By FRANK WATSON
Contributor 

Sometimes you wonder what people are thinking

Guest Commentary

 

Last updated 5/24/2018 at 2:16pm



Every now and again I come across something that is unbelievably dumb. It seems that there is currently an epidemic of very stupid things in the news. I don’t have space enough to cover them all, so I have selected three that my old friend Oscar would say, “are as dumb as a whole box of rocks.”

It should come as no surprise that the second runner-up comes from the far side of the Cascades. It seems that King County is suing the five major oil companies for global warming. The petition alleges that the oil companies provided the gasoline that caused the problem and knowingly withheld information from the public. In other words, the scientific data indicating gasoline fumes contribute to global warming was the oil companies dirty little secret.

Is there a news blackout in King County? You don’t even have to be able to read to be inundated with global warming claims and counter claims. The county wants millions in reimbursement for damages. They didn’t specify exactly what the damages are, but I’m sure they will think of something if the farce goes to court.

I wonder if the King County attorney drives to work? If so, he should include himself in the petition. What would be the response if the oil companies agreed to quit supplying gasoline to the county? I limited myself to three dumb things, so I can’t include the court that accepted the petition.

The first runner-up comes from our side of the state. It seems that a professor at Washington State University threatened to sue the university and was offered a $300,000 settlement to quietly go away.

Professor Robert Wielgus is the director of the Carnivore Conservation Lab. He has spent his professional life as an advocate for wolves. He recently decided killing wolves that prey on livestock is good for neither wolves nor cattle. He claims that fewer wolves kill more cattle and more wolves kill fewer cows.

I’m not sure how he came up with that little gem, but when criticized by the ranchers and their state representative, Joel Kretz, the professor sued the university and filed an ethics complaint against the state representative. Wielgus claims that his academic freedom has been infringed. Does that mean that crackpots are protected if they have Ph.Ds?

Wielgus has tunnel vision focusing only on wolves. Ranchers are equally focused on the cattle from which they earn their living. It is normal for those two opposing viewpoints to disagree. The dumbest part of this story is the university’s decision to shell out $300,000 to avoid going to court. If they are that dumb, they deserve to be sued.

For the dumbest of the dumb, we return to the west side. Drum roll— and the grand prize goes to the Seattle City Council. They enacted a head tax of $275 per worker for all major corporations in Seattle.

When you think of Seattle business triumphs, you think of Boeing, Microsoft, Starbucks and more recently Amazon. Boeing employs a lot of very smart people, and they compete successfully in a tough market. It wasn’t always that way, however.

Some of us remember the great Boeing employee layoff near the end of the Vietnam war and the iconic billboard request for the last person leaving Seattle to turn out the lights. The business atmosphere rebounded, but Boeing never forgot the lack of support from the city.

Boeing gradually began to move parts of their operation out of Seattle, and in 2007 they moved their corporate headquarters to Chicago. I predict Microsoft and Starbucks will follow suit. There will be no abrupt changes, but as current facilities age, replacement facilities will not be in Seattle.

Amazon is the hardest hit by the head tax; to the tune of $10 million dollars. As you read this, they are looking for expansion locations. I wonder if they would consider expanding into Spokane County. We don’t have a head tax.

Frank Watson is a retired Air Force Colonel and long-time resident of Eastern Washington. He has been a free lance columnist for over 19 years.

 

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