⢠Sergeant Rich O'Neill collects an annual $109,703 salary from Seattle taxpayers, even though he hasn't worked a day on the beat since 2006. Instead, he's served as president of Seattle's conservative, anti-reform police union, the Seattle Police Officers' Guild. But watch out: In the December issue of the union's newspaper, the Guardian, O'Neill cites the Byrds song "Turn! Turn! Turn!" as invoking messages in the Bible, and then announces he will step aside and start a new assignment with the SPD on March 1. "I have decided not to seek reelection for a fourth term as your SPOG president," O'Neill writes.
⢠Speaking of Seattle police, they've just launched a blog on Tumblr called spdunredacted.tumblr.com, replete with animated GIFs of bomb-sniffing dogs. Even though the blog is called Unredacted, the SPD admits that's misleading: "Sometimes we may post documents with names or other info redacted in order to protect crime victims," the Tumblog says.
⢠Bertha, the world's widest tunnel-boring machine at more than 57 feet in diameter, has been stuck beneath downtown Seattle since last Friday after encountering a mysterious obstruction, says KaDeena Yerkan of the Washington State Department of Transportation. Yerkan says officials don't know if the path-blocking object is "man-made or natural." There's also no timeline to restarting the digger, which is approximately two months behind schedule. 
