Goood morning! High near 68 degrees this morning and a slight chance of rain around 4 pm and 5 pm, but that increases to a chance of rain after 5 pm, according to the National Weather Service. If you’re going to happy hour, then work a raincoat into your outfit.
Imagine existing as Pasco Mayor Pete Serrano: Yesterday, Seattle’s chattering class had a great time dunking on Serrano, a Republican running for Washington Attorney General, and Rachel Savage, who owns The Vajra on Capitol Hill. Serrano posted to Twitter a video of the two admitting their fear of riding the light rail. As Savage relays her concern, the camera zooms in on a Black man sitting at the Capitol Hill station with a paper bag in his hands, strongly implying that he’s some cause for fear. Savage recently started to campaign against a housing project for those transitioning out of homelessness. It’s a very cool project by the Downtown Emergency Services Center, and Savage can right fuck off. I’ve written to both people for comment and will update when I hear back.
Meanwhile, maybe Serrano should shore up support back home before coming here to talk shit on Seattle. Yesterday Serrano’s hometown paper, the Tri-City Herald, endorsed his opponent, Democratic former US Attorney General Nick Brown for Attorney General (AG). The Herald called Serrano unprepared for the role. They also talked a little shit on his law school, saying that Serrano attended “Florida Coastal School of Law, which we assume is a fine law school, but it’s not Harvard,” which is where Brown attended. I don’t think we should find a degree from Harvard all that impressive, but Florida Coastal School of Law was not “a fine law school.” Open for less than 30 years, the university closed in 2021 due to funding and accreditation issues. In its final year, it had the lowest bar passage rate of any Florida school.
A two-year-old stuck in an Amazon locker: A toddler somehow got trapped in an Amazon Hub Locker for a short time Sunday, prompting a call to the Seattle Police Department and Seattle Fire Department, according to GeekWire. The reporter couldn’t find too many details about how the kid got stuck, or how he got out, but he’s safe now.
Happy October!!! Do you all have plans? Want to go do something? Ok. What? What do you want to do? Oh, you don’t have any ideas? Well go check out our nifty little guide from our friends at EverOut. Jenny Slate comes to town Thursday, October 24, that could be fun to check out. Maybe check out the Georgetown Morgue, which opens up every year in October for a creepy tour. Try to find some dead body drugs to snort? What about HUMP: Part two!?! So many options. Let’s hang out!
Double income, no kids, with a dog: Calling all dinkwads, FYI Guy wants to hear from you. Fill out his quick survey as he dives into the numbers of Seattle’s version of a nuclear family.
So union strong: For the first time since 1977, the International Longshoreman’s Association has gone on strike, with dockworkers at 36 ports from Maine to Texas walking off the job. The workers want higher wages, better benefits, and to prevent companies from automating their jobs, according to the Associated Press. The Longshoreman command a lot of power with their strike, which could lead to supply chain issues causing higher prices and shortages. Seems like those bosses might want to resolve this quickly and respond to worker demands.
Based Biden:
President Biden is right. He should not invoke Taft-Hartley to end the port strike. Dock workers are striking against excessive corporate greed. The shipping industry has made $400 billion in profits since 2020. It’s time for dock workers to be treated with respect, not contempt. pic.twitter.com/BKm7UA1rAo
— Bernie Sanders (@SenSanders) October 1, 2024
Israel claims it has invaded Lebanon: The Israeli military has called for people to evacuate some Lebanese border towns as it prepares for what it says will be limited ground operations into Lebanon, according to the Associated Press. While Israel said it entered Lebanon, Hezbollah has denied this claim, and no independent confirmation has been made. If true, Israel has once again disregarded the Biden Administration’s attempts to ease tensions and avoid a war between Israel and Hezbollah, according to the Washington Post. And yet, no weapons ban.
Meanwhile, the White House reported that Iran is preparing an imminent air strike against Israel after the country claimed it was preparing to invade Lebanon. The White House warned such an attack would result in “severe consequences for Iran,” according to the Washington Post. When Iran shot missiles toward Israel in April, the US helped intercept the vast majority of the strikes.
President Jimmy Carter is so old: Happy birthday to the former president who turned 100 years old today! He would be a Libra; he’s so Libra coded. Carter has been in hospice care for the last 19 months, but he’s still hanging around, supposedly excited to cast his ballot for Vice President Kamala Harris in November.
