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End-of-Year Dispatch from Washington State
The more things change, the more they remain the same. Not again? Yes again! It will be forever thus.
Inslee announces 1-week extension of Covid restrictions. Was this ever in doubt? Not for me. I’m just surprised it wasn’t a month, or three.
And, later in the day, Proof of Tyranny: Washington State boasts one of the lowest coronavirus per-capita case rates in the US.
Assault suspect leaves King County jail, but re-arrested hours later due to brutal attack. Catch and release has been the policy in King County for a long time. Many crimes are never prosecuted, and numerous offenders are allowed to commit crimes without consequences. Criminals are coddled, and citizens suffer. Speaking of coddling…
Washington and Oregon prisons vaccinating against coronavirus. While vulnerable seniors and medical personnel wait. “We are all in this together”, says the prison doctor. Are we? Who is more important to society? Prisoners and guards, or seniors and medical personnel?
Published in Domestic Policy
Insane. I’d withold vaccine from those states until they get their priorities in order . . .
Extending the shutdowns one week at a time maximizes the stress and the pain, and minimizes the ability to plan. Intentional.
Gee, thanks! What about me?
I miss my friends and family in Oregon. The west coast clearly has a better climate for Amanda’s MS, and the kids wish they could be closer to their grandparents (and vice versa). But every time we consider it, things just get more insane. That the Pacific states’ governors have decided that more and more tyranny will fix all the problems hasn’t helped.
Rob a liqour store and get thrown in jail. You’ll get vaccinated much sooner . . .
Absolutely true. Someone will snap.
I told my wife that the extention will be indefinite. First a week. Next week it will be a month, and so on.
I’m about to walk into the gym. With no mask.
We are at the point where people just ignore the idiot in Olympia.
Ray’s club is still closed, so he cannot walk in and play squash. No one here is ignoring the idiot. Nearly everyone we saw on the sidewalk in LaConner this afternoon was masked. We were not.
My part of the state has a lot more people like me. We don’t even visit Seattle anymore.
You get it if you want it . . .
Let me see . . . playing squash is exercise, and exercise makes you healthier. Healthy people have better immune systems, and should be able to tolerate communicable diseases a lot more than someone who sits at home on his fat a** all day writing novels and playing computer games.
Oh wait . . .
Back in the early 1990s I taught at King County Juvenile Detention Center. They could have put a revolving door on that facility. I had kids I worked with who were in and out on a weekly basis, mostly for car theft. The sentence for stealing something that might be the most valuable possession of another person was usually about 2 to 3 day, even after repeated offenses. When these kids outgrow Juvenile detention they graduate to King County Jail. Two to three days there is a bit more unpleasant, particularly if you are in the general population, but by that time they already fully endoctrinated into the criminal life style.
My son works and lives in Seattle. His work truck has been stolen twice. In the first case he was able to get the truck back, but the toolbox, valued at over $5000, was gone. The second time was at the beginning of this past December. The truck has been spotted but not returned. When it was seen the tool box was gone. He lives in Madison Park, one of the most affluent areas of Seattle. The truck was taken from right in front of his house. The thieves have no fear. If they are caught, whatever punishment they receive will be minimal. Meanwhile, the cost to the insurance company and my son for whom the truck is essential to his business is substantial. It would seem the King County is more concerned about its criminals than its tax paying citizens.
Maybe your son should move out of Seattle? Or find a house with a garage for his truck. At this point, I don’t think Seattle can be saved.
He inherited the house last year when his mother died. He grew up in that house. I don’t think he is likely to leave it. When his mother and I bought the house in 1975 it cost $28K. It is currently valued at over $1M. He has done a lot of customization. He builds custom furnitures and does very elaborate remodeling. The house has a garage, but that now holds his sauna and workout room. It was never good for his truck anyway. We have been discussing other options though as far as protecting his truck.
I agree that Seattle is heading down the tubes. It would take a major awakening and reset to turn it around. The truth is, it was never well managed. What saved it was that it was a relatively small city with manageable levels of crime. The influx of so many people and so much money magnified all of the problems that had existed previously at a lower level. SPD has never been a well managed force. They had lousy chiefs and a lot of mediocre cops. Pushing the affirmative action agenda and Critical Racial theory has made it a much worse force, far less effective and poorly trained, but, worse, a group of cops afraid to act because they are unsupported by the city administration, so everyone has to watch his/her own back. That is not how you create a good police force. If police are enforcing the city’s laws, the city needs to back them or change the laws that don’t work. Blaming the police for doing their job simply unmines any chance that they will be effective. The same thing happened in the schools. It is a leftist paradise, and it is doing exactly what such Edens do.
I grew up in Montlake, and View Ridge. My first husband still lives in our house in Ballard-two bedroom, one bathroom, corner lot, cost us $33,000 in about 1977. Worth over $500K today, at least. Downtown Ballard has been ruined by the homeless camps in the park there.
If he can get a cool million for the house, he should sell it and move where property is much cheaper. For example, we here in SC have a 5000 sq ft house on 11.65 acres, total value a little under $500k. He could move somewhere with similar pricing, buy a house on a bunch of land, and pocket $500k or more.
He grew up in the house. His mother died in it last year. He has a deep connection to it. He has thought of renting it, but that doesn’t seem in the near future. It is a great neighborhood, very close to Lake Washington, and he has quite a number of great cycling routes from home. I don’t see him moving. He has traveled extensively worldwide, and at 45 seems to be content to have a base of operation that is comfortable.
I think the issue is that of not letting the jungle invade and take over. His mother and I moved to the Northwest in 1969 from New York. At that time Seattle was pretty empty having suffered the loss of 60,000 jobs at Boeing. Ultimately, the population built back up with all the awfulness that that entails. I used to travel down to little towns and coastal villages in Mexico. They were wonderful and unspoiled. In time, they were all taken over and over crowded. It is inevitable. You either stand and fight for your place or you have to be constantly on the move just ahead of the horde.