Changes Obama Hopes You'll Believe In

Barack (He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Middle-Named) Obama has almost no legislative record, so he's inventing one.

In Barack Obama's first general election ad he claimed that passed laws that... "extended healthcare for wounded troops that had been neglected." (Public Law 110-181)
But, in reality... he didn't even show up to vote on the bill.

And, there's this, in another ad, he claims that he's a champion of welfare reform, but at the time....

Obama said this about the welfare reform legislation at this time:

"I am not a defender of the status quo with respect to welfare. Having said that, I probably would not have supported the federal legislation, because I think it had some problems."

I Thought Google Blocked Blogs in China?

It was my impression that the Great Wall of Censorship blocked Blogger blogs.

Guess not.

Now, who has been Googling "Palousitics" in Beijing (and posting comments on Dnews.com at the same time)??? Remember, there are things here you can't find anywhere else.

Say What?

One cannot help but lament that when the original Wal-Mart proposal was made, and Pullman residents were told its effect would not be felt beyond the need for one stoplight at Harvest and Bishop, the city of Pullman did not direct Wal-Mart to spend $45,000 on an independent traffic study of this magnitude.

"Baghdad" Chris Lupke, "Bishop traffic study supports PARD claims," June 4, 2008

Thus, substantial evidence supports the examiner's findings that the TIA used proper methodology to estimate new daily trips and the determination that the TIA is technically adequate. PARD did not submit its own evidence that the TIA significantly underestimated traffic numbers. PARD thus failed to carry its burden under LUPA. PARD's argument that the examiner improperly shifted the burden of proof to PARD is without merit.

- Opinion issued by Court of Appeals Division III, State of Washington, Pullman Alliance for Responsible Development v. CLC Associates of Spokane Valley, City of Pullman, and S&W Land Company, June 3, 2008

Sorry, Chris, it is PARD that cannot help but lament that it never conducted an independent traffic study of its own rather than parse and throw spitballs at studies conducted by the state and the City of Pullman. $45,000 seems a small price to pay to stop the Bentonville Behemoth. The lack of any such studies or empirical evidence specific to Pullman presented by PARD is a common thread in the appellate court's decision to reject their appeal.

Perhaps they were afraid what such a study would find. The absurd dichotomy of PARD's argument that Wal-Mart would simultaneously destroy all business in Pullman and lead to urban light AND dramatically increase traffic was always going to be problematic for them. Such are the perils of the kitchen-sink approach.

Of course, Lu Laoshi submitted this column days before the Wal-Mart decision was released. Unfortunately for him, it now comes off as 13th hour pleading and/or a pathetic apologia for PARD's existence. Already, one can imagine them trying to spin this devastating loss as somehow a positive by saying through their efforts, Wal-Mart agreed to pay for another stop light on Bishop (although according to Lupke, not nearly enough. BTW Chris, I think $1 million plus extra a year in tax revenues for the city of Pullman from Wal-Mart more than covers $9.1 million in needed traffic improvements by 2027, with plenty to spare) PARD rejected that opportunity two years ago when they took their appeal to the Whitman County Superior Court, thus forever ruining any chance at claiming victory or community goodwill.

Technorati Tags: wal-mart walmart

"Decision expected soon in Wal-Mart appeal"

It seems to be that "Baghdad Chris" Lupke would be the last person in the world you would want as a "spokesperson." The preening, self-important, shrill, know-it-all Lupke's ad hominem attacks continually serve to alienate PARD in the community even further.

Just who are those people that "blindly support" Wal-Mart, Lu Laoshi? The beloved mayor of Pullman who, when he fell ill recently, had a hospital room full of flowers? The democratically-elected members of the Pullman City Council who recently announced their intention to pass a resolution of support for Wal-Mart? How about Pullman's business leaders like Fritz Hughes and Tom Handy? It's no wonder that local business owners like Leslie O'Dell don't want to be associated with PARD's "Think Pullman First" campaign.

From today's Moscow-Pullman Daily News:

A panel of judges is expected to soon decide the fate of a proposed Wal-Mart Supercenter in Pullman.

The three-judge panel has six months from the time a case is heard to render a decision, said Renee Townsley, Washington Division III Court of Appeals Clerk. She added that state law requires appellant judges to wrap up all uncompleted matters in that time frame or risk a delayed salary check.

Oral arguments concluded Dec. 19 in the appeal brought by the Pullman Alliance for Responsible Development, which has long opposed a super center on Bishop Boulevard. June 19 will mark six months since the hearing took place in a Spokane courtroom.

PARD spokesman Chris Lupke said the group holds out hope that the judges will take its side.

"Obviously, the fact that they've taken this long shows that they're taking the case extremely seriously and it's a lot more complicated than those who blindly support Wal-Mart would have you believe," he said.

