More Misery for Microsoftees: It’s hell over there in Redmond. Microsoft is planning to lay off “thousands” of employees next month as it pares back its numbers and funnels spending into artificial intelligence. Most of the cuts will hit the sales department. These layoffs follow the 6,000 jobs Microsoft axed in May.
Powerless in South Seattle: Power outages struck Seattle City Light customers in Tukwila and South Seattle on Wednesday afternoon. A fallen branch is the likely culprit.
Oh I forgot about this guy: Sorry, the news (and life in general) is so chaotic right now I completely forgot about the manhunt for the man who allegedly murdered his young daughters and fled into the Washington woods. The lead suspect in that Wenatchee triple homicide is still on the lam. Chelan County Sheriff Mike Morrison believes he’s still alive and evading search efforts. But he is confident that the suspect will be caught. As a reminder, the manhunt is now in its third week.
Din Tai Fung Gets Steamed: Everyone’s favorite dumpling chain is in hot water for allegedly violating Seattle sick time and wage theft laws. Due to the restaurant’s attendance policy, employees were discouraged from taking sick time and they weren’t provided the required meal and rest breaks. In a settlement, Din Tai Fung agreed to pay workers $567,361 to 1,245 employees.
Nooooooo Don’t Make Us Hate You, Firefighters: Everyones’ unproblematic faves, the firefighters, may not be so unproblematic. A private investigation found that Seattle Fire Department firefighters might have forged vaccine cards during the COVID-19 pandemic to abide by city vaccine mandates without having to actually get vaccinated. Allegedly, a firefighter swiped blank vaccine cards from a vaccination sight and sold them. Many of these blank cards were available for firefighters to simply take, according to a report by PubliCola. However, the investigation could did not yield conclusive evidence.
Cool, Cool, Not Stressful at All: Trump is still undecided about whether he’ll join Israel’s attacks on Iranian nuclear sites. Iran said America would suffer “irreparable harm” if so. Trump said, unhelpfully, “I may do it. I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I’m going to do.” Nobody’s asking, but my professional opinion is do not do it. Okay, thanks!
Meanwhile: An overnight Iran missile barrage damaged an Israeli hospital and wounded over 200 people. Israel threatened Iran’s top leader. So far, Israel’s missile defense system is working alright, but it has limited missile interceptors. Iran also has limited ballistic missiles. Who will run out first? If the US gets involved, then it might not matter.
This Metaphor Is a Bit on the Nose: A SpaceX spaceship blew up. This is not supposed to happen in rocket science, I’m told.
So Starship Ship 36 just detonated *before* the static fire test – fueled and waiting for the test. Looks like the top tank lets go and sets off the whole stack. It would be bad enough if it let go during the static fire test, but it just blew up. And it’s cooking off the fuel tanks on the pad.
— Kasey Kagawa (@punkey.org) June 18, 2025 at 9:23 PM
Do you also love living in a country that wants its citizens dead? The Trump Justice Department is cutting a few more jobs. Which ones? Oh, you know, just the inspectors that monitor federally-licensed gun dealers. Yeah, no big deal, they’re only cutting 541 of the 800 positions, thus making it even harder for the government to monitor businesses selling guns to criminals. This isn’t exactly a surprise to anyone paying attention—Trump and his cronies want to limit the power of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. These cuts in particular are a response to Biden-era gun control regulations.
Bear Freed of Plastic Albatross: Hey, good news, the Michigan bear that’s been living with a plastic barrel lid stuck around its neck for two years is now free. The department of natural resources first clocked the bear and his horrible necklace on a trail camera in 2023. They’ve been trying to track him ever since. Finally, they found him, trapped him, and cut the barrel lid free.
After 2 years with a plastic lid stuck around its neck, a Michigan black bear is finally free. Wildlife experts safely removed the lid, amazed the bear survived and thrived despite the ordeal.
tinyurl.com/4prtec82 #Wildlife #PlasticPollution #BearRescue
— activist360 (@activist360.bsky.social) June 18, 2025 at 7:32 PM
Jewelry Thieves Charged: Seven California men were charged in the largest jewelry heist in US history. Allegedly, three years ago these guys followed a truck transporting 73 bags full of jewelry from a jewelry show in San Francisco. Around 300 miles from its origin point in remote area, the men stole 24 bags of gold, gems, and luxury watches worth $100 million from the truck while it was parked at a stop. It’s unclear how they gained access to the truck.
Defund the Border Wall: Texas lawmakers won’t fund the construction of the state’s border wall any longer. The project has cost taxpayers more than $3 billion—and Texas has only built 8% of the total 805-mile-wall. It’ll take 30 more years and $20 billion to complete. The state government said that wall can be the federal government’s problem now.
A Way to Celebrate: Enjoy Juneteenth by attending the Juneteenth Festival today in the Central District.
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I reported him as a spam poster, if only because I figure this might hopefully catch the attention of the mods more readily than would a garden variety report of Trolling or Off-topic posting might.
