More Misery for Microsoftees: It’s hell over there in Redmond. Microsoft is planning to lay off “thousands” of employees next month as it pares back its numbers and funnels spending into artificial intelligence. Most of the cuts will hit the sales department. These layoffs follow the 6,000 jobs Microsoft axed in May.
Powerless in South Seattle: Power outages struck Seattle City Light customers in Tukwila and South Seattle on Wednesday afternoon. A fallen branch is the likely culprit.
Oh I forgot about this guy: Sorry, the news (and life in general) is so chaotic right now I completely forgot about the manhunt for the man who allegedly murdered his young daughters and fled into the Washington woods. The lead suspect in that Wenatchee triple homicide is still on the lam. Chelan County Sheriff Mike Morrison believes he’s still alive and evading search efforts. But he is confident that the suspect will be caught. As a reminder, the manhunt is now in its third week.
Din Tai Fung Gets Steamed: Everyone’s favorite dumpling chain is in hot water for allegedly violating Seattle sick time and wage theft laws. Due to the restaurant’s attendance policy, employees were discouraged from taking sick time and they weren’t provided the required meal and rest breaks. In a settlement, Din Tai Fung agreed to pay workers $567,361 to 1,245 employees.
Nooooooo Don’t Make Us Hate You, Firefighters: Everyones’ unproblematic faves, the firefighters, may not be so unproblematic. A private investigation found that Seattle Fire Department firefighters might have forged vaccine cards during the COVID-19 pandemic to abide by city vaccine mandates without having to actually get vaccinated. Allegedly, a firefighter swiped blank vaccine cards from a vaccination sight and sold them. Many of these blank cards were available for firefighters to simply take, according to a report by PubliCola. However, the investigation could did not yield conclusive evidence.
Cool, Cool, Not Stressful at All: Trump is still undecided about whether he’ll join Israel’s attacks on Iranian nuclear sites. Iran said America would suffer “irreparable harm” if so. Trump said, unhelpfully, “I may do it. I may not do it. I mean, nobody knows what I’m going to do.” Nobody’s asking, but my professional opinion is do not do it. Okay, thanks!
Meanwhile: An overnight Iran missile barrage damaged an Israeli hospital and wounded over 200 people. Israel threatened Iran’s top leader. So far, Israel’s missile defense system is working alright, but it has limited missile interceptors. Iran also has limited ballistic missiles. Who will run out first? If the US gets involved, then it might not matter.
This Metaphor Is a Bit on the Nose: A SpaceX spaceship blew up. This is not supposed to happen in rocket science, I’m told.
So Starship Ship 36 just detonated *before* the static fire test – fueled and waiting for the test. Looks like the top tank lets go and sets off the whole stack. It would be bad enough if it let go during the static fire test, but it just blew up. And it’s cooking off the fuel tanks on the pad.
— Kasey Kagawa (@punkey.org) June 18, 2025 at 9:23 PM
Do you also love living in a country that wants its citizens dead? The Trump Justice Department is cutting a few more jobs. Which ones? Oh, you know, just the inspectors that monitor federally-licensed gun dealers. Yeah, no big deal, they’re only cutting 541 of the 800 positions, thus making it even harder for the government to monitor businesses selling guns to criminals. This isn’t exactly a surprise to anyone paying attention—Trump and his cronies want to limit the power of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives. These cuts in particular are a response to Biden-era gun control regulations.
Bear Freed of Plastic Albatross: Hey, good news, the Michigan bear that’s been living with a plastic barrel lid stuck around its neck for two years is now free. The department of natural resources first clocked the bear and his horrible necklace on a trail camera in 2023. They’ve been trying to track him ever since. Finally, they found him, trapped him, and cut the barrel lid free.
After 2 years with a plastic lid stuck around its neck, a Michigan black bear is finally free. Wildlife experts safely removed the lid, amazed the bear survived and thrived despite the ordeal.
tinyurl.com/4prtec82 #Wildlife #PlasticPollution #BearRescue
— activist360 (@activist360.bsky.social) June 18, 2025 at 7:32 PM
Jewelry Thieves Charged: Seven California men were charged in the largest jewelry heist in US history. Allegedly, three years ago these guys followed a truck transporting 73 bags full of jewelry from a jewelry show in San Francisco. Around 300 miles from its origin point in remote area, the men stole 24 bags of gold, gems, and luxury watches worth $100 million from the truck while it was parked at a stop. It’s unclear how they gained access to the truck.
