No, we don’t have too many environmental laws here

Posted on February 28, 2006 by Phil Kadath

Say you are a real estate investor.

Say you buy a piece of property and shortly thereafter a major hotel chain decides that they want to build one of their hotels on it.

Unfortunately for you and said hotel chain one single swamp loving local enviro-wacko holds your project up for 19 years because he can.

A 19-year struggle to build a hotel near the Mercer Slough wetlands apparently is over, with groundbreaking on the seven-story building set for this summer.

Marriott bought the property Jan. 20 for $4.25 million and plans to build a 231-room Residence Inn there. The project still needs city building permits, but they are expected to be approved soon, city officials said.

Bellevue-based Fluke Capital Management, led by general partner David Fluke, first applied in 1987 to build a hotel at 605 114th Ave. S.E., on the southeast edge of downtown. Once the project was approved, Fluke planned to sell it to someone else to build — but the sale took nearly two decades.

Fluke needed to obtain permits from the state Department of Ecology and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and local activist Geoff Bidwell opposed him every step of the way.

Through countless court dates and environmental impact studies and the passage of new laws, all brought on by this one tree-hugging ass, this sale and the subsequent construction have been held up for almost two decades.

Posted in Freaks, Mutants, and Morons, Useful Idiots | Leave a comment

Deceptive Advertising?

Posted on February 28, 2006 by Phil Kadath

If you make a run through the left-wing blogs, you’ll notice that one of the more common Blog Ads you see is one for NGP Field voter contact management software.

If you click on the ad, it takes you to their page where they say the following:

Newly-launched at NGP, this user-friendly, web-based voter contact management program was tested with excellent results by campaigns in 2004 and 2005.

I don’t know what alternate reality they live in, but I’m remembering the party which won a majority of the victories in 2004 and I can say that they certainly didn’t use software made by Democrat supporters.

I don’t know. Maybe this is a “Rove” thing?

Posted in Color me confused | Leave a comment

He picked a winner!

Posted on February 28, 2006 by Phil Kadath

Every year, Kos picks a new batch of people to post on the front page of hsi site. As I’ve posted in the past, I’ve got no idea what method he uses to choose them, but from what I’ve seen, it must be an ass-kissing contest.

To prove that point, I present you MCJoan.

Now, Joanie is commenting on what Bolton said about the UN at the Federalist Society symposium held at Columbia Law School.

For those who haven’t read this yet, Bolton said: “We find an organization that is deeply troubled by bad management, by sex and corruption and by a growing lack of confidence in its ability to carry out missions that are given to them”.

Joanie, completely unknowledgable about what is going on outside her little Bush-hating world says the following:

What is the bizarre preoccupation these guys have with sex? Really? Sex is one of the UN’s primary problems? I’d think it might have something to do with the fact that the world’s greatest power refuses to participate in a meaningful way in any international effort or to recognize international law or the Geneva Conventions or to sign onto critical international treaties. But maybe that’s just me.

I’m pretty sure that it is just her, along with a few thousand people so blinded by their hatred of a man that they skip over any news that doesn’t let them see anything that doesn’t fit into their mindset.

Finally, one of the Kos Kids fills Joanie in on the resurgence of the UN’s multiple sex scandals last week with this report.

To which she responds:

If this is what Bolton was talking about, the story is even worse. Equating these heinous crimes with bureaucratic mismanagement is dismissive and offensive. What’s more, rape isn’t sex. It’s violent crime.

To which I can only respond, I have not seen one single word from Joanie or any of the other Kos Kids about the crimes she labelled “heinous”, so I have to take from that that they either didn’t know about them, which makes them ignorant, or they just don’t care which makes them callous.

I guess if Bush was playing along with the UN like Joanie wanted, they’d all be his fault too?

I’ll never be able to figure these people out. Which is why I keep reading.

Posted in Freaks, Mutants, and Morons, Useful Idiots | Leave a comment

RNS Quote of the Day

Posted on February 28, 2006 by Phil Kadath

What collectivists refuse to recognize is that it is in the self-interest of every businessman to have a reputation for honest business dealings and a quality product.

