The Real Face of Government: Vancouver council members voted against making themselves pay part of their own health premiums. And they weren’t even brave little greedheads about it, instead questioning their own powers to handle the issue at all.
Shrinking the American Dream: An Oregon man who builds recession-chic micro-cabins wants to create a subdivision of them. The homes range in size from 144 to 800 square feet. Of course, this will necessitate more sprawl.
The Beat Goes On: The litany of woes with Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner project continues to grow. It is now three years past due, needs a ton of fixes, and might not even get licensed for the lucrative transcontinental routes. Drink too long of the bitter milk of Leviathan’s teat and this is what happens.
Humanizing the Housing Crisis: ProPublica and the Seattle Times analyzed a large sample of foreclosures and now share the personal stories behind them. It’s interesting that Seattle’s crisis tends to be characterized by a much higher rate of refinancing.
Not Just Seattle: Spokane residents are questioning local police brutality, too. Here’s hoping any guilty cops pay and not just get paid with administrative leave.
The Parallel Economic Reality: As real people have lost jobs and benefits by the ton, and even some government workers have, too, a wide swath of Tacoma city employees have gotten fat raises. Good—this just gives us another reason to fire them all.
The Good Side: If you haven’t heard of the Atlantic Street Center, read this profile. Sounds like a hell of a noble place.
Infuriating: Mitch McConnell says he cannot support the new version of the START nuclear arms control pact because politicians haven’t had enough time to consider it. GTFO, you cynical old dough-face—this is way too serious for dicking around.
Oh Well: Bank of America will no longer process payments for WikiLeaks. That next bailout isn’t going to fund itself.
Ick Spreads North of the Border: Craigslist appears to have removed prostitution ads from its Canadian pages. As soon as Senator-elect Dick Blumenthal bullied Craigslist into doing it for the U.S. this summer, a legion of admiring opportunists in Canada’s political classes launched the offensive up there. Sad to see a pro-prostitute, pro-freedom service fall victim to cynical politicians.
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Re: Craigslist: Admittedly, I know nothing about how safe or unsafe it is to use sex ads on Craigslist, but this bit from the morning paper makes sense to me:
Is this political posturing, or genuine concern over safety?
How comes Luby’s morning “news” posts are mostly just his opinions? And also fairly unreadable?
Dear Unpaid Intern: The City of Tacoma seems to have followed standard private-sector practice of normalizing their salaries (a process they admit they started in the flush times of 2005). This brings their salaries in line with other public agencies, streamlines the salary structures, and prevents the private-sector-brain-drain that goes along with low public-sector salaries.
So in short, they acted according to the libertarian principles dingbats like you constantly espouse. And you shit on them for it.
So fuck you, unpaid intern. Maybe it’s time for you to “Go Galt” on us, eh?
@2 No kidding. What about DADT, Korean standoff, northern Europe flight delays, deliberations over the Russian missile treaty?
Re: Boeing – the concern is with “intercontinental,” rather than “transcontinental” flights. Perhaps a you got some bitter teat-milk in your eye while editing.
@ 3, the government is never allowed to follow the free market because they are the enemies of the free market by definition. It’s against the rules of Luby and his ilk, anyway. (Isn’t it funny how self-styled iconoclasts always have their own dogma?)
I want the good morning news back.
@3
This dude has been by far the worst unpaid intern in recent memory. There have been stacks and stacks of posts by him that read like maladroit columns by “the conservative guy” at a college newspaper. Just sit back and enjoy the ride and the misplaced smug self-confidence.
Matt, you’re ignorant and arrogant. (I was like you, once.)
It’s easy to sneer and criticize, but much harder to build and accomplish. Go give that a try, then come back and tell us all how stupid we are.
Also, (and this is the greatest sin for a writer), you’re not interesting to read.
I worry for dear unpaid intern. His writing style seems to be morphing from a petulant 15 year old boy into a bitchy 13 year old girl. (you know the type: She peaks in junior high, marries her first boyfriend at 18, and is on her third husband by thirty. )
Intern dear, it’s not too late to change. Believe me, you don’t want to be that girl.
RE: Mitch McConnell and START treaty:
The fucking conservatives refuse to address anything until they get their tax breaks for billionaires, then after they get what they were whining about, they say they don’t have enough time for anything else.
I’m not voting republican anyway, but don’t independents and undecideds look at this and get just as pissed off as I do? wtf? Why the fuck are liberals not calling out conservatives on all the shit they constantly pull? Why the fuck aren’t they reminding people daily that the conservatives have stalled and balked at every. fucking. thing. the liberals have tried to help the middle class with?
