Random Nuclear Strikes

As in any moderately sized or larger metropolitan area, Seattle and King County have been waging a war on cars for decades. Bruce L. Nurse, VP of Transportation for the Kemper Development Corporation got to write an Op-Ed on this topic for the Seattle Times.

We Should Stop Waging A War On Cars

A MAJOR change from the political ideology of waging war on the car to accommodating the car would be a huge step toward less traffic congestion in the Seattle area.

For several decades, the politically correct thinking has been that people should ride transit, walk or bike instead of drive a car.

But the car is not the problem.

The car is an innocent and dutiful result of the basic principles of a free society. People want to have mobility. People want to travel in a safe environment where they want to go, when they want to go and with whom they want to go. The individual right to be free is what creates the demand for the car.

The United States is the most mobile society in the history of civilization. Along with freedom and education, mobility has allowed our society to prosper economically.

Limiting parking and road capacity is a failed policy of leaders who believe transit is the solution. Transit is an important but small part of the solution. Transit has lost market share of total trips for the past 50 years.

For more than 70 years, the city of Seattle has followed a de facto isolation policy concerning road capacity. Seattle has opposed or limited every major project to or through the city.

This Op-Ed will be pointed to by the local left as proof positive that the Seattle Times is a right-wing newspaper. They hate the Times with a passion only slightly less warm than the one they reserve for FOX News.

But the reason they hate so hard is the same: They both generally make a decent amount of sense.

Now makes a stop in Seattle.

As an Economist-in-Training, I can confidently predict that the quantity of pizzas demanded will increase to a never seen before high (pun quite intended).

Likewise, Taco Bell and the Little Debbie snack company will also see their sales increase.

All of this is due to the recent vote by the residents of Washington State telling the government to stop harshing the mellows of the local long-hair population and realize that arresting and imprisoning hempheads is just not cool, man.

To which the more populous counties have responded by dismissing a decent quantity of “stoners acting like stoners” cases.

The elected prosecutors in Washington’s two most populous counties said Friday they would dismiss certain misdemeanor marijuana-possession cases as a result of state voters’ passage of Initiative 502, which legalizes pot possession of 1 ounce or less.

The dismissals in Pierce and King counties will affect defendants who are 21 or older and charged with possessing 1 ounce or less of marijuana. There are about 175 such cases in King County and about a third as many in Pierce County.

“We are gathering together those cases, and that is our intention,” Pierce County Prosecutor Mark Lindquist said of dismissing the prosecutions.

King County Prosecuting Attorney Dan Satterberg said dismissing the cases is the right thing to do.

“Although the effective date of I-502 is not until Dec. 6, there is no point in continuing to seek criminal penalties for conduct that will be legal next month,” he said.

I wouldn’t exactly call it “justice”, but I would call it hey man do you see that cloud shaped like a Pegasus too?

A few items that have come across the news wire that surprised me:

1 – Gary Johnson won more than 1% of the vote and received more votes than any other Libertarian Party candidate.

I’m not one in a million, but I am one in about 1.14 million.

2 – Puerto Rico voted to become the 51st state.

I guess they decided they weren’t getting enough free shit and wanted to grab a few more items before the ship sinks.

Just what we need: Another welfare state latching onto the teat.

3 – Californians actually voted to increase their taxes.

Is somebody becoming an adult or is it just that enough of the leeches have left?

And just for some balance so as to remind me I didn’t wake up in bizarro world