Slog

News & Arts

The Stranger Suggests

Critics' Best Bets
Music Arts & Food


Line Out

Music & the City
at Night

Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Tuesday Morning News

Posted by on Tue, Apr 24, 2012 at 8:46 AM

Superfluous Tuesday. Mitt Romney is expected to cruise to victories today in Republican presidential primaries in Pennsylvania, Connecticut, New York, Delaware, and Rhode Island. No one cares.

Um, hasn't Mitt Romney ever raised a young person? Presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney declared yesterday that "young voters in this country have to vote for me," pretty much assuring that young voters won't.

The Republican Party is bankrupt. No, really. The Minnesota Republican Party is facing eviction from its headquarters after falling 9 months behind in its rent. Two million dollars in debt, the state GOP risks adding financial bankruptcy to the moral kind.

Saints ain't. On the heels of a "bounty ball" scandal that saw its coaches and general manager hit with substantial fines and suspensions, the New Orleans Saints are now facing a potential federal investigation over allegations that they electronically eavesdropped on visiting coaches for years. Anybody who knows football knows that this has the making of a huge scandal.

"Pineapples don’t have sleeves." If you don't get why this has become a favorite punchline among 8th graders nationwide, then you've got no idea how ridiculous our current regime of standardized testing is.

And I have a space bridge to sell you. A group of "high-tech tycoons" is setting up a company to mine asteroids for precious minerals, and idea straight out of science fiction. Unfortunately, at a cost of about a half billion dollars an ounce, the profits will likely be fictional too.

Hmm, maybe investing in asteroid mining doesn't look so bad. Just weeks ahead of its initial public offering, Facebook has announced that both revenue and profits are down.

We're number one! The state liquor store at 12th and Pine, comfortingly visible from Frizzelle's window, attracted the highest bid of any liquor store in Seattle in the online fire sale auction of WA's liquor monopoly. The $500,100 bid for the 12th and Pine store was part of the $30.75 million raised auctioning off a system that has generated billions of dollars of profits for taxpayers over the years. Hope the employees there enjoy their new non-union, minimum wage jobs!

It wasn't the heat. It was the bullets. The two women found dead in a suspicious North Bend fire had been shot to death.

Yes, but what will it cost in another couple decades when we finally get our shit together to build it? The cost of replacing the Elliott Bay seawall along the downtown Seattle's waterfront is now projected to come in at about $300 million, below the prior $310 million to $390 million estimated range. Expect more coverage of the seawall project as Seattle reporters desperately look for excuses to work the word "gribbles" into a sentence.

Why ruin such a perfect system? A new study finds that an appendectomy in California costs between $1,500 and $182,955, sometimes leaving even fully insured patients in bankruptcy. The Affordable Care Act that Rob McKenna is fighting so hard to repeal would force hospitals to publish their prices for common procedures, but I suppose that would just mess up the obvious efficiency of the way the market is working now.

And finally, an animated Barack Obama:

 

Comments (15) RSS

Oldest First Unregistered On Registered On Add a comment
1
Here's the passage and the test questions:

http://usny.nysed.gov/docs/the-hare-and-…

Fun story, even if adapted, but stupid test.
Posted by seatackled on April 24, 2012 at 9:04 AM
2
So, we vote, with the risk of rejection, on the sea wall and the library. But only to ensure more bonding capacity for a bullshit stadium to make one guy rich.

You see, the city can only carry so much debt service in order to keep the stellar bond rating. And to carry anything higher then that, the voters must approve. Naturally, the city will want to put the things most likely to pass on the ballot, like things we cannot or will not do without, so that the city has the legal authority to issue bonds for a stadium without a vote. We learned nothing from the debacle of 2008.

