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Bezos doesn't give a shit about income tax.

"Almost all of Bezos’s income comes from the value of Amazon stock. He owns about 16 percent of the company, which is why his wealth surges with any perceived Amazon good news. If Washington had an income tax, Bezos would pay a tax on this wealth only when he sold some of his stock. The increased value on these stock sales is referred to as a capital gain—a loftier and less taxable form of wealth than the meager hourly wage or salary most Americans receive.

In the last two years, Bezos has sold about $2.78 billon worth of Amazon stock, according to Nasdaq."

  No tax for me I'm Jeff Bezos

So-Called Locals: The Road to Corporate Taxation in Seattle


Over the past decade large capital flows --- frequently if not mostly of money laundering and speculation origin --- have poured into the Pacific Northwest, from Vancouver, Canada, to King County (Seattle), Washington, USA.

During the last mayoral election, candidate Cary Moon, along with Councilmember Lisa Herbold, raised the issue of external impacts on our local housing market. A logical critique, given reports by local realtors of a 70% unoccupied rate of recently purchased homes --- obviously not purchased to be lived in! The candidate for mayor who would later be elected, Jenny Durkan, along with other elected politicians, pushed back against any investigation into rampant real estate/housing speculation, citing that bugaboo of the political theater crowd, racism. (As Trump won the presidential election thanks to low voter turnout, an even lower voter turnout in Seattle --- at 37% of registered voters --- ensured Durkan's victory as mayor --- a sad day for the American electorate all around! Interestingly, they both won with around the same percentage of votes.)

When Gary Gensler was chief of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission during the Obama Administration, he instigated a study of futures trades, long claimed to be done for "hedging purposes," and found that over 90% were pure speculation trades, only done for quick profit and market manipulation. (Price setting, which occurs in the futures markets)

Although so-called pundits at Fox may refer to Seattle as a "socialist hellhole" --- Seattle has long been run as the personal fiefdom of the rich through their influential Community Devleopment Roundtable (with tenant rights having been essentially missing over the past century).

http://archive.seattleweekly.c...

https://www.thestranger.com/se...

Along with that rampant money laundering/speculative capital flows into local real estate (also involving private equity/leveraged buyouts of local apartment buildings, etc.), many financial/economic forces worked together to drive up housing prices: the destruction of local affordable housing, with the replacement of high-end condos and rentals, while local jobs were displaced in the corporate rush to offshore labor, leading to an extreme tightening of the housing market, further aggravated by the recent surge and influx of new Amazon employees.

The employment picture was exacerbated by Amazon's (and Bezos') destruction, both locally and nationally, of thousands of book and record stores in its march to be the One World Retail Corporation! Add to that the cited 50% first-year turnover rate for new hires at Amazon (for whatever myriad reasons???) and consequently one observes a general rise in rental rates. (I.e., both supply and demand --- and turnover --- drive up the rates as landlords typically jack up rental rates each time an apartment becomes vacant.)

With Amazon's traditional history of tax avoidance,

https://itep.org/amazon-inc-pa...

it is no surprise of their strong push back against the recent city council measure.

As cities in Canada (and throughout the Americas and Europe) have raised taxes on foreign purchases of local real estate, it is almost logical that Seattle would follow a similar trajectory.

An excellent recent financial article in the Epoch Times further explains how the banking system drives up housing prices.

https://www.theepochtimes.com/...

Beginning in the first year of the 21st century, Seattle's local chamber of commerce, togethe

Sydney Brownstone at The Stranger (Seattle "alt: weekly) did a whole slew of articles on this guy who actually used to work at The Stranger. The dude is also up on rape charges, and there's some question if the ladies claimed rape only after the fraud, and if that's legit.

http://www.thestranger.com/authors/20774260/sydney-brownstone

This is not the first time the Seattle Police have made forays into spying on the citizenry.

Bookies are basically assuming Clinton is going to win the nomination and have a 60%+ chance of winning. The only other possibility they give anything approaching a decent chance to is Trump who they think is half as likely to be President as she is.

I think Sanders is great, you clearly do, but that's no reason to be delusional. People who stand to lose a lot of money by getting this wrong and have a good track record are literally betting billions that you're wrong.

60 percent, you say?

Delusional you say?

That figure has been plummeting from ~90% since HRC fans started quoting bookie odds. Sanders has gone from not being able to fill a picnic table to filling stadiums. And that's what HRC fans don't seem to be recognizing - growth, in spite of the odds being stacked in favor of HRC by the DNC led by DWS.