@50: The real piece of shit was “Kristofarian“ who was a bigot and an abuser. But I will keep the story to myself if it upsets you this much.
@48, Accept Hamas’s own videos of the attack don’t shown any legit military targets in what and who they attacked.
It shows them shooting people who are not in uniform, that are unarmed, with no military target behind who they are shooting at. It shows them driving hostages into Gaza like Shani Louk, a German national, not in any uniform, other than a bra and panties being driven past people who spit on her, and Hamas allowing it.
So Hamas hung themselves on the war crimes front, not that I find war crimes treaties and laws much use in protecting non-combatants from any combatant.
The Hamas video is a whole different kettle of fish than IDF munitions hitting Gazan hospitals or Iranian munitions hitting Israeli hospitals. Some combatant’s video of a hospital having been hit, if that is all we have for evidence, doesn’t tell us enough information to draw any conclusion other than that the hospital was hit. It doesn’t tell us whether it was struck lawfully or unlawfully. Unlike Hamas’s own videos of their attack, we don’t have the full picture of what else was in range, under, who was in the hospital not being treated, or what was near the hospital that could have been a legit military target. We don’t know what the IDF and Iran knew, or thought they knew, about the hospital being used for military purposes that would make it a lawful target.
In the Hamas 10/7 video we can see what the person pulling the trigger saw and was aware of. We can see that they were shooting at a non-military target, with no lawful military target within sight, or range of what the shooter could see.
@47, @50, unless what @49 says is true. IDK.
@47 and @49, Death certificates and coroner’s autopsy records are public record (once the criminal investigation is complete enough to determine there is no one to charge), so anyone can do a Public Disclosure Request for the the last two weeks of May, if they are that damn curious to prove or disprove @49. I’m not.
Kristo’s alleged untimely, tragic demise, would certainly fit with Kristo going “radio silent,” given the prolific comments, and particularly commenting like a moth drawn to a flame, when the Israeli-Palestinian-Arab-Persian conflict are in play.
I obviously hope that’s not the case. I didn’t agree with Kristo on much, but I respected Kristo’s right to express an opinion, and his humanity. I hope Kristo is alive and well and the “radio silence” is for a more benign reason.
@53 “In the Hamas 10/7 video we can see what the person pulling the trigger saw and was aware of. We can see that they were shooting at a non-military target”
That’s not true because the person being shot at was not conclusively identified in accordance with the applicable rules of evidence of the tribunal having jurisdiction. As you astutely note with regard to videos of Israel or Iran blowing up hospitals, we cannot know that the apparent “hospital” was not in fact a secret terrorist lair. Likewise the apparent “terrified music festival goers” on 10/7 may have been deep cover Mossad or IDF intelligence operatives. To be quite honest I’m surprised to see you being so dismissive of the proper evidentiary and procedural rules for establishing a “war crime” or “crime against humanity,” as if such a thing even existed, because as we all know war is hell and the only solution is to prohibitively increase the cost in blood or treasure.
@54, Now you are just being absurd. We also have interviews and testimony of survivors, who news media can background check, that they weren’t military.
You are correct that all that would be established at War Crimes tribunal to dot the “i”‘s and cross the “t’s”, but we have the video before us.
But the reality nobody is going to face that, because the odds of getting struck by lighting are higher than being charged as a war criminal even if you actually committed war crimes.
Non-combatants get out of the line of fire because one side, or both, loses the will or capacity to fight. The conflict ends and nobody gets charged.
Given that the historical evidence that 99.99% of non-combatants in the line of fire that survive are spared by the conflict ending, not by arresting alleged war criminals, what is your obsession with these worthless pieces of paper? The paper these treaties are printed on would be more effective at protecting non-combatants, if they war it as a vest to slow down bullets and shrapnel.
The number of people tried as war criminals since WW II is in the hundreds. The number of non-combatants killed by combatants since the beginning of WW II is around 100 million.
Yet your concerns about Gazans welfare is expressed in venting about possible war crimes, rather than advocating for the application by one side or the other, or a third-party (e.g. a U.N. force), of the overwhelming force required to end the conflict that has non-combatants in the crossfire.
So rather than advocate for what evidence shows saves the most non-combatant lives, you keep fucking the war crimes chicken with Gazans suffering on the alter of a failed solution.
Civilized war is a contradiction.
@8 Netanyahu started this war. Remember, the US and UK started this mess when we deposed the liberal, democratic, government of Iran that believed that Iran’s oil wealth should benefit the people of Iran. We deposed that government and installed the brutal dictatorship of the Shaw. After the Shaw was deposed, Reagan cut a secret deal with the Iranian extremists who were holding our diplomats hostage to keep them until he beat Carter. That’s how we got the Iran-Contra scandal.
How is what Iran did in targeting civilians any worse than America firebombing Dresden or Tokyo?
