Road rage? So pointless. Absent the handgun, nothing would have happened beyond shouting.

20 years or more for 10 seconds of rage, and this was a 35-year-old adult who should presumably be in better control of his emotions. When all you have is a hammer, every problem looks like a nail.

Guns make people crazy. The more guns, the more crazy.

Paris banned e-scooters because they were already well on their way to banning most cars. Parisians want their city to be moving at the pace of the life they want and they want it to be a walking and biking city as it was designed to be.

"How Paris Kicked Out the Cars"

https://slate.com/business/2023/03/paris-car-ban-bikes-cycling-history-france.html
"Car trips within Paris declined by almost 60 percent between 2001 and 2018, according to research from Atelier Parisien d’Urbanisme, the city’s planning arm; between the city and its suburbs, they have fallen by 35 percent. Car crashes have fallen by 30 percent; pollution has fallen too. A huge investment in bus corridors, tramways, and subways has caused mass transit ridership to jump by almost 40 percent in that time.

What’s to come is more radical still: a low-emissions zone for Paris starting next summer that will exclude older, high-emission vehicles. A total ban on gas-powered cars by 2030. A ban on through traffic in the city center, including some pedestrianized areas. A reduction of street parking by half. A redesign of the ring road highway. A pedestrian-friendly renovation of the Champs-Elysées. Paris will become a cleaner, greener, cooler, quieter city, the proponents of these measures say. But detractors say it’s on track to become a toy city—hostile to people who work with their cars, and increasingly inaccessible to residents beyond its walls."

@5,

Whatabout, indeed.

@2 So true.

The presence of armed staff and teachers at Uvalde, Nashville, and 179 other school shooting events proved that the presence of firearms does nothing to deter or prevent gun violence what so ever.

@6 Look you reactionary illiterate dipshit if you read the article it explains the Parisian attitude on ALL motorized vehicles. This has been part of the strategy of Paris since the mayoral tenure of the Anne Hidalgo. Which of course you know nothing.

I am, like Parisians, in favor of the scooter ban. Likewise as I am making cities walkable and less polluted by limiting/banning non-commercial cars from corridors where they are not necessary.

Now go back to sucking on your juice box and let the adults talk.

Whatabouisms in the wild. The best fallacy.

Note that in the WaPo article, the winner of the auction for the goat did not oppose the mother reclaiming their pet goat for her daughter.
But the real goats are everyone else since they are not California lawyers. Because, as always, only the lawyers win.

@13 There's nothing virtuous about killing someone. Potentially justified by self-defense maybe but virtuous? As a recent citizen I find that idea completely warped.

Since Ashley brought it up, here's that awesome scene of "Two Weeks Notice" of Trump's dashing cameo appearance with Hugh Grant.

https://youtu.be/FeYHMtenAJM

Don't look for logic from Neal. He simultaneously believes Americans are uniquely and inherently more violent than the rest of the world AND should be given unlimited access to as many guns as possible. Just skip over his comments.

@13: collecting grievances again I see. 14 years ago.

I still think free-ride zone shooter mom overreacted but there's no way to prove it one way or another. thank goodness the free ride zone is gone like parisian e-scooters.

@14,

"Completely warped" is as succinct and accurate a description of that individual @13 (Neale Frothingham) as I think anyone has ever attempted in the nearly decade he's been commenting here. Nicely done and in your first comment, no less.

That Mayor Harrell... sly political boss.

We definitely need more police alternatives.... sprinkle the streets with social workers.

3.21.23 Date Line - Ballard That would have been very helpful in Ballard when the whacko shot the detective serving an eviction notice. Clearly we should have first sent the social worker to chat with the guy before hand and with the Community Safety and Communications Center (civilian - inexperienced ) managing 911 dispatch and parking enforcement what could go wrong? I mean really?

4.1.23 Activist Gunned Down @ Pike & Harvard... Again, social workers clearly were absent to diffuse the situation..... and only 6 shootings so far this year. I wonder what lies in wait for the remainder of the year.... stay tuned.

Originally I wasn't on board with DEFUND THE POLICE.... but I have to say now, in total humility I was wrong.

A shout out to our City Council Members for their forward thinking.......Things are going so well.

“Based on the comment section, KOMO may have unintentionally indicated that the rise in homelessness meant the City wasted ~$100 million per year to address the problem, and that throwing more money into the system will do nothing. An interesting point! For comparison, the Seattle Police Department's budget was $355 million in 2022, but violent crime rose in 2022.”

And yet, the SPD occasionally gets a criminal off the street and into secure housing.

@23 Very good observation.

