Ron Sims - Hang your head in shame.... SHAME!

While I usually like to take on more national issues; today I have to write about something that hits a little closer to home. This fall there is a huge initiative called "Transit Now" it will do much to expand the light rail line that already goes from SeaTac airport to downtown, will increase bus service and fund studies for even further expansion of light rail. Making Seattle much more efficient in terms of public transit.

I think this measure is great because it already builds onto the existing light rail, instead of some competing technology and increases the frequency of buses meaning less time waiting for your bus to arrive.

The funding for this will be a tenth of a percent sales tax increase and (maybe) a $80 per $10,000 vehicle value licence plate tax. That's fine, since the taxes come from a base that is most affected by the improvements.
So why the thumbs down? Why the title? As a co-worker mentioned to me, not all groups are in favor of this (no surprise there), but the surprise is that our King County Executive Ron Sims has withdrawn his support for the project. Ron has traditionally been in favor of mass transit projects and his lack of support is causing people to hesitate on voting in this initative.

Today the Seattle PI tells us WHY. Turns our Ron has drawn up the new 2008 budget for Seattle, and it turns out that Sims wants a TON OF TAX INCREASES including the same tenth of a percent tax increase that the transit now imitative wants. It doesn't stop there though, the list of increases is long:

• Sales Tax Increase = .1 %
• Property Tax Increase = 10 cents per 1,000 of assessed value
• Property Tax Increase (ADDITIONAL) = 5 cents per 1,0000 of assessed value
• Bus fare increase = 25 cents per trip

Of course Ron had to withdraw support for expanding transit service, how could you go before voters and ask for a sales tax increase when in a separate measure you're going to ask for sales, property, and fare increases just to maintain current service?

Clearly Sims was not interested in what's best for the working class of Seattle, this withdraw of the Transit Now initiative was clearly a political move to keep from looking like he's hiking taxes every which way.

The transit now initiative asks for a lot less taxes then Sim's general budget and would help a lot of people in the area., and worse yet, Sims wants to pay for a good chunk of it with more property tax which unfairly punishes homeowners. In fact, the additional $.05 cent increase is for financing of passenger ferries.

Now what does my being successful enough to buy a home have in common with passenger ferries? Why should you, fellow homeowner be punished for your success while you're lazy renting friends get a free ride. Taxes need to be at least somewhat related to the services they pay for.

Mr Sims.... Your ideas of backing off a better version of public transit to further your own budgetary agendas is clearly NOT TOMLAND APPROVED.

Peter, Peter - Promotion Eater

Hello folks,

I read a fascinating article today on howstuffworks.com. Ever work for a boss that you were convinced was an idiot? Have you every been pretty sure that you could do a better job then the person signing your paycheck?

A lot of people have, in fact someone back in 1967 wrote an article about it, it's called "The Peter Principle" and goes something like this:

"As a person continues his path of promotion, he's eventually promoted right out of his field of expertise and into a position where he's utterly and helplessly incompetent....At the point where his level of incompetence is reached, an employee's promotional trajectory usually ends, and he's stuck in a position where he no longer has confidence in his abilities and produces less work for the company than he did in the position in which he excelled. The problems created by this promotion are compounded by the idea that an incompetent manager will make incompetent decisions -- including deciding who to promote. Eventually....the higher levels of a bureaucracy become populated entirely by incompetent people.

Once an employee reaches his level of incompetence, in general, he won't be fired from the position, unless he's what Dr. Peter dubs a "super-incompetent" -- a person who's actually defined by his mistakes. Instead, the promoted employee is usually mediocre in his new position. He's able to cover up his incompetence....Since the bulk of the productivity within the company is generally carried out by the regular employees who form the base of the hierarchical pyramid, companies can operate indefinitely, so long as the incompetence of the higher levels doesn't present itself through catastrophic decisions.

I've been observing this principle almost from the day I started working at 15, but never thought to formalize what I had seen. Certainly I've never thought to put a name to it. But someone sure did... Dr. Laurence J. Peter, my hat goes off to you sir. Putting pen to paper so you can explain a often viewed but perhaps not well understood phenomenon and thus enlightening the masses just a little more; Tomland Approved!

Listen to this song... for $9,166 !!

Alrighty folks,
Today's Tomland article is brought to you by the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America). Over the weekend the RIAA won a lawsuit against a single mother for $220,000. The crime?... Possibly sharing 24 songs over the Internet. If you do the math, that's an award of $9,166 per song.

First of all, I'd like to point out that I hate the RIAA. With only a few cents of every dollar actually going to artists, this organization represents all that is greedy, wrong, and stupid with big business.

Just look at the size of the award; $220,000?!?!?! iTunes sells songs for 99 cents. So for 24 songs we're looking at $23.76 plus tax. Now even if some people downloaded the song from her computer (which the RIAA did not prove in their case). It would have had to be downloaded over 200,000 times in order to come up with actual losses of $220,000. The RIAA did not prove this either.

Finally, only a fraction of people who download songs for free would buy them otherwise. So we're not even looking at a dollar-for-dollar loss here.

Sure copyright is important, and sure artists need to make money but IF you wind up doing something illegal and get caught the punishment needs to fit the crime....

Greedy corporations forcing people into bankruptcy for something that cost 99 cents.... NOT TOMLAND APPROVED.