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.
A polite, little suggestion to The Stranger’s new leadership. Read through every comment in yesterday’s Slog A.M. comment thread:
https://www.thestranger.com/slog-am/2024/09/30/79718670/slog-am-mystery-firework-show-strikes-again-spd-lost-23-guns-hurricane-helene-death-toll-up-to-110/comments
And ask yourself if you think providing a forum for this sort of discourse aligns with how you want to represent this publication. Maybe it is. It’s not for me to judge.
Israel Is Preparing A Risky Incursion Into Lebanon — As Biden Stands By
Fighting on the ground in Lebanon risks millions of lives, and officials tell HuffPost the White House is prepared to let it proceed.
https://www.huffpost.com/entry/lebanon-invasion-israel-biden_n_66fae3cee4b029b6b7a6f0dc
@1 – Can you be more specific?
‘… a Black man
sitting at a transit station
holding a paper bag could be dangerous.’
–GOP candidate for
Attorney General
Pete Serrano’s
video
other than
fear and loathing
What has Else the gop Got?
@1
the easily-offended
are offended by Everything but
seldom by Authoritarian/Corporate Control
WTF is “Libra Coded”? Asking as a Libra.
@5: “WTF is ‘Libra Coded'”
It’s yet another attempt to categorize people based on the circumstances of their birth, but you know, like, in a fun way!
@: “Fighting on the ground in Lebanon risks millions of lives”
Millions of lives! Millions! No, wait, BILLIONS!
“ The workers want higher wages, better benefits, and to prevent companies from automating their jobs”
I say automate whatever can be automated at the ports
@7 oh, ok it’s only 100,000s. Feel better now? or is that not enough for you?
@3
see: @6 & 7,
& their gleeful
endorsements on
yesterday’s Schlog AM
if you’ve got the stomach
@9: Tens of thousands, actually. Your understanding of the stakes is off by a couple orders of magnitude, which might actually explain part of why you get so hysterical. War is hell, but this ain’t World War III.
@1, the only reason I read the stranger is for the comments. It provides at least a little context to the day’s news!
Phoebe @3, I apologize. I should have been more precise than to say “EVERY comment.” I should have suggested that The Stranger leadership read through the comment thread AS A WHOLE.
@12
and Mostly
why I read the nyt.
@13: Understood, but your take might not be what others think unless you’re specific about what is provoking your angst.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY
JIMMY f’n CARTER
Thee Most Moral (and
Christian!) PRESIDENT the
USofA’s EVER fucking HAD.
and then
there’s
Don-
old:
Vote Blue.
@9 Nope. Lebanon has ~4 times the population of Gaza (including refugees from Syria). and there will be 190,000 dead Palestinians as of August in Gaza according to the Lancet due to Israel targeting civilians. You do the math, genius.
Note that even 10,000s murdered civilians is beyond the pale.
@9, That is the nature of war. We tried passing legislation outlawing war in 1928. The Kellog-Briand Pact. How well did that legislation work?
@1 I actually agree that cheering on the assassination of Hezbollah leaders and rank and file through the obliteration of entire apartment blocks, and at the cost of great many civilian lives is grotesque but this is very unfortunately normalized discourse at all levels of society, including congress so I believe that we are much better off having the monsters show themselves for what they are while confronting them rather than push the issue under the carpet. I also find that slandering people as anti-semites to suppress historical facts and anti-colonialism is abject and shows that these individuals aren’t interested in honest conflict resolution, only in imposing their views and state of the world upon all of us.
@9, If there is a prohibition of war, and someone is really insistent on doing it anyway, who goes to war to force them not to make war, or to keep attacking them until their capacity to make war is destroyed?
@18 If we all had your views, we’d still be fighting for a sharp stick in the mud.
@20 Stop undermining the UN and we may get somewhere without warfare.
@19 — Bravo, avergebob.
I only Wish I were
as articulate.
@13, Maybe the The New Stranger Publisher will finally just spin off Everout and Brown Paper Tickets (the parts of the business that actually make money) and stop their “news” and editorial functions altogether. They are much more viable as stand-alone businesses, and then there would not be the opportunity for such objectionable comments.