Based on this, one must conclude that you carefully studied the the SPD budget -- and have a plan to reduce the funding to say $100 million ... level the playing field so to say.

Having gone over the SPD budget in making this conclusion... You would agree that the requirements for the SPD -- communications, mobilization - offices, hiring, training, multiple stations through out the city, salaries, insurance, communication centers, say things like police vehicles, etc. is pretty similar to the budget parameters of the homeless problem.

Clearly homeless plan is more complex, it has tiny homes .(many unoccupied) ... and now unoccupied motess (7 out of 9 are vacant-- still in the planning stages two years after acquisition something about drafting a set of house rules of occupants is holding up the show).

Your plan could and should be funded to its logical conclusion....it is clear we could take the $355 million SPD budget, and pay the homeless a salary and they wouldn't be homeless anymore.......I'm sure they would be cured of their addiction, crime would disappear, dogs and cats would quit living together, and there would be peace and prosperity.

Now utilizing this same logic we could get rid of the unfunded city light pension or any city employee pension which is not funded.... we stick our head in the ground, cap funding it at $100 million.... everybody is equal, regardless of the complexities... problem solved...... I love it a simple, elegant and easy to understand solution.

yes.... I'm all for it.

I don’t know how you skipped the amazing “cousin-mistress” quote when writing about Tennessee.

“We've had admitted child molesters on the floor. We have had members that peed in each other's office chairs. We’ve had someone who has illegally prescribed drugs to their cousin-mistress. And nothing ever happened to those folks.”

https://www.nashvillescene.com/news/pithinthewind/republicans-move-to-expel-democrats-who-protested-on-house-floor/article_2a5fedbf-2b7d-5bc9-b8df-8c4cd8c3f356.html

If $100M/year is not making a dent in homelessness, there's something else going on. Either there is an unlimited supply of homeless (as in not just our locals), or money doesn't address their problems. Or possibly the people who are getting said money are not doing the right things with it?

@27: “The city council’s ideological response to the anti-police riots of 2020 probably set back the timeline of police reform by at least 10 years.”

And, ever since, there’s been absolutely zero indication the Council or the Stranger has gained the slightest understanding of how badly “defund” has hurt police reform. (Heck, when the Stranger was handed evidence showing “defund” was making police alternatives LESS attractive to King County’s citizens, they buried it, instead publishing misleading happy talk about just how much those same citizens luuuuuved themselves some police alternatives: https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2022/04/28/71999670/rigorous-survey-finds-king-county-wants-police-alternatives/comments/6)

@29 the correct answer is D, all of the above.

@27/30 Ten years is probably a best case estimate. We are already 3 years removed from that time and the SPD is still losing more officers than they can hire. The SCC has at least tamped down their rhetoric so the job isn't quite as toxic as it used to be but there is still a lot of damage to undo. I'd say a better guess is early 2030's just to get us back to where we were prior to the defund debacle.

Hahaha.

Gee golly if Americans are more violent then it makes perfect sense to give them more advanced homicide tools with fewer restrictions!

But I think I've fed you enough attention for a decade. You can go back to rapidly stimulating your prostate with one of your freedumb tools as you read about the ritual slaughter of American children at the alter of your gun fantasies.

keep the cars
ban the Peds
let 'em take
an Uber

wanna cross the Street?
that'll be Three dollar
& We don't take
Cash.

@32
but what
if it goes Off?

@32: “…give them more advanced homicide tools with fewer restrictions!”

The question really becomes more, “how are you going to take away those ‘homicide tools’?” Miami Vice went into syndication decades ago, and yet those same plots, cliched even then, continue to play out in reality. Drugs, guns, and money continue flowing freely over America’s porous borders.

And even without all of those guns, wouldn’t it be easier to investigate why Americans perpetrate such a large amount of violence against each other, regardless of tool used? I mean, that’s what police reform really is: changing police culture, because we can’t take their guns away.

“But I think I've fed you enough attention for a decade.”

While deeply welcome on so many levels, your threat of being quiet and going away really doesn’t carry much weight, especially after your many returns from getting repeatedly banned. Still, we appreciate and applaud the thought.

Whenever another driver's stunt irritates me to the point of road rage, my wife insists that I leave the windoww rolled up. I now see the wisdom of her advice.

@37: Zing! If Matt was still around, I'm sure he would have worked in the Bud Light/Dylan Mulvaney brouhaha in Slog AM by now.

