Seattle’s planet-saving plan: Jump rope, draw chalk art
Welcome to Seattle’s enviro-nitwit checklist:
Bullying residents into buying Gorebulbs and terrorizing pants off children as part of the mayor’s green brainwashing? Check.
Anti-plastic bag policing and tax hikes? Check.
And now…closing off streets to cars and pushing residents to jump rope and draw chalk art? Check:
To encourage people to drive less this summer, Seattle will close three streets to cars for several hours on three Sundays in Alki, Capitol Hill and Rainier Valley.
“Just for one day, just chill,” Mayor Greg Nickels said at a news conference today, encouraging people to bicycle, walk, jump rope and create chalk art instead.
The city is encouraging bicyclists and pedestrians to use the streets instead. Local car access will be allowed for residents in the areas.
Yep, who needs drilling? Seattleites will just jump up and down on the streets until they find new energy sources– or draw them with chalk and imagine they’re real!
Planet savior Nancy Pelosi is all ears.
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Categories: Enviro-nitwits
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I grew up in Seattle and love it to death, but they just keep getting crazier!! I don’t know if I could ever move back just because I don’t want to deal with stupid people like Seattlites anymore.
If only the Mariners were winning, then it might just be worth going back… Oh well.
This story reminded me of one of your Vents at Hot Air!
World Jump Day Vent! Coffee always helps.
I think Mr. Nickels is confused: physically closing public streets to local traffic is not “encouraging” tax payers to conform – it’s dictatorial coersion.
I hope enough voters in Seattle see beyond the ridiculousness of this phony act and, before they lose that power too, ousts these city officials in the next election.
I know I’m just a mere commoner, not a high and mighty (nearly god like) Seattle City Mayor, but what I have found is that every time the streets here in my home town are shut down for bike races (4 just this summer), or parades; I end up having to detour out of my way, driving more miles, and therefore using more gas creating more carbons.
Just more proof that Libs don’t really care what the outcome is as long as they feel like they are making a difference.
I avoid Seattle like the plague. Between the highest sales tax in the state, (9%), the out of control urban outdoorsmen, (Bums), and the barking moonbat residents it’s just not worth the trip.
Forgot to mention the massive gridlock on the highway & city streets. They keep raising the gas tax to reduce congestion but never seem to get around to spending it on the roads.
This needs to be monitored closely. At this point, the mayor is saying they will leave one lane open for local residents to use their vehicles on. What about emergency medical vehicles, fire trucks, police cars? How are they to protect the citizens when they are restricted to using only one lane? This is simply another attempt by people to bring anarchy to America. However, given the radical bicycle terrorists Critical Mass and their penchant for violently demanding everyone ride bicycles like them it is of great concern they will one day close the one lane for vehicular traffic altogether. To close off entire areas to vehicular traffic is discrimination against the elderly who can’t walk, ride bicycles, or take buses. It is discrimination against people with disabilities who can’t walk, ride bicycles, or take buses.
This is fertile ground for class action lawsuits against such discriminatory laws and those who support them.
Since when does chalk work in the rain?
Agreed. To add:
Forcing drivers to take the long way around is going to help drivers drive LESS??? And I thought lgm was an idiot. Seems lgm has a rival.
Okay, I live in Seattle – well when I’m not working in Europe, and let me tell you, the mayor is a nut. If I can’t use my publicly funded roads, I want a rebate on my property taxes which pay for them (not the normal increase). Also, why don’t they just hook the bicycles and rope jumpers up to energy producing generators. That way, they can create havoc and electricity at the same time – makes almost as much sense as anything else proposed!!
These are the same people who believe that if everyone didn’t buy gas on a particular Tuesday we would BREAK the oil industry…
Do you know the difference between genius and stupidity?
There’s a limit to genius.
