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I guess I’m not the only one concerned about the media’s portrayal of economic news. I was first impacted by it a decade and a half ago.

Since then I’ve watched a clear pattern of the media misreporting economic news based on the party of the current administration. Under a Democrat they report negative economic news as somehow positive and under a Republican they report positive economic news as negative. To put it another way if it seems to favor an administration they don’t like they won’t report good news or will spin it as bad, and vice-versa.
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Finally, a plan to keep Russell that I think I might like. The reason? It’s mostly private and less public.

There’s a plan described in a Dan Voelpel piece from last week (The future of Russell Investments in downtown Tacoma) that sounds pretty good on the surface. It centers around a Seattle company called Ilahie Holdings. Here’s a link to a list of their current holdings. I don’t know their financial picture but the project talked about in the TNT piece looks to be bigger than anything they currently hold. I hope they’re up to it.
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A recent resolution by the International Longshore and Warehouse Union (ILWU), which represents about 600 of Tacoma’s longshoremen, at a West coast meeting. The resolution calls for an 8 hour work stoppage to protest the Iraq and Afghanistan wars.

There are several major problems with this resolution.
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Tacoma police lieutenant Alan Roberts is suing for $500,000 claiming he was harassed by two superiors. The story ran in the Tacoma News Tribune and was the source of stories in several other area papers and media outlets.

There weren’t a lot of details given in the news story and there was nothing to indicate the motive for the alleged harassment. Off the top of my head I’m going to guess it wasn’t race or sexual orientation because both the lawyers and the media would have focused on that little tidbit.

Cronyism and favoritism seem to have always been a big problem for TPD. David Brame seemed to have landed his position as police chief because of his association with the (previous) city manager. I’m sorry to have to put it this way but that’s how Tacoma city government has run for as long as anyone seems to be able to remember.
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It turns out that in addition to the now public disagreements between state Senate Republicans, they’re also having trouble raising money and finding candidates for the this year’s election. Big surprise there.

I guess it confirms what Sen. Roach said about Sen. Hewitt’s leadership.

Roach, always outspoken, is calling Republican leadership a disaster. She says they have no new people donating money and Hewitt has done a horrible job recruiting candidates.

So if you’re keeping score, that’s Roach 2, Hewitt 0. It makes the timing of the reprimand against Roach look a little suspect.

I’m starting to think that it might actually be Roach who’s telling the truth and the leadership team is looking for something to cover their behinds.

I wasn’t able to be at the protests in Lakewood, just outside Tacoma, today. I’m sure pictures will be showing up over the next few days so I’ll post links to them as I find them.

Local nightly news coverage is beginning. The Fox channel (Seattle) focused on the ‘unfairness’ of police enforcement. One protester said that the police faced the anti-war protesters instead of the support the troops crowd. The on-scene reporter did say that the police responded to that by pointing out that they had more trouble getting the anti-war protesters to follow their instructions.
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I’m never satisfied with summaries like Forbes Best Places For Business And Careers. I wanted to see how Tacoma really stacked up against others and I also wanted to see if Tacoma had really improved, and in what areas.

Here’s a summary that I put together (Forbes Tacoma Ranking - 1999 to 2008 - PDF) to track Tacoma’s ranking from 1999 to 2008.

Some things gleaned from the summary. Note that these are rankings against other cities so they are not an objective measure of improvement or decline locally.
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The fight against giving the USS Ranger a home in Tacoma

Several years ago a group was trying to give the decommission aircraft carrier USS Ranger (CV61) a new home in North Tacoma. Several liberal groups, some of whom the city council looks to for direction, obstructed the effort. Since then the group has given up and decided to look elsewhere.

The USS Ranger Foundation, a nonprofit group trying to find a retirement home for the decommissioned aircraft carrier, decided recently that it couldn’t overcome opposition to the Foss site, said Dan Mills, president and chief executive of the foundation. And since they couldn’t find another place to park it in Tacoma, they plan to look elsewhere.

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There’s an ongoing feud between state senator Pam Roach and the WSRP leadership. I don’t know the senator and I don’t have the inside information on this issue, but I don’t trust the GOP leadership in this state.

Here’s what I don’t get. If Sen. Roach did something wrong, why is it the GOP reprimanding her, not the senate or the ethics committee. They said it was official conduct not a personal issue, but they won’t say what it is.
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For several years there has been a group of people from the other side of town showing up on Tacoma’s beautiful Ruston Way waterfront once a week, setting out and holding signs that show how little they know about the world we live in.

They’re with a group that calls itself ‘United for Peace, Pierce County’. Normally there are between one and three of them out there, but they’ve had as many as eight. Once they even flew a United Nations flag. I wanted to burn it but that would have been vandalism. Guess I’ll have to buy my own. I wonder if I need a permit for that.

The group is affiliated with a national BDS, anti-war group but with their swelling numbers I’m guessing they don’t get a lot of interaction.

So over the years we’ve had many opportunities to discuss relevant issues. Here are some highlights (or lowlights, depending on your perspecitive).
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