I doubt it. Most visitors are political experts - elected, bureaucrats, reporters or junkies - and have their own candidates to support. Few casual citizens even know of this site. Regardless, below a
So now the US is crawling to the UN asking for help in Iraq. And asking France and Germany to help. George W and his Neo-conservatives are facing the abyss - defeat and humiliation.
A new political pressure group is organizing to try and slow the growth of Whatcom County and Bellingham. Pro-Whatcom claims to be a diverse grassroots group of citizens but is actually a savvy
Phone outage in Whatcom County, Bellingham and much of Skagit County since 7:45 am this morning according to news reports. KGMI is on top of this and the Bellingham Herald is posting special reports o
AlJazeera’s English language website has finally opened. This is the Arab news site that scooped the US news media on a weekly basis during the war last spring. The US Government supposedly blocked th
According to today’s Herald, editorial page editor Carolyn Nielson is on leave. Eric Thomas, who has been writing goofy editorials aimed at humor, is now going on vacation. So - during the two weeks l
You would think the Port of Bellingham getting a windfall of $17 million would be news. But since posting that here - and scooping the paid news media in Bellingham - they have ignored this. Th
Ginny Benton, seeking her third term as commissioner, stated this evening at the Rome Grange that she will not respond to the “mud slinging” being done against her. She will “not stoop” to dignify thi
At yesterday’s forum, the mayor and four challengers faced the audience for over an hour of questions. The forum does not allow them to use notes, so the give and take is very entertaining as well as
Go pick up today’s issue of the Bellingham Weekly and read the Skinny. It reports on the Bellingham Police giving jaywalking citations to downtown merchants who have dared to criticize the police. The
If you are interested in giving the raspberry to George W when he visits Washington State next week, then check out www.stopbushseattle.com and make travel plans. W is coming here for some photo ops o
If you like a good read then check The Door to War and the Futurist Markets article. The author takes the concept of a Terror Futures Market and looks at how the world works.
Amazing. I can call the supposed president of our country insane and my conservative friends only object to the f word. This is an adult site. If my “credibility” rests on that, then folks know nothin
Tuesday afternoon, the Bush administration back peddled from the Terrorist Futures Market idea under fire from Senators from both sides and ridicule from news media. You should know this plan was not
They are proposing a future’s market on terrorism, assassinations, atrocities and war. These guys figure out a way to make money on most anything. So this is their vision of the future - war for profi
The Bellingham Herald has good reporting in today’s paper on the City Council’s stumbling into a $300,000-plus gift to a local business. The business happens to be owned by one of the best friends of
Just to finish the reporting on the carpenters, the union members approved the new contract, which retains their health benefits. The basic reason they went on strike was to avoid cuts in these health
A tentative agreement was reached last evening by the carpenter’s and the contractors associations. Construction will resume on all the sites Monday morning and and the agreement will go to a vote of
The Associated General Contractors and the Carpenter’s Union will meet tomorrow morning to try and settle the health benefits dispute and end the strike, which has stopped major construction projects
The carpenters’ strike continued all day Friday - at St. Joe’s Hospital and at several other large construction sites around Bellingham. Nada in the Herald, of course. All over Western Washington, sit
Writer's notes: The candidates for State Representative in the 40th District Position 1 are: Dusty Gulleson (prefers Republican Party,) Chuck Carrell (prefers Republican Party,) Doug Revelle (prefers Happiness Party,) Mike Newman (prefers Republican Party,) Kristine Lytton (prefers Democratic Party,) Tom Pasma (prefers Democratic Party,) Thomas Boucher (prefers Democratic Party,) Justin Van Dyk (prefers Democratic Party,) and Donna R. Miller (prefers Republican Party.)
What follows are the two responses to questions I submitted to Chuck last Mon, Aug 2.
Why should I vote for you?
"I’m running this year because the Legislature and Governor continued their out of control spending habits despite our troubled economy, and we need to stop it.
The only way it will stop is to start electing strong leadership to the Legislature that can make the hard choices that will be needed.
I will not support any new taxes unless they will completely eliminate an existing tax and make the amount less overall to the people they affect.
I think people are taxed to their limit right now and the real long term solution is to have the state and local governments cut their spending and get back to the essential functions of what state government is supposed to do.
I will not accept money from, or be a representative for, any PAC or special interest group. That’s important when figuring out where to trim at least $3 billion dollars from our state’s budget next session.
When making cuts, these candidates will feel obligated to keep unnecessary programs due to the financial aid they received during their campaigns. The problem was highlighted this year, and electing those types of candidates will only bring the same issue to the next Legislative session."
What is important to you?
"The most important thing to me this next Legislative session is getting our fiscal house in order.
We need to simplify the tax structure and then get an accurate assessment of what the state budget will be.
Then we need to REALISTICALLY balance the budget. This means that we fund our most important things such as education and public safety first and then continue down until everything is funded or there is no more state money left.
When the state budget is down to zero then we stop funding programs. No matter how badly we want to fund a program, if the state budget is spent then they will have to get their funding someplace else besides state government.
Even within our top priorities we need to look at how to consolidate these agencies and programs to make them more efficient. We also need to look at reducing the middle management in these agencies and what I term “inner bureaucracies.”
Years of these types of hiring practices by state and local government has created an enormous drain on our resources and is not sustainable. Nor can we rely on Federal grants like we did this year to balance the budget."
