One of the side benefits of all these Seahawks victories is that we get to watch the state's most famous nanny-state liberal engage in what the nanny-staters consider socially unacceptable behavior. Not only does Mrs. Gregoire1 engage in gambling with the opposing team's governors , and correct me if I'm wrong, but I don't see any exemptions to RCW 9.46 that allow this type of sports betting, so it might even be illegal gambling. And is this really an example that should be set while the legislature is trying to discourage (non-tribal) gambling? Furthermore, when the Seahawks win, Mrs. Gregoire's prizes are food items which sound really good to me, but that many nanny-staters would consider junk food that should be regulated out of existence --
When the Hawks beat the Carolina Panthers on Sunday, Mrs. Gregoire won
barbeque and sauce, slaw and hushpuppies, a six-pack of Cheerwine and a box of North Carolina peanuts.Should the Seahawks beat the Steelers in the Superbowl, PA Governor Ed Rendell will send
one box of Pittsburgh’s Original Hot Dog Shop hot dogs and a case of Heinz condiments, including ketchup, mustard and relish. Governor Rendell’s addition includes Primante Brothers Sandwiches and Eat n’ Park Gold and Black Smiley cookies all to be donated to a Seattle homeless shelterNone of this stuff is good enough for Seattle public school students anymore, so what does it tell you that Mrs. Gregoire would dump it on the homeless? Sheesh.
If, on the other hand, the Seahawks lose the Superbowl, Mrs. Gregoire will send Gov. Rendell a package of Washington goodies, including a bushel of apples, Ivar's Clam Chowder and a King County absentee ballot.
--
1 The haughty French-named Massachusetts-style Democrat whose husband by the way served in Vietnam.
Posted by Stefan Sharkansky at January 26, 2006 10:00 AM | Email ThisSeattle is going down, let's see if gregoire pays up on her illegal bet.
Posted by: dinesh on January 26, 2006 11:04 AMThey'll have to let the scoreboard operators electronically tally the score twice, then let Pittsburgh fans do a manual recount...
;~)
Posted by: Brian C on January 26, 2006 11:54 AMGo Seahawks!
Posted by: sgmmac on January 26, 2006 11:54 AMHOWEVER, THIS IS NOT WHAT IS BEING DONE HERE…QUEEN CHRISTINE PLACED A BET FOR THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON AGAINST THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF PENNSYLVANIA. CAN YOU SAY BOOKIE…
THE DOLLAR AMOUNT DOES NOT MATTER…IF QUEEN CHRISTINE WINS THEN HER & HER STAFF REAP THE REWARDS…IF SHE LOSES WE… THE TAX PAYERS PAY-OFF… BECAUSE IT IS PAID OFF THROUGH THE GOVERNORS OFFICE BUDGET.
THE GAMING COMMISSION UNDER MR. RICK DAY 1-800-345-2529 SHOULD GET A BOATLOAD OF CALLS, OR THE A.G.’S OFFICE 1-360-586-1520 MR. JERRY ACKERMAN IS IN CHARGE OF GAMING ISSUES FOR THE STATE.
I URGE EVERYONE TO MAKE THE CALLS AND COMPLAIN!!!
Posted by: TACOMA PHLASH on January 26, 2006 12:30 PMI think it's going to be a great game, I'm calling it for the Hawks by a TD and yes, I'm biased.
Go Seahawks!
Posted by: Jeffro on January 26, 2006 12:41 PMFunny! Key word is "little". Just be warned, some people will get on your case for impersonating Mr. Neuheisel. Some folks can't take a joke - most libs and even some conservatives.
Posted by: Jeffro on January 26, 2006 12:58 PMYou misread it again moron. The food goes to Ron Sims so his posterior will continue to balloon to the point where KingCo will trade Sim's limo in and haul Sims around in a dump truck!
Posted by: Mr. Cynical on January 26, 2006 02:05 PMIf that is the outcome, blame it on Gregoire !
