The "Life or Death" bike trail

Little over a year after the gas tax repeal failed- the transportation budget is overspent and many of the CRITICAL projects that were hung over voters heads are getting put off. Voters will be asked to fund yet another round of taxes to finish the list of projects that were promised under the 9 cent fleecing.

Among the “critical projects” that will be completed on the current round of funds is the bike path connecting the two sides of Chehalis Bike Trail in Lacey.

The kicker with this bike path is that there are overpasses 300 meters on either side of this new overpass that were readily available!

All of you in Orting can remember this while you drive 10 MPH between Orting and Sumner.

Way to go legislature! Tell us again why we should approve another round of taxes with priorities like this? I can still hear the echo of the Governor telling us this last round of taxes was a matter of life and death.

It's almost like they are trying to find fodder to give to the Rossi campaign to work with in 2008.

State employees making political statements with my tax dollars in not ok

Personal chef is fixing the Governor emergency contraception for breakfast

Last week the Zero ran an article on Ralph’s Thriftway losing business to the Governor’s mansion because of their decision to not carry Plan B.

Unless Gregoire is picking up the bill with her own money or is need of Plan B for breakfast, this is not OK.

I expect my tax dollars to be spent without regard to the politics of the business owner’s relation to the sitting government- rather the ability of that business to provide the best product, the best service for the best price. The Libertarian in me says that government should stay out of telling businesses what products they shall and shall not carry. This is not a life or death drug, it’s about convenience. It’s the choice of that store to decide weather or not the demand for convenience trumps their own moral pocket book. This is not true in Gregoire's Amerika.

While I believe plan B is a great form of emergency contraceptive and I much prefer it to either abortion or unplanned pregnancy, I don’t believe the Governor or her staff should be bullying their moral beliefs on the rest of us. I would say double the same with regards to a conservative Christian sitting in the Governor's mansion. Substitute Plan B in this story with a conservative switching suppliers because they also carry adult magazines or anything else in the moral path.

This is really about a business having the right to choose.

Hurray for Ralph’s team for standing up to these bullies. So far in her term as Governor, we have yet to see Gregoire do anything BUT be a bully. Not one bipartisan measure has passed by her desk and much of the state has gone without political representation because of the majority held by Democrats. Apparently the state is getting screwed on more than just transportation these days.

Perhaps that’s why Plan B is so necessary?

SUCKERS!!!!

Lucy Legislature takes voters to be Charlie Brown on transportation.


Legislature “Pass this tax and we’ll give you roads- really. We promise, we wouldn’t lie to you voters.”

Voters “Gee, but you’ve lied to us every other time we’ve given you money. It goes down a black hole and we never see it again.”

Legislature “If you don’t pass this tax, people will die. It’s a matter of life or death.”


If you’ve ever worked in corporate America, you’ve surely dealt with unscrupulous vendors who raise the price on you 300% in the 11th hour knowing that you have to either pay them or face dire consequences. Coincidentally these are the exact same special interests who helped defeat the repeal of the gas tax and are now jacking the prices on these projects.

Silly voters, you are so gullible! I bet you vote yes on the next wave of transportation taxes as well.

I wonder if anyone will question the cost of that apprentice give away Gregoire gave to the Unions and how it impacts the cost of these 9 ½ cent gas tax projects?

Follow the money: "it's for the children"

The Zero reports today that Gregoire would like to hire 77 new employees in Washington's most bloated and corrupt department- DSHS. These employees would supervise visits between convicted child abusers and their children in foster care.

Just to be clear- the state will not spend one nickel on making sure courts prosecute flagrant violations of parenting plans so noncustodial parents get time with their kids. The state will also not spend one nickel checking the rate of parents getting screwed out of joint custody in family courts or the track records of judges "managing a very complex process."

In summary, if you are a non custodial father in Washington, you have less rights in this state than an intact couple or custodial mother CONVICTED of child abuse and meth.

Follow the money. The legislature and DSHS get paid for the number of broken families in this state, it's not in their collective institutional best interest to create policy to keep families in tact. The lobbiest[s] from the ambulance chasing guild and NOW believe this is a good thing.

Gregoire doesn’t like math or Mondays

The silicon chip needs an upgrade while students take a bye on the WASL

Every Tom Dick and Harry has an opinion on the short changing of our public schools by Olympia. Being a person who likes to see the opposite of what has been delivered by our sitting Governor and her predecessor in terms of education, here are a couple of obvious pointers voters should take note of. Yes we hear a lot of “blah blah blah” promises, but in 12 years we’ve yet to see our education system outperform the junk at the bottom of a septic tank.

First, the current class of high school flunkies started kindergarten around the same time Locke took office. We are nearing 3 terms of “promises” on education and pouring money into a funnel that goes anywhere and everywhere in the system but the classroom. When it does end in a classroom we see priorities on anything and everything other than learning the basics. It’s time to flatten the org structure and make some serious changes. Math and science are the keys to the next generation of engineers and business leaders, and our students are doing the exact opposite of excelling in these subjects.

If I had my nieces and nephews out on a construction jobsite for a week they would learn more about geometry than they would in a year of high school. What’s wrong with this picture?

Next, more cash is not the answer to this problem because educators have no forcing function to correlate cash to results, which burns them not only in getting more cash, but also in justifying why they should maintain the cash flow they currently have, while under performing against private schools that are operating on less in terms of capital resources.

Further on the cash subject. As a self declared tight wad- I’d be more than happy to fund teacher and district raises based on performance bonuses. You union types are doing no one- including yourselves any favors by opposing this concept. Let the bonus go to the entire district from principal to janitor- everyone wins and everyone is a stakeholder to get the job done. I’d like to see good work rewarded and I’m voting no on funding anything other than a sure return on my investment. To date, you’ve failed- so you’re negotiating in the show me state of Missouri instead of Washington as far as pay is concerned.

Lastly I want to point to a statistic near and dear to my political being: How many of these kids are in single parent homes and have less than 15% of their time with their non-resident parent? The correlation between under performers and single parents is around 95%.

This isn’t limited to bad social engineering by the family courts and the DSHS money train though. How many hours a week are parents spending on their kids in educational activities? I’ll take a wild stab that most parents of under performing students spent more time watching reality TV and dancing with the narcissists than they did doing something interactive with their kids.

Ah, now we’ve run full circle; these are the same voters who put the king and queen of educational promises in office. It takes a more than a Must See TV attention span to recall what promises a sitting politician made 4 years ago.