State budget hints that the Lower Snake River dams’ days are numbered: The new operating budget allocates $750,000 over the next two years to perform outreach to local stakeholders like tribal communities, energy experts, and ecologists to see what impacts breaching the dams would have. One would be restoring salmon habitat—the whole point of this project. But others argue it will hurt Washington’s transition to clean power by taking away clean hydroelectricity.
It’s May Day: The day when the most socially active among us protest for immigrant and workers’ rights or it’s a European spring festival depending upon who you ask. Seattle’s May Day activism has always been especially lively and today is no exception.
Things have already gone awry at Paris’ protests:
Charge et tirs de grenade de désencerclement de la #Police toujours boulevard du #Montparnasse pic.twitter.com/AZzyRtQ6RP
— Lucas Léger (@lucas_rtfrance) May 1, 2019
Attorney General William Barr is testifying before Congress: The Senate Judiciary Committee to be specific and they have some serious questions. The main one is how Barr could have cleared President Trump on obstruction of justice in just a few days when Robert Mueller couldn’t do that in two years. Barr said that Mueller was unhappy with Barr’s four-page summary put out just a few days after Mueller turned in his report. He called Barr to tell him just how he felt. But now Barr is in the hot seat and Democratic lawmakers will no doubt grill him on what they see as the attorney general simply protecting Trump from legal liability. You can watch it here.
Populists shown to be much more likely to believe in conspiracy theories: According to a YouGov-Cambridge Globalism Project, a landmark survey conducted worldwide, people who held populist beliefs were much more likely to believe ridiculous theories about things like vaccines, climate change, and 9/11 terrorists. People with strong populist beliefs were twice as likely to believe that the negative effects of vaccines were being hidden by the government. This is something that you might have guessed just from watching conservative television, but now we have the data to back it up.
The sun keeps coming: This weekend is being billed as one of the best weather weekends all year so clean off your grill and get some goddamn ice in the cooler. It’s BBQ season baby!
Ready or not, the 70s are coming! And we ain’t talking disco balls.
Highs will flirt with 70 degrees from Saturday thru next Tuesday. Best weekend of the year so far is coming up!
— Seattle Weather Blog (@KSeattleWeather) April 30, 2019
Julian Assange is sentenced to a year in prison in the UK: They’ve charged him with violating his bail conditions by fleeing to the Ecuadorian embassy for years. He’s wanted in Sweden for sexual assault and rape allegations, but the United States is also very interested in throwing some indictments his way for allegedly helping break into classified government documents. He’ll be in UK prison for 50 weeks.
Researchers in England found cocaine and ketamine in shrimp: We’ve done a whole lot of terrible shit to the environment but giving cocaine to shrimp? That’s a bit too far. It’s not clear yet if this problem is unique to the shrimp of Suffolk where scientists did their testing or a more widespread phenomenon. On a related note, I know what I’m doing my PhD project one.
Show me your mugs: A lot of great mugs today so let’s dive in!
Gregory, this mug is a work of art. Great mug to drink whisky and pickle juice in. Don’t knock it until you try it!
Me too Violeta, me too.
I love this picture’s energy. It’s that don’t fuck with me this morning energy and I’m honestly feeling it today. Thanks Nate, great mugs.
Is this mug black with white stripes or white with black stripes? Only Karen knows the answer.
Brenton’s coworker got this for him when he broke his arm last year. What a good coworker!
Now listen here you $#!%: One of the best buildups of all time. I would highly recommend some headphones for this song.
Tonight’s best Seattle entertainment options include: Peter Bjorn and John, Erin Markey’s play Singlet, and the 2019 Cephalopod Appreciation Society mini arts festival.
