I practically live surrounded by water. Last week I shared a picture of the lake just south of my house. Puget Sound is just a few miles to the west, and Lake Washington is to the East and South. Back in 2016, we went on a cruise to Alaska, and I posted numerous photos of the various waters we traversed. My favorite part of a cruise has always been relaxing on my verandah, just watching and listening to the water go by. There is no better form of relaxation. And this summer, we will be going on a two-week cruise, round trip to Hawaii from San Francisco. I promise to to a big post when we get back.
But I always keep coming back to this particular photo that I took on the Crystal Serenity in 2016. This is the water in one of the two swimming pools on board. It just says “relaxing” to me.
Just when you think it can’t get any weirder, it gets weirder. Welcome to the city that values homeless people who contribute little to society except dirty needles, trash, and feces on the street; more than it values the companies who provide high-wage jobs to thousands of its tax-paying citizens.
The city council passed the “Amazon Tax” (socialist council-person Kshama Sawant’s own words), at a somewhat lower rate than they had been discussing. This tax will affect not only Amazon, but hundreds of other businesses that call Seattle home, like Starbucks, Nordstrom, Alaska Airlines, Bartell Drugs, and more. The reaction from those companies has been understandably negative.
I had to drive downtown today to visit family, and the James Street exit from I-5 is a mass of homeless tents and piles of trash. I was appalled! Just today, there is a news story about a homeless man raping a woman in a car dealer’s restroom.
And the city has noted that, even if the tax does bring in some money, those homeless people are NOT required to accept help!! So the city can hire all those expensive social workers, and their salaries will be partly wasted on people who prefer to live on the streets (at YOUR expense). Oh, and those social workers will be drawing nice salaries and pensions, paid for by the long-suffering taxpayers of Seattle.
I try to stay out of Seattle as much as I can, and this is why. The city is getting totally disgusting, punishing the golden-goose companies who make it a place people want to live, and rewarding street bums. The people who run Seattle should be forced to live where they work, and walk down the trash-filled streets every single day, to see the results of their misguided policies. Personally, I hope Amazon picks up and leaves the city-what do you think Seattle will do with empty Amazon Spheres when Amazon is gone? I hope Bartell Drug closes all their Seattle stores, and Russell Investments goes back to Tacoma where the business conditions are friendlier.
Oh, and here’s another choice Seattle story. It seems that the socialists of Seattle vowed to move all their business away from Wells Fargo Bank, due to all the recent bad news there. So they prepared a bid package and sent it out to all the local big banks, asking who wanted to take over Seattle’s banking business. And what do you think they received in return? A big, fat ZERO! It seems that NO big bank wanted to have Seattle’s bank accounts! That just made me laugh out loud! So now, Seattle has to go crawling back to Wells Fargo, saying “Never mind, we’ll stay”! Serves them right. Thanks to ShiftWA for that choice story.
And what is “Jerusalem Day“, you ask? It is a holiday in the State of Israel, celebrating the 51st anniversary of the Jewish Liberation of Jerusalem, uniting it as one city, the GREATEST City, in the State of Israel. And our President Donald Trump has given the Jewish people of Israel another great gift this year-the recognition of Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, deciding to finally move the US Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.
In 2007, my husband and I went on a trip to Israel with Michael Medved and his family, where we toured most of the country. Aside from the very hot weather in July, the trip was wonderful, and very enlightening. Here are some of the pictures I took on that trip.
The Western (or Wailing) Wall, a remnant of the Second Temple, destroyed by the Romans in 70 CE.
A street in the Armenian Quarter of Old City Jerusalem. There are many of these back streets, not normally visited by tourists, that really have character.
The view from the Old City Wall. Can you see the cat?
The Jaffa Gate.
The view from our hotel room.
And here are a couple of pictures from other places we visited in Israel.
Painted Door, Safed, Israel
Just looking at this painted garage door in Safed makes me smile. It’s a Klezmer band.
Walls and room, Masada, Israel
We spent an afternoon walking through the ruins at Masada, where a band of Jewish fighters and their families committed suicide rather than be conquered by the Romans. All through our existence, over 4,000 years, we Jews have had to fight for our freedom-for our very existence.
