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Monday, August 22, 2011

Why Economic Planning and Economic Growth Matters

Crime Statistics for a small part of Oakland Ca (centered from our previous home) for the last month (July 22nd - August 22nd) from Oakland Crime Spotting:


There is a dangerous statistical analysis being propagated around the press based on some obviously fallacious presumptuous numbers which claims to show that crime rates (violent or otherwise) are headed down across the country for some number of years in spite of an unrelenting economic downturn.  Nominally, it could be the case that crime statistics can be shown to be falling. But no matter what those numbers say, the hard truth is they may not be very useful to understand our county or our country's economic future. I will explain.

Friday, August 19, 2011

Whither the anti Coal Terminal voters?

Most of the Whatcom County Executive votes are in. It appears Bellingham voters will have a choice only between two men who favor the development  of the GPT Coal Port at Cherry Point. Just for kicks I analyzed how many precincts had votes whose sum total for David Stallheim plus Tom Anderson exceeded Doug Erickson's total. That number is 54 precincts. Here are the top ten precincts where the combined votes of Stallheim and Anderson exceeded Ericksen for each precinct:


Sunday, August 14, 2011

On Tuesday, we vote...(Primary Election)

On Tuesday, we vote.  Here are some still valid links to Voter Registration information from last year's election.  Here are the websites of the Bellingham Mayoral Candidates:
Here are the websites of the Whatcom County Executive candidates:

All I can say about this primary and the upcoming general election  is that the "make or break" issue will obviously be whether or not we want up to 25 miles of coal trains running through our city and county for the rest of  our lives. Strangely, almost no candidate features this issue on the front page of their websites. The second most important issue ought to be whether or not we want red light cameras strung up all over our town. Again, not well featured on any candidate website. 

Thursday, August 4, 2011

Building Roads without Permits?

This is the King 5 video (from Monday) on the controversy created by Carl Weimer's discovery of extensive road building efforts at the Gateway Pacific Terminal site by SSA Marine:


This issue is getting lots of local discussion (1,2,3,4,5,6).  Is building roads without permits a classic expression of the lawlessness and arrogance of "The Carbon Club"?  Something akin, perhaps, to shipping coal without covered train cars? Or maybe creating global climate change while simultaneously denying it? Or maybe funding reactionary political movements in the United States? Or lobbying for genocidal, imperialist wars in the Middle East? Tonight, I registered nocoaltrains.blogspot.com. More coming soon...