" Either there is an unlimited supply of homeless (as in not just our locals), or money doesn't address their problems"

Or we have an increasing number of homeless (mostly our locals) due to the increasing cost of housing. Rent goes up, people become homeless. The science is clear: homelessness is a housing problem (https://homelessnesshousingproblem.com/) and $100 million is a tiny amount of money compared to the cost of rent. You may be thinking: But if rent is so damn high, why don't companies just build more places to live, like they do in Germany or Japan. The simple answer is, it is illegal under the current zoning code.

@25 just for shits and giggles - please look into similar data from Mexico, Central and South America to compare against the US.

Re: e-scooters

I actually like these, in principle. I mean, I don't think they really need to be motorized, but the idea of making vehicles a shared resource instead of individually owned ones makes sense. Owning a scooter means it doesn't get used most of the time. Having them as a shared resource means they have higher utilization. It just makes sense.

I do get annoyed when they're parked in the middle of the sidewalk, but there are normally good places to park them within a block, and I think that's an incidental mismatch with the intention of the system and the way cities have been historically designed, not a fundamental flaw with the service.

@22 Seventiesrocked The law does not define nor is it equivalent to morality, even in a democracy. All it takes is for 50% of the voting population plus one person to sign off on something immoral, and it becomes law.

Democracy is better than autocracy or oligarchy, but it is still oppression.

Despite what the MAGAts wanted to see and all of the shit Donnie spews out of his pie hole every fucking day (including today on social media), his appearance in court today was just the beginning of a fascinating spectacle.

What do you suppose he was told that kept him in line today? Or is he just sitting in the knowledge that he is FUCKED?! He kept his mouth shut and he behaved. I don't think he's ever behaved like that in his entire life.

Of course he's going to spew some shit in Florida tonight.

He's been warned. The judge told him explicitly to KEEP. HIS. MOUTH. SHUT.
He's been warned not to incite violence.
Does he have the self control required to do so in front of his Florida MAGAts?

New York City shut his shit show down (MGT and GS ran for the hills)!

And in case anyone failed to note - prosecutors were looking for a January 2024 trial date, which Donnie's lawyers immediately objected to and then (why I wonder?) changed their minds and quietly agreed that a "spring 2024" trial date was more realistic. He is soooooo fucked. His lawyers know it.

I honestly have no idea how delusional Donnie is (though I suspect he's out there in the stratosphere when it comes to reality). One thing's for certain, he is never going back to the White House. His MAGAts are donating millions to pay for his legal defense and are obviously just as out of touch with reality as they have always been.

Trump is in trouble. Big fucking trouble. And it won't even be the fact that he tried to overthrow the government of the United States or have is Vice President murdered that will take him down. It will be his lying, thieving bullshit. 34 felony counts is no joke.

It's a sad and pathetic display by the so-called greatest country on earth that his shit filled body bag is still walking around free (and will likely never be held accountable for treason). It will still be supremely satisfying to see him go down.

I look forward to the indictments that are still coming.

@40- I have yet to see anything conclusive that shows the majority of homeless people here are FROM Seattle. The surveys never seem to ask that. It’s always “where were you living when you most recently became homeless” or some variation. Very artfully worded to avoid the simple question “are you from here?” I’m sure that a good number of the people here needing housing are locals but it also appears that a large number are not. Case in point the upstanding California boy who lit that Marina on fire recently. People from Seattle who are down on their luck, we’re responsible for. People who came here homeless already, not so much. It’s not on us to solve the entire county’s problem, and it’s certainly not on us to support people from other states.

"Cause of homelessness? It’s not drugs or mental illness, researchers say"
https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-07-11/new-book-links-homelessness-city-prosperity

"Is homelessness a housing problem? Two Seattle experts make their case in new book"
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/homeless/is-homelessness-a-housing-problem-two-seattle-experts-make-their-case-in-new-book/

SUMMARY:
"In a new book titled “Homelessness is a Housing Problem,” Clayton Page Aldern (a policy analyst and data scientist in Seattle) and Gregg Colburn (an assistant professor of real estate at the University of Washington’s College of Built Environments) studied per capita homelessness rates across the country along with what possible factors might be influencing the rates and found that high rates of homelessness are caused by shortages of affordable housing, not by mental illness, drug addiction, or poverty.

They found that mental illness, drug addiction and poverty occur nationwide, but not all places have equally expensive housing costs. One example cited is that two states with high rates of opioid addiction, Arkansas and West Virginia, both have low per capita rates of homelessness, because of low housing prices. With respect to poverty, the city of Detroit is one of the poorest cities, yet Detroit's per capita homelessness rate is 20% that of West Coast cities like Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego. [

In an interview, Colburn stated: "To someone who says, “Will housing fix all of this? Or will there still be people on the street?,” we say that Seattle has five times the homelessness of Chicago. But there’s still homelessness, and there are people panhandling in Chicago. And so we aren’t suggesting that accommodating housing markets will end all homelessness. What we’re saying is, it doesn’t need to be five times what Chicago is."

