Comments

1
Fast food doesn't decompose because it's loaded with salt, a natural preservative.

Make some homemade beef jerky sometime and let it sit out for years. It won't rot either.
2
I've wondered for a long time if Seattle's drivers are so shitty because so many of us come from somewhere else, bringing our own driving style with us, thus creating disharmony on the roads.
3
Nor does honey. Nor nuts.
4
They also found a human leg off Vancouver. http://www.vancouversun.com/news/human+f…

Also worth mentioning, the last vanilla ISIS holdouts in Oregon are surrendering tomorrow.
5
Sorry about that. A good story about the standoff is below.

Nice job on the Morning News, Charles!
6
that Allstate report came out over 6 months ago, but way to fall for KOMO's clickbalt. Here's an article from last August on the exact same report:
http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news…
7
@1 it really doesn't have that much to do with salt. It's all about the surface area of the burger and how it loses moisture. It loses moisture fast enough that it dries out before any bacteria or mold can get a foothold. This has been debunked before, but still the rumors persist.

You can make a burger with all natural ingredients at home and it won't mold either, assuming that you you keep the dimensions the same as McDonalds. If you try the experiment with a quarter pounder though, you will get mold because the mold can start before it dries out.

http://aht.seriouseats.com/archives/2010…
8
I'm not quite understanding the supposed outrage that Tamir Rice's estate would be charged for the ambulance service. That's just how it works. It doesn't matter why you needed an ambulance, the service costs $X. If another party is liable for damages the ambulance charge should be added in with the rest of the medical expenses and paid by the liable party but the person who utilized the service is ultimately on the hook to pay for that service and that is who the bill should be sent to.

This is a completely separate issue from the despicable cop suing for emotional distress.
9
Good Morning Charles,
I thought the morning news you reported a tad too politicized. I didn't think it necessary to remark "her color white" regarding the missing Ms. DeBoer. That's evident from her photo posted here & everywhere. I viewed it in yesterday's and today's newspaper and it was posted at my bus stop/shelter. You are right to imply this story seems over reported considering the number of reported missing persons in the USA.

Also, you refer to the creeps occupying Malheur Wildlife Refuge as "Vanilla ISIS". That would be a bit of a stretch. Islamic State of Iraq & Syria is composed of white, black and largely brown people and is wreaking far more havoc than the armed occupiers at Malheur. The former definitely need to leave the compound at the Refuge and in my opinion, prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. To be sure the occupiers have potential for violence (one has already been killed) but nothing like ISIS.

Finally, I'm not sure I agree with this simplification of the water crisis in Flint, MI "There appears to be no end in sight for this water crisis, which has its roots in the kind budget cuts that the GOP loves to push at every opportunity." My understanding is, the corroded water pipes have been a long term problem that got worse with the remedy. I believe it to be a far more complicated issue than just what you mentioned. Gov. Snyder has indeed, taken responsibility and apologized.

Thanks for correcting 'running show' to 'running shoe'. That threw me initially.
10
"The next Clinton/Sanders debate" takes place tonight. The next after is at Flint
11
@8: oh, well that makes sense. move along, mr & mrs rice.
12
FYI, the City of Cleveland has rescinded the Tamir Rice ambulance bill, with apologies.

For the record, the bill was not presented to the kid's parents, nor were they sued. It was cranked out as routine transaction traffic between Rice's estate and his medical insurance carrier. As the Mayor pointed out, somebody should have flagged it at some point ... but nobody did, and it's not clear who that "somebody" should have been.

Also FYI, ambulance companies rank among the world's most dogged debt collectors. They have their reasons, but this is yet another reason especially poor folks fail to receive especially critical medical attention in a timely manner.
13
@ 8, A city employee thoughtlessly murdered a child, and the city defended the employee's actions, smeared the child's name in the press, and then sent the child's family a bill for the death that they caused. If that sounds fine to you, then you've got problems, or rather the people who have to deal with your personality disorder have problems.

Should Cleveland have billed his family for the cop's time and the cost of the bullet, too?
14
Umm, doesn't Seattle have many, many more drivers on the road and much, much worse congestion than Kansas City? And also rain, hills, bridges, streets that end suddenly, non-reflective lane markings, only ONE true N-S interstate freeway, and moronic clover-leaf freeway entrances? How does Alstate factor these differrential conditions into their statistics? I do agree that there are a lot of bad drivers here, especially the ones in SUVs who think they can cut people off and run red lights because they have bigger cars. Ah well, at least they're providing tens of millions of dollars in tickets' fines for road improvements barreling through elementary school zones!

People with mental illnesses running around untreated. Hurrah for the GOP's "Let the sick DIE" Healthcare Plan!

