Bull Moose Strikes Back

By now you’ve seen the video of a Seattle cop punching a 17-year-old “girl.” If not here it is:

Here is my only problem with the events depicted in the video: The cop punched a 17-year-old female in the face and didn’t drop her. Time to hit the weight room, officer.

Some of the criticism I’ve heard is that the cop should have used a Taser to subdue the girl. Now, I’ve never been hit with a Taser, but I have been punched in the face enough times to know that it’s no fun, and I’ve seen videos of what Tasers do. I think I’d rather be punched in the face. (Besides, according to reports on local radio today, the cop didn’t have a Taser.)

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Seattle is discouraging the use of skybridges, and is trying to tax Macy’s skybridge out of existence.

Why?

Because it never rains so skybridges are unneeded? No.

Aesthetics? A little.

Because skybridges are elitist? Bingo.

“What a skybridge does is it takes people off of the right of way and puts them up in the air, and leaves usually the people who aren’t good enough to go in the buildings down below,” City Councilmember Jean Godden said. “It’s really not very friendly.”

That’s right. They want to make sure all of the people who can afford to shop at Macy’s and spend money to keep people employed have as much uncomfortable contact with the human debris that Seattle lets accumulate on its streets as possible.

But at least they’ll prevent aggressive panhandling, right? Oh, I forgot. NO.  The free love idiot that they elected mayor decided to veto that ordinance.

In an economy which requires retail and downtown establishments to have much help as possible, Seattle continues to make petty rules to assure shoppers that their trip downtown will be as uncomfortable as possible. Brilliant.

And I would point out that this is a skybridge that is already there. It’s not like Macy’s is asking for a new one. It makes this move twice as silly.

And I have a feeling that if the skybridge was connecting a Whole Foods to an Apple Store it would be given a free pass.

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Monkey see:

The [San Francisco] Board of Supervisors today approved a resolution calling for a boycott of the state of Arizona…

Monkey do:

Seattle City Council approves Arizona boycott

Seattle is like the kid in high school that hung out with the popular crowd, but clearly wasn’t the one bringing the popularity.  Rather, he was there because he was the pathetic “yes man” who stroked the egos of the cool kids enough to be let into the group.  Sure, once in a great while he’d come up with ideas like banning plastic grocery bags, but mostly he just followed.  Seattle is the Potsie of America’s Enlightened Blue Archipelago.

It is worth noting that Seattle’s boycott does not include their red light camera contract. Once again ideals stop where money starts for the left (not that it doesn’t for the right, but the left is supposed to be above that, right?).

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Because we all know if it wasn’t for Columbus, the less technologically advanced 50 million people living in the Americas in 1492 would have lived in peace with nature forever!

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America’s Greenest Mayor (TM) and anti-global warming crusader Greg Nickels is about to go down in the primaries in part due to the city’s terrible response to last December’s snow storms.

In related news, the terrible Seattle bag tax also got beat bad, despite 98% of all Seattlites telling their friends they were going to vote for it.

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Seattle Times columnist Ron Judd writes:

Special Note To Self-Righteous, Heat-Loving Transplanted Arizonans and Midwesterners: Yeah, we know it used to routinely be 175 degrees where you used to live. What do you want, a medal? Shut up, already. Or come to think of it, just go back.

Ooh hoo hoo! Testy!

Several things about this:

1. For a city whose collective self-identity is wrapped up in proudly being a bunch of pussies, a lot of its citizens get strangely irritated when you point out that they are a bunch of pussies.
2. Pointing out a fact is being self-righteous? It may be annoying, but that’s different than being self-righteous. You’d think that a Seattle Times columnist, of all people, would know what self-righteous is. Maybe he should look at some articles about Seattle’s proposed bag tax for some examples of self-righteousness.
3. No, I don’t want a medal. I want everyone to stop acting like it is the end of the world when the thermometer hits 100. It’s not that rare. I acknowledge that it sucks, but come on. YOU shut up already.
4. Go back? Well, I suppose I could. But maybe Mr. Judd should ask why we’re here in the first place. It’s because two separate Seattle-area entities couldn’t find the talent they needed around here so they offered my wife a lot of money to come, and another entity shortly thereafter found that I was more talented than some of their other local options. Where does Mr. Judd suppose that “most educated” population they are always bragging about comes from? Exclusively from the University of Washington? Some day the annoying population of Seattle made up of people with attitudes like Mr. Judd will drive us, and our productivity, away – hell, someday the anti-business policies of the state government elected mostly by Seattle Times readers will drive big business away and negate the need for “annoying” Midwesterners to be imported altogether – but in the meantime maybe I should just cancel the Seattle Times.