DWS and HRC are surprised and shocked, and HRC doesn't seem to know what to do about Sanders. Indeed, she has /nothing/ to slam him with when it comes to negative ads. Nothing. At. All. For a candidate that needs to stop her opponent from gathering so much mindshare, this is extremely troubling, at best.

Even if you throw out the NH primary, NV and IA were not the coronations HRC, and everyone else in the DNC establishment, expected 6 month prior.

Hills is in deep shit. Peer pressure is big in caucuses and primaries are a completely different animal, because people change their voting behavior when they know others aren't watching them fill in the scan-tron sheet, and it's likely that NH wasn't a fluke.

To top this off, many women who are feminists, like my wife - a first wave feminist, find it offensive what Gloria Steinem said about women who don't support HRC. "I don't vote with my vagina" is what my wife and other feminists said in response. And millenials/third wave feminists don't owe a damn thing to first wavers either.

https://www.thestranger.com/bl...

HRC fans are going to need all the luck they can get.

--
BMO

This post has been brought to you by the TLAs DWS, HRC, DNC, and WTF.

Actually once you get to the nitroglycerin step you are squarely in the ATF's purview, since they regulate explosives. "ATF" is an anachronistic acronym; since 1970 agency's full actual name is "The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives".

But glycerin is a commonplace an innocuous chemical widely used in cosmetics and food; you can buy it by the barrel without raising any eyebrows. It makes no sense to reason that fats are under the purview of ATF because you can produce glycerin from it.

I tried to google the source of the grease story, and it appears that back in 2011 SCL asked for ATF's technical assistance in tracking down grease dumpers, but that the camera placements currently in question are for use in a current investigation by the Puget Sound Regional Crime Gun Task Force.

So no big mystery about why the ATF is tracking down grease dumpers, that's just a misreading of the evidence trail.

So for a change, family farms are actually more economically viable than large new upstart businesses operating as factory farms?

Depends on what you mean as "more economically viable." If a farmer is making $150,000 per year farming, but could be making $130,000 per year if he retired and rented his land out to a factory farming operation, is it really economically viable for him to remain a farmer? If he loves the job (like my father did) then more power to him. But in that case the farming is more of a hobby, while being a landlord (to himself) is his primary profession.

Factory farms make up for the low margins with scale. They don't make more money per acre than a family farmer other than through better practices their extra scale allows them to do. Like larger combine heads, computer driven tractors, better research into increasing crop yields, etc.

And, of course, federal farm subsidies, which are pretty generally understood at this point to be merely handouts to big business donors, rather than the safety net for the struggling family farms which form the foundation of our ability to feed ourselves as a nation.
But for those who do not know yet
"These subsidies do not, for the most part, go to help struggling family farmers. Instead, they reward the largest, most profitable agribusinesses." http://www.thestranger.com/ima...
Recipients of such subsidies have included such struggling farmers as Bruce Springsteen, Jon Bon Jovi, and Michele Bachmann.

Do you have high-speed internet? (I mean higher than slow-ass DSL)

If so, then don't worry, you're doing better than everyone who's getting this. They're in Seattle. Seattle has no high-speed internet.

So while these people might enjoy getting Amazon packages delivered to them in an hour, they're going to have a miserable time just browsing the Amazon website with ~128kbps DSL to make these purchases.

I live in a rather rural area currently (a very very small town) and I have very fast cable internet, and have no problems watching Netflix, something that people in Seattle simply cannot do.

F* Starbucks

Actually, the article by Dominic Holden about "apodments" that Reifman links to is quite interesting: discusses tiny ~250 ft apartments, the few valid problems they have, and the nimbyism against them that's gotten way out of proportion. Long, but worth a read.

http://www.thestranger.com/sea...

Meanwhile, on the other end of I-90 ....
http://www.thestranger.com/slo...

And local bars don't have live music anymore because local bands aren't allowed on the radio.

I don't know where you live, but in Seattle there are three *pages* of live shows for *today* [1] and five *pages* of live shows for *this weekend* [2]. Granted that is both for bars and larger venues, but the vast majority are small local bars.

