745 people died in Washington traffic deaths last year. REZA ESTAKHRIAN/GETTY IMAGES

Comments

1

"If we ever invent time machines, then I’m using that sucker to go back in time and kill whoever decided that planning our pathetic American lives around the automobile was a good idea."

when Capitalists
socially engineered
America it wasn't for
the Common Good. it
was for their Portfolios.

and now we've got
Anti-social media
engineering US.
what could go
Wrong? oh &
btw say 'hel-
lo' again to
the trumpf
ster. he's
Back fb-
ing too.

3

Wow, so cops CAN be fired and charged super quickly. As long as they meet a certain criteria...

5

Initially, the words "dinosaur asshole" jumped out at me so I was amused you were talking about the real thing.

@3: You're not trying to weave in an excuse to riot I trust.

6

"Why must we make everything horny?" I don't know, Nathalie, but that's why there is a rule 35. If a thing exists, someone is going to make porn about it.

8

In terms of blood donations, BC recently reported that 67% of blood donations showed they had had COVID.

Probably the same here.

9

Car bad!

10

@meeno
wouldn't you Prefer
getting run over
by a Bus? 'fax'
are they're
extreemly
Lethal!
too.

we're
Considering
OUT-Lawing the fawkers.

13

@2CV
thnx for the PSA!
perhaps a few Troopers
might wanna take a walk
tonite. oh, shitskis - I plumb
forgot -- we Defunded the Popo!

so the Vandals have Taken OVER.
Seattle's Dying - Everyone's
headed for fucking
Bellevue

do we need to do a
gofundem for the
Po-po?

14

“… banning right turns on red lights. The real problem, if you ask any sane person, is cars.”

Reminds me of the time I was moving from Capitol Hill to Belltown. Sitting in my rented moving van on Pine Street, first in line awaiting the light to turn green at Sixth Avenue, I got the green right-turn arrow — and watched in disbelief as a well-dressed, middle-aged blonde marched her two tow-headed toddlers into the crosswalk, against the red-hand DON’T WALK signal. Had I been less attentive, they all could have been struck by my large vehicle.

19

"EVs are a distraction and holistically just as bad if not worse for the environment."

No they're not, not even close.

https://climate.mit.edu/ask-mit/are-electric-vehicles-definitely-better-climate-gas-powered-cars

25

@21: Thank you. I've been noticing that whenever these real issues with EVs are bought up, they're met with dead silence as there's really no compelling rebuttal.

26

@15: What do you expect? We're in an old diner now that used to serve a bountiful smorgasbord, but now there's just about only soup and salad and some crudités now and then. Thank Nathalie though for coming in and serving a good breakfast.

28

@21, 25,

Absolutely noone ever said there wasn't a significant environmental impact to EV manufacture, and the batteries themselves ARE more resource dependent and destructive than those batteries used in combustion engines. But the overall environmental impact is more than made up for in other areas. Please cite a source that says otherwise. Here's a concise and easy to digest one that doesn't.

https://magazine.northeast.aaa.com/daily/life/cars-trucks/electric-vehicles/are-electric-car-batteries-bad-for-the-environment/

30

The New York Times has a good piece online (probably will show up in the print edition over the weekend) about all the new copper mines that are being developed to build EVs. Turns out they can't meet the demand by buying wiring harnesses stolen by tweakers.

Also, GM's EV engineers are meeting with Seattle Fire today to discuss the unique challenges of fighting EV fires, like not being electrocuted. When some fire departments have phoned Tesla for advice on putting one out, they're told to just let it burn itself out.

31

"When some fire departments have
phoned Tesla for advice on putting one
out, they're told to just let it burn itself out."
@TT

the very same guy owns Twitter!
so when mis- and Malinformation*
ignite the Planet in WWIII (the BIG
One) we'll likely get the Same advice.

*wanna start a little Genocide or
some Nukular unpleasantry?
try Twitter! - or is it fb - I
can Hardly keep up.

34

@33: Do you normally get outraged over tangential details instead of commenting on the topic being discussed?

36

I don’t own a car. Don’t want one. Don’t want to make car payments. If I were to somehow win one, I’d sell it because the insurance payments would drive me to drink. I need the money way, way more than the insurance company does. I look at automobiles as a never-ending money pit: maintenance every few months, gasoline, parking. Nothing but headaches. And when you finally make that last payment on a 7-year loan (you can get a 7-year car note now because so few can afford the payments on a 3- or 4-year loan), something breaks down. Furthermore, I don’t have $40,000 for a hybrid or EV. Besides, the only thing a battery financially eliminates is petrol.