Reminds me of an old joke about Seattle pointing out that the people in Seattle don’t sunburn … they rust …
I think all that constant rain has finally soaked through to their brains and now there is a massive and growing epedemic of “hydrocephalus” … Their
waterlogged brain cells tend to short out if used … so like all good enviro-nuts they avoid using them …
Where do these whacked out communities find all of these nuts to put in office again and again???? …
Just got back from Seattle where the local paper said Washington State was going to participate in a cap-and-trade scheme with Oregon, California and some Canadian provinces, beginning with electric utilities, but with hopes of expanding to other industries later. Never mind Congress, says the Looney Left, we’ll just launch Eco-Nirvana from the state level.
Kind of reminds me of another enviro-doofus who told us a few months ago to “Calm down.”
Of course, Mayor Five-Pennies, as he is often referred to, is a democrat . . .
Now, I’m assuming they mean drivers who would otherwise be driving would be engaging in these activities. In other words, people over 16 1/2. In other words, adults (or close to it).
Maybe I live around a bunch of old farts, but I never see any adults jumping rope. Or scribbling with chalk, unless they’re artists doing it down town or in a tourist spot.
Seattle wants to encourage the infantilization of adults, all the better to let the government take over as Big Momma.
geeze DL, That’s an easy one, they spin a bottle.
It would be so easy to make fun of these people, but instead, I will be compassionate and help out. To further reduce carbon emissions coming out of Seattle I have designed them a new Police car. I can build this particular model for under $25,000.
aj
good point buddy …
If people have to drive out of their way to avoid closed streets, how is that going to result in them driving less?
then they have to drink the kool-aid in the bottle…
Having grown up in the fifties the best thing I can think of to solve the energy crisis, and make life much more simple and stress free, would be a time machine to return us to those days. Hiding under my desk in a practice drill for nuclear war never came close to the multiple stresses induced by today’s insane soceity.
After further reviewing the mayors plan to reduce the carbon footprint of Seattle, I have to say that I am shocked he would have proposed this as a democrat. It would take approximately 4000 jumps to go a mile. I think until they can get this down to 2500 jumps a mile this practice should be halted. These rope jumpers will be exhausting huge amounts of carbon from their lungs. Until the EPA can get in there and do an environmental study all jump ropers should wear one of these. Also, chalk dust kills. If a cockroach (85% of Seattle residents) crawls across this chalk dust they will suffocate. Cockroaches breathe through their bellies.
Won’t all that rope jumping, biking, walking and sidewalk coloring result in heavy breathing and even more carbon dioxide being released into the atmosphere?
If this mayor truly loved the earth he’d have his jackbooted thugs close down the entire city and mandate that everyone lay in their beds, not moving, so as to minimize the harmful CO2 emissions.
says my friend Forest
I can only wonder if Mayor Nickles will participate in these playtime activities in the alloted time. And he if doesn’t, does he get a “time-out” or a spanking?
Seattle would be better off just telling them to quit smoking dope for a day.
I don’t need any politician putz to tell me to ride my bike…especially while they’re figuring out more ways to limit my freedoms and spend more money.
How come going to work seems to have been left out of the equation?
Of course, most of the people on the streets in question are probably the same folks I used to drive by, hanging around the freeway onramps with signs in their hands. I guess they could just as easily
“chill”panhandle closer to home for one day.Speaking of nutso people, I called Ms Pelosi again this morning with more comments on the economy and drilling in America. (202)225-0100
I know conservatives are few and far between in Seattle, but if they all started calling people who are supposed to represent them, they might make a difference. I know, I know, call me Pollyanna.
I suggest to save the environment we just quit traveling to Seattle. I am sure the Earth will be pleased.
Love seafood, hate the moonbats.
Well, that’s what happens when half of California, moves in and takes over.
Mister P,
A conservative boycott. Cut the tourist trade in half. Then they’d raise taxes on the moonbat residents. Perfect!
I’ve been there once. No need to go back.
Just till dudes start blowing each other in the street like in SF. Then Seattle will really be progressive.
I thought all we had to do was fill our car tires?
Now jump rope too? Please.