Since the market value of a going business is measured by its money-making potential, reputation or “good will” is as much an asset as its physical plant and equipment. For many a drug company, the value of its reputation, as reflected in the salability of its brand name, is often its major asset. The loss of reputation through the sale of a shoddy or dangerous product would sharply reduce the market value of the drug company, though its physical resources would remain intact.

The market value of a brokerage firm is even more closely tied to its good-will assets. Securities worth hundreds of millions of dollars are traded every day over the telephone. The slightest doubt as to the trustworthiness of a broker’s word or commitment would put him out of business overnight.

The Assault on Integrity – Alan Greenspan (1963)

Posted in Quote of the Day | Leave a comment

Note to all Moderate Democrats

Posted on February 27, 2006 by Phil Kadath

This is what Sedition looks like.

Make your 2006 candidate unequivocally denounce this and give back any money given to them from any of the groups involved.

Posted in Evil walks the earth, Too Stupid to Live | 4 Comments

OK, Here’s the Situation

Posted on February 27, 2006 by Phil Kadath

I’m gonna have to take a week’s vacation.

So by now, you probably know that I’m getting ready to disassemble, move and then reassemble Casa de Analog. It will take place at the end of this week and I will probably be out of commision come Wednesday.

But do not fear!

I have made arrangements to switch the RNS Mainboard over to our good man, David, and he has spent some time over the past couple days brewing up posting goodies for your entertainment while I’m out. He’ll have the comm and he has even got something different from my recent distractions loaded up for The Soundboard on Thursday.

I’ve got almost a full page of bloggy goodness for you below this post and I’m working today on stuff for tomorrow.

And because he has a long weekend due to a break in classes, Professor Booty says he’ll be lending a helping hand with the move. Now, I’ve never known the man to break a sweat doing manual labor, but if he wants to see the new place, I’m not going to tell him no, provided he stays out of the way.

However, even if the Comcast guys know how to do their job and get me back on-line by the weekend, I’m not letting the Professor anywhere near RNS Blogstation Seattle. He’ll load the damn thing up with infinitely more pictures of women’s asses than I have now, sending the Analog Wife chasing him with a broomhandle, just like she did the last time he was out here and he brought a gaggle of women he picked up to my house.

The guy just doesn’t understand married life.

Anyway, along with David, I have enlisted Judge Juggs to stop by this upcoming weekend so that everyone can get their “Nekkid Fix”.

I may still find I have time during the week to stop by and post something up, but I’m not seeing it at this point.

Enjoy the week. I’m moving out of the clutches of the City of Seattle and King County and voting with my feet as well as my dollar, so I certainly will.

Posted in Life in the Atomic Age | Leave a comment

Mark this day on your calendar

Posted on February 27, 2006 by Phil Kadath

I actually want my state to follow the lead of Massachusetts!

You’ve probably read my thoughts on the Washington Assesment of Student Learning test in the recent past. To summarize: 1 set of tests, set at the 8th grade level, taken in the 10th grade (with multiple re-tests available) must be passed in order for the student to get a high school diploma in Washington State. The state school officials are seeing that the tests show how badly their programs aren’t teaching the kids because close to half of them fail it the first time around, so they are planning on ditching the test requirement and implementing a ‘kinder’ set of standards that will still let kids who can’t read, write or do basic arithmetic get their diplomas.

Well, it seems that someone actually took their head out of their ass for long enough to look at the results from other states with the same graduation requirement.

Massachusetts.

Five years ago, Massachusetts stood where Washington does now.

It had a 10th-grade state test, soon to be a graduation requirement, that, just like the Washington Assessment of Student Learning (WASL), fewer than half of the sophomores passed each year.

School leaders hoped that scores would shoot up once the test counted. Critics predicted disaster. Parents protested, some students boycotted — and others sued.

Then the results came in. And they were so good that states like Washington, which requires its own high-stakes test for graduation beginning in 2008, now look to Massachusetts for reassurance.

In 2001, the first year that Massachusetts sophomores took the test for keeps, the passage rate shot from 49 percent to 68 percent. By the time that class graduated, only 5 percent of seniors didn’t get a diploma because they didn’t pass the MCAS (Massachusetts Comprehensive Assessment System).

What, you mean if you set goals for people that they must achieve, they will actually rise to meet them?

Sorry, but after seeing the crappy job that Washington State schools have been doing for the past 20 years or more, I was amazed that someone saw the actual point of teaching.