Or they could make the already marginal news and editorial side an even bigger drag on those profit centers and higher full-time content moderators to watch comments 24/7 and see if that person could get stay ahead of new commenter registrations, which can be automated BTW. It might drag down the whole barely solvent, because of maintaining a few underpaid “news” and editorial writers, enterprise.
Or they could not have comments at all, many of which attract eyeballs and internet traffic to publication sustaining adds.
What’s your favored option to getting to an echo chamber that just reinforces your own presuppositons. How is it paid for?
@17: lol, you might want to double-check the meanings of words like murder, genocide, and apartheid. And especially anti-semitism, eh? 😉
@16
You pretend you weren’t going to vote for someone even older.
Have you ever considered that your name calling is just as childish as Trump’s? It’s something you have in common.
@19 Sure, Bob. You arbitrarily pick a date to decide when your “historical” facts begin. Sure. (And, of course, ignore anything contradictory to your preconceived view.)
Keep supporting Hamas and Hezbollah; both of those organizations have proven to be a shining light for human rights and moral endeavors! And, hey, look! – Iran is going to join in! Another bastion of human rights! But it makes it okay if they hate Jews.
If you don’t want to be called an anti-semite, don’t be anti-semetic!
@22, And how does the U.N. enforce its will when some group our country tells it “f off?,” and launches a war, genocide, etc. anyway? With what army or force?
What happens when some fascist group of countries gets hold of the U.N., like a fascist group may soon get control of the U.S. Presidency, Senate, and House? Hungary is already there. The Netherlands is already there. Italy is already there. France, Finland, and Germany are on the cusp.
That is the history of humankind, unchanging over 10,000 years without moderation or break. Someone always tries to use the tech of the day to engage in war (civil or international) to get what they want by force.
Why do you assume democratic majorities aren’t susceptible to being corrupted? What evidence in the historical record is there of human nature being chageable? None.
We could sure use a Klaatu and Gort right about now…
I don’t see much hypocrisy in voting for an old guy when your only options are two old guys because age cancels out. OTOH it takes ovaries of steel for one of the old guys to make age a defining campaign issue and that has a way of biting you in the ass when the other old guy cedes his candidacy to someone 20 years younger.
I think it’s perfectly fair for voters to be concerned about Trump’s advanced age and rambling, old-man-yells-at-cloud incoherence. Say what you will about the guy but he has a point. This country deserves better than an old man on the brink of dementia.
No weapons ban and, since it’s Oct 1 (the start of the new fiscal year), $3 billion in fresh military aid. It’s like the three armies you get every time you make it around the board playing Risk.
@26
sans Ranked
Choice Voting
Rs & Ds Don’t offer
Us much of a ‘Choice.’
& if calling Donold Donold
is stealing Donold’s
thunder than
so Be it.
@30, The remaining old guy’s age is the least thing we should be concerned about when it comes to him.
@16 &@32 kristofarian: +2 For the WIN!!!
Obviously, Donald Trump wins the booby prize for being the World’s Oldest Baby.
Happy Hundredth, 39th President Jimmy Carter, and bless you and your late wife, Roslyn, for all your diligent service to the people of our country, specifically your tireless work for Habitat For Humanity–into your 90s!
And, while we’re at it……
Happy Eighty-Ninth, Julie Andrews! I’m ready to watch The Sound of Music all over again.
Rest in peace, Christopher Plummer.
@19: “… assassination of Hezbollah leaders and rank and file through the obliteration of entire apartment blocks, and at the cost of great many civilian lives…”
Then maybe Hezbollah shouldn’t have put their hardened leadership bunker underneath a civilian neighborhood?
“…having the monsters show themselves for what they are…”
Specifically, I’m a supporter of the Fourth Geneva Convention, which explicitly forbids using civilians to protect combatants. Monstrous, right?
@27 “You arbitrarily pick a date to decide when your “historical” facts begin”
That is certainly not true. I started with Bronze age inhabitants, including Palestinians who have since continuously occupied the land (it wasn’t called Palestine at that time).
