A Fight About Seattle Parks: The city considers creating a new local taxing authority to pay for our $270 million parks maintenance backlog, but hysterical neighborhood activists "raise the specter of a rogue taxing district selling off parks land, using eminent domain to condemn other property and operating without regard to city laws on competitive bidding, equal employment, human rights and tree protection," because a taxing district would obviously be staffed by the city's worst Disney villains.
Don't Smoke Pot in Public in Seattle: Or you could be fined $27.
I Believe It: King County Metro drivers say that they're working longer shifts without breaks, which ups their stress and makes it difficult to deal with increasingly unruly passengers. Their complaints come days before a vote on a new union contract that calls for a year-long wage freeze.
Fifty-Five Miles of Magma: Yellowstone National Park is quietly sitting atop a supervolcano whose last blast was 2,000 times the size of the 1980 eruption of Mount St. Helens.
Workers Walk Out at Amazon: Over 1,000 German workers walked off the job at Amazon.com yesterday to protest the company's lower-than-normal wages and lack of overtime. Meanwhile, a few dozen people in Seattle protested the retail giant's headquarters in solidarity.
Angela Merkel: Elected for her third term as German chancellor.
Seen Any Great Art Lately? As Jen Graves noted yesterday, a Budget rental truck full of art was stolen in north Seattle. The truck was recovered in West Seattle but seven paintings remain at large.
Does This Count as Murderabilia? Bidding on George Zimmerman's first-ever painting (of an American flag) nears $100,000.
Let's Fight About Polygamy: If informal polygamy is legal (i.e. living with more than one partner but only marrying one), as a recent Utah ruling indicates, and polygamous families push to make their lifestyle more socially accepted, is that a sign of an advancing liberal agenda or an advancing conservative one?
Women Protest Forced Marriages to Nigerian Gods: Christ almighty, it's like some men sit around brainstorming new ways to torture women.
Hygiene Is a Fad: The FDA wants soap companies to prove that their antibacterial products are more effective at preventing the spread of germs than plain soap and water. No one who's seen me eat off the floor wants to hear my opinion on this issue.
You Can't Wash Your Pits With Cocaine: Drug trafficking charges have been dropped against a New York pair who spent a month in jail after two large white bricks found in the trunk of the couple's car field reportedly tested positive for cocaine. Turns out the bricks were homemade soap, as the driver originally claimed.
The Sincerest Form of Flattery: "A federal district judge ruled on Monday that the National Security Agency program that is systematically keeping records of all Americans’ phone calls most likely violates the Constitution, describing its technology as 'almost Orwellian' and suggesting that James Madison would be 'aghast' to learn that the government was encroaching on liberty in such a way," reports the New York Times.
In Hands News: A hand bone found in Kenya makes our dexterity 500,000 years older than we originally thought, while in China, doctors graft a man's hand to his ankle for fun work.
And finally, here's a video of a fox hunting for its breakfast in the snow:
