

Posted Thu, Nov 12, 5:38 p.m.

Mr. Berger, there was a word missing from this sentence: Pierce County has been a hotbed of activism to change the name back to some variant of "Tacoma" or "Tahoma"...

Posted Wed, Nov 11, 10:08 a.m.

The mob, maybe, but I find it pretty hard to believe that CIA agents would kill the president. Then again, just last week I'd have found it pretty hard to believe that an Army psychiatrist would commit mass murder, either. I don't really remember the JFK assassination; I was only ...

Posted Tue, Nov 10, 12:27 p.m.

I've got the perfect soundtrack for this exhibit: "Where you'll save more and more and more, When you drive through the Dunmire door. Russ Dun-My-Er Russ Dun-My-Er Russ Dun-My-Er..."

Posted Fri, Nov 6, 3:35 p.m.

She became what she beheld; only as a mirror image. That's geniunely too bad. As the Republicans and Democrats draw up their complementary lists of which human endeavors they wish to make illegal or compulsory, the thing this country needs more of is small-L libertarians. Especially libertarians who are hot ...

Posted Thu, Nov 5, 12:16 p.m.

The Republican party in Washington is still suffering from the putsch that the "Jesus Nazis" staged in the mid-80s. Like insular liberals in Seattle, these insular cultural conservatives all get together in their social echo chambers and tell each other that they have all the answers and that all those ...

Posted Wed, Nov 4, 7:01 p.m.

The author writes: "Voting patterns on statewide initiatives and referendums tell us something about the strength of Washington’s progressives and conservatives..." What ever happened to liberals, anyway? Is "liberal" now a dirty word? I doubt that the truly progressive founders of this state would agree that the failed policies of ...

Posted Wed, Nov 4, 8:21 a.m.

To paraphrase Mark Twain, reports of the GOP's death were greatly exaggerated.

Posted Wed, Nov 4, 8:17 a.m.

Fortunately, Pierce County still holds real elections with real voting at real polling places. We still have an election day, and an election night, despite the attempts by the state government (presumably at the behest of its King County overlords) to push us to permanent absentee voting. There is tremendous ...

Posted Sat, Oct 31, 8:34 a.m.

And who are you, and why should I care?

Posted Sat, Oct 31, 8:29 a.m.

The Big Change didn't come with the move to Chicago. That's confusing cause with effect. The Big Change came with the merger with McDonnell-Douglas, which brought legions of "old school" business types into Boeing management. Imagine the merger of Daimler Benz and Chrysler, but with the Chrysler execs in charge. ...

Posted Fri, Oct 30, 3:55 p.m.

The fact that support for this designation grew slowly is a good thing. Too often proposals like this are "forced from above" and leave people dumbfounded as to what the rush was. By the way, there is a word missing from your last sentence: Other major name change proposals, such ...

Posted Fri, Oct 30, 8:39 a.m.

Why did the machinists go on strike in the depths of a recession? How dumb is that? They shot themselves in the foot.

Posted Thu, Oct 29, 10:42 a.m.

The author writes: "Personally, I find it troubling that the law will not call a same-sex union “marriage.”" Funny, that's what I consider one of the law's greatest virtues. It doesn't play word games. Marriage has a specific meaning. There's nothing preventing gays and lesbians from getting married today; but ...

Posted Tue, Oct 27, 12:06 p.m.

I guess the State is just trying to beat "2012" to theaters. Still, this disaster film is missing something... I know! Don LaFontaine's gravelly voice intoning "In a WORLD where tunnels and bulkheads DON'T EXIST..."

Posted Thu, Oct 22, 10:27 a.m.

The people fear an income tax because all that the Democrats in Olympia offer in return is a slight reduction in the sales and property tax rates. Does anyone doubt that those taxes won't start inching up again (along with the income tax) once the income tax is enacted? Constitutionally ...

Posted Tue, Oct 20, 12:51 p.m.

Rebuild the damaged viaduct section. Retrofit the rest. Problem solved.

Posted Mon, Oct 19, 9:06 a.m.

Well, at least the cops had something right. As far as we Washingtonians are concerned, Minnesota is the east coast. Beyond that, welcome to our utopian world where the government always knows best. You'll soon be voting for these idiots just like all the other newcomers. It's probably hard to ...

Posted Sat, Oct 17, 3:34 p.m.

I did my part to commemorate the AYP this year. I planted some Cactus Dahlias. Too bad about Seattle's Cactus Dahlia Festival never displacing the Puyallup Valley Daffodil Festival. You win some and you lose some.

Posted Thu, Oct 15, 9:32 a.m.

Boeing seems to have made its bed with the 787 and must now, as they say, sleep in it. However, there is a follow-on plane coming. It's rumored to me a wide body craft seen as a replacement for the 747/777. It will be a blended-wing design, which is the ...

Posted Wed, Oct 14, 7:51 p.m.

keith writes: "I don't see any reason to disrespect the DC-10." It was a deathtrap. They fell out of the skies like autumn leaves. Isn't that reason enough?

Posted Wed, Oct 14, 10:09 a.m.

Could be worse. Could have merged with British Leyland.

Posted Tue, Oct 13, 9:34 a.m.

"In her first term, Gov. Gregoire struggled to overcome a narrow victory." Actually, it was Rossi's narrow victory that she overcame.

Posted Mon, Oct 12, 8:58 a.m.

I think the caption on your picture may be inaccurate. As I recall, KOMO lost their NBC affiliation to KING in 1958, the same year that KIRO won the CBS affiliation away from KTNT.

Posted Thu, Oct 8, 12:55 p.m.

Except that "Mexican", "Polish", "Jewish" and "hillbilly" aren't races.

Posted Thu, Oct 8, 10:24 a.m.

Although I'd hate to admit that there is a place for mimes in a civilized society, this proposal has some merit. http://www.spudgoodman.com/video/TD5-4.ram

Posted Tue, Oct 6, 5:21 p.m.

Don't forget that there were three major Top-40 stations in this market three decades ago, the third (and frequently the best) being KTAC 850. Who could forget Chuck Bolland's sports commentaries, and his sign-off "...and that's the way the ball boun-ces!" Real radio also lives in Purdy, where the charmingly ...

Posted Tue, Oct 6, 10:02 a.m.

Kamille, there is a very simple definition of who is and is not a native. A native is someone born in his or her area of residence. A non-native moved to that area from somewhere else. It's a binary choice. You either are or not a native. You don't get ...

Posted Tue, Oct 6, 9:46 a.m.

I've been reading Sunset since I was a kid. When I moved into my house, there were bound volumes of Sunset issues from the 1950s in the attic. I subscribe to it today and even maintain gift subscriptions to expatriate relatives. But still, I've only tried a handful of the ...

Posted Mon, Oct 5, 1:38 p.m.

"Demolition and Site Restoration." Those are weasel words for "Knock it down and pretend it never existed."

Posted Fri, Oct 2, 1:06 p.m.

lorenbliss, you describe yourself as a journalist, but after reading all of your missives here I'd suggest that you're really a Professor of Sociology at heart. :-) To Benjamin Lukoff I'd suggest that the vast number of newcomers here, at least those that come here from other parts of the ...

Posted Fri, Oct 2, 9:36 a.m.

Well, it seems as though Snoqualman and I are in complete agreement. What happened to KING Broadcasting is a real shame, because Dorothy Bullitt had a spiritual heir (a niece, I believe) who actually wanted to go into the "family business" and could have run KING Broadcasting as the founder ...

Posted Thu, Oct 1, 12:12 p.m.

So, the local "arts community" viewed (and operated) KING-FM as a means to an end (more money for themselves) rather than an end in itself (a secure source of classical music broadcasting). Poor Dorothy Bullitt must be turning over in her grave. The revenue from KING-FM, first and foremost, should ...

Posted Wed, Sep 30, 1:03 p.m.

I'd like to think that I'm tolerant of all foreign-born transplants to this area, but we definitely need a quota on Californians! By the way, "sandik", I not only remember Don McCune, but I've had the pleasure of working with him. He was really a prince among men, as are ...

Posted Tue, Sep 29, 2:08 p.m.

"rjr" writes: "Certainly there may be some for whom this has become an 'easy' alternative, but writing them off as professional bums seems counter-productive to the situation." I would argue that it's very productive because it helps to focus the effort on those who would actually benefit from it: 1) ...

Posted Tue, Sep 29, 9:57 a.m.

It's a shame that there is no way for me, as a "man in the street", to identify the small percentage of homeless people who are genuinely down on their luck. I'd gladly give $20 to someone if I thought it could help that person out of a rut. But ...

Posted Tue, Sep 29, 9:33 a.m.

Most gun laws do nothing but harass law-abiding citizens. People who commit violent crimes, or crimes against property, or crimes involving weapons, should have the proverbial book thrown at them no matter what their age. It's insane that a kid who commits a violent crime gets a month or less ...

Posted Fri, Sep 25, 9:14 a.m.

Tacoma's retail district, Broadway between 9th and 15th, was crippled by the Tacoma Mall in the mid-60s. Then the City turned it into a ghost town by converting the area between 11th and 15th into the "Broadway Plaza" in the 70s. With the reintroduction of limited vehicular traffic a few ...

Posted Thu, Sep 24, 10:05 a.m.

Well, I suppose that when I and others like me (who already pay a lot of taxes) are forced into early retirement because we can no longer afford to commute to work, the problem will be solved, right? A lifetime of playing by the rules and paying into the system, ...

Posted Sun, Sep 20, 12:31 a.m.

Having the stress of being press secretary for our nation's worst president would send anyone to an early grave. RIP Mr. Powell.

Posted Fri, Sep 18, 9:44 a.m.

This is the best regional-culture article... Hell, the best article of any kind, that's appeared in Cross Cut in over a year. I'm sure that the Seattle Establishment will vomit all over it. Cool.

Posted Mon, Sep 14, 10 a.m.

A lot of people who voted for Obama expected him to be a uniter and to govern from the center. It was a rude awakening when he put Reid and Pelosi in charge of all of "his" programs. Every voter outside of his leftist base is now experiencing buyer's remorse.

Posted Sun, Sep 13, 1:08 a.m.

Al Gore is coming to town? Cool! Maybe he'll bring new pictures of manbearpig. I don't know why more people don't take him serial.

Posted Sun, Sep 13, 12:58 a.m.

Just swell. It was nice when "back in the day" you could pull a coin out of your pocket and know in an instant what it was. Limited editions are OK if they're limited but the "everyone is special" mindset doesn't work well for currency.

Posted Sun, Sep 13, 12:54 a.m.

I'd suggest people interested in this topic read Amity Shlaes' "The Forgotten Man." Roosevelt's TVA was seen by as many as a white knight, but also by many and many as a pillaging marauder. There's more than one side to this story.

Posted Fri, Sep 11, 1:07 a.m.

The consensus of the world's security analysts was that Saddam Hussein had a chemical weapons program. The consensus of the world's climate scientists is that mankind is the principal cause of climate change. Just having a consensus doesn't establish a fact, only an opinion.

Posted Thu, Sep 10, 6:08 a.m.

One of the articles in the TNT said that 2/3 of Russell employees live south of King County, many on the Kitsap Peninsula. But it is a good point that once Russell became a prominent international firm the handwriting was on the wall for Tacoma. It's exactly the same with ...

Posted Mon, Sep 7, 4:45 p.m.

At the very least clean all that junk out of the Science Center coutyard. What an eyesore. It's one of the most beautiful modern buildings in the world and it looks like a postmodern dumping ground.

Posted Wed, Sep 2, 2:28 p.m.

I'd suggest another reason (contrary to Chopp's "Liberals are smarter than everyone else" theory) why "Obama-care" is facing a tough sell. Everybody agrees that what we need most is a way to get people who want health care, but cannot afford it, a way to "buy in" to the system. ...

Posted Fri, Aug 28, 12:23 p.m.

Speaking as a South Sound resident, what I remember most about the controversy was that it implied "Typical Seattle Arrogance." When SeaTac was built, the port of Tacoma put up some of the money in exchange for what sports teams now call "naming rights." Now here comes the Port of ...

Posted Mon, Aug 24, 1:10 p.m.

Washington is not friendly to business. There seems to be little understanding amongst our "leaders" that someone has to make the money that they so aggressively tax in to and spend out of government. If there are folks out there who think that our governments can continue their extravagant ways ...

Posted Thu, Aug 20, 5:39 p.m.

I remember going to a Pilots' game that year. It was only the third time I'd ever been to Seattle. The first was for the World's Fair. The second time was a trip to the post-fair Seattle Center, where I got to meet another short-lived Seattle phenomenon, KOMO's "Teeny the ...

Posted Thu, Aug 20, 5:31 p.m.

Seattle has a chance to rekindle its optimistic spirit again with the 50th anniversary of the World's Fair. Will anything be done to commemorate this event? I doubt it. But it would be nice. In 1962, facing the future was still seen as an exercise in progress. The future was ...

Posted Wed, Aug 19, 9:25 a.m.

smacgry writes: "Anyone who has studied history knows that the Nazis, despite their name "National Socialists," are properly classified as fascists (right wing)--and not as socialists (left wing)." It's a fallacy to believe that the two are polar opposites. Ask anyone who's lived under such a regime. Political space-time is ...

Posted Wed, Aug 19, 8:27 a.m.

Don't count Nickels out yet. After all, this is Seattle. The election isn't over until enough ballots are discovered to get the establishment candidate over the top. I'd say give it or three or four more recounts.

Posted Tue, Aug 18, 2:14 p.m.

Despite the accuations being hurled at Obama et al, it's fair to point out that National Socialism is socialism. Although businesses are ostensibly privately held, and profits privately kept, the goverment (or, to be more specific, the party) has veto power over the decisions of business owners and imposes strict ...

Posted Wed, Aug 12, 1:02 p.m.

Activating a car alarm on a ferry should be a ticketable offense! If someone is so steeped in paranoia that he thinks his car is going to get stolen off a moving boat he has no business going out in public anyway. I wouldn't own a car with one of ...

Posted Thu, Aug 6, 4:35 p.m.

I think the author is conflating libertarianism with laissez-faire proto-capitalism, and that conflation is unwarranted. For true capitalism and libertarianism to flourish, the rule of law is essential. In the 19th century, "business" interests usually sought and received perks and favors from corrupt government officials who were all too eager ...

Posted Thu, Aug 6, 10:09 a.m.

"But we have Mount Rainier! We have Puget Sound!" There. That kept Boeing from moving, didn't it? ....Oh, wait.

Posted Thu, Aug 6, 9:53 a.m.

The author's comments remind me a lot of growing up in the 60s and 70s on the lower Kitsap Peninsula. In the days before Imperial Gig Harbor, life on the Peninsula was pleasant and people were friendly. After a decades-long influx of Californians (who ostensibly come here to enjoy the ...