Jesus H. Fucking Christ.
Don’t let them get you down Matt Luby. Varying perspectives is healthy for The Stranger and grows its readership – and keeps it from sinking into a boring echo chamber.
Fuck, they (Mitch and his posse) have had months to read what was signed in April.
Matt Luby is a self contradictory turd pusher. He claims that he only reports the facts, but there is so much of his opinion in his so called reporting. He says he wouldn’t hurt a fly, but he says give me a gun, and I’ll defend my private property. Then he likes some publicly funded TV channels, but then doesn’t like them. What a miserable schizo. Luby violates principles of journalism (such as inserting opinion into reporting) that I learned in my middle school journalism class. Luby is incompetent as a journalist.
In spring 2007, she bought her dream home in Kirkland, signing a 30-year, fixed-rate mortgage. Then, as Jones celebrated New Year’s Eve on a beach in Mexico, the call came: Her division was shutting down. Jones tapped her savings over the next year and tried for a loan modification, but in the end, the bank filed to foreclose. The dream was over.
Jones said she was pulling in $800,000 a year in 2007 when she put 20 percent down and bought a five-bedroom, 3,400-square-foot, Italian-style home for $1.6 million in Kirkland. When National City laid her off on New Year’s Eve in 2007, she owned four homes: two former residences that she rented out; a vacation home on the Washington coast; and her new Kirkland home. Jones drained her savings to keep paying the mortgages, refusing to declare bankruptcy. She eventually sold two of the homes, but it wasn’t enough.
Awww…how sad. Nothing tugs at your heart strings like someone who was making $800,000/year losing her 3,400-square-foot, $1.6 million dream home. Drained her savings is right. I bet they went fast. Just imagine how hard it would be to save that much money when you’re only making $800,000/year.
@ 11, liberals in general do not know how to keep up the fight, or to keep kicking when someone is down like the GOP does. I was reading about the DADT repeal on another blog, and the mostly liberal commenters were by and large thanking the Republican Senators who voted for it. You know, forgetting that these same people just voted against the DREAM act, for the Bush tax cuts and all the other noxious legislation from that time, and participated in all the filibusters and bad faith negotiations of the past two years. Have any Republican pundits or the mouthbreathing followers ever thanked Joe Lieberman, or given credit to conservadem who helped out their cause? Not that I ever saw.
Man, the government sure is bad.
It allows Boeing to revolutionize the passenger airplane business, it lets politicians prevent underage prostitution, it allows workers in a parallel economy to keep their jobs, and it promotes active debate on the regulation, production and distribution of nuclear weapons.
I’m sure the Republicans will have had enough time to study the bill in a few weeks when they have more votes in the Senate and can force more pork into it.
But christ is it hard to talk about the actual news around your inane rantings, Luby. There’s a reason for all the ridicule you’re receiving here, it’s the proper response to the ridiculous.
@1 – the thing is, advertising for erotic services isn’t creating demand for very young teenage girls. Basically, the creeps who are into that sort of thing are a certain small segment of the population and the pimps are providing what they want. Shutting down Craigslist doesn’t change that, nor does it solve the problem of the “Natashas”. What I don’t understand is why the cops don’t just have an officer dedicated to screening CL (et al) 24/7. As soon as a suspicious ad goes up, send out a response by an undercover officer. I would’ve thought these type of ads would be a freaking GIFT to law enforcement.
@16,
I know, right! Let’s see, in exchange for giving tax breaks to millionaires, gays now have the right to participate openly in our bloated, corporate-interest-defending military.
What a deal!!!
Sad to see a pro-prostitute, pro-freedom service fall victim to cynical politicians.
Craig Newmark may very be pro-prostitution but someone doesn’t have to be in favor of some activity in order to feel very strongly that people should have the freedom to choose to do it. I detest cigarette smoking but would never support a law making it illegal.
I suspect that Newmark is a strong civil libertarian who feels that government has no business deciding what women can choose to do with their bodies, whether it’s have an abortion or have sex for money (and it’s always puzzled me how some people strongly support a woman’s right to do what she wants with her body when it comes to having an abortion, but then turn around and support denying her that right when it comes to having sex for money.)