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Oh, man this is funny:

“Our self-involved narcicism is beginning to feed back upon itself!” It reminds me that I don’t miss going to school by Capitol Hill every night.

This is from a show called Super News. It runs on Current. I would have never seen it, except that the DVR thought it was taping the Rotten Tomatoes movie review show.

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There will be no print Seattle Post-Intelligencer after tomorrow. Seattle will have to get by with just one left-leaning daily print newspaper and two large-scale wackadoodle weekly papers.

What goes around comes around, jackasses. You thought it best to be politically correct and possibly endanger me and my fellow ferry commuters, I find it hilarious when you lose your job.
I do hope that Joel Connely stays on the web-only staff. They are great at embodying the silly “liberalism” of Seattle so that others don’t have to.

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This is a picture of the corner of the ferry in which I am currently sitting:

I’m starting to feel a little paranoid.

You can see the one is a promotion to snitch on litterers, the other is a sign to not be afraid to look out for terrorist’s bombs. Meaning every time I leave my stuff to take a leak I have to exchange words with some jackass illiterate able seaman on a power trip when I get back. We’re on a boat surrounded by freezing water. Where the hell am I going to flee? I’m as much for not wanting to be blown up as the next guy, but I also appreciate common sense. It’s not like the ferry out of dock is like the ticketing lobby of an airport. (Besides, if I was going to bomb the ferry, I’d just drive the bomb aboard. My car hardly get sniffed by the dogs anymore. My motorcycle never does.)

And I would help stop terrorism on the ferries, but I don’t want to be called a racist by the Seattle PI. I’ll wait until after the 18th when they no longer exist.

The Washington State Patrol is responsible for both signs. I don’t think creativity is their strong suit.

Now you may think that because Seattle is one of the ground zeros for the environmental movement litter wouldn’t be such a concern. You’d be wrong. I’m still stunned by the amount of trash on the side of the road in Western Washington. We have the second worst litter strewn highways of anywhere I’ve ever been. It’s probably a little better than Indiana, but, hey, aim high Washingtonians.

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It’s that time of year again: Orthodox Festivus. I pull the Festivus Pole out from behind the Christmas Tree and perform feats of strength. Unfortunately for you, you can’t join me for those. Fortunatly for you, you are able to read my grievances:

• We’ll get the annual eggnog shake-related grievance out of the way. Silverdale McDonald’s:  I would never eat there for lunch except for the lure of the eggnog shake (and in March the Shamrock shake). So it’s a little bit infuriating when their shake machine is broken on Christmas Eve day and I’m stuck in the drive-in line.
• The 1 in 5 HDTV owners who can’t tell the difference between HD and SD are legally blind: Why is this one of the biggest problems that the adoption of HD faces? The difference between SD and HD is the same as the difference between black and white and color.  (And anti-grievance to DirecTV who has done a very good job in correcting their former “HD Lite” problem this year. It still can’t compare to Blu Ray / HD DVD, but an episode of “Friday Night Lights” on the 101 looks very pristine.)
• The People who felt the need to yell at me when I had a flat tire on my motorcycle on I-5: May someone laugh at your accident on the freeway one day. And may it be a single-car fatality.
• Football coaches, especially Badger and Packer coaches, who haven’t figured out that the prevent only prevents the win: I only enjoy fourth quarter comebacks if my team is the one coming back.
• The Bremerton K-Mart: Yes, combine K-Mart and Bremerton and it is as horrible as you’d expect. However, that’s not the problem. I’ll accept the terribleness for what it is when I go in there because something is on sale for an awesomely low price or because it is the closest store of its kind. What I don’t care for is the fact that they let salesman for other companies ambush their customers inside the store. One minute I’m looking for kitty litter, the next I’m trying to get away from a guy pitching me storm windows.
• Every other retail store I was in this year: No, I don’t want your credit card. And you know what? No one else needs them either. We need to stop basing our economy, budgets, and government on stupid amounts of crappy debt.
• The City of Seattle: When it snows you let the city fall into anarchy because you refuse to use salt on the icy roads. Why exactly? Environmental reasons? Salt is used on the roads from Montana to Maine, and the perch and trout are just fine. I know it is horrifying to think of all the salt draining down to the salt water of Puget Sound and then emptying with the tide into the Pacific Ocean, aka Asia’s toilet.
• Brett Favre: So… what was the point of all of that then?
• Ben Sheets: That’s a fantastic time you picked to get hurt there. Worked out great, thanks.
• Michael Phelps: I understand the need to cash in while the cashing in is good, but can we expect to ever see you in a pool again?
• Fellow half-marathoners who felt the need to give me a thumbs-up or some other patronizing gesture: Yeah, I know, you don’t see many people my size on the course, so you just can’t help yourself. But I wouldn’t have been out there if I hadn’t been preparing for it. Here is the equivalent: I see a 170 pound guy kicking your 110 pound ass, and I give you a thumbs up for hanging in there against what would be an easy fight for me to win.
• People who use self-checkout stations even though you know you are going to get your ass kicked by it: Please, for the love of God, stop. If you are over 65 or didn’t graduate high school or could never set the clock on your VCR, you really need to ask yourself whether you think following simple prompts from a computer is something you can handle in less time than it would take to wait in line at a human checkout stand. Especially if there is a membership or savings card involved. Especially if it is lunchtime and the regular check-stands aren’t that crowded to start with. Especially if I am behind you in line.
• Related to the above are people who still write checks in retail stores: Are you trying to commit fraud? Then why are you writing a check? I love standing there while the clerk writes down your two forms of ID, runs the check through the computer, and then calls her supervisor when your check makes the computer beep. Maybe you can weigh out some gold dust next time, that might take a little longer and my ice cream can melt completely.
• People who are complaining about gas prices plummeting: Don’t think I haven’t noticed the huge overlap of people complaining about low gas prices with the people constantly crying a river about the working poor. One of the biggest things the working poor need is cheap fuel. Yeah, yeah, alternative energy… this is how this thing is going to play out: If there is an end to the foreign supply, the world will use it up. The price will rise as the third world comes online and the oil supply drops.  At some point some threshold will be crossed where we’ll use our domestic supply of oil while we figure out alternative energy (and ironically, we’ll have Democratic drilling obstructionist from the last 20 years to thank for the reserve). I’m not saying that’s ideal; I’m saying that’s the economic reality.
• Everyone on both sides who made this last election intolerable: It’s hard to make me see an up side to living in a dictatorship, yet you did it.