Posted Tue, Aug 4, 2:27 p.m.

Just one more reason I'm so damned glad I don't live in the Queen City. Here's an idea for a new law: Make the customer pay 20 cents if he wants his receipt. It will save lots of trees! And people should be forced to pay for water in restaurants. ...

Posted Mon, Aug 3, 8:47 a.m.

Two crews? Don't let the union catch wind of that idea.

Posted Thu, Jul 23, 4:57 p.m.

Surely the State's computing requirements are not so great that they cannot use a "Co-Lo" data center provider or providers. In fact, they should be distributing systems geographically, not centralizing them in an earthquake zone. And the other comments about "the cloud" are right on. It's ultimately meaningless marketing-speak for ...

Posted Tue, Jul 21, 8:38 a.m.

Well, great. Happy days. Seattle now has its toy train set, courtesy of millions of taxpayers in Pierce and Snohomish (and even King) counties who will never ride it. Now that that priority is taken care of, can we please get down to work solving the transportation mess around Puget ...

Posted Fri, Jul 17, 10:03 a.m.

The taxpayers of this state aren't victims of the initiative process, we're victims of the Legislature. Until these parasites in Olympia start dealing with real issues in the real world, and not spinning socialist utopias out of very expensive cotton candy, the initiative process will remain the only hope that ...

Posted Thu, Jul 16, 5:14 p.m.

Unfortunately, neither Nixon nor Kennedy gave a damn about space exploration. If anything, Kennedy cared even less than Nixon. Their main concern was scoring PR points against the soviets. After that was done, the only thing that kept the vestige of a space program alive was Johnson's dispersion of key ...

Posted Thu, Jul 16, 9:32 a.m.

We were told during the Apollo program that people would be on Mars by the mid-1980s. Since then, NASA has been the red-headed stepchild of government programs. To paraphrase a certain rotund film maker, "Dude, where's my future?"

Posted Tue, Jul 14, 10:33 a.m.

I was only three, but I do remember the fair. I remember the hydro dam pavilion, standing knee-high to scores of adults in a room full of stars (which I believe was the former Eames Theater), the glowing black-light models of the planets, a telephone without a dial (Touch Tone!) ...

Posted Mon, Jul 13, 10:38 a.m.

There's no rule that regions which "offer a well educated workforce, a stunning natural setting and a high quality of life" must saddle businesses with high taxes and abusive regulation. Just think what a magnet for business Washington would be if we had both a worker-friendly and business-friendly environment! This ...

Posted Mon, Jul 6, 12:30 p.m.

The problem with Mr. Carlyle's tax proposal is that unless you eliminate the sales and/or property taxes, once an income tax is established, all the taxes will just start ratcheting back up again. The only other option is to constitutionally cap the taxes, which I just don't see our free-spending ...

Posted Mon, Jun 29, 9:12 a.m.

Vancouver needs more left turn lanes. Seattle, on the other hand, turns nothing but left.

Posted Fri, Jun 19, 11:18 a.m.

Anything introduced after the World's Fair isn't authentic Seattle.

Posted Tue, Jun 16, 12:08 p.m.

You'd never see a list like this about Tacoma, because Tacoma isn't neurotic like the "trendy" Northwest cities are. Tacoma is Teddy Roosevelt to Seattle's Woody Allen.

Posted Mon, Jun 15, 1:17 p.m.

I agree with Kunnasm. As a libertarian myself, I've had to put up with eight years of liberals complaining to me about "your president" (that being Dub'ya). Many on the left seem to think that the political world is divided into two camps: "Progressives" (those tho advocate the failed policies ...

Posted Mon, Jun 15, 10:34 a.m.

Sea kittens, huh? So, if you throw a gunny sack full of cats off a bridge, maybe you're doing them a favor!

Posted Wed, Jun 10, 10:03 p.m.

Dr. Smith, WIFI is a local protocol. By that I mean that reception is limited to within maybe a couple hundred yards from the hub to the clients. The only distance that matters is between your hub and your client. Distance from "civilization" doesn't enter into it. (And, as I ...

Posted Tue, Jun 9, 1:14 p.m.

As someone who grew up in a fringe area (the only channel we could get without the antenna my dad put in the top of a tree was KTNT - and they became worse than KIRO when they moved their transmitter off Vashon Island) we got cable as soon as ...

Posted Fri, Jun 5, 4:04 p.m.

"When Obama returns, he will face a long-term challenge not unlike that which President George H.W. Bush faced in dealing with the mountains of federal debt left behind by the borrow-and-spend Reagan years." Seems I recall a fellow by the name of Tip O'Neil, who had at least something to ...

Posted Fri, Jun 5, 9:22 a.m.

Whereas such a conference would increase the region's visibility in the medical science industry, and is certainly worthwhile, I'm not convinced it would boost tourism. I suppose the state could start an advertising campaign: "Come to Seattle! See Puget Sound, the Space Needle, and doctors from all over the world!"

Posted Thu, Jun 4, 11:35 a.m.

This is just a reflection of Seattle's century-old inferiority complex towards Tacoma. Get over it, Seattle. You won. You're the biggest city in the Northwest... ...for now.

Posted Wed, Jun 3, 9:36 a.m.

"A second set of upper class areas are waterfront and view neighborhoods, as on the Gig Harbor peninsula..." As a lifelong Peninsula resident who does not and never will live in Smug Harbor, I reject the notion that there is anything "upper class" about the Peninsula. There are the natives, ...

Posted Tue, Jun 2, 1:35 p.m.

If I ever have to meet Mr. Clifford in court, I'll be sure to shop around for a judge with antipathy towards those who write ersatz humor pieces for web publications, and empathy for those who read such missives. With a jurist like that in the bag, who cares if ...

Posted Mon, Jun 1, 9:23 a.m.

I've been a loyal listener to "Music from the Swing Years" almost since its inception, and have even spoken to Cynthia Doyon several times on the phone. This is the first I've heard that her death was a suicide. What a pointless, tragic loss.

Posted Fri, May 29, 9:09 a.m.

If the Obama administration wants to increase the number of general practitioners, one very constructive solution would be to limit the profitability of opportunistic malpractice suits. A doctor operating in good faith should not face financial ruin at the whim of a self-styled "victim" of his care. Of course, the ...

Posted Sat, May 23, 10:51 a.m.

Lincoln says with an imperious and sarcastic tone: "Is that too complicated for you?" Not complicated at all. In fact it's downright imbecillic. However, my family has lived in the Puget Sound area since well before Washington became a state and I'm not going anywhere. And I expect to have ...

Posted Fri, May 22, 4:09 p.m.

Most neon signs are one-offs and are still made by hand.

Posted Fri, May 22, 11:39 a.m.

Los Angeles' Museum of Neon Art would be a perfect venue for the PI globe. Maybe we could get them interested in opening a Northwest annex.

Posted Fri, May 22, 11:34 a.m.

sjenner writes: "How in the name of goodness is any of this spending going to generate the cash flows necessary to pay down that kind of debt?" Inflation. Lots and lots of inflation. Welcome to Weimar America.

Posted Fri, May 22, 11:27 a.m.

A world's fair every 50 years or so would be a good thing for Seattle. Where are the visionaries to pull off another one?

Posted Fri, May 22, 11:24 a.m.

Lincoln sez: "How do we stop growth? Pretty ease, in my opinion. Raise taxes on business in this state until businesses stop locating here, and the businesses which are here stop expanding. At the same time, increased business taxes will generate revenues for infrastructure maintenance." As Spock would say, Fascinating. ...

Posted Fri, May 22, 8:54 a.m.

This kind of massive tolling of freeways will do nothing but reduce people's standard of living unless there is some incentive for businesses to offer flex hours or work-at-home days for those jobs where strict adherence to 8-to-5 scheduling is not necessary. There's a reason traffic is heaviest during the ...

Posted Tue, May 19, 8:30 p.m.

Woah! Root Cause Analysis. Agreed.

Posted Tue, May 19, 9:33 a.m.

hlauther writes: "Pelosi failed to object to the torture techniques at the time she was briefed, then -- now, pay close attention to this neat twist of logic -- she was “an ENABLER” and “an ACCOMPLICE.” Sounds about right to me. Aren't those the kind of terms that pop-psychologists use ...

Posted Mon, May 18, 10:53 a.m.

There is, of course, another scenario, and that is that Pelosi, in her zeal to establish "truth commissions" got hoist by her own petard. Her pedantic style of addressing the press, coupled with her deer-in-the-headlights visage, do nothing to enhance her credibility. Richard Nixon famously said at the height of ...

Posted Sun, May 17, 1:34 p.m.

Mr Baker, there's no reason that local entities can't "latch on" to the income tax just as they do the sales tax today. By "flat rate" I mean a tax that's not indexed to to income. But the people of this state are not going to accept an income tax ...

Posted Sat, May 16, 8:53 a.m.

Mr. Baker asks: "And replace the revenue with?" The B&O; tax, the property tax and the sales tax should all be eliminated and replaced with a flat rate income tax on individuals and companies. But no income tax unless the other three are completely eliminated as part of the deal. ...

Posted Fri, May 15, 2:16 p.m.

This just shows why the B&O; tax must go. As more and more businesses are granted exemptions, it becomes a government tool for punishing disfavored sectors of the economy. Get government out of the game of picking winners and losers. Eliminate this burdensome tax.

Posted Mon, May 11, 8:31 a.m.

So Sonntag is using the audits to promote himself, huh? What a shame that a competent, civic-minded, hard working political leader should come to the attention of the voters! That's just not how things are done in this state! He must be stopped before he overshadows all the power-hungry mediocrities ...

Posted Sat, May 9, 6:42 p.m.

ballardinc writes: "my [sic] passports [sic] green bro, so i [sic] don't need visas or dual identities or egos- it's an American passport but diplomatic, granting access to every and all countries, even the ones are [sic] elected leaders tell me is [sic] illegal to visit..." I, too, fear for ...

Posted Fri, May 8, 1:59 p.m.

I grew up near Gig Harbor, and the town in my youth had three dives: The Hi-Iu-Hee-Hee (which burned down when I was still in grade school), Three Fingered Jack's (which had live music) and the Harbor Inn (which still had an off-colored square of linoleum in one corner where ...

Posted Fri, May 8, 1:35 p.m.

First thought is almost never best thought; but I'd imagine they don't teach that in Anarchist School. Of what use is law or the Constitution to an anarchist, anyway? Yours in paleology,

Posted Thu, May 7, 9:32 a.m.

ballardinc writes: "the [sic] "public hysteria" mentioned by dbrenaman [sic] was manufactured by the regime and the new "homeland security department", not the public as suggested..." The public hysteria, fanned in large part by the press, enabled the policies that the Bush government pursued, and predated the establishment of the ...

Posted Wed, May 6, 10:11 a.m.

Let's not forget the public hysteria, fanned on by the press, that occurred in the months following 9/11. Public officials were loathe to imagine what commissions of inquiry they would be brought before if such an attack happened again "on their watch." In such a climate, Orwellian words like "homeland" ...

Posted Mon, May 4, 2:15 p.m.

I went through the museum at pier 69 once a few years ago when you could tour the Kalakala if you bought admission to the museum. There wasn't much there that I remember except a big video screen on the floor and a gift shop. Like so many museums of ...

Posted Mon, May 4, 9:09 a.m.

Building on scottacoma's remarks, Seattle's problem has always been that it sees Washington as a city-state, such as Liechtenstein or Monte Carlo. The state is, in Seattle's view, simply it and its environs. If Seattle had an enlightened view of the function of a principal large city (one might even ...

Posted Mon, May 4, 8:48 a.m.

I keep forgetting that Seattle still has a working waterfront. Every time I read about it, it's because another of its tenants is moving to Tacoma.

Posted Mon, May 4, 8:30 a.m.

The state's welfare? What could be more conducive to the welfare of the state and its citizens than to be free of burdensome, over-reaching government and its confiscatory taxes. This notion that the state serves a higher good than its people is what got us into this mess. State government ...

Posted Wed, Apr 29, 9:30 a.m.

Interesting article, but this one left me scratching my head: "One of the big surprises of the session was that Democrats did not send voters a tax package to cushion the blow of some of the cuts." I fail to see how burdening the citizens of this state with yet ...

Posted Fri, Apr 24, 8:44 a.m.

dbreneman wouldn't think of trying to upstage a much more accomplished comedian than himself.

Posted Fri, Apr 24, 8:41 a.m.

Billw, I also was surprised by the description of the Northwest as "libertarian." Most of my close friends lean libertarian, but ever since high school we've been a fringe element looking on in awe and disgust as our fellow citizens continue to elect folks who wish to make practically everything ...

Posted Thu, Apr 23, 10 a.m.

It's interesting to learn that the national percentage of "nones" has doubled since the heyday of the Moral Majority. Certainly intolerant bible-thumpers are finally overstaying their welcome, just as the "revolutionaries" of the 1960s did before them. People in these types of movements never seem to realize that you can't ...

Posted Thu, Apr 23, 9:49 a.m.

bkochis summarizes: "It is extraordinarily naive to think that corrupt businesses just fail and go away, as if the market is a self-cleaning oven; morph, yes, but fail? No. Hence the need for government regulation and to be the watchdog." Just as it's a little sophistic to mischaracterize and then ...

Posted Wed, Apr 22, 9:38 a.m.

bkochis is trying to distract us from the fact that all business transactions are voluntary, most governmental transactions are compulsory, and government retains for itself the right to initiate the use of violence to make sure that the transactions it wishes to engage in will take place. When businesses are ...

Posted Tue, Apr 21, 8:45 p.m.

OK, I'll grant you Harrison. Although he may have been planning something we never learned about... :-)

Posted Tue, Apr 21, 5 p.m.

--Sean: "I can only think of two American presidents who clearly abused their office" Kind of a short list, wouldn't you say? Have you considered that Woodrow Wilson may have been abusive of presidential power by throwing his detractors in jail? How about Abraham Lincoln with his warrantless wiretaps and ...

Posted Tue, Apr 21, 1:29 p.m.

The irony in all this is that the Left has spent the last eight years railing against the growth of government size and power under Bush. Now they're sanguine under Obama. The Right is now engaged in the same battle with Obama after years of tolerating government growth under Bush. ...

Posted Mon, Apr 20, 12:18 p.m.

Coupling a sales tax reduction with a new income tax will never fly. The voters aren't that stupid. They realize that any reduction in the sales tax rate will only be temporary. So is any promise to target the income tax only on "the rich." The only practical way to ...

Posted Mon, Apr 20, 8:48 a.m.

The state takes in plenty of revenue already. The issue is spending priorities, not a lack of money. The size of state government grew more than 30% in the last two legislative sessions. Pare back that to free up funds for the real priorities. The legislators need to get off ...

