Alaska Air buys Hawaiian Air: Seattle’s hometown airline will pay $1.9 billion—which includes $900 million of debt—to buy Hawaiian Air. The merged airline will be based in Seattle, but will maintain a hub in Honolulu. With the acquisition comes more “connectivity to 138 destinations” in the continental United States and “across the Pacific, including nonstop service to 29 international destinations in the Americas, Asia, Australia and the South Pacific,” according to KING 5. The deal will likely need to pass a federal government sniff test since other recent airline acquisitions have drawn scrutiny from the Biden administration over fears they will raise passenger fares.
Bow down to Washington: Go freakin’ dawgs, huh? The University of Washington Huskies continued their undefeated season in the Pac-12 Championship—the last Pac-12 Championship probably ever—by beating the Oregon Ducks 34 to 31. Now, our little dawgs are headed to the playoffs and will face the University of Texas in the Sugar Bowl in New Orleans, Louisiana.
Sorry for all the sports news: This is important water cooler information. The Mariners traded away three players to the Atlanta Braves. They traded pitcher Marco Gonzales, first baseman Evan White, and beloved outfielder Jarred Kelenic. In exchange, they’ll get two relief pitchers. The fans are sad. The fans are bitter. They’re calling this a “salary dump” trade. So, maybe that means Mariners management is gunning for a big acquisition? Maybe they’ll snatch up Japanese phenom Shohei Ohtani? Or, maybe they’ll continue gutting the team and disappointing fans for no reason at all. So much drama in sports! My pal John Trupin at Lookout Landing has more thoughts here. Well, and also here.
The saddest thing about this trade is we will lose rabid Kelenic fan behavior like this fictional comic a fan drew about how Kelenic started playing better after he had sex with her. Fan culture is so rich. How could Mariners management deprive us of more of this type of stuff?
“How Jarred Kelenic Got His Groove Back” an historical fanfic comic about @Mariners young talent Kelenic. Feat. in Bubbles #15.
Pt 1/2 pic.twitter.com/aRt7zlU8q0— Gina Wynbrandt (@gwynbr) January 4, 2023
Hot dog! Langlois, Oregon, a town with a population of 370, is known for its hot dogs. The only grocery store, the Langlois Market, sells “specially peeled frankfurters” with homemade sweet mustard. Apparently, they’re a big deal. World famous, as the signs outside the market say. And who would question them? I’m all about hot dog tourism these days. I just got back from Iceland and the hot dogs there are worth the hype.
Cry me an atmospheric river: Tut, tut, it looks like a rain. It looks like a lot of rain. An atmospheric river starting Monday will bring risks of rising rivers and flooding across Western Washington. In Seattle, we should get three inches of rain in 36 hours.
We’re in a bit of a lull here currently. But, another round of rain will arrive Monday morning and won’t be in any hurry to leave. Here’s the current rainfall forecast throughout this event. #wawx pic.twitter.com/cVR5NFeOAd
— NWS Seattle (@NWSSeattle) December 4, 2023
Total precipitable water – a measure of water vapor in a vertical column of the atmosphere – is a great indicator of precipitation potential. And you can clearly see a swath of moisture headed our way in an atmospheric river. #wawx pic.twitter.com/mhMGgjeixP
— NWS Seattle (@NWSSeattle) December 4, 2023
Shit. Potential flooding could damage the records held in the Olympia basement vault of the Washington State Archives building.
Wolf dog kills baby: An Alabama family with a “wolf-hybrid” dog is reeling after the wolf-hybrid dog bit and killed their three-month-old baby. The International Wolf Center warns against bringing such wolf-hybrid pets into family homes. Those animals’ genetic makeup (likely the wolf parts) make their behavior “inconsistent and unpredictable in ways that pose safety risks to humans,” according to the IWC, as reported by the Associated Press.
Five dead in southeast WA home: The Clark County Sheriff’s Department found five bodies killed in a suspected shooting in an Orchards, Washington home. The shooter is believed to be among the deceased.
This oughta be good: In the wake of his expulsion, ex-Rep. George Santos has agreed to go on comedian and political satirist Ziwe’s talk show.
