Comments

3

Woof. Wouldn't it be nice if the only effect of Seattle's homeless policy was when I was in line at... Sephora? I think Rich is probably more familiar with that than I am. For those of us who interact with both homeless and/or mentally ill people on a more daily basis, I can confidently say that "eye-sore" would be a pleasant upgrade. No, not all homeless exhibit anti-social behavior, and there's also no shortage of housed anti-social dicks in Seattle. But sure, I'm all in favor of up-zoning; maybe I'll be able to actually sell my townhouse across from an encampment to some greedy apartment developer.

4

Yeah, Jeopardy got interrupted just now to tell us about our latest attempt to bring peace to the world by murdering some more people. We should probably invade that newly discovered island off the coast of Greenland, see if there's anyone there to murder.

5

@2,

I'll start worrying about JB's poll numbers as soon as the GOP begins to show signs of a willingness to nominate someone not batshit come 2024. I know it's pointless and click-baity to begin speculating this early on, but I also know that there was widespread speculation that Dems were grooming Joe as early as 2017 that proved accurate. So what are the GOP looking to do, run it back with Shitler? Marjorie Greene? Loren Culp? Kid Rock?

Bring it.

6

Whatever Joe Biden's problems, vulnerable support, mistakes, you-name-it: I prefer Biden one millions times over Trump, Greene, Gaetz, DeSantis, and the ghastly group of hangers-on and glory seekers like Rudy Giuliani, Sidney Powell, Peter Navarro, et al. Biden should not be above criticism and isn't, and that is only right. But the alternative... Trump re-elected? Absolutely not. I'll take Biden any and every day over that. Let's not forget January 6th, and all that led up to it and all of Trump's bloviating denialism since then. Keep going, Joe. You've still got a lot of support--and we know what the alternative would be. We'll pull through all of the present problems. Learn, do better, and persevere.

7

I completely agree that we need to liberalize zoning and put up a shitload more apartments (even allowing duplexes would go a long way towards solving the housing shortage). And a lot of those will need to be subsidized.

But maybe the most expensive city in the state is not the best place to spend big dollars building housing. We'd get a whole lot more people housed for a given budget in less expensive smaller metro areas. And I'm more than a little tired of King County (specifically, Seattle; see recent reports of Redmond throwing a hissy fit over one little shelter) being expected to cough up for the entire cost of housing the homeless. A billion a year is an enormous amount to ask a single county to pay out. I'm sure that there is a plan to just make Bezos pay for it but I'll believe it when I see it.

8

@1 - Yep, homelessness is political currency for leftist politicians and that's not going to change.

9

Regarding Red Light and Traffic Cams, this: https://bancams.com/how-to-fight-tickets/

Apparently under WA Law tickets must be dismissed if the owner admits they are the operator, but the owner can challenge that.

10

@9b -- what?

11

I don’t think this is a loss for compassion Seattle at all. I would imagine just injecting the issue into the election narrative and getting candidates to take a stance was the main goal. They got enough signatures and now they don’t have to deal with the outcome of potentially losing - they can continue to take the position many seattlites are fed up with the current approach to homelessness and that only an individual judge has stopped the will of voters.

It’s maybe the ideal outcome.

12

in Other perhaps More
Frightening News:

Britons, Unfazed by High Infection Rates, Weigh Their ‘Price of Freedom’

Britain records an average of about 34,000 new Covid cases a day, but the public seems to have moved on. Other countries may follow suit, experts say.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/28/world/europe/coronavirus-britain-uk.html

How the Delta Variant Infiltrated
an Elementary School Classroom

A detailed study in California found that the variant easily spread from an unvaccinated teacher to children and, in a few cases, their families.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/28/health/coronavirus-schools-children.html

“Republicans,” and the so-called FAR ‘right’ are an Existential Threat to World Population and Hell bent on reducing all Races except Their Own. sadly for Humanity they’ll Never See there’s only ONE Fucking RACE – the Human kind.