But I’m probably in the minority. I’ve known people who have lived on crackers and tomato soup in order to drive a nice car. I knew one guy who worked in a commercial bakery who lived with his parents so he could afford a Corvette. I knew another – a man in his mid-30s who lived with Mom and Dad so he could drive an expensive SUV. Others will live in a hovel. All of these situations seems so antithetical to my existence.

I’ve lived in cities where you can get anywhere on subway and train like New York and Boston. It was, in a word, fabulous. Sometimes they can be loud, and my least favorite situation is when it pauses underground just long enough to miss your connection, sometimes for quite a while – but not to worry. Another connecting train will be coming soon whenever you did get to you change station. I love good public transport. What’s good? Clean, timely, safe are great starts.

So, here’s the deal (and it will probably never happen): Don’t ask me to catch a bus or two to get to the station. If I work all day, I’m tired, and I don’t want to take multiple forms of transportation. I want to come up from the station and walk home. Therefore, the subway has to go everywhere. I don’t want to wait twenty minutes or half-an-hour for the next train. That can add a lot to commuting time if you take more than one train (and you will). I want to get home as quick as possible.

Lastly, and this is the most difficult to achieve, I think there needs to be a standard of civil behavior below which we will not fall. Just heard a story from a friend in NYC who said when his train arrived one day all the cars were PACKED except one that only had a handful of people on it. So naturally he stepped aboard it only to sense immediately why it was so empty. At one end of the car some previous rider had taken a shit and the smell hit my friend like a sledgehammer.

I don’t want an impromptu performance on board either. No Caribbean bands, for instance, unless it’s Steel Drum Week and I have a heads up. If I want to see/hear you perform, I’ll come see you. Please don’t force me to listen. Thanks.

I don’t want to have to endure being a captive observer to something pervy (which happens). I shouldn’t be made to avert my eyes for any reason much less being cool with this particular behavior especially with womenfolk around. I’d be just thoroughly disgusted. They surely would feel under attack.

Will it require a police state to have safety and pleasantness on a subway? I don’t think so. But there needs to be a general agreement, if not civic pride, to have decent behavior on public transportation. Otherwise, many who would use it, never will.

If we can make that deal, let’s start digging some tunnels (sore spot, I know) and laying some tracks.

Lovely weekend, all.

37

It's quaint to think that lithium batteries are the final solution when it comes to battery technology. It's the same mindset that thought that we would never be able to exceed the technological triumph of the incandescent light bulb.

But interestingly enough, do you know where they recently found a huge deposit of lithium? California's toilet, the Salton Sea.

As for the rest of The Stranger's drivel about cars, why don't we start having some education in the schools on how not to get hit by a car? In my daily driving about town (which I do for my job, so calm down) I've noticed that some of the dumbest of our very dumb pedestrians are children and teenagers. They literally just walk into the street. If they are that trusting about something so very basic to their personal safety, I can't imagine how they are going to function as adults.

39

@36 Bauhaus I: My beloved VW, that had originally belonged to my parents, will most likely be my last car ever.
I'll never part with mine, and only drive in seasonally good weather anymore. We go back a long way. The plan is for my Love Beetle and I to grow old together. But our days on I-5 are definitely over.
You're right, though---the latest models of motor vehicles are too expensive to buy, register, insure, or keep up, and are shamefully designed to be disposable in our throwaway society. Nothing new is built to last anymore. The metal body is way too thin. Where is the protection?
And, unless it's Herbie, the Love Bug of Disney fame I otherwise shudder at self-driving vehicles. That sounds too much like something out of Stephen King's "Maximum Overdrive" (1986, based on his 1973 short story, "Trucks", similar to Richard Matheson's short story adapted to film in Steven Spielberg's 1971 thriller, "Duel"), or King's 1981 novel, "Christine" (the film adaptation was released in 1983, and was actually based on the true story of a haunted 1964 Dodge 330 LE cop car in the Atlantic coastal resort town of Old Orchard Beach, Maine that had developed the reputation of being a death machine, getting the nickname of "Golden Eagle").

@37 Catalina Vel-DuRay: I share your concerns about drivers, cars, and pedestrians. Of the little kids, teens, and adults you observed crossing the streets (as you've said in an earlier comment thread that your job makes you drive a lot), how many were glued to their phones, clearly oblivious to traffic? I agree: this complete idiocy has to stop.