This Jerusalem Day celebrates a huge victory for Jewish Freedom.
**But this victory will not be final until the Muslims are forced to relinquish their immoral control over the Temple Mount. This was a major error, and needs to be rectified now, and not later.
I was born and raised, and still live, in the Puget Sound area of Washington State, 20 miles north of the People’s Republic (?) of Seattle. These photos were all taken within a 60-mile radius of home.
Silver Lake, about two miles south of my house in Everett.
Leafy glade with bench, Seattle Japanese GardenDriftwood on the beach at Dungeness Spit
I don’t think there’s any more beautiful place in the world to live. This is my place, where I belong.
Just this weekend, we get news of the behavior of two political actors, one from each party. Both of them deserve censure, and one of them needs to be perp-walked, and placed in handcuffs, then brought before a judge to answer for his treasonous acts. You know all about the “Iran Nuclear Deal”, negotiated in secret by the Obama Administration, and never brought before the Senate for its consent (which is a requirement in the US Constitution). Yes, that was the one where the Obama henchmen sent a full pallet of Cash to Iran. That would be Your Money! Due to that illegal non-treaty, sanctions were removed from the world’s greatest sponsor of terrorism, and many countries and businesses initiated new contracts.
However, President Donald Trump has stated many times that he thinks this non-treaty was a big mistake, and he intends to get the US out of it. Of course, that started the multiple cases of hand-wringing and gnashing of teeth in Europe and among the denizens of the Swamp in DC. Prime Minister of Israel Benjamin Netanyahu last week publicized a plethora of new documents obtained from Iran that show unequivocally that the country has been cheating on that “agreement” from the very beginning, and continuing its pursuit of nuclear weapons. We now learn that FORMER Secretary of State John Kerry has been pursuing “shadow diplomacy” with Iran, to try to keep that illegal agreement in place. Now, I don’t know of any agreement with the Trump administration for him to even travel to Iran, much less do ANY type of diplomacy! This behavior is demonstrably illegal, and Kerry needs to be stopped and charged immediately. Sigh, that probably won’t happen.
And then, we have the behavior of ostensible Republican Senator John McCain. He is suffering from an inoperable brain tumor, but instead of graciously retiring from the Senate, he has stayed on, making a fool of himself, and destroying any goodwill that we may have had for him. Yes, he is to be pitied for his health issues, and admired for his survival of torture from the North Vietnamese (50 years ago!). But when he insults his VP Candidate Sarah Palin, and announces that none other than Barack Obama will deliver the eulogy at his funeral, he puts himself beyond the pale. This is deplorable behavior, and totally reduces his standing in the minds of all Republicans. And all so he can get his revenge against President Trump. This is just pitiful, and diminishes HIM, but not President Trump. Maybe before he dies, he should become a Democrat.
Most of you have heard of the new “Head Tax” Seattle is about to enact to hit business in the city. They are about to approve charging big companies up to $500 per employee per year, in order to pay for more services for the increasing numbers of homeless people in the city (maybe brought here by the services offered?). Well, as reported in a very good article on the KOMO News Web site, Amazon has called Seattle’s bluff. They have put a halt to many of the construction projects they have going downtown, and held off on leasing more office space.
Some of the remarks of Seattle City Council members are positively disgusting. These people are dead set on killing the “golden goose” who has been a pretty good corporate citizen so far. Here is what Mike O’Brien and Socialist Khshama Sawant have to say:
Two supporters of the tax, City Council members Kshama Sawant and Mike O’Brien, seemed unmoved by Amazon’s decision.
“I understand Amazon doesn’t like it. I’m sure they would love to go to a city that has no taxes. And maybe they will find that place,” O’Brien said.
Added Sawant, “Amazon is perfectly capable of paying that, double, even four times that.”
I normally don’t like Amazon much, as they are said to be a difficult, if well-paying, place to work, but I am behind them 100% on this. Go, Jeff Bezos!
EDIT ON THURSDAY, MAY 3:
KOMO News does it again! It seems that the city council person who a local radio host calls “Iwanna Iwanna”, tried to give a press conference near the Amazon construction site. It also seems that the workers there were not big supporters of the “Amazon Tax” (this is in her words). Link has more than one video for your viewing pleasure.