Wal-Mart announced plans to build on Bishop Boulevard in October 2004 and a site plan for the store was later approved by Pullman Public Works Director Mark Workman. PARD appealed the city's approval of the company's environmental checklist and site plan on the grounds that the store would affect stormwater runoff and traffic, and would negatively affect Pullman's economy.

Because state law allows only one public hearing on a proposed development, Spokane attorney John Montgomery - who acted as Pullman's hearing examiner - was called to oversee PARD's initial appeal. Montgomery compiled a findings of fact document from Wal-Mart, Pullman and PARD, and concluded Wal-Mart's site plan and environmental checklist was sufficient. Montgomery's decision was upheld by Whitman County Superior Court Judge David Frazier, and PARD's appeal was dismissed.

PARD then took the case to the Division III Court of Appeals.

Pullman Mayor Glenn Johnson said the city eagerly awaits a final opinion.

"All I can say is that we can't wait for this to be resolved," he said. "From our standpoint, we believe we did the right thing in the first place."

Johnson said other retail projects around Bishop Boulevard are being held up until a decision is rendered.

"We desperately need the additional retail," he said.

Jennifer Holder, Washington Wal-Mart public affairs manager, said the company is waiting for a court decision before moving forward with any construction.

"(Wal-Mart is) not going to construct anything until the case is over," she said.

Pullman Planning Director Pete Dickinson said the city has not yet received the necessary documents that would allow Wal-Mart to begin construction.

"But the city is in a position to issue those permits at any time," he said.

Lupke said PARD has waited several years, and can patiently await a final outcome.

"They're going to decide when they decide," he said.

Technorati Tags: wal-mart walmart

Quote of the Day

When you match my success in corporate America, as an advisor all the way to the top of some very large corporations, then we'll talk.

You've never given any evidence that you're anything other than a dead-end small-town loser that's even afraid to stand out in a rather small community.

That's the truth. Too bad for you-- as well as the rest of your pathetic cohort.

- Chuck "Mr. Civil Discourse" Pezeshki, online comment at Dnews.com, April 19, 2008.

BWHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!! Chuck is demonstrating how a six-figure salary tenured professor engages in the third-grade schoolyard game known as a "pissing contest." (One wonders what Chuck "advises" these corporations on.)

He's also, indirectly, acknowledging that he has no further aspirations for elected office.

My Response to Chris Lupke

I'm sure some of you were wondering if I would respond to Loopy Lupke's latest Town Crier column with its embarassing hypocrisy and tortured circular logic concerning the Hawkins development. Well, I did, and here it is from today's Moscow-Pullman Daily News

Columnist changes stance

In a 2006 Daily News op-ed, Chris Lupke wrote that, "Wal-Mart and its surrogates have tried to pit Pullman and Moscow against each other in a 'divide and conquer strategy,' arguing a dollar spent in Pullman would have the 'added benefit' of not going to Moscow ... We should be thinking of ways in which growth in Pullman also can benefit Moscow and vice versa ..."

And yet, in his latest Town Crier column (Opinion, 3.5), Lupke does a volte-face, fretting about sales leakage and claiming the Hawkins "boondoggle" will "permanently situate the retail center in and near Moscow, miles from Pullman" and not "closer to our retail base." Incidentally, Pullman schools will benefit from taxes paid by Hawkins. City residents utilize county parks, roads, and law enforcement and emergency services that stand to gain as well. Pullman is, after all, part of Whitman County. Those taxes also will help pay Professor Lupke's salary.

The Pullman Alliance for Responsible Development's position paper on Wal-Mart states that, "While we understand some people in Pullman who think it only fair turnabout to gain sales at the expense of Moscow at a time when the Pullman and Moscow governments are seeking to cooperate on a number of projects, including responsible development of the Route 270 corridor, this is no time for store wars to ruin good will."

Indeed. By PARD's standards, the Hawkins development is highly responsible, as it will be situated on the largest highway in the region far away from any hospitals, schools, retirement homes or cemeteries. Distance certainly can't be an issue either, as PARD member T.V. Reed has publicly offered to drive folks over to Moscow to shop. Plus, as PARD has repeatedly assured us, they are not against all large retail stores, just Wal-Mart.

We can only hope Target or Costco soon announce plans to locate in the Hawkins development.

Tom Forbes, Pullman

If Lupke and PARD wanted to covince everyone they were not against retail and not just Wal-Mart, this column was very ill-advised. But of course, they are against national retail stores. They are liberal fascists just like Chuck Pezeshki. As the late Don Pelton used to point out, the PARDners long for an economic model and lifestyle that disappeared in the 1920s, which is fine in itself, except they demand the government mandate it through land use regulations.

And inevitably, the "constructive community dialogue" the Daily News thinks is is fostering with the online comments just leads to more irresponsible lies from anonymous idiots like this:

Also, as I understand it, there won't be any tax benefits for anybody except the holders of the bonds Whitman County wants to saddle residents with for the next 20 years.