40

Nearly 100 million Americans live in rural and exurban areas that will never be effectively served by transit before you even get to poorer countries that can’t afford massive multi-billion transit infrastructure. You would think the people who write all of the anti-car nonsense had never left the core of a city before. We are already mining increasing amounts of lithium for almost every electrical device in existence today, of course it’s preferable to dumping more avoidable carbon into the atmosphere. Cars are not going away, period, we can either take steps to reduce their atmospheric carbon impact or not, but arguing against their adoption just worsens the climate crisis. As others have pointed out, the carbon impact isn’t close.

43

@39 - Auntie, I remember Old Orchard Beach. Was the summer Riviera for many French Canadians in the 80s. Don't know if that is still true. I spent most of my Maine time in Ogunquit. Minorly touristy there in the summer maybe, but so restful and quiet. That's probably changed too.

44

@43 Bauhaus I: I would love to travel cross country and visit coastal Maine one day. My paternal family roots are based there. If I by chance ever ran into Stephen King, I think that'd be a hoot. I can hear the bestselling author, now, smiling his mischievous feline smile: "Scared you, did I? Imagine that! That's why it's called fiction." He most likely has a million ghost stories, told by numerous campfires with which to entertain his grandchildren.
An interesting celebrity fact about Stephen King: he shares the same birth year, month, and day (b. September 21, 1947) with Nick Castle, who has played masked serial killer Michael Meyers in John Carpenter's Halloween movies. Additionally, both men are exactly three years older than actor / comedian Bill Murray (b. September 21, 1950).

46

Tyre Nichols Beating Opens a Complex
Conversation on Race and Policing

The five officers charged with the murder of the young Black man are also Black, complicating the anguish and efforts at police reform.

It is the system and the tactics that foster racism and violence, they say, rather than the specific racial identities of officers.

“It’s not racism driving this, it’s culturism,” Robert M. Sausedo, the head of a Los Angeles nonprofit formed after the Rodney King beating in 1991, said after watching the video of Mr. Nichols’s beating Friday night.

“It’s a culture in law enforcement where it’s OK to be aggressive to those they’re supposed to serve… ”

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/28/us/police-tyre-nichols-beating-race.html

the Slave Patrols
need some Reformin'

apart from the human Tragedy
this is gonna cost Tens of Millions
in reparations and gawd only knows
how Much for the Riots that may Follow

we can't fucking
AFFORD this shite
although we ARE the
Richest Country EVER

47

@46: The desperation to pin this on an "ism" is breathtakingly pathetic. Van Jones in a CNN piece actually twists it into racism.

Shame on you Kristo, Tyre's own mother called for no rioting. Please have the decency to respect her wishes.

48

Raindrop dear, Van Jones didn't twist it into racism. It was a racist attack. It doesn't matter that the officers were black. They felt that they could do whatever they wanted to Tyre because they thought that no one would care, and that it would all be covered up.

49

the Video Camera
is "Republicans"
Greatest
'Enemy.'

and Complicity
their Best Friend.

50

if you think @46
is a call for rioting
dewey you're Vastly
more Dense than I had
ever Imagined. well done
Knucklehead: you've 'Won'
in the stupid race to the bottom.

expect to see
your Dunning-Kruger
award in three to six weeks.

51

@48: What was their motive? That remains an unknown.

@50: You wrote:
"in reparations and gawd only knows
how Much for the Riots that may Follow"

Oh I see, you're having your hat on the "may".

52

ah.
so with encouragement
you Can see the Difference
between 'may' and 'Let the Riots
Begin.' there may be hope for you yet.

your 'award'
may be delayed
till just after April.

53

Ah, teasing May Day riots already?

54

Something about the situation pissed off those cops, and we still don't know what it was.

55

well I'm gonna do something
I've Never done before!

nominate el dewdrop
for a SECOND Dunn-
ing-Kruger award!
for: Persistence in
Stupidity. [you've
More pixels,
right? why
not go for
A Third?]

56

@54 -- they're Angry because
they've been told to Always
look Down for The Source
of their Problems. it's the
perfect Scapegoating by
the Wealthiest to keep
US from Ever
Looking
Up

& it's Working
PERFECTLY.

57

@56: That's your ubiquitous bleeding heart take-every-thing-that-bad-happens-and-blame-it-on-billlionaires theory, but it's not an answer.

58

gosh
you the
interpid Seeker
of Equanimity cannot
See how Super-Concentrated
Wealth cannot Co-exist with Democracy.

maybe they'll
come for
you Last.

good Luck!

59

sorry: Intrepid!
my bad.

60

If you want to conflate equanimity with simple logic and waiting for the investigations to complete, be my guest.