“Keep supporting Hamas and Hezbollah”
More slander from the pro-Zionist crowd. Hamas and Hezbollah are reactionary theocrats and do commit war crimes, yet Palestinian and lebanese grievances against Israel are legitimate as pointed out by a slew of United Nations reports. Note that Israel persecutes all Palestinians who oppose its expansionism irrespective of their religious belief or absence thereof
“Iran is going to join in”
Thanks to Bibi and other extremists who are pushing toward a regional conflict that’ll drag us in
“Another bastion of human rights!”
It is indeed as bad as Israel’s human rights record toward Palestinians
“don’t be anti-semetic!”
Here we go again. Citing facts about who occupied Palestine and for how long isn’t antisemitic. Denying Palestinians their humanity and rights is however deeply racist.
@18, @20, @24, and @28 NotGettingIt: WowEEE, you sure do spew a lot of misinformed word salad for someone who has absolutely nothing to say.
Here’s some actual news that raindrop doesn’t want you to figure out: Fox TeeVee causes brain cancer.
Ask yourself if the free WiFi and Twinkies are worth becoming a blob of dead matter.
@36: Not to worry, averagebob, those heroic “anti-colonialists” in the Iranian army are shooting ballistic missiles into Israel. That will teach those awful Jews not to “colonize” Persia!
@35 I am not sure if you are really dumb or if you are deliberately distorting what I said to better obfuscate. In the comment you are strategically truncating, I was objecting to the cheering of these acts as being grotesque. You certainly are capable of saying very stupid stuff (and often the exact opposite) but considering your comment history and lackluster character as shown by your arsenal of dirty rhetorical tricks, I’ll bet it’s the later: you are an obfuscator.
thumper the
Chatterbox’s™
an unprincipled
troll & loves his werk
is he pro bono
or does he
work for
Pooty
Time to take
Out the
Trash
@tS.
@19, Since you are so fond of quoting international law as the basis for your argument, let’s look at the Geneva Convention of 1949, Article 52, paragraph 2, which defines what is, and is not, a military object.
“In so far as objects are concerned, military objectives are limited to those objects which by their nature, location, purpose or use make an effective contribution to military action and whose total or partial destruction, capture or neutralization, in the circumstances ruling at the time, offers a definite military advantage.”
The instant Hezbollah chose to put a command and control bunker in an apartment building, they made it into a valid military objective, subject to attack. It ceased being a civilian object and became subject to attack.
You are also fond of citing the U.N. So lets look at the U.N. Charter, Chapter VII, Article 51.
“Nothing in the present Charter shall impair the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs against a Member of the United Nations,”
If an “armed attacker” can make themselves immune from attack, by surrounding themselves by civilians, then this right under the U.N. Charter is null and void. Nations no longer have an “inherent right of individual … self-defense.”
@38: Wow, another no- or low-casualty result for Israel. Way more ballistic missiles got through the air defense than in April, but they don’t seem to have caused any damage. The Iranians truly are the gang that couldn’t shoot straight. The SM-3s and Arrows obviously turned in an amazing performance as well. Still, there will have to be a counterstrike on Iranian soil, this is way too many missiles to shrug off.
@42 CNN is discussing several possibilities: 1) Destroy the oil facilities at Badar Abbas, crippling the already shakey Iranian economy. This would hurt the average citizen in Iran. 2) Decapitation strike to kill the Ayatollah and government leaders. This could lead to revolution in Iran, removing the clergy from power.
Who knows?
soon-to-be
Jailbirds donold
and bibi Know that if
they can start a Regional War
and drag Us into it both of their Long
odds against freedom Decrease Exponentially
for either one
it’s an Existential*
Threat. their War’ll
insure they Never see
the Inside of any Prison
but’ll set the Planet waaaay
back. This is NOT Their Concern.
*for Us too
@43: Given the extremely limited damage in Israel, the Israelis can probably get away with something a little less dramatic. My guess is, a single day of strikes against missile production, storage, and launch facilities. Probably will have to knock out some air defense sites to make that happens, but that’s all to the good. Time will tell, as always.