Oh well. There’s NOTHING that can be Done.
Nice to have Known ya?

13

So rude of that FAR right Existential Threat California teacher to not be vaccinated or wear a mask.

14

The SCC doesn’t need an intiaitive to force it to spend money on wholly inadequate solutions. They do that all on their own. The only “winners” with this ruling are the pols and professional grifters who profit from people’s suffering. The losers continue to be those experiencing homelessness and the rest of us that have to deal with the impacts of having mentally afflicted drug addicts doing whatever they please with no accountability.

15

well there's Rude
and there's Crude
but all this Sociopathy's
got us totally fucking Screwed.

btw whose side
are You on
dude?

16

"We've known for a while now that King County needs to spend $1 billion more per year for the next ten years to increase the region's affordable housing stock, we just haven't done it yet."

Take a tip from NPR's Planet Money and do some factual, educational journalism regarding this subject. Find a MFH project that is now at the conception stage, and follow the progress of this structure being built in real time in monthly installments. From design, to all the design review meetings, to final acceptance of the design, to financing, to finding all the contractors needed, to the build process, to opening.

Why? It would educate those that care about this on the process, possibly inspiring these so called "disruptive forces" that have come to bear on other industries to THIS process. Incessantly whining that 'we need to do this but we haven't' is just getting tedious, and 'tax the rich more' only addresses the financing process to the exclusion of the many other phases of building a MFH project.

As long as I've got a few minutes to kill while drinking coffee I'm going to ask this question every time the subject of building more housing is brought up - until you do so in the service of "truthful journalism".

17

Not the side you ASSume the CA teacher is on, k.

The teacher's infection occurred in May, fairly early in the vaccination process. You can't always deduce the politics of unvaccinated people.

It's that pesky projection thing, you know all so well.

19

you ass you assume
I assumed where
did I say teach
was a "repub-
lican"?

you gotta
quit reading
shit into what
ain't even there.

besides mister
Red Hairing
wgaf?

20

In California educators could be vaccinated by March, maybe late February. The responsible educators I know got their shots pretty quickly.

21

@19: Well good then. In inferred it from the subsequent comment to the link to the New York Times. I hereby stand corrected.

22

@18 ST2, We are of similar mind on many issues, but you lose me every time when you start talking about "drugs" - that's where you almost always end up sounding like a lunatic.

It's obvious that either you or someone you care about very much, was greatly affected by drugs, because while you display a lot of common sense and rationality on many issues, it, along with facts and reality, all go out the window when you start talking about drugs.

That brings us to your ACLU Limbaugh comment. The case was literally about protecting the Bill of Rights for everyday citizens not to have their medical records seized without due process. Not in some theoretical or esoteric way, but quite clear cut. And no surprise, it involved Florida being asshats. And no surprise, a Florida appeals court upheld the violation of Limbaugh's civil rights, leading the way for all Floridians to have their medical records seized by a simple overreaching warrant.

https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/aclu-asks-court-protect-confidentiality-rush-limbaughs-medical-records

24

Only in America can such a small number of people (the homeless) consume so much time and energy. No wonder we as a nation can't get anything substantial accomplished any more. The solution is so simple. Put all these people in homes, or concentration camps. Whatever.

26

Rich Smith and Tim Burgess deserve each other. That said, Lorena Gonzalez is a reckless and obnoxiously egotistical loose cannon. Harrell is sober-minded and would be a decent leader of the city. The choice is clear.

27

@21 -- speaking
of Projecting

do you
See it
now?

29

I'd love to destroy the GOP before the Party of None destroys the Earth and the rest of us. I like COMTE's idea of rounding up all RepubliKKKans, their lawyers, lobbyists, fixers, enablers, trophy bitches & bimbos, snotnosed heirs, QAnon thugs, Patriot Players, Proud Boys down to every last MAGA-stupefied rube, and leaving them to float aimlessly, drifting out to sea in shark-infested waters on all the plastic that's killing our sea life and oceans---but without the aid of Amity Island's Chief Brody (Jaws starring actor, Roy Scheider died in 2008) to come to their rescue. Oh darn.

