Too Much Meth

ETS!,

Matt Asher's anarko rap was very Romantic, in fact it won me over. You won't find me signing any more social contracts except at the welfare office. Political power comes from the barrel of a gun and what more political theory do you need? We're gonna vote with our bullets. Are we going to sit by and let the GOVERNMENT decide which drug cartel to buy our crack from?! Hell NO, were gonna grow our own, just as soon as we finish dumping a 50 gallon drum of LSD into the reservoir (boy the fish are gonna love that!) Live free or die, that's what we say, so wake up.

--Max Stirner, Seattle

Why DID We Hire Them?

Dear unStatists,

Good work on the latest issue, including the oh-so-appetizing cover artwork. Billions and billions...

The explanation of the overheated casino economy of Wall Street just might be the shortest, most cogent essay on modern economy yet published. Thanks for the reminder of just how screwy things get.

On the local side, does anyone know why the city council and our dear departing mayor got so publicly hot and bothered about the failure of the emergency medical services levy? Did they really write a budget by assuming a levy would pass, and not write an alternative? (If so, why did we hire them?) Is that all, or is there more to the story? Inquiring minds want to know (preferably, without doing the spade-work themselves)!

Plop plop fizz fizz,

--Tensor@speakeasy.org

M.T. replies: The emergency medical services levy was a King County proposition, not a city one--it's easy to get confused about which government (city or county) has jurisdiction over which services. Emergency services are provided on a county-wide basis, so the county council got this one. But, yeah, our bright, head-in-the clouds politicians all thought it would pass no problem--just like they figured the Monorail initiative would fail. Hah! Those suckers! We oughta fire them.

But the main reason why the EMS levy failed is because emergency services are supposed to be paid for out of the general fund, and this is the first time people have been asked to approve a property tax increase for such a basic service. See my article above on bond issues and "austerity measures," for a more detailed explanation.

Greetings From Montana

ETS!,

And we're off. Actually, we're already 17 hours into the journey. We began at 7:30pm, when Dave and I left from Bellevue. Before long we hit the passes. Snow drifted at us like stars in a "warp speed" sequence; thick, white flakes that began to stick at higher altitudes. We slogged along at 35, sometimes 45 mph. At a truck stop, we ran into one of Dave's old friends, a guy he hadn't seen in 6 years. The guy and his brother were truckin', haulin' ass in a big rig. The brother looked like the Skoal type, before years behind the wheel softened his square-jaw looks and padded his body. Things leveled off as we entered Montana, and we rode the plateau across the Rockies. Snow turned slowly to rain which dissipated as the sun began to rise. The countryside of western Montana was littered with short peaks. The road wound through a kind of valley, with abbreviated mountains like the tops of jagged Cascades, lopped off several-hundred feet from the top, then placed on the rolling hills. They were brown green, scarred with patches of white and gray. Dave almost got us killed. A semi was passing a milk truck while Dave passed it. The driver realized we were passing just as Dave realized we shouldn't be. We slowed and the semi-driver slammed on his brakes, skidded for a moment and sent a shower of rocks at us. No harm done, although we pissed off the trucker and acquired a couple small chips to the windshield. Another tense moment came when Dave spotted a huge tumbleweed in our lane. He swerved quick to avoid it, before realizing it was harmless. After that I drove for a while and Dave slept in the back. Montana is huge; at least there's no speed limit during the day. I kept the cruise control locked at 87 mph.

--Matt Asher, Mile 1030