Posted Sat, Apr 18, 8:29 a.m.

hincklem, if you sucker someone out of his money, it's theft; and unless you exercise coercion, it's also voluntary.

Posted Fri, Apr 17, 9:58 a.m.

So, all we need to do is let the Somali pirates open a few casinos and they can practice their thievery in a voluntary and more socially acceptable way.

Posted Thu, Apr 9, 9:45 a.m.

Here's a starting place: In the last two sessions, the Legislature expanded the size of state government by over 30%. Start by eliminating that expansion.

Posted Fri, Apr 3, 1:22 p.m.

Brian Sonntag is the number one defender of the taxpayer in state government. Unfortunately, that also makes him the number one Enemy of the State. Off to the gulag, Comrade Question-Asker!

Posted Fri, Apr 3, 1:18 p.m.

From now on, all countries' sizes should be specified in Luxembourgs. A Luxembourg is 1000 square miles. Oregon is 98 Luxembourgs in area, Britain is 93 Luxembourgs. As a means of comparison, Vashon Island is .037 Luxembourgs. The beauty of this is that any geographic area's size in Luxembourgs is ...

Posted Thu, Apr 2, 11:52 a.m.

Is the place in hell for people who don't like cats within earshot of the one for players of bagpipes?

Posted Thu, Apr 2, 11:12 a.m.

I don't like cats, "cat people" impress me as being a little weird, and cats are the one thing in the world I'm allergic to. So for personally selfish reasons, I say outlaw them. Put a bounty on them and pay people $10 for every carcass they turn in. Now, ...

Posted Mon, Mar 30, 8:23 p.m.

The comments of "EJS" lead this observer to speculate that the contributor is suggesting that raising taxes would be a brave, bold initiative in these tough economic times. To those who have a surplus of money, I would suggest that they are free to donate as much as they wish ...

Posted Sat, Mar 28, 1:52 p.m.

Clearly, Gregory Wade is a sociologist.

Posted Fri, Mar 27, 10:06 a.m.

BrianM, economics is a much a science as meteorology or evolutionary biology are. All are very good at explaining why things happened, not so good at making precise predictions very far out. That doesn't mean that none are useful undertakings. There are several laws of economics that are as laws ...

Posted Thu, Mar 26, 2:41 p.m.

Sorry if my mention of the Governor's name sounded pointedly partisan. However, since one party controls both the executive and legislative branches of government, any criticism of state government will generally imply criticism of the controlling party. I, too, would be interested to know how the other factors mhays mentions ...

Posted Thu, Mar 26, 1:12 p.m.

Polls are increasingly showing that voters are disappointed with Obama. Not because of his failure to enact new big-government programs, but because of his intention to do just that. Many Obama voters wanted a change in the tone of the national debate, more consensus, more openness in government, and a ...

Posted Thu, Mar 26, 1 p.m.

"Another plus is a state capitol. Olympia comes in 15th..." This looks to me like a reflection of the tremendous growth in the size and scope of state government during the Gregoire administration. The monster is growing. Hand on to your wallets.

Posted Thu, Mar 26, 12:53 p.m.

"A record $34 billion five-year note auction on Wednesday was met with what traders described as subpar demand, with the government forced to offer a higher yield to attract buyers." Stagflation has returned. Welcome to the 1970s. Obama is starting to look more and more like O-Jimmuh.

Posted Thu, Mar 26, 12:49 p.m.

Is Washington going to have a pavilion at this fair? China is one of our biggest trading partners, isn't it? I honestly don't remember the US pavilion from Expo 86 (except that there was a model of the still-uncompleted space station in it). I do remember the Washington pavilion. Guests ...

Posted Wed, Mar 25, 3:23 p.m.

I don't buy the idea that lower prices lead to more consumption. My own personal experience, and that of people I know, is that customers with ample money to spend buy higher quality beverages, not more of a cheaper brand. I know that if I'm thirsty, and the wallet is ...

Posted Thu, Mar 19, 10:02 a.m.

Hey David, any publisher will tell you that its bad form to run the same ad twice in the same column.

Posted Thu, Mar 19, 9:55 a.m.

"[T]he White House is returning to the mainstream of the nation's legal community..." That does not, however, equate to returning to the mainstream of the nation as a whole.

Posted Tue, Mar 17, 1:47 p.m.

Don't forget that it's dangerous to read an online paper in the bath tub.

Posted Tue, Mar 17, 1:10 p.m.

Modern liberalism is a philosophy that caters to self-appointed victims and losers. How a base like that supported the PI as long as it did is the big mystery. And since conservatives have talk radio, they don't need a newspaper; so what the Puget Sound area really needs is a ...

Posted Mon, Mar 16, 10:44 a.m.

One element not mentioned in the article that surely makes people less happy despite their greater material prosperity is the increasing intrusion of government (at all levels) into their lives (in all endeavors). Most interactions with government are compulsory, not voluntary, and they are usually negative. More laws, more regulations, ...

Posted Thu, Mar 12, 8:07 a.m.

The thing is, danreedmiller, that the Republicans are out of power. Perhaps Limbaugh is an element within their establishment, but the government of this country (and this state) is firmly in Democratic control. The Democratic party is the political establishment. Limbaugh isn't a threat to that unless he's able to ...

Posted Wed, Mar 11, 1:04 p.m.

Boy, that's real knee-slappin' stuff there. Keillor was funnier before he turned partisan in 2001. You can get a little edginess into your humor when you go after the political establishment, as Keillor did all during the Bush years. But when you try to be funny by going after those ...

Posted Wed, Mar 11, 9:23 a.m.

jbensman writes: "dbreneman does not have their [sic] facts straight. The argument brought in the lawsuit was not 'I don't like it,'" From the article: Bensman had alleged that he had been prevented from appealing some 20 small timber sales “in places I have been before and want to go ...

Posted Mon, Mar 9, 9:19 a.m.

Oh, the horror! The Supreme Court decides a case on Constitutional grounds rather than on what makes the justices feel good! This just proves that aesthetics-based environmentalism is a shaky legal construct. In the future, people bringing lawsuits like this will have to have a stronger argument than "I don't ...

Posted Thu, Mar 5, 8:55 p.m.

S A Calvert, I'd love to be equated with Chihuly if it meant that the art I've produced in my life would garner 1/1000th the price that his does. Other than that, I'm not sure what you're getting at with your comment. Yes, those of us in Pierce County love ...

Posted Thu, Mar 5, 12:39 p.m.

Nickels is a doofus. He and Seattle were meant for each other.

Posted Thu, Mar 5, 9:39 a.m.

The gas tax works just fine as a miles-driven tax, and it promotes the use of high-mileage cars. The fact is, you can raise the gas tax as vehicle mileage goes up. There's no reason why you can't raise it, and it serves its function without spying on people and ...

Posted Wed, Mar 4, 9:09 a.m.

Obama had a golden opportunity to govern from the center and he botched it. He's very good at giving lip service to bipartisanship, but when it comes to actual policies, he seems happy to let the bitter über-partisans Reid and Pelosi call the shots. To say that this is really ...

Posted Tue, Mar 3, 2:41 p.m.

"agwinner" writes: dbreneman seems to say that anyone who would leave home is automatically suspect, and overly-friendly people are creepy; how insular and small-minded. And agwinner seems to read comments only superficially and without enough understanding to see the humor in them, while also inferring things ("overly-friendly people are creepy") ...

Posted Tue, Mar 3, 11:08 a.m.

I think part of the reason is that, historically, this is not an area that people leave. If you either lived here all your life, or came here with your parents, you have little concept, as an adult, of pulling up stakes and starting over somewhere else. Those newcomers aren't ...

Posted Mon, Mar 2, 11:17 a.m.

This plan makes a lot of sense. It's doomed to failure. Unless, maybe, if you paint the trolleys' tires gray so they look like light rail wheels...

Posted Mon, Mar 2, 9:15 a.m.

As someone who's done some announcing work myself, I always really respected Paul for his incomparable delivery. He was a master of timing in the real sense of the word. He had perfect diction. He could have you half way through a commercial before you realized he was pitching something. ...

Posted Thu, Feb 26, 1:47 p.m.

Even if you never use the foreign language after you graduate, learning another language teaches you a lot about your native tongue, and linguistics in general. If knowledge of that language prompts you to eventually visit its country of origin (and not just to hang out at the Marriot and ...

Posted Thu, Feb 26, 9:58 a.m.

We definitely need to do away with "endless, corporate-driven growth." Stifling, government-driven entropy will set us free.

Posted Thu, Feb 26, 9:48 a.m.

Foreign languages should be taught in grade school! Children lose a tremendous amount of their ability to pick up a language with the onset of puberty. The reason so many Europeans are functionally bi- or tri-lingual is because they began learning those languages when they were six. Just one more ...

Posted Fri, Feb 20, 3:18 p.m.

The rainy day fund would be a LOT bigger if the size of state government hadn't grown by 30% in the last too sessions. Does anyone recall that we started out the last session with a $2 billion surplus, but the Legislature ended up spending all of that windfall and ...

Posted Fri, Feb 20, 9:35 a.m.

It would be worth a tax increase to get the current crop of Bozos out of Olympia. I'd pay good money for that. Otherwise, I'm not interested in being co-dependent to a bunch of power mad, money wasting, socialist idiots.

Posted Wed, Feb 18, 11:45 a.m.

I'd suggest that transit would have vanishingly little impact on the volume of traffic currently traveling on the viaduct. Most people take that route to avoid downtown Seattle, not to access downtown Seattle. Proposing transit as a solution would have motorists park one car in Queen Anne, hop a bus, ...

Posted Tue, Feb 17, 9:56 a.m.

I'm trying to make the connection between Sellers' Chauncy Gardener character and Joe the Plumber. This must be some sort of inside joke amongst the Queen City intelligentsia.

Posted Mon, Feb 16, 9:04 a.m.

I have yet to hear an explanation of how you can take the traffic from a 6-lane state highway, dump it onto Seattle's surface streets, and come away with anything other that complete gridlock. Retrofitting the viaduct is the only sane solution to this problem.

Posted Fri, Feb 13, 1:32 p.m.

Two words explain why the ferry fleet is in such desperate condition: Light Rail. It's sucking the lifeblood out of our entire transportation system.

Posted Thu, Feb 12, 4:45 p.m.

No country is energy independent. Not even Saudi Arabia. You're chasing a mirage. When a plug-in electric vehicle can go 200 miles, not 40 miles, it might make sense. In the meantime, each of these primitive electric vehicles and hybrids does more damage to the environment, from extracting the raw ...

Posted Thu, Feb 12, 9:16 a.m.

I've already sent for my "Who is John Galt?" bumper sticker. We survived Jimmy Carter. We should be able to survive this.

Posted Wed, Feb 11, 10:22 a.m.

The difference with Obama is that the press has so much invested in his success that they don't know how to handle his mistakes. "Uh, wait - This isn't supposed to be happening here" seems to be the response. The honeymoon will certainly end eventually, but underneath all the hype, ...

Posted Mon, Feb 9, 11:07 a.m.

But that's not the way most liberals "debate" is it?

Posted Sat, Feb 7, 2:36 p.m.

Earth to The Press: Obama is merely human.

Posted Sat, Feb 7, 7:57 a.m.

It should be noted when talking about "sustainability" that a home with a freestanding well and septic system has less impact on the environment than one connected to a water main and sewer system. Of course, to have a well and septic system you need about a half acre of ...

Posted Fri, Feb 6, 2:36 p.m.

Personally, I don't have a lifestyle; and I have little patience with those that do.

Posted Wed, Feb 4, 12:51 p.m.

"I'm writing to you from Da City--you know, the one where all natives and residents believe that it's the only civilized place on the planet." I thought you said you moved out of Seattle.

Posted Wed, Feb 4, 9:37 a.m.

Seattle spent the late 19th century and early 20th century in the shadow of Tacoma, and the mid-20th century in the shadow of Portland. Seattle now looks down derisively at both cities in the way that only someone with a deep-seated inferiority complex can. Much like British comics who still ...

Posted Mon, Feb 2, 11:57 a.m.

It's very easy to dictate to others that they must live in locations that light rail planners find convenient. That assumes, however, that people are fungible "workers" waiting to do the bidding of the state, and not free agent individuals with roots, families, friends, communities and history in the places ...

Posted Thu, Jan 29, 9:21 p.m.

Just remember that if you change the name of "Puget Sound" to "Whulge", the announcers on KUOW and KXOT will feel compelled to refer to it as "The Whulge."

Posted Thu, Jan 29, 8:42 p.m.

The world is a cruel place, Misty. People seem to forget that nowadays. There are a lot of instances in which the virtuous must give way to the least worst. Abortion is a terrible thing, but we in the US have the luxury of declaring our virtues and terribles from ...

Posted Thu, Jan 29, 10:08 a.m.

Don't despair, kid. My friends and I lived our late teens and early 20s in the 1970s, certainly the bleakest decade of the 20th century, and we survived OK. I mean, jeez, Jimmy Carter was the president. Banks charged 20% interest or more for a mortgage. The world was going ...

Posted Wed, Jan 28, 1:15 p.m.

This crusade is about as relevant as a Christmas tree in February. Bush is gone. Get a life.

Posted Wed, Jan 28, 9:23 a.m.

We already have a "vehicle miles traveled" tax. It's the gas tax. It automatically penalizes low-mileage vehicles, and it collects revenue without giving the State the power to snoop on the comings and goings of the people it is supposed to be serving. We are becoming a police state, one ...

Posted Tue, Jan 27, 1:33 p.m.

According to Brown and Haley's web site: (https://www.brown-haley.com/mountain.php) "The MOUNTAIN® Bar was first put on the market by Brown & Haley in 1915 as the 'Mount Tacoma Bar'. ...By 1923 the name of the bar had changed to just plain 'MOUNTAIN®' due to the fact that its sales were beginning ...

Posted Tue, Jan 27, 11:43 a.m.

Your article suggests that Rainier has always been the name of record for the mountain. That's the old Seattle inferiority complex towards former-biggest-city Tacoma raising its head again. I don't have a reference close at hand, but I believe the name was acknowledged almost universally as Mt. Tahoma, everywhere but ...

Posted Fri, Jan 23, 9:05 a.m.

The term non-believer, when removed from its context of a religious discussion, is a meaningless term. "Do you believe yourself to be a non believer?" "Yes, I believe I am not a believer." Phftht! I wish there was a better word, for people for whom religion is not a part ...

Posted Fri, Jan 23, 8:56 a.m.

Maybe I missed it in reading the article, but I didn't see a mention of what, if anything, the Salish themselves called this immense body if water. If these inland seas do form one well-defined ecosystem, it makes sense to have a name for the whole entity, even if that ...