You understand nothing. First, as has been stated before repeatedly here and elsewhere, THERE WILL BE NO TAX LIABILITY TO THE CITIZENS OF WHITMAN COUNTY. The $10.5 million infrastructure bond will be paid off with the retail sales tax proceeds. And as far as tax benefits go, how about:

$4,207,500 for the Pullman School Distict over the next 20 years
$2,174,001 for Whitcom emergency communications over the next 20 years
$2,050,115 for Washington State schools over the next 20 years
$1,190,000 for Rural Fire District 12 over the next 20 years
$421,005 for Whitman County libraries over the next 20 years
$350,370 for the Port of Whitman County over the next 20 years

And that's just from property taxes, which are the same regardless of how much business the mall does. So let's hear some alternatives from our local leftists on what they believe could raise that much money.

Why exactly do people like Lupke think the Hawkins project is bad if it won't benefit Pullman (it will)? Would it be the end of the world if some of the smaller towns like Palouse, Colton, and Garfield in Whitman County benefit (they will also) for a change? How selfish and short-sighted. We're all in this together.

Song of My Selfishness

Janet Richards' Town Crier tripe in today's Moscow-Pullman Daily News amply illustrates well why the "progressives" are now in the political wilderness in Moscow. Who can take people this disdainful seriously? It is this same upper class, highly educated drawbridge selfishness that adds $200,000 to the price of Seattle homes.

WARNING: Do not click "Read More" if you are subject to nausea caused by overly florid prose, preening intellectual pretentiousness, tortured logic, asinine allegories, naturalist hyberbole, gratuitous use of adjectives, or haughty classical music references:

Importance of community-shared values

Cows graze behind the supermarket and wheat fields roll for miles in the alley behind our shopping center in Moscow. It's a lonely stretch of road - a soothing respite from the traffic and frenetic animation of the parking lot on the front side of the mall.

Drivers are discouraged from taking this route by a series of lofty speed bumps, installed to assure that only a limited number of cars will clog the delivery lane. The bumpy pavement forces a slower pace and provides a kind of rhythm to the journey, so the occasional jostle is never too much of a surprise. I like knowing what to expect.

The conspicuous evidence of consumption litters this corridor. Stacks of wooden pallets, torn shrink wrap and plastic strapping bands lie discarded - the common refuse of retail operations. Battered Dumpsters, with Smurf-colored paint, bulge with cardboard and packing peanuts resting against drab cinder block walls which form the "backside" of a marketplace filled with glitter and glitz.

The peaceful pasture that lays on the other side of this alley seems out of place. It's a bucolic scene, in stark contrast to the commercial setting that is its backdrop; a metaphor for the clash between the push for development and its opposition.

One day as I began the slow traverse of this undulating path I turned the radio to classical. The music was lilting, and beautiful, but I felt unsettled, my mind troubled by thoughts of the natural landscape on one side of the alley that seems headed for obliteration - threatened by the encroaching ooze of molten asphalt hardening into a permanent tomb and the relentless proliferation of retail outlets that have already scourged the nation.

Countless other towns have been swept up in the now familiar pattern that comes on the winds of progress. A trend favoring a homogeneous market saturated with global franchises housed in immense buildings with the offer of generic predictability. Spewing shrink wrap and clam shell cartons, they operate out of step with the rhythms of the natural world and encourage us to do likewise, causing one to wonder if health of any kind is ever a priority.

Countless towns have seen the destruction of the sense of community that comes in the wake of the big-box phenomena. The marketplace, no longer a meeting place, marches to a global drummer, oblivious to the heartbeat of the community. The anonymous nature of these cart and carry stores only adds to social isolation.

When it comes to the issues of water and Wal-Mart, the residents of Moscow, myself included, are polarized. It's hard to see common ground - the shared soil that is the essence of this community - so near and dear to everyone. But common ground is what we must find to prevent the health of our beautiful natural setting and the relationships that make life so rich and give meaning from falling victim to ideological positions set in stone.

Something rescued me from these somber thoughts that day in the alley. Without warning hundreds of small black birds descended on my car. Swirling, whipping and whirling, they snaked towards me and then away in long symmetrical streams forming layer upon layer of concentric black rings. As if hearing the music, they swept inward and outward, like ribbons in the wind, upward and back around the car in syncopated rhythm. As quickly as they came they vanished, as if sucked by a celestial vacuum.

As I negotiated the last speed bump and turned onto the street to head for home, the radio announcer spoke clearly: "You have been listening to a composition by the French composer Ravel written in 1928. It is titled "Oiseauz Tristes," "The Unhappy Birds."

It was a moment sublime - "coincidental oppositorum." Things that seem separate, even opposed, coincided to reveal an unexpected unity - an unbelievably beautiful experience driving in a littered alley behind a mall illustrating the coming together of two worlds in conflict.

Will our town slide into dissension and mediocrity as so many other towns, unwilling or unable to see the importance of the shared values that will determine its destiny? Is there a way to soar above the staunch opinions and fly together?