But I guess to preserve the bind rating, we can always raise utility rates another 25%. Because you have to pay that too.
Posted by Do the math. on April 24, 2012 at 9:04 AM
thatsnotright 3
My favorite liquor store sales rep. will have 26 and 1/2 years with the state on may 1st. he's losing his job 3 and 1/2 years shy of qualifying for his full pension. That sucks. since all of the liquor store employees would rather transfer to some other state job at a time when state hiring is frozen he has little likely hood of getting a chance to finish his tenure.
Posted by thatsnotright on April 24, 2012 at 9:46 AM
Fnarf 4
Yesterday Slog reported that the store on 72nd in Tacoma earned a bid of more than $750,000, half again as much as Capitol Hill's 12th St. store.
Posted by Fnarf http://www.facebook.com/fnarf on April 24, 2012 at 9:51 AM
Supreme Ruler Of The Universe 5

#4

Guess the markup on Cisco and Thunderbird must be quite large.

Posted by Supreme Ruler Of The Universe http://www.you-read-it-here-first.com on April 24, 2012 at 10:08 AM
gloomy gus 6
Oh, look, Goldy! Your Camp Wellstone compadre Marko Liias just endorsed DelBene over your other Camp Wellstone compadre Darcy Burner. That's gotta sting a bit, huh?
http://publicola.com/2012/04/24/clearly-…
Posted by gloomy gus on April 24, 2012 at 10:29 AM
Will in Seattle 7
The Seawall is a Trojan Horse to fund the unfunded Deeply Borrowed Tunnel, which can't even pay for itself with $10 a day tolls.
Posted by Will in Seattle http://www.facebook.com/WillSeattle on April 24, 2012 at 10:32 AM
8
"...system that has generated billions of dollars of profits for taxpayers over the years."

Because they held a monopoly and overcharged anyone who bought liquor.
Posted by ryanmm on April 24, 2012 at 10:44 AM
in-frequent 9
The story and questions didn't seem that strange to me. Maybe becuase I've been raised on these tests.
Posted by in-frequent on April 24, 2012 at 12:18 PM
Goldy 10
@6: The sting would come from Darcy losing the election, not from her losing endorsements. Come back and heartily taunt me if that happens.
Posted by Goldy on April 24, 2012 at 12:24 PM
Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn 11
Ha HA! Goldy loses.

Again.
Posted by Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn http://youtu.be/zu-akdyxpUc on April 24, 2012 at 12:33 PM
thatsnotright 12
@ 8 liquor isn't taht less expensive in California or Texas or any other state I've been in recently, except Oregon and that's because they tax it less. I can't understand why anyone would kill the goose that lays the golden eggs. Let's look at liquor prices in a year and compare.
Prices rarely decrease in a market where consumers have been habituated to scale. Washingtonians pay way more for food and gas than most markets and there's no reason for it other than people don't complain.
Posted by thatsnotright on April 24, 2012 at 12:50 PM
13
@12 - what? Liquor is half price in CA compared to here. Literally half price, the stuff I buy anyway.
Posted by Reader01 on April 24, 2012 at 12:59 PM
gloomy gus 14
@10, c'mon, it has to sting for her to lose Marko's endorsement, because it's the first time that's happened.

Losing a congressional race for the third time in a row, though - wouldn't she be so used to it it would hardly sting at all? The Stassen Effect has to have kicked in for her by now.
Posted by gloomy gus on April 24, 2012 at 2:20 PM
Bauhaus I 15
I guess I don't understand. People have bid on old state-owned liquor stores for opening up private liquor stores? Or are they bidding to use the property for something else?...because in my opinion a private liquor store defeats the purpose of the new law. I don't want to go somewhere else to buy the smidgen of bourbon I need for a recipe. I want to buy it at the grocery or the drug store, etc.
Posted by Bauhaus I on April 24, 2012 at 5:44 PM

Add a comment

Advertisement
 

Want great deals and a chance to win tickets to the best shows in Seattle? Join The Stranger Presents email list!


All contents © Index Newspapers, LLC
1535 11th Ave (Third Floor), Seattle, WA 98122
Contact Info | Privacy Policy | Terms of Use | Takedown Policy