Made to order monorail finance

This Seattle Times report on the monorail's revision of its revenue forecast (via Shark Blog, requires registration), reminds me of something my grandfather wrote about "made to order finance." He points out that it is easy for any venture to show a profit or meet a budget if it uses unrealistic projections. In my experience, you don't even have to distort the numbers all that much, just a few percent here or there, to make a losing scenario appear to be a winning one. This is why the best money managers are careful and conservative (in the non-political sense) -- they know that wishing doesn't make something so. The monorail authority owes Seattle a projection based on those principles, and it will be much better for them to give us bad news now while they have the city's goodwill than later when they might have lost it through revenue shortfalls.

Mossback vs. McDermott

Knute Berger calls Jim McDermott's comments on KIRO-AM "nuttier than a tin of Almond Roca" and says it "solidifies McDermott as a marginal congressional character."

Power of connectedness

The Iranian blogger Sina Motellebi is free and is blogging again (via Instapundit). He was imprisoned earlier this year for his writings, but now has escaped Iran so is free to write.

The details of his saga can be found at BuzzMachine. But I find even more fascinating the story of how Jeff Jarvis' blogging about Sina's arrest became the first link in a chain of events leading to Zeyad scooping the major media.

Republican talent pool

To follow up on yesterday's comments about replacing Jim McDermott, the basic problem is that he has no credible Republican opponents. This allows him to pander to his base on the far left and never be held accountable. There are no elected Republicans in Seattle (if there are any in non-partisan positions, they are keeping a low profile).

The partisan races in the city that make good feeders for congress are for state representative and county council. In 2003, none of the county council races were contested. In 2002, about half of the legislative ones were.

So the party needs more candidates. Where to find them? The most credible candidates will be engaged in the community and be known to their constituents before running, so that they can build an organization and use their connections to overcome the inertia that keeps most people voting Democratic. This implies that Republicans recruit from the community councils, chambers of commerce and local charities.

However in my four years of activity with those groups, I have not met an avowed Republican. I suspect a few people, especially the ones who rolled their eyes when one member of the Ballard District Council suggested the city council should impose a "maximum wage." But I don't know for sure.

By contrast, the Democrats and Greens are well represented. Several BDC delegates are Democratic precinct leaders. Both the 36th district Democrats and Greens sit on the council.

So what to do? I suggest that a small number of Republicans working together could raise the profile of the party greatly. If a couple of dozen joined local community councils in a legislative district and the district party established membership on the district councils, after two years they would have legitimacy and great influence in processes of neighborhood government. It would take that long: the first year they would learn the rhythms of the councils and the second they would begin to enter positions of influence. By the end, there would exist a group of activists well known to the community, able to capture publicity from the local papers, and able to organize around a candidate. That might just tip a few elections to the Republicans.

No Stan Lippmann

Just to be clear, I was joking about voting for Stan Lippmann. :-)

I should always carry a camera

If I did, I would have been able to capture a priceless picture yesterday. Every Sunday for the past year, protesters gather between 2 and 3 pm on the eastern side of Greenlake near 64th Ave N. For the first six months, they were protesting the impending Iraq war -- reasonable enough. They usually turned out thirty people, even in bad weather. After the war, they had a harder time of it, as their main issue was gone. Much harder to get people out to protest a war that already happened -- would say the average was about eight demonstrators.

But yesterday was the nadir. The announcement of Saddam's capture must have taken the fight out of them. At 2:50pm when I passed by only three protesters were there with a large "Impeach Bush" sign. They looked pretty grim, standing sullenly and not even trying to engage passing motorists.

What gave me the greatest hope was that no young people had turned out. (By young, I mean not collecting Social Security.) The future of Seattle is support for democracy for the Arab world, not a nostalia for an impossible socialist utopia.

Time for Jim McDermott to go

Congressman Jim McDermott keeps going over the line. Before the Iraq war he visited Baghdad and met with Iraqi officials. Now he is accusing the administration of delaying the capture of Saddam Hussein for political purposes. Democrats and Republicans have both jumped to criticize him for he remarks, which came on a local radio station.

McDermott is an embarrassment to the city. That fact that he continues to be reelected by large margins give the impression that the whole electorate agrees with his extreme positions on foreign policy. I suspect that the real reason he enjoys the success he does is that the Republican party in the city is basically non-existent, and that Democratic courtesy keeps him from having a primary opponent. If either of those changed he could be levered out of power relatively easily. I suggest one of the defeated city councilwomen, say Heidi Wills, take him on next year. She would get my vote -- to unseat McDermott I might even vote for Stan Lippmann.

Seattle Times reports demos

Stefan Sharkansky notes that the Seattle Times is reporting on the Iraqi anti-terror marches, while the Seattle PI is not.

Anti-terror Demonstrations

Zeyad reports on anti-terrorism demonstrations in Baghdad (via Tim Blair). A few weeks ago the Iraqi interim government designated December 10th as a day for demonstrations against terrorists, Baathists and others who would prevent the formation of a civil society in Iraq. Omar has a list of parties participating. A very diverse set of groups: Arabs, Kurds, Turkomen, Assyrians, Communists, democrats, human rights workers, women's advocates, farmers, doctors, etc. Participation was estimated at 10,000 in Baghdad, with other smaller marches in other parts of the country.

I have yet to see mention of this in the mainstream US press, although I expect an anti-American march of similar size would be headline news.

I tried to convince a few coworkers to form a sympathy demonstration for this morning, but none would take part. There is a linkage between America's safety and the success of democracy formation in Iraq. Demonstrating here and communicating that to Iraqis through blogs is one way we can show them that the US public supports creation of a free society in Iraq and that we will remain until this is accomplished. The next time a sympathy demo is called for, I'll be more persistant in forming one.

Heads down

I've been heads down at work and haven't had time to post for the past couple of days. This will probably be the pattern for the next couple of weeks: very busy early in the week and then time to post in the second half. The holiday season is the busiest time of year at Amazon, where I work, and I'm spending my days contributing to "customer ecstasy." Please bare with me as posts come erratically until Christmas.

Whittier Heights updates

More stuff going on in Whittier Heights: save the Baker Park totem pole, and monorail board member Cindi Laws will be at the next meeting.