@8 Also, I will cite every hospital in Gaza that that Israel has wiped off the map. If Israel can target Gazan hospitals then it is completely legitimate for Iran to target hospitals in Israel.
Just to be clear, the Hamas attack on Israel was disgusting.
The genocide Israel has waged on the people of Gaza in response is vastly worse.
Israel initiated the war against Iran. As long as Israel is attacking Iran, Iran is justified in using any means of defending themselves that America has used in its wars of imperialist aggression. To make that clear, I would be totally fine with Iran using napalm on Israeli civilians the was we did in Vietnam.
@3 If any government employee has submitted a forged document, they have violated the law, and dis-respected the PEOPLE who pay their salary. Lets flip this around, if it was discovered that a group of City employees used their paid time in 2020 to campaign for a liberal cause, I highly doubt you would say it was water under the bridge.
@58: You’re right, or even a conservative cause. But I give the confusion and fear and anger over the vaccine a pass, it was a once in a lifetime epidemic after all. It was a learning experience for everyone, and it wasn’t handled uniformly. Forgive and forget.
@57, We can’t say Iran is targeting Israeli civilians, hospitals, ir engaged in war crimes.
We don’t know what Iran was targeting. Missiles aren’t the most accurate weapon, get deflected by defensive fire, etc. We can’t say that the IDF doesn’t have a command and control in the basement of the hospital, a tank next to it, etc.
Likewise, we can’t sustain similar allegations about the IDF in Gaza.
Non-combatants being killed in war is nothing new. Nor, is it by itself, evidence of a war crime. You need evidence of intentional targeting of non-combatants, with no effort to hit a lawful military target.
@60 “We can’t say that the IDF doesn’t have a command and control in the basement of the hospital, a tank next to it, etc.”
Exactly, just like we can’t say the festival goers weren’t secret Mossad agents. We can’t know anything ever so we can’t pass judgement, even if there’s video. War is hell blood and treasure.
@57: “Also, I will cite every hospital in Gaza that that Israel has wiped off the map.”
You already have, because the number of hospitals “in Gaza that that [sic] Israel has wiped off the map” is zero.
No one with any knowledge of the Israel-Iran conflict can claim Iran “targeted” anything in Israel. Due to Israel’s relentless attacks upon Iranian missiles and their commanders, Iran needs a lot of luck just to fling a missile out of Iranian airspace. Hitting anything with one, even empty Israeli desert, looks like a win for the theocrats right now.
@62
https://www.nbcnews.com/world/middle-east/israel-intensifies-attacks-gaza-hospitals-rcna208741
““Nearly all hospitals in Gaza are now damaged or destroyed, and half of them are no longer operational,” Jens Laerke, spokesperson for the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs, or OCHA, told NBC News.”
Play whatever semantics game you want, the fact is half of the hospitals in Gaza have for all intents and purposes been “wiped off the map.”
@63: Oooh, touchy! Rhetorical over-reach is now allowed only when your side does it, eh?
(Also, with averagebob gone, it appears you’re now the one here most need of instruction in why certain offices at the UN should not be cited as gospel truth on the topic of Palestine.)
@64 imagine thinking the important question is not whether the hospital can continue to function as a hospital but rather whether there are any ruined remains of its structure still standing
@65: Imagine believing that anything written by the Stranger, and/or supportive commenters, could possibly
stand up to any scrutiny at all.
@66 “it wasn’t wiped off the map, there is very clearly still a rubble pile and dozens of buried bodies of children at that location” — your dumb ass
@47 Swiftress, and @50 & @51 mike blob: +3 For the Win!!! Thank you both for beating me to it.
@50 mike blob: I reported @42 and hope his inflammatory comments get permanently removed.
@47, @50, @51, @68:
@42 made a factual claim. Either it is true, or it is not. Instead of considering whether it might be true, you immediately label it as false, attack the commenter who made the claim, and try to get him banned.
What’s so terrible about considering whether the claim matches what few facts we do know? kristofarian had posted almost sixteen thousand comments over eight years. He’d also posted almost fifteen hundred comments at the Portland Mercury. With no known advanced warning, he abruptly ceased posting in both places. His sudden death would, if true, completely explain his sudden cessation of comments.
As for the claimed circumstances of his alleged death, his comments often comported with behaviors of domestic abusers. He often responded to disagreement with rage, attempted to bully dissenters into silence, engaged in name-calling and other personal attacks instead of reasoned argument, claimed his opinions were facts (and only his ‘facts’ were true), refused to provide evidence to support his accusations, criticized other commenters for behaviors in which he himself engaged, castigated persons who disagreed with him as morally reprehensible, and called for the banning of commenters who refused to submit to all of the above. In short, his behaviors here lend credence to the idea he could have been a domestic abuser.
None of that means he died, let alone that he died whilst attempting to assault someone else. But what little we do know can support those claims. Absent more evidence, or a better explanation which fits the few facts we do have, we should not immediately dismiss this claim as false, nor personally attack the commenter who made the claim.