Defund the Border Wall: Texas lawmakers won’t fund the construction of the state’s border wall any longer. The project has cost taxpayers more than $3 billion—and Texas has only built 8% of the total 805-mile-wall. It’ll take 30 more years and $20 billion to complete. The state government said that wall can be the federal government’s problem now.
A Way to Celebrate: Enjoy Juneteenth by attending the Juneteenth Festival today in the Central District.
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Liking the earlier posts, thank you. Also, there are many tasty alternatives to Din Tai Fung for less money.
The Redmond city council really needs to get its act together, fund the police, and put a stop to the homeless and property crime crises so benevolent corporation Microsoft isn’t forced to lay off even more workers
Ruminating over forged Covid vaccine cards in 2025? Meh, who cares. Let bygones be bygones. Firefighters are always our heroes!
“Powerless in South Seattle:”
That is how Seattle City Hall likes to keep South Seattle.
“Nooooooo Don’t Make Us Hate You, Firefighters:”
Why would we hate them for this? The only people hurt by them failing to vaccinate was themselves according to the CDC.
“Trump is still undecided about whether he’ll join Israel’s attacks on Iranian nuclear sites.”
Iran will get nuclear weapons because TACO.
Iran will enrich uranium to weapons grade at Fordoh, and text a nuclear weapon by the end of the year.
Why?
Because TACO.
“An overnight Iran missile barrage damaged an Israeli hospital and wounded over 200 people.”
Where is Greenwood Bob, Kristo, and The writers at The Stranger to falsely call out this tragedy as a war crime?
Why isn’t South Africa hauling Iran before the International Court of Justice to falsely allege Iran committed a war crime?
DTF has over 1,200 employees? Crimony.
BTW, that settlement’s $455.71 per employee. I like math.
@8 Maybe it’s because Israel has made it clear that it does not consider bombing hospitals as part of its military goals a war crime. If there was a single IDF member anywhere near the hospital, it was fair game according to Israel’s own rules of engagement. If they didn’t want the hospital bombed, they shouldn’t have had their military personnel or equipment anywhere nearby. Good for the goose, good for the gander.
Of course it turns out that like most bullies, the Netanyahu government can dish it out, but they can’t take it.
Failing to get vaccinated for covid, especially in the early days of the vaccine roll out, would put everyone around you at heightened risk of a highly contagious, high fatality infection. Forged vaccines cards would give you access to spaces where people could be more vulnerable. You’re harming yourself the most but you’re still putting others at risk.
The virtue of forgiveness is a pillar of civilization.
So is minding your own business. Never said a word about not forgiving anyone, just that those vaccine mandates existed for a reason and our first responders are supposed to be trustworthy for reasons that do not require explanation.
@13: You didn’t include the number of the comment you’re replying to, as I did for yours, so you can’t complain that I was talking about you personally.
ok
@10, Its not a war crime when Iran does it, or when Israel does it, provided a lawful military target is the objective.
Missiles miss. They get knocked off target for many reasons. Targeting errors happen. Intelligence can be bad.
Maybe Israel had an arms supply, a command and control center in the basement of the hospital, or a bunch of fighter pilots that weren’t getting treatment and hanging out. They would be foolish not to incorporate lessons learned from Hamas.
A war crime requires a showing of intent to target civillians WITHOUT a military target as the objective, under international treaties and law.
@5 haven’t you spent the last week or so insisting that not following laws, without accepting consequences, is antidemocratic and fascistic? Now firefighters forging vaccine cards to avoid either getting vaxxed or suffering the consequences of not is a-ok by you?
@8 nobody has to assert Iran bombing a hospital was fucked up and potentially violated international law, because there are no sociopaths here trying to claim Iran can bomb whatever and whoever it wants because it has a “right to exist” and repetitively insisting anyone who wants to criticize anything Iran does must first denounce Israel. If there were a bunch of lunatics here defending Iran verbally to the death there’d be a debate, but there’s not.