I guess that’s enough for 2008. I hope that 2009 is much less annoying.

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Sweet merciful crap!

You know, I’ve lived almost half my life in the cites of Madison and Seattle, so I’m extremely tolerant of the freaky way some people want to dress themselves, tattoo themselves, put holes in themselves, whatever. Live and let live. Hell, by the time I saw the guy who wears a dress around the law school for the first time it didn’t even turn my head.

That said, there has to be a line drawn somewhere. The first person I see wearing pantyhose for men is getting his ass kicked unless he can furnish proof that he is either gay or Joe Namath. I might even give Eurotrash a pass. But I don’t want to see any heterosexual American men in this kind of deal:

Or am I being fooled? I hope that it is a joke site, but I don’t think so.

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Dear Baby Boomers:

While Heather Havrilesky took it upon her self to apologize to you for my generation, she never consulted me. As far as I’m concerned you can still blow it out your ass.  “It” being your obsession with the ’60’s, which, as far as I can tell, sucked, and the political counterculture movement born in the ’60’s.

And for my fellow Gen-Xers: If you’re trying to out-ridiculous our parents’ generation, leave me out of it.  I’ve never really liked most of you anyway. (Nirvana was a middle-of-the-road band at best. Oh yeah, I said it.)

If Ms. Havrilesky really does speak for Generation X, we’re well on our way to being more ridiculous than the boomers.

And then most of us became mature, rational adults at the exact moment that a reckless frat boy boomer became our president. Just when we were starting to understand how to be a part of the larger world outside, Al Gore had the election stolen right out of his hands in Florida…

A mature, rational adult wouldn’t have written those sentences.  A mature, rational adult doesn’t rely on a caricature of those they disagree with politically and when presented with two sets of numbers (say, votes for Bush in Florida and votes for Gore in Florida) are able to tell which of the two is larger.

On Tuesday night, we could all sense, with open hearts, that this man meant what he said. There’s no shame in seeing that clearly, together. There’s no shame in trusting someone’s words, and allowing those words to move and inspire you. There’s no shame in throwing ourselves into this new future with full hearts, with tears in our eyes, unselfconsciously.

You know what else there is no shame in? Being at least a little cynical. It’s good for you. The blind naivete with which many are throwing themselves behind President-elect Obama is more than a little frightening to me. I understand being excited and happy that your guy won and thinking things will be better under him, but let’s wait until the guy does something before we prostrate ourselves before his greatness. He works for us. We need to keep an eye on him and every other politician that works for us.