You are always rushing to render the situation in terms of the world's macro problems. Sometimes it fits (e.g. climate change) but in regard to crime and justice it's better to work from the micro to the macro.

61

there's more to being a Victim than
ending up on the receiving
end of both Street and
the Po-po's Crimes.

your refusal to See
this makes you [&
the Rest of Us]
Vicitms of the
0.001%'s War
On The Im-
Poverished
and those
soon De-
stined
to Be.

62

How does the "war on the impoverished" instigate those officers' visceral rage on Tyre?

Is it a random thing based on a generalized rage?

Do you think we need to investigate further to determine what exactly set them off?

63

'Do you think we need to
investigate further to deter-
mine what exactly set them off?'

well they was Provoked.

so let the Investigations BEGIN
on OUR Po-po's Insidious fucking
Ipunity. ffs we went Thru this fucking
Ages ago with the Rodney Fucking King.

& yeppers
YOU Gotta
Pay for it Too!

how'dja Like
Them apples?

64

so let the Investigations BEGIN
on OUR Po-po's Insidious
fucking Impunity.

apologies!

65

They were obviously provoked, but why?

66

The underlying reason is of no interest to you, isn't that it?

Because your narrative (a la Rodney King) is more important than the facts.

I backed you into a corner, didn't I?

67

the Why* has No
relevance to me.

Chase it at your
Will -- perhaps
you'll Discover
something
Illumin-
ating!

report back?

*why the FUCK
was the Po-po
so Un-Afraid?

can you say Impunity?
That's what I gaf about.
obviously you Don't.

better stay Off
their List.

68

& I know
it's just the
Slave Patrols
doin' their Thing
and back in good ol'
Plantation Days? Po' peeps
had about as many "rights" as
Slaves -- like the Man, above says:

it's Class Thing.
I suggest deeper
Investigations than me.

69

SEE: a People's History of the USA
by Howard Zinn. dewey
ii'll Blow your mind.

70

"the Why* has No
relevance to me."

So that's the crux of the matter. Anyone who doesn't want to know the "why" forfeits their credibility. Curiosity and pursuit of the truth is beyond their safe little bubble. As long as their passions empowers them, they feel confident that their convictions are beyond reproach.

This describes you, doesn't it? It certainly describes demagogues.

71

now you've
Done it:

my Third
(un-Presidented!)
Nomination for their
very Own D\K Award(s)
is our Very OWN dewey!

now kindly
fuck off.
danke.

72

There's NO QUESTION that America in 2023 is suffering BADLY from its decision to de-centralize cities, because racial and class tension caused by outsourcing of working class jobs was not solved except by allowing the people with money to move out of the city core. Suburbs have been a blight on land, removing some farm land, but also making mass transportation far more difficult, to the point of being non-existent. At least people are seeing the true cost of commuting now, but they'd rather turn fascist than face that their suburban lifestyles are idiotic.

Mix that with tacit allowing of injections of firearms and drugs into the country, and what you have is multi-faceted disaster. Plus now, transit systems are being avoided by the wealthy because they are considered unsafe and unclean. America is a very stupid right-wing nation.

73

@71 - ok, run off and pout and I'll light a cigar.

74

here's one comment on nyt's:
Video of Tyre Nichols Beating
Raises Questions About
Medical Respons

"I watched the video of this man being kicked in the head, beaten unmercifully, pepper sprayed, and treated like an animal and I cried.

For emergency response workers to show up and stand around as an obviously injured person lies in the street is unconscionable. They should be fired for not performing their duty.

The deeper issue is a question of what is going on in America. We have become a country of police brutality, mass murderers.

There has not been an examination of the reasons for these crimes and unless that happens and mitigation efforts are implemented, we will continue to witness these atrocities.

We live in a country where the government will call Ticketmaster to task for angering the "Swifties" but can only muster thoughts and prayers when Americans die from senseless violence.

What have we become?"
--Inquiring Mind, USA

by Nicholas Bogel-Burroughs,
Gina Kolata and Mark Walker
Jan. 29, 2023

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/29/us/emt-tyre-nichols-response-video.html

so seek your whys and whyfors
all youse Wish dewey my
mind's Elsewhere

@73 -- monnika's?
mmmm.

75

@5, @25, @26, @34, @47, @53, @54, @57, @60, @62, @65, @66, @70, and @73: raindrop, dear, being willfully misinformed is nothing to be proud of. The Orange Turd and its neofascist nutzee regime are laughing hysterically at you and your fellow MAGAt recruits. Bored much? Did the cable go out during last night's windstorm?