As to local bands not allowed on the radio?! There are plenty of radio stations that cater to music lovers and absolutely do play local bands. One of several Seattle (again, I live here; I don't think Seattle is unique) is KEXP. They even have an article on how to get airplay on KEXP [3]. While it's a local station, I know many of their listeners are from beyond the city limits so getting airplay on such a local station can have wider-ranging effects for an up-and-coming band.

I guess what "local" bars offer depends on locale but generally higher-population areas sustain more arts. That's always been the case, though. Artists and patrons congregate.

[1] http://www.thestranger.com/gyr...
[2] http://www.thestranger.com/gyr...
[3] http://blog.kexp.org/2011/08/0...

And local bars don't have live music anymore because local bands aren't allowed on the radio.

I don't know where you live, but in Seattle there are three *pages* of live shows for *today* [1] and five *pages* of live shows for *this weekend* [2]. Granted that is both for bars and larger venues, but the vast majority are small local bars.

As to local bands not allowed on the radio?! There are plenty of radio stations that cater to music lovers and absolutely do play local bands. One of several Seattle (again, I live here; I don't think Seattle is unique) is KEXP. They even have an article on how to get airplay on KEXP [3]. While it's a local station, I know many of their listeners are from beyond the city limits so getting airplay on such a local station can have wider-ranging effects for an up-and-coming band.

I guess what "local" bars offer depends on locale but generally higher-population areas sustain more arts. That's always been the case, though. Artists and patrons congregate.

[1] http://www.thestranger.com/gyr...
[2] http://www.thestranger.com/gyr...
[3] http://blog.kexp.org/2011/08/0...

This outstanding article at Vice by Matt Stoller is well worth reading,

http://www.vice.com/read/aaron...


http://www.thestranger.com/sea...

Where's the posting which shows that Uber, which is bank-rolled against the small time (typically immigrant) taxi owner, is now coupled with ALEC ("the notoriously evil American Legislative Exchange Council" aka Koch brothers)?: http://slog.thestranger.com/sl...

This is way old news. Science won and the creationists lost. Quit harping on old stories.

I mean, if they used that second OS layer to track you, they'd be setting up inconspicous WiFi tracking cell stations in all major cities that literally know exactly who you are and where you are even when you think your cell phone is off.

Like those recently reported in Seattle on The Stranger.

Don't be paranoid.

By the way, I like your new shirt.

Stupendous comments, Good Citizen nimbius, and a more local posting,

http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/07/30/stop-and-frisk-for-local-environmentalists

.... the local American scene:

http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2013/07/30/stop-and-frisk-for-local-environmentalists

Really? So they don't insist on prays before meals? Are they still rather obnoxious about anyone who isn't straight? E.g. do they still refuse help to gay and lesbian couple? I bet they still lobby against marriage equality.

A couple of pages with further information:
The Bilerico Project - Why You Shouldn't Donate to the Salvation Army Bell Ringers
Don't Donate to the Salvation Army @ The Stranger

Illusionary because if you actually study the effect of gun ownership on personal safety (remember, your personal anecdotes do not data make) it does not make you safer:

http://edition.cnn.com/2012/07/30/opinion/frum-guns-safer/index.html
http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2012/12/17/guns-dont-make-you-safer

Also from spending the last few days on various US centric forums, it has become entirely clear to me that Americans are not actually interested in having a fact based discussion on this. The same places on the internet that will happily eviscerate the American right for its anti-scientific, fact ignoring stance on Global warming downvote/downmod comments that do little more than point out the facts on gun ownership.

Yes, this is true, unless you are black. In Seattle, WA, where I live, %8.5 of the population is African American but before legalization blacks make up %35 of pot possesion busts despite the fact that black people smoke less weed than white people. This is why legalization is important; not because of allocation of reasources or strained guvernmental budgets but because possesion is a flimsy excuse to arrest and prosecute people of color. Here is an excellent article on the subject.

Well, here's one bad review. Admittedly, it is 100% about the name of the tablet.

http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2012/11/19/the-truth-about-hostess

http://middlebororeview.blogspot.com/2012/11/the-truth-about-hostess.html

Part dumb repetition of cultural mythology, perhaps, but part truth. When I lived in Portland, Oregon, it was widely acknowledged that the city was a hub for the "sexual exploitation of children." Runaways, kidnapping victims, and so on being forced into prostitution. A one second google search produced this glob. Half the statistics in the jpeg are debatable or uninteresting (men pay for sex!), but some of them are pretty clear. Sex trafficking happens and it is absolutely correlated with poverty.

