Liberal bloggers are delirious with joy about Buildergate, the series of allegations announced yesterday accusing Republican gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi of directly and illegally soliciting funds from the Master Builder's Association in May 2007 to fund the Building Industry Association of Washington's "war chest." Both David Goldstein at Horse's Ass and Aaron Ostrom at FUSE call the memo a "smoking gun" and a game-changer for the hotly contested gubernatorial race.
Nothing concentrates one's mind, it has been said, like the imminence of hanging.
This is the case as policymakers and ordinary citizens consider options to shore up the financial system and avoid an economic depression. People are concentrating as well on state and local decisions knowing that, at the least, an economic downturn lies ahead and that tax revenues will be reduced. Belt tightening is in order. Projects involving big public money, such as plans to fix the perennial Mercer Mess from I-5 to Seattle Center, will be getting increased scrutiny. Or so I hope.
My granddaughter is writing her first book. Here's how it starts: "I was born at 10:30 a.m. on June 18th, 2000. That's when the trouble began." If I were writing her book, I'd start with, "Last Friday afternoon my grandmother and I were chased by a swarm of yellowjackets." It started out with great innocence. We were going to the park to walk Bodhi the dog. Not one to waste water, on the way out the front door, I threw a pan of dishwater onto the rose bush next to us.
A journalist and former Seattle City Council member who led the council's investigation into the WTO riots faults the film for claiming too much for the protesters. More disturbing was the picture of dreamy nonchalance in planning that the investigation revealed about City Hall and Seattle Police.
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