Let’s do it @ziwe 😜 https://t.co/Y4TbeZEGOg
— George Santos (@MrSantosNY) December 3, 2023
He’s also now on Cameo: Gotta get that coin somehow.
It’s beginning. pic.twitter.com/F3evb4f0bQ
— Matt Stopera (@mattstopera) December 4, 2023
Should the Sacklers be shielded from civil lawsuits? The fate of the Sackler family, owners of Purdue Pharma, the maker of OxyContin, the drug that jumpstarted the opioid epidemic, is at the center of a settlement being heard by the Supreme Court. The nationwide settlement includes the Sacklers giving up ownership of Purdue Pharma, coughing up $6 billion, bankrupting the company then creating a new company from the ashes with profits which would fund treatment and prevention. The Sacklers themselves won’t go bankrupt, however. Will the company’s settlement and legal shield from bankruptcy extend to the individual family members? The Supreme Court will decide. More here.
What??? Sultan Al Jaber, the oil executive leading the COP28 climate summit, made a statement in the lead up to the event that caused outrage in the climate world. Jaber’s statement said there is “’no science’ that says phasing out fossil fuels is necessary to keep global warming under a critical threshold,” according to CNN. Scientists and activists expressed alarm, worrying what direction the upcoming talks at the summit would be like if this was how Jaber was kicking things off. His statement came as a response to a reporter asking whether he would “lead” on phasing out fossil fuels himself. He still believes in the climate goal of keeping to 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit (though, he used Celsius numbers, I just converted it for you, my sweet American audience). But, I guess, he doesn’t really want to cut fossil fuels? It’s unclear. Also, why is an oil executive the president of the climate summit?
Always vote for yourself: Damion Green lost his bid for Rainier City Council to Ryan Roth. The final vote count was 247 to 246. Green didn’t vote for himself because he thought it seemed “narcissistic.”
A tasty morsel of investigative journalism for your Monday: If you’ve ever wondered why different countries have different chip flavors, like why you can’t find Salsa Verde Doritos anywhere besides Mexico or why Thailand has lasagne Lays, but Italy doesn’t, you gotta read this Guardian story. There’s a whole geographic and demographic psychology to chip flavors. It’s fascinating. PepsiCo uses a computer program to process every restaurant menu in a country to keep track of what ingredients are popular. The places that develop these flavors—seasoning houses—are cloaked in secrecy.
“Wolf dog kills baby” – 2-to-1 odds those dumb rednecks named that dog Cujo.
Jarred Kelenic is “beloved” like the buddy who’s been drinking all your beer and sleeping rent-free on your couch for the past three years.
A candidate who doesn’t vote for themselves deserves to lose.
Real scientists use Kelvin, not Celsius.
Just saying.
Irresponsible parenting in Alabama? A familicide made possible by a firearm? Wow, shocking news.
I still don’t get how you pronounce Kelenic “Kel-nick”. Kel-e-nich. There are rules. Anyway, good riddance. This year the dude broke his foot kicking a garbage can and fucked up the season, and he’s a career .204 hitter.
‘The Mariners traded away three players to the Atlanta Braves. They traded pitcher Marco Gonzales, first baseman Evan White, and beloved outfielder Jarred Kelenic. In exchange, they’ll get two relief pitchers. The fans are sad. The fans are bitter. They’re calling this a “salary dump” trade. So, maybe that means Mariners management is gunning for a big acquisition? Maybe they’ll snatch up Japanese phenom Shohei Ohtani? Or, maybe they’ll continue gutting the team and disappointing fans for no reason at all. So much drama in sports!’
As for at least the last twenty years, and probably for almost their entire miserable existence, the only entertainment value the Mariners provide comes from their epic mismanagement. You don’t become the only active franchise never to have played in the World Series purely by accident.
Seattle’s voters tried to dump the Mariners in 1995, only to have Republicans in the state legislature team up (ha!) with Seattle’s Democrats to thwart the voters. Decades and a sports palace later, Seattle still lacks a Major-League Baseball team.