But I do want to clarify something. You're talking about sex worker advocacy and essentially my points are about human trafficking, and one of the major impediments to discussion or reform is that they both fall under the legal definition of "prostitution." I'm not down on sex workers. I think it's ridiculous that a professional dom, for instance, would be subject to the same laws that are used to prosecute people who perpetrate actual violence. But I stand by the assertion that it is dangerous to assume that anyone selling themselves has chosento do so, as though coercion, violence, and exploitation of women aren't somehow part of the picture too. This is all part of a more nuanced conversation that exceeds the depth of the GGP's post to which I originally replied, and I'm not inclined to take it further. "Don't let them get an education, don't let them have men's jobs, don't let them vote, don't let them sell themselves." If only it were that simple.

http://www.thestranger.com/binary/02ba/1337178666-greoigre_friedman.jpg

How much is Microsoft making off every Android phone again?

Isn't Microsoft making money off of only *SOME* Android phones, from some specific makers that are willingly paying them? (Since they were unwilling to battle it out in court if necessary.)

http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2011/10/24/half-of-android-makers-now-pay-tribute-to-microsoft "Half of Android Makers Now Pay Tribute to Microsoft" in October 2011. Since Samsung, HTC and LG are among them that's sure to be more than half of the phones, too.

The Japanese version made out of sewage, was, in fact a hoax.

The origin of the term 'Santorum'. From Dan Savage's "Savage Love" article May of 2003.

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/SavageLove?oid=14422

I encourage /.ers to read this, and note that it was created almost *NINE YEARS AGO* before calling out Savage for bashing a presidential candidate or calling Savage the bully.

SpreadingSantorum predates It Gets Better, so this doesn't look like a causal link.

I don't think Google should do anything at all. Why should Santorum get special treatment? The already provide SafeSearch, and TFA proposes setting it to "strict" if you don't want to get results like this.

See also: Dan Savage on this.

I.e. it was a homophobic assumption to make.

No it was overwhelmingly the right choice. Also noone is going to take away your liberal card if you make reasonable assumption (read reply to ALIY).

Not just zero, Boeing has a negative federal tax rate (which hopefully rounds up to zero tax at least, rather than a "refund"): http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2011/06/03/boeing-asks-congress-to-lower-corporate-tax-rates-after-paying-no-corporate-taxes-for-three-years

This wasn't a story about the ability to build computers or other electronics. This car analogy is not a comparison of two similar themes. You're making an analogy between users who don't notice RAM that's suddenly missing (requires basic technical knowledge) and the mechanical skill it takes to rebuild a modern car engine (requires advanced mechanical and technical knowledge). That isn't instructive or edifying; it's misleading though it's an easy mistake to make.

I'd answer it by saying I wouldn't know how to rebuild my car's engine, but if a repair shop removed it and replaced it with a significantly inferior engine without telling me, I would notice. I think that's a fair analogy to removing a stick of RAM.

Really? I wouldn't know for a second if they dropped in an older engine or a slightly smaller one. More to the point, it wouldn't even occur to me to look. If it were significantly inferior, fine, I would notice, but that's not an appropriate analogy. I wouldn't call 2 GB significantly inferior to 3 GB if you're not doing a lot of RAM intensive stuff. Hell, I only run into paging problems on my work computer when I have large Inventor assemblies open with a few tabs of Firefox, etc.

I wouldn't notice if they changed my oil, but used a cheaper grade than what I asked for. In the computer world, you can get different brands, speeds, and quality RAM. Hell, I don't even know where to find the speed of the RAM on this old PowerBook G4 besides looking on the actual stick.

I do think you're absolutely right about the ethics bit. It reminds me of the Ron Paul schtick about heroine. Good people wouldn't do bad things even if there were no rules prohibiting them.

http://www.thestranger.com/seattle/obsessed-with-jacob/Content?oid=7560624

that would be an ex-gay man against freedom.

You'll only encourage them by censoring shit. A constructive response to islamic protects against depicting Mohammed would be depicting Mohammed eating pig feces. :)

Dan Savage declared it everybody draw mohammed day

If you read statements she has made (in The Seattle Times, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, The Stranger, Crosscut, etc.), Sen. Prentice comes across as a moron (IQ below 69).

There were certainly large holes in the prosecution's argument, and their random character assassination tactics were pretty underhanded, but the evidence that she was at least present at the murder is rather strong. (Click 'more' to read it all.)

