After watching our local governments in action recently, I’m convinced that the spirit of the Wild West is still among us. Only nowadays, we’re using lawyers instead of guns. The saloon poker games have been replaced by conference calls and depositions, and peace treaties with neighboring tribes are now called interlocal agreements.
No matter where you stand politically, sometimes you have to marvel when you see how free markets work. What Morgan Spurlock, the filmmaker of “Super Size Me,” could not achieve with his anti-fast-food crusade, is happening now: McDonald’s has jumped on the bandwagon of health-conscious eating. Most likely in response to Taco Bell’s heavily advertised Drive-Thru Diet, McDonald’s has decided to team up with Weight Watchers, the weight management giant, and has promptly received their seal of approval for three meals. For starters, the new partnership is currently being tested in New Zealand only.
I understand as well as anyone the gravity of the financial condition we are currently in. Need is being most keenly felt today and indeed the impacts are beyond anything we have seen since the Great Depression. Unemployment numbers don’t lie. Families, businesses and those relying on critical government services have all seen resources being reduced to critical levels.
Sometimes I sit in my office and think, “when are people going to figure out that my company is just a big phony”.
The company doesn’t seem all that complicated. There are a handful of computers, some office furniture, phones and tables with some merchandise sitting on them. I made a Web site, but there’s nothing ground-breaking on it. It was put together with an old software program that hasn’t even been made for over eight years.
I agree with Mr. Houskeeper that regulations add to the cost to a home. But there needs to be a more honest dialog about the balance of such regulation and its relation to our overall quality of life. Unfortunately the editorial contribution of Mr. Houskeeper simply fires a volley of anti-regulatory sentiment, joined with overly simplistic examples to emphasis his point.
Cheating on your spouse is a deal-breaker. I’ve seen the shows and read the articles where certain couples were able to forgive their partners and continue on in a life together, and every time all I could think to myself was, “Where is your self respect?”
What gets someone so upset that they’ll burn their own house down and make a suicide run with a plane into an office building? If you listened to the media this week, the leading reasons that Joe Stack re-enacted 9/11 are because he was enraged at the IRS, upset that his wife left him and angry at big corporations and the Catholic church.
For Presidents Day, my husband and I decided to go to Bellevue to use the last of our Christmas gift cards on some good old home entertainment. Gift cards are one of my husband’s favorite things in life, right next to hockey and Xbox on the list of mankind’s greatest recent inventions, so we have a lot of them. He loves to give them. He loves to get them. He loves to give them to me for safekeeping.
My forehead did feel a little warm, and after taking my temperature it was confirmed: I have Olympic fever.
I tried to pretend that I didn’t have it. I told myself, “Don’t buy into this! This elitist event is nothing more than a subsidized ski vacation for corporate sponsors, Olympic committee hacks, and local dignitaries at the expense of Vancouver taxpayers!”
More than 320,000 people in Washington are out of work, the highest unemployment in our state in more than two decades. In November, nearly 6,500 people filed for unemployment benefits within the 31st Legislative District. To put that in perspective, that’s far more people unemployed in the district than live in the entire city of Buckley.
If you ever happen to be 2-1/2 months overdue for an oil change, please – do not try to squeeze in a quick trip to the post office seven days before Christmas. Especially if it’s our post office. And especially if you park up front.
You might have noticed the news item last week that our state Senate passed an update to the cell phone law to make it a “primary offense” to use a cell phone while driving. I’m sure you’re all resting easier now that this public menace is finally under control. The streets will finally be safe again!
I like being busy.
My best friend sent me a text a couple days ago asking me how life is these days and the first thing that popped into my head was “busy.”
In high school, I had the best grades my sophomore year, when I was quite busy as well as quite motivated.
The recent earthquake in Haiti, the tsunami a few years ago and Katrina a bit earlier were all tragic and…
Policymakers should remove regulatory barriers that increase the cost of building a home and drive up the cost of living in our state.
I have stumbled upon the perfect solution for a problem that has plagued fathers since God mistakenly created daughters. The problem is boyfriends.
Applying for unemployment benefits last month was one of my least favorite experiences of all time, ranking right up there on my list of things to avoid like the plague between certain Newcastle City Council members and elective nasal surgery.
The other night I said to my wife, “Let’s go out for dinner.” OK, so what do we want to eat? Nothing that comes in a paper wrapper, I have to be seated when the food is brought to me, and I’m not willing to carry my own drink to my table.
So now we have another version of the lottery coming to Washington.
Starting Sunday, Powerball will be on the menu at 4,000 retail outlets across the State of Washington – about 35 of them in Kent.
It’s the ultimate in random selection: organizers draw five white balls out of a drum with 59 balls. And one red ball – the aforementioned Powerball – comes from a drum of 39 balls.
Facebook and politics do not mix. Anyone who’s spent time on the social network will probably recognize this scenario very well: