1. My letter to Danny:

How did the tunnel get to déjà vu? Let me give you a few reasons.

#1. Very few people trust the folks that are pimping it. Anybody with half a brain knows that the tunnel will end-up costing at least two to three times more than anybody has forecast (if everything goes correctly) and most likely will cost multiple billions more once the problems of building below sea level become apparent. At worst this is a big dig waiting to happen. For some people that's OK but for many more it is not. Ya know Danny, there must be bond of trust between government and the voters. Around here that trust left a long, long time ago.

Additionally, to reinforce that lack of trust: The Mayor stated quite openly in the beginning that the tunnel would be a kind of excuse to get the sea wall fixed (nudge, nudge, wink, wink). Sorta like "Let's screw the state to get some other stuff done." we'll all be in on the scam. Well, Hiz Honor has now established that he's willing to screw somebody to get this thing done, first the state and then what? Why, the voters. If that isn't untrustworthy I don't know what is.

#2. It has been stated by Steinbrueck and others that they flatly want cars pretty much gone from Seattle. They are hostile to them and, like it or not, a lot of people drive over that viaduct every day. It has been openly stated that the tunnel will not have the same capacity as the viaduct. That means longer commutes and more traffic jams. Why would anybody want that sort of "improvement". I'd also like to take the time to point out that Steinbrueck is one of the biggest hypocrites in Seattle. He wants to FORCE everybody to drive less (less "trips" in his jargon) but that punk drives the most of any council member in one of the worst gas guzzlers made. Do ya think people trust what he says?

#3. This may seem strange to you (or maybe not) but there are people who like that viaduct just fine. I know I do. I know others that do too. It's as much a part of Seattle as the Smith Tower and the Space Needle. It is a landmark of Seattle's rough and tumble, working water, past. I've known it since I was a kid and it's kinda romantic to me.

#4. It is also the most beautiful drive in town. I have driven it many times instead of I-5. It's a REAL nice drive and I'd like to preserve that and so would a lot of other people.

So there you have it. The short list. If I get motivated I'll do the long one and send it over.

Posted by: G Jiggy on January 24, 2007 09:58 PM

2. Ramsey - I can recommend two books, off the top of my head, that paint a clear picture of why champions of the left's brand of compassion should be suspect and one should not concede "good intentions" to their failed policies. The first is "Intellectuals" By Paul Johnson and the second is a recently released book titled "Who Really Cares." Both of these reads expose leftists as particularly uncaring people who don't really have one iota of compassion for those they purport to care for. In fact the targets of their policies are nothing but props they use to make themselves feel better and to score points within their circle of fellow travelers. I will share one quote from Paul Johnson's 1988 - from The Intellectuals "Almost all intellectuals profess to love humanity and to be working for its improvement and happiness. But it is the idea of humanity they love, rather than the actual individuals who compose it. They love humanity in general rather than men and women in particular. Loving humanity as an idea, they can then produce solutions as ideas. Therein lies the danger, for when people conflict with the solution as idea, they are first ignored or dismissed as unrepresentative; and then, when they continue to obstruct the idea, they are treated with growing hostility and categorized as enemies of humanity in general."

Posted by: JDH on January 25, 2007 07:30 AM

3. This is more like I-5 through the convention center. Nickel's tunnel love will doom that stretch of road to always being two lanes a mistake the designers of I-5 made. Nickels, of course, doesn't care about building roads that actually moves cars but, uh, I guess I am lod fashioned that way.

Posted by: Todd H on January 25, 2007 08:07 AM

4. Westneat's right. Obviously it is like "monorail." A Nickels and Carr production. Half-baked planning, rushing a ballot measure before the voters, loosey goosey "cost" numbers, etc.

Want to see "monorail on steroids?" Check out the ST/RTID ballot measure coming up in November.

Posted by: Alphonse on January 25, 2007 08:13 AM

5. Kudos to Ramsey!

- [social investing] exists to provide a foam of altruism over the activity of investing for oneself.

- The largest share of [social investments'] portfolio is in finance . . . But what do financial companies do? They make loans to buy cars, which are made of metal and burn gasoline. They make loans to buy houses, which are made of chopped-down trees. What's the point?