@16 hilarious lack of self awareness from the Zionists:
“Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vowed retribution for the attack.
“This morning, Iran’s terrorist tyrants launched missiles at Soroka Hospital in Beersheba and at a civilian population in the center of the country,” he said on social media. “We will exact the full price from the tyrants in Tehran.”
Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz called the strike a “war crime,” and said Iran’s Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei “cannot continue to exist.”
https://www.npr.org/2025/06/19/nx-s1-5439075/israel-iran-conflict-hospital
@13, According to the National Institutes of Health, your statement is 100% false.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39283431/
COVID vaccines do not prevent or reduce spread according to the science.
According to the CDC, 74% of the people infected with COVID at the Provincetown, Massachusetts mass spreader event were vaccinated. This caused the CDC to reverse their masking guidance which stated that fully vaccinated people no longer needed to be masked in public.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/39283431/
Don’t get me wrong, the COVID vaccine is wonderful. It lowers the risk of being hospitalized, admitted to ICU, ventilated, and death.
WHAT IT DOES NOT DO IS PREVENT SPREAD, based on the literature available from the National Institutes of health.
FOLLOW THE SCIENCE was the mantra here during the pandemic. It should still be the mantra.
@17, The Legislature or the City Council never passed a law mandating firefighters, or anyone else, get vaccinated.
Without collectively bargaining it, as required by State Law, it was mandated as a condition of public employment, even though the science says (see links @19) COVID vaccines don’t stop spread.
@18, Netanyahu has no basis to make that statement.
The IDF has no way of knowing what Iran aimed that missile at, the target Iran intended to hit, or whether Iran had intelligence, faulty or true, that Israel was using that hospital as for some military purpose, making it a lawful target.
@19, That’s not the nih or the cdc, it’s an abstract from a low tier journal listed on pubmed
This is the cdc
https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/74/wr/mm7406a1.htm
https://www.cdc.gov/ncird/whats-new/covid-19-vaccine-effectiveness.html
The vaccine reduces transmission of the virus, and you can’t spread a virus you didn’t contract because you were immunized to it, but the problem here is first responders violating public trust
@20 the mandate was by executive order from the elected mayor. Are you saying, in your opinion, it is permissible to disregard orders or mandates from the executive branch?
@22, How do you account for the fact that 74% of those that contracted COVID at Provincetown did so while vaccinated?
Why did the CDC rescind their guidance that vaccinated people didn’t need to where masks in public after their study of the Provincetown spreader event if vaccinated people could not contract or transmit the virus, or were at a materially lower risk of doing so? Because they were following the epidemiological science.
The first study you link does not show reduced spread by vaccinated people.
It shows reductions in severity of illness and fatalities of people that have the COVID 19 vaccine. That make the vaccine a good thing, but not a mechanism to stop or reduce spread.
So as I have stated, and as the science states, the only person put at risk from not getting a COVID shot is to the person who didn’t get the shot, and no one else.
The second study has a fatal flaw. It does not measure asymptomatic infection, which is a feature of COVID infection, not an anomaly. Who gets tested for COVID? People with symptoms. So you can’t conclude that vaccination reduces spread from that study. You can conclude from that study there was a 54% reduction in COVID symptoms among those vaccinated, but you can’t conclude they weren’t asymptomatically infected and spreading the virus. That 54% reduction in symptoms makes the vaccine a good thing, but not a public health measure to reduce spread of the virus.
Follow the science. Draw only the conclusions that the data conclusively demonstrates. If the data is suggestive of the possibility of a 54% reduction in infection, which it might be, then do further study to test that hypothesis. Such further study would be difficult to design and do, but not impossible, since all of the test subjects would have to agree to random periodic testing for active COVID 19 virus, not just anti-bodies.
BTW the link to the ICATT testing program does not work.
People can still transmit the virus after vaccination because the vaccines do not confer sterilizing immunity, and guidelines were updated when we learned this, but that’s neither here nor there. Public employees lied about their vaccine status in violation of the rules at the time.
@23, Executive orders aren’t laws. They get overturned all the time.