@71 kristofarian: Seconded. I am adding an Elmer Award to raindrop's list of purely idiotic nominations.

@73: An exploding cigar! What an ingenious metaphor to affirming your woeful ignorance and gullibility, raindrop, dear. Quit while you're already a horse's behind, before you have more than just ashes and soot all over your face.

@74 kristofarian: Tragically, what have we, as a nation become, indeed?

76

@75: Go eat a pickle, you grizzled old bat.

77

@76: Go stuff your shriveled up, wart infested pickle in a trash compactor, you trolling old fart.

78

@76: Sssssssssshhhhhh......be vewy vewy quiet...you just won an Elmer!
Huhhuhhuuhhhuhuuhuuhhuhuhuuhuhuhhuhuhuhhh.....

79

@72: "There's NO QUESTION that America in 2023 is suffering BADLY from its decision to de-centralize cities,"

A bunch of individuals made that decision. America decided nothing. We don't have a propiska system. Yet (where is Sawant?)

80

auntie, I suggest caution.

81

let us know dewey
what the Po-po
use for an Ex-
cuse to Beat
a fellow Cit-
izen to fuck-
Ing DEATH.

(former) Slave Patrols'
Impunity STILL Allows
them to act like judge
jury and Executioners.

so let the Investigations BEGIN
on OUR Po-po's Insidious
fucking Impunity

their
Excuses
notwithstanding.

82

@80: Yes, raindrop dear. Caution is good. Try not to hurt yourself. Watch for ice when venturing outdoors.
Maybe try a soothing hot soak in the tub before retiring tonight? It works wonders, and can melt off a lot of stress.

83

@81 kristofarian: I swear, raindrop is so wound up in this comment thread he doesn't know whether to scratch his watch or wind his butt (thank you, Dolly Parton, in Steel Magnolias).

84

@81: There's no excuse for it. I never implied there would be. I discussed the motive, which along with intent, that are the criteria required to make a second degree manslaughter change stick. Attorneys will correct me, but I believe that motive can encompass the wanton disregard for human life.

85

here's one comment on today's nyt's:

We Can’t Just Give Up and Shrug in Silence
Jan. 30, 2023

by Gail Collins and Bret Stephens

"The gun carnage in the United States is more than about the availability of firearms.

For the last four decades, the United States has chosen winner-takes-all capitalism which has left one in two living in quiet desperation, one paycheck above destitution.

Add to that a culture that disdains critical thinking and celebrates violence and you have a recipe for daily tragedies, from mass shootings to police acting as judge, jury and executioner."
--Robert, Germany

Un-bridled Capitalism*
be the Death of
US yet.

*oh And 'a culture that
disdains critical thinking
and celebrates violence'

86

@85 kristofarian: This is SO true, and is Reason #1 why I refuse to get caught up in capitalism and am for gun control. There are now actually more firearms in our divided country than living, breathing, economically struggling U.S. citizens:
Firearms: ~393,000,000
U.S. Population: ~335,000,000

Are guns, like KKKorporations, supposed to be "people", too (I've noticed that our gun lovin' Swifty has become rather quiet, lately)?

Meanwhile, KKKorporate RepubliKKKans are chortling all the way to their banks at the expense of everyone who isn't insanely wealthy, privileged, corrupt white male. How RepubliKKKan women actually believe these self serving neofascist monsters are going to "save" their asses is beyond me.

87

@86: " I refuse to get caught up in capitalism"

But Auntie, real capitalism has never been tried.

88

@87: Sherlock, dear, what I mean is that I refuse to get caught up in crazed consumerism, only to make profiteering capitalists insanely rich at my expense. I need what little money I have infinitely more than the Orange Turd and its untaxed KKKorporate sock puppets, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk, or Mark Zuckerberg do and ever will.

89

@87: You might want to give kristofarian's comment @85 a reread. That is the point I was trying to make.

90

@87: I never studied Economics, but upon doing a little online digging I found that there are apparently four types of capitalism in existence:
1. Laissez-faire or free market capitalism
2. Anarcho-capitalism
3. State capitalism
4. Welfare capitalism
What is your definition of real capitalism?

91

@88: "only to make profiteering capitalists insanely rich at my expense"

Why are you not investing some of your hard earned money in the means of production? And becoming moderately (if not insanely) rich yourself.

@89: I hate iambic pentameter.

@90: "What is your definition of real capitalism?"

Number 1 is closest. But you will never have a truly "free" market while the grifters in the other Washington (and this one too, come to think of it) have their fingers in the pie. In the name of "the people" of course.


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