I'm a Washingtonian - an arugula-munching city-slicker Seattleite, even. And while I'm a straight white dude, I hang out with teh gheys, and a bunch of various-shades-of-brown folks regularly. In short, I'm pretty odious to y'all REAL AMURIKANS (FUCK YAH!).
Nevertheless, perhaps we can join together for this one, brief (so brief) moment of agreement.
Washington state will get $15 million more in federal high-speed-rail funding that was returned to Uncle Sam by the state of Florida.
http://www.seattlepi.com/...
I cannot say it enough: THANKYOUTHANKYOUTHANKYOU to the Florida electorate. Y'all freely, knowingly, and deliberately voted for "small government" state representation, AND BY GAWD THAT'S WHAT YOU'RE GETTING.
I for one am always gratified when people get what they ask for.
Y'all didn't want the money to improve your (surely near-heavenly) lives, so you gave it back. GOOD ON YA!
We here in our urban hellhole, however, voted for representation (freely, knowingly, and deliberately, as with y'all) that believes in investing in the state and its people, when possible. So naturally our grabby little hands leaped at the chance to get the GUB'MINT to help us out.
True, we had asked for a substantially larger cut of your spurned pie, but times are tough all around - we don't begrudge other willing states their piece as well. In the words of our (very female) Governor:
"We are happy to put Florida's rail money to work in our state," Gov. Chris Gregoire said in a statement.
(Please don't confuse Gregoire with our pair of female senators. Our women up here do a lot more than get forced to carry rapist' babies to term. Takes a bit of getting used to, I admit, but we slog through the odious hassle of women making choices SOMEHOW.)
It's extra-awesome for me, because I FUCKING LOVE TAKING THE TRAIN TO PORTLAND!
Washington state had applied for about $120 million from the Florida money that Sunshine State Gov. Rick Scott rejected. Washington will add two daily round trips between Seattle and Portland, for a total of six, officials said.
While naturally I find your free, knowing, and deliberate electoral decisions to be abhorrent and asinine (as, I'm sure, y'all find ours to be) - I nevertheless couldn't be happier to support your right to make such abhorrent choices, and indeed look forward more such choices in the future.
Soon I will be able to contemplate this in further detail on a shiny new mass transit line.
Wishin' y'all the best with your future electoral choices,
Punditician