So is the dear mayor preventing the good people of Seattle from leaving his fair city? Isn’t that entrapment? I couldn’t think of a less appealing city to be “stuck” in.
Liberal utopias, dontcha just love ‘em?
Jumping rope makes my gall bladder hurt.
Have you ever been to Capitol Hill?
Thank you, Comrad Nickels, for reminding me why I choose to live in Snohomish County, and far, far away from Seattle. You King Sims are living proof that you don’t need a firm grasp on reality to have a firm grasp on the public coffer.
What bunch of tossers.
You and* King Sims
Just Chill?
“Mellow out or you will pay! Mellow out or you WILL PAYYYY! Seattle! Uber Alles Se-eatle Uber Alles!” Uber Alles! Sea-atle! Uber Alles Se-ea-atle!”
Thank you Dead Kennedy’s for such a riotous sendup of our rotten hippie future.
OK, Rockstar, those two posts were funny. I don’t care who you are. They were just funny. Now where did I put the paper towels?
Such minor slights (street closed, penny charge for plastic bags), such major bitterness. This post and comments make you seem unhinged.
Or maybe a break for cookies and milk too?
My goodness, lgm. What are you doing here at 10:15. You’re missing Dora the Explorer. Hurry and you can catch it before it ends. I think today’s spanish lesson is teaching you how to say “unhinged”.
Ron,
YOu are a riot! Keep ‘em coming.
One freedom at a time… one at a time.
Project much? Let’s see, not allowing people to drive in and out of their neighborhoods because it’s fun to have one’s freedom of movement limited! Yay. Charging for plastic bags is just wrong. Why is this necessary if the bags will just be recycled anyway? Oh, that’s right, that’s more money for the recycling industry.
I’d advise everyone to get “green bags.” A lot of the military BX’s and Commissaries are selling them so you can reuse your grocery bags (if you remember to use them that is) so that the enviro nut jobs don’t harangue you for harming the planet.
Oh, and Mathman, grow a sense of humor. That chip on your shoulder is as big as any supposed “unhinged” behavior you liken in others. Project much?
lgm: Now, now on this blog your comment is extremely reminiscent of “I know you are but what am I?”. BTW do you teach moonbattery in Seattle? It’s all coming together now.
I put plastic bags to an environmental use. I tell moonbats that they are CO2 reduction devices when placed over one’s head.
How’s about we close your street for a day? You need to just chill.
Now, there’s a carbon off-set!
I think emjem and ron basically covered anything i’d have to add.
lgm’s answer to everything is more taxes. $5 more on gas will fix everything. Charge for bags? You mean the bags that are already made and ready for use? I see. So if I forget to bring my own bags, I should be taxed?
IDIOT
lgm its not a penny charge its 20 cents per bag, or is that the new liberal conversion factor? When a dem says one amount we should multiply by 20?
Here at the local Vons if they decide to charge for the bags I will just say no thank you put them in the cart and when the ask politely like they always do if I need assistance to my car I will now accept their offer.
Ever see some of the old photos or portraits of Marx, Engels, Lenin, Trotsky..etc? They are always scowling like they have a toothache, hemoroids, and a bad hangover at the same time. LGM is just carrying on this great tradition.
Patriot Rider I think maybe he teaches Mindless Ranting 101 at Evergreen State College
No wonder these kid’s brains are so full of mush!
you can throw Harry “tommy” Reid into that mix as well….what a sour puss.
That is probably the best idea I have heard here in awhile. After they take the groceries to your car, tip them a quarter and tell them to put a little of it back for college.
At March AFB, now Air reserve base, they do take groceries to your car for you and work off tips and it’s no prob givin them a few bucks at all.
I tell em , don’t spend it on dope, and their answers are usually for school..
I also grew up in Washington, in the Olympia/Tacoma areas. It was a conservative albeit Democrat state back in the 60s. What is happening there now is horrifying. Back in the ’80s when Californian were emmigrating en masse to the northwest, locals begged not to be “californicated”. They got it anyway.
