Happy Solstice! Our daylight hours will get less depressingly short after today.

In Case You Missed It: House Republicans voted to raise your taxes, Obama calls them out, saying “This is not poker. This is not a game.”

It’s Not Just Seattle, Apparently: “Yakima officer fatally shoots man with knife.”

Americans Will Sink Ferries: Because Americans are so much heavier than we used to be, the Coast Guard is changing it’s rules for ferry capacity: “For example, the Yakima used to be allowed 2,000 passengers, but will now only be able to carry 1,783 passengers.”

Whoops: NBC correspondent Jay Gray was arrested for a DUI after hanging out with Jerry Sandusky’s lawyer.

Merry Christmas, Other Parts of America: “White Castle burger chain considers alcohol sales.”

Baby Takes His First Steps: North Korea’s new leader, Kim Jong Un, gave his first military orders, according to South Korean news sources.

Speaking of Instability and Danger: The Prime Minister of Iraq has asked the Kurds to hand over Vice President Hashemi, who’s been charged with terrorism.

In Cairo: Women marched to protest abuse by soldiers. Here’s what they had to say:

“Drag me, strip me, my brothers’ blood will cover me!” they chanted. “Where is the field marshal?” they demanded of the top military officer, Field Marshal Mohamed Hussein Tantawi. “The girls of Egypt are here.”

19 replies on “The Wednesday Morning News”

  1. Dude, I will personally shoot every person who comes at me with a knife. Every. Fucking. Time. What, do you think they’re fucking toys or something?

  2. Was anybody else impressed on some level (and confused on another) that the cop had somehow used a knife to shoot a guy?

    But yeah. Protip: Don’t come at a cop while brandishing a knife.

  3. @ 1 and 2, as the killing in Seattle shows, cops don’t get the benefit of the doubt anymore. I won’t believe anyone went at that cop with a knife without video evidence and the testimony of four reliable and unbiased witnesses.

    Regarding ferry weight limits, did they have to recalculate things when SUV’s and big trucks got popular?

  6. letting a tax cut expire is not ‘voting to raise your taxes”. remember this when the bush tax cuts expire, your taxes revert to clinton rates, and the budget gets balanced post haste.

  7. I’m on for the first time in a month ’cause i think that today might be Kim’s birthday. Or maybe it was yesterday. Happy birthday, Kim in Portland!

  13. @6- that isn’t what the republicans said when we renewed those Bush cuts last year..it was a ‘tax hike’ if we let them expire. This has been the mechanism for lowering top tax rates since Eisenhower.

  17. The news out of Cairo brings to mind that on this day in 1907 the Chilean Army committed a massacre of at least 2,000 striking saltpeter miners in in Iquique, Chile.

    The workers and their families had peacefully assembled at a school (estimate put the number at between 10,000 -12,000). They were asking that the owners of the mines stop paying them in script (vouchers that could only be used at company owned stores and facilities, and for an increase of wages (18 cents). The army told them to disband, and when workers and their families didn’t (or in some cases couldn’t move out of the area fast enough), the army opened fire with machine guns and rifles.

    After the massacre, the government covered up this episode in the country’s history, forbidding people to speak of it. It also had a chilling effect on the Chilean labor movement, one that lasted for decades.

    The book “Alchemy of Air” has a good section about this tragic episode in world labor history.

    Just an example of how one should never underestimate the willingness of a government to attack (and kill) their own citizens.

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