16
After NH Trouncing, Clinton's Delegate Haul Exposes Rigged Electoral System
17
@14 heres how to get out of camera tickets: http://bancams.com/how-to-fight-tickets/

it works for the city of seattle. have no experience with other cities.


18
@ 15, Wow, nice job obtusely missing the meaning of my post AND proving my point. (golf claps)
19
@2:

This is a point I've been trying to make for years. Yes, there are plenty of native Seattle drivers who suck (those jokes about bad Ballard drivers have been around forever), but in the past 20 years the tremendous influx of out-of-state drivers, all with their own regional driving "styles", has only exacerbated the problem. What's frustrating about it is that many of them complain about "all the shitty Seattle drivers", while never once taking a moment to ponder the possibility that some other fairly recent immigrant is observing their driving patterns and saying exactly the same thing about THEM. Yet, it's always "Seattle drivers" to get the blame.
20
I'd expect number of accidents per driver to go up in dense urban environments. I'd also expect the number of deaths and injuries to go down, as average speeds are slower. But that wasn't considered in the article.

It also doesn't help that we have a major freeway going through our cities - I'm not sure someone driving to Vancouver from Portland that gets in an accident inside our city limits should count as a "Seattle driver".
21
I haven't been to Boston, but I have it on really good authority that driving there is basically bumper cars.
22
There are a lot of factors that make Seattle drivers especially bad. Weather, topography, street layout, and an overall lack of enforcement. That last one is something you notice if you go somewhere else. People actually get pulled over for doing something stupid. They might not always get a ticket, but the cops will call you out on it. When was the last time you saw someone get pulled over here outside of the one stretch of Aurora or a school zone "emphasis" patrol? I'm glad that I don't have to worry about getting a BS ticket for 5 over the limit, but the downside is that everyone gets to pick and choose how they want to interpret the traffic laws. Roll through a right turn on red without stopping? Sure! Never mind that you just missed that squashing that person trying to cross. Turn left by cutting the roundabout instead of going around? Don't mind if I do! Never mind that you don't have the same sight line now and have nowhere to dodge an oncoming car that was turning right. The drivers here who do that kind of stuff every day don't think they're doing anything wrong. Without even the threat of being pulled over they probably never will realize they're in the wrong until they hit someone. If then.
I'm not really advocating for a suburban bored cop level of pulling everyone over all day for made up BS, but with no consequences there is no reason to drive well. Just go nuts and see if you get anything more than a passive aggressive stare!
Remember, everyone thinks they are a better than average driver.
23
@22:

Per the SDOT web site:

"State Law does not distinguish between a traffic circle and a larger roundabout. Consequently, a driver turning left at a neighborhood traffic circle must proceed counterclockwise around the traffic circle. However, we recognize that there are instances when drivers may need to turn left before a traffic circle, such as when cars park too closely to the right side of a circle or when a driver can't maneuver a larger vehicle around to the right. Turning left in front of a traffic circle in those instances can be safely performed if the driver exercises reasonable care and yields to pedestrians, bicyclists, and oncoming traffic."

That's a loophole one could literally drive a semi-truck through, hence why it's never enforced and why everyone does it.
24
@19 - I think there are some things particular to WA driving that I just haven't seen in other areas of the country ... Refusal to use turn signals, driving slow in the passing lane, not knowing the difference between a yield and a merge, and the whole 4-way stop ineptitude/passive-aggressiveness. If anything, I think the influx of other drivers has improved things somewhat (that is, when traffic is actually moving).
25
@23 Further confusing this is the Seattle PD ... Per their spokesman, Sean Whitcomb:
"Here in Seattle, traffic circles are specifically for slowing people down in residential neighborhoods. They're not to regulate traffic. Otherwise, there would be signage directing you to stay to the right," he says.

Which is not what the state law says. Nor it it part of the Seattle municipal code.
26
The list of cities who's drivers report accidents most frequently (making them "bad", in this exercise) reads like an X Y scatter chart where one axis shows rate of personal vehicle ownership and the other shows metro area density.
28
@23, Exactly. Unless you're driving a semi, and even then you have to "exercise reasonable care" you're not allowed to just whip through it and turn left because it was more convenient.

@25, Again proving my point about the lack of enforcement in that the goddamned cops don't even know the rules. This isn't 'Nam Smokey. There are rules here.

Again, we don't need a cop on every roundabout writing tickets, but the mere hint that you might get one would go a long way to getting Seattle drivers to maybe, just possibly, start paying attention and following some of the rules of the road and not just the ones we feel like and not just the way that we've reinterpreted them to our own whims.

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