This is what happens when conservatives don’t get involved. Leftists know the game and relish destroying the opposition. “Democracy” is just one of their many tools. Of course when they control the agencies of change, they control the democracy. Like a boa constrictor, with every breath you take they exert greater and greater control until no options remain.
On July 31st, 2008 at 10:12 am, lgm said:
LGM, if it’s not a form of product endorement, just what brand of batteries do you use in that bionic finger of yours? It seems to furiously shake on and on and on…at every commenter…and on every thread!
I mean, even if you fail to see how it encroaches upon personal freedoms for elected officials to close city streets as a means of “encouraging” environmental awareness, show some tolerance for those of us do take offense at such heavy-handed tactics.
What lgm fails to understand is that we are protecting his rights by complaining.
Reminds me of that poem:
When they came for the conservatives,
I remained silent;
I was not a conservative.
When they locked up the oil executives,
I remained silent;
I was not an oil executive.
When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.
When they came for the radio station owners,
I remained silent;
I wasn’t a radio owner.
When they came for lgm,
there was no one left to speak out.
REd Dog said:
The above is correct …the only way we cut the californication was in the 90’s when we had all the military personnel move in which balanced the stupidity.
Yea, with all that BC Gold its hard to cross the street with all those cars.
It’s like playing frogger man, except you could really get hurt.
That totally kills your buzz man.
Lefty emoting as ersatz “thinking” focuses on irrelevancy, which often manifests itself in a fascination with symbolic gestures as opposed to meaningful actions.
Seattle’s approach to “saving the planet” is a perfect example of this behavioral trait: offer up a token “statement” so they can feel good about themselves and superior to others (which in the end are all they care about), and call it a day’s work.
I’m curious…if half of Seattle’s adult population shop for groceries every day, and each uses three plastic bags, where does that “little slight” of approximately $214,000/mo. or %2,570,000/yr. go?
And I understand if this is succesful, the governor will close ferry service to Seattle for two days a week and encourage commuters to kyak, boat, or swim to work, and, taking a cue from mojoe:
;=)
I’m with you guys that remember Washington the way it used to be. I only go back every couple of years now, and I am hoping that one of thse days, the fruitcakes will pack up and move back out to California.
Don’t wish that on my state ArmoredCAV.
Those folks up there in Seattle have surpassed even S.F. in terms of liberal nuttiness. We don’t want them back.
Aren’t the streets in the Rainier Valley often closed? You know, with yellow tape while they figure out who shot whom…(Sorry Seattleites, friendly dig).
#41 lgm said:
Drips and drabs, lgm.
I get the feeling that this is how it started out in many Eastern European countries during the dawn of communist expansion:
-A minor slight here (No new fast food joints in this neighborhood.)
-A minor slight there (You can’t smoke inside your own house.)
-A minor slight here (You can’t say the word “Jesus” here.)
-A minor slight there (You can’t keep your own house or property when local government wants to sell it to a larger tax-payer.)
The next thing you know, your forced to buy cardboard shoes, buying only rotten meat on Thursdays from 5:30 AM to 6:15 AM, forced to see only this doctor on this date, forced to buy only this much fuel on that date if your license plate ends in an odd number, forced into this work camp if you say or think this, have your family taken away from you if you say or think that, get thrown into an oven if the number on your forearm is called on this day, etc., and the means to protect and defend yourself at that point was usually the first thing that was quietly and innocuously taken away from you to begin with.
Regarding centralized governments who seem hell-bent on controlling how the masses think and behave…it always seems to be the “minor slights” that lead to the more grave slights, don’t you think?
And regarding the poor victims of centralized governing: Castro’s Cuba, or Pol Pot’s Cambodia, or Stalin’s Soviet Union, or Hitler’s Germany, or Mugabe’s Zimbabwe, or the FARC’s Marxist-jungle fantasy…I bet every one of them who are six feet under today would rue the day that they were ever concerned that individuals like you might have thought of them as “bitter” or “unhinged.”