And in 15 years, our kids probably won’t understand it when we talk about the night that Obama was elected president, either. They’ll sigh deeply and roll their eyes and say they’ve heard this story a million times before, so please shut up about it already.

Kids? I thought her type weren’t having kids to make the sacrifice for the earth that Red State Mormons won’t.  (Though they should be more worried about the Islamic world overrunning the world. Fundamentalist Islam is way less compatible with the values of the Enlightened Blue Archipelago than fundamentalist Christianity/Mormonism.)

As for getting pre-nostalgic about Obama’s election, I will again wait until he’s done something before getting too teary eyed about it.

Sincerely,

Bull Moose

P.S. Seriously, you’re apologizing to these people?

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From today’s Seattle PI, a story about how Seattleites are suddenly interested in showing patriotism:
With newfound patriotism, Seattleites want to wave the flag, hang it from their homes and stick it on their cars.

“The thing that’s kind of astounding to me is I never ever would have cared to own a flag,” said Rosemary Garner, 42. “This is the first day in my life I actually feel this funny sense of pride about my country. It’s a very foreign feeling, but it’s a good one.”

Garner, a self-described “flag virgin” who lives on Capitol Hill, bought eight flags Wednesday — some to wave and others to stick on her car to “mix and match with some nice Obama and peace signs. Then I bought a couple of flags for some friends who wanted to hang them from their truck along with their biodiesel stickers.” 

This lady is 42 years old and the first time she’s ever felt proud of her country was when we elected a black liberal as president, a black liberal who hasn’t done anything as president yet, it should be noted. She didn’t buy a flag after the September 11 attacks. In her life she saw her country remove the yoke of communism from millions in Europe and Asia, eject an invading force from Kuwait, stop genocide in the Balkans, free millions from oppressive dictatorships of the Taliban in Afghanistan and Saddam Hussein in Iraq. In her life America has put a man on the moon, put the Hubble telescope in orbit, and have done the bulk of world’s research in cancer, AIDS, and erectile dysfunction treatment.

But she’s never found anything to be proud of until a black guy was elected President.

Did she think this happened in a vacuum? Clarence Thomas, Colin Powell, and Condoleezza Rice showed us years ago that a black person in America could reach the pinnacles of American achievement. What is so different in America today from last week?

Obama Mania Syndrome is taking hold. I guess it’ll be nice to see some American flags instead of UN flags in Seattle for a change, but I’m not holding my breath that it will last.

Welcome to the club of people who don’t despise their country, Rosemary Garner. Look around, you’ll find a real reason to be proud of your country.

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It occurred to me the other day that even though I was excited about the University of Wisconsin – Madison and Chancellor John Wiley finally parting ways, I had no idea what leftist, pussy boob they chose to replace him. So I went to take a look.

Hmm… she looks awfully Donna Shalala-ey. But let’s not judge a book by it’s cover. Besides, Donna Shalala gave us Barry Alvarez, so that wouldn’t be all bad.

Carolyn “Biddy” Martin began serving as chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison in September 2008. As provost at Cornell University from 2000-2008, Martin served as the president’s first deputy officer and reported to the president as Cornell’s chief educational officer and chief operating officer. She was responsible for overseeing all academic programs, with the exception of those programs reporting to the provost for medical affairs in New York City.

Sounds pretty good so far. I’m not sure about the nickname, but sometimes nicknames stick.

Martin received her Ph.D. in German literature from UW-Madison in 1985.

Ties to the school. That’s good. I’m not sure what German literature has to do with running a huge research university, but it probably bodes well for der Rathskellar remaining open at Memorial Union.

In 1991, [at Cornell] she was promoted to associate professor in the Department of German Studies, with a joint appointment in the Women’s Studies Program. 

Uh-oh. I smell trouble. How does a German literature professor get a joint appointment to the Women’s Studies Program. I’m guessing it’s because you don’t need a Ph.D. in man-hating to make shit up. (Actually, it’s probably because her studies were on the feminist figures in German literature, but that didn’t sound as funny.)

Martin is a distinguished scholar of German studies and author of numerous articles and two books — one on a literary and cultural figure in the Freud circle, Lou Andreas-Salomé, and a second on gender theory.

What the hell is gender theory? Here’s my theory on gender: If you have a wang, you’re a dude, if not, you’re a chick. There might be some rare cases of exceptions, but that’s best left to the developmental biology department.  Can I be chancellor now?

I didn’t like John Wiley, so they replaced him with a lesbian chancellor hung up on gender theory to decide the direction of the University. Well played, Board of Regents.

