1. I thought it looked pretty neat--until I found out who paid for it!

Yep--no money for maintenance or jack screw grease but money galore for murals. What next? A graffitti plane? how diverse;

Posted by: Jimmie-howya-doin on October 5, 2005 10:07 AM

2. A flying monument to wasteful government.

Posted by: BananaLand (aka Iguana) on October 5, 2005 10:09 AM

3. It seems that Alaska is hooked on government handouts. Their senator is the lead architect for the transportation bill that is a monument to pork, including the bridge to nowhere (in Alaska).

Maybe it is the history of paying out oil profits to all citizens. It has instilled an entitlement mentality to Alaskans. They need to shake it off and return to the real world.

Posted by: Janet S on October 5, 2005 10:35 AM

4. all,

I'm having trouble breathing. I actually AGREE with danny??

Fraud, Waste and Abuse of my taxes.....

Posted by: Bob on October 5, 2005 10:38 AM

5. Our tax dollars at work, although it is better than most of the art government buys.

Posted by: BruceH on October 5, 2005 10:38 AM

6. YOu mean Westneat and I actually agree on something???

Oh, and while we're at it, let's send back ASAP that half-billion for Sound Transit!

Posted by: Michele on October 5, 2005 10:50 AM

7. btw, Stefan, great headline (as usual)

Posted by: Michele on October 5, 2005 10:54 AM

8. FISH ON! That's what I'm talkin about!

Posted by: rolling eyes on October 5, 2005 11:01 AM

9. Westneat??? Making sense??? Keep an eye out for the Four Horsemen, folks; the Rapture is near.

Posted by: TB on October 5, 2005 11:25 AM

10. Before the Alaska bashing gets obscene, just remember the Alaska Statehood Act was a contract between the people of the Territory of Alaska and the United States of America government (i.e. the people of the lower 48) which unequivocably stated the new State would have first pick of 102,550,000 acres of land (out of 663,000 square miles). Instead the people of the State received last pick, and lost huge amounts of resource rich land to single-use or non-use lock-ups by the federal government.
When the largest find of molybdenum in North America was about to be developed into a major mine in the '70's, the federal government extended the proposed boundaries of a wilderness area by more than twenty-five miles to include the area and then killed the project with all the restrictions and restraints. This is only one of many such instances where Alaska has given up its land and resources to the benefit of the U.S. population at no charge to you (us) taxpayers.
Building a bridge in Ketchikan so the people and commercial users do not have to take a ferry to get to their only airport, and funding a promotion to protect or enhance one of the few remaining industries allowed in Alaska (Clinton and Gore successfully closed down the biggest industry in Southeast Alaska--the pulp/timber industry), plus all the other alleged "handouts" to Alaska pales in comparison to the value of the U.S. land grab.
Try calculating how many acres of Alaska is in wilderness or other restrictive classifications, and compare that to any other state (or all other states combined). And then rename the "handouts" payments for same.

Posted by: alaskaboy on October 5, 2005 11:33 AM

11. Oh, I get it. Two wrongs make a right. I was confused; I thought it was three lefts that did that.

Posted by: TB on October 5, 2005 11:40 AM

12. Alaskaboy,
Let's just agree that both the land grabs (that prevented Mb mining & so on) and the giant fish painted at taxpayer expense are bad things.

And let's hope that we're recovering from the lows of the 1970s, in terms of regulations.

Posted by: Bostonian on October 5, 2005 12:05 PM

13. Alaskaboy:
If you can't find work in Alaska, don't ask me to bail you out - move somewhere else!

I heard that the bridge to nowhere is to save a $6 ferry ride for those going to the airport. Anyone ever study how many free rides could be given out for the price of the bridge? It isn't like there isn't access - it just costs money. Alaskans don't want to pay it, and so elected a Senator that will get them out of paying their own money for their own trip to the airport!

Posted by: Janet S on October 5, 2005 12:12 PM

14. We now haveproof a pig can fly, pork disguised as a fish.

Posted by: JCM on October 5, 2005 12:12 PM

15. And there's another 500,000 people who have to hassle with $1 parking permits at Marymoor Park so the county can paint a fish on an airplane.