Posted Thu, Jan 22, 9:52 a.m.

What about deists? It would be nice if the majority of our founding fathers could be welcomed back into the patriotic fold.

Posted Thu, Jan 15, 9:47 a.m.

Like Gingrich, Hoover was a "big idea" man, the type who was seen as a go-to guy who could think outside the box and come up with novel solutions to problems of government. If you've paid any attention to Gingrich since he left government, you've seen that that's exactly the ...

Posted Wed, Jan 14, 8:41 a.m.

I'm with Mr. Lukoff. It would be nuts to ban the Coho from the Inner Harbour. It does carry cars, but that mostly benefits people from the Port Angeles area who don't want to drive around Puget Sound to get to BC. Those people can land anywhere on the island ...

Posted Wed, Jan 14, 8:19 a.m.

I think you go a little easy on FDR in the name of balance. You cite the NRA and farm policy as the disasters they were, but state that authors like Shales are too hard on Roosevelt. Remember, Roosevelt's people got the idea for these policies from the "streamlined" and ...

Posted Tue, Jan 13, 12:52 p.m.

Anyone who has taken the Coho from Port Angeles to Victoria knows that the last vestige of the once mighty Black Ball Line provides far better service than WSF, and apparently does so at a profit. Why not let them take over the route... or better yet, the whole state ...

Posted Mon, Jan 12, 9:22 p.m.

Once again the City of Seattle forces its priorities on its vassals in The Rest Of The State. Replacing the damaged viaduct section and retrofitting the rest is obviously an insult to our Queen City overlords and the Governor they placed in office in 2004. Is anyone surprised? In the ...

Posted Mon, Jan 12, 9:20 a.m.

I'm still waiting for Carolyn Kennedy to get the Palin treatment from the press. It will be a long wait. After all, Kennedys (Kennedies?) are genetically endowed with a right to serve in government, no matter how air-headed they may be. At least Palin, besides having a record in government, ...

Posted Fri, Jan 9, 9:13 a.m.

OMG, another left wing, anti self defense counter-missive in Crosscut! And it raises the spectre of a silly, worst case scenario of a shooter-gone-crazy straw man as an excuse to misread the Constitution, not to mention an ignorance of the fact that in 18th century and early 19th century English, ...

Posted Fri, Jan 9, 9:01 a.m.

I hope if the PI closes the globe will end up in the Museum of History and Industry alongside the Rainier R -- and by that time probably a Safeco and WaMu sign as well. Anybody got an old Bon Marche sign kicking around?

Posted Thu, Jan 8, 9:52 a.m.

Not only American atheists but gay activists could take a lesson from this campaign. You don't win sympathy by being a jerk about it. The backlash campaign from California's initiative 800 isn't winning gays any friends, just as the sign in the Capitol didn't win any for atheists.

Posted Wed, Jan 7, 11:15 a.m.

Don't go mentioning Tacoma on a Seattle-centric web site. It will just rekindle Seattle's old inferiority complex towards Tacoma and we'll get treated to "aroma" jokes and suggestions that the ports merge. Apropos historic buildings: There's a reason, remember, that the Smith Tower has that spindly little phallic protuberance on ...

Posted Tue, Jan 6, 9:39 a.m.

Hydrogen? Yeah, we've got plenty of hydrogen all right. Only trouble is, there's all that oxygen getting in the way of using it as a fuel. The idea of using hydrogen as a fuel is all wet.

Posted Tue, Dec 30, 1:14 p.m.

Douglas, I don't know about right wing kooks, but as a libertarian kook I have a lot of problems with HOV lanes, foremost as a violation of the equal protection clause of the Constitution. Yeah, I know, the Constitution is supposed to be a "living document" and, as such, means ...

Posted Tue, Dec 30, 8:51 a.m.

It's none of the government's damned business where or when I use my vehicle. The Big Brother toll systems like "Good to Go" are bad enough, but this is obscene. The gas tax is a tolerable, progressive tax that has the added benefit of encouraging people to drive more fuel ...

Posted Fri, Dec 26, 8:51 a.m.

Well, those laws have been a miserable failure. Time to repeal them. Only in government do people see failed legislation as an indication that more legislation of the same type is required (case in point: John McCain). Speaking of corruption in election cycles, what about Seattle's gaming of the recount ...

Posted Tue, Dec 23, 1:16 p.m.

I'll eschew the opportunity to make a joke about stars and beavers, and point out that Washington's flag is also a little uncommon in that the State seal appears in correct form on both sides. The reverse is not a mirror image of the obverse. Also, I believe that Washington's ...

Posted Tue, Dec 23, 1:06 p.m.

The only campaign finance regulation that's needed in, or that is conducive to, a free society is immediate full disclosure. Disclose who gave how much to whom, and who spent how much on what. Job done.

Posted Tue, Dec 23, 10:06 a.m.

It's not just the arches, however. The whole set of buildings, with the arches, courtyard and fountains form a very beautiful setting. That's why the current bunch of junky exhibits strewn around the courtyard look so awful. Take a look at a couple of these pictures: http://www.alamedainfo.com/1962_Seattle_Worlds_Fair_US_Science_Pavilion_nigh_04.jpg http://www.alamedainfo.com/1962_Seattle_Worlds_Fair_US_Science_Pavilion_night.jpg http://www.alamedainfo.com/Seattle_World's_Fair_Seattle_Center_001.jpg It's ...

Posted Fri, Dec 19, 5:04 p.m.

It's bad enough that the US Science Pavilion or defaced by a bunch of junk cast about the fountain area. At least that can be ripped out by more enlightened administrators. But the mere suggestion that the actual buildings themselves could be desecrated is truly horrendous. The future used to ...

Posted Mon, Dec 15, 10:28 a.m.

Ferry construction as a welfare program. Brilliant. Why don't we go one better and have The Homeless build them? Sure, those boats would be death traps; but hey, we'd be helping The Homeless, and that's what really counts, isn't it? Ferry commuters and taxpayers be damned.

Posted Fri, Dec 12, 12:46 p.m.

You nailed it, Art. Downtown Seattle is already gridlocked. I-5 through Seattle is a parking lot, even outside of rush hour. The only sane plan is the preserve the carrying capacity that already exists. There are three ways to do that. An insanely expensive tunnel, a disturbingly expensive new viaduct ...

Posted Thu, Dec 11, 4:44 p.m.

So, the two options are: 1) Reduce capacity a lot, and 2) Reduce capacity even more. - Brilliant. Our government is populated with imbeciles. But, of course, we knew that.

Posted Tue, Dec 9, 12:50 p.m.

Definitely Carter. What a wretched, pathetic excuse for a president. A perfect person to preside over the dismal 1970s. Sitting in his MisteRogers sweater whining to the citizens of this country how we'd all let HIM down. Every time I hear a Bush hater spewing his bile at Dub'ya, and ...

Posted Fri, Dec 5, 12:37 p.m.

"Speaking of the past election results, Bush did not win the 2004 election." - Yeah, and Obama was born in Kenya.

Posted Fri, Dec 5, 9:02 a.m.

Thank you for recognizing that libertarians aren't conservatives. Most of my liberal friends see America as being composed of two factions: Enlightened big-government FDR style socialists like themselves, and fascists. This is what happens when you try to stuff all political philosophies into a left-right line.

Posted Thu, Dec 4, 12:22 p.m.

It's the MBA culture. Colleges are turning out "businessmen" who can drive a company into bankruptcy while showing a profit every quarter.

Posted Wed, Dec 3, 9:11 a.m.

Weird, yes, very weird; but what is weird is not the notion that such is law is "nannyism", the truly weird concept is that it would not be seen as nannyism. Even for Seattle this is a spectacular display of government arrogance. If the city of Seattle thinks there are ...

Posted Tue, Dec 2, 1:13 p.m.

The holiday we today call Christmas was around long before Christianity and if past history is any guide, will continue long afterwards (if people find a successor religion). To rail against Christmas is to rail against the sweep of human cultural history. The people who put the sign in the ...

Posted Mon, Dec 1, 9:28 a.m.

Who ever heard of asterisking the first letter of a diagraph when "cleaning up" a vulgar word? Standard practice is to asterisk the vowel. Please write "F*ck up" on the blackboard 100 times. Don't bother using it in a sentence. Your skill at that has been demonstrated.

Posted Tue, Nov 25, 9:37 a.m.

I don't ever recall Speed Racer having such an assertive expression on his face in the old cartoons. He usually looked more like the proverbial deer in the headlights, especially when delivering lines like "Ooh! Oh! Ah! Egh! Oh! Uh!" while driving. What manner of historical revisionism is this? . ...

Posted Tue, Nov 25, 9:28 a.m.

I read the Wall Street Journal for national and international news. In fact it's the only "paper" newspaper I read on a regular basis.

Posted Mon, Nov 24, 11:01 a.m.

Benjamin Lukoff writes: "How many readers of this story are in the New York area anymore, given the New York Times' national reach?" Do that many people without a connection to New York really read the New York Times? I'd think that outside the New York diaspora there wouldn't be ...

Posted Fri, Nov 21, 10:10 a.m.

Part of the problem is the word "atheist" itself. It was hijacked in the 1960s by anti-theists like Madalyn Murray O'Hair for their war against religion. Nowadays, most people associate atheism with open antagonism towards religion. But if one is truly atheistic, religion is simply not part of his life. ...

Posted Thu, Nov 20, 9:38 a.m.

It's a mistake to cite the passage of California's Proposition 8 as an example of burgeoning bigotry. The issue is not one of denying a group (gays and lesbians) a right that they would otherwise enjoy. The issue is overturning a court order that established an entirely new and novel ...

Posted Wed, Nov 19, 3:24 p.m.

It's amazing how many people here are talking glibly about how unpopular Republicans are in Washington, when what they really mean is that Republicans are unpopular in the Seattle metropolitan area. Outside of that area, it's Imperial Seattle that's unpopular for most in the state. That vanity of those asserting ...

Posted Wed, Nov 19, 9:50 a.m.

Mr. Van Dyk, I'd like to echo your comment about people who pontificate in forums like this from behind an assumed name. They're usually hotheads who love to hurl insults while contributing little of value. I picked the user ID I have because it's straight forward - my first initial ...

Posted Tue, Nov 18, 1:09 p.m.

I've got to say that I've never seen the wit in Clifford's writing. It scans like humor, but that's not enough to make it funny. Maybe if I travelled in the elite circles of the Seattle Birkenstock and tofu crowd I might pick up enough cultural references to undestand it, ...

Posted Mon, Nov 17, 12:53 p.m.

If the people lose the right to the use of lethal force for their own self defense, where does that leave the state? All state powers are grants from the people. If the people lose the right to defend themselves, the state likewise has no power to defend them either. ...

Posted Fri, Nov 7, 1:08 p.m.

When NBC chose the red/blue colors for their election map in 1976, they made the Democrats blue because they feared being accused of portraying them as soft on communism if they made the Dems red. Other networks followed NBC's lead and these colors seem to have become a permanent part ...

Posted Wed, Nov 5, 9:48 a.m.

One hopes that Jesse Jackson was crying tears of joy that he lived to see Dr. King's movement bear such great fruit within the course of a generation, not tears of sadness that Obama's victory will make Jackson himself much less likely in the future to be the "official black ...

Posted Tue, Nov 4, 11 a.m.

The top-two primary is exceedingly undemocratic. Candidates should be picked by the caucus system, and the candidates of all parties that hold a convention should be on the ballot. This notion of the sate acting as gatekeeper for who can run for state office is a spectacular conflict of interest. ...

Posted Mon, Nov 3, 1:24 p.m.

I don't think it's so much a reconsideration of Reagan as it is of the religious right which rode into prominence on his coat tails. They never enjoyed the broad popularity that Reagan himself did (and Reagan himself rarely gave them more than lip service). Many of them are annoying ...

Posted Tue, Oct 28, 10:29 a.m.

If 25% of registered (and, I assume, not necessarily likely) voters doesn't know what the GOP is, that just points up the danger of policies like "motor-voter" that give voter registrations to clueless idiots who don't bother to inform themselves of even the most rudimentary facts concerning elections. I'd be ...

Posted Mon, Oct 27, 10:58 a.m.

Gregoire is already making noises about an income tax. When government leaders so mismanage our tax dollars that they can spend a surplus into a deficit (last year's) and then propose even more taxes, that is a sign of dysfunctional government. I would support an income tax if it totally ...

Posted Fri, Oct 24, 10:22 a.m.

Frankly, Kathy, as someone who enthusiastically voted for Reagan twice but couldn't stand the religious agenda crowd that rode his coattails into power, I'm sick and tired of the abortion debate. It's not an issue I vote on. Roe vs Wade overturned? I don't care. Roe vs Wade reinforced? I ...

Posted Thu, Oct 23, 11:16 a.m.

But, of course, in reality Sarah Palin isn't a Democrat, she's a Republican; and that means that in the eyes of the popular press she is by definition either stupid, evil or both.

Posted Mon, Oct 20, 4:31 p.m.

I understand traffic was quite a mess in Seattle this last weekend with the viaduct closed. That points up that any replacement need to have at least the capacity of the current one. As someone who is too young to have lived in pre-viaduct Seattle, and who is a Washington ...

Posted Mon, Oct 20, 7:21 a.m.

I think Powell's endorsement could have an impact. Powell is probably the most qualified person to be president who will never run. He's the guy with the golden resume. For him to say (over the course of about a five minute explanation) that Obama has qualities that outweigh his lack ...

Posted Tue, Oct 7, 10:16 a.m.

Why no debate coverage?: Why was there no coverage of the last Gubernatorial debate on Crosscut? That event certainly moved the needle in Rossi's direction. Gregoire even got booed by the audience a few times. The one thing that sticks in my mind is her repeated invocation of "Washington state" ...

Posted Sat, Oct 4, 1:27 p.m.

Sophomoric cheap shots: So much bitterness over the existence of one little cable channel that doesn't adhere to the New York and DC media group think. There's more to Fox News than Bill O'Reilly and Shaun Hannity. In the same regard, there's more to NPR than Daniel Schorr and the ...

Posted Sat, Oct 4, 1:17 p.m.

RE: Van Dyk comment: scottacoma writes: "I like to believe my elected leaders are much smarter than me. " - This faith, in a nutshell, is the first step on the road to tyranny. People who are successful in politics usually have a good memory for names and faces. Other ...

Posted Thu, Oct 2, 11:15 a.m.

More of Ivar's Incorrectness: Don't forget all his appearances on the "Captain Puget" show with Don McCune. Certainly an unacceptable "product placement" by today's standards. You'd never catch Colonel Sanders popping up on "Sesame Street" like that. He had some great commercials, too. One had him chopping the noses off ...

Posted Thu, Sep 25, 2:53 p.m.

RE: I have to say...: You love the viaduct but think it's ugly and much in need of replacement? How do you reconcile the two opinions? Personally I think the idea of a large park removed from public view will create nothing but a gathering place for bums. The first ...

Posted Mon, Sep 22, 3:58 p.m.

RE: Gregoire Won Debate Not Rossi: Bush is in no sense a conservative, except maybe in regards to some social issues. He's a big-government Nixonian Republican, what the British call a Tory. Every time I hear people griping about "neocons" I remind them that neoconservatives are liberals that found even ...

Posted Mon, Sep 22, 12:20 p.m.

Government isn't Brain Surgery: I don't want my public servants thinking they're smarter than me. When that happens, you end up with things like the New Deal and Watergate. I'm smarter than either candidate for president. My proof? I don't want the job.

Posted Sun, Sep 21, 4:19 p.m.

This actually makes sense: It's earthquake tolerant, it keeps the great views from Highway 99 through the city, it doesn't diminish capacity for this essential highway, it can be constructed while the existing viaduct remains in service, it's relatively inexpensive, and it opens up downtown to the waterfront. Unfortunately, it ...

Posted Tue, Sep 16, 1:29 p.m.

RE: No, it's worse: Well, RobC, I'm not going to counter your childish taunt with more foul language, but I will offer a history of the depression that doesn't fall prey to Roosevelt boosterism, Amity Shlaes' _The Forgotten Man: A New History of the Great Depression_. From the Publishers Weekly ...

Posted Tue, Sep 16, 9:42 a.m.

RE: No, it's worse: Roosevelt was inaugurated in 1933, that's true. But the depression didn't become great until after he took office. As bad as it was, the downturn of 1929 was basically a margin call, a bubble that burst, and would have corrected itself. Despite Hoover's meddling (he was ...

Posted Mon, Sep 15, 2:30 p.m.

RE: No, it's worse: Economic fiddling by both Hoover and Roosevelt got us into the Great Depression and Roosevelt's 10 years of additional fiddling extended it. Both men knew nothing about economics, but they persued an active strategy of government action to lessen the effects of what could have been ...

Posted Mon, Sep 8, 9:56 a.m.

RE: in the 20s for business costs and quality of life?: I would assume that the lack of affordable housing near employment centers, and the resulting long commutes on congested highways contributed a lot to the low quality of life. It's hard to enjoy Majestic Mount Rainier or Spectacular Puget ...

Posted Mon, Sep 8, 9:32 a.m.

RE: No gravitas: Speaker of the House Of Representatives is arguably the second most important position in the US, and look at the dim bulb holding down that position.

Posted Sat, Sep 6, 5:27 p.m.

RE: Why the Panic?: > You lost me at "them." I'm referring to the people making the over-the-top attacks on Palin. > What on earth do you think motivates the "liberals"? Do we just > like to hate people for no good reason? Are we like the bogeyman? I think ...

Posted Fri, Sep 5, 11:30 a.m.

Why the Panic?: I agree with Carlson. There is a very definite "whistling past the graveyard" element to the attacks on Palin from the left. She's not the nothing they claim her to be. She has them scared. Why? Because they don't understand her. In their playbook, you're either liberal ...

Posted Fri, Sep 5, 11:20 a.m.

RE: # 4 of 4: Rather than wasting so much bandwidth, why not just post the URL?

Posted Thu, Sep 4, 9:24 a.m.

RE: Go away and rebuild your party!: This election needs to be about change, but what kind of change is Obama proposing? A lot of Great-Society-esque government-can-solve-all-problems rhetoric from the 1960s and 1970s? All that stuff was tried and proven wanting. We need a move towards smaller, less intrusive government, ...

Posted Wed, Sep 3, 9:41 a.m.

RE: Librarians Against Palin: Here's one that's leaning that way, but not because of Palin. McCain lost me with McCain-Feingold. He obviously has no qualms about brushing the First Amendment out of his way when it suits him. Obama might get my vote if he follows Nixon's age-old maxim and ...

Posted Tue, Sep 2, 9:45 a.m.

C-SPAN Coverage: C-SPAN does have the best coverage, but they've fallen prey to the news networks' practice of cluttering the screen with so many graphics that the video of the event is almost crowded out. I'd prefer the C-SPAN of 20 years ago, which just aired the video feed without ...

Posted Sat, Aug 30, 10:26 a.m.

RE: Huckabee Without the Wit, Charm & Experience: "Free yourself from your reactionary cocoon." "Reactionary?" What Dictionary of 1960s Counterculture Slang did you dig that up from? You must just be one of those no-account beatniks.

Posted Fri, Aug 29, 1:42 p.m.

RE: Huckabee Without the Wit, Charm & Experience: Obama is too conservative? Compared to who? Che Guevara? His voting record is more liberal than Clinton's. In fact, it's more liberal than practically anyone in the Senate.

Posted Fri, Aug 29, 12:55 p.m.

John Kerry?: By what measure did John Kerry have more experience than George Bush going into the 2004 election?

Posted Fri, Aug 29, 10:20 a.m.

RE: I'd be interested to hear more about Seattle's supposed "tolerance": Seattle has all the tolerance of a country club. As long as you fit in, you're tolerated. Seattle just employs what many would consider a rather eccentric list of attributes for the membership committee to take into consideration when ...

Posted Thu, Aug 28, 9:50 a.m.

"...be one state and find common ground": The Mayor of the Pacific Northwest sez: "I was pissed off... We need to be one state and find common ground. ... To look at those huge signs along I-90 was very hurtful, not just to us but to the state as a ...

Posted Wed, Aug 27, 10:58 a.m.

Typical Clinton Speech: She talked mostly about herself. Her only references to Obama were a few fill-in-the-blank generalizations about the Democratic candidate (whoever that might be). This was a very passive-aggressive performance. She's kicking off the 2012 campaign. Bill's speech should be even more antagonistic to Obama. It's scheduled at ...

Posted Mon, Aug 25, 1:23 p.m.

RE: How can you say Seattle isn't funny?: And don't forget Stan Boreson, Chris Wedes, and the Rainier Beer commercials. Seattle's become way too pompous, self-obsessed and convinced of its existential virtue and importance (sort of like Al Gore), which was the point of my previous comment. Seattle is funny, ...

Posted Mon, Aug 25, 9:53 a.m.

Seattle IS funny: In a world where everything is either comedy or tragedy, Seattle is very funny indeed. You just need to look at it from the right perspective; that is, from outside King County.

Posted Mon, Aug 18, 11:34 a.m.

RE: Peak Oil impacts: How much money is Peak Oil Associates making off this doom and gloom fear mongering?

Posted Thu, Aug 14, 4:57 p.m.

RE: iesling nearly 40 years later: Blue Nun?!?! That's the Boone's Farm of German wines. Bletch!

Posted Thu, Aug 14, 1:37 p.m.

Riesling is the King of Grapes: I suppose you can fault Washington Rieslings for not being as perfect as Rhein or Mosel Rieslings, but I'd rather focus on the good news that Washington vintners are trying to come to grips with this complex and rewarding grape, and not turning out ...

Posted Tue, Aug 12, 4:08 p.m.

Albert Speer, Jr: Let's remember that Albert Speer Jr was 10 years old when the war in Europe ended. He comes from a long line of architects. He heads a very successful urban design firm. I doubt he got where he is today because of pull his father had with ...

Posted Fri, Aug 8, 12:50 p.m.

RE: Old economy companies: Weyerhaeuser has been a very good steward of the land. Sure it would be a wonderful utopia if everybody in the Northwest lived in gleaming skyscrapers slurping lattes while endless virgin forests stretched beyond the horizon. Actually, it would suck, but don't let that get in ...

Posted Thu, Aug 7, 9:41 a.m.

RE: The Golden State Freeway: I've got a better idea. Go back to California.

Posted Wed, Aug 6, 4:46 p.m.

State Arts Commission?: I'm heartily distraught that the State Arts Commission won't be getting its fair share of highway funding! My word, every time I fill up with $4/gallon gas, I at least can take comfort in the fact that millions and millions of our transportation tax dollars are going ...

Posted Wed, Aug 6, 10:21 a.m.

The economy is Obama's strength?: The only economic policy I've heard Obama expound is tax increases for everyone. Gas too expensive? Tax the oil companies! Not enough new jobs? Tax the entrepreneurs! Young people struggling to start their careers? Increase Social Security taxes! At least McCain has one advantage over ...

Posted Wed, Aug 6, 9:48 a.m.

No shortage of money: The State had a huge surplus last year and still raised taxes at an unprecedented rate. Now Gregoire pleads poverty. There is no shortage of money for government. What's lacking is the discipline to not throw dollars at every feel-good project that every paternalistic legislator pulls ...

Posted Mon, Aug 4, 9:20 a.m.

RE: Dinosaur Ted strikes again: It's been really hip since the late 80s to be anti-Seafair in Seattle. There's nothing more authentically Seattle than hydro races and jet planes, so I suppose it's considered counter-culturally chic to criticize it. Me, I gave up on Seafair in the early 80s. Used ...

Posted Fri, Aug 1, 4:22 p.m.

Gates and Space: Allen and Gates' different takes on space travel (Allen's enthusiasm and Gates' coolness) perfectly reflect their roles in the founding of Microsoft. Allen was the technician, Gates the salesman. Under Gates' leadership, Microsoft was primarily a marketer of technologies developed elsewhere. Once Microsoft's developers got ahold of ...

Posted Thu, Jul 31, 9:18 a.m.

Solution is Clear: If Seattle wants to become a real major league city, and attract both the teams and the throngs of fans, what the city needs is a domed stadium. Oh, wait...

Posted Wed, Jul 30, 4:29 p.m.

RE: Sims quote: Was this poster held by someone in the stands? Was it in the broadcast booth with the announcer? Was it a graphic generated at the studio? Something in this story just isn't clicking with me. Sports announcers engage in a lot of stream-of-consciousness blather during a game, ...

Posted Wed, Jul 30, 9:05 a.m.

RE: You think that trucks will be running in 2040?: I'm not pointing with pride to my formal education; far from it. I'm a product of the Peninsula School District, which in the 1970s roundly sucked. (Amongst other things, they were very proud of their enlightened "no homework" policy). I'm ...

Posted Wed, Jul 30, 8:58 a.m.

Could we have an example?: As someone who never seems to have enough free time to spend the hours necessary (to follow local professional sports) with my ear plastered to a radio, I think this essay would benefit from a few quotes of the offending comments. When all we have ...

Posted Tue, Jul 29, 1:30 p.m.

RE: You think that trucks will be running in 2040?: I must have been daydreaming not to have noticed you sitting in the class. He was talking about world peak oil - I was there.

Posted Tue, Jul 29, 12:02 p.m.

RE: Underground news: Seems they'd have both. My rather obscure point was that more and more, writers seem to use "epicenter" not in its real sense, as the point on the surface centered over a subterranean event, but rather as a really "emphatic" center. 99 times out of 100, the ...

Posted Tue, Jul 29, 10:59 a.m.

RE: You think that trucks will be running in 2040?: If I recall what I learned in my 8th grade Social Studies class (circa 1972) scientists were telling us then that we'd be reaching peak oil right about then. Or teacher told us we'd never be able to own cars ...

Posted Tue, Jul 29, 9:43 a.m.

RE: Cultivating Social Behavior Instead of Compliant Behavior: I agree that over regulation of traffic is part of the problem. Many traffic engineers consider themselves social engineers as well, and love to make drivers, riders and pedestrians jump through hoops for their own gratification. I live near the town of ...

Posted Mon, Jul 28, 4:01 p.m.

Eeeevil Swiftboaters: Imagine the nerve of pointing out that one of Kerry's Purple Hearts came from getting a few grains of rice picked out of the flesh of his posterior, said rice having been blown at him by one of his own men's hand grenades. Oh, such shameful lies! Seriously, ...

Posted Mon, Jul 28, 3:41 p.m.

RE: "State": I don't want to get into a back-and-forth with you, but I will point out that the name of Oklahoma City is indeed Oklahoma City. And, as noted in point 1) above, "Washington State is a college." If you must use the redundant construction, do not capitalize the ...

Posted Mon, Jul 28, 1:50 p.m.

RE: Articles of grammar: I'm afraid you're wrong about The Mariners (and sports teams in general). It is a plural. Every member is referred to in the singular ("Ichiro is a Seattle Mariner") and all the members of the team comprise the Seattle Mariners. You should not say "The Mariners ...

Posted Mon, Jul 28, 1:42 p.m.

The Worst Perpetrator: If it wasn't for their good programming, I could not listen to KOUW's sister station KXOT. Their hosts are forever referring to The Puget Sound, even "Here in The Puget Sound" in reference to Western Washington. Lady, if you're in The Puget Sound you'd better have a ...

Posted Mon, Jul 28, 8:56 a.m.

Underground news: How many news stories occur underground? Those are the only ones that would have epicenters, aren't they?

Posted Fri, Jul 25, 10:37 a.m.

Stupid Team Names: Who ever came up with the bright idea of naming teams after a process or event that can't be represented plurally? It's easy to say "I'm a Sonic" or "I'm a Seahawk" but what does a member of The Thunder (can Thunder be subdivided?) call himself? "I'm ...

Posted Fri, Jul 25, 9:37 a.m.

Dobee: Two things everyone of a certain generation should know: - Dobee and Dontbee were staple archetypes on KTNT's "Romper Room". - It's correctly spelled dubie, although doobie is an acceptable corruption.

Posted Tue, Jul 22, 9:13 a.m.

Another option: Garter belts are sexier anyway.

Posted Thu, Jul 17, 1:10 p.m.

Is "The City" Seattle?: There's no channel 77 on my Comcast service in Pierce County. Crosscut serves the entire Pacific Northwest, doesn't it? Or just "Seattle and its back yard?"

Posted Thu, Jul 17, 9:41 a.m.

Decisions have cosequences: > "Her future work in the tech world may be hampered if security clearances are required." - Gosh, ya' think so? I'd hope so. I wouldn't want to find myself working beside someone with a history like that, especially in an environment where sensitive information is handled. ...

Posted Wed, Jul 16, 9:58 a.m.

GOP needs a "Come to Reagan" Epiphany: The Republican party prospered when it embraced the common interests of libertarians and conservatives under Reagan. Bush has shunned libertarians with his big-government Nixonian Toryism, and all but the bible-thumping social conservatives have abandoned him as a result of that agenda as well. ...

Posted Sun, Jul 13, 9:09 p.m.

East Coast Imperialist: Well, if Mr. Kennedy would like to come out, out, out here to The State of Washington State let him do so, but leave his eastern parochialism behind. I'm sure we're all quite flattered by his Hyannisportian good taste in discovering the backwoods denizens and their environs ...

