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A record 377,616 people showed up at McChord AFB this weekend to take in the sights illustrating the power of the U.S. military. Compare that to the number that showed up to protest the Iraq war at various times around the area.

I would have to say that the voices of anti-war loudmouths was officially drown out by the sheer numbers of people who support our men and women in the armed forces. It reminds me that the biggest protest I’ve seen was the support-the-troops rally outside Ft. Lewis that stretched for more than 8 miles of overpasses (as that 2003?). And that was actually a counter-protests. The protesters showed up and according to eye-witnesses didn’t even get off of the bus.

I wasn’t able to make the show because of other responsibilities. I heard it was great.

McChord AFB Air Show 2008 - fencecheck.com

Air Show Millitary Expo 2008 McChord AFB USA - YouTube.com

McChord AFB Air Show 2008 - Web site

As I’m reading a post on the Washington Policy Center’s blog I found myself somewhat stunned at the simplicity of the statement in this paragraph:

During our annual transportation event, Dr. Ronald Utt, a transportation and economics expert from the Heritage Foundation suggested that moving toward performance-based transportation decision making (and away from the current political system) means resources are distributed on getting the biggest bang for your buck. Instead, Sound Transit’s resource allocation appears to have very little to do with performance and everything to do with buying votes.

The more I’ve thought about it the more sense it has made. Over the years I’ve learned that there is great wisdom in simple things. A change in goals can lead to a complete overhaul of the way things are done. Focusing on a clear, attainable result can make a lot of choices along the way a lot simpler to decide.
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After several employees of the Tacoma ACORN office were indicted in Seattle, with the help of Tacoma prosecutors, we’re now learning more about corrupt practices within their organization.

Despite raking in a troubling 40 percent of its revenue from taxpayers over the last three years, ACORN Housing Corporation’s actions range from controversial to borderline illegal:

• AHC has worked to obtain mortgages for illegal aliens
• AHC relies on undocumented income, “under the table” money that may not be reported to the Internal Revenue Service
• ACORN’s “financial justice” operations attack lenders for “exotic” loans, but AHC has recommended ten-year interest-only loans (which deny equity to the buyer) and reverse mortgages (which can be detrimental to senior citizens)
• AHC may have violated federal law by failing to maintain a proper distinction between its tax-exempt housing work and the aggressive political activities of ACORN

Not much of an advocacy / counseling group if they steer people wrong when they come in for help. Makes me wonder who’s interests they are really advocating. Actually, no it doesn’t. There’s ample evidence that they’re nothing more than a left-wing political group pretending to be something else.

When charges where filed in Seattle the organization was supposedly cooperating with authorities to prosecute their supposedly wayward employees. Considering there were several other cities where charges were filed against their employees, some of us doubted that these people were acting outside of their organization’s policies. Now we see even more evidence of corruption.

I’m not sure if this is a sign of improvement, but Puget Sound is ranked only 9th worst in the nation for drive time congestion in a recent report by Inrix of Kirkland. Some other lowlights from the report puts us 10th worst in overall congestion, 6th worst in their ‘Drive Time Travel Time Index’ and we have the 8th worst travel time hour.

Funny thing about these rankings, they don’t often show any improvement when a city’s rank changes. Instead they show that the other cities got worse. However, in this case we can claim that we have the 7th largest decrease in drive time congestion from 2006 to 2007. Things improved by a whopping 0.2%. Sounds like a new plank in the Democrat governor’s campaign. Finally she has something to hang her hat on besides quid-pro-quo legislation for her campaign donors.

In other news Silicon Valley can produce more then chips and disks. Scientists there have come up witha genetically altered microbe that eats agricultural waste and excretes crude oil. They wouldn’t put it in their own cars, but they think it will get us off of our Saudi oil dependency (no mention of Venezuela). Maybe someday I’ll be able to put my grass clippings into my SUV.
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Tacoma has been implementing policies that are touted as eco-friendly for a while now. Some of them have come around to bite them, mostly in the form of higher costs or lost revenues (for the city and for businesses in the city). Another consequence of their il-conceived policies has reared it’s ugly head.

One of the major problems with these new policies is that they’re trying to force a supposedly ‘new way of thinking’ into existing environments. In this case they are encouraging multi-story mixed-use buildings (residential combined with commercial, such as retail) by giving tax breaks to developers. And without thought of the consequences the city has allowed these buildings with large reflective exterior surfaces to be built next to existing houses.

The consequence: sunlight is concentrated on existing houses causing the interior to heat up.

Some might think this is an acceptable consequence to protect the planet from its evil nemesis ‘urban sprawl’, but if you’re sitting in a solar roaster that was once a comfortable rambler, it ain’t so cool.
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Wired magazine, known for it’s zealous focus on the latest crazes, takes a look at the latest environmental craze and what people think they should do about it. They don’t actually look at the validity of the anthropogenic issue or the dire consequences debate, but at least they add a little bit of objectivity to the climate of climate change.

Putting aside the absolute lie known as ‘the coming ice age’. And ignoring the food shortages and high prices caused by biofuel mandates, not to mention the slashing and burning of rain forest in Brazil because of their extremely high biofuel mandates. And forget for a moment the economic impact on the timber industry because so-called scientists failed to realize that spotted owls will fornicate anywhere (they just happen to prefer old growth forests the way hippies prefer rock concerts). The list goes on, but lets ignore all that for the moment. I’m starting to wonder which will be the next abject failure of the environmentalist movement.

I’m addressing this to the local liberal set who go crazy over the crazes. Since they’re like most liberals they never really think things through. Let’s hope that this gets them thinking instead of reacting to whatever bright ideas blow their way.
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Does the city really need more money to pay for street repairs? Recently the city came up with $45 million for improvements for downtown in a supposed attempt to keep Russell Investments Group from leaving (and to keep their pipe-dream of a pie-in-the-sky financial district alive).

Now they’re considering going back to voters to ask for more money to repair streets. We already said, ‘no’ to such a proposal, but I’ll get back to that. There wasn’t a vote during this discussion so the only members mentioned in the News Tribune article as supporting the idea are Lonergan (who seems to have proposed it) and Fey.

But this is the money-quote from the TNT article:

But Councilwoman Connie Ladenburg questioned whether there was enough time to develop a proposal that would get to voters this year. Ladenburg also said that the City Council had not determined that street maintenance was the top priority, although it certainly is among the top priorities.

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As an alternative to the zoning approach to land use restrictions, Houston, TX has always had used a free market approach. There are benefits and drawbacks, but the important thing is it puts property rights in the right place, the hands of the property owner.

Michael Ennis of the Washington Policy Center (WPC) attended a conference in Houston where the subject came up. He points out some interesting aspects of the system in this blog entry.

Our Neighborhood Council meeting recently had visits from the city’s planning commission staff and from a lobbyist group that is lobbying the city for more restrictive land use. This article seemed a good way to start the conversation on this blog.

I’m not advocating a radical change to our land use and zoning laws. However, I do want to make clear that a) there are alternatives, and b) that more restriction isn’t the best approach.

Update: Robert Mak, probably the closest thing that Northwest TV news has to an objective reporter, did a segment on this issue (here’s an online synopsis). He spoke with a UW professor who, without outside funding or support, did a study on the impact that land use regulations have on housing prices.
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They took the plunge today and opened for business. This is a great place. They call their coffee shop/bistro ‘Fishtales Bistro’. They’re not allowed restaurant style seating, but there are plenty of choices to take to nearby picnic tables and enjoy.

At the walk-up window is an espresso bar with soups and chowders plus some cool stuff like seafood cocktails. Inside are all of the fish products you’d expect and some more. It’s a good mix of ready to eat, prepped for cooking and unprepped selections.

The location makes it a good place to stop to pick something up for dinner whether I feel like cooking or not (I do like to cook). They’re right on the Ruston Way waterfront in Old Town with plenty of 15 minute parking out front.

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Whenever I talk with a city employee about how they can spend money on pet projects while important issues (like potholes) go unresolved, I get the same answer: buckets. It’s every day’s excuse du jour.

I posted previously about watching crews bury electric wires from tree to tree so that the city could put up Christmas lights when signs were posted across the street telling us to vote ‘Yes’ on funding for emergency services. And when I asked a city employee about it, the answer was ‘buckets’. There was money in the Christmas bucket but none in the emergency services bucket. So everyone who didn’t need an ambulance would have a brighter holiday.

So imagine my surprise last night as I listened to the city council respond to a citizen who brought up the issue of how they were taking money out of one bucket to fill another bucket, which was empty because that bucket was used to fill another bucket that was empty because of a bad decision by city council.

I guess creative bookkeeping can only be used when it’s to cover the mistakes of the city council. But when it’s the public that needs money from an empty bucket, it’s up to the taxpayers to refill it.
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