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A man* who lives on Capitol Hill and drives a Subaru versus Seattle’s organized crime bicycle mob? That must have been some sissy slap fight.

I’ll side with the man* though. Riding a bicycle is fine, but these Critical Mass people are wanna be thugs with enforcement protection from the Seattle Police Department. I’m never sure what their point is. They say it is that bicycles have a right to the road, but we’d never excuse car drivers from intentionally screwing up the flow of traffic.

Just another feature of Mayor Nickel’s progressive Seattle.

*Term used in the technical sense only.

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Seattle comes in 34th most free out of the top U.S. 35 cities.

Seattle has always had an identity conflict. Gay bathhouses are allowed, street protests are legendary, and marijuana is, by voter initiative, the police department’s lowest enforcement priority. Each summer a two-day event called Hempfest draws some 150,000 people who openly smoke weed in a city park with the blessings of the cops and the local government, which regards the festival as protected speech.

Yet Seattle has long had an unhealthy strain of nannyism as well. Washington was one of the first states to prohibit alcohol in the last century, and the city’s restrictions on strip clubs and card rooms are legendary. In the last five years, the nanny impulse has gone into hyperdrive.
In 2003 Seattle banned sales of high-alcohol beers and fortified wines in a part of town popular with the homeless and street drunks. Three years later, a city report found that the ban hadn’t reduced petty crime and street drinking. Yet Mayor Greg Nickels and the Seattle City Council slammed through another ordinance expanding the so-called “alcohol impact area” to several other neighborhoods. It’s a measure of just how contradictory paternalism gets in Seattle that you can still walk into a bar in these neighborhoods and buy locally crafted microbrews with even higher alcohol content, albeit at a much steeper price than a 40-ouncer.

What? The “liberals” aren’t really liberal, they are just leftists that latch onto the counter-culture as a way of advancing their agenda? Who knew?

Oh, yeah. Everyone.

I see the grocery bag tax has advanced to the full city council. That should push them behind of Chicago. Yeah Seattle! Actually, I wonder if this study was done before or after the bonfire ban. They may already be behind Chicago.

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Congratulations to my old home of Madison, Wisconsin. They have managed -for the moment – to out-dumbass both Seattle and San Francisco. That’s no easy feat.

Since becoming a parent, I’ve developed a new love for the drive through. The ability to shut the kids up with an ice cream cone without having to go through the ordeal of getting them out and back into the car is indispensable. Though I’d guess Madison proper is becoming one of those cities where people don’t actually have kids, and if they do they are looked down upon as “breeders,” like they are in their lefty-nutjob-ridden sister cities.

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I know we all have a long week ahead of us, but there is something to look forward to in Seattle this weekend: The Annual Mustache Parade.

That’s something the whole family can enjoy.

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Seattle officials have jumped into action in order to cut down the number of beach bonfires, in view of eliminating them all together, in order to combat fun global warming.

Meanwhile, the Alaskan Way viaduct IS STILL A MINOR EARTHQUAKE AWAY FROM FALLING DOWN AND NOTHING IS BEING DONE ABOUT IT!

Number of people killed by global warming, or who will be definitively killed by global warming in the next 5 years: 0. Number of people that will be killed when the viaduct collapses: Many more than 0.

Greg Nickels ought to stop worrying about being America’s Green Mayor for a few minutes and ought to worry about being a mayor of hundreds of people crushed in their cars by a collapsing highway structure.

And, by the way, don’t the Greens love the carbon-neutral thing? Isn’t a fire burning wood as carbon neutral as you can get? It is more carbon neutral than ethanol or bio-diesel, or even Shaq Diesel.

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Really Seattle? You can’t even find 12 people willing to call a guy who picked a target, test fired weapons, drove 200 miles, used a hostage to get onto the property, and then shot five people, killing two, a murderer?

I know the city is all for being tolerant, but come on. How can there be a question of mens rea here? There was so much involved in the planning and execution of the crime. So he thought that God (Allah) approved of what he was doing. Who cares, that doesn’t make you innocent in the eyes of man’s law, otherwise we wouldn’t have bothered with the Nuremberg trials.

I really do think what is going on here is that there is an elephant in the room that no one ever wants to talk about in this case: This guy was a freelance Islamist terrorist, inspired to attack a gathering place of Jews. And everyone knows what high regard Seattle and San Francisco hold Islamist terrorists. I suspect there were a few jurors who wanted to go out of their way to be tolerant of Haq, so as not to look like a George Bush sympathizer, and would not budge on the obvious.

This city is just filled with children. Not the child kind, that would require some kind of responsibility, the adult kind.

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