Plastic bags, my ass.
Please!!! Its not Washington, only Seattle. We call them 206′ers on the other side of the Cascades and it definitely is not complimentary.
Fortunately, I live in Kitsap County, but I work in Seattle. Last week the Critical Mass group in Seattle smashed up a car and beat its driver with a bike lock. Of course the bats on bikes claim they were provoked
Save the planet, run around naked and live in a cave, as long as the cave is not occupied by some other form of wildlife.
Brian NY,
Don’t hold back, say what’s really on your mind.
Excellent post!
I hate to admit it, but I actually prefer the professional attitude of the bums in SanFran to the ones in Seattle.
A couple of weeks ago, one hit me up for change in Seattle. When I told her that I was on a business trip and wasnt carrying cash (I wasnt), she pointed to an ATM in a building behind me and said that I could get some money there.
(oops accidently hit the submit button )
She also told me to ignore the box of food she was holding in her hand and that she needed an emergency bus ticket to Everett because the bus was about to leave without her.. LOL
RabbidSquirrel,
Yeah. When I visited, the aggressiveness of the bums was shocking.
She probably wanted you to hit the ATM for drugs or booze.
Closing streets will not reduce the number of drivers by any meaningful amount, but it will reduce the amount of road. That means an increase in congestion. Congestion results in more time spent with the car idling (probably running the AC too at this time of year) and not going anywhere. That results in higher fuel consumption per mile traveled, which of course results in more carbon dioxide emissions. Granted, carbon dioxide is a harmless gas that encourages plant life, so not really any harm there, but this plan does guarantee some extra amount of wasted money and wasted time. Way to go Seattle.
Rabbid Squirrel
Had a couple set up shop by the ferry terminal. They would take turns sitting in a wheelchair with their dog. For about 6 months they needed money for gas to get home. One day I walked by the lady was doing her shift, chatting on her cell phone
BrianNY said (#72):
A long and slightly unhinged post that says taxing plastic bags puts you on a slippery slope that ends with Pol Pot style mass murder.
I noticed, on my recent trip to Seattle, that I was now paying 10 cents extra for not bringing my own cup to Starbucks. 10 cents for their paper cup and plastic lid. This amounts to a tax on the stupid!
It occurred to me that I could start bringing my own cup, but requiring the staff to clean it for me. Maybe the VPs at Starbucks will realize that they’re losing money on that deal…
Oh great.
Every time the mayor of Seattle has one of his “ideas” the mayor of Portland usually comes up with something worse. They’ve already perked up at the idea of taxing plastic bags, and one weekend they “experimented” with closing down about 4-6 city blocks to encourage alternative transportation. Both cities are being led by egomaniac nutballs. Thank goodness I’m not a Portland resident.
To echo another post, though – when you think of Seattle and Portland, don’t malign the entire states of Washington and Oregon – outside of the crazy metro areas, the states are relatively conservative (i.e. sane).
What’s the carbon footprint of all the brain-dead people who drive in to these areas to make defiant Earth-loving chalk art on the street?
You know it will happen.
#82 lgm said:
Actually, a succinct and well composed response (if I say so myself)to a flip and rather obtuse burp of thought on your part.
In case you didn’t really get my point, allow me to clear-up your confusion. This “Seattle” nonsense has little to do with plastic bags, or side streets or the environment as it has to do with the socialist mind’s insatiable need to instill dominance and control over the various and inconvenient ways that the masses think, behave and generally go about living their lives.
Replace “plastic bags” with: trans-fatty acids, tobacco, scalding-hot coffee, petroleum, radio airwaves, Christianity, caribou, busing, words, thought, prescribed diversity, intent and/or the hundreds of other variables which today’s liberals feel that they need to control…and you will either begin to, or further, see my point.
I am neither alone nor “slightly unhinged” in my observation. Previous thinkers, from Ayn Rand to Dinesh D’Souza, have staked accomplished careers on illustrating the dangerous and deadly practice of giving the socialist mind an inch…and then watching it grow into a mile.
For example, take a cornerstone of modern, American-liberal accomplishment like abortion. What started out as a state regulated medical procedure was creatively transformed into an inalienable right, decreed to be contained under the notion of “privacy,” and therefore, given the status of Constitutional protection with no direct reference found within the US Constitution…all to deny the States the autonomy to decide the morality of this procedure themselves.
As if this wasn’t a stretch too far, this liberal “inch” was elongated into a liberal “mile,” where final term babies (or what liberals compassionately refer to as “fetuses”) can be legally beheaded, or “de-brained” in preparation for extraction and termination from their “unhealthy” mothers.
Want to go another mile? Take an even more recent liberal proposal, which I believe Illinois State Senator Barack Obama voted on affirmatively – the practice of taking babies (ahem, “fetuses”) who have miraculously survived partial-birth abortions, and placing them in set-aside closets until they can die naturally of starvation and isolation from human contact.
So stick with your slippery slope = “unhinged” meme if you choose, lgm. But please consider this easily illustrative example of liberal thought that I have just given you – where liberals have proven that they are not only capable of turning an inch into a mile, but also stretching a mile into a Trail of Tears.
Seattle is the city with the highest percentage of college graduates.
Says something…
It says the accreditors in this region are losing their grip on reality.
USN RET
“Crazy Lady” covers the SF Hilton in the morning catching the morning outbound tourist traffic. Then in the late afternoon, she covers the Embarcadeo BART station (just up from the ferry building).
For those of you that dont know, the two places are about a mile apart.
Wow lgm, you used unhinged twice today. Good job. Say hi to Sponge Bob for me.
{I read that positive reinforcement is good for children}
ROFL!!!
It says Bill Gates was born there, though he’s not one of them.
Much like USN RET, I too live in Kitsap County and commute…to Everett daily. I avoid Seattle like the plague. Mayor “Higher-Than-Gore” keeps coming up with the proposals and the City Counsel keeps adopting them.
The Bag Tax-it’s not only 20 cents for plastic, but for paper as well in addition to other stuff. Here is a link that is unbiased and even said it’s going to have little to no effect and could even be costly: http://www.seattlebagtax.org/
C’mon…the same guy is making it a mandate for all cabs in Seattle proper to go green, what would you expect from such a nut job. so much in fact, he has even won 2 consecutive “Schrammies” form a local commentator who is, to say the least, very biased towards libs, Ken Schram
Wow, lgm, I can’t believe you dissed a fellow socialist. I can’t believe you actually admitted that socialism will eventually lead to mass murder.
There is no such thing as good socialism, though I’m sure the regressives in this country try to sell their their snake oil as marxism light.
Name me one successful socialist country. Just remember, whatever you name, I call and raise you China, North Korea, Cambodia, Soviet Russia, Germany, all of the socialist hell holes that have festered and stunk up this planet in the name of “progress.” All they did was to prove that socialism has murdered more people than any other form of govenment in history.
And though while saying that taxing plastic bags may eventually lead to socialist mass murder sound laughable, I’ll bet the people that have suffered and died from socialist “progress” didn’t find it funny. That’s the point. Socialism always finds, or in this case creates, a crisis (the fallacy of anthropogenic global warming and the destruction of the planet) to get the knuckle-draggers to fall in line. Anyone that doesn’t buy in is labeled an enemy of the state.
Read “Liberal Fascism” by Jonah Goldberg. Don’t be afraid! Remember, it was democrat Thomas Jefferson that said, “I do not fear the truth. I fear the lack of it.”
I was born in Seattle in the 50’s and it was a wonderful place to live. I still go back once a year to visit Mom who lives in the heart of libland. She kept the Bush/Cheney sticker on her car for years so needless to say the neighbors shun her. I like to fly the flag when I go to visit just to piss off the neighbors. It never ceases to amaze me how the same nut-jobs keep getting reelected there.