@39: “I was objecting to the cheering of these acts as being grotesque.”
Which acts, the killing of terrorists, or the collateral damage resulting from the killing of terrorists who were cowering behind civilians? Cheering the deaths of terrorists, which I was most certainly doing, is not grotesque. Cheering the deaths of innocent civilians would be grotesque, but I haven’t done any of that.
It’s not my fault you’re either a very bad writer, or that you’re intentionally making false accusations.
@46 Typical incoherent drivel from you given that the bombs that killed Hezbollah leaders are the same bombs that killed these innocent civilians. Trying to dissociate one from the other is impossible and cheering on these bombings is abject no matter how many ridiculously contortions you attempt to avoid taking responsibility.
@47, And you still haven’t responded to the U.N. Charter language and Geneva Convention Language that says that is perfectly permissible. See @41.
@48 dude, this is tiresome.
First, see my response @39 discussing the fact that my initial comment wasn’t about the legality of these specific bombings, although they may well be illegal
Second, the Geneva accords were amended several times since 1948 including in 1977 to address issues such as what are indiscriminate and disproportionate attacks upon civilians
All of this has been discussed several times here, ad-infinitum, in recent weeks including on days you were present on this board and even if I recall well specifically in response to your comments
So, although you have shown to be perfectly capable of searching the internet for the relevant articles and that I have already multiple times posted links to said addendum , here is a link to rule 12 of the1977 addendum to the Geneva Convention concerning indiscriminate attacks. Please be sure to bookmark the relevant page so that we don’t need to have this discussion again. I am sure the other participants to comments would appreciate it entirely if we didn’t rehash the same stuff forever, except for tensorna of course who revels in torturing words so that they don’t mean anything anymore and because he expects that propaganda works best through repetition
Definition of Indiscriminate Attacks
Rule 12. Indiscriminate attacks are those:
(a) which are not directed at a specific military objective;
(b) which employ a method or means of combat which cannot be directed at a specific military objective; 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.
https://ihl-databases.icrc.org/en/customary-ihl/v1/rule12#Fn_E41C220B_00001
So for example ammunition that destroy entire city blocks to take out a couple of guys in a basement are most likely indiscriminate. And yes these concepts have already been used in war crime tribunals like that for the former Yugoslavia conflict. I remember posting such tribunal records in reply to the same comments you are making today.
@47: “… the bombs that killed Hezbollah leaders are the same bombs that killed these innocent civilians.”
Oh, look: you switched from “acts” to “bombs,” in the hope no one would notice. (That’s clever. For you.) The act of building a hardened bunker (!) beneath a civilian neighborhood (!!) was Hezbollah’s, not Israel’s, and (as you can read up-thread) per the laws of armed conflict, Hezbollah bears all responsibility for the deaths of those innocent civilians. So yes, I cheer on the deaths of jihadi terrorists, and one reason I cheer their deaths originates from their constant cowering behind the very civilians they loudly claim to care so very, very much about.
Going forward, you’re going to need a lot more than such obvious sleights-of-hand, though, and you revealed you know that by your cheap shot in yesterday’s thread, about what ‘…Western news stenographers are “reporting.”‘ In Gaza, Hamas controlled the flow of information, and folks like you could obediently parrot all of Hamas’ lies about Israel’s “indiscriminate” bombing. Now, in Lebanon, anyone can see the ruins of the hardened bunker, which Hezbollah had cynically constructed beneath a civilian neighborhood.
Nailing Hezbollah’s top leadership, right in their coward-hole, makes it very hard for you to cast doubt on Israel’s target selection (although, again in yesterday’s thread, you did obediently try), and the sickening ugliness with which terrorists act will become ever-harder for you to ignore — or even to make false equivalences with Israel. One side callously and cynically places innocent civilians in danger as a matter of policy, and the other does not; no matter how many examples you scrounge of the latter for your false equivalences, you’ll never be able to find enough evidence to counter the terrorists’ policy.