Comments

4

So that's where my anger was hiding.

5

The only way we'll ever be able to approach a fair taxation system is if we have an entirely transparent financial system. There should be no doubt about who owns what, and by "who" I mean a living, breathing person. Every bank account, every piece of property, every stock certificate is owned by somebody. That ownership should be public knowledge.

6

@5: Think about what you said and report back.

7

Rich, Kelly Jackson wasn't "convicted" by the judge - he copped a plea. The judge imposed the sentence on Monday.

9

"Barge" works for me. Something as big and ugly as Ever Given doesn't deserve to be called a ship.

11

@3 I know Professor Hysterics has me blocked by his magic script so he won't see this but I'll respond for everyone else. The demand of the housing market doesn't mean all is good in the world of Seattle. Renters historically move in much higher numbers than owners (30% vs 5%) so if you want to gauge whether there is an "issue" with Seattle renters will be the first indication. Reports from the end of the year show that rental vacancies in Seattle are the highest they have been in the last decade and rent has declined 15% since the start of the year. Areas outside the city have been stable or have seen an uptick so people are leaving. That's some pretty significant data but people like the Professor will continue to gaslight us into to believing its all good.

Capitalism has nothing to do with the PPE shortage in West Seattle. That is completely under the jurisdiction of the school district.

Covid note: 31 states have now announced that anyone who wants to can get vaccinated and yet our Gov continues to hold out for the double lung transplant community. Sure wish Rich would direct some of his snark that way. Think of the DoUbLe LuNg TrAnSpLaNt people.

12

Lower the tax rates but make absolutely every single person pay federal taxes. No loopholes, no tax credits, nothing. In 2019, only 56.7% of eligible taxpayers actually paid federal taxes. That is, how do you say, not sustainable.
Also, cut the federal defense budget in half and use the tax dollars more wisely.

13

Doubling and then tripling down on your accidental use of the wrong word for a ship, eh Rich?

Food for thought: It is actually a sign of strength to be able to admit you were wrong.

15

Man, the slog's way less fun when the prof has his idiot blocker enabled.

16

It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.

17

Oh no! If someone knows what I own they'll steal it from me! Like my house!

Oh, wait, that's been public knowledge since forever, and no one has stolen that from me. Why should a stock certificate be any different? Or a corporate board membership, or an offshore holding company?

But hey! Look out people! Donald Trump is going to get elected and take your house! The house you paid for and have title to, because he knows you own it! Better figure out how to obfuscate your title so the Bad Orange Man doesn't steal your shit!

And hey, while we're at it, let's make taxes lower so people won't feel so bad about paying them. That's worked like gangbusters since what? 1982? We've been making taxes lower on the rich in every administration since Regan and how has that worked out? They're cheating more than they ever did. In fact, they're cheating so well the IRS can't actually do anything about it because it's too complicated and takes too long. Rich people hate paying taxes and take great thrill in avoiding them. Poor people cannot participate in this sport because their taxes aren't complicated enough and also they don't have the money to dodge their taxes. But yeah! Charging everyone the same rate should fix that. In Pretend World.

Think about total financial transparency for a moment. What would it mean if we knew, with legal certainty, who owned what? If each asset could be traced to a person, money laundering would go away. All those terrorist and drug empires that we supposedly despise would collapse with a keystroke. No more money for them. All those tax cheats would be exposed, and no one would have to argue about who's fair share is what. Because we'd know.

It's always better to know than not know. Ignorance is weakness.

18

@14 I have the same level of certainty that Charles does that this is finally the nail in the coffin for capitalism. No, I mean it. This time is it. lol

I'm not saying Seattle is Dying, don't be melodramatic. Let's not pretend its roses and picnics either though. The underlying data shows people are leaving the city and its a less desirable place to live for what I'm sure are myriad of reasons. I'm simply pointing out the Professor and Rich are gaslighting us with cherry picked data about home ownership.

20

@19,

The Mariners freaking suck.

21

@19:

3) The Homeless Problem is so bad in Seattle because they refuse to ship all their homeless out of town - just like all the other cities around here do...

22

@9 Car carriers make the Ever Given look like a clipper ship.

The distinction between ship and boat has a very wide gray area. There's a clear line between ship and barge. If it's got an engine, it's a ship. If it's towed or pushed, it's a barge.

23

KOMO made one documentary a few years ago with the provocative title "Seattle is Dying". But that little media hype never really reflected a groundswell among Seattleites to match the over-extrapolated melodramatic stereotype belabored by @3.

24

@19,

Starbucks makes the worst tasting coffeeshop coffee.

26

@22 I always thought the difference between a ship and a boat: you can put a boat on a ship, but you can't put a ship on a boat.

27

@25,

Yes but Seattle gave birth to that atrocity and will forever bear the stain.

28

@26 That's the traditional definition, but there's weird nuances. Submarines are definitely ship-sized, but they're always called boats. And heavy lift ships can pick up other ships, but that doesn't make them boats. The line is somewhere between 200 and 400 feet long, and may depend heavily on how pretentious the owner or captain is.

29

@19 Crosstown traffic/transit is a mess in non-COVID times. X to downtown tends not to be as bad.

31

@24: I know that's vogue to say (mostly because of anti-gentrification), but it isn't true. There are worse: Allegro Coffee and several indies whose blends are so anemic. People describe Starbucks coffee as burnt tasting. Perhaps so, but it's more of a needed accent for those who like it - and obviously successful.

33

Rich's "barge series" a few years ago was really good, ya'll should type barge into the strangers search bar and read the entire series, starting with the sexiest barges in Seattle.

And as a side note, The Stranger does does a lot of good maritime reporting.

34

Even if you get past the point that a flat income tax is arguably less fair than a progressive one, I've never seen a flat tax proposal that doesn't screw people without kids. To make it politically palatable they exempt a ton of income for each of your spawn units, which in turn means that the rate has to go up because less total income is being taxed. Childless ones pay the higher rate on essentially all of their income. I calculated that Steve Forbes' plan would have raised my effective tax rate a good bit but can't recall the exact numbers (I was making under $50k at the time).

35

If Chauvin received training not to leave restrained people in a face-down position any longer than is necessary to apply handcuffs and to never constrict a person's airway, all the hair-splitting by martial experts and so-called martial arts experts won't matter.

And judging by the cautionary comments from at least one of the other officers present and the precise wording they used at the scene, it is obvious to me that they had, in fact, received that training.

So, he had been trained not to place people in positions where "positional asphyxia" is an undue risk for any period longer than what is strictly necessary to apply handcuffs. He had also been trained not to constrict a person's airway. No amount of attempting to confuse the issue with a variety of martial artists will change the basic fact.

Hell, I left policing in 2011, and we had been repeatedly trained at in-service training for years before then not to do what Chauvin did.

36

if it's got a boat ON it
it's a Ship. if the boat
that's on it has a boat
on It then it's a ship too
--navel Expert

37

Thank you, Rich, for another well written article.

@19 WenWino: As a Seattle-born Washington State native, I place the recent US News and World Report's splattering public declaration of Washington State as the Best Place to Live as Reason #1 of what currently sucks in Seattle. How many people have moved out here in droves from all over, thinking that because of companies like Amazon, Microsoft, Starbucks, etc., and that Washington has no state income tax living here is easy and they'll get rich quick?

@35 Morty: Thank you for sharing. This is something I suspected all along--that Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin had been specifically trained not to block the airway of someone being restrained. Yet he willfully knelt on George Floyd's neck, anyway. This is further appalling proof that what Chauvin did was use unnecessary excessive force, and that George Floyd was murdered on May 25, 2020.

Derek Chauvin, and every lowlife like you, ROAST IN HELL!

On a brighter note, Happy Birthday, Tracy Chapman!

38

The next witnesses to testify are too young to be shown or named. Is this really the only way to get this murderer convicted? The entire world has seen the video. There were over 50 witnesses who saw the murder in person. Why are children being forced to relive this traumatic event? When a 911 dispatcher calls the police on the police because she believes she is witnessing a murder in real time and an EMT IS witnessing the murder in person in real time and knows full well what she is witnessing, why is this not enough? And the other cop who told the EMT that if she truly were a first responsder that she would know better to get involved? This is why every single cop needs to be put out to pasture.

I truly fail to understand why children and their trauma need to be trotted out to make a case. Derek Chauvin murdered George Floyd. It's doubtful he'll be convicted since 6 of the jurors are white. One can only hope karma metes out to Chauvin what he chose to mete out to George Floyd. Better yet a goddman shot in the head would do just fine. Or a shiv in the gut.

39

@38: Because dear lady, everyone in this county is afforded due process to a trial and the right to call witnesses. It's the defense's legal right in a trial.

But you know that already.

40

how it it so EZ for you to miss xina's Point dewey?

whilst her 'remedies' are over the Top
her Vision is twenty-fawking-Twenty.

41

@40: It's intentional. That's how.

42

well dewey's our Master of projection:

"There goes [whomever*] again, cherry-picking a multi-faceted enormous societal issue to fire a round of his trademark conceited and overconfident sarcastic snark."
--@raindrop on March 31, 2021 at 10:43 AM

*read:
Dewdropp
our resident
Sesquipedalian

43

And yet I never said the cop wasn't getting his day in court. What I said was why does the trauma of witnessing a white cop murder a black man have to be relived and recounted by CHILDREN. Bad enough everyone who witnessed it was traumatized, but to trot out and use children and force them to relive this trauma is fucking sick - and given existence of video for the jury to watch and the sheer number of adult witnesses, wholly unnecessary.


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