🙁 $$$: The Seattle City Council voted 6-1 to make the Seattle Police Department’s hiring bonus program permanent and to raise one-time incentives for experienced officers up from $30,000 to $50,000. Council Member Tammy Morales, the sole no vote, questioned why we’re doing this when the mayor’s budget cuts $400,000 for police accountability and we’ve got a $250 million deficit. Council President Sara Nelson said we need the hiring bonuses to stay competitive and hire “the best of the best.” We started offering bonuses in 2019, and in her most recent Bad Apples column, Ashley wrote about the “best of the best” we’ve attracted so far.
Not to mention the Mayor sacrificed $200 million in what would have been affordable housing funding in a housing crisis. Good governance! https://t.co/nkyk19y4dH
— Hannah Krieg (@hannahkrieg) October 8, 2024
Surveil me, plz: The council also passed legislation to install live police cameras in neighborhoods it says have the most violent crime. Council Member Cathy Moore thanked the ACLU for raising privacy concerns but evoked the “higher goal” of public safety.
CM Bob Kettle, ahead of a vote on surveillance expansion, says that Seattle protects free speech and expression. He has yet to comment on the protester who alleges his neighbor threw a speaker at his head while excising his right to free speech. https://t.co/rM4OdPyeyH
— Hannah Krieg (@hannahkrieg) October 8, 2024
The crosswalks are gay again: A few weeks after some asshole, or assholes, spilled paint all over a rainbow crosswalk on Broadway, the Seattle Department of Transportation restored its vibrant lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender glory. I doubt the homo-hating vandal(s) read Slog, but if you do, then I hope you know what a limp-brained loser you are and how little you hurt us gay people by attacking a fucking crosswalk. The result of a City pro-LGBTQ safety plan, a lot of us like them because they let newly out people, starry-eyed small-towners, and closeted folks know they’re safe here, but we’re not so self-serious about rainbow iconography, either. All your pathetic attack shows is that you suck and don’t even really know about what you hate or how to hate it. In the event you are the clumsiest person in the world and carry around open paint cans at night–please come clean, we’d be obsessed with you.
The vandalized Broadway Pride crosswalk is rainbow bright again https://t.co/2QVenJdP6K pic.twitter.com/e90JZmu0Cy
— CHSfeed (@CHSfeed) October 9, 2024
ICYMI: Coming Out Like a Pornstar was probably the largest-ever collection of essays from porn performers when it first published in 2015. Now it’s been updated for the age of OnlyFans, deep fakes, facial recognition software, and FOSTA/SESTA. We wrote about it here.
Some good news: Police found Charlotte “Bowie” Drozd, teenage daughter of Flaming Lips drummer Steven Drozd, yesterday, a few days after she’d been reported missing near the Space Needle. Whew.
Some more good news: University of Washington’s David Baker won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry for his work decoding and designing proteins, alongside Google Deepmind’s John Jumper and Briton Demis, who used artificial intelligence to predict the structure of all known proteins. Journalists asked Baker if he had a favorite protein, but he wouldn’t pick favorites.
Once-in-a-many-many-lifetime comet alert: Like your friend who never texts back, the comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS will say hi for the first time in 80,000 years this Saturday. Scientists say the comet will appear on the horizon about 45 minutes after sunset. It will stick around this month, growing dimmer and creeping higher in the sky until it disappears completely from view around Halloween. The clouds are expected to cooperate this weekend, so just find an unobstructed view of the horizon. If you can see the Olympics, that’s probably good enough.
We’ve got a once-in-a-century storm brewing, too: Millions of people are fleeing Milton, a nearly Category 5 hurricane off the Gulf Coast. Milton is expected to make landfall in the Tampa metro area Thursday with 160 mph winds and lethal storm surges of up to 15 feet. Enough to swallow a house, said Tampa Mayor Jane Castor. “So, if you’re in it, that’s basically a coffin that you’re in,” she said. Tampa hasn’t been directly hit by a hurricane since 1921, and for some perspective on how bad this could be, Andrew, Harvey, and Katrina didn’t directly hit metropolitan areas.