Inslee, seeing the legal handwriting on the wall, rescinded the mandate for state employees on May 11, 2023. The longer it went on, the more state employees would be able to join the lawsuit by 63 employees terminated by Inslee for failure to comply with mandate, and the greater the potential damages the State will eventually have to pay.
That suit is still winding its way through the Federal Courts, and the last thing Inslee wanted to was to add more Plaintiffs as the mandate swept up more state employees as the mandate continued.
Happy to hear the bear was freed from plastic hell.
Build The Wall.
I’m proud of our firefighters who refused to accept an experimental injection that science shows did not slow the spread of Covid. Forging vaccination cards should be seen as a form of conscientious objection.
@26 laws get overturned all the time too. Your position has absolutely no logic to it.
Whatever happened to Kristofarian? Was he banned?
@29: He wouldn’t have been banned, as his politics mirrored The Stranger’s.
@5 They hurt themselves and any unvaccinated member of the public with whom they come in contact. I suspect you left out that key clause because in your solipsistic libertarian utopia, the solitary self is all that matters.
@25, From The Stranger:
“A private investigation found that Seattle Fire Department firefighters might have forged vaccine cards during the COVID-19 pandemic to abide by city vaccine mandates without having to actually get vaccinated. …. However, the investigation could did not yield conclusive evidence.”
Note the word “might” and the phrase, “did not yield conclusive evidence.” The assertion is they may have lied and forged vaccine cards. Everyone is innocent until an allegation is proved.
@28, But and executive order is not a law until they are enacted by legislative body. This was an employment order. I.e. In order to be or remain employed by this public employer, employees shall . Employees can’t be prosecuted criminally for failure to comply, because its not a law.
They are no more obligated to follow that than an employee who gets a similar ultimatum from the CEO of Boeing or Amazon. Boeing and Amazon are then free to fire the employee, as The City of Seattle was, and the employee is free to sue or not. They might prevail or not.
So the difference between a law and an executive order matters. One has the authority of law, and the other is demand by the employer to do something or be fired.
Trump is issuing Federal EO’s by the truckload. No one can ever be prosecuted and tried for violating one, or failure to implement one. They can be fired. That’s all.
You should read the article, not the stranger’s summary of it. The article says a source discussed a scheme to distribute forged cards that were sourced from a shuttered vaccination site. They also have signal chats between sfd employees discussing this scheme. They were unable to tie these findings to any specific employee but they have a lot of corroborating evidence that the scheme existed.
I thought this story was nbd because the vaccines “don’t work,” but now you’re telling me it’s nbd because no one was charged with anything. One thing you cannot deny is that all available evidence points to one or more sfd employees making an effort to forge vaccination records for first responders in violation of the rules, safety, and public trust.
“I mean, nobody knows what I’m going to do.” While I tend to believe this, especially given Trump not excluding himself from that list, but has anyone asked Jeffrey Goldberg to check his apps?
@25, From the PBS Newshour:
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/authors-of-in-covids-wake-on-their-criticism-of-the-governments-pandemic-response
It discusses some science from the WHO on the efficacy of non-mask NPI that the WHO, and the world, had in 2019, prior the pandemic demonstrating the huge economic and health costs of lockdowns in response to a respiratory virus pandemic and the doubtful efficacy in containing such a pandemic.
Yet the WHO, public health authorities, and government leaders around the world reversed course on the data and conclusions from that study just 5 months later, when COVID emerged.
Why?
Several human psychological phenomenon were at play:
Action Bias. “Action bias is the psychological phenomenon where people tend to favor action over inaction, even when there is no indication that doing so would point towards a better result.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Action_bias
“Plan continuation bias: A related phenomenon is plan continuation bias,[29][30][31][32][33] which is recognized as a subtle cognitive bias that tends to force the continuation of a plan or course of action even in the face of changing conditions.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sunk_cost#Plan_continuation_bias
The public at large was equally subject to those biases as well, particularly “Action Bias” which put political leaders in the position of having to do something, anything, to look like they were protecting constituents.
We didn’t get played. There was no conspiracy. Experts and political leaders acted in good faith; however, even with expert levels of knowledge, they were still human and subject to the psychological defects that afflict us all.
