News The Morning News
posted by on April 29 at 8:01 AM
Lack of Confidence: As the value of single-family homes has dropped by 13.6%, U.S. consumers “feel worse about the economy’s prospects than any time since the mid-1970s.”
BJ & the Tax Break: Angry truckers invaded Washington D.C. yesterday to protest high gas prices. Meanwhile, on the campaign trail, Clinton has joined McCain in calling for a suspension of the gas tax during the summer. Obama is against the idea.
Speaking of Gas Prices: BP and Royal Dutch Shell are expected to post first-quarter earnings of a combined $17 billion.
Bush’s Big Economy Speech: Yeah, the economy is in bad shape, and what we need to do about it is drill for oil in Alaska. Oh, and Congress is letting the American people down. Thank you and God bless America.
Countdown to the Beijing Olympics: The Chinese government has agreed to meet with the Dalai Lama — but first it needs to sentence 30 Tibetans to prison for their part in “anti-China riots.”
Spring Storms: Virginia was hit by three tornadoes yesterday. Homes were destroyed, cars were overturned, and some 200 people were injured.
Printing Money: Grand Theft Auto IV, which is expected to make $400 million in its first week alone.
Strong Bones, Weak Heart: According to a study conducted in part with Group Health, the osteoporosis drug Fosamax may double the risk of heart problems in women.
Painful Audit: Fixes to the King County jail started at a cost of $15.9 million. Five years later, the cost is $51.6 million — oh, and the County may have broken the law to boot.
Capitalism Trumps Regulation: Seattle’s ban on brands of hardcore booze hasn’t been effective since drunks don’t really have much brand loyalty.
Creepy Kids’ Show of the Day:
Dept. of fucking duh: homeless alcoholics will drink whatever cheap booze they can get, even if you ban their favorite brands.
Oh, and we could do a lot more to help homeless drunks (and our city budget) by giving them places to live. But don't take my word for it, look at this story from King 5:
http://www.king5.com/localnews/stories/NW_010908WAB_seattle_homeless_alcoholics_TP.79f9e3d.html
And as the economy tanks, all the main presidential candidates are promising to make things worse:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/27/us/politics/27fiscal.html
Okay, okay, I'm almost done. Really I am. But here's one more fun one from the King 5 web site:
http://www.king5.com/topstories/stories/NW_042808HEK_sex_surgery_SW.ab40ccfb.html
Plastic surgery for down there! Oh boy!
"The "housing first" approach calls for putting homeless people in permanent homes with supportive services instead of requiring them to stop drinking and taking drugs to earn their shelter."
Since they allow drinking in the housing, maybe this study doesn't show the bankruptcy of shelter as much as the bankruptcy of our current shelter policy. Telling alcoholics they can't have shelter unless they stop drinking is criminal, as is forcing people to leave shelter early in the morning during the winter when they have nowhere else to go.
Ah, Los Fruittis. I watched many tens of hours of that cartoon (my ex-pat cognate of dedicated Smurf-watching in the Homeland)when I lived in Spain. The kid that turned me onto it was, I suspect, a touch autistic. Ole, senor. Ole.
"BJ and the Tax Break"? That's funny. Bradley, I can guess your age within 2 years. My guess: 38.
@2 is right.
We'd be better off rebuilding the flop houses we shut down, and stop being such a GOP fear-inducing nanny state.
Can we develop a mass transit system that burns homeless alcoholics and drug addicts as an alternative fuel? Talk about two birds with one stone...
Greg@4: All those unhappy women can just start dating Polish guys. Much less expensive.
@2 or killing two birds with one dart.
Comments Closed
In order to combat spam, we are no longer accepting comments on this post (or any post more than 14 days old).