Genetic analysis revealed that 'Inuk' was stocky, possibly with a receding hairline, had a cold-adapted metabolism, A+ blood type, and possibly a rather bad haircut.

So... comic book guy?

The cold blood must be a genetic adaptation from years of basement dwelling.

The crackdown on BD/SM websites started in late 2005. It's the same reason that Insex stopped producing clips. See also the following articles:
BD/SM Internet Sites Under Attack
Tortured Logic

According to the guy's blog, their security guards were hassling him for his name right along with the Loomis rent-a-cops. What they should have done is tell the Loomis people to stop harassing their customers and either get back to work or leave.

According to a local newspaper, he also was forced to sign a trespass notice. REI denies they asked for that form to be signed. The form itself says differently. So either the police or REI are lying about that.

Either way, REI did not do the right thing here.

The Seattle-area city and county governments do the same thing. It is fairly popular up here.

Due to Washington State's somewhat draconian Liquor Control Board, all bars have kitchens here. You can't get a license to serve alcohol in Washington State unless you also serve "full meals" which are prepared on the premises.

    Some local bars are in trouble for skirting the rules by serving overpriced TV dinners that no one orders; most simply have a small grill and deep fryer to make burgers and jalapeño poppers. A few even just serve microwaved chicken wings, which probably wouldn't be enough if the L.C.B. wanted to challenge their liquor permits.

So the big deal wouldn't be adding a kitchen, the big deal would be removing the bar/taps, and the associated renovation of the dining area. As well as a near-total change of staffing.

You mean like this? http://slog.thestranger.com/files/2007/10/483225120_62bbc45b36_m.jpg Not sure how much more of a flaming skull you can get. ;)

What you just described is already taken care of with laws against inciting riots.

As usual in life things are not that black and white as you point them out.

For example: Denying the holocaust, which is illegal in a lot, if not in most European countries, may not incite violence per se, it arguably does construct the basis from which it's but a small step into violence and acting out towards a minority.

Personally, as an European, I have mixed feelings on the issue. In principal I believe, that dick headed arguments should be argued on their lack of merits. Given European history however such laws are not only understandable, I even go so far to support them, alas reluctantly.

It seems that here's an irreconcilable difference in perspective between Americans and Europeans. While Americans may believe that free speech is almost absolute, they also seem to believe in the right to legislate morality. For example: I can freely buy a dildo in Düsseldorf, while according to the state attorney you should not be allowed to buy one in Texas. In Texas you can also be sent to the slammer for four years for the possession of 15 XTC tablets. A substance, which is not even classified as a hard drug here around.

Personally I prefer from being prohibited to deny a genocide publicly. But your perspective may vary, of course.

It's easier to get a damn cell phone than it is to get clean water.

Sorry, but I'll be busy cleaning the bathroom.

I recall this case where two Florida teens were prosecuted for producing child porn by privately videotaping themselves engaging in "unspecified sexual behavior"; note that the sex itself was perfectly legal.

If only laws prevented that! Surely eugenics is the answer, or perhaps some other form of law to keep the higher-quality people from those lower-quality ones.

They're going to spend the rest of their miserable, worthless lives on welfare, no doubt failing to raise their bastard kids properly.

Who are you to say that their lives will be miserable and worthless? To those living them, perhaps their lives are rich and provide emotional sustenance, or seem worthy and interesting. It is dangerous to try and judge someone from the outside, and if you hold the rest of humanity in such low regard, perhaps you should think about what is happening in your own life that you castigate others as you do.

Robertson Davies sometimes writes about such people who are left behind by time or technology or society, and writes about them with great sympathy. In The Cunning Man a doctor treats patients with more than just science, and in Conversation with Robertson Davies this exchange occurs:

Cameron: Don't those novels show a fairly strong current of sympathy for some aspects of that [cultural] tradition?

Davies: It is sympathy for the people -- not, I think the tradition -- because they are people. They're not caricatures, they're not oddities, they're not cardboard. They bleed when you stick them and they weep when they are miserable, and their sorrows and their distresses are made sometimes more poignant by the fact that they don't know why things are happening to them.

I will lament that my penis has by then received so little use.

Most women, I suspect, would choose a carefree bad boy over an angry, uptight Republican with a chip on his shoulder; Dan Savage makes a similar point in some of his columns. If you think ignorant fools can get laid so easily but someone as perspicacious as you wants to and can't, who is smart?