Stadiumadness

The other day Waldo predicted the Major League Baseball shortlist of possible expansion cities will trigger a new wave of corporate welfare begs to get stadium-worthy.

The Kingdome demolition, March 2000. It took another fifteen years to finish paying it off. In 2002 the Seattle Seahawks opened CenturyLink Field, for which taxpayers are carrying $300 million of the $460 million cost, on the site. Next door is the Seattle Mariners' $517 million Safeco Field, which opened in 1999.

Now comes The Stranger, out of Seattle, piling on John Oliver's HBO takedown of stadiinsanity with some reminders how Seattle and King County paid off the long-leveled Kingdome just this year, has a WNBA team keeping the Seattle Center arena the Sonics abandoned to move to secesh-flag waving, Pride-flag target-shooting Oklahoma, looking marginally busy, and from those fiascos finally learned its lesson when it comes to new facilities and upgrades.

And in Wisconsin, where Scott Walker is finishing up his carpet-bombing of the state's education system- money is tight, he says, so make do with $300 million less- the legislature that jumps when he says "UP!" has just passed a new stadium swag bag worth $250 million.