Posted by: KS on January 26, 2006 07:56 PMI'm from Pgh. PA, & for a variety of reasons (love of your region, interest in your politics esp. after last year's Guv race/recount/ripoff) I monitor this SoundPolitics blog. I'm esp. interested in learning about any corporate-welfare projects that involve your sports teams &/or sports stadiums, as we here in Pgh had a wicked fraud perpetrated on us ~7 years ago that gave the Pirates and Steelers new baseball & football stadiums on our dime--"they get all the profits, we pay all the bills." What exactly was the nature of the ripoff, if any, that you had up there in Seattle? Because of how the sports teams treated the people here in Pgh., I'm very ambivalent about next week's Super Bowl--I'm sort of pulling for the Steelers, but I don't want the scum who shoved these stadiums down our throat (against the voters' will, btw)to pull the crap that "see, we won the Super Bowl, our plan clearly worked!!!" Both the football and baseball teams here actually had better records in their old stadium (Three Rivers, a generic cookie-cutter one if there ever was one) than they do in their new ones, but we won't hear any of that around here...esp. since Mario Lemieux, now the *owner* of his old hockey team the Penguins, has his helmet out and wants us to buy him a new playroom for his toy icemen but doesn't want to pay anything for it :( I'm guessing that you too were screwed over by your sports teams--I'm really curious as to which city got cheated more. Maybe I'll root for the city whose team treated its taxpayers the least unfairly :)
I had a lot to do with defeating the original plan for the financing of the new stadiums, a 1997 referendum that would've raised sales taxes to finance these boondoggles, but I sort of got shoved aside during the "Plan B" debates that went around the intent of the referendum outcome and eventually found another taxpayer-funded way of building these playgrounds (shoved aside even by people who were originally against the public financing but who eventually spent more time looking out for their own personal interests than for the common good--de Tocqueville said something about those types of people "way back when," but that's another story). I do have a ton of stories about how things were done around here, though, and if anyone wants to swap stories of taxpayer ripoffs in different parts of the country, hey, I'll share our story from the Steelers' neck of the woods if anyone up there's willing to share your (sports-stadium-specific) ripoff stories from the Seahawks' hometown.
One thing I am willing to state in advance, however, before we make any agreements do any sort of swapping--we have some pretty lame leadership here in Pgh, PA, both locally and statewide, BUT, I have absolutely no interest in trading Governors with you!!!! Ours is pretty bad but maybe not as bad as Gregoire...plus, Pennsylvania's Guv will be defeated this November when he's up for re-election but you'll still have to put up with Fraudoire for three more years :-)
Posted by: Greg on January 26, 2006 08:09 PMYou just got your answer.
Posted by: Bluebeard on January 26, 2006 09:17 PMAt any rate, does anyone want to share any stories of taxpayer-subsidized sports stadiums from up there in the Pacific Northwest? Of course, I can simply research them for myself, what with all of the research opportunities that the internet provides. Still, it's always better to supplement that type of research with the types of first-hand stories that one'd only get from a blog.
So, was there as nasty of a heavy-handed blackmailing of the electorate and the community up there in Seattle to build the new venues after the Kingdome was condemned as there was here in Pgh., or was it much more civil there ( or at least much less uncivil)? Did it turn off a significant number of lifelong fans from their religious devotion to their hometown teams as it did around here? Interested to know and would share our Pgh. story w/ anyone who'd be interested.
Since this is a political blog, I'll fill you in on one angle of the (semi-political) story from around here: I see that Sens. Cantwell and Murray have a friendly bet with Sen. Santorum over the Super Bowl outcome, the usual bet, a course of "hometown" foods that the losers'll have to serve to the winner. "Hometown"'s in quotes in that previous sentence, as the funny thing about that bet is that Rick Santorum doesn't even live in Pennsylvania anymore, much less Pittsburgh--he moved his family to Virginia back in 1997!!!! Silly as that might sound, that may incrementally hurt his re-election chances this year, as he used that very same issue of "sham residency" against his opponent the first year he ran for Congress back in 1990.
Since politics is always a sensitive subject anytime, and since football is a religion in this part of the country (we're just shy of European or South-American soccer fanaticism around here), just curious as to how seriously people are taking all of this Super Bowl stuff up there :)
Posted by: Greg on January 27, 2006 10:49 AMThe site descends into irrelevance and you descend to (or perhaps, remain at) the level of childish insults.
Good going, AS. Between SP tilting at windmills like Gov. Gregoire allegedly improperly "gambling" and your eloquent ripostes, you're sure to retake Washington's govt.
Btw, I do enjoy coming here every now and then to check on the competition -- and I'm pleased to see SP's irrelevance confirmed and its members unable to rise above childishness. Makes me so glad that it's the Dems in power, and not the likes of you (or those that you like).
Posted by: Bluebeard on January 28, 2006 12:46 PMKeep up the good work blue-balls ;'}
Posted by: alphabet soup on February 10, 2006 09:42 AM