• On August 19, Mayor Mike McGinn, Washington CeaseFire, and local business owners announced a new program to create gun-free zones in private establishments during a breakfast press conference at Oddfellows Cafe. While the city has lost its battle in court to ban guns from public spaces like parks, private property is another matter, and this program encourages businesses to post window decals about the no-gun rule, and then call the police to bounce patrons who refuse to honor it. Thirty-four businesses took the no-gun pledge during its first day.

• Sadly, asshole gun nuts immediately inundated participating "Gun-Free Zone" businesses with threats of boycotts. Frani Assaf from Washington CeaseFire said that "quite a few businesses" have reported receiving angry phone calls and e-mails, including Cafe Racer, the site of last year's tragic shooting. "It's disheartening," sighed Assaf. It's also the classic NRA strategy to intimidate the opposition into submission.

• Who says stoners don't have initiative? The Seattle Police Department was still handing out free snack-sized bags of Doritos at Hempfest, affixed with labels explaining Washington's new pot laws, when the bags started showing up on eBay for as much as $35 a pop. "Item condition: Used," the seller declared. Because there's nothing quite as appetizing as a used Dorito.

• Speaking of stoned initiative, a guy at Hempfest filled his time offering "shitty advice" to strangers for one dollar. "I just make shit up off the top of my head," he explained.

• Until recently, the reelection website for Seattle City Council member Richard Conlin featured "The Stranger Endorsement," even though this year we actually endorsed his challenger, Kshama Sawant, a smart socialist and economics instructor. Several people pointed out the seemingly deliberate gaffe on social media, to which Conlin responded on his Facebook page: "We are adding the 2009 date to make it clear that this is in a set of 2009 endorsements. But we are leaving it up to show how dishonest The Stranger is. I'm the same candidate doing the same things but The Stranger is hypocritical in refusing to acknowledge all the great things they welcomed in 2005 and 2009." We have endorsed Conlin in the past, but endorsements aren't diamonds, dude. In 2009, Conlin had a weak challenger and we scraped the bottom of the barrel to praise his support for a parks levy and backyard goats. And Conlin has been miserably conservative the last four years, supporting laws to penalize panhandlers and freezing transit funding. Conlin may not fully grasp this, but newspapers hand out brand-new endorsementswhen there's a brand-new election. The fact that we didn't endorse him in 2013 doesn't mean we're "dishonest" or "hypocritical." It means we haven't been lobotomized.