So in the Sackler case, the issue is: should someone sitting on billions of dollars in ill-gotten gain be allowed to protect that money as part of a bankruptcy settlement? Keeping in mind that if you or I were sued, the judgment would go into our debt pile and (under Chapter 13, at least) we would have to devote ALL our disposable income to the repayment of that debt.
Fuck no.
@8: Why on Earth would Seattle voters dump the Mariners back in 1995, the phenomenal year of Refuse to Lose, tensy dear? Were you even here in Washington state back then? Do you not remember the Mariners defeating the Yankees 3-2 in the playoffs, and winning the AL, with the M’s team pileup on Ken Griffey, Jr., and Joey Cora with tears in his eyes? No?? Well, I do.
It’s Monday. Get a little more caffeine next time before trolling, Yankee.
GO, DAWGS!!!!!!!!!!
Atmospheric rain again…….SHIT!
Thank heavens my beloved and I reside on a hill. I already feel sorry for farmers, tribal nations, and anyone near a river and / or in a flood plain. Batten down the hatches, folks.
@10: I was not only living in Seattle, I was also part of the majority who voted down the stadium deal the state legislature had offered local voters:
“Seattle voters, who six weeks ago rejected a new baseball stadium and the Seattle Commons, turned around and taxed themselves for low-income housing.”
— from “ELECTION ’95: THE MESSAGE IS SECONDARY TO THE MIRACLE”, Ross Anderson, Seattle Times, November 8, 1995, Page: B4
And yes, I well remember that slogan and those games. That we voted down their stadium during the greatest hype the Mariners had ever experienced shows just how little we wanted them.
(You really should pay more attention to votes and elections, and a little less to millionaires who play a children’s game for billionaires. You might humiliate yourself a bit less frequently. Just sayin’.)
tensorna @11: To be clear, King County (not just Seattle) voted in 1995 not to add .1% to the sales tax for a stadium by a margin 1/5 of one percent. The measure wasn’t about “keeping the team”, it was how the stadium was to be financed.
@11 It’s not true that the stadium was voted down “during the greatest hype the Mariners had ever experienced.” The vote was on September 19. I was at the Kingdome that night (it was my birthday) when Doug Strange hit a walk-off home run. The stadium wasn’t even half full, as was typical at the time. They weren’t drawing 20,000 most nights.
September 19, ironically, was the date that REALLY started the hype, and the day Prop 1 lost by .2%. On September 20 the Mariners were in first place for the first time since the beginning of the season. Had the vote been a week later, it would’ve passed.
Why apologize for the sports news? Not all of us are espresso-sipping artsy types, or we are but also follow sports or are sports fans.
What a cold slap in the face it must be to be traded from Seattle to Atlanta. Yeah, the Braves win more, and you only have to live in Atlanta during the season, but for me, it’d be like my NYC dream job being transferred to Pittsburgh.
Let me add that for many people there is nothing wrong with Atlanta or Pittsburgh, and that may be true – unless you want to live in Seattle or NYC.
Hot dogs are not a sustainable food source. Just sayin’. And it matters if you love this planet.
Having a hybrid wolf-dog as a pet if you aren’t a Mountie like Constable Benton Fraser is dumb. Having one with a baby in the house is a prime argument for one being able to chose one’s parents, both mouth-breathers, I’m sure. Sorry, kid.
I’m thinking about how the Supreme Court will come down on the Sackler issue. I’m pretty sure now that it depends on how many justices took private Hula lessons on the Sackler yacht anchored at Kauai (or some shit like that). Enjoy the noontime Mai Tai, your Honors.
Canada has some uniquely flavored potato chips. First time I saw ketchup flavoured chips, I went, wha? But if you think about French fries then I guess it makes total sense.
A fire broke out in a home in Sylmar overnight Sunday in a sort of upper middle-class neighborhood. Two people and their dog died. Found the woman in the pool. The guy and the dog were in the living room, but firemen were having issues with extinguishing the fire because the place was loaded with guns and ammunition going off. Horror. Perplexing. How many unlikely homes are filled with guns and thousands of rounds of ammunition, I wonder.
https://www.firehouse.com/operations-training/video/53079690/two-dead-in-ammunition-fed-los-angeles-fire
@12: Yes, sorry, for concise clarity, I edited out the bit about it being a County-wide vote. But it did lose, and it lost because a majority of voters in Seattle voted against.
The claim it was merely how (not if) the stadium would be financed is pure revisionist history, manufactured and added after the Republicans and Democrats in the state legislature teamed up (ha!) to build an even more expensive sports palace on the unwilling backs of local voters.
@13: I was responding to the appalling ignorance of Seattle’s history, proudly flaunted @10. However low the Mariners’ gate receipts, there was a full-court press (to mix sports cliches) in the local for-profit media to pass the measure; professional sports are very good product for profit-driven media to sell. (That as late as the end of Summer during a pennant race, the Mariners still couldn’t attract many paying customers, should tell us all we need to know about their true popularity.)
Looks like Damion Green has not watch Alexander Payne’s excellent 1999 comedy Election. Would have voted for himself if he did.
@ 17 – Payne always serves up his salad of sweet, funny, and sad with every film having varying amounts of those ingredients. His new one is very sweet, touchingly so, sometimes awfully funny (“For most people life is like a henhouse ladder – shitty and short.”), but ultimately bittersweet. Good movie, and unlike quite a few these days, I don’t want my two hours back. Is American cinema making a comeback?
The Seattle fans were bitter after the Pilots left, even though Senator Gorton (eg, Slippery Slade -aah the good old days of our favorite politicians) sued to get a new MLB team. And the bitterness continues to this day over the loss of the Sonics.
Many voters were on the rag about “the stadiums being forced on us”
but the Seahawks-also about to be shipped out of town- won their stadium vote.
The legislature was wise to keep the Mariners here – the initial amount for the baseball stadium was paid off in 2011 five years ahead of schedule (per the Ballpark)
Whaa? I just bought a bag of Salsa Verde Doritos in Wallingford.
tv ruined baseball.
the only way the game works is if the players are angry and hungry.
@20: “The legislature was wise to keep the Mariners here – the initial amount for the baseball stadium was paid off in 2011 five years ahead of schedule (per the Ballpark)”
Had the actual decision, made by real voters, about how to spend their tax money — during the first pennant race Seattle had ever seen! — been respected, then for a tidy sum of $0, Seattle would have hosted at least ten times as many World Series games as it has since.
Man, I’ve no idea if Seattle is in legitimate contention for Ohtani or not. It’s been super widely reported that among the most important things for him is to sign with a contender. And as tensy there notes, they’ve a long and well established history of being consistently not that. And so then clearing payroll needed to sign him by means of unloading useful players would seem like a pretty counter-productive move (and yeah yeah, Kelenic hasn’t reached anything terribly close to his potential, but he was fine hitting at the bottom of the lineup.)
@16: The lack of attendance at “the end of Summer during a pennant race” is also a reflection of how shitty a venue for baseball the Kingdome was.
tensorna @16: “ The claim it was merely how (not if) the stadium would be financed is pure revisionist history, manufactured and added after the Republicans and Democrats in the state legislature teamed up (ha!) to build an even more expensive sports palace on the unwilling backs of local voters.”
I don’t think it was revisionist history; for example, if a school bond fails, is it referendum on the idea of public education or the cost and scope of that bond?
DOUG @25: Eh, when there was an actual decent product on the field in games that mattered, the Kingdome was full. The same has been true for Safeco/T-Mobile.
@26 Yes, but that really started September 20, 1995. Again, if the election had been a week later, the stadium deal would’ve passed.
@26: School expenditures, and votes upon them, are both long-standing features of government. The stadium measure presented to King County’s voters in Sept. 1995 was a one-off — until it failed, despite the Mariners’ first-ever pennant race, and constant exhortations in the for-profit media for voters to pass it. Then the revisionism began, and hard. (See @13 and @28.)
@13, @28: If your Grandmother had had wheels, she would’ve been a wagon.
Obviously our new Pickleball Supreme Team overlords have other plans for us
@29 You’re dumb.