Know their names: Israel has wiped out 902 families since October 7. Al Jazeera published this interactive story about who they were. Over the past year, Israel has killed nearly 42,000 people.
Who you gonna call (about ghost guns?): The Supreme Court, for once. Justices seem likely to uphold Biden administration regulations that require background checks, serial numbers, and sales records for nearly untraceable ghost guns, DIY firearms typically assembled from kits or 3D-printed parts. Manufacturers argue they shouldn’t have to comply with our gun control laws because they don’t think ghost guns legally count as guns, and their products are marketed like a sort of easy-to-assemble model kit for “hobbyists.” C’mon. They’re still totally guns capable of killing people, and, by the way, it’s not much of a hobby unless you enjoy drilling and screwing things together with your feet, exclusively. Even the super conservative 5th Circuit Court of Appeals and our gun-crazed Supreme Court seem to know that. Thank God, because these pesky ghost guns are everywhere.
Republicans spent $65 million on anti-trans TV ads: With the election weeks away, conservatives are trying to strike fear into the hearts of suburban women with ads about trans women and girls in women’s bathrooms, changing in women’s locker rooms, playing youth sports with women, and residing in women’s prisons. Even Donald Trump has an ad where he says, “Kamala is for they/them, President Trump is for you.” Phobic as that is, it made me chuckle. It’s so dumb, and I seriously doubt it’ll work. Trump gets big applause when he talks about “transgender insanity” at his rallies, but wedge-y messaging hasn’t been very successful in recent campaigns.
Firefighters union snubs Harris/Walz: In August, after a roomful of Boston firefighters cheered Tim Walz one day and booed JD Vance the next (he’s the worst, but I would cry), an International Firefighters Association endorsement seemed likely. But the union has declined to endorse either candidate. According to Politico, this totally blindsided the Democrats struggling to win over working-class union members that MAGA Republicans were smart to court this election. Some of that may have to do with losing Biden, whose pro-worker stance is one of the few genuinely cool things about him. I think Trump’s dismal record of packing courts with anti-union judges, stacking the National Labor Relations Board with anti-union appointees, and past promises to pass anti-union laws, coupled with his recent comment that striking workers should be fired, as well as a general dislike for paying people, should … kinda speak for itself. But it’s Trump, so it slides right off that slimy exterior.
The Fat Bear of Monte Katmai: In a vengeful, feminist twist, Grazer won her second Fat Bear contest over Chunk, the bear who killed her cub this summer. Good for her, I guess, though she has no awareness of our silly games. Also, I don’t get why the Fat Bear contest, which sounds so fun, is so sad and tragic. Last week, the National Park Service had to hold back on telling the public which fat bears were competing because a bear killed one of the contestants on a live feed.
Irvine Police Department unveils “first” police Cybertruck: What better vehicle for this institution than a $153,000 Tesla for its DARE program, and what better walk-on song than the theme from Terminator, a film about an indiscriminately killing robot? It also seems weird to use the Terminator theme when Robocop exists, and the connotations of “terminating” people are that much worse.
#IRVINEPDPIO – We are excited to unveil what we believe is the first police Tesla Cybertruck in the nation. The truck will support our Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) program and community outreach efforts. Details in the comments. #irvine @Tesla #Cybertruck #irvinepd pic.twitter.com/H9F20FbsMR
— Irvine Police Department (@IrvinePolice) October 8, 2024
@50: “the record speaks for Itself”
Ha ha ha, do tell! So what was the vote tally for Mossadegh there in that “democratic election” of his? 😉
@49: It’s a fun hypothetical, but there are enough differences between North America and Palestine that I don’t think it illuminates anything.
On a moral level, Jews have a stronger claim to Israel than white Americans do to King Count. The Jewish nation is indigenous to Israel, which is not the case for whites in King County. (Although resident “Jew Skeptic” AverageBob will be along shortly to deny Jewish nationhood, Jewish history, and Jewish indigeneity.)
