Seattle Cannot Handle Anymore Traffic: Recall that scene in Aliens. The one where Private Hudson walks around the wreckage of a spaceship in a daze and says: "That's it, man. Game over, man. Game over! What the fuck are we gonna do now? What are we gonna do?" The spirit of that great line in arguably the best film in the series is found also in this MyNorthwest.com headline, which concerns our city's impossible traffic: "Seattle can’t handle more vehicles, SDOT director says." Indeed, game over, man, game over. No more cars. No more doing things the old way. We need to profoundly change our transportation habits. MyNorthwest.com: "In an interview with TransitCenter, Scott Kubly, the director of the Seattle Department of Transportation, says city drivers need to cut back on their time behind the wheel." Many still have the nerve to blame the worsening situation on a war on cars, which takes the form of lanes for bikes and buses. But we have given everything to the automobile, everything it could ever want and much more, and it got us nowhere fast. MyNorthwest.com soberly concludes that "it sounds as if more drivers will need to make what can be a difficult switch to public transportation."

The Cold Is Not Going Away: For now, it's here to stay. It will bring snow this weekend. It will kill lots of rats, which have enjoyed a series of unusually warm winters. Do not feel bad for the frozen rodents. This is the circle of life doing its thing. Or, to put in the words of the great Grace Jones: Don't cry, it's only the rhythm.

Macy's to Close Two Stores in Washington: One is in Everett, and the other in Kelso. A total of 166 people will have to look elsewhere for ways to pay their bills. In the US, the richest country on the planet, there is no net between a job and the street. The retail giant, which is based in Cincinnati, Ohio, plans to close 68 of its 700 stores. Workers should not take it personally, it's business.

Back to the Motel: The elements of the story are the city of Everett, the minutes close to midnight, an unpaid debt, a parking lot, several people, a gun, some bullets, a hospital, a helicopter, and a police dog. The main emotions in the incident are fear and anger.

Gas, Gun, Money: There was a disagreement about money, there was a gun, there was a shot. Then there was someone in the hospital with "serious, but non-life threatening injuries," and a person explaining himself at a police station.

More Than 100 People Injured in Brooklyn Train Crash: Officials say "the accident could have been far worse." The train was carrying around 700 people at the moment of impact. Bones were broken. Nerves were unhinged. Nevertheless, our fear of trains should be nowhere near as intense as our fear of cars.

this is why trains scare me. could have been worse! :: Dozens suffer minor injuries in Brooklyn train accident https://t.co/BF2XergF8U
— JNQC (@lionfoxelectric) January 5, 2017

Some of the Many Artists Who Refused to Perform for Trump: "Elton John, Justin Timberlake, Katy Perry, Bruno Mars, Celine Dion, and Garth Brooks." The last, Brooks, declined the offer because, I gather, he has friends in low places, and likes to keep it real like that.

A Star Is Trump-Born? Trump is claiming that the albums of the young opera singer Jackie Evancho are selling like hotcakes since it was announced she would perform at his inauguration. She is a part of a "movement" that many Americans are missing but must get with. Billboard, however, says that Trump's claim about the album sales is, to use words that the Wall Street Journal finds appropriate for the false claims made by the president-elect, “questionable” or “challengeable.”

Lindy West on Blabbermouth: She explains why she left Twitter. In fact, her departure resulted in her name trending on Twitter.

Bernie Sanders Displayed a Giant Trump Tweet on the Senate Floor: It read: “I was the first & only potential GOP candidate to state there will be no cuts to Social Security, Medicare & Medicaid. Huckabee copied me.” That was then, this is now: The first order of business for Trump and the GOP is to kill the very popular program and replace it with God knows what. In a recent tweet about Obamacare, Trump even used a word that the Wall Street Journal will not use to describe his flagrantly false statements: "Obamacare was a lie from the beginning." I suspect that one of the big reasons the GOP hates Obamacare so much is because it is called Obamacare, a major American program named after a black man. Indeed, they gave it that name in the hope that white people would be repulsed by it, would stay away from whatever it had to do with—a black man's healthcare. Then 20,000,000 people signed on, most of them white, and the epithet lost its racist sting and meanness. And so the monster they created began to haunt them. Repeal that black man is now the main healthcare agenda in the US.