30

Everyone in New Orleans and surrounding areas stay safe----Category 4 Hurricane Ida is hurtling 140 mph winds by Sunday--YIKES!!! Batten down the hatches----again. And thanks to human made climate change, hurricane seasons in the South are only getting longer. Louisianans can thank fossil fuel gluttonous GOP legislators for their environmental and economic woes.
By comparison, 16 years ago, Category 4 Hurricane Katrina, with winds reaching 145 mph on August 29, 2005 all but wiped out The Big Easy, and all the Dubya / Cheney Administration did was laugh.

31

@29 All those people you want to put out to sea would like to do the exact same thing to you.

32

The Seattle answer to Compassion Seattle is to continue to suffer in camps and RVs while the city builds out new housing at the breakneck pace of 150 units per year and ignores that most of the people remaining on the street need supervision, like 24/7. Seattle! Compassion! Can you feel it?! Drove past a burnt-out RV on Aurora yesterday, wooooo!

33

for More on this issue see:

Days of Destrucrtion, Days of Revolt

[and see how America's Sacrifice Zones
are coming soon to a Neighborhood near* You]

Two years ago, Pulitzer Prize winner Chris Hedges and award-winning cartoonist and journalist Joe Sacco set out to take a look at the sacrifice zones, those areas in America that have been offered up for exploitation in the name of profit, progress, and technological advancement.

They wanted to show in words and drawings what life looks like in places where the marketplace rules without constraints, where human beings and the natural world are used and then discarded to maximize profit. Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt is the searing account of their travels.

The book starts in the western plains, where Native Americans were sacrificed in the giddy race for land and empire. It moves to the old manufacturing centers and coal fields that fueled the industrial revolution, but now lie depleted and in decay.

It follows the steady downward spiral of American labor into the nation's produce fields and ends in Zuccotti Park where a new generation revolts against a corporate state that has handed to the young an economic, political, cultural and environmental catastrophe.

https://www.amazon.com/Days-Destruction-Revolt-Chris-Hedges/dp/1568588240

*and then the Sinkhole just gets
Bigger and suddenly it's adios amigos

whilst we Whine about the Symptoms
they're Strip-mining US.
why? why do we
Allow this?

34

Hedges' and Sacco's brilliant
DoD, DoR was published in 2012

35

@31 -- more like a
Final Solution?
hmmm. not
good.

36

@35 Agreed. Not good.

37

@24:

"The solution is so simple. Put all these people in homes, or concentration camps. Whatever."

Is that your FINAL solution?

38

@31:

No, the difference is that we would let them live...

39

a scene from one of thee best
anti-War movies of all Time:

[Josey* meets with Ten Bears to negotiate a truce]

Josey Wales: You be Ten Bears?
Ten Bears: I am Ten Bears.
Josey Wales: I'm Josey Wales.

Ten Bears: I have heard. You are the Grey Rider. You would not make peace with the Bluecoats. You may go in peace.

Josey Wales: I reckon not. Got no place else to go
Ten Bears: Then you will die.

Josey Wales: I came here to die with you. Or live with you. Dying ain't so hard for men like you and me. It's living that's hard when all you've ever cared about has been butchered or raped.

Governments don't live together--people live together. With governments, you don't always get a fair word or a fair fight.

Well, I've come here to give you either one or get either one from you. I came here like this so you'll know my word of death is true, and my word of life is then true.

The bear lives here, the wolf, the antelope, the Comanche. And so will we. Now we'll only hunt what we need to live on, same as the Comanche does.

And every spring, when the grass turns green, and the Comanche moves north, you can rest here in peace, butcher some of our cattle, and jerk beef for the journey.

The sign of the Comanche,
that will be on our lodge.
That's my word of life.

Ten Bears: And your word of death?

Josey Wales: It's here in my pistols and
there in your rifles. I'm here for either one.

Ten Bears: These things you say we will have, we already have.

Josey Wales: That's true. I ain't promising you nothing extra. I'm just giving you life and you're giving me life. And I'm saying that men can live together without butchering one another.

Ten Bears: It's sad that governments are chiefed by the double tongues. There is iron in your words of death for all Comanche to see, and so there is iron in your words of life.

No signed paper can hold the iron.
It must come from men.

The words of Ten Bears carries the same iron of life and death. It is good that warriors such as we meet in the struggle of life... or death.

It shall be life. [Draws his knife and cuts his and Josey's palms, then grasps hands with him, becoming blood brothers] So will it be.

Josey Wales: I reckon so.

*from Clint Eastwood's fucking
BRILLIANT 'the Outlaw Josey Wales'

40

@38: Oh no, you and auntie are in full control of the screenplay for their bloody and gruesome deaths - worse than Hitler ever could have imagined. Have fun kids.

41

"Want to address homelessness effectively? Legalize apartments citywide so we can build more housing, and convince local, state, and federal politicians to make massive investments into public housing. That's it. That's the answer."

Nothing about drug use, mental illness, criminals hiding in the camps, or just people who want to live in Seattle without paying rent or taxes. Good to read The Stranger remains rock-solid in believing Travis Berge would not have beaten and murdered Lisa Vach if we'd just provided them with a low-rent apartment. (Also, increasing density "citywide," when Seattle has absolutely NO plans for ANY grade-separated mass transit into neighborhoods, is a formula for traffic catastrophe.)

Want to increase density? Sure. Look at Belltown, which has grown from a crime-ridden wasteland in the '80s and early '90s, into the densest neighborhood in the state. Belltown also has copious mass transit, and six (or more) large avenues connecting it directly to downtown. THAT is the type of neighborhood into which we should increase density, not citywide.

42

@23 ST2, I’m not fishing for you to share why you’re obsessed with drug users - I don’t care.

However, you say it's irrelevant to the discussion, but your "life experience" is apparently driving your entire perspective, and leads you to state ridiculous things (see ACLU example you brought up above). I've read dozens of examples of yours without comment, but you have an unreasonable obsession with drugs, and it undermines the reasonable things you have to say. Zero-tolerance policies are unreasonable, and makes you sound unreasonable.

I only make a point of it because the homeless issue already involves so many factions that are unreasonable and lack common sense, and we don’t need more of it undermining legitimate positions of criticism for the current approach.

Just something to think about, though like the junkies you’re obsessed with, I don’t expect you to change.

44

@31: Swifty, unless you have anything other than your usual idle trolling, then just STFU already. The people I mentioned in @29 are deliberately out to kill the rest of us by refusing to mask up or get vaccinated. Hospitals and ERs are full beyond capacity because of these idiots. Healthcare workers are ready to throw in the towel from the undue additional stress of working under duress. People needing surgery and urgent care cannot get what they need because these idiots. Those who are immune compromised are now especially vulnerable when going out if at all because of these idiots. Their neofascist blood red state legislators are gladly willing to fuel their senseless violence and rage. If they are stupid enough to want to die while claiming they're "fahtin' fer their Free Dumbs", I say, LET THEM DIE. They won't be missed.
I am calling them--and idiots like you, too---on your bullshit. Now run along.

@38 COMTE: Agreed. I would let unmasked anti-vaxxers live....just long enough to float out into shark-infested waters. Once isolated from the general U.S population of us who have gotten vaccinated and are following the current mask mandate, let's just let them die. They are willfully killing millions of innocent people as well as themselves, their families, and loved ones. It's what they want. They are being brainwashed by Trump and corporate RepubliKKKans into believing that by losing everything--including their lives---it's "taking one for the team". And these hopeless dumbfucks are only too proud to do just that. So let's call them on their life-threatening bullshit. Let them float out to sea and die already. And I say good riddance.