@16 I think a lot of liberals know how to fight, it’s just that most democrats in high office aren’t liberals, their corporate shills first and foremost, so they don’t really want the fight. With each passing year they’re more and more bought off by the banks & industry, so while they may make some noise about wishing they had the power to stop the Republican super-minority, in reality they just don’t have a fire under their ass to do so, because it would piss off their real bosses. It’s why they let single payer & the public option die, why they supported banking “reform”, why they let the billionaire tax cuts go through. They are not the party of the people.
@21 — I’m always amazed at how quickly “pro-freedom civil libertarians” start crying for protection whenever someone infringes on their “intellectual property” or other “properties” provided for by the government.
I admit I’ll miss Luby briefly when he’s gone, please Lordy may that day come soon.
Cue a chorus or two of “How Can I Miss You (When You Won’t Go Away)” by Dan Hicks and his Hot Licks.
@ 22, I was thinking more of your average, ordinary everyday liberal on the street. The people I read thanking the Republicans weren’t elected officials or powerful party players.
The GOP knows how to keep the upper hand, even as a minority party, because they’re ruthless. We, on the other hand, are ready to forgive and forget at the least sign of cooperation. That spirit comes from the rank and file, not the party elite.
“We were losing assistant city attorneys to private law firms and sad to see them go,” recalled former Councilman Mike Lonergan, who [ . . . ] helped to shape the policy that set up the new pay structure.
“We had discussions about being competitive, asking ourselves, ‘Do we want to be the top-paying employer? Probably not. But we want to be above average. Our choice was the 70th percentile.”
That’s interesting. I’d bet few people, no matter what their political persuasion, would feel that government should be the top-paying, or lowest-paying, employer. But, between those two extremes, I’m sure opinions would be all over the map.
What if the City of Tacoma decided to set pay at average? I imagine they wouldn’t have any problem attracting people, even in a good economy. Would these people be excellent, the best in their field? Highly doubtful. Would they be perfectly competent? Maybe not, but probably. Is competency sufficient for those doing civil service work? Or do they need to be better than that, better than average, in order to properly serve the public?
@15- “Go live in one of your rentals” can be the new “Let them eat cake.”
Bank of America financed wars, evicted/attempted to foreclose people on properties BoA had no right to, engaged in mortgage fraud, closed out Versatel no-fee accounts. Bank of America is getting sued by the states of Arizona and Nevada for violations to consumer fraud law. The conscious and wise have already left Bank of America in favor of credit unions. That it ceases to process payments for Wikileaks isn’t surprising, nor is it a sign of any supposed conscience. I expect blissful and multiple waves of schadenfreude when Wikileaks spills the goods on Bank of America.
#15: I remember when the Seattle Times would publish articles on people looking to sell their overpriced Ballard condos, somehow overlooking the fact their subjects were flippers/realtors. “I have to flip these development matchboxes fast, there’s a lot in Magnolia I want!”
I would like to see Jackson Park Golf Course be replaced by a hipster trailer park made up of passive houses. I can’t wait till the one in Phinney goes on display for the public.
@ 15, I’m not some knee-jerk, hate the rich type so the only thing tempering my sympathy is the fact that the woman you quote was a “mortgage executive.” It’s not hard to imagine that she was making her six figures from the bad loans that got us in this mess.
@32, true enough. She did at least have the grace to put her money where her mouth was. One can only hope her clients wound up less overextended than she.
@26 Roger, but I think having none of that ruthless fighting spirit visible in the party elite (except when they get angry with actual liberals) has a devastating effect on the ground troops.
“I detest cigarette smoking but would never support a law making it illegal.”
Why? We ban cribs that kill babies. Why not ban a product that maims and kills adults AND babies?
Yes, I know the shitstorm’s a-comin’…
(I’d also like to know from UI what the conditions would need to be for, say, a 14 year old to have the freedom to sell herself for sex?)
Matt, I don’t hate the rich. I just don’t have sympathy for them if they hit hard times financially and lack the money to weather those hard times because they have the potential to save much more money than less-wealthy people (this woman, for example, could’ve easily saved as much in one year from her $800,000 as many working people would gross in ten years.)
Point taken, Roma.
Roma, public servants need to be better than average, because their work is always under public scrutiny and the taxpayers have a vested interest in getting the best work out of their public servants.
For example, the general public probably really doesn’t give a crap about Boeing’s piss-poor job getting the Dreamliner built, but when, say, a road project isn’t designed right, or a policy report comes to an incorrect conclusion the public goes apeshit and gripes about their misspent tax dollars.
The public expects exceptional performance at low pay in the public sector.
