State Senator Craig Pridemore and State Representative, Jim Moeller were arrayed behind Washington Governor Chris Gregoire when she signed the bill approving tolls on the Columbia River Crossing.


No word on when the tolls start or how much they’ll be. However there some really interesting stuff in this bill. For one thing they put a “cap” on the CRC of $3.4 billion. There’s no way that will happen because the CRC is already estimated to cost more than $10 billion.





Then a curious thing on the last six or seven pages. The bill goes into where the money from the tolls WON’T go. Here are just a few places where the tolling money won’t go: 

Monthly, the state treasurer shall distribute the earnings
13 credited to the treasury income account. The state treasurer shall
14 credit the general fund with all the earnings credited to the treasury
15 income account except:
16 (a) The following accounts and funds shall receive their
17 proportionate share of earnings based upon each account’s and fund’s
18 average daily balance for the period: The aeronautics account, the
19 aircraft search and rescue account, the budget stabilization account,
20 the capital vessel replacement account, the capitol building
21 construction account, the Cedar River channel construction and
22 operation account, the Central Washington University capital projects
23 account, the charitable, educational, penal and reformatory
24 institutions account, the cleanup settlement account, the Columbia
25 river basin water supply development account, the Columbia river basin
26 taxable bond water supply development account, the Columbia river basin
27 water supply revenue recovery account, the Columbia river crossing
28 project account,

I have no idea at this point why the toll money for the CRC wouldn’t go into the COLUMBIA RIVER CROSS PROJECT ACCOUNT. 

Here’s a thought. Why not spend time in the bill saying WHERE THE MONEY WILL GO? Sounds easier.

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Photo Credit Animal Species

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The WSJ has it here:

Tokyo’s move is striking because its political class has long behaved as if tax rates don’t matter, and the government is wrestling with the need to finance a typically large budget deficit and an aging population. But in 2010 politicians had a radical idea: Cutting the corporate profits tax would boost economic activity and lead to higher revenues.
The government approved an overall five percentage-point cut, which was delayed by last year’s earthquake and tsunami. But the first installment arrives April 1 and in three years the rate will drop another 2.3 percentage points to 34.5%.

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He’s asking a simple question CRC acolytes over at Couv.com:

Any project should be able to stand on its own merits without understating the cost and overstating the benefits.
Don’t the citizens deserve to know the truth?

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CO2 is a wonderful substance. We expel it when we humans breathe. Plants take it in and use it to grow, but global warming alarmists say it’s also responsible for man’s part of global warming.  And now… now… it’s making you fat.

In what looks like a last gasp attempt to depict CO2 as an inherent evil, a Danish researcher says the gas is responsible for people being fat.

When he looked around for other factors, he saw how the CO2 concentration of the atmosphere had also increased in correlation to the weight gain.

Fight the flab: The effect of CO2 on our hormones may lie at the root of the problem

He now proposed that orexins, a type of hormone which reside in the brain and stimulate wakefulness and energy expenditure, may be affected by CO2.
The hormones regulate when we go to bed, as well as the stimulation of food intake.
Hersoug also suggests as evidence that obesity increases in the U.S. happened fastest in the period 1986-2010 on the East Coast, which is where CO2 concentrations are highest

Now I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, Victoria, I thought you laughed your way through this story on the program yesterday. Laugh I certainly did. My thinking was, ‘what these people won’t do to try to prove the evilness of CO2. Now the link has been made between the left’s obsession with “man made global warming” and being “fat.” Now if they can just work in anti smoking messages and trans fats we’re REALLY talking!

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State Senator Craig Pridemore and State Representative, Jim Moeller were arrayed behind Washington Governor Chris Gregoire when she signed the bill approving tolls on the Columbia River Crossing.


No word on when the tolls start or how much they’ll be. However there some really interesting stuff in this bill. For one thing they put a “cap” on the CRC of $3.4 billion. There’s no way that will happen because the CRC is already estimated to cost more than $10 billion.





