Mornnning folks! Viv and I swapped days for Slog this week, which obviously we shouldn’t have done because we’ve caused a day of darkness and a flood watch. The National Weather Service says rainfall of between two to eight inches caused a bunch of muddy conditions, already causing some small landslides in Seattle and raising the Snolqualmie River in some parts of King County. If you’re driving and you see a flooded road, TURN AROUND! “Most flood deaths occur in vehicles,” according to the weather service. Also, today is not a good day to walk along river banks. 

Time crowns Taylor Swift person of the year: I mean, yes. A massive stadium tour that grossed more than a billion dollars, a blockbuster movie about that stadium tour, and multiple album drops in the last two years. As Time says, “If you’re skeptical, consider it: How many conversations did you have about Taylor Swift this year?” She dominated the culture, and truly lived up to her Jesus year of 33 years old.

Boeing weapons killed at least 19 children in Gaza, according to an Amnesty International report mentioned by the Washington Post. Israel used the US-made munitions in airstrikes that killed a total of 43 civilians in Gaza, including 19 children, 14 women, and 10 men, according to the report. The Amnesty International Secretary General called for the US and other governments to stop sending weapons to Israel. Meanwhile, the US State Department complained about Israel not letting enough aid into Gaza.

The Seattle IT Department trolled me: Yesterday, I wrote about a major proposed expansion of the Seattle Police Department’s vehicle surveillance and told people they could still submit comment on the proposal. Then, I found out the public comment form had crashed. The IT Department got it back up and working, but it was down for at least three hours. Still no word on if the department plans to extend the comment period, which ends Friday.

What’s this about surveillance? Seattle cops want to install Automated License Plate Reader technology in all 300 of its patrol cars, resulting in a massive amount of data collection including where cars were spotted and when. SPD stores that data for 90 days, and not only do cops have access to that data, but anyone can request the database of license plate photos and numbers along with the time, date, and location of when SPD took the photo. A lot of cities purge this data quickly if the plate doesn’t match a “hot list.” SPD gave no real explanation for why it couldn’t purge the data sooner, beyond just promises it could help them solve more crime. Studies show just .2%-1% of license plates captured by this technology are associated with a crime.

Renton City Council rejects minimum wage increase: As Hannah covered yesterday, the Renton City Council voted down a proposal to raise the city’s minimum wage to $19 per hour, instead putting the question to voters in an upcoming February special election. Renton only requires businesses to pay $15.74, a far cry from neighboring cities. Read Hannah’s story, one City Council member talks some shit on workers.

Bellevue police officers shot and killed a man: Witnesses said the man came into an LA Fitness with a knife, and the gym manager called police, according to KING 5. No injuries reported to officers or bystanders.

King County approves modest budget reduction, but deeper cuts could come next year without help from the state, according to the Seattle Times. General fund cuts could exceed $30 million, resulting in the shutdown of most of its 10 public health clinics. The County cut $13 million from the general fund this year. 

Abortions rose by 23% in Washington in 2022: While abortions among residents increased, the number of people from outside Washington increased by 46%, according to the Seattle Times. Glad to be of service.

Multiple dead in Texas shootings: Police arrested a 34-year-old Texas man for allegedly killing at least six people, and injuring three, according to the Austin American-Statesman. Police found two bodies at the man’s home, and they’re investigating how those two bodies might be connected to the Austin high school, where the shooting started.

YOU! In honor of the Time Magazine thing and Taylor’s birthday next week congratulations, mom! 

Correction: Ashley swapped out Bad Blood at the last minute for ME! She’s very sorry she gave the wrong album for this song and called it a “banger.”

Ashley Nerbovig is a staff writer at The Stranger covering policing, incarceration and courts. She is like other girls.

23 replies on “Slog AM: Boeing Weapons Killed 19 Children in Gaza, Seattle IT Trolls Us, Taylor Swift Named Time Person of the Year”

  1. Boeing Weapons Killed 19 Children in Gaza

    oh Puhleeze

    it cannot be more

    than one or maybe two.

    We cannot Trust

    small Media where

    WMD Makers like Boeing

    Raytheon et al ad Armageddon

    are concerned. & EVERYone Knows this.

  2. Boeing Weapons Killed 19 Children in Gaza

    oh Puhleeze

    it cannot be more

    than one or maybe two.

    We cannot Trust

    small Media where

    WMD Makers like Boeing

    Raytheon et al ad Armageddon

    are concerned. & EVERYone Knows this.