- The Gates Foundation's business is philanthropy, which deals in verifiable benefits. The critics' business is social investing, which deals mainly in intentions, appearances and feelings.

- Really, the press campaign is about one industry trying to get hired by the other. It is about the use of public shaming in order to sign up some new clients.

Now watch for America's contemporary paladins to cry out "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain" in response to Bruce's well-placed blows.

Posted by: anon on January 25, 2007 08:15 AM

6. The point, anon, is quite simply hypocricy. Pretending that your investments are clean because you let someone else do the dirty work doesn't shield your investments. Nor does it shield your return on that investment from earning the profits of those companies.

Posted by: Right said Fred on January 25, 2007 08:29 AM

7. Or, don't preach from the ivory tower. Just don't preach at all. Do your foundation work quietly and give your money quietly and do not expect to be given saint status.

The Gates family has been and always will be phony.

Posted by: swatter on January 25, 2007 08:37 AM

8. Whether you agree with Gates or not, if you don't like the way he is doing it show us the right way to give away billions.

Gates has in someways been very successful. He is extremely influencial and aware of what is going on in the industry. That he is willing to give time to mentor, letting them know what is needed to succeed in that industry I find admirable.

Posted by: Right said Fred on January 25, 2007 09:11 AM

9. Gates could do better.

Or, he could just say the hell with it and stop giving it away.

Posted by: Hinton on January 25, 2007 09:22 AM

10. 1. JDH is correct. The basic ideology of secular progressive thought is a moral relativism. I say secular progressivism, because classic liberalism was different. Because "we" have such good thoughts and superior ideas, then "we" are allowed to cut corners because "we" really want to do good and help the common good. That thought is one of the reasons public schools are failing. Recently, in Great Britain, Ruth Kelly, Tony Blair's Secretary of Education was taken to task for sending her child from a failing local publically funded school to an elite private school. This is classic secular progressive think, I need to do what is best for my child. The theories of public good which result from my ideas which bring failure are good for your child or children. After all, the secular progressives rely on a steady stream of useful idiots to support their regimes.

2. The Gates Foundation is in a classic bind, how does one do good without fundamentally changing some structures and cultures. How does one help Zimbabwe without getting rid of Mugabe? I am not heartless, but some are beginning to argue that many of the billions spend in Africa were wasted because all the money did was prop up corrupt regimes and delay any real reform which ultimately would improve the lives of the people the money was designed to help. Moral relativism does not work on the international scale, just like it doen't work on a personal level. There are some things that are wrong and the sooner the Mugabes, rulers of Cambodia, and other brutal corrupt regimes are gone, the better.

Posted by: WVH on January 25, 2007 09:46 AM

11. My beef with Gates is the ruthlessness they used to build the microsoft empire.

My beef with Gates now is the prosletyzing (SP) they do; i.e. Democrat party interests on one hand, the foundation preaching, but now the investments that are just as dirty as all those nasty corporations the Gates and Democrats so abhor.

Posted by: swatter on January 25, 2007 10:06 AM

12. WVH, Just the fact that we are perennially expected to judge the libs by their "intentions" should tell you something. Judging their intentions is the purview of the Lord and clairvoyants. I am not qualified. I can however take a look at what policies they espouse have wrought and that is unmitigated failure, unless of course their ultimate intentions are to lead us down a path that leads to an increase in human suffering.

I cannot make a judgment on what a person's intentions are based upon his/her rhetoric, however I have no problem looking at the history of what leftist policies have delivered. Including the most efficient engine of human suffering yet, the Soviet Union.

This information is universally available and cannot only be discounted by people with an agenda, therefore I have no reluctance to state that it is my belief that those who continue to demand implementation of similar policies are morally deficient.

Can you say holocaust deniers, I sure as hell can and what is more I do. It applies to each and every person that continues to clamor for a headlong rush to set up a "socialist utopia" here. Actually I will go one step further and advance the case that those who worship at the feet of that monstrosity in Freemont actually reverence the slaughter of innocent human beings.

Posted by: JDH on January 25, 2007 12:33 PM

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