Then a curious thing on the last six or seven pages. The bill goes into where the money from the tolls WON’T go. Here are just a few places where the tolling money won’t go: 

Monthly, the state treasurer shall distribute the earnings
13 credited to the treasury income account. The state treasurer shall
14 credit the general fund with all the earnings credited to the treasury
15 income account except:
16 (a) The following accounts and funds shall receive their
17 proportionate share of earnings based upon each account’s and fund’s
18 average daily balance for the period: The aeronautics account, the
19 aircraft search and rescue account, the budget stabilization account,
20 the capital vessel replacement account, the capitol building
21 construction account, the Cedar River channel construction and
22 operation account, the Central Washington University capital projects
23 account, the charitable, educational, penal and reformatory
24 institutions account, the cleanup settlement account, the Columbia
25 river basin water supply development account, the Columbia river basin
26 taxable bond water supply development account, the Columbia river basin
27 water supply revenue recovery account, the Columbia river crossing
28 project account,

I have no idea at this point why the toll money for the CRC wouldn’t go into the COLUMBIA RIVER CROSS PROJECT ACCOUNT. 

Here’s a thought. Why not spend time in the bill saying WHERE THE MONEY WILL GO? Sounds easier.

Follow

UPDATE AT BOTTOM
H/T Jim Romanesko for this tidbit.

Oregonian editor Kathleen Glanville has been fired for covering up the details of the death of Bob Caldwell, editorial page editor. See my previous posts here and here.  Glanville made the announcement on her facebook page.

Glanville is friends with the Caldwells and wanted to spare his widow public humiliation. Caldwell died in the bed of a 23 year old prostitute.

The Oregonian’s initial story reported Caldwell was found dead on Saturday alone in his car. That story was far from the truth. In fact, Caldwell was in the bed of a 23 year old woman with whom he’d been having sex  according to later stories.

The word is that a local TV station discovered the real story on Caldwell and told folks at the Zero they were going with it and would give them about two seconds to change it. That doesn’t pass the smell test. The Oregonian denies it. However, what does make sense is that the TV station called for a comment and the Zero went into emergency mode and came clean on the story.

Glanville says she understands why she was fired. Now if only someone had been fired on the Goldschmidt and Wu stories…

**UPDATED WITH REPLY FROM VICE PRESIDENT AND EDITOR OF THE OREGONIAN, PETER BHATIA:

The “misinformation” came from editor who was fired. Read about that here.

     The erroneous report, as we said at the time, did come from a family friend, one of more than 30 years with the Caldwells, but one who was also a staff member. 

    There was no reason or sign that Caldwell’s death was anything other than routine. He had a DUII in his past (which we didn’t report at the time — true, also my call), but nothing else. And, even though journalists are trained skeptics always ready to ask the next question, none of us could have imagined a fellow journalist not telling us the truth.

    Frankly, this was a no-win choice. If we went with the story, we would be criticized for besmirching a good man and further hurting his family. If we held the details back, we would be accused of a cover-up.

    The notion of a cover-up is ridiculous, since we broke the news that was in the police report in the first place.

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The WSJ has it here:

Tokyo’s move is striking because its political class has long behaved as if tax rates don’t matter, and the government is wrestling with the need to finance a typically large budget deficit and an aging population. But in 2010 politicians had a radical idea: Cutting the corporate profits tax would boost economic activity and lead to higher revenues.
The government approved an overall five percentage-point cut, which was delayed by last year’s earthquake and tsunami. But the first installment arrives April 1 and in three years the rate will drop another 2.3 percentage points to 34.5%.

Follow

He’s asking a simple question CRC acolytes over at Couv.com:

Any project should be able to stand on its own merits without understating the cost and overstating the benefits.
Don’t the citizens deserve to know the truth?

Follow

CO2 is a wonderful substance. We expel it when we humans breathe. Plants take it in and use it to grow, but global warming alarmists say it’s also responsible for man’s part of global warming.  And now… now… it’s making you fat.

In what looks like a last gasp attempt to depict CO2 as an inherent evil, a Danish researcher says the gas is responsible for people being fat.

When he looked around for other factors, he saw how the CO2 concentration of the atmosphere had also increased in correlation to the weight gain.

Fight the flab: The effect of CO2 on our hormones may lie at the root of the problem

He now proposed that orexins, a type of hormone which reside in the brain and stimulate wakefulness and energy expenditure, may be affected by CO2.
The hormones regulate when we go to bed, as well as the stimulation of food intake.
Hersoug also suggests as evidence that obesity increases in the U.S. happened fastest in the period 1986-2010 on the East Coast, which is where CO2 concentrations are highest

Now I know what you’re thinking. You’re thinking, Victoria, I thought you laughed your way through this story on the program yesterday. Laugh I certainly did. My thinking was, ‘what these people won’t do to try to prove the evilness of CO2. Now the link has been made between the left’s obsession with “man made global warming” and being “fat.” Now if they can just work in anti smoking messages and trans fats we’re REALLY talking!

Follow