A street along the Gulf Coast in Florida. Credit: Joe Raedle / GETTY

Mystery fireworks strike again: A private firework show in Commencement Bay sent fireworks caterwauling through the September sky for around 20 minutes. Nobody knows who set off the fireworks. To make things weirder, this mystery private firework show happened around the same time and around the same place last year. According to the Seattle Times, these sorts of mystery shows have been happening like this since 1998. The true source of the fireworks remain a mystery. However, we know whoever bankrolled this needs access to wads of cash since fireworks shows consistently cost around $2,000 per minute. As the Times has tried to find the firework funder, they’ve unearthed layers of shell companies, connections to millionaires and a bunch of luxury yachts. Their best guess is the funder is a mysterious Microsoft billionaire.

License plate shortage: More than half of Washington counties are out of stock of standard embossed license plates and there’s a six-week lag for more. Why? The equipment in the prisons where incarcerated people make our license plates is aging. The Department of Licensing is now weighing whether or not it should use non-embossed plates. 

A little quake: Did you feel a shake or two on Sunday morning? Blame it on the 3.2 magnitude earthquake that hit the Bremerton area. 

Debates tomorrow! On Tuesday, couch-fucking   America’s slimy step-uncle, JD Vance, will square off against America’s new dad, Tim Walz. But, wait, there’s more! Stay tuned after the debate to watch the Seattle City Council Position 8 candidates debate moderated by Seattle Nice podcast hosts Erica C. Barnett, Sandeep Kaushik, and David Hyde. You can watch Council Member Tanya Woo try to remember what it is she believes in while she debates against progressive challenger Alexis Mercedes Rinck.

The weather: Sunny and 65 today. Enjoy. 

Seattle Animal Shelter director resigns: The Seattle Animal Shelter has gone to the dogs! That’s basically what director Esteban Rodriguez said in a letter announcing his resignation last week. Rodriguez blamed his departure on funding shortage frustrations, inadequate facilities, and a lack of internal support. Earlier this year, Cascade PBS exposed how over 20 current and former shelter workers and volunteers feared retaliation from Rodriguez and experienced communication issues as well as safety returns. Rodriguez denied these claims.

By order of the chief: If you get pulled over by a cop in a Geno Smith jersey today, then do not panic. 

Gun gate: Hey, have you seen 23 guns lying around? The Office of the Washington State Auditor is looking for them. The Seattle Police Department reported these guns missing in August. The catch is that nobody has seen the guns since 2017. 

Israel bombs residential area, kills Hezbollah leader: Israel laid siege on a Beirut suburb Friday with an “overwhelming air raid” using munitions and likely US-made bombs. The raid wounded at least 108 people and killed 11, including Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Israel Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gave the go-ahead to bomb the secret underground complex where Nasrallah was from. Hezbollah in turn issued a defiant statement against Israel. Now, Israel says it will launch a ground invasion into Lebanon. 

110 dead from Hurricane Helene: The destruction in the wake of Hurricane Helene is horrific. Communities in Florida where the hurricane first hit are covered in sand and debris, but the real devastation came from the rains a downgraded Helene dumped on the Carolinas and Tennessee. Towns in the mountainous regions of North Carolina are under water. Roads to and from North Carolina towns have been destroyed or are inaccessible. In Tennessee, rescue teams scooped up dozens of hospital workers and patients on the hospital roof as flood waters climbed higher and higher. At least 110 people are dead as of Monday morning. Officials say that toll will likely climb, as many remain missing and as supplies dwindle. This is a climate change nightmare realized. And, more storms brewing stronger and stronger in the hotter and hotter Atlantic ocean are coming. Forecasters say a new tropical depression could become a strong hurricane later this week. 

Devastation in North Carolina: The small, mountain town of Asheville, North Carolina was underwater, a mishmash of toppled trees and flooded rivers. Around 600 people in the area are missing. Those left in town are scrambling to find resources. The only WiFi is at the public library. The few open stores are only accepting cash, so the ATM line is an hour long. Gas stores are low. Meanwhile, the state is trying to get supplies in, but the roads are a mess. 