@35,
There’s no opposition to banning the cribs, that’s why it’s not the same as banning smoking. There are people who fully understand the danger they put themselves in by smoking, but they still want to do it. I don’t think there’s anyone who understands the danger of the cribs but still wants to use them.
I’m sort of in the same camp as Roma. If there’s a large enough group that is still opposed to banning something dangerous (and they have valid and rational reasons for their opposition), then I’m usually against banning it too.
35/jt: “Why? We ban cribs that kill babies. Why not ban a product that maims and kills adults AND babies?“
If an adult wants to make unhealthy choices, whether it’s sucking cig smoke into their lungs or eating a lot of crappy food, they should have the freedom to make those choices. They shouldn’t, however, have the right to inflict those unhealthy choices on others. In principle, I wouldn’t have a problem with a law forbidding adults from inflicting toxic cig smoke on their babies or young children at home or in a car. But a law like that, particularly for the home, would be impractical.
Also, even if I agreed in principle with banning cigs, it’s simply not practical. After all, pot has been illegal for years and how successful has that been at stopping people from growing and smoking it? (Also: see Prohibition)
On a tangent to that, and only because I’m still angry about it: The recent Queen Anne incident where a faulty street lighting system electrocuted a dog- That system was recently installed, and likely by the low-bidder private contractor that Seattle City Light is required by law to hire.
I see this shit all the time- the winning contractor will then cut every goddamn corner he can in order to maximize his profit, often at the expense of safety. Road projects with abyssmal or absent traffic control. Electrical systems with faulty or missing grounds.
You know what these contractors are doing? Cheating the very taxpayers that are paying their paychecks.
And that’s the core problem with all the libertarian bullshit that the Randroids keep spouting. Here’s a public-private system where even with close supervision the private sector (contractors, in this case) willfully ignores public safety standards. Imagine the awful horror of Libertarian Paradise where there is no government watchdog and contractors are free to cut as many corners as they can to maximize their profits.
I am glad we don’t live in that horrorshow world.
@17: But we have to pay taxes in order to get all the great services the government provides! It’s unfair!
Dr Awesome, if public servants need to be better than average, then how much better than average do you think is sufficient? Would 60% be okay? Would 80% be necessary? Would you agree with Tacoma’s 70%?
Also, in theory, people go into public service in order to serve. So, following from that, wouldn’t (or shouldn’t) we get above-average people even at average wages?
I love Luby’s posts for all the comments
Dear Luby: The free market has set the proper price for your services.
@44 — He is a productive troll.
I promised myself a gym-avoidance guilt free today if I found one decent thing to add to the Morning News, so:
“A Physicist Solves the City” (and namechecks Jane Jacobs), from the NYT Magazine’s Year in Ideas Issue:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/19/magazi…
Gus! Such a great link! I’m going to print it off when I get home. Mr. Canuck will thank you, too, as this is right up his alley, building computer models that “build” growth and change into the future. And it is so true, that those of us who live outside of cities are by far the biggest drain on resources, whereas city dwellers, with their “up” rather than “out” building plan occupy a much smaller footprint per capita. You definitely earned a gym free day with that one.
@38, real-world results are patchy at best because public scrutiny is patchy at best. For example, in my surprisingly well run little town, on average only 2-3 citizens besides the press show up at council meetings unless there’s some kind of presentation or award planned. Our public-works guys, the ones literally in the trenches, are dynamite–out instantly in all weather at the slightest hint of a problem, solving problems on the fly with little consultation up the ladder, which is only about two rungs high and also has a dynamite guy standing on the top step.
On the other hand, our COUNTY government has a slobbish CAO who supervises, among other things, an utterly hopeless library system with a dull, duplicitous, unimaginative and vindictive head librarian terrified of moving beyond the nineteenth century (yes, I mean the 1800’s), and therefore a terrified and demoralized staff. NOBODY CARES, and this in a place so conservative you would think the pitchfork-wielders would have burned all the books years ago if it meant saving one thin dime. If it wouldn’t make me so sad, I’d loudly champion closure myself because considerably more than a dime would be saved, and little of value would be lost. (I am actually strategizing ways to revamp the system–precisely because so few nimrods care, it may be possible to arouse the handful of thoughtful individuals who might be interested.)
Sounds like the first step would be ditching that head librarian, rob! We lived in a tiny, super conservative town once, and the head librarian (a Hyacinth Bucket impersonator) told me, “We don’t care which church you go to, as long as you go to one of them.” Oy.