Posted Sat, Jul 12, 1:09 p.m.

RE: Loss of local broadcasting is a big problem: I've never heard of "Big Night Out" and the only "government channel" I'm aware of on my little slice of Comcast is TVW, which makes C-SPAN look like Cirque du Soleil.

Posted Sat, Jul 12, 9:24 a.m.

Loss of local broadcasting is a big problem: It used to be that if you were a newcomer, you could get immersion into local culture just by turning on the TV. How many cities had a weatherman like Ray Ramsey? There were entire blocks of the day when there was ...

Posted Fri, Jul 11, 10:26 a.m.

RE: Preserve a danger to working women?: The danger doesn't come from the viaduct. There are all kinds of places in a city for predators to hide. The danger is endemic to Seattle culture. When a culture succumbs to the "Tyranny of the Dispossessed" and vagrants have more rights than ...

Posted Thu, Jul 10, 11:04 a.m.

How to interpret double-no vote: Could it be that the people of Seattle voted no for both replacement options because they realize that retrofitting the existing structure makes the most sense? I know that for this theory to be plausible you must postulate that Seattle citizens vote sensibly, but it ...

Posted Thu, Jul 10, 10:41 a.m.

RE: I hadn't even heard of trap shooting before: The IRS can seize pretty much anything it wants, and usually without due process.

Posted Wed, Jul 9, 9:47 a.m.

RE: A correction from the writer: Weren't HMOs like Group Death^H^H^H^H^HHealth supposed to be the public face of utopian Hillarycare? It's hard to see how such an exemplar of the Brave New Healthcare System could be railed against by those here who want government domination of that vital service, especially ...

Posted Wed, Jul 9, 9:24 a.m.

Competing Desires for Change: The author states that "Here in Washington, the desire for change, which comes in the form of a Democratic presidential victory, could bode well for incumbent Gov. Chris Gregoire" but he should also be aware that there is a desire for change that comes in the ...

Posted Tue, Jul 8, 4:19 p.m.

RE: Single-Payer: "People who oppose single-payer systems lack any rational argument based on evidence from other countries." I suppose the fact that most of those countries have long waiting lists, and many of their citizens who can afford to opt to come the the US and pay cash, aren't rational ...

Posted Tue, Jul 8, 9:36 a.m.

McDermott's a buffoon: Unlike Chris Wedes, who knows he's a clown, McDermott takes himself very seriously, but he's in a distinct minority in that regard.

Posted Tue, Jul 1, 9:53 a.m.

RE: After Gates re-invents science, maybe he can stop climate change.: Science would work better on Linux. Heh, heh, heh...

Posted Wed, Jun 25, 4:30 p.m.

Germany and Solar Power: One of the reasons Germany has so much solar power generation is that the Greens pushed a provision through the Bundestag that requires power utilities to buy back the unused power at a premium over what they charge customers for electricity off the grid. The result? ...

Posted Mon, Jun 23, 3:26 p.m.

Fuel in Wings: Planes have been storing fuel in the wings almost as long as they've been made out of metal (some time after World War I). It's a very efficient use of an otherwise wasted empty space. Personally, I think I'd be more nervous knowing that so many thousands ...

Posted Mon, Jun 23, 9:27 a.m.

RE: To me, being nude is being the same person but in a sensually charged ambience that is very plea: "You will find it to be a relaxing lifestyle that is free of the daily stress we all experience." Well, it's true that my friends and I spend a lot ...

Posted Fri, Jun 20, 12:46 p.m.

Public Financing is Dead - Bury it.: Only Nixon could go to China they say, and maybe only Obama, one of the most liberal members of the Senate, could kill public campaign financing. At least, let's hope that's the outcome. Something like only 20-30% of taxpayers contribute to it by ...

Posted Fri, Jun 20, 12:38 p.m.

RE: 50?: ...And you have all those nice heavy-metal-filled batteries to dispose of every five years or so. I wonder if you can take them to the local landfill?

Posted Fri, Jun 20, 10:24 a.m.

Check out the Ford Focus: When I got a new job a long commute from home last fall, I bought a 2005 Ford Focus with a standard transmission. Although not as nicely finished as the Foci sold in Europe (where it sits higher in Ford's model lineup) it still came ...

Posted Fri, Jun 13, 6:45 a.m.

RE: NRA?!: The problem is, there's no way to avoid that kind of back room influence peddling. Unless we come up with a better way to reign in government power, citizens are going to need to resort to the same tactics as the special interest groups (by utilizing PACs, lobbyists, ...

Posted Thu, Jun 12, 4:24 p.m.

RE: NRA?!: Try substituting "NAACP" or "ACLU" or any other group that defends citizens' Constitutional rights for "NRA" in the author's article (or your comments), and tell me if you don't find the text jarring. One of the principles of American democracy is that we cannot pick and choose which ...

Posted Thu, Jun 12, 1:02 p.m.

NRA?!: I'd like to know what the author considers abusive to democracy about the NRA. Such a provocative statement deserves some explanation. Unless, of course, he means not the National Rifle Association but the National Recovery Act; in which case, 'nuff said.

Posted Wed, Jun 11, 5:12 p.m.

Wait and see: As a small-L libertarian, I really don't have an electoral horse in this race. I'm going to be looking to see which of the candidates (Obama or McCain) will do the least harm. McCain has already defiled the Constitution once: McCain-Feingold, which both Bush and the Supreme ...

Posted Mon, Jun 9, 10:39 a.m.

Part of the Culture: As a government official, the way you prove that you're doing your job is to come up with new and interesting ways to annoy or outright hinder the people who pay your salary. Bums and partying teenagers pay very little in taxes, ergo there's no "perceived ...

Posted Thu, Jun 5, 10:26 a.m.

"What if Socrates had a helicopter?": That's about as realistic a line of speculation as postulating that if Kennedy had survived, and if he had somehow gotten the nomination (for which he did not have enough delegates outright), and if he had won the election, the world would be a ...

Posted Wed, May 28, 9:58 a.m.

RE: gas: Yes. A barrel of oil is about 80 - 85 euros. A few years ago the dollar and euro were at parity. Now a euro costs about $1.50. Still, the price of gas in Europe is at an all time high as well. The equivalent of about $8/gallon ...

Posted Tue, May 27, 1:23 p.m.

RE: One more nonsource: So, the old bromide "It's so funny because it's true!" has, by this article, been proven to be an oxymoron. But, consider this: If the list of things that should be nonsourced was compiled by Dave Barry it might indeed prove to be funny, since it ...

Posted Fri, May 23, 4:55 p.m.

Oil Bubble: There is evidence of an oil bubble. Many financial institutions, hedging against a weak dollar, are resorting to commodities to park their reserve funds, and oil is a pretty safe bet (unless, or course, you bid it up too high). The Saudi Oil Minister recently commented that supply ...

Posted Fri, May 23, 9:25 a.m.

RE: briana waters trial: Now there's an insightful, mature analysis. I hope they throw the book at her. One of the core duties of our "typical facist govt" (sic) is to protect lives and property. Sorry if that's slowing down the troglodyte ecotopian revolution.

Posted Fri, May 23, 9:18 a.m.

RE: street mnemonics: I'd always heard it was "...Under Pressure." Maybe that's the Tacoma version of Seattle's streets. And while we're on the topic of what marks a newcomer, remember that highways do not take a definite article. It's a sure sign that you're a Californian if you say "I'm ...

Posted Tue, May 20, 5 p.m.

RE: TIM STRIKES AGAIN: It's the Legislature's responsibility to fund things like the ferry system. Unfortunately, every time the voters (and remember, the sinister Mr. Eyman would be powerless without them) object to certain tax schemes, the Legislature's typical response is not to cut extravagances out of the budget, but ...

Posted Tue, May 20, 1:38 p.m.

RE: With all due respect, the old black ball line did far more than just transport...: I'd just point out that this "white knight" first forced the Black Ball Line into bankruptcy by denying it its first fare increase since the war, which the Black Ball managers intended to use ...

Posted Thu, May 15, 9:22 a.m.

RE: double standard: The "Bill Clinton of his race"? Man, you really know how to insult someone.

Posted Mon, May 12, 3:03 p.m.

Thank you...: ...for writing an entire article and not once using the corrupt construction The Puget Sound! Puget Sound does not take a definite article; never has, never will. Too bad the announcers at the top-rated KUOW (and especially sister station KXOT) never took any English classes at that University ...

Posted Fri, May 9, 12:23 p.m.

Raises the question...: Is this a uniquely French phenomenon, or are there large numbers of transplants from other EU countries as well?

Posted Fri, May 9, 9:44 a.m.

"...finest-tasting, purest-source water in the world.": I don't know where the mayor gets his water, but when I worked in Seattle a few years ago, the stuff that came out of the drinking fountains tasted like it was pumped from a swimming pool. Of course, it probably helps whiten your ...

Posted Tue, May 6, 10:21 a.m.

Poor Baby!: Nickels is upset because The Rest Of The State isn't bowing down in fealty enough to Imperial Seattle? Aren't two US Senators, the ill-gotten governorship and the state legislature enough power for Seattle to exercise its will upon the serfs in the outlying areas? I feel your pain, ...

Posted Fri, May 2, 2:37 p.m.

Ballard Denny's: Interesting that the author mentions the similarity of the Ballard Denny's to the information booth outside the Science Center, which was featured prominently in the foreground of many stock pictures of the Space Needle. The first time I saw the Denny's, it was a few years after the ...

Posted Thu, May 1, 11:05 a.m.

Ideal name for Seattle ballpark.: Left Field.

Posted Wed, Apr 30, 12:46 p.m.

Ben Stein Jumps the Shark: I always liked Ben Stein. I have no idea whether he needs the paycheck, or he really believes in this stuff, or is just having fun tweaking some people's noses; but it's sad to see him tarnishing his credibility as one of the few Hollywood ...

Posted Fri, Apr 18, 10:18 a.m.

Republican Party still hasn't recovered: It's been 12 years and the GOP still hasn't recovered in this state. Self-congratulatory latte-and-brie liberals in the Seattle salons love to look down their noses at "crackpot" Republicans to this day, despite their own legions of shattered stoneware politicos. As someone who had been ...

Posted Mon, Apr 14, 4:39 p.m.

Geck! Gack! Ptooey!: If you want to wash the treacly bathos of Clinton's book out of your brain, I'd suggest a bracing dive into Ayn Rand's "The Virtue of Selfishness".

Posted Tue, Apr 8, 8:59 p.m.

RE: The right direction: "...those who had a good start thanks to this program will be earning higher incomes and supporting us!" I for one am not planning on being a social parasite in my dotage. The fact that some would look forward to such a thing with glee says ...

Posted Mon, Apr 7, 11:41 a.m.

So let's see here...: If McDermott conducts warrentless wiretaps he is supporting the First Amendment. If Bush conducts them, something much more sinister is going on. Why the dichotomy? Obviously because McDermott feels his wiretaps are just, and Bush's aren't. Why is that the case? Well... Umm... Maybe because McDermott ...

Posted Sun, Apr 6, 1:19 p.m.

RE: Get aquainted with your future Seattle!: At least in Fife you can get a decent cup of coffee for less than five bucks.

Posted Sat, Apr 5, 8:23 a.m.

RE: Time off is good.: All of that is fine, but just don't expect someone else to pay for it.

Posted Fri, Apr 4, 4:03 p.m.

People should set priorities: By what right do these leave-takers confiscate my tax dollars to further their "have it all" personal agenda? If you can't take the time to raise a child why are you having one? Some hedonistic "I need a child so I can feel complete!" urge that ...

Posted Wed, Apr 2, 2:51 p.m.

RE: Chopp knows what people want: "The truth is, Washington is one of the most progressive states in the nation..." Not all change is progress.

Posted Wed, Apr 2, 10:40 a.m.

Why I endure a long commute: Living on the Peninsula and working on the northern "east side", I get a lot of people asking me why I put up with the commute. Why not just move to the Seattle area? Some of the reasons are in this article. I wouldn't ...

Posted Tue, Apr 1, 11:14 a.m.

Tacoma's Electrical Arrogance: It really is unbecoming of Tacoma to act in such a Seattle-like manner towards areas of the state outside its city limits. How dare they usurp Seattle's role of Main Stepper-On of Other People's Toes?! It would be a shame if all those dams in Idaho, which ...

Posted Mon, Mar 31, 9:56 a.m.

Only in Seattle...: ...can voters be so divorced from reality that they'll continually re-elect this buffoonish, hypocritical, corrupt George Galloway wannabe to term after term. In the rest of the state, McDermott is a joke. Seattle voters don't know they've been walking around with a "kick me" sign on their ...

Posted Thu, Mar 27, 12:56 p.m.

RE: just a few points on a piece i mind a lot less: Hey, I think we've found a successor to Emmett Watson!

Posted Wed, Mar 26, 11:33 a.m.

Fear of the Electorate: We're heading towards what could be the most interesting party convention since the GOP in 1964 or the Democrats in 1968. Why do the Democratic elders want to stop that? It might actually get people interested in politics again, and with Bush's popularity in subterranean numbers ...

Posted Tue, Mar 18, 12:35 p.m.

RE: The Proper Outcome: The $30B was a loan, which Morgan will have to repay, that was intended to provide payouts during a run on the institution. If BS (interesting acronym) had been forced to shut down before the end of the day it could have unleashed a much bigger ...

Posted Mon, Mar 17, 2:02 p.m.

The Proper Outcome: The market has provided the ultimate resolution to the Bear Stearns saga. The company made foolish investments, couldn't cover itself, failed, and was scooped up at pennies on the dollar by a more savvy competitor. All is as it should be. The real danger in this was ...

Posted Mon, Mar 17, 12:58 p.m.

RE: The Young and the restless.: You think it's tough being a Republican? Try being a libertarian. :-)

Posted Fri, Mar 14, 1:52 p.m.

RE: ST. CLAIR THE AIR HEAD IS AT IT AGAIN!: Hey, dude, take your caplock key off. It makes you look like an, uh... airhead.

Posted Fri, Mar 14, 9:38 a.m.

A Good legislator despite occasional disagreements: Pat Lantz is my Representative, in fact we're almost neighbors, both Living in Rosedale (which is outside Gig Harbor but is served by Gig Harbor's post office). Although I disagree with her on several initiatives (like the ones mentioned in the article) I've found ...

Posted Thu, Mar 13, 9:46 a.m.

RE: A Rational System Difficult To Build In The US: Like Waruihito, I have also recently had surgery, to reconstruct a foot that was subject to a minor birth defect. Move the heel, create a missing tendon, stuff like that. Aside from the inconvenience of recovery, I have no complaints. ...

Posted Wed, Mar 12, 4:15 p.m.