Hundreds still unaccounted for after Hurricane Helene: In the storm area, which cover six states, at least 133 people have died, and that death toll may continue to rise, according to CNN. The storms left some areas almost wholly inaccessible, with people sending in supplies by air, by mule, or by hiking miles to deliver aid.
Mexico beat us to it: The first woman president of Mexico takes office Tuesday. Environmental scientist and former Mexico City Mayor Claudia Sheinbaum plans to continue the legacy of her predecessor, President Andrés Manuel López Obrador. NPR did a “five things to know” list.
The speaker on my computer is so fucked: I think this song sounds like it would be really beautiful if it didn’t sound like I was playing it under water. Tell me what I’m missing.
@50: Yup, Hizbollah doesn’t get to build a command center beneath an apartment building and then stick its tongue out at its enemies cause they can’t shoot back. If 80-some bunker-busting heavy munitions are what it takes to wipe out the command center, then 80-some bunker-busting heavy munitions are what Israel is entitled to fire. Hizbollah’s inhumane decision to site the command center under the building does not, contra averagebob, create a “no shooting allowed” zone.
Speaking of heavy munitions, hey, averagebob, why no condemnation of the 200 long-range ballistic missiles launched by one sovereign nation at another? I thought you were against escalation! 😄😄😄 just kidding I didn’t really!
@51: “Speaking of heavy munitions, hey, averagebob, why no condemnation of the 200 long-range ballistic missiles launched by one sovereign nation at another?”
From the way you present it, merely lobbing hundreds of ballistic missiles at another country sounds an awful lot like “indiscriminate” targeting of that country’s civilian population. Anyone who grew up during the Cold War could have told you that’s not true. 😉
uh-oh.
see: what bibi’s
Keep-outta-Prison
Gambit/Campaign/
Genocidal War on Gaza’s
doing for Jews, Planet-wide?
and all you Cheerleaders’re
merely making the Anti-
Semitism Even Worse:
the Guardian:
British Jews
experience more anti-
semitism as Middle East war escalates
Community Security Trust
says the number of anti-
semitic incidents
has tripled
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/oct/02/british-jews-experience-more-antisemitism-as-middle-east-war-escalates
Hamas’s played you
and you Fell for it
Hook, Line and
Stinker.
oh & btw?
@53’s Not an
Endorsement for
Hamas~ no matter How
Wormtongue’ll try to Spin it
and he’s a Real
Spinsmeister.
The
Debate
was a Tie. Walz
was over-caffeinated
and Maybelline Vancelot
was smarmy, prevaricating & Lying
and could Not admit
donold Eltumpfster
LOST. to have done
so wouldda been to
sabotage the sabotage of
tfg’s next attempt at Election
Theft and ruined vanceys’ chanceys to
become Ruler of the (formerly-) Free World.
Go, Kamala!
GO!
@53: Anti-semitism is not the fault of Jews. Anti-semitism is the fault of anti-semites. Thought you could use the reminder, lol
@49 The U.N. has not repealed Article 51, granting nations the right to self-defense, which they would have to if your reading of the 1977 language is correct. Under your reading of the 1977 language of the Geneva Conventions, the U.N. right of self-defense in Article 51, is war crime.
Under your reading of the indiscriminate attacks language the U.S., and others, have been wasting billions on tank armor. It would be far cheaper to chain a bunch of civilians all over a car with a cannon on it, and drive that into the enemy, since the enemy could then not fire on the tank without committing a war crime. Under your reading of the 1977 language nations are wasting millions on missile silos, hardened in concrete, and buried in the earth, to survive all but the largest and most pinpoint nuclear device. Just put them in Central Park, or downtown Pyongyang. Such missiles can be launched offensively, and no adversary can legally fire back. Under your reading of the 1977 language, all Russia has to do to conquer Ukraine, is drive tanks and march soldiers into Kiev, surrounded by masses of civilians, chained to the weapons. Russia can fire from amongst the civilians, and Ukraine can’t fire back without committing a war crime.