Posted in Academia and Other Nonsense | Leave a comment

He has been trained well

Posted on February 27, 2006 by Phil Kadath

Last week, waste of oxygen dirtbags from one of the local hate groups were out in the early moning hours in Thurston County (home of the state capitol) tossing eggs wrapped with their bile-filled literature onto people’s lawns.

Police are investigating and I’m sure that one of the brainless wonders who did this will be bragging about about loudly and will be caught soon enough.

But one of the people who found eggs on his lawn was Steve Newborn. I do not know his political affiliation, but I’ll put $20 down that says he is either a Green or a Democrat.

Either way, Newborn is an idiot, as is evidenced by this quote to the local station report I linked to:

“That’s not first amendment rights, that’s bigotry,” said Newbon.

Sorry Steve, even the most vile of bigots have the right to say whatever they fell the need to, no matter how disgusting it is to everyone else. I don’t like it either, but that is how things work in this country (until the left gets their way, at least).

Posted in Too Stupid to Live, Useful Idiots | Leave a comment

No Freedom of Speech

Posted on February 27, 2006 by Phil Kadath

In the Washington State Legislature.

Remember a couple weeks back when I told you about the left-wingers plan to disrupt the signature gathering for “conservative/right-wing/anything the left doesn’t” like Citizen’s Initiatives?

Well now even the “conservative/right-wing/any legislator the left doesn’t like” can’t even speak freely when issuing a press release.

House orders news releases edited for forbidden phrases

House Republicans say there are “seven dirty words” you can never say when talking about the Democrats’ budget this year in Olympia.Among the forbidden phrases: “Shell game.” “Lack of honesty with taxpayers.” “Tax-and-spend liberal.” “It’s not truthful to say this money is being put into reserve.”

[George] Carlin wasn’t joking about the words not allowed on TV. And it appears the GOP isn’t joking, either.

Republican news releases using the forbidden phrases were removed from Web sites and edited this week by order of the House Chief Clerk’s Office and its legal counsel.The reason: The words impugned the motives of the other party’s members at taxpayer expense, House Chief Clerk Rich Nafziger said Thursday. “You can’t use taxpayers’ dollars to sling mud.”

But Rep. John Serben, R- Spokane, called it censorship.

Which is exactly what it is.

If I wasn’t so extremely short on time due to moving this week, I’d be going through every Democrat .WA.GOV website and looking for anti-Republican ‘mudslinging’. As it is, I’ll just have to wait for the election to get closer and keep an eye out on those sites for it then.

I’m sure that the ‘equality party’ will quickly remove any mud slung by Democrats on their taxpayer funded websites.

Or maybe not.

As it stands right now, the only Democrat site that was censored was one that called Republicans who sent out mailers which spoke of the Democrat’s lack of will to punish child-molesters “Miscreants”. I could care less what some jackass who is afraid to lock up perverts for 25 years to life thinks about his fellow legislators that sit on the other side of the ailse. That was censorship too.

Your lack of freedom of speech in Washington State. Brought to you by the Washington Democratic Party.

Posted in Order of the imperial upraised middle finger. | Leave a comment

Watch

Posted on February 27, 2006 by Phil Kadath

The MSM pundits will brand him an “activist judge”.

I speak of U.S. District Judge Ivan Lemelle, who ruled that the measures in place already provide equal access to the polls for all New Orleans constiutuents to vote in the Mayoral election on April 22nd.

The news report says that the lawsuit was brought on by two NOLA residents and was “joined by voting-rights activists”. Also known as “people who like it when the dead and felons vote“.

They alleged that sending absentee ballots to New Orleans residents still living outside the state wasn’t good enough, even after the Louisiana Secretary of State said he plans on spending $1.5 Million “to advertise the New Orleans election in cities where evacuees now live” and are considering an appeal.

As the poll date appraoches, watch for this in the news and watch the left-wing talking heads to try and whip up more sympathy for the people who like living outside of Louisiana so much that they are refusing to return and rebuild.

And it will be a replay of Florida 2000 / Ohio 2004 if a Republican wins. Especially if he is a white guy, because “milk” cannot be allowed to run “The Chocolate City”.

Posted in Freaks, Mutants, and Morons, Too Stupid to Live | Leave a comment