Unbelieveable!!

Posted by: Mike on October 5, 2005 12:20 PM

16. Gee, a flying example of waste of our hard earned $. Lovely!!

Posted by: Laurie on October 5, 2005 12:28 PM

17. It should be re-painted to show salmon spawning. That is a more appropriate representation of those who don't give a flying f**k about the taxpayers.

Posted by: john425 on October 5, 2005 01:01 PM

18. last time i looked, we have a republican-led house, republican-led senate and a republican president--none of whom have shown any fiscal discipline. the voters have spoken, the accountability moment occurred, and we get what some voted for--more federal spending.

Posted by: dinesh on October 5, 2005 01:32 PM

19. And the art sucks, too. Leaving the front 20 feet of the plane looking like a plane instead of extending the front of the fish all the way forward is just stupid.

Posted by: duhh on October 5, 2005 01:50 PM

20. Here's my response: Let there be mines, drilling rigs, etcetera in Alaska. We need the resources and who in their sane minds gives a flip about a few mines and oil rigs in the middle of nowhere?

Posted by: David Irons Supporter on October 5, 2005 01:52 PM

21. Dinesh- In the words of the ancient sage: "Are you stuck on stupid?" The issue at hand is the foolish spending of taxpayer monies by The Alaska Fisheries Marketing Board- and I am pretty sure they aren't located in the White House or on Capitol Hill.

Posted by: john425 on October 5, 2005 02:03 PM

22. Alaskaboy. We don't want to hear it. Next you'll be trying to secede like Hawaii. Bottom line is that we are in this together, and we should expect Alaska to be able to support the industry that it has, and do so without a lot of government subsidy, in the same way that we expect that from Louisiana or any other state.

Westneat is right, we all need to learn to say no. Even if it means limits to the subsidies that benefit our own causes and businesses. I'd be the first to start slashing stuff here in WA, in fact, let's slash ten times what Alaska is slashing since we have a bigger population.

Now, for Westneat's next tick, I'd like to see him convince the Horses Asses to denounce the wasteful folly that is the Alaskan Way viaduct replacement tunnel and instead commit to something more fiscally appropriate and less based on selling the fear of imminent collapse.

Posted by: Jeff B. on October 5, 2005 02:26 PM

23. That salmon doesn't look all that happy to be flying anyway.

Posted by: cindy on October 5, 2005 02:56 PM

24. Sigh....................
This is why I am a Libertarian.
Pretty tough for folks to simply blame the Democrats for this crap.
The Bush printing press is running at WARP speed....and our kids will pay a huge price.
One of the biggest problems in this Country is blind Party loyalty.....BOTH SIDES!!
The Republicans have just as many sheep as the Dems....
SIGH..........................
Aren't there any outraged Republicans out there???
I vote R most of the time....but whoever votes for this kinda crap in the future gets no vote, no money and ZERO respect!

Posted by: Mr. Cynical on October 5, 2005 02:58 PM

25. In college I worked for Braniff Corp. The airline division commissioned Alexander Calder to paint their fleet of jets with his abstract art.

The artist became famous and Braniff prospered, too. (until the Jimmah Carter regime)

No tax dollars were needed then nor are they needed today.

Posted by: encouraged voter on October 5, 2005 04:31 PM

26. I like McCain's stance on pork....... and of course the fact that he's a highly decorated Vietnam vet is gravy too!

Posted by: sgmmac on October 5, 2005 05:26 PM

27. On the only bright side, and I'm stretching here, at least the taxpayers get something "somewhat" tangible and interesting to look at.
Just think, it could have been wasted on subsidized low-income housing, hypodermic needles or food stamps.
Hell, as far as publicly funded art goes, this is the best I've seen for awhile. At least the bloody thing looks like a fish. We're not being treated to some warped homage to the artist's abused childhood nor do we have to pretend that a bunch of randomly scattered paint blotches is great.
Maybe there wouldn't be so much hub-bub if the plane had a mural of members of a different races shaking hands in front of a rainbow instead.

Posted by: Reporterward on October 5, 2005 06:34 PM

28. "Hell, as far as publicly funded art goes, this is the best I've seen for awhile."