@40: My, my, what a glue-addled drama queen. Hanging out with Swifty in his Blahview hidey hole until Mom calls you boys in for weenies and tater tots, Elmer? Obviously you two clowns are dying of boredumb. SuperFriends on Channel 4 must have gotten pre-empted for the usual neofascist updates on Sinclair Broadcasting (i.e.: KOMO) and Fox TeeVee.

46

@38 COMTE: Of course, this being hurricane season, Ida might just do the job of wiping out the MAGA-stupefied anti-vaxxer population. If so, those of us vaccinated and masked won't have to do a thing. Nature's pissed.

47

@44 More over-the-top histrionic nonsense. You desperately need therapy.

48

@45: Huh? They advise folks flying into Singapore to avoid poppyseed muffins. Zero tolerance is no solution.

@44: Your ability to dig yourself deeper into an abyss of childish depravity with every psychotic cartoon rage spew is absolutely breathtaking. The next one will only further prove this point.

49

@47: And you desperately need a frontal lobotomy. Again.
Maybe you'll get lucky, light up like pinball machine, and pay out in silver dollars this time.

@48: ....said the reigning troll king drooling with childish depravity.

Obviously I hit you two bozo boys right in your little pee shooters where it hurts.
Awwww. Maybe there's some ice cream left in your mom's freezer.

51

@49 You can't fix stupid and you are irretrievably broken.

52

@44:

Paragraph 1:
"If they are stupid enough to want to die while claiming they're "fahtin' fer their Free Dumbs", I say, LET THEM DIE. They won't be missed. "

Paragraph 2:
"COMTE: Agreed. I would let unmasked anti-vaxxers live....just long enough to float out into shark-infested waters. "

Oh auntie, bless your sweet little silly heart. Hope you have a good week.

53

Well, well, well so ill named -Compassion Seattle -just got blown out of the water.
Lets be real, if you can't get cheap labor rounded up into "homes" or better known as incarcerating folks whose main sin is their poverty and its outside in the streets where you just hate to see it because its so unpleasant. Prisoners are used for cheap labor i.e. meat packing industries. The horrific attacks on labor movements in the last 40 years or so.
Not upset about the causes though. NO universal health care that could treat addiction, depression and and many other health issues. Not upset with the corporate takeover of housing and the massive loss of cheap housing. Not upset about redlining that forced many into segregated housing areas and hard scrabble lives that MANY are still living. Sacrifice zones. Only for poor people, the working poor and people of color. Not upset about the school to prison pipeline. Just blame the economic and shattered lives of the victims that is so easy.

Of course you are terrified that Oliver, Kennedy and Sawant would gain power in the elections.
You really need bought and paid for multi millionaire Harrell to win the mayor's race for you. Its frightening to you that his opponent has heavy labor support. Organized labor that brought people benefits, the weekend, annual vacations and so much more.
We want Housing First solutions that have already worked so well in other areas to aide in providing new lives for many sick and homeless people not more stigmatization and prisons
not more dead on the streets.

54

51 You might want to look in the mirror .

55

The only vagrants I know of are the billionaires sucking up our taxes and destroying our environment and cities.

56

@55: Millions of people poor or rich manage to go through life and not get addicted to meth or heroin. It's the selfish conceited idiots who get addicted and trash our cities and parks. Nothing to do with billionaires or corporations.

57

@54: Now now, let's be civil.

58

“Not upset about the causes though.

NO universal health care
that could treat addiction,
depression and and many
other health issues.

Not upset with the corporate takeover
of housing and the massive
loss of cheap housing.

Not upset about redlining
that forced many into segregated
housing areas and hard scrabble lives
that MANY are still living.

Sacrifice zones.
Only for poor people,
the working poor and
people of color.

Not upset about the
school to prison pipeline.

Just blame the economic
and shattered lives of the
victims that is so easy.”

--@Ivy
brilliantly

hate the Symptoms
but LOVE the Rich
Oh how Long
till you too’re
in the Ditch?

well
we tried
Capitalism.


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