What was scary, then and now, was people’s unwillingness to question authority and the intolerance to even other experts, like those of the Barrington Declaration, questioning the authorities. We all succumbed to Authority Bias. https://nesslabs.com/authority-bias
As the transcript at the PBS Newshour link shows, Democratic Governors maintained lockdowns and other NPI much longer than Republican Governors, yet in the end infection and death rates were not different.
There are lessons we can learn from critically looking back at the pandemic and our response. We should.
I am also not advocating for no vaccine mandates. For stable viruses like Polio, Measles, etc. where we can get to heard immunity, and prevent spread, they have a public health justification.
For a constantly mutating, respiratory virus, where vaccine does not prevent spread, not so much. Even if the vaccine did stop spread, Delta was out in the wild and gallivanting around the world before the initial vaccine was even out the door. It will always be one step ahead of the most current vaccine.
@16 My point is that Israel can’t have it both ways. It can’t both be an entirely acceptable means of prosecuting a war when Israel bombs a hospital in Gaza and also a horrific war crime when Iran hits an Israeli hospital. If Israel wants their hospitals to be sacrosanct, they should take steps to ensure that they don’t blow up other people’s hospitals. And maybe, you know, apologize if they do it accidentally.
what does two political scientists discussing the social impact of our pandemic response have to do with sfd employees flagrantly violating the rules like so many other anti-democratic fascists
Swiftress @29
I don’t know, but he’s on a different blog I read, and he hasn’t posted there for over a month. He’s not banned there. I hope he’s okay.
@me
Plus I’m apparently still banned, but I’m posting under the same nym right now. Not sure how that works.
Today I overheard a nice Idaho lady correct the spelling of ‘Kootenai’ from someone’s guess based how they heard it said. “It’s French spelling,” she explained.
Spent last weekend in Wenatchee, doing hikes near Steven’s Pass then down around Leavenworth. There were frequent helicopter flights overhead, and Decker Wanted posters at the trailheads. Kinda creepy knowing he was lurking somewhere in the hills.
But gosh, these are crazy busy trails, and the chance of being spotted would be high. Even by bushwacking off trail, there are climbers, hunters, fisherfolk, etc. Maybe he is hoping to ambush someone then flee the area with the victims vehicle.
@29: Kristofarian died last month in a domestic violence incident in which he was the suspected aggressor.
@36, You are correct. It’s not a war crime, absent evidence of intentional targeting of a prohibited target.
The IDF and Hamas can get stuffed with spurious claims of war crimes.
All day and 43 comments later and nobody said “it’s site, not sight.”
@29
Maybe they got new meds and they are working.
@33, And the source article comes up with no proof.
Even if they had proof, you can’t successfully fire someone for termination or discipline for what has now been subsequently rendered legally impermissible employment policy.
Once the scientific study of Provincetown showed that vaccines did not prevent transmission, the basis for the requirement went out the window.
Yet even today, we can’t look back, based on the science, and state the vaccine mandates, as a condition of employment, were impermissible and wrong. We can’t admit, based on the data, that the lockdowns were wrong.
I supported both at the time, based on the knowledge available at the time. When the science information became more complete, it could no longer justify either policy. My opinion changed to reflect the evolution of the science.
Others it would appear, are still stuck in continuation bias, wanting to find some way to condemn the folks that were correct.
The WHO report from 2019, cited in the political scientists book, was science. When the crisis came WHO and political leaders disregarded the WHO’s report because of failable human psychology.
@42 You are a horrible person and I hope this username is banned for your horribleness.
@43 “It’s not a war crime, absent evidence of intentional targeting of a prohibited target.”
Correct, there’s also why Hamas has never done anything wrong, nobody has proven beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law that they were not trying to attack only legitimate military targets on 10/7. This entire kerfuffle is based upon n widespread misunderstanding of relevant legal norms. We need to get NotMyopic on a flight to the UN STAT to put a stop to all this madness with a long and convoluted wall of text explaining ackshully nobody did anything wrong ever please return to your homes nothing to see here.
@47: Okay but that’s what happened. The families want privacy so depending how the investigation goes we may never know the details and that’s okay.
@47,
Thanks and you beat me to it. That’s the second time this dude has posted this bullshit and I forgot to call him out for being a piece of fucking shit the other day when he did so. Please everyone report his profile to be banned.