Hmmmm....
Maybe someone can take a picture of it and hang it down at the new water/sewage treatment plant! That should save the tax payers a few bucks on the Ron Sims planned art project!........ugh!
Hey! Maybe we could use the likeness for our states commemorative Quarter! That should save us more money! Heck...we could just use a picture of the *fake fish airplane* as our official State logo....

Oh yeah....we tax payers really got a deal with this one.

Posted by: Deborah on October 5, 2005 07:34 PM

29. The first place to start cutting would be the 1% for art that goes into every govt. project, if you want to start getting rid of pork. I have yet to see anything from that 1% that I would remotely consider art & most of it could be done by school kids.

Posted by: Clean House on October 5, 2005 09:00 PM

30. To Janet S: I did move out--just about the time they shut down the last pulp mill, and along with the other ten percent of the population that moved out, there was no bail out provided by taxpayers (even though it was the Federal Government that broke the nearly fifty year old contract with the pulp mill--the Feds paid the mill owners plenty for that breach). Many who had to move lost most of their life savings they had tied up in their homes that couldn't be sold; they didn't look for a bail-out.)

Although I agree with you and Bostonian, that it is inappropriate use of taxpayer dollars to support a private industry (fishing) by painting a fish on an airplane (or questionable at best), but using taxpayer dollars to fund an important and valuable transportation infrastructure is different. You're being shortsighted in adding up ferry fares. The bridge (like all bridges) will decrease the cost of living and doing business there, and open up a lot of land to development for homes and businesses. The transportation cost component of your fresh, wild Alaska salmon will go down, and if you want to get to Ketchikan, your cost will go down (or at least not up as much). And that just the direct impact, which is rolled over repeatedly providing indirect benefits that multiply the benefits. That's what roads and bridges provide, and Puget Sound has obtained plenty of federal subsidy for its roads and bridges.

Before you say it, the per capita federal spending in Alaska is greater than most states (I think). (But on the other hand, the per capita Alaska contribution of valuable natural resource rich lands to wilderness and roadless areas is an even greater disparity.) I suspect there were a lot of East Coast citizens who were pretty upset by all the federal money spent on constructing the Grand Coulee dam for a few farmers and Washington's small population of electrical users. My point is that you have to look at the big picture. Roads and bridges and dams reduce the cost of living and the cost of doing business. Infrastructure such as that increases productivity, reduces the cost of goods, and all Americans benefit from lower costs.

When you've spent the ferry fares that adds up to the cost of building the bridge, you're left with nothing. Put it in the bridge and you still have the bridge.

Jeff: I certainly agree we need to be more fiscally conservative overall. Secession is appealing only because we "all" strive to be self-governed, and Alaska has been and may always be controlled by special interests in the lower 48; not unlike England treated the colonies. I hope you agree with me that more state's rights and less federal government control and regulation is better.

Posted by: alaskaboy on October 6, 2005 09:44 AM

31. If what I heard in the radio this morning was correct, the funding to paint the aircraft came from tariffs paid by other countries, not U.S. taxpayers. I suppose an argument could be made that we paid for it indirectly...

Posted by: Organization Man on October 6, 2005 11:54 AM

32. OK... so we spend millions of tax dollars to "Save the Salmon!" and then we spend a half million to encourage people to eat them...hmmm.

Posted by: Caroline on October 6, 2005 04:59 PM

33. SEA is planning a "Dad & Son" naked sculpture at the behest of a generous art benefactor;
why not paint THAT 'artwork' on the plane?how 'diverse'--let's see--how do we orient the figures for the maximum effect?!
or--maybe we paint the thing like a big, flying absentee ballot?! it gets counted every time the wheels touch and smoke on a runway;

Posted by: Jimmie-howya-doin on October 6, 2005 09:06 PM

34. How is it Conservatives can get worked up over government pork if Dem's do it, but when the asshats on the right cause stuff they still try and blame it on guys like Ron Sims?

Republicans, you own all government federally, and you are proving out to be every bit as craptacular as any horrible 70s democrat, bill clinton, or you name it. Just as bad. Oh, and you start wars.

Make that you're worse.

Posted by: SomeGuy on October 8, 2005 01:45 PM

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