Category: Politics

The sad state of Seattle real estate

The Seattle Times: Real Estate: Fewer can afford to buy a house in King County, report says

Foreclosures up sharply in state, Seattle area

I’ve been saying this for years. The median home price in Seattle has far eclipsed the median income. This means that it is becoming impossible for people working in the area to actually afford a home. Which either increases the number of people in insane debt and living from paycheck to paycheck or it increases the number of commuters travelling into the city and around the region. This is unsustainable and the Mayor’s response of building condos everywhere isn’t going to fix the problem.

you have no privacy: part 1,000,000

The Seattle Times: Bush says feds can open mail without warrant

Despite George Bush’s desire to be compared favorably to Harry Truman, he is acting a lot more like Joseph Stalin.

related:
Caught with his hand in the civil rights cookie jar AGAIN
King Bush
Ben Franklin kicking it on the current spying debate tip
The end of civil liberties
The President is spying on us

(man, I gotta move all those posts over here)

The final nail in the coffin of privatization around Social Security?

And Now, a Word From Chile … – New York Times

The shining example of privatized social security is encountering serious problems taking care of their elderly who don’t have enough to live on. Now, hopefully it is obvious that the idea of privatization of social security was, at best, a well mannered (but poorly planned) desire to reduce government spending (and taxes) and, at worst, a cynical attempt to enrich the few on the backs of the many with no regard to the welfare of the most vulnerable in society.

If the debacles around medicare haven’t killed the privatization monster, hopefully this will (although, I kinda doubt it, the right always believes that they know better than anyone else).

Why I sometimes hate Christmas

The flipside of the Seatac Airport Trees incident is the right wing’s continual battle against the non-existant War on Christmas. So the LA Times points out that this is really a nice cash making scheme for at least some on the right: ‘War on Christmas’ has a new jingle: money.

Now, as a Jewish person who grew up in an incredibly Jewish area, I used to get offended by those determined to ignore the non-Christian population of the world. Maybe because I’ve gotten older or maybe because I’ve been living in an area insensitive to Jewish culture (but not very Christian either) for the last dozen or so years, I’ve gotten used to the idea that many people don’t really have the religious connotations about Christmas that I have.

Then the “War on Christmas” comes up again, where the right wants to make sure that it is CHRIST MASS and not Christmas, and then I hate it all over again, and some store clerk wishing me Merry Christmas gets my wrath.

Wow, this seems to bug me every year: 2004, 2005

Maybe, feeling ok with it was just ’cause of the Democratic wins this November making me feel less under attack.

So to all my fellow chosen folk, Happy Belated Chanukah!

For everyone else: Merry Christmas, Happy Kwanzaa, Enjoy Saturnalia, congradulations on the Solstice and whatever else anyone may dig this time of year…

The SeaTac Airport Trees incident

The Seattle Times: Local News: Airports trees stoking “war on Christmas”

Ya know, I’d like a Menorah in addition to XMas trees if they are going to be on public property too. I however think that suing the port “to make a point” during XMas season was a stupid move 10 times over. All it does it make all of us look petty and horrible. If it was a cross or a creche, something undeniably religious, I’d sign up on that suit myself…

Then again, the responses to the article also harken to my worst fears. The kind of stupidity on the other side “This is a Christian Nation” kinds of crap…

hey half of America!

You get what you deserve.  Everyone knows that the situation in Iraq is a quagmire and that our plans (or lack thereof) have been flawed and are still flawed. Report after report comes out saying that we are doing the wrong things and yet the president feels firm in his convictions. He is the decider, the commander in chief. His will is strong. Which is exactly why so many of you voted for him, right?
The Seattle Times: Nation & World: Democrats on Iraq report: Bush just doesn’t get it

Wow, talk about a buzzkill…

A non-profit group has constructed a billboard in second life to let people know how many preventable child deaths they could have done something about while f’ing around in the non-real-world.

Second Life escapists told to wake up | The Register

In this case, I can sorta see both sides. It seems kind of trivial to be spending zillions of hours and some dollars in a role playing game when you could be fighting injustice in the real world. Yup, absolutely right. However, having an outlet from the horrors of real life is sometimes a necessity for our information-overload, news-drenched, overworking lives. I guess there is always a happy medium, isn’t there?

Rumsfeld wanted to “change the course” and “cut and run” right before he was canned.

The timeline (at least the one presented by the Seattle Times) doesn’t support it, but it could be possible that Rumsfeld issued a memo suggesting that the Iraq war was falling apart and was fired immediately. It is also possible that he got wind of unhappiness and was trying to prove that he was flexible. Either way, it was too little too late.

The Seattle Times: Nation & World: Rumsfeld urged big changes in Iraq strategy