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News & ArtsSunday, January 2, 2011
News The Morning News
Posted by Dominic Holden on Sun, Jan 2, 2011 at 10:00 AM
The G.O.P. Strategy to Repeal Health Care Reform: First lawmakers will try to repeal the whole thing before the State of the Union Address, and then, when that fails, they will try nicking off portions of the law piece by piece.
None Shall See the President's Nipples! Aides keep press away from Obama in Hawaii because Obama does not want to be photographed shirtless.
It's a Slow News Day: Let's discuss the weather. It will warm up in Seattle later this week; it will get colder in Yakustk, the coldest city on earth, where temperatures will drop to -24 degrees this week.
Your Life Isn't So Bad: It's not this bad:
The mother of four young children could only watch in horror as a fire early New Year's day swept through her Redmond apartment, killing the children and a 32-year-old man, officials and neighbors said. "She couldn't speak - she was just hysterically screaming," said neighbor Jared Wilson, who lives on the building's third floor.
This, of Course, Is What the GOP Wants Before the Presidential 2012 Election: Failing to increase the maximum national debt will make the U.S. economy implode. "If we hit the debt ceiling, that's essentially defaulting on our obligations, which is totally unprecedented in American history," says Austen Goolsbee, chairman of the Council for Economic Advisers. "The impact on the economy would be catastrophic. I mean, that would be a worse financial economic crisis than anything we saw in 2008."
The Seeds He Sows: The Seattle Times profiles Mayor McGinn's first year in office, taking a "go-it-alone approach," and considers the landscape for 2011. "You can only win through losing so many times. You win the rhetorical battle, but lose the vote," says Council Member Nick Licata.
Do We Ever Write About Rachel La Corte? She's in the Olympia bureau for the Associated Press. And, man, she just cranks out great story after great story. Today she's got a piece on the inability of charity groups to replace the billions of dollars in state-funded services—such as terminating Basic Health and the Children's Health Program—that will be cut in the next budget cycle, when the state needs to slash another $4.6 billion.
We're Not Going to Be Writing About Rachel La Corte: She says on Twitter that she's taking a year-long sabbatical.
Meanwhile, in the Alabama of Australia: There's flooding in Queensland and it's getting worse. "More than 20 towns have already been cut off or flooded across an area larger than France and Germany, with more than 200,000 people affected," reports the BBC.
Maybe She Could: Nate Silver examines whether Sarah Palin could get the Republican presidential nomination.
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& of course the Republicans will end up voting to raise the debt ceiling, they're just playing hostage-taker again because they saw how awesome it worked out for them last time. & they're not gonna stop until the Dems show some balls, aka they're not gonna stop.
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5exATIaQ…
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@8, I miss Queen today as well, so here's a favorite of mine, which heads into high fuckery around 3:30, banging back to earth only in the final minute.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMtB5wUGZ…
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I'm sure that we could, as a community, fill the gap (or at least a good part of it) left by reduced revenues from taxes. Although it sucks be unemployed (I know, I've been there), approximately 90 percent of Washingtonians still have jobs and many people are making a shitload of money at those jobs. Plus there's the money that people rake in from investments. I'm not suggesting it's only people who are wealthy, or wealthier, who could step to to the plate -- everyone could forgo a few non-necessities and give that money to a charity instead -- but people who are wealthier certainly have more resources to share.
So...do they? Here's an interesting story in the New York Times from back in August: The Charitable-Giving Divide
For decades, surveys have shown that upper-income Americans don’t give away as much of their money as they might and are particularly undistinguished as givers when compared with the poor, who are strikingly generous. . . . [Piff's] study...found that lower-income people were more generous, charitable, trusting and helpful to others than were those with more wealth. They were more attuned to the needs of others and more committed generally to the values of egalitarianism.
“Upper class” people, on the other hand, clung to values that “prioritized their own need.” And, he told me this week, “wealth seems to buffer people from attending to the needs of others.” Empathy and compassion appeared to be the key ingredients in the greater generosity of those with lower incomes. And these two traits proved to be in increasingly short supply as people moved up the income spectrum.
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Who is left?
Everett Herald's Jerry Cornfield
Austin Jenkins
Seattle Times mostly phones it in.
Stranger reads other peoples reporting and then complains.
Publicola sends somebody, sometimes.
The Olympian eh.
Hopefully AP will have a competent reporter covering the 2011 Session.
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The state is largely seen as hillbilly and backwater, with a recent veneer of cheeseball glitz and neon. The old joke about Queenslanders is that the reason they're the only Aussie state that never adopted Daylight Savings Time is that the station housewives were afraid it would fade the curtains.
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Fnarf, sure, Bjelke Petersen maintained power as Premier for 19 years (until he was forced to resign in 1987)... thanks to the gerrymander introduced by the Australian Labor Party (Left) Government in 1949. Queensland politics has been dominated by the Labor party before and since.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queensland_…
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Premiers_of…
Brisbane is not "all glitz and new skyscrapers", but it has taken off socially and economically since the World Expo in 1988. A lot of new buildings have been erected in that time, but a lot of old, historically significant buildings remain. In a city of 2 million people, you can live in a freestanding house within a mile of the centre of the city (and that house may well be 100 years old).
http://www.publicworks.qld.gov.au/brisba…
http://www.galenfrysinger.com/brisbane_a…
http://brisbaneblog.com.au/wp-content/up…
Regarding Daylight Saving Time (really?), it was trialed there in 1971 and 89 - 92 (and it was observed across Australia during the world wars), and it was defeated by referendum with a 54.5% 'No' vote in 1992.
And the (sensible IMO) reason it was rejected? Because the north of Queensland approaches 10 degrees South latitude (think Costa Rica in the Northern Hemisphere). Even Southern Queensland is at 28S (think southern Texas and Florida). There's alreay TOO MUCH daylight in summer, thanks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time_in_Aus…
http://www.nodaylightsavingqld.com/Faded…
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I've not been to either place. Given the choice between the two, I'd visit Queensland because you can't take the science lover out of me and I love listening to you all speak, too.
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