Are you paying attention to this? Elon Musk is making huge cuts at the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA). What? Isn't that "the backbone of the Northwest power grid." Indeed, it is, and it's being strangled by the hands of DOGE. An important note: BPA was not funded by taxpayers, but ratepayers. So cutting jobs there will have minimal to no impact on the deficit. But the price of the cuts will be huge. We can expect, as two BPA administrators predict, that the staff reduction “will seriously degrade BPA’s ability to maintain reliable power service.” To make matters worse, before the layoffs, the BPA had something like 50 openings. They needed more workers to ensure the resilience of the grid. And now they have lost a bunch of workers. Though BPA rehired 30 workers, it is still "eliminating about 430 total positions." So, the rehiring means jack. We are fucked. The BPA supplies 75% of PNW's power. 

Because we live in the time of the goras (vultures in Shona), we need to think like preppers. They are no longer that crazy. The risk of power outages has increased from 1% to 10%. Combine that with extreme weather events caused by climate change, and you have a recipe for disaster. Get a portable generator while they are still affordable. Mine cost $400. I also bought solar panels for $200. The goras are circling the sky; they will be around for a while.

True, English has a term for the kind of society we are now in, a society where a company fires federal workers willy-nilly: vulture capitalism. But in Shona, gora also means a person who has no inhibitions. They do whatever they want and look at consequences with eyes that are as dead as a doornail. For this reason, this extra and deeper meaning, it's better to call the economy we entered a little over a month ago: gora capitalism. 

There will be clouds today, but little chance of rain. And temperatures are expected to stick to the low 40s. Also, did you see the clouds last night? It looked like they had somewhere to go in a hurry: Ellensburg? Walla Walla? Spokane? The morning clouds, however, are much slower. They want to hang around and see what Seattle is up to.

After fucking up America every which way from Sunday for four decades, Kentucky Sen. Mitch McConnell is hanging his hat. He will not run in next year's election. You toerag. Thanks for nothing. 

When you say the Sonics are coming back, and you happen to be the mayor, people will believe you. But it seems Bruce Harrell had no idea that losing the Sonics because a billionaire had to make even more money than they already had in the bank wasn't a laughing matter. What universe does he live in? The interim news editor of this paper, Marcus Harrison Green, has to go all the way down to Portland to watch an NBA game. And the trip between that city and ours is, unlike the one between Seattle and Vancouver, ugly. Well, no one laughed at Harrell's joke, and so he had to apologize for making fun out of something that's hardly funny.

Harrell, you could've just repeated this joke by The Needling: "Trump Pardons Howard Schultz for Moving Supersonics to Oklahoma City."

Harrell is certainly not laughing at the revelation that he was "arrested 29 years ago in Iowa" for packing heat. He claims that the matter had nothing to do with the charge (carrying a concealed weapon), and everything to do with racial profiling. I hear that. By the way, did you know "iowa" means "no" in Shona, Zimbabwe's number-one language. 

How much is Delta offering the passengers on the plane that flipped after landing at Toronto Pearson Airport this Monday? 30,000 bones. It comes with no strings attached. Just take the money and let's move on. You lived. You got nothing to complain about. Use the cash to buy a power generator or stuff it into a mattress. The US economy is bound to crash at any moment. Consider yourself lucky. 

Graham, Washington lost the soul of a 15-year-old boy "after he lit a 'mortar-type' firework" near a church. This happened on Monday at 2 am. Because the church is watched not only by God, but a surveillance camera, there's a recording of his last moments in this world, which is the only world. Nothing comes after death. The boy is seen hopping the fence with other boys, he then climbs "a grassy hill [by one] of the church buildings," ignites the firework, puts it in a tube, and it explodes. 

Jeff Bezos now owns James Bond. Yes, he does; he bought the franchise. And there's nothing King Charlie can do about it. Consider "on her majesty's secret service" the stuff of the past. Bond must now call an American billionaire with the phone in his shoe.

By the way, if you are lucky enough to be rolling in dough like Bezos, you might consider this new opportunity: "Penthouse that inspired ‘Fifty Shades of Grey’ up for sale in Seattle." The film is about a kinky billionaire. The penthouse is asking for $11.5 million.

My recent post Don't Hang the Bartender, which concerned the cultural importance of letting bartenders play their own music, rather than programming that tired music (Stones, Fleetwood Mac, the Eagles, and so on) we hear all of the time, failed to mention this French-pop gem: "Christine" by Christine and the Queens. I first heard it two years ago at Saint John's Bar and Eatery while Michael Lee was bartending.