@12 & @26 Teslick, @20 pat L, and @13, @25, and @28 DOUG: Thank you both for helping corroborate on what really happened with the Mariners in 1995.
@16: Eat my shit, Little Miss Yankee Stuck Up, and choke on your own Bronx cheer puke. I, for one, am glad you left Washington state. Please don’t ever come back.
@31 DOUG: +1 Thank you. Agreed. There is no reasoning with argumentative idiots, especially the ones who are 40 going on 14. I’ve often wondered if teensy’s hyper-trolling is to cover up for something else seriously lacking.
@32: Correction: Thank you three (Teslick, DOUG and pat L) for helping corroborate on what really happened with the Mariners in 1995.
@11: You really should pick a better hobby than cross-country trolling, and leave the facts to the long timers, natives, and adults in the room, teensy. That could save you a lot of humiliation. Just sayin’.
@31-@34: The facts remain: despite @10’s loud display of ignorance, we had indeed held a vote on whether or not to buy the Mariners a stadium, and we local voters said no. No amount of your denial or speculation will ever change that.
@31: If you still want to engage in speculation, then try this. As the real history, quoted @11, shows, Seattle’s voters rejected buying a ballpark for the Mariners, and also creating a public park in South Lake Union. We did vote to tax ourselves for low-income housing. Now, if instead of fighting us, our local politicians had taken direction from us on these issues, perhaps all of our public money spent on stadiums might have gone instead for housing, and Seattle might not now have a housing-affordability crisis?
@32-@34: Yeah, you’re always happy to wallow comfortably in your own pitiable ignorance, but your painfully swollen vanity can’t take your getting called on it. So you lash out in hate-filled rage and denial at anyone who dares to correct your miserable displays of public ignorance. I really don’t see anything I, or anyone else besides yourself, can do about any of this. (Except, of course, to laugh.) Good luck!
This is where I come for my unhinged Seattle radical news, not sports!
@24: As the second of the linked articles already noted, the Mariners once tried the “Japanese superstar” route with an even better import, and it didn’t work then, either:
“When Ichiro came to Seattle, he immediately won the MVP and led the greatest regular season team in the history of the sport to 116 wins. But even Ichiro, the lone Japanese position player whose MLB numbers stand above Ohtani’s, could not bring a World Series to the Pacific Northwest.”
So if the Mariners try this, they’ll merely be copying their own expensive failure, doing the same thing over again with the expectation of a different result. And Seattle can again count how many schools, roads, bridges — and housing — it could have had for taking the cheaper path to not hosting the World Series.
I wouldn’t let ol’
Wormtongue get you
overly-excited auntie Gee
he’s here mostly to curry
Libertarian and Neoliberal fervor
and favor so’s he can Bash Progressives
witrh the few like-minded and to see to tS’s
ultimate Demise.
such a Pity
so much raw
Talent and yet
with a Passion for
setting Mankind back
to the Stone Age and beyond.
it’s
just
SAD.
@38 kristofarian: Sad is right. Wormtongue is an appropriate name for him.
At least I knew instinctively this time to immediately scroll past him to your comment.
Many thanks for offering infinitely better commentary.
@39: So, in 1995, did Sesttle hold a vote on buying the Mariners a stadium? If so, what was the result of our vote? Your comments do little to answer these questions. Please give us the benefit of your local Seattle knowledge.
Looks like Ohtani will play for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Sorry, Mariners!
@40 says
the expat new yorker
or is it a w masser
Demanding pro
bono loco info
wbono fidos
lording
his lofty Superiority
3,000′ over his fellow Schloggers
A
man
Larger
than Principals
with a Cape!
most likely.
@42 kristofarian: Again, thank you for better commentary. Isn’t the scroll down option nice?
Actually, I believe ol’ Wormtongue is a terminally bored 14-year-old with a face like a pepperoni pizza, trying desperately to act 40 when not living in detention. Otherwise he has nothing to do but play footsie online with his sock puppets, Ahab and Bertha. Just imagine if ol’ Wormy used Stridex? Those zits would go down in a New York minute. I wonder when his braces come off. Hopefully the water quality isn’t too hard in the upstart NY boonies.