In 1977 they did not repeal the language of the 1949 treaty. It’s still binding. So they must be read together. Had they meant to repeal the language of the 1949 treaty, they would said so explicitly. So they language must be read together. Obviously they had something else in mind with the “indiscriminate attacks” language of 1977 than attacking a facility that a combatant was using to advance their war effort.
The very vagueness of the language, the lack of repeal of prior language, etc. is why many human rights lawyers acknowledge that the international human rights law they use, because its all they’ve got, is insufficient to protect non-combatants. It’s why so few cases are brought under that law.
Then there is the issue, of what international army, is going to enforce a human rights court’s ruling against an army that violates it. If that enemy puts their weapons and troops in apartment buildings, the court can’t enforce their own ruling, without violating their own law.
“Anti-semitism is
not the fault
of Jews.”
–@56
bingo.
and I Never
said it Was. you’re
Deflecting because
your Cheerleading bibib’s
Genocidal War on Palestinians
is GROWING & it’s turning this Planet
WRONGLY — against
ALL Jews. that you cannot
seem to comprehend this’d be
Baffling were it not for your insidious
propensity for Perpetual prevarications
such as Anti-Genoide
being Anti-semitism.
Yet another Lie.
time to step In
Wormtongue
your little
Sockpuppy’s
gpt himself into
yet another Pickle.
@58: You specifically wrote that Israel’s defense of itself and its citizens against a terrorist army, and those of us who approve of Israel’s defense of itself and its citizens against a terrorist army, are “making the Anti-Semitism even worse.” No, we’re not responsible for the illegal acts of hateful bigots thousands of miles away, no matter how hard you lie about it. (Or how tediously; you merely copypasted your same lies from yesterday’s Slog AM thread.)
Amazing, how in your world, a terrorist bears absolutely no responsibility of any kind whatsoever for the deaths of the innocent civilians he intentionally used as human shields, and yet, Israel and Americans are somehow responsible for a rise in bigoted British hate crimes.
@60
What
Took you
so Long, wormmy?
@60: For a thousand years, anti-semites have excused their own anti-semitism by blaming the conduct of Jews. “If only the Jews hadn’t done ‘X,’ then maybe they wouldn’t be quite so hated,” they claim. Kristofarian’s argument at @58 is a classic example of the trope. The content of ‘X’ varies from century to century, but the form of the argument is always the same.
@Wormtngue:
Read harder:
bibib’s Genocidal War on Palestinians
is GROWING* and it’s turning this
Planet — WRONGLY — against
ALL Jews.
*so we’re
gonna Bomb
Iran? you’re Cheer-
Leading US — and the
PLANET — into World War Three.
Nice Going,
Wormtongue.
JRR Tolkien’s rol-
ling Over in his Grave.
@50 “you switched from “acts” to “bombs,””
and? didn’t these actions consist of dropping bombs? You are quite some weirdo
“I cheer on the deaths”
Sadly, you have lost your humanity which we already knew considering your insane defense of Israeli actions in Gaza
“Western news stenographers are “reporting.”‘
They have a long history of it too to justify killing brown people: from the Gulf of Tonkin incident (Vietnam) to Kuwaiti incubators (1st Iraq war) to Iraqi WMD’s (2nd Iraq war) to 50 severed baby heads on Oct 7 (Biden even claimed to have seen the pictures) to cite just a few instances. The Western press is basically regurgitating Israeli press communiques with hardly any push back or balance, which is a sure sign that something terrible is going to happen to Lebanese civilians.
“Hamas controlled the flow of information”
That is very possible, though probably not in the last year. You have the gall to bring up this topic without mentioning that IDF soldiers have a history of assassinating reporters, of which ~200 press employees killed in the last year in Gaza. And that is when Israel allows reporters in Gaza to do their job.
“right in their coward-hole”
You are such a dimwit. From American patriots to French resistance to whatever, all asymmetric warfare fighters throughout history hide among the population at least some of the time. They might as well commit suicide if they didn’t.
