So you say thats it, I got to leave this place, I dont care what these people think...
"So you say that's it, I got to leave this place, I don't care what these people think..." Charles Mudede

A recent poll bankrolled by the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce provided the Seattle Is Dying army with new weapons in the form of this finding: Two out of three Seattle voters have had enough with the city and have considered moving elsewhere. This elsewhere will not, it is hoped, be run by socialists who give those homeless people all of the homelessness they could ever want. KIRO 7, of course, banged the "public safety" pots loudly, and quietly mentioned that "housing affordability concerns were higher, too." Read the report for yourself. It only has two lines about affordability, though 35% of those who participated in the poll made it the key reason for actively considering "somewhere not here," which was the highest amount among the other reasons, including crime (29%), homelessness (12%), and Gov't/politics (9%).

Expect to hear lots and lots about this today: "U.S. Inflation Quickens to 8.5%, Ratcheting Up Pressure on Fed." And expect to hear close to nothing about this: "Stock Buybacks Rebound Sharply." And yet both are connected. As CNN reported five days ago, the CEOs of top oil companies refused "to endorse a call from Democrats to reduce dividends and share buybacks and plow the money into ramping up production instead." One, however, doesn't want more oil production and development, but what the buybacks make clear is that the oil sector is in a boom. By the way, if the Fed raises interest rates, it will make the matter only worse. Borrowing, which is now a part of everyday life for ordinary Americans, will become expensive.

And this oil boom is all doom:

Though the headlines are screaming inflation is 8.5 percent, the highest rise since the last year Carter was in office, it actually rose 1.2 percent in March. And many observers are seeing signs of inflation cooling.

Hail, gusty winds, lightning? All this might happen today. And it might not happen tomorrow. It seems we have reached the point in the transition from winter to spring where anything goes, and where each day wants to be all by itself. None of these days care to be friends anymore. This one rains, that one shines, the other one throws little white rocks from its clouds. We are waiting for the days that will be like each other, those days that get along.

The hotel plastered with headlines from the days when The Seattle Times was the shit will open in June and provide these amenities: "...three pools (two outdoor and one indoor), three hot tubs, a cold plunge pool, a half basketball court, a fitness center, a climbing wall, and open-air balconies," according to Puget Sound Business Journal. (The hotel replaced the paper's former headquarters.) I will have more to say about this mid-rise building in the future. And, yes, I will focus on those creepy headlines.

The writing is on the wall...
The writing is on the wall... Charles Mudede

Washington's rich are once again spending big bucks to avoid paying their fair share. My Northwest: "The political action committee behind an initiative to repeal Washington’s capital gains tax has continued to rake in funds from wealthy donors, having now brought in over $211,000, with another $440,000 in pledged contributions."

Sound Transit? Are you there? Are you listening? Can't you make something like this happen at all of your stations?

Five people on a platform in the Brooklyn Subway Station were shot by a man wearing "a worker’s vest and gas mask." The police are right now looking for this man and answers to a crime that's more and more looking like an act of terrorism. The Hill reports that there were "unexploded devices found at NYC train station."

When cops in San Francisco pulled over a car for some reason or another, they were surprised to find it had no driver. The car was doing itself all by itself. It also pulled away from the cops and stopped a little down the road. (A cheeky little bugger to boot.) The cops were nothing but baffled by what looked like the future going around today's streets of San Francisco. How do you ask a driverless car for its license? Maybe this is a job better suited for RoboCop.

Biden is going after your ghost guns. It's bad enough we are swamped with real guns that have serial numbers. Ones that don't (the ghosts of guns), because they are homemade, can only make matters more horrifying than they already are. The new federal rule will require "the kits to make homemade guns to be treated like other guns made and sold in the U.S."

Let's end AM with a classic from the trip-hop era, Alpha's "Somewhere Not Here."