The Palestinians have a stronger claim to Palestine than the Duwamish do to King County. If you read the first sentence of the first article of the Treaty of Point Elliott, you will find that the signatory tribes “cede, relinquish, and convey to the United States all their right, title, and interest in and to the lands and country occupied by them.” And if you read the signatories, you will find at least three signatories for the Duwamish Tribe. So that’s the end of the Duwamish land claim. By contrast, the Palestinians never agreed to the creation of Israel…although, of course, their agreement was not required because they were not and never had been the sovereigns of the land. Still, the Palestinians can rightly claim never to have agreed to any of this, while the Duwamish cannot.
So I have far more sympathy for Palestinian land claims than I do for Duwamish land claims. The Duwamish got their lands in a treaty. The Palestinians deserve the same.
Mossadegh was elected to parliament where he was elected prime minister. The British made the Iranian economy scream by preventing them from finding buyers for their oil so even without the coup Mossadegh may have fallen because of market manipulation by colonial powers. Mullah is a common term for Iran’s clergy. The people of Iran are certainly not responsible for these despotic regimes; your political kind strangled their democratic republic and created the necessary environment for the autocrats that followed since the 1953 coup. And now, you’d like to double down as it is plain that you refuse to learn.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Mosaddegh
@53: lol, I’ll take pity on you, because you’re spiraling a little bit. The way Iran’s constitution worked in the Mossadegh era is this: the shah nominates a prime minister to the majlis. The majlis votes up or down on that nominee. If the vote is yes, the shah confirms.
We have an analogous system in our country for the appointment of Supreme Court justices (actually, all federal judges, but I’m assuming you are more likely to have heard of the appointment process as it applies to the Supreme Court). The president nominates a justice. The senate votes up or down on that nominee.
Now, Average Bob, I hope(!) you would not say that Supreme Court justices in America are “democratically elected.” Would you say that they are? Would you say that Brett Kavanaugh was “democratically elected” to the Supreme Court? No, right? Well, Mossadegh became prime minister the same way, so if Brett Kavanaugh wasn’t democratically elected, then neither was Mossadegh! 😀
One more point on Iranian civics. The shah at the time had the constitutional power to remove the prime minister. He exercised that power against Mossadegh. Mossadegh refused to vacate the office. At that point, he ceased to be the constitutionally appointed PM and became just another third-world tinpot dictator. The dude was ripe for a coup, with or without the CIA.
Finally, on your abuse of Islamic titles: Mullah is a common term all right, but not for the leaders of Iran, ha ha! That’s like saying the Catholic Church is led by a preacher named Francis. It’s not literally wrong—the Pope does indeed preach!—but it misses approximately 99% of who he is.
All right, that’s enough from Professor Thumpus for tonight. You go hit the books! 😁
Mossadegh was democratically elected to parliament multiple times and put up for a vote as prime minister because he was the head of a powerful coalition that couldn’t be ignored by Pahlavi. Your analogy to Kavanaugh who couldn’t be elected as dog catcher is indeed worthy of a “professor Thumpus” alright (am I supposed to posture and signal a fake laugh here?).
“The shah at the time had the constitutional power to remove the prime minister. “
Pahlavi was a monarch installed by the British after his father trampled the constitution when he deposed the previous monarch. Mossadegh life’s work was to promote progress and democracy in Iran and he was trying to give the boot to the monarchy.
“The dude was ripe for a coup, with or without the CIA.”
At least you aren’t pretending to be a democrat. It’s good that you let people see who you really are.
Finally, you don’t understand how theocracy works. It would never work if only top leaders represented authority.
@49 Self determination of a people is the relevant operative concept in international law, whether they were part of a sovereign nation or not is irrelevant given many people were colonized before nation states were born in their regions; however, the first rule of thumb is to do no harm, which rules out returning the land many generations after it was taken away. Except perhaps for huge tract of lands owned by individuals/single entities. Some form of compensation such as land, services, education, etc … for native populations is necessary. I don’t consider that Israeli immigrants have any special rightful claim to the land but I am not for pushing them out either when they have been there for several generations or if they have nowhere else to go. It’s also not for me to decide.
@45: The Stranger’s positions on many political topics are fringe by Seattle’s standards, and Seattle is a left-wing city by American standards. After almost a year of trying to make Gaza drive votes, the Stranger had to admit, “Gaza Isn’t Driving Votes.”
Read all the “lefty” (by which you seem to mean, “hard-left extremist”) blogs you like, but if doing so deludes you into believing the Stranger’s positions aren’t “fringe,” then you might want to expand your horizons a bit.
@42, And you call all that “coherent”.
co·her·ent
adjective
adjective: coherent
Over 80% support by Palestinians for 10/7 and by Israelis for the current conduct of the war is “coherent” with the polls you cite.
That is “coherent” with the polls you cite? Maybe humans aren’t being as “coherent” as their minds will allow.
Then there is the issue of conflict between what people say (e.g. a poll) and what the do. If there is divergence, believe what they do, not what they say. Everyone is still fighting. Combat goes one.
@55: “Mossadegh was democratically elected to parliament multiple times and put up for a vote as prime minister because he was the head of a powerful coalition that couldn’t be ignored”
lol, Mossadegh wasn’t even a member of parliament at the time he was appointed prime minister. He was out of office, a regular citizen. There was nothing “democratic” about his appointment and confirmation to prime minister, not anymore than there was about Justice Kavanaugh’s appointment and confirmation to the Supreme Court. Getting elected to AN office in the PAST doesn’t mean you’ve been “democratically elected” to a DIFFERENT office in the PRESENT, ha ha ha!
And of course, there’s that little problem of his refusal to vacate his office when ordered to do so by the shah, as the constitution required of him. Refusal to vacate office is not something “democrats” do, lol…in fact, Donald Trump tried to do something very similar on January 6, and it didn’t strike me as very “democratic,” ha ha! Iran is well rid of a “democrat” like Mossadegh.
The fact is, Iran has never had democracy. They didn’t have it under the shah, they didn’t have it under Mossadegh, and they don’t have it under the ulama. You can cry for Mossadegh if you admire him so much—I don’t—but you can’t call him the “democratically elected” prime minister of Iran. No such election ever happened.
But of course, nothing about Mossadegh, democracy, or the CIA justifies Iran’s continued support for terrorism around the Middle East, including Hamas, Hizbollah, the Houthis, and the Iraqi special groups. You can’t let Iran off the hook by pointing to US involvement in a coup against a dictator 70 years ago, a coup which would have happened with or without America. Iran is responsible for Iran’s actions. Nothing they do is the fault of America. I think on some level you do admire terrorists and hate America, and if that’s your thing, well, OK buddy, agree to disagree, but blaming America for it is just silly. Iran’s gotta own their stuff, and you’ve gotta own yours 😃
58, Bro, you misinterpreted a poll. I don’t care about anything else you have to say.
57 ok well i guess you’re just going to have to stay mad about it
@59 Mossadegh was elected to parliament in the constituency of Tehran from April 1950 to April 1951, upon which he was elected prime minister from April 1951 to August 1953. Contrarily to your claim, Mossadegh was in parliament when elected prime minister. Therefore, you are either blinded by your hate so that you can’t even objectively compile basic information or you are a liar.
Anyhow if anyone is still reading your propaganda, they probably have already read the trajectory of Mossadegh at the link I posted above. if not, here it is again:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mohammad_Mosaddegh
Stop misrepresenting what I am saying: I don’t “admire” Mossadegh. I don’t think that Iran was an ideal democracy but Mossadegh was actively working toward turning it into one. Note, there are many countries that we consider democracies that elect a parliament yet do not directly elect their leader (hint hint).
It is indisputable that imperial powers directly caused the fall of Mossadegh (both by a coup and creating an economic crisis) and the end of the democratic experiment in Iran to install a dictatorship, and creating the conditions that prevent a democracy blooming in Iran.