@40: From a reader’s review of that book on Amazon:

“The overwhelming majority of the linear regressions are unfitted, with no p-value, small samples, no discussion of potential controls, and are presented as though the definitively show something that they simply do not. The authors are overconfident, and don't even try to qualify the claims made based on their faulty models.

“It isn't even that the conclusions of their research is wrong, it's just that their models don't show whether it's right or not. Aldern is the 'data analyst' of the duo, but does not have a degree on the topic, and seems to have missed very important details as a result, as the importance of, say, your p-value is something you learn in entry-level research methods classes.”

(https://www.amazon.com/product-reviews/0520383788/ref=cm_cr_arp_mb_paging_btm_2?ie=UTF8&reviewerType=all_reviews&pageNumber=2)

One of their key findings showed the rate of homelessness declining as the number of persons living below the poverty line increased. Yes, that’s right: as the amount of money available to pay rent across a population got smaller, so did the rate of homelessness. How then could homelessness be a housing problem?

@xina -- Fucking
BINGO. trumpfy
be goin'
Down

'sir
your
Dumpster
has arrived.'

Yes. It figures you evaluate scientific data by two experts in the filed based upon the random reviews left by anonymous dipshits on Amazon (who are probably you).

Yes. It figures you evaluate scientific data by two experts in the field based upon the random reviews left by anonymous dipshits on Amazon (who are probably you).

@2 Max Solomon, @45 xina, @46 dvs99 (re homelessness discussion), and @50 kristofarian: +4 YESSSSSSSSSS! For the WIN!
When the Orange Turd is cornholed for life in prison, I'm getting out the good Cabernet Sauvignon, popcorn, and dark chocolate with almonds and sea salt. When that happens, let all the equally guilty as well as gullible face the same downhill spiral until the GOP is history. May every MAGAt, insurrectionist goon, QAnon, Proud Boy, and Patriot Player ad nauseum be fighting each other like rats in a trap. They were warned.

@51 multiple things can be true simultaneously. It would no doubt reduce homelessness if there were more housing available in Seattle. At the same time it really is bullshit to suggest the “unhoused” who tend to commit the most crime and consume the most resources due to their addiction and mental problems would suddenly stop preying on the general public if they had more than a tent to sleep in. We should def try to house people but allowing encampments and tolerating anti social behavior until such time housing is available is a non starter.

How sad about the emaciated whales. Manmade dependency on fossil fuels is what is destroying the Earth and all of us on it.

@54,

I absolutely agree with you that housing should be provided, but also that it isn't going to be a lone fix to solve this crisis in and of itself. And also that shorter term measures are desperately needed. Though I do absolutely think low/no barrier housing would result in a significant reduction in crime and vandalism. A lot of that (crime/vandalism) is surely perpetrated out of sheer boredom and despair due to being on the streets with literally nothing else to occupy their time & mind. Idle time being the devil's workshop and all. I know it's comically simplistic, but it's nevertheless fascinating how effective a dumb old fashioned television can still be in acting as a powerful and calming sedative. Shit, I just killed nearly an entire weekend in front of mine and I'm a former endurance athlete and still active outdoor enthusiast.

@51, @52: Tell is you don’t know anything about statistical analysis without having to humiliate yourself with multiple failed attempts to spell great big long fancy words like “statistical” and “analysis.”

But enough about you, and back to a topic which could actually have value: if the rate of homelessness declines as the population gets poorer, then how is homelessness a housing problem?

Janet Protasiewicz prevailed
in the state’s consequential contest
for the Supreme Court, which will now
be likely to reverse the state’s abortion ban.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/04/us/politics/wisconsin-supreme-court-protasiewicz.html

*55-44%!!!
also a Victory
for a Gerrymandered
Wisconsin. fucking AAAA!

oops
forgot
the Headline!

Liberal Wins*
Wisconsin Court Race
in Victory for Abortion Rights Backers

Brandon Johnson
Elected Chicago Mayor
Turning Back Tough-on-Crime Opponent

Paul Vallas, who pressed for a more
conservative approach, narrowly lost to Mr.
Johnson, who was little known to voters only months ago.

/https://www.nytimes.com/2023/04/04/us/elections/chicago-mayor-election-brandon-johnson.html

sometimes
thm Fascists
Gotta Lose.