RE: What's realistic: "I might disagree regarding dispersal of jobs. Concentration of jobs is what makes public transit efficient." Then we do agree. I'm not talking about "corporate campuses" spread from Bellingham to Centralia, I'm talking about the existing urban centers like Everett, Tacoma and Bremerton and Olympia.

Posted Wed, Mar 12, 10:07 a.m.

Geographic diversification of business needed: The main problem that I see is that most businesses are chasing the prestige addresses in the Seattle-Bellevue metroplex, an area that is notoriously difficult to get into and out of due to simple geography. Puget Sound on the west, the Cascades on the east, ...

Posted Wed, Mar 12, 9:33 a.m.

RE: Solution: I was following animalal's logic until animalal came to the "giant drain on taxes" part. All health insurance premiums should be tax-exempt because the insurance saves the taxpayers the cost of paying for the care of those people. It also prevents the cost of caring for the uninsured ...

Posted Tue, Mar 11, 12:04 p.m.

About the Corvair: I'm surprised that Seattlites would look with favor upon the lowly Corvair, the car sacrificed on the alter of Ralph Nader's career. GM has been very timid about producing domestic small cars to this day. Now about health care. I don't think that in 21st century America, ...

Posted Mon, Mar 10, 10:39 a.m.

This is insanity!: Three AM is one of the coolest hours of the day. If you eliminate it in favor of another hour of daylight, the effect on Global Warming will be incalculable.

Posted Fri, Mar 7, 11:21 a.m.

RE: Dysfunctional Leftist Philosophy: Oh, I see a sign of them. They're hiding in the basements with the non-strawman right wing zealots. :-)

Posted Thu, Mar 6, 1:31 p.m.

RE: Pretty fair assessment: Excellent gloss on the subject. Unless you're really into the urban hipster life style, as a place to live, King County pretty roundly sucks. Housing prices through the roof, more laws, more hassle. I went to school with a guy named Dan Inveen. Don't know if ...

Posted Thu, Mar 6, 9:50 a.m.

Dysfunctional Leftist Philosophy: There seem to be two unshakable tenets of the left operating in full force whenever the issue of the "Inconvenient Amendment" comes up: 1) Individuals are inherently irrational. 2) The government is inherently competent. You would think that seven years of George Bush would disabuse them of ...

Posted Mon, Mar 3, 12:32 p.m.

Protectionism doesn't work: The perfect way to ensure Boeing's ultimate failure is to coddle it. I don't think Boeing took the bidding process seriously. Why didn't they propose a modified 777? Well, there are plenty of orders for 777s, so it would be easier use the 767 airframe. Nobody's buying ...

Posted Mon, Mar 3, 10:17 a.m.

Pick up a few bargains: Judging by many of the comments here, industrial age carnival rides seem to be going the way of their "scenic railroad", "old mill" and "shoot the chutes" forebears. I've always wanted to own a ferris wheel. Like the "Big Eli" wheel at the Puyallup Fair. ...

Posted Mon, Mar 3, 9:53 a.m.

A True Public Servant: I've actually worked with Brian Sonntag, when I was a member of the Pierce County Charter Review Commission, 20+ years ago. Even then, he was a strong advocate for transparency in government and performance audits in particular. I believe he may well prove to have done ...

Posted Sat, Mar 1, 6:31 p.m.

It was pretty bad: Yeah, push polling is an understatement. It was more like shove down a flight of stairs polling. If you had your choice, which would you prefer: 1) A $2 billion expenditure for light rail over 10 years. 2) A $5 billion expenditure for light rail over ...

Posted Fri, Feb 29, 8:56 a.m.

Preserve Northwest Architecture, and the Future: Northwest architecture seems to be a lost art. Look at new houses - they look like parodies of genteel country estates, all thrown together with little architectural details cut out of magazines and mixed together on top of a coffee table. Don't forget the ...

Posted Thu, Feb 28, 2:44 p.m.

RE: name calling cont.: "Your bigotry betrays itself." I must have lost track here. Who is the one in this exchange that's name calling?

Posted Thu, Feb 28, 12:35 p.m.

RE: Name calling: Religion is a matter of faith. Government is not. Government does not flow from religion any more than architecture flows from poetry. I always hesitate to call myself an atheist because most people that do so are assertively anti-religious, and I am not. I don't think a ...

Posted Thu, Feb 28, 9:56 a.m.

More than a conservative, an anti-collectivist: As a libertarian by nature, I found Buckley's religious attitudes maddeningly un-intellectual (Ayn Rand once complained to him "You are too intelligent to believe in God!"), but it was so wonderfully refreshing to hear someone who could make cogent arguments, as well as engage ...

Posted Tue, Feb 26, 11:41 a.m.

Wronger: It's none of the state's business to be registering and assigning people to political parties. The state can establish the ground rules for state and local elections, but national elections are a different kind of thing. If members of a party want to assemble at a caucus and pick ...

Posted Tue, Feb 26, 11:30 a.m.

State dictates to parties?: Washington was always a presidential caucus state until 1989. It was the push to establish a presidential primary that started the chain of events that led to a court ruling our open primary system for all offices unconstitutional and put us in the mess we're in ...

Posted Tue, Feb 26, 9:28 a.m.

RE: The Survey is Broken!: I tried it again today and it worked. But Jeez Louise, talk about push polling! Hub and spoke solutions aren't going to work in an area where people live and work all over the place.

Posted Mon, Feb 25, 4:39 p.m.

RE: The real cause of rush hour ...: Every day I follow cars across the Narrows Bridge all the way to Seattle or Bellevue. King County seems to be where all the tech jobs are, but it sucks as a place to live. I'll hit retirement age in less than ...

Posted Mon, Feb 25, 12:35 p.m.

The Survey is Broken!: I filled out the first page, clicked "Submit" and got a message that says "Our records indicate that you have already completed this survey." The only possible way they could identify me would be through my IP address, since they asked me no questions about myself. ...

Posted Fri, Feb 22, 10:03 a.m.

RE: The way Hillary's campaigning is making me lose respect for her: "There are a lot of good jobs for dedicated, hardworking public servants who aren't gifted at public leadership per se." That's very true, but I think we all know that Hillary Clinton's career goal isn't to be a ...

Posted Thu, Feb 21, 2:38 p.m.

Governor's race?: Has the Governor's race started yet? I know Rossi has announced he'll run, but if there's been any campaignin' going on by either candidate I haven't seen any sign of it.

Posted Wed, Feb 20, 10:33 a.m.

It's too bad: I was willing to give her the benefit of the doubt, that she had just misspoken, but if it was a prepared text I guess that bit of hopefullness goes down the drain. Still, given her establishment-left pedigree as outlined in the article, it's not surprising that ...

Posted Wed, Feb 20, 9:27 a.m.

Faux Feminist and Friends: Like I said in my comment on the last article, Hillary's ascendancy hasn't been along the career path of a feminist; rather it's the way women in my grandmother's generation achieved political or business power - by steering the career of a charismatic husband, and being ...

Posted Tue, Feb 19, 12:03 p.m.

RE: Grant was a man of action: A perfect President for Washington to adopt would be Jimmy Carter! Think of it: so obsessed with details he ties himself up in knots. Preachy and pious. Willing to eliminate people's rights on a whim (remember the plan to ban convertibles because they ...

Posted Tue, Feb 19, 11:51 a.m.

RE: Points of Focus, aka Foci: Antitrust laws are the last refuge of incompetent businessmen. I loathe Microsoft and their crummy products as much as anyone, but nobody is holding a gun to people's heads and making them buy Windows. Lemmings deserve their fate. That said, you don't help the ...

Posted Mon, Feb 18, 10:48 a.m.

RE: _: What's wrong with establishing a scholarship program for the universities we already have? Whether Western Washington in the North, UPS and PLU in the south, or UW in Seattle, the Puget Sound region is ringed with great institutions. There's even Evergreen for the granola the tie-die set. Fighting ...

Posted Mon, Feb 18, 9:11 a.m.

Humorless Svenskahoovians?: An accusation like that could get your drummed out of KING's TV Klub with Stan!

Posted Mon, Feb 18, 8:55 a.m.

Climate Change in Paln Springs: When my grandfather retired, he took an inheritance from and uncle (such things do happen) and bought a condo in Palm Springs as a winter house. After he passed away in 1976, and until her death in 1997, I accompanied my grandmother down there every ...

Posted Fri, Feb 15, 10:49 a.m.

RE: What about previously constructed homes?: The reason for that is that the market doesn't care whether the house had the externalities in the cost of construction at the time it was built. It competes with other houses in the market as it today, and so its value is set ...

Posted Fri, Feb 15, 10:39 a.m.

It's just fascinating: The amazing thing about this research is that Seattle "opinion leaders" are so separated from the real world that the information in this report would come as a revelation. If you make it harder to do something (such as build a house) you make that task more ...

Posted Thu, Feb 14, 10:36 a.m.

Serial Ineptitude: Once again, it seems, the Governor is implementing a feel-good plan that says "Look, we're doing something!" rather than finding a real solution to a problem. How many millions will be wasted on ferries that will soon be proven too small? Then the whole process will start over ...

Posted Wed, Feb 13, 7:44 a.m.

RE: "Lackluster" is in the eye of the beholder (there is the rub): "Men... love to make the rules so that they can stay in power..." You've obviously never been married. :-)

Posted Tue, Feb 12, 10:33 a.m.

Could Huckabee find Washington on a map?: And even if he could, would it mean he understands how our caucuses work? Weren't the caucuses long over when the "winner" was announced? So how could that effect the eventual outcome? And all this "winner" talk ignores the fact that the precinct ...

Posted Mon, Feb 11, 11:31 a.m.

Career woman of the 1920s: Hillary Clinton considers herself a feminist, but she has a career path right out of my Grandmother's generation. Back in the 1920s and 30s, if you were an ambitious woman, unless you inherited a business, about your only path to power was to find a ...

Posted Fri, Feb 8, 10:33 a.m.

Three words:: Clinton War Room

Posted Tue, Feb 5, 12:56 p.m.

Here's an interesting topic for research.: It would be interesting to know what percentage of anti-circumcision activists, like Ms. Jong, are also pro-choice on abortion. Since a great deal of the argument seems to rest on the fact that the procedure is performed without the informed consent of the patient, ...

Posted Tue, Feb 5, 10:42 a.m.

RE: Notice How CNN got your attention, not Fox: This URL points to an opinion piece about Democratic candidates boycotting Fox News, and that Fox pundits have endorsed losing GOP candidates. It doesn't exactly tell a story about viewers leaving Fox in favor of CNN.

Posted Tue, Feb 5, 10:38 a.m.

RE: Notice How CNN got your attention, not Fox: This URL points to a story about presidential debates, which says that: "The debate topped the previous record of 4.5 million viewers, set by the CNN-YouTube GOP debate Nov. 28. Last week, the Fox News GOP debate in South Carolina averaged ...

Posted Mon, Feb 4, 3:25 p.m.

RE: Notice How CNN got your attention, not Fox: "Fox's ratings have plummeted during this dour time for Republicans, and CNN's have soared" I did a little checking on this assertion, and the only recent comparison I could find for free was in this article by the Hollywood Reporter dated ...

Posted Mon, Feb 4, 9:39 a.m.

Ornamental lights: I agree that Christmas lights past early January look tacky, just as tacky as Christmas lights before Thanksgiving. The house in the illustration certainly features one of the tackiest types, at least in the way they're usually applied: icicle lights. However, many clear lights are simply ornamental and ...

Posted Sun, Feb 3, 12:28 p.m.

RE: Thinking with your feelings: For the sake of "SgtDad" and others who are coming to this thread without (I assume) reading the earlier one, I'd like to provide a short recap that might bring things to the crux of the issue a little sooner. It was quite late in ...

Posted Sat, Feb 2, 11:13 a.m.

RE: the victims have to realize what they are: This may come as a surprise to you, but most people don't see themselves as victims, and have nothing but contempt for those that do.

Posted Sat, Feb 2, 11:01 a.m.

RE: Good deal!: "Microsoft has absorbed many companies and knows how to separate the wheat from the chaff. " So, what happens to the wheat?

Posted Fri, Feb 1, 12:57 p.m.

Well this is just swell: Now I'm going to have to buy a Windoze PC to read my Yahoo mail.

Posted Thu, Jan 31, 2:19 p.m.

Why Edwards Cratered: In Edwards' world, there are "two Americas". Evil businesses and... uh... What? Smarmy little trial lawyers? I don't have a dog in that fight. Most people work for businesses. Thankfully, we haven't reached the point where government is the raison d'etre of our civilization. So while it's ...

Posted Thu, Jan 31, 9:13 a.m.

RE: DOCTORS OPPOSING CIRCUMCISION REPLIES: "if you still dont' believe me that circumcision makes it hareder (or even impossible) to masterbate,..." I was circumcised. I had no trouble spankin' the ol' monkey. Therefore, there is evidence that your contention is incorrect. I have seen plenty of circumcised penises in my ...

Posted Wed, Jan 30, 4:29 p.m.

RE: DOCTORS OPPOSING CIRCUMCISION REPLIES: "...that's what happens to most american boys today, " Hate to be obdurate, but you've made this claim repeatedly and I'd like to see you cite a reputable source for this contention. I've offered empirical evidence that this is not the case, so at least ...

Posted Wed, Jan 30, 2:31 p.m.

RE: DOCTORS OPPOSING CIRCUMCISION REPLIES: "so you think that having no movable skin on the penis wouldn't make any difference in intercourse? do you understand anything about sex? most american boys don't know that men are supposed to be able to masturbate without lubrication..." I don't believe that. I think ...

Posted Wed, Jan 30, 10:48 a.m.

RE: DOCTORS OPPOSING CIRCUMCISION REPLIES: Well, it's beginning to sound like there's circumcision and then there's circumcision. I never had any need for accessories in the self-pleasure department, so I'm starting to wonder if some doctors remove more than others. Like someone suggested earlier, I've never made a detailed examination ...

Posted Wed, Jan 30, 9:44 a.m.

RE: DOCTORS OPPOSING CIRCUMCISION REPLIES: Thank you for posting something reasonable and non-emotional. I'm not a urologist, so I'm not skookum with all the medical lingo (although I know what the glans is), but it sounds like you're saying that the main body of the penis does not contribute to ...

Posted Wed, Jan 30, 9:07 a.m.

Like I said at the start of this...: ...anti-circumcision zealots tire me. Just look at all this silly conflation of circumcision with the holocaust, ad hominem attacks on me and others who dare speak against the "one truth", allegations of dark sexual fantasies. Is there a better example of how ...

Posted Tue, Jan 29, 2:17 p.m.

To paraphrase a famous line,: ...It's Bill Clinton, stupid. In his mind everything is about Bill Clinton. He's the bride at every wedding and the corpse at every funeral. He's the center of the universe. He's so damned fascinating that he can talk about nothing else for hours. It's nice ...