I don’t blame America. By and large, Americans are a peace loving, compassionate and fair minded people. I blame neoconservatives and corporate media whose propaganda manipulates Americans into supporting wars of aggression.
“I blame neoconservatives and corporate media
whose propaganda manipulates Americans
into supporting wars of aggression.”
(not to Mention
Dedicated to the
Death of the New
Deal the Great Society
and pretty Much ANY-thing
that works FOR the fucking Citizenry.)
me too.
AND the
bots they send
to Progressive outlets
working to eliminate Progressive
Voices — like Wormtongue* thumper d13r et a;l
*not a bot
perhaps but a
propaganda-spewing
“liberal,” exiled from Seattle
to the East Coast yet Still Dedicated to
shutting down Seattle’s Onliest Newspaper
& its little Blog full of misfits riff raff & assorted
FDR- LBJ- Bernie fucking Sanders-supportinig types
Great comment
“averagebob.”
@57 The Stranger is middle of the road left. You claiming they are extremists says more about your hard right positioning than anything else.
It’s interesting to me how people who are presumably centrist or even left-leaning anti-Trump but are militant supporters of far-right regime in another country. I suppose it’s easier to compartmentalize because you aren’t affected by their extremism and can just focus on the single issue you care about.
@57: “The Stranger is middle of the road left.”
Then why have the voters of Seattle consistently rejected the Stranger’s candidates and policy proposals in multiple general election cycles? Is Seattle not “middle of the road left,” by American standards?
@65: I’m more worried about persons who are supposedly far-left actively campaigning to elect a far-right candidate here at home. From @43:
“We need to be clear about what our goals are,” Sawant said in a speech on Sunday in Dearborn, Michigan. “We are not in a position to win the White House.
“But we do have a real opportunity to win something historic. We could deny Kamala Harris the state of Michigan. And the polls show that most likely Harris cannot win the election without Michigan.”
“This is ground zero to punish Kamala Harris and defeat her.”
@66 America is middle of the road left as shown by the overwhelming support for most of Bernie Sanders’ progressive platform, the compassion for Palestinians among the public, etc .. How it translates at the ballot box has more to do with election turnout, demographics of the majority of voters, who controls the media, and who buys elections. There are objective reasons why the right wing suppresses the vote, promotes money in politics, defends the structural factors that enable a tyranny of the minority, etc
@65 “presumably centrist”
I believe that you’ll find that they align with the right wing on most issues.
@67: I was going to note that I was actually talking about the behaviors of actual voters in real elections, but then I read the rest of the paragraph, and saw you had already donned your tinfoil hat to ‘explain’ why your un-named public opinion polls do not match actual election results — not even in Seattle. So I won’t bother.
Instead, I’ll merely note that, by definition, America is a perfectly centrist country by American standards.
@69 well, it’s not like you have any facts available for a cogent rebuttal so your reaction makes sense.
68, I think a lot of them are to the left on the big domestic issues — abortion, gun control, pro-gay rights but lukewarm or hostile on trans issues — but dismissive of anything considered too progressive or “woke.”
Basically it’s boomer liberalism: never supportive of the current civil rights movement because “now is not the time” but happy to hop on the bandwagon when the fight is over. And very militaristic whenever duty calls.
@4 Teslick and @43 Buddhamat: +2 for the WIN!!
@71 I tend to view economic issues as fundamental to the left-right divide, which I note are absent from your list of big issues but may be you had it covered under the “too progressive” label.
@8 smells like urine and @10 Max Solomon: I read Danny Westneat’s Op.Ed. article in The Seattle Times, too, yesterday. WTF is the world coming to? And Mitt Romney isn’t helping VP Kamala Harris’s 2024 campaign for president, either.
He says [in The Seattle Times, Wednesday, October 9, 2024, page A2] that he “won’t support Harris”
but instead wants his voice to be heard to “rebuild and reorient [the Republican party]”.
Bullshit. Mitt Romney is just another white male RepubliKKKan who’s too chickenshit to ever elect an intelligent, qualified woman President of these Deeply Divided States over a convicted felon and global terrorist.