Wednesday Telegraph Room
... Seattle has a professional basketball team, and it's called the Storm. There's another team, too, called the Schonicz. They're both being sold by investors including bean-counter Howard Schultz (pictured) for $350 million to some people in Oklahoma City who really, truly want to keep both teams in Seattle, if only the city would work with them to improve KeyArena. And you know what? This makes sense, because if the Schonicz moved to Oklahoma City, Sooners would have two NBA teams. They're definitely staying!
But WTF do we know? Here's what the columnists are saying. Art Thiel:
Alert to basketball fans in Oklahoma City: As of Tuesday, your arena is already on the fast track to becoming a crap can, your owner is a wild-eyed venture capitalist and your team next year will pay maybe $50 million to a pimply teenager who doesn't know a drop step from a drop kick.
Steve Kelley: "More likely, 2006-07 will be a lame-duck season. [Clayton] Bennett and his partners will go through the motions of negotiations before throwing up their hands and announcing they have reached an impasse with all of the local governing bodies." Agrees Jim Moore:
Since we're all apparently idiots, let's look at the book called Sonics' Sale for Dummies, and tell me it won't play out like this: New guys say they really, really tried, honestly, to get a new arena built or a new lease but couldn't because of those damn elected officials.
... Attention pregnant teens: There are legal ways to abandon your baby, and without the use of garbage bags. ...
... Despite Airbus' planned overhaul of the A350, Boeing is continuing to score big orders for the 787. Renton could be the assembly site of a replacement for the 737, despite talk in the past of moving everything to Everett. ...
... This just in from page one of The Wall Street Journal (subscription required):
Paging Sacagawea: Lewis and Clark have lost their way again.
When President Bush issued a proclamation in 2002 creating a Lewis and Clark Bicentennial celebration, tourism officials from Virginia to Oregon pounced on it as a potential blockbuster. But as the three-year celebration enters its homestretch, participating communities are still waiting for the Lewis and Clark gravy train to leave the station. ...
... Washington state expected as many as 10 million people to attend a number of events there, including boat tours of the expeditionary group's route along the Columbia River. Fewer than a million showed up.
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