‘One woman, whose husband was convicted of "obstructing Congress, interfering with police officers and threatening his own children" said, "I believe my husband was overly charged."’

Good to see even the Stranger’s deep love of abolition, defund, and diversionary programs has limits. Some freely-chosen actions simply deserve jail time for the adults who chose those actions. It’s a question of which actions in which circumstances, not whether such actions and circumstances can ever possibly exist.

I hope the Stranger can work this understanding into issues concerning local crimes, policing, and justice.

Whinging about upper 80s w/ no humidity before it even happens is very Seattle Native, Natalie.

You do know it could be so much worse, right?

Paying for new ferry boats is pointless without crew, and since WSF pays below industry standard, and the cost of living is too high for most entry level workers.
Good luck on finding and retaining crew.

@3 New ferries to replace old ferries that are past end of service life will help with the breakdowns that cause some of the delays. It won't help with crewing, but let's take wins where we can.

It wasn't well stated in the King 5 piece linked, but the Steilacoom II and the Christine Anderson in the latest breakdown are a separate ferry system (run by Pierce County) from the WSF system (run by the state) getting 5 new boats.

The antivaxxers have no legal standing. There is no such right to spread disease. Don't want to get vaccinated to do your job, you lose your job. I hope they get slaughtered in court and end up having to pay and pay and pay some more. Over a million dead, hundreds still dying daily. Only in this country do people believe killing others a fucking right they have.

Seaman Merchant makes a good point about the lack of crew, but that doesn't mean that it's an unsolvable problem or that it means we shouldn't be getting more boats into the system.
There's also a lack of good snacks on the boats but that doesn't mean we should scuttle the whole fleet and leave Vashon to fend for itself.

Nothing about Glacier v Teamsters? Aside from being an important ruling on labor issues, those teamsters were working in our county, and the majority opinion both mischaracterized the union's actions and applied a different legal test to the case than they claimed to.

@3: what are "industry standard" wages? I assume you mean marine-industry standard, not US state-run ferry system standards (because there aren't that many of those). curious how much they'd need to raise pay to attract enough vaccine-willing workers.

do you know if BC is having the same crew issues?

@9 Inslee removed the vax requirement for state workers last month so that is no longer an issue

https://crosscut.com/politics/2023/05/inslee-rolls-back-covid-vaccine-mandate-wa-state-employees

@1 good one, but we all know that TS like most idealogical based organizations believe that accountability is only something that is applied to those who do not hold the same political views.

I went back to Pandora after trying Spotify. Spotify has more variety in genres it seems, but puts out-of-the-blue tracks, like Taylor Swift in my Henry Mancini station. Maybe blame AI.

@10: I asking what ferry workers would need to be paid to be competitive with industry standard.

it seems like WSDOT might be a bit easier job than crewing a crab fishing boat in the Bering strait (which is probably not where the potential applicant pool went).

Oh, boy. Here we go. Now we have people who were pissed at the pandemic response wanting a check because they felt intimidated and put upon during a crisis. These are the people you never want to confide in at work or play because they are the ones who’ll stab you in the fucking back. Next contagion comes around, and there will be others to be sure, we probably should just let them get sick. Maybe that’s part of human survival – occasionally weeding out the stupid. Yeah, get vaccinated, get Grandma vaccinated, and the kids, and perhaps not worry about the ones who insist on rolling the dice with their lives. Hmm. I’d never want anyone nursing me who thought vaccinations were a Big Pharma plot.

It takes a special kind of moron (a moron who has $10K to play with) to think someone is going to want you if you knock off the perceived competition. Also, “I know we met on Match.com, but I don’t want a romantic relationship with you, but we can be hiking buddies,” seems quite odd – not unheard of, but to me, quite odd. The guy involved couldn’t figure out that maintaining any relationship with this woman might be encouraging in some way? At any rate, what a soulless, moronic woman. The guy doesn’t sound like he has much on the ball either, and has failed his course in Judgment of Character.

Ferries are and will always be a huge part of my Seattle. Please do everything necessary to keep that vital tradition alive and well.

