The glass-covered balls of one of the biggest billionaires on this bitter earth.
These glass-covered balls are owned by one of the biggest billionaires on this bitter earth. Charles Mudede

Jeff Bezos Is Now the Third Richest Man in the World: Bezos, a Star Trek fan who owns 18% of Amazon's shares, is now worth $65 billion. True, most of this wealth is not of this world, which has its hard, spatial, and demographic limits. It's money drawn from the future of the planet (what Wall Street and financialization is all about). Bezos has lots of science-fiction cash. This maybe what his biospheres represent. Wealth as science fiction. Wealth from other worlds and zones of time. The more you think about modern finance, the more it looks like the Terminator series.

Microsoft Getting Leaner: The software giant plans to kill 2,850 jobs in the near future. These cuts, most of which will hurt Finland, are related to its failure to make gains, by way of Nokia, in the cellphone market.

Link's Next Station, Angle Lake, to Open the Month After Next: The station, which cost $40 million less than its estimated budget ($383 million), might not be as glamorous as the Capitol Hill Station (the new center of the city) and the University of Washington Station (the best thing to happen in local architecture since Koolhaas' Central Library). But it does have great views of a lake, islands, a volcano, evergreen trees, and the rise and fall of human machines that have conquered the skies.

Local Blogger Thinks Seattle-area Dems Who Supported Socialist Kshama Sawant In the Past Might Consider Cutting Ties With Her in the Future: The reason? Because Sawant really thinks Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton are the same political animal, and is encouraging Sanders' heartbroken supporters to vote for a person, Jill Stein, who has zero chance of winning anything for the people and every chance of hurting Clinton's run. The blogger, Timothy Killian, is a Democrat, and there is no question that his party is neoliberal, and that the presidency of Clinton's husband hurt black communities and deregulated banks. But this fact still remains: Socialists have no other allies in mainstream politics than the progressive members of the Democratic Party. If we are outside of the party, we are outside of the kind of politics that can demand and achieve higher wages for the poor. This is just the fact of the matter. Nevertheless, I will continue to vote for Sawant and other socialists who have a realistic chance of winning and making an impact on our crudely capitalist society.

Seattle Hiring Private Investigator to Hunt for Police Whistleblower: City Attorney Pete Holmes is hiring a private investigator to find who leaked the city's proposed contract for the Seattle Police Officers' Guild (SPOG) to The Stranger. Holmes believes this leak caused SPOG's rejection of the city's latest contract offer. SPOG is proof that not all unions are progressive.

Hillary Clinton's Best Line In Her 56-minute Acceptance Speech for the Democratic Nomination for President: The first female nominee of a major party, Hillary Clinton, had this to say about her opponent: "He's taken the Republican Party a long way, from 'Morning in America' to 'Midnight in America.'" That line, of course, refers to the TV Ad that helped Ronald Reagan beat Walter Mondale. It is considered to be one of "the greatest political ad campaigns" ever. Yes, it looks stupid and its music is awful and it's packed with lies, but it worked...


Best Tweet From the Right About the DNC: "Why this convention is better: It's about loving America. GOP convention was about loving Trump." The tweet is by Jonah Goldberg, a columnist and commentator for the National Review. In fact, the DNC received lots of praise from the right, according to TPM. Many may see the Dems adoption of GOP themes and optimism as a sign of how far to the right the party has gone. And it's hard to totally disagree with this assessment. But one also has to agree that it was a tactical move on the part of the Dems. Those themes and optimism worked very well for the GOP, which is no longer seen as the party of American pride but the party of angry white American men.

All My African Friends Agree That This Was the Best Speech of DNC's Closing Night: The speech delivered by the father of the fallen Muslim-American war hero. The father offered Trump his copy of the Constitution. The father told Trump to suck it.



This father could easily have delivered this speech at the RNC with very few changes. But the GOP under Trump has become so hostile to immigrants (strangers), that a patriotic Muslim can only find a platform at with the Dems, a party that's now able to promote tolerance as a form of patriotism.

What Would Happen If Women Refused to Vote for Trump: