Random Nuclear Strikes

In this case, if you know Christine Gregoire you will be given a cushy state job WITH a healthy pay increase over what the person before you made.

In many ways, Gov. Christine Gregoire’s 23-member Cabinet looks a lot like her predecessor’s — same number of minorities, a similar average age, even some of the same appointees.

But there is at least one notable difference: Gregoire’s Cabinet is costing taxpayers a lot more than former Gov. Gary Locke’s.

All but three of Gregoire’s Cabinet appointees are making significantly more than the jobs paid under Locke — including five appointees who are making at least $20,000 more, and an additional six who are making at least $10,000 more.

In all, Gregoire’s Cabinet will earn about $256,000 a year more than the previous Cabinet when Locke stepped down.

And that comes on top of big raises that Locke gave many Cabinet members last year as enticement to stay on through the end of his administration.

How quaint.

With this state in debt and the Dems taxing everything that moves and subsidizing everything that doesn’t, the newest Democrat Governor has decided her A-Team is going to get a raise before they even start to do their jobs.

Presented as proof that people who proudly wear the badge of “Environmentalist� on top of all others are in charge in my state and have no actual knowledge of the environment is this story about our “Need� to build overpasses for wildlife over Interstate-90 in Washington State.

Many of the massive bridges included in new state plans to widen Interstate 90 through Snoqualmie Pass will be for more than just people.

For the first time, the state is considering a series of massive culverts and overpasses to help wildlife — from elk and deer to cougars and lynx — traverse that treacherous ribbon of asphalt and get from the north side of the Cascades to the south.

Today, the state plans to release a draft of its half-billion-dollar-plus proposal to widen 15 miles of I-90 from four to six lanes from the top of the pass to Easton, Kittitas County. It will include options to straighten curves near Keechelus Lake and move highway lanes so avalanches are less likely to close the pass in winter.

And the plan also will lay out options for a series of 14 wildlife crossings, from small culverts to a 1,200-foot bridge, that would be among the first in the country designed to reverse some of the ecological damage wrought by highways that bisect wildlife habitat.

“Each of these is in areas where biologists say wildlife is likely to use them — because they’ve seen roadkill there, or the habitat is there,” said Mark Pettit, a spokesman for the state Department of Transportation.

The DOT has finished their ‘Environmental Impact Study’ (aka: free money for the envirowhacko agenda) at an unknown cost to me, the taxpayer. Their study shows that the deer population “Needs� to have a path to make it across a mountainous stretch of I-90 in order to “Help� them.

I could go on and on about how hunters are the true conservationists who actually care about the deer and about how the Doe-to-Buck ratio is twice what it should be naturally, but after I read this line I decided that I would much rather just sit here and bang my head on the desk since it’ll have the same effect.

But the structures will come at a price. Pettit said state officials estimate the crossings will cost $25 million to $100 million combined.

WTF?!? There is $75 million between those figures!

We know how much it costs to plant a culvert and build an overpass, what is the difficulty with getting an actual estimate with these guys?

I guess it doesn’t really matter. Knowing my state, it’ll actually cost $135 million.