Posted Tue, Jan 29, 1:58 p.m.

RE: another opinion: Quote: "Well, at least most of the victims of those two evils had the dignity of having been circumcised" are you being serious with this statement? End quote. Here was my original comment before you edited it: Well, at least most of the victims of those two ...

Posted Tue, Jan 29, 1:13 p.m.

RE: another opinion: "what i'm getting from this is that you think it's OK for parents to do whatever they want to their children just because they won't remember it? so if i had a boy and decided that i wanted a girl instead would you support me wanting to ...

Posted Tue, Jan 29, 9:22 a.m.

RE: Never met someone upset about circ? What are we, chopped liver?: With all due respect Mr. Low, you must be nuts. Do you remember the procedure? When did you discover that you were circumcised? Have you compared having sex with and without a foreskin? Would you as a little ...

Posted Mon, Jan 28, 12:09 p.m.

Anti-circumcision zealots tire me: Most American boys get circumcised at birth. It's what we do as a culture. I was, as were all my friends, as well as everyone I ever shared a PE locker room with (except one). There was no trauma, no mental anguish. We didn't even know ...

Posted Fri, Jan 25, 2:12 p.m.

Simple Solution:: Replace the sinking section, seismic-retrofit the rest. Now, what doses of reality will we get about the 520 bridge "crisis"?

Posted Mon, Jan 21, 1:56 p.m.

Give Eyman his due: As a Pierce County resident, I find something endearing about someone who ticks off so many Seattleites. :-)

Posted Thu, Jan 17, 9:31 a.m.

The are two Americas: One with expensive suits, and one with expensive haircuts. And one with neither. No, wait, Three Americas. One with expensive suits, one with expensive haircuts and one with neither. And one with both. Four Americas: One with expensive suits, one with expensive haircuts, one with neither ...

Posted Wed, Jan 16, 4:11 p.m.

RE: rose colored glasses: The Black Ball line was forced into a labor dispute it didn't want, then nationalized, in a cynical move by the state to get it out of the way of a plan to replace the ferry fleet with a system of cross-Sound bridges that were never ...

Posted Tue, Jan 15, 12:52 p.m.

Brave New World: A planet populated totally by spoiled-brat only children. What's Daddy going to buy his little girl for her 16th birthday when all the Lexuses are gone?

Posted Mon, Jan 14, 9:35 a.m.

RE: Dogs do not eat dogs!: "It's no surprise that she's popular at Microsoft. After all, MSFT's products aren't just inferior but are also inelegant and crude." A more interesting question than whether Rand is popular at Microsoft would be whether Microsoft would be popular with Rand. Microsoft is not ...

Posted Fri, Jan 11, 9:12 a.m.

RE: Why Drag Successful Tacoma Port Down to Seattle level?: Every time the Port of Seattle gets into trouble they push the idea of merging ports - with, of course, themselves as the senior partner. No competition, no comparison, no reason to question the competence and honesty of the POS ...

Posted Thu, Jan 10, 4:32 p.m.

Techie == Libertarian? A Problem...: If techies consider themselves libertarians, why does King County have such a big-government, liberal-leaning electorate? We even read that affluent technology types are by disposition liberal and predominantly Democrats. The modern Democratic party is about as far from libertarian as you can get - in ...

Posted Wed, Jan 9, 12:38 p.m.

RE: co-Impact of batteries: I'd like to learn about this, too, and I'm surprised nobody is investigating this issue. I recently bought a two-year-old Ford Focus to commute in. It has all the creature comforts (except an automatic transmission) and has yet to get less than 32 MPG in even ...

Posted Wed, Jan 9, 8:57 a.m.

RE: And we can pray for a tidal wave: OK, what do you love? Let me know, so I can organize government to take it away from you. Sound fair?

Posted Wed, Jan 9, 8:53 a.m.

RE: ?: Two points: 1) There's no hypocrisy in loving your country and distrusting your government. In fact, it's the origin of our constitutional system. 2) A lot of people don't want *anything* from government except to be left alone. There are people (not saying anyone here is like this) ...

Posted Tue, Jan 8, 4:45 p.m.

Defining the Baby Boom: I'd never considered someone too young to have served in Viet Nam a baby boomer. Now I hear baby boomdom has been extended to the 1960s. I'm a member of Newt Gingrich and Bill Clinton's generation?!? Eeeeeewwwww!

Posted Tue, Jan 8, 3:28 p.m.

The nature of taxes: Taxes should be conspicuous and painful. The worst idea in taxation is the per-paycheck withholding done for Social Security and the income tax. If people had to write big checks to the government every year, maybe they would wean themselves off many of the government "services" ...

Posted Mon, Jan 7, 11:45 a.m.

The Pestilence of Otters: As someone who lives by, not over, the water I can attest that otters are vile, filthy, obnoxious, smelly, annoying and obdurate. Last year otters invaded the crawlspace under my house and even after I boarded up the hole they created to gain entrance, their stench ...

Posted Fri, Jan 4, 1:39 p.m.

RE: How many more weeks till November?: "(And how come the Repubs are "red" these days anyway? Better Dead than Red? For sure, even while Dems get the Blues.) " It started with the election of 1976. NBC had a big map of the US on their election night set. ...

Posted Fri, Jan 4, 12:36 p.m.

RE: No traffic circles.: About the time the town of Gig Harbor started throwing up circle-jerks... uh... roundabouts everywhere, there was an article in the Wall Street Journal that said that most jurisdictions experience a 600% increase in traffic accidents in intersections where a roundabout replaces a traffic light or ...

Posted Wed, Jan 2, 10:25 a.m.

RE: Dear Gun Nuts: "So, doesn't it seem logical that when people from that time referred to the right of the *militia* [emphasis mine] to be armed, they were referring to those groups they'd had around for 60 years who supported the government?" Then why does it say "...the right ...

Posted Mon, Dec 31, 7:46 a.m.

RE: Gun control does not apply to criminals: "(And if it's not in a lock box with a trigger lock, it better be unloaded, unless you're willing to have your kids shoot each other accidently while playing around with "daddy's toy".)" My dad kept a loaded .45 revolver under his ...

Posted Thu, Dec 27, 9:39 a.m.

Farnsworth story: Having never heard of "The Farnsworth Invention" I did a web search on it. Sad to say, it sounds like another Farnsowrth family attempt at framing the invention of television as Heroic Farnsworth vs. Sinister Sarnoff, with barely a mention of Vladimir Zworykin in passing. I suppose it ...

Posted Wed, Dec 26, 2:35 p.m.

Save us from the selfless bureaucrats: A school for "young men and women committed to the greater good and service above self"? I don't buy it. Scratch any self-professed "good government" type and you find a big government type. And what exactly is wrong with enlightened self interest? Anyone who ...

Posted Fri, Dec 21, 11:12 a.m.

RE: one bad apple, as they say . . .: That's not the impression I've been getting. It seems every month there's a new story of how Sonntag has discovered corruption or incompetence in some agency or another (and usually had to deal with lack of cooperation or outright sonewalling ...

Posted Wed, Dec 19, 10:54 a.m.

Bus Tunnel Computer: What do you want to bet it runs Windows?

Posted Mon, Dec 17, 3:37 p.m.

RE: The Christmas Fallacy: Every non-equatorial culture that I know of has a mid-winter holiday, and it's usually one of the most important in their calendar. Most of what we associate with Christmas came to Christmas from Saturnalia and Yule. SO WHAT?!? Pompous ersatz pagans and conspicuously-pious "reason for the ...

Posted Thu, Dec 13, 3:01 p.m.

RE: eal Estate Numbers: "A Frause'ier barbecue I've never attended." - Groucho Marx Sorry. :-)

Posted Wed, Dec 12, 5:14 p.m.

RE: eal Estate Numbers: My family's been in Washington since it was a territory. Like Walter Brennan used to say in The Guns of Will Sonnet (a short-lived late-60s TV western) "No brag, just fact."

Posted Wed, Dec 12, 4:48 p.m.

IKEA is like a ride at Disneyland: You wouldn't jump out of a boat or other moving conveyance at Disneyland and head off through the ride would you? IKEA is the same way. You travel down the path from one amazing Furnitureland to another, as vistas of nordic living play ...

Posted Mon, Dec 10, 4:06 p.m.

RE: A religious test?: Unfortunately, the religious right "deals with" the founding fathers' deism by simply denying it. I can't tell you how many religious conservatives I've heard referring to the piety and religious conviction of a bunch of men who today would be called agnostics. Just because a guy ...

Posted Fri, Nov 30, 11:18 a.m.

RE: Another spot to have to avoid Ted's writing: The excerpt doesn't say anything about doing away with the parade, it just lists it as one of many distractions that keep people occupied while the "ruling class" runs amok. Far from "grow[ing] up and learn[ing] to be fair and inclusive" ...

Posted Thu, Nov 29, 12:39 p.m.

RE: Let's try it!: Amen! It's up the the legislature to live within its means. They do not have a *right* to our money, but they seem to think the people will be satisfied with whatever "allowance" they grant us. The state consumes far too much wealth and delivers precious ...

Posted Thu, Nov 29, 11:55 a.m.

RE: There is another way to look at the RP popularity...: Never ascribe to a conspiracy that which can be explained by simple ineptitude. My main reservation about Ron Paul is the same one I have with most Capital-L Libertarians on the national stage. It's isolationism as a foreign policy. ...

Posted Tue, Nov 27, 1:03 p.m.

RE: The Aaesthetics of the Seattle Center: A lot of what you talk about could have been addressed about 20 years ago, when the Center officials proposed bringing Disney in to consult on how to fix up the Center and make it a better experience for visitors. The cries of ...

Posted Fri, Nov 23, 2:42 p.m.

Tacky?!: If the city wants to eliminate tackiness from the Seattle Center, it can start by removing all the "stuff" cluttering up the courtyard of Minoru Yamasaki's once-beautiful Science Center. The area around the arches looks like a junkyard.

Posted Wed, Nov 21, 2:43 p.m.

RE: What's wrong with tolling?: Dumping the money into transit just benefits another privileged class, transit riders. I'd ride transit, too, if it came within 5 miles of my house and could get me to work in less time than my 1-1/2 to 2 hour commute. But, change busses a ...

Posted Wed, Nov 21, 10:39 a.m.

Last of the Black Ball boats?: Just before the state forced the Black Ball Line out of business and nationalized it, Bing Crosby and the Andrews Sisters recorded a song called "Black Ball Ferry Line" in which part of the lyrics consisted of a list of some of boats. The ...

Posted Fri, Nov 16, 2:11 p.m.

What constitutes retrofitting?: It would be interesting to know what measures retrofitters take. The type of precautions I've read about are to lash walls to the foundation, etc. My house was built in 1939 by an old boat builder. It has a post and pier "foundation" and the piers are ...

Posted Tue, Nov 13, 12:42 p.m.

Only in Seattle...: ...would the political establishment fret that the government has too *little* control over our lives. Those of us in The Rest of the State have message for Seattle: Mind your own freakin' business. Establish your own little Politburo and run yourselves into the ground with a parasitic ...

Posted Wed, Oct 24, 4:28 p.m.

RE: Suck it up: ...and then the little inconvenience of living in a free society comes into play.

Posted Tue, Sep 11, 12:10 p.m.

RE: The crush of public opinion: Well, if "CC is Seattle[;] Ain't gonna be Portland or Tacoma" I guess I can quit reading. Persoanlly, I've had a bellyfull of Imperial Seattle media.

Posted Mon, Sep 3, 12:17 p.m.

Light Pollution: I'd like to note here that state legislator Pat Lantz is concerned about light pollution issues, but is a lone voice in the Legislature. She's told me it's almost impossible to make any progress on the issue when so many people equate "bright" with "safe" (a dubious proposition ...

Posted Wed, Aug 29, 1:41 p.m.

Music From the Swing Years!: If it wasn't for this show, which I've been a fan of forever, the overwhelming majority of my NPR listening would be via KPLU. I keep expecting KUOW to cancel it. In fact, lots of the shows I really used to like on public radio, ...

Posted Fri, Aug 17, 4:45 p.m.

Downtown Rosedale scores...: 8 out of 100! Yeehaw! No wonder I love my home (unincorporated) town!

Posted Thu, Aug 16, 2:25 p.m.

Constitutional Issue?: I was always led to believe that it's unconstitutional to impose a toll on a bridge that's paid for. That's why the toll was removed from the second Narrows Bridge in the 60s, over objections from Peninsula residents who saw it opening the floodgates to suburbification (which it ...

Posted Tue, Aug 14, 3:08 p.m.

RE: Mannings revealed: Many's the time I took my Grandmother's 1973 Coupe DeVille through the "Rancho Super Carwash" in Rancho Mirage. My grandparents bought a winter place in Palm Springs in the early 70s and Rancho Mirage, which has far less restrictive zoning than other Palm Springs area cities, is ...

Posted Sat, Aug 11, 8:46 p.m.

Reagan closed *State* hospitals?: How is that possible? Isn't it the case that several high court decisions, ruling that non-dangerous mentally ill people could not be held against their will, is the real reason so many were turned out of institutions. and the institutions subsequently closed for lack of inmates? ...

Posted Mon, Jul 23, 4:30 p.m.

RE: Tax the Poor: dtatch, you started life as a Seattlite, but are now a citizen of The Rest Of The State. Welcome; you are amongst friends, and congratulations on your epiphany.

Posted Mon, Jul 23, 4:13 p.m.

If Gregoire is dissatisfied...: ...with what others write for her, maybe she should write more of her own speeches. It worked for Reagan, and it would give her speech writers some idea of what her speaking style is. This story implies she doesn't really have one. Lawyer-talk isn't a style.

Posted Thu, Jul 19, 12:09 p.m.

RE: best methods: Gas taxes are regressive because the people who can least afford new, efficient cars are the people making the least money. If you're in a low-income job, probably all you can afford is that 1974 Galaxie 500, and you really get it stuck to you at the ...

Posted Wed, Jul 18, 8:33 a.m.

RE: Jean Enersen?!?: Local programming (except for very profitable nooz shows) is dead because it's easier and cheaper to pull stuff off a satellite than to hire the talent and technical staff to produce locally. Back in the 50s, 60s and 70s, stations had full-time camera operators, audio mixers, engineers, ...

Posted Tue, Jul 17, 4:55 p.m.

We were told...: ...that the engineers wanted a design that harmonized with that of the old bridge, while not overshadowing it. However, except for the XX pattern on the towers, the thing looks like the plans were bought out of a catalog.

Posted Tue, Jul 17, 4:43 p.m.

Jean Enersen?!?: Everyone knows that King's Queen is Bea Donovan!