  4. KC already queueing up to cry poor in the hopes the legislature will lift the 1% limit on property tax increases. Not mentioned is they upped the sales tax yesterday by .1% for an arts slush fund and Dow’s intention to put a $1B dollar levy on the ballot next fall for “climate change” initiatives. Spending by governments whether its the state, county or city has risen much faster than population growth and/or inflation and now when faced with the consequences of their spending the first response is to go back to the taxpayer piggy bank. I keep wondering when it will finally be enough for voters.

  6. Of course, if Israel had used carpet bombing, it would have resulted in 50,000 dead children, but that’s why we sent the much more precise 5000 lb JDAM kits instead.

    You’re welcome.

    P.S.: War is never pretty. next time, move when they say to.

  8. Time went on to name the McNugget as Food of the Year and “staring slack-jawed at your phone in the vain hope it will at last show you something worth seeing” as the Entertainment Event of the Year.

  9. “War

    is never

    pretty. next time,

    move when they say to.”

    and when they

    bomb where they

    told you to go it Cannot

    be Nutnyahoo’s Fault. Next

    time READ the gottdamm Leaflets

    they rain down upon you.

    can it be a “War”

    if only ONE side’s

    got high-tech WMDs?

    mind the Leaflets!

  11. Hey @kristo! Seems like I haven’t seen you in a minute…glad you’re back with the witty and prescient observations which is one of the main reasons I read SLOG comments.

  12. Does The Stranger even want cops to solve crimes? They’re against a tool that would automatically identify stolen cars, they’re against a tool that would automatically locate gunfire, they’re against hiring more cops, and they do everything in their power to diminish trust and respect for law enforcement. Yesterday’s NYTimes had an editorial outlining the plunging “clearance” rate for crimes nationwide (which dramatically accelerated with the “defund” movement), a topic also taken up by Westneat’s Seattle Times column. The NYTimes made the connection between lower clearance rates and higher crime rates: “Studies of crime and punishment have shown that a police force’s ability to solve crimes is more effective in deterring crimes than the severity of punishment.” They also make the connection between staffing levels and clearance rates, and singled out Seattle for being particularly understaffed. In the progressive worldview, are unsolved crimes a bug or a feature?

    https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/05/opinion/police-crime-data.html

    https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/back-to-normal-not-for-wa-when-it-comes-to-crime/

  13. @13 TS has been pretty clear on their position regarding crime. They view crime (like most progressives) as an upstream failure and if we solve the issues of poverty and racial equity then crime itself will go away as we live in a socialist nirvana. So all resources she be dedicated to upstream efforts and in the interim people that are impacted by crime should recognize this is a failure of society and should accept those consquences as being part of that failure and insist on little to no punishment in favor of restorative justice.

    The fact that these conditions (poverty, inequality etc) have existed as long as humans have walked the earth and that no society/economic model has even come close to solving them should just be ignored. We have to make perfect the enemy of the good.

  14. @1/2

    Dear Kristo –

    but Raytheon stock has a 2.86% current yield (BA stock dividends are apparently under the weather). Why have a military-industrial complex if you can’t make it part of your investment portfolio?

    and FYI – I try not to reference my Mouse in public!

  15. I’ve had far more conversations about Barbie this year, who should’ve been Time’s Person of the Year. If I didn’t watch so much football, I might’ve not talked about Taylor Swift at all.

  16. @17,

    I dunno, man. I don’t like her music at all* but damn if I don’t have some 50+ year old friends, freaking record collecting weirdos seemingly with respectable, oft-eclectic taste, who genuinely swear by it. She’s got some cross-generational appeal. I really don’t get it, but I guess the whole “no accounting for taste” thing applies here as elsewhere.

    *though like yourself, I totally respect her public persona

  17. The Puget Sound region – and Seattle in particular- has profited handsomely from the Military/Industrial complex. Boeing’s war products may kill people, but the company donates millions of dollars to the arts and social service organizations in Washington state, and provides over 60,000 well-paying jobs.

    I’m not a Boeing apologist. I just think that it’s important to acknowledge that much of our civic life has benefitted immensely from those weapons of war.

  22. @17 Garb Garblar and @19 mike blob: So basically, Taylor Swift is the New Britney Spears of Gen Zers, as Madonna was and is to many late Boomers / Gen Xers.

    I haven’t listened to any of Taylor Swift’s or Britney Spears’ music, but one major similarity between the two pop divas is, like Madonna in the 80s and 90s, they’re everywhere. I went to see a recent movie, Priscilla, a biopic about the late King of Rock ‘n’ Roll, Elvis Presleys’s widow with a friend and could not believe how many cinemas at Regal were showing The Eras Tour. Swiftees were gaga. It made me think of Madonna wannabes all over again.

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