@52 & 53
Why didn’t you people ask me if I condemned the repeated Israeli bombing raids and assassinations throughout the region? Do you condemn them yourselves? Did you condemn the killing of 10,000s of Gaza civilians? The answer is no to all these questions
I personally find it indecent to see Western governments rush to condemn Iran when they hardly said anything about Israeli actions that led to this escalation in the conflict. I personally condemn all acts of war, which you already knew since I have argued repeatedly for a political solution, which you keep refusing while calling for more bloodshed. So what’s the point of asking if not committing slander again (it’s all you have)
The current escalation is largely provoked by Israel, and the senseless killing of civilians didn’t start on October 7 (~200 murdered West Bank Palestinians between Jan and Oct 2023). Iran clearly doesn’t not want to enter an open regional conflict, especially not with the US. Netanyahu is doing his best to get the US in a war with Iran and you morons are cheering him on. It could also well cause Democrats to lose this the election since they are squeezed between the anti-war left and the all out neocons on the right (to which you, apparently, belong)
@65: “Iran clearly doesn’t not want to enter an open regional conflict, especially not with the US”
Well they have a funny way of showing it! 😃
@56 “Anti-semitism is not the fault of Jews”
Very true but nobody here made that claim. Israeli policies of expansionism and refusal of political solutions do not represent all Jews by far, it represent some Israeli Jews and fewer as every day goes by. By all measure, Israel’s actions are making antisemitism worse, so do you by debasing the meaning of antisemitism when conflating anti-colonialism with antisemitism. All of this is very unfortunate, antisemitism like all form of racism should be fought with all we’ve got, which includes fighting the denial of Palestinian rights and humanity.
@66 Yesterday’s bombing could also be understood as a warning (like last April) for Biden to reign in Netanyahu even if this analysis is nowhere to be seen in corporate media
@67: “Anti-semitism is not the fault of Jews … nobody here made that claim.”
Also @67: “By all measure, Israel’s actions are making antisemitism worse”
Ha ha ha, nice one, Bob!
“By all measure,
Israel’s actions are
making antisemitism
worse, so do you by debasing
the meaning of antisemitism when
conflating anti-colonialism with antisemitism..”
–@67
claiming to be
PRO-Israel whilst
Undermining Israel
the utter Essence
of insidious
clueless-
ness.
Massive
FAIL.
@68: “this analysis is nowhere to be seen in corporate media”
snicker
@64: “and? didn’t these actions consist of dropping bombs?”
Sigh. As I already explained, the “act” by Hezbollah consisted of building a hardened bunker beneath a residential neighborhood, intentionally using the civilians living there as human shields. If Hezbollah had built their hardened bunker in an unpopulated area, the result would have been the same for Hezbollah, but with zero dead civilians. See the difference?
Not that you care about dead civilians anyway: “From American patriots to French resistance to whatever, all asymmetric warfare fighters throughout history hide among the population at least some of the time.”
Examples of General Washington deliberately hiding soldiers behind civilians, please.
And, your baldly manipulative emotional appeals aside, Hezbollah is not some group of freedom fighters. They’re a nonstate militia, dedicated to the destruction of Israel. They’re one of the main reasons Lebanon remains a failed state. They’re of no use to anyone, save the women-beating theocracy in Iran, which funds them. Yes, I’d be happier with all of them gone. (Mangle my quotes all you like, it shows your “honesty” at its finest.)
@61 Each time Wormtongue writes “terrorist” you have to empty your glass. That’s 3 shots just for the comment immediately preceding yours
@72: “Examples of General Washington deliberately hiding soldiers behind civilians, please.”
The Continental Army famously built a secret underground bunker in Valley Forge, right beneath a Quaker meeting-house! 😂
@72 twisting twisting twisting
building a bunker and dropping a bomb on it cannot be ONE action since they were done by different actors separated in time by probably years in this case, but whatever. You’ll clearly say anything that sounds good to your twisted mind but you could at least be more respectful of your readers.
so much drivel, so little time
@72 “Examples of General Washington deliberately hiding soldiers behind civilians, please.”
is this what YOU claim because I can’t find anybody else saying it. Anyway, it’s a fairly safe bet that American patriots hid within the population sometime to avoid detection.
@74 There was no need to build underground bunkers during the revolutionary war. Quit building strawman arguments.
@75: “building a bunker and dropping a bomb on it cannot be ONE action…”
Which is why I’m objecting to one and not the other. See how that works?
