Greenwood redevelopment

Coming to you today from Green My Ride, at the Phinney Neighborhood Center.

The new retail/condo project behind the Greenwood Bartell Drugs has been given a name: Piper Village --for Piper's Creek, presumably. Ironically, the site (and everything else within a block or more) sits on the paved-over, drying-out bog that serves as the creek's headwaters.

BIAW's Musser has joke detector switched to OFF position

I always try to write my little news-satire pieces with a veneer of reality, but then add that Little Something Extra that pushes it over the line separating libel from Constitutionally Protected Parody.

Usually when someone still doesn't get that it's a joke, or asks "Is this from The Onion?", I take it as a compliment. However, for the first time that I can recall I've gotten a comment from the actual butt subject of one of my gags:

This is Mark Musser. I am not sure where you get your information from, but not one quotation of mine that you have placed in your blospot [sic] is accurate, and most of them are in fact made up by someone (you?). You have placed all kinds of words in my mouth which I have never said.

If you are so inclined, you may read our newsletter at www.biaw.com and find my article inside the Building Insight newsletter, not the Daily Construction Worker.

Sincerely,
Mark Musser

My policy is that I don't explain comedic premises, because it plays into the hands of our country's all-too-pervasive sense of humor deficit.

Either you get it or you don't. But in this case, the fact that this particular someone doesn't get it is LMAO hilarious.

Check it out in the Comments at Wiseline Institute NW presents Mr_Blog's Left Turn.

Wonder where that bureaucratic inertia comes from

SDOT Fun Facts #1

The Seattle Department of Transportation's phone number is 684-ROAD.

Not 684-BIKE. Or 684-WALK. 684-ROAD.

Maron in Seattle this weekend

Erstwhile Air America host Marc Maron says he will be recording his third CD ("and maybe last") at Giggles comedy club, April 4 and 5, 8pm and 10pm shows.


Update: Marc on Conan O'Brien--




Link: Seattle radio interview in advance of the Giggles gig.

Bicycle safety PSA

This video contains a power-of-suggestion trick that actually worked on me.

Maybe it's a different "Dino Rossi"

"Rossi worried Gregoire could abuse loophole"

For the second year running, the Legislature has provided Gov. Chris Gregoire with potentially powerful leverage to raise money for her re-election campaign -- a loophole that allows her to accept donations during the 20-day period when she signs bills and the state budget into law.

Though Gregoire has vowed not to seek contributions until after she signs all the bills, her campaign is still accepting donations.

Dino Rossi, her Republican challenger, is critical of Gregoire because she could take advantage of the situation. He said she should have implemented a self-imposed freeze on fundraising.

...

"(Gregoire) shouldn't really be doing anything that gives the appearance of doing something underhanded or shady," Rossi said...

Is this the same Dino Rossi who ran the Backward Washington Foundation as an extension of his 2004 campaign, and de facto fundraising arm for a 2008 campaign that didn't exist yet? Naw, can't be the same one, that would be hypocritical.

"Unintended Consequences"

The current issue of Newsweek relates the following about expansion of the scope of Patriot Act snooping, and how it caught Eliot Spitzer:

The Patriot Act gave the FBI new powers to snoop on suspected terrorists. In the fine print were provisions that gave the Treasury Department authority to demand more information from banks about their customers' financial transactions. Congress wanted to help the Feds identify terrorist money launderers. But Treasury went further. It issued stringent new regulations that required banks themselves to look for unusual transactions (such as odd patterns of cash withdrawals or wire transfers) and submit SARs—Suspicious Activity Reports—to the government. Facing potentially stiff penalties if they didn't comply, banks and other financial institutions installed sophisticated software to detect anomalies among millions of daily transactions. They began ranking the risk levels of their customers—on a scale of zero to 100—based on complex formulas that included the credit rating, assets and profession of the account holder.

Another element of the formulas: whether an account holder was a "politically exposed person." At first focused on potentially crooked foreign officials, the PEP lists expanded to include many U.S. politicians and public officials who were conceivably vulnerable to corruption.

The new scrutiny resulted in an explosion of SARs, from 204,915 in 2001 to 1.23 million last year. More

Spitzer, for all his faults, has not been accused of any corruption, has he? The Patriot Act has become the Puritan Act -- and a big Opposition Research drift net.