In the Oct.3 edition of The Olympian,A.P. reporter David Ammons wrote a story about Tim Eyeman that naturally included I-695. He interviewed State Treasurer Michael Murphy and State Sen. Margarita Prentice, D-Seattle about Tim and I-695. Prentice describes Tim as "that nitwit,that clueless individual". and Murphy said Eyeman is "dumb as a brick" and "goofy". Now these gratuitous personal insults are,of course, directed not only at Tim but at all of us who believe in I-695. I am keeping track of these personal insults and intend to use them come election time. Maybe I'll e-mail these individuals and ask them to stop directing personal insults at ME! These ad hominum attacks show that there is a sense of desperation among the pols who are as addicted to spending other people's money as any crack addict is to his pipe. Definition of a liberal....you have to believe taxes are too low and ATM fees too high. Ricardo

-- Ricardo (ricardoxxx@home.com), October 05, 1999

Answers

"Now these gratuitous personal insults are,of course, directed not only at Tim but at all of us who believe in I-695."

Actually, your wrong. Those insults, as you quoted above, were directed at "Tim Eyeman", not "Ricardo" or "believers in I-695". Of course, there is also the real possibility that the "believers in I-695" are all mindless drones in an "Eyeman Collective". If this is the case then, yes, you should feel insulted.

"Resistence is Futile"

-- Wild Bill (colt45@yahoo.com), October 05, 1999.

I agree with Bill. Had you not taken those quotes out of context, it would have been fairly easy to see that Murphy made his comments based upon Eyman incorrectly assuming that a local government account used as a short term holdings was just a $3 billion surplus account. Eyman never bothered to check with anyone other than the reporter that "tipped" him off about this account, and just decided to start running with it. Murphy probably shouldn't have resorted to insulting the brick as he did, but he was ONLY attacking a fairly boneheaded move that Eyman made in not double checking his facts.

Perhaps the Yes side is getting desperate as well, since Joe specifically called me a hypocrite and a liar, and then backed the claim up with a half truth that only highlighted his own lack of understanding of the issue that he was bringing up.

-- Patrick (patrick1142@yahoo.com), October 05, 1999.

""Resistence(sic) is Futile" " The collective needs to absorb a quality spell checker.

-- (craigcar@crosswinds.net), October 05, 1999.

Look guys, you can think all you like they are only directed towards Tim Eyeman... however the fact remains that if someone insults the creator they are insulting the followers. It is flat-out stating that his lack of knowledge directly affects the innitiative and those mindless followers that vote for it are in the same boat.

Really its mud slinging and its sad to see a public official use it.

However if you pay attention to political issue's people will openly insult the creator or the issue itself with the intent to undermine it by telling everyone that agrees with it they are idiots for a belief in that.

-Tony

You can wear blinders your whole life, just don't be suprised if the line you are following was painted in a direction other then you wanted to go.

-- Tony Schroeder (baddog@nwlink.com), October 05, 1999.

Craig-

For going above and beyond the call of duty in correcting other people's spelling errors...

You have been hereby honored with the:

"I-695 SUPER-SPELLER AWARD"

Because, after all, its not the argument that matters... Its the spelling mistakes.

Oh, and Craig... you ARE a SUPER STAR!!

-- Tim Eyeman, I-695 Award Selection Committee (fonix@yahoo.com), October 05, 1999.

Tony, I'm not sure that I follow your logic. If I make fun of how much of a nerd Bill Gates is, does that mean that I just called EVERYONE that uses Windows a nerd?

Eyman and I-695 are two different entities. In fact, he didn't even come up with the idea in the first place. It pretty much came from a Virginia intitiative. As most supporters on this forum have or would say, they'd support 695 with or without Tim Eyman at the helm. They believe in it for a variety of reasons, but I doubt any of them support it because some watch salesman told them to. But THIS is basically what you seem to be saying.

Murphy's and Prentice's comments attacked Eyman's credibility based upon his own problems with checking his facts before opening his mouth. You can take offense with that if you want, but you're putting an awful lot of attachment to a guy when you really ought to be thinking about the initiative. After all, which thing is on the ballot?

-- Patrick (patrick1142@yahoo.com), October 05, 1999.

Patrick,

You must realize and understand political agenda's when it comes to attacking an initiative. They are attacking the person that is the focal point and using that as a way to downgrade the actual initiative. Which does associate with those that agree with it.

-- Tony Schroeder (Baddog@nwlink.com), October 05, 1999.

Tim:

On Craig and his spelling corrections, on another thread he corrected a quote that I took from his prior post.

Tony:

As for criticism of Eyeman, as a way to criticise the initiative; I would suggest that criticism of Eyeman is BECAUSE of the initiative. I have said several times the initiative is flawed, does not even do what it is trying to do well, and what it is trying to do is wrong- headed. I have also noted it is simple-minded a few times. Eyeman and Benham and other supporters could take that as an insult. The nature of political disagreement, is that supporters and the opposition think the other side must be "ignorant" and "stupid" to hold to their position. In this case, of course, I am obviously right and the supporters of 695 are obviously wrong. So the criticism of Eyeman is entirely justified.

-- dbvz (dbvz@wa.freei.net), October 05, 1999.

oops:

I mistyped my quote of Craig. But he does seem to be hung up on spelling.

-- dbvz (dbvz@wa.freei.net), October 05, 1999.

d-

You're only partly right. I make my spelling mistakes too. It's just that I LIKE Star Trek and he was continually fouling up the punch line. Resistance is futile!

-- (craigcar@crosswinds.net), October 06, 1999.