Look, you’re just not going to admit Hezbollah built the bunker and used it, knowing they were putting every civilian above it at risk. You’re not going to assign any responsibility to them for what they did, especially not for the civilian deaths they caused. You’ve made that clear. Given all of that. why do you persist in believing I could possibly care about your judgment of me, or of anything else?
Sociopathy means
Never having to
say “I’m sorry.”
@77 “Which is why I’m objecting to one and not the other.”
so stop pretending that you are answering my initial comment since I was talking about people cheering the act of dropping the bomb that killed Hezbollah leaders and civilians.
” you’re just not going to admit Hezbollah built the bunker and used it, knowing they were putting every civilian above it at risk”
so why did I mention that in all asymmetric conflicts fighters hide among civilians? Stop lying.
@79: I’m cheering the deaths of jihadi terrorists. I’m sorry the leaders of the jihadi terrorists made civilian deaths inevitable by hiding behind those civilians. Their use of civilians as human shields violates the laws of armed conflict, and therefore, the jihadi terrorists bear sole responsibility for those civilian deaths. I really can’t explain it in any fewer syllables.
@76: You explicitly wrote that “American patriots” did “hide among the population at least some of the time.” I asked for examples of this being General Washington’s policy, and you haven’t answered. You then mumbled something about how what you believe simply has to be true, even if you can’t produce any evidence for it, but that’s just your normal belief, and really not worth pursuing further.
@80 Cheering actions that killed both a few fighters and many civilians is grotesque, whatever the fighters’ responsibility for hiding among civilians.
The American war of independence was extensively fought by militia who were part time soldiers and didn’t have uniforms to identify them. They lived at home, worked during the day and fought the British once in a while. George Washington made extensive use of militia in his campaigns. What would the British say and do when advancing in regions with militia? What would militiamen do to escape capture and whatever else by the British?
@80: “…a few fighters…” like @49, “…couple of guys in a basement…”
Oh, you mean this “couple of guys”? “Iranian Brigadier General Abbas Nilforoushan, a deputy commander in the IRGC, was killed in the Israeli attack targeting Nasrallah,” yeah, those would be very high-value targets. But wait, there’s “a few fighters” more: “Senior officials from Hezbollah and Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps were also at the site,” (https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/israel-brings-fight-to-beirut-still-assessing-whether-hezbollahsleader-is-dead-1bf0d098?mod=Searchresults_pos6&page=1)
Now, for the sake of completeness, let’s look at whether this haul of top terrorists and rogue-state military officers might have been “indiscriminate”:
“Rule 12. Indiscriminate attacks are those:
(a) which are not directed at a specific military objective;”
A meeting of the leaders of the world’s largest non-state militia, and military leaders from the state which fund that militia, would always qualify as “a specific military objective,” so no, not “indiscriminate” by this definition.
“(b) which employ a method or means of combat which cannot be directed at a specific military objective;”
Bunker-busting bombs have long been “directed at a specific military objective,” so it’s no again.
“… or (c) which employ a method or means of combat the effects of which cannot be limited as required by international humanitarian law; and consequently, in each such case, are of a nature to strike military objectives and civilians or civilian objects without distinction.”
As we’ve seen, the “methods or means” of bunker-busting have been used for quite awhile. The civilian deaths happened because the targets intentionally met in a bunker which had many civilians overhead and nearby. The exact same “methods and means,” when applied to a bunker of the same construction in the middle of nowhere, would have resulted in exactly zero civilian deaths. These civilian deaths were therefore not the fault of the “methods or means” employed.
So no part of this definition has been met, and therefore the attack cannot have been “indiscriminate.”
Finally, if you’re actually equating an army’s “use of militia” as reserves or auxiliaries, with terrorists’ cowering behind civilians, then that’s a lot of words just to admit you really have got nothing here. Reservists have been employed in many wars alongside regular soldiers, and this perfectly-legal employment of armed citizen reservists has no relation to the illegally non-consensual use of noncombatant civilians for human shields.
@63: “JRR Tolkien’s rol-
ling Over in his Grave.”
Yeah, and as for causing that, which do you think bothers him most: your theft of his property, the extreme pettiness in your misuse of his stolen property, your craven nature in stealing from someone who is no longer around to defend himself, or that a miserably failed writer has stolen from a both a literature professor (!) AND published author of (immensely popular and enduring) popular fiction?
Try to discuss.