EXCELLENT.

from @61:

"Mr. Vallas pitched himself to a voters as a tough-on-crime technocrat who would hire thousands more police officers and make the city safer than it has been since the pandemic, when shootings and homicides spiked. But he also spent much of the campaign trying to convince voters that he was a devoted Democrat."

yeah there's a Lot of
Convincing going
on. it's like a
Plague.

but Wisconsin
voted Progressive.

Out-Standing!

was/is Vallas
a fascist? meh
probably Not but
Why take that chance.

Wisconsin chose Not to.

@51 , @52 While I think you believe the bullshit study you posted, the fact of the matter is you are in good company.

Most of the politicians think this way also....if you put drug addicts in houses - tiny homes, motels etc then your homeless problem is solved... or they will magically find help and cure themselves... Which they seldom do.

I think if you put drug addicts in tiny homes or motels, they just have a nicer place to shoot up.... but the underlying problem is never solved.

Wouldn't it make more sense to "gather up all the substance abuse folks", put them in treatment first, .....Then after treatment, you get them housing ...job support etc,

Since the current approach of find homes is working... maybe, just maybe approach the problem from a different angle.

"... if you put drug addicts in tiny homes or motels, they just have a nicer place to shoot up.... but the underlying problem is never solved."

yeah
who Needs
a stupid Decent Place
to imbibe in intoxicants

let the whole fucking World see it

do YOU have a
Lockable Door?

@57: “Though I do absolutely think low/no barrier housing would result in a significant reduction in crime and vandalism.”

Sounds great! We should try that!

Wait, what?

“Fire erupts at Renton hotel being used as temporary homeless shelter”

“Renton Police say a man who is staying at the hotel was arrested for arson.”

“Since the beginning of April, firefighters and medics have been called to the hotel 277 times.”

“City officials have been concerned after King County and the Downtown Emergency Services Center moved people from Seattle’s largest congregate shelter to the hotel in April. Municipal officials say Renton police reported a dramatic increase in service calls to the hotel, blaming some neighborhood crime on its residents.”

(https://komonews.com/amp/news/local/renton-firefighters-respond-to-fire-at-hotel-being-used-as-temporary-homeless-shelter)

It seems like we're ignoring the fact that not all homeless are the same. It stands to reason that people who are working and paying rent are more likely to lose their apartments if rents go up. But there is another group of people camping on the street who are clearly not just the last $200 increase away from being able to keep themselves in an apartment. I suspect that the second group is actually smaller in number but it's the one people see.

The first group will absolutely be helped if more apartments are built, the sooner the better. Speaking as a landlord, a major factor (maybe the biggest one) in figuring out what a place will rent for is the number of other vacant units around. It would be nice if the City would stop putting up barriers and disincentives to opening more rentals, but I guess the shadow of the Scarfed Terror is long and dark.

The second group is no way, no how going to pay much rent. There is a pretty good population of what were known as "bums" when I was growing up on the street/camping in the parks. No one expected them to show up sober enough to work and hold a job/pay for an apartment back in the day, and I don't know why we would now. The old solution for this population was Skid Row. Crappy rooms in run-down hotels, but indoors. There was a place for them to hang out & drink Night Train/Wild Irish Rose to their hearts' content. I'm sure public assistance paid for most of those rooms, which was at least a partial solution. This is a pretty challenging population (walked down Third between the Morrison and the courthouse lately?) which makes housing them in most residential neighborhoods pretty tough.

Tearing down Skid Row had to have put a lot of people out on the street and removed the rock-bottom housing option. We have not come up with a replacement, which turns out to be a real issue.

we're Gentrifying
the Middle Class
to infinity and
Beyond

Adios!

a Fine run
Whilst it
Lasted.

@51, @52: “experts in the filed/field”? Yeah, right. From the link @40:

“GREGG COLBURN is an assistant professor of real estate at the University of Washington’s College of Built Environments.”

If you tell us you had absolutely no idea this guy was going to advocate for more housing, I’ll believe you. As the comment at Amazon noted, his fellow author has no formal background in the type of statistical analysis performed in their book. So, the latter’s shoddy analysis supported the former’s pre-ordained conclusion.

Drug overdoses among King County’s homeless have reached an alarming rate, encampments in Seattle have constant drug use, generate rampant thefts to support drug use, campers get into fights over drugs and drug money all the time, but you read a poorly-researched book (or, at least, a review of one) which says no drugs are involved. So there.

Again, why do communities with higher poverty rates have lower rates of homelessness? Any ideas there?

@59-@63: Thank you for sharing some welcome and much needed good news, kris!