Happy light rail to Lynnwood day to all who celebrate: Trains will start running at the four new light rail stops at around noon today. Hop on a train and enjoy festivals at all of the new stations from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. Grab some Korean BBQ for dinner in Lynnwood and then the new-this-year Orange Line to the Alderwood Mall. I’m taking my ass to the Olympus Spa via train as soon as possible.
With new light rail comes new fares: Sound Transit unveils its new $3 flat fare today. Riders used to be able to pay as little as $2.25 for short trips. Now, all trips are equal. Is this a good thing? The Sound Transit Board thinks so. Rates will stay at $1 for senior, disabled, and low-income riders with discounted ORCA cards. If you’re 18 or younger, you still ride for free.
Rest in hell, University Street Station: In other big light rail news, Sound Transit will finally mercy kill the name “University Street” station and dub the downtown spot “Symphony Station.” Tourists rejoice. Now there will only be two stops with the word “University” in them and both will actually be close to the University of Washington.
Finally, a hot day in August: August is slipping away with two days that’ll be relative scorchers in comparison to the rest of this weird, cold month. Summer is still on life support. Don’t pull the plug yet! Enjoy the 80-degree weather while you can.
Two 80°+ days to end August for Seattle. There have been 7 80°+ days in Seattle this month. 2011 (8 days) was the last year Seattle not have at least 10 80°+ days in August. Before this 12 year streak the longest streak of Augusts with 10 80°+ days or more was 3 years. #wawx pic.twitter.com/9dL9b9AnPp
— NWS Seattle (@NWSSeattle) August 30, 2024
No closure list yet from Seattle Public Schools: SPS has said that reducing Seattle’s number of public elementary schools from 70 to around 50 schools is one of the best ways to stabilize the district in the face of a $100 million budget deficit for the 2025-26 school year. The announcement was supposed to come in September, but Superintendent Brent Jones announced it will now come in October.
Speaking of schools: A group of right-wing agitators set on destroying the life of a Seattle teacher will continue to harass Chief Sealth International High School’s Ian Golash. They plan to return to the school today from 10 am to noonish with their precious billboards. The targeted campaign over Golash’s statements in support of Palestine started last school year, and he’s been suspended from his position since April. Golash’s supporters said they plan to turn out Friday to show they won’t be cowed by conservative tormentors. The worst part about these harassment campaigns is sometimes fighting back can make things harder for the person involved, and of course this one has affected a school, you know, with fucking children inside. And least students won’t be in the building today.
Sea plane captain dead after crash: The 74-year-old captain of the seaplane which crashed into Kent’s Lake Meridian last weekend died Thursday.
Harris and Walz had a little interview: Kamala Harris had her first sit-down interview with a journalist since becoming the Democratic nominee for president. Harris and running mate Tim Walz sat down with CNN in a Savannah, Georgia restaurant. The whole thing was pretty normal. In the interview, despite being pushed on the matter, Harris did not say whether she would withhold any military aid to Israel, though she again emphasized the need for a peace deal. The other interesting thing Harris said was that she would place a Republican in her cabinet. That’s some Aaron Sorkin-type bullshit.
Trump on reproductive rights: Seems like the Trump camp has realized how alienating it is to voters to be anti-abortion in a post-Roe America. Despite his pivotal role in the whittling-away of reproductive rights across the country, Donald Trump is now trying to spin himself as a supporter. Currently, he’s beating the drum in support of IVF. Trump said in an interview that he would “make the government or insurance companies pay for IVF if he is elected.” Yeah, okay, but how? And, also, really? Trump also emphasized that he would leave abortion laws to the states if elected. We’re supposed to take your word on this one, buddy? He reemphasized his newfound championship of IVF at an event with former Democratic congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard, saying “We wanna produce babies in this country, right?”
Meanwhile, JD Vance is trying his best not to come across like an evil reptile person:
JD Vance’s interview on CNN didn’t get off to a great start pic.twitter.com/MIADWXHyXe
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 30, 2024
BERMAN: How would this work if a state bans IVF, but Trump says he wants to pay for IVF for everyone who wants it, how would that work?
JD VANCE: I think it’s such a ridiculous hypothetical
B: You voted against guaranteeing access to IVF
VANCE: I voted for religious liberty pic.twitter.com/sU6ARpmBmw
— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) August 30, 2024
The Jungle sequel? Inspectors discovered the cause of a recent listeria outbreak which has hospitalized 57 people in eight states. The outbreak is connected to the Boar’s Head plant in Virginia. Across multiple inspections, inspectors found “mold, mildew, and insects” in and around deli meats. In one inspection, there was blood pooling on the floor. In a different one, an inspector observed water from a leak being blown onto meat by a fan. Boar’s Head has suspended all operations at its plant and issued a recall on its deli meats.
Israel struck hospital-bound convoy: The American Near East Refugee Aid group said an Israeli missile struck a convoy carrying medical supplies and fuel on the Salah al-Din Road to a hospital in Rafah in the Gaza Strip. The attack killed several people from a transportation company. Israel said, without offering evidence, that it attacked because gunmen seized the convoy.
Bad bird flu response could breed another pandemic: According to Gregg Gonsalves, associate professor of epidemiology at the Yale School of Public Health, the U.S. is bungling its response to the growing bird flu outbreak in farms across the country, in ways that mirror the mistakes made with COVID-19. “A lack of testing, opaque data, political divides, poor healthcare access, and a sense of hubris—all have plagued the Covid response, and now these errors are playing across the bird flu response,” according to The Guardian’s summary of Gonsalves’ recent New England Journal of Medicine article. While bird flu has yet to spread to humans, Gonsalves believes the US isn’t being proactive in stopping the current spread on farms in order to thwart a worst case scenario. Current political fractures, anti-vaccine sentiments, Supreme Court decisions, mask bans, laws curbing public health powers, and the public’s sentiment in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic (an illness which is still spreading) will make the next pandemic response even worse.
Team bonding gone wrong: On a recent office retreat, a group of 15 coworkers hiked Colorado’s Mt. Shavano. They left one colleague behind. He got lost, fell 20 times, and was stranded overnight amidst freezing rain and high winds. Rescuers found him after he regained phone signal while stuck in a gully. The company he works for hasn’t been named. This ought to juice up the water cooler talk for a while.
The loneliness epidemic is real: In a Japan beach town, people keep getting attacked by dolphins. Since July 21, 18 people have been victims of dolphin attacks. In the last three years, “48 people in the area have suffered dolphin bites” and some have suffered broken bones. People suspect the culprit is a single male dolphin who was separated from his pod. He’s attacking people out of loneliness.
A song for your Friday: I forgot about this one. It hits something deep in my bones.
Perhaps people have forgotten that UW was downtown by University Street before moving to Montlake.
The new Symphony name makes sense, although if you walk from Westlake to Pioneer Square on 3rd Ave at 9pm (which I did last Wednesday) the only symphony you’ll see is a symphony of drug use.
Poor healthcare access and not being proactive enough to thwart a worst case scenario should just be assumed to be a factor in our response to anything, including the above mentioned overlapping drug epidemics.
As a callback to Seattle’s early aspirations to be the NYC of the west coast, rename U-District station to Brooklyn. Only one UW-named station will remain. When rail runs out to NE Seattle, it will run through Chelsea and Morningside, further tying it all together.
“Harris said was that she would place a Republican in her cabinet”
No, she did not say that. She said she’d think about it. She absolutely did not say it was a done deal. Maybe she will, in the end, but she did not say anything other than she was willing to consider it.
She considered Josh Shapiro for VP. She gets to consider a lot of things, and not all of them come to fruition.
“Rest in hell, University Street Station”
That it took Sound Transit decades to make such an obvious and widely demanded change is an example of why most people view government as inefficient and incompetent.
@5:
OTOH, if they HAD changed it sooner, all the usual gang of complainers would have started kvetching about the expense of changing signage, maps, audio announcements, etc., and invoking those same “inefficient and incompetent” arguments.
“Harris
said was
that she would
place a Republican in her cabinet”
yes.
a Locked
Cabinet. the
very Best kind.
did she happen
to say which
One? cuz
there’s
plenty
Trump announced he’s voting to make abortion a constitutional right in Florida. He is now more or less officially pro-choice.
@2 just out of curiousity what do you mean by being more proactive?
Trump is lying his ass off to save his sorry campaign. The only pro-choice Trump believes in is the choice to stay out of jail.
@5 “people view government as inefficient and incompetent”
You can thank anti-republican conservatives for that (aka Reagan and his political offspring). Not only do they keep spewing the propaganda about inefficient and incompetent government compared to mythical efficient markets, but they broke it and defunded it to make sure it doesn’t work (aka “drowning it in the proverbial bathtub”)
Trump spent 4 years promising affordable healthcare for everyone and surely there were idiots who believed him then, too. He also told contractors he was going to pay them, veterans he was going to donate to their charity, and “students” that his university was going to teach them about real estate. Everyone should know by now how all that worked out.
I can’t believe this even needs to be said but the guy who’s been bragging about getting Roe overturned is not in fact pro-choice. The man just says whatever he thinks people want to hear and it works out well for him because believers are born every minute.
@8
donOLD
fooled you.
your 1st time?
There is one sure thing about Trump: he has and will say everything and its opposite at one moment or another. Even Trumpers don’t believe him.
@11 – yes, we can “thank anti-republican conservatives” for promoting the idea the government is inefficient and incompetent… but ostensibly progressive government orgs like Sound Transit don’t help matters with their unforced errors…
Trump is “officially pro-choice” in the same sense that @8 is officially pro-Harris, which is to say he’s not. But he knows how to read a room.
“ostensibly progressive government orgs like Sound Transit”
???? Progressives are strong proponents of public transit and they are often the strongest defenders of public governance in the neoliberal era, but I fail to see how the Sound Transit agency is progressive.