Very odd situation with the Cessna. They don’t fly high enough to worry about O2 deprivation, do they? And if the pilot died, couldn’t one of the other passengers have operated the radio? Maybe not. Sounds like they were all dead and the plane was on autopilot. Sad. Dangerous. Nice to know the correct defenses sprang into action, Looking forward to the FAA’s report. You know, with the growing number of millionaires in this country, millionaires who can afford small planes, we may start seeing more and more of this as the skies become more crowded with people having varying degrees of aviation skills and preparation. May be time for a review of FAA safety measures.

Also, happy about the DGA contract, apprehensive about negotiations coming up with SAG-AFTRA, but nothing's going to be over without the WGA.

@11 - Ms. Phoebe, you like Mancini, too? <3 Man, he sure could score a picture. I adore his body of work.

"Only in this country
do people believe killing
others [is] a fucking right they have."
--@xina

get an AK-47
join a 'Militia'
storm a Capitol
deny the Plague
sell some Oxycontin
Hell sell ALOTTA Oxy
Addict a fucking Nation
gatewayed into Fentanyl

welcome to the New American
1000-year Reich brought to
US by a "Republican" party
and complicit 'Centrists'
Well-compensated by
the Ultra Wealthy

gross income Inequality
gonna be the Death
of our Democracy

but it'll take a
little Time tho
the Table and
Stage're all
Set for it.

"Religious exemption" is such a fucking scam

@9: Wages at WSF would need to increase 40-60% to bring them in parity with blue water shipping, there are advantages for crew at WSF, notably being home almost every night, but there trade offs there too, I just paid off a Matson ship, I was gone for 5 months, not a day off, which is standard, but now I'm completely off work for, well as long as I like, (or till my bank gets low) but most probably 3-4 months, plus I left Seattle, (broke my heart, but yeah) and paid cash for a house on land.

New hires at WSF are not assigned to a boat, but are on call, maybe Anacortes one day, and Seattle the next, of course WSF workers don't have to sweat the Hall, so there's that.

But, assuming hate groups like Heritage/CATO, or scum like John Stossel, don't destroy U.S. flag shipping, there is a shortage of maritime workers, that will likely get worse, if you know a young person Maritime High School in Des Moines is a good place, then for older foolks perhaps looking for a career change, there's Seattle Central College or even Cal-State Maritime in California

@20: thx. 40-60% is a big jump; it would be hard to sell in Olympia.

@5
Don’t forget Russia. They seem to be into killing lots of people these days.

@24 - Yeah, I just learned it was a jet. So, nevermind. That explains a lot. Thanks, B.

@23: Not to mention Ugandans killing gays, Myanmar genocide, and many others easy to enumerate.

I feels so sorry for @5 and all those who can't stand the country they were born into. It's beyond political, almost a dysphoria.

"I feels so sorry for @5 and all those who can't stand the country they were born into. It's beyond political, almost a dysphoria." --@28

speaking of Wealthy Birthrights
you unsurprisingly equate despising
Billionaire & Multi-national corporate
takeover of our Economy with Hating
America - either ignorantly or willfully

we were at War with the Fascists
but here they Are back again
with Cheerleaders like you
(someone in their Sights!)
Happy to Appease them.

if your kink
is to be publicly
excoriated then I
guess here you go

@31: Just who are those so-called "fascists", can you name one?

@30: So I should be more unpatriotic? And what difference would that make?

@34: I never suggested apathy, except to quell kristofarian's hysteria.

@23 and others - I am speaking of civilians killing their fellow citizens. War is a crime. Russia has been committing a crime since they began the war against Ukraine. Genocide is a crime. In the so-called most powerful first world country in the world, where vaccines are available to prevent the death of citizens by disease, people don't have the right to kill other people - not for religious reasons, not for anti-science reasons, not for delusional reasons, not for any motherfucking reason. And this mentality is born from the bullshit belief that people in this country have a right to own weapons of war and arsenals of murder weapons and shoot whomever they feel like shooting 'cuz they is scared (especially all of those cops so terrified of Black people).

Gotta love comments from shit asses who know they are shit asses and yet must always be shit asses.