We know a woman: The GOP’s newest ad strategy is to assure voters that the party’s candidates know women. Sometimes these women are also in their lives! They love these women and would not make legislation that takes away their rights to their own bodies! Wait, no, they wouldn’t go that far. The New York Times studied this new phenomenon in ads for conservative candidates. Many are using their wives and daughters as props and mouthpieces. In an election where abortion is on the ballot, these candidates feel they must appeal to other women. One guy, Derrick Anderson, who is running for a seat in Virginia’s 7th District, posted footage of himself with a woman and three young girls who appear to be his wife and children. Nope, those are his friend’s wife and children. Anderson actually lives alone, sans wife and daughters. 

Astronauts bum a ride … in February: The two astronauts stranded in space since June have a way home. The SpaceX capsule sent to bring them home docked at the International Space Station where they’ve been stuck. Unfortunately, that capsule won’t be returning to earth until February. Just a few more months to wait! 

RIP Kris Kristofferson: The country singer and songwriter died on Saturday. He was 88. 

Nathalie Graham covers anything she finds fun, weird, or interesting. You can find a lot of that in her column, Play Date. Her work has also appeared around town in The Seattle Times, GeekWire, and the...

89 replies on “Slog AM: Mystery Firework Show Strikes Again, SPD Lost 23 Guns, Hurricane Helene Death Toll Up to 110”

  1. @48: I was more interested in addressing your anti-semitic rants, less for your benefit (although you’re welcome) than the benefit of other readers: yes what you’re seeing is anti-semitism, and yes it’s wrong.

  2. @31 Really good answer. If we don’t radically decrease carbon emissions in short order, we will be well beyond unchartered territory by 2100, possibly on the verge of civilization collapse or even past it. Even more so, if not accounted for tipping points kick in like thawing of the permafrost, shutdown of the the thermohaline circulation, etc

    During a year of extremes, carbon dioxide levels surge faster than ever

    The two-year increase in Keeling Curve peak is the largest on record

    June 6, 2024

    —

    Carbon dioxide is accumulating in the atmosphere faster than ever — accelerating on a steep rise to levels far above any experienced during human existence, scientists from NOAA and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography offsite link at the University of California San Diego announced today.

    [..]

    “Over the past year, we’ve experienced the hottest year on record, the hottest ocean temperatures on record and a seemingly endless string of heat waves, droughts, floods, wildfires and storms,” said NOAA Administrator Rick Spinrad, Ph.D. “Now we are finding that atmospheric CO2 levels are increasing faster than ever. We must recognize that these are clear signals of the damage carbon dioxide pollution is doing to the climate system, and take rapid action to cut fossil fuel use as quickly as we can.”

    https://www.noaa.gov/news-release/during-year-of-extremes-carbon-dioxide-levels-surge-faster-than-ever

  3. @30, Its interesting that you only object to the war in the Levant because U.S. tax dollars are involved. Absent the tax dollars, apparently you don’t care.

  5. @24, The trial you speak of was avoided when the State of Washington admitted culpability for sending people back into a house full of carbon monoxide and settled on paying out $25 million.

  6. @37, “Lather, rinse, repeat ad infinitum – it just never ends, and meanwhile the pile of civilian “collateral damage” on both sides keeps getting higher and higher and higher…”

    Correct. That is war’s nature and war is the nature of humankind according to our own history of ourselves.

  8. @40, Climate change is a thing.

    The difference between being carbon neutral tomorrow and the U.N.’s estimates for temperature rise under their models of actual carbon emission is 1/3 of 1 degree. Basically, most of the temperature rise is already baked in by prior carbon emissions, with less of the rise coming from projected future emissions.

  11. @42, “a specific subset of public employees who are free to terrorize and kill the public with little to no fear of losing their job or facing justice.”

    The “specific subset of public employees” wording is what makes the statement false. The statement would be true if “a specific subset” were removed from the sentence.

    Those that survived this gassing with carbon monoxide by employees, acting as agents for the state, when they disconnected C.O. alarms and sent residents back into a death zone, certainly terrorized them. The survivors probably suffer terror every time they contemplate sleep.

    These kids assaulted by teachers were terrorized. Who got fired? No one. Who got a bad recommendation when the teachers in question switched to other districts. No one. https://www.kuow.org/stories/seattle-schools-knew-these-teachers-abused-kids-and-let-them-keep-teaching

    The people killed when agents of the State of Washington specifically woke a drunk driver to get them off the boat, so they could stay on schedule and get off work on time, were terrorized as the drunk crossed the center line to kill them. Those employees were not disciplined or fired. Two lives and $8.6 million didn’t warrant a reprimand. https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/transportation/wa-to-pay-family-of-couple-killed-by-impaired-driver-leaving-ferry/

    The staff, parents, and students that suffered years of hostility and trauma from this public school principal were terrorized by an agent of the district. She not only wasn’t disciplined. She got a transfer to an easier job at the same pay, with the district unwilling to investigate the merit of the allegations against the Principal and rule on their merit. The district was unwilling to make any adverse entry to the employee’s personnel file, and was very careful not to make any statement publicly that might impugn the employee. https://www.seattletimes.com/education-lab/rainier-view-principal-transferred-after-years-of-parent-staff-complaints/

    So it isn’t a subset of public employees that is free to do as you allege without the consequences you suggest, its all public employees.

    Is this because public employees are worse than private employees? Nope. They are on balance, IMO, more service-minded as a group, than the private employee pool. It’s because of unique protections granted to public employees from possible employer abuse granted by the 14th and 5th Amendment, civil service laws, etc., because their employer is the state itself, with unique, monopoly power, that other employers don’t get, over people.

    Yet The Stranger, Ashley, and you, arbitrarily carve out a subset of employees, and attribute to them special immunity and privilege, that is not unique to the subset, but is actually possessed by all public employees.

    KUOW, unlike The Stranger, and you, doesn’t falsely attribute a unique subset of immunities and privileges from criminal prosecution and discipline to a subset of public employees. They report on school teachers and other subsets of employees experiencing those immunities and privileges. They call it out, every time they become aware of a case to report on, no matter what subset of public employment the public employee is part of.

  13. 61, You are deeply committed to not understanding the unique nature of the police’s role in public safety, or why a journalist might endeavor to provide accountability for public employees who by the very nature of their job have the authority to kill people and violate their constitutional rights, yet apparently operate with the same level of oversight and accountability as a public school employee, which is to say none at all. You would rather waste your time tearing down straw men than actually engaging with the point you are fighting and you’ve been doing this for years. Get a life already.

  15. @63, The teachers, ferry workers, and maintenance workers cited were granted the ability, ACTING WITHIN THE SCOPE OF THEIR PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT, to kill and assault, without criminal charge, or employment discipline.

    All public employees are subject to qualified immunity, not just cops. The City of Seattle, King County, and The State of Washington fully indemnify ALL PUBLIC EMPLOYEES for civil damages arising during the course of performing public employment.

    We all have authority to kill people as citizens. The legislatures (and elected state courts) specifically grant every citizen the authority to lawfully kill other people. Such authority is found in RCW 9A.16.050 and .030 in this state, among other parts of the criminal and judicial code. The authority of a police officer to kill is little different in RCW 9A.16.040 (they are more restricted than non-cops actually, requiring probable cause of imminent serious physical injury, not just reasonable belief).

    We all have legal authority to use physical force against others. That is spelled out in RCW 9A.16.020 and .080 and .100, among other places.

    Non-cops actually shoot people in justified self-defense 2,200 times per year vs. 1,100 or so for cops, and cops are much more frequently put in contact with violent, criminal people. 50 million police contacts a year, and only 1,100 of those escalate to the point of justifiable homicide. Only 1,000,000 of those contacts result in any use of force at all, which is 2%.

    So why are police shootings much higher than in other developed countries? Simple. We have 3 to 8 times the murder rates, higher assault rates, etc. than other developed countries If the population policed is more violent, rates of justifiable use of force, including, but not limited to, homicide, will also be higher, by those defending themselves in the course of trying to bring people into custody on behalf of the courts. But we don’t want to look in that cultural mirror, at policies on incarceration and rehabilitation, mental health, etc., that would actually cost a lot of money.

    Nope. We want simplistic (and false) narratives thrown at us by The Stranger, such as police are a special unique subset of public employees in their ability to not be criminally charged or disciplined in the course of public employment.

  17. 65, No one is arguing that the police are unique in terms of their lack of accountability as public employees. This is something you made up entirely on your own because you read someone asking for accountability for the police and fabricated that assertion from whole cloth.

    If I say I like pancakes it doesn’t mean I hate waffles, it just means that I am expressing my love of pancakes. If you accuse me of hating waffles that doesn’t mean you’re right, it only means you don’t understand the most basic norms of communication. You are drawing inferences that don’t exist in order to make an argument you can tear down with a bunch of bullshit you scraped off the internet.

    Other countries have external oversight for their police because they understand that the police represent the authority of the government and hold a unique place in public life. They have fewