MISCmedia by Clark Humphrey » Blog Archive RANDOM LINKS FOR 2/11/12

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RANDOM LINKS FOR 2/11/12

February 10th, 2012 by Clark Humphrey

gasoline alley antiques

Last time, we discussed what any potential Seattle NHL hockey team should be called. “Go 2 Guy” sports commentator Jim Moore has a simple answerâ€”the Totems. That was the name for Seattle’s teams in the old Western Hockey League. (That league disbanded shortly after Vancouver, its marquee franchise, joined the NHL.)
Mayor McGinn has promised that city tax money won’t go toward building a new basketball/hockey arena. This does not mean it will be an all private-enterprise endeavor, or that it would be cost-free to Seattle taxpayers. Â The city will have to vacate at least one long block of Occidental Avenue South, essentially giving that land to the arena developers. It might also have to move in on any holdout landowners at the site, essentially forcing them to sell. The project might involve city-backed bond sales and/or tax breaks on construction and ticket sales. And certainly a new arena will compete with the city-owned KeyArena for the Storm, Seattle U basketball, the Rat City Rollergirls, concerts, corporate meetings, evangelical crusades, etc.
David Meinert, meanwhile, believes McGinn might actually get a second term in ’13.
The unionization drive at the new Longview grain terminal finally succeeded.
The truckers’ strike at the Port of Seattle is having effects.
The state legislature might approve textile-based traction devices, invented in Europe. Get ready for “tire socks.”
A Vancouver USA attorney wants to overthrow the state’sÂ Congressional redistricting scheme. He alleges the new districts are too incumbent-friendly.
The one, way insufficient,Â state tax reform scheme in the current Legislative session is getting bogged down in the specifics.
The pseudo-“religious” anti-gay bigots may not show up at the Powell children’s funeral after all. (The tragedy that led to this is, as we all sadly know, the work of a criminally insane straight guy.)
Anthony B. Robinson ponders why Wash. state’s Democrats can accomplish gay marriage and other “social agenda” things, while the state government’s revenue system sends it, and us, ever closer to civic oblivion.
Charles B. Pierce at Esquire is succinct: “Dear Ronald Reagan: Thanks for Destroying America.”
Health insurance rates keep rising, as the insurance giants pocket more and more of that increased cash inflow.
What happens to pizza-parlor robot rock bands after they die? Avid collectors, including some in Seattle,Â try to reanimate them.

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