“unforced errors”
this is kind of a broad statement
It’s not just Sorkin. Obama had four Republicans in his Cabinet.
Sound Transit Fun Fact:
The new station numbers are based partly on “certain beliefs or superstitions about specific numbers.” Which is why Westlake is station number 50, because (for cultural sensitivity reasons) they didn’t want to use the numbers 4, 13 or 39 in the numbering system. So fucking dumb.
Trump brags about how he got Roe v. Wade overturned. Anyone who believes he even believes women are human beings who have basic human rights is dumber than Trump is.
Kamala Harris said she’d consider putting a Republican on her cabinet. I can see her considering it, remembering that Republicans are horrible people, and then moving on.
Pat L dear, with so many alternate routes, why would you choose Third Avenue for your little trip? I would have gone via Second or First. Third is a horror show, which is a real pity.
@21 dear Catalina-
I lived on 3rd Ave (in Belltown) over 2 decades ago. It was awful then, and is now.
As I had a 15 minute wait for a 3rd avenue bus near Westlake, a stroll through downtown seemed in order. Between the length of 3rd Ave, and 12th and Jackson, there were several hundred people strung through downtown, a number I was not expecting.
I think you missed the cubicle death at the Wells Fargo back office down in Tempe: https://www.12news.com/article/news/local/valley/investigation-underway-after-body-of-wells-fargo-employee-found-dead-at-work-tempe/75-1329570f-3b63-4869-b4bd-7d45801a80f2?ref=exit-recirc
omfg
dewey!
Cancel your
Subscription!:
(and cover your eyes):
nyt:
In rallies and other public forums, Mr. Trump continues to use off-color language, deploying the phrase “son of a bitch” at least a dozen times since he announced his re-election campaign in November 2022, and variations of the word “shit” dozens of times in that span.
He
used
the word
“fucking” twice in one
speech last year in North Carolina.
https://www.nytimes.com/2024/08/29/us/politics/trump-crass-imagery.html
looks like the Gray Lady’s
discovered the crotch-
less Underware
department.
–@Ben Dover
@10 pat L, @13 kristofarian, and @20 xina: +3 for the WIN!!!!!
‘Nuf very well said. I needn’t add any more.
Just think: if the lonely dolphin bit off the Orange Turd’s toxic lil ‘shroom, it could be an overnight global hero!
Wanna bring the GOP and Trump Reich to heel? One word: CASTRATION.
I’m with Dustin Hoffman’s Dorothy Michaels [in Tootsie, 1982]. ‘Tis time for women and girls to become equipped with electric cattle prods. RepubliKKKan cavemen are just dying for a zap in the badoobies.
I’m not ready for the forthcoming season of pumpkin spice hatred.
@19 What’s wrong about 4 and 39? (isn’t 4 lucky? 39 is 3 x 13?)
Is the numbering scheme because some folk become anxious when they take superstitions too seriously?
For precedent, I believe that 13th floors are uncommon.
I have heard that the Mandarin character for four is similar to the one for death (hence the number 4 is considered inauspicious) whereas the character for 8 is similar to luck(or good fortune) and is esteemed.
@32: Down, raindrop dear, down. Your cowardice is telling.
Tell us–what are you going to do when the Orange Turd turns its ugly back on you, too, in its
vindictive, globally destructive race to the bottom?
is bibi’s reign of
terror nearly
Over?
nyt:
Israel Prepares for Major
Labor Strike Over
Hostage Killings
Much of the country is set to shut down,
a dramatic reflection of outrage over the
deaths of six hostages in Gaza. The strike
follows massive protests calling for
Israel to reach a hostage deal
with Hamas.
Much of Israel’s economy was set to grind to a halt Monday morning as a labor strike to protest the government’s Gaza strategy laid bare a growing schism among Israelis over their leaders’ reluctance to swiftly agree to a cease-fire with Hamas.
In the broadest expression of anti-government dissent since the war began, union chiefs and business leaders were joining forces to pressure Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel to agree to a truce in Gaza that could facilitate the release of roughly 100 hostages still held there by Hamas.
Most schools, many businesses and the nation’s largest airport were set to close.
more:
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2024/09/01/world/hostages-strike-israel-gaza-war
End the
Madness.
@35
I needn’t
“Deal with it” (oh
Echoer of Wormtongue).
looks like those Millions of
(what You’d term ‘Anti-semite!’)
Israelis’re gonna hafta — beginning
with bibi. will they be Successful and
get their Loved Ones back? bibi’s Gotta
keep outta Prison, so, unlikely, til bibi’s Gone
which
they’re
Working on
even whilst we speak.
are your
soothsaying
skills any better
than your others?
let’s
Hope
not, for
Israel’s — and
the Hostages’ — sakes.
Ahhh look at all the lonely dolphins…
(Dolphin sounds in time with strings)
@37 CDizzle (Garb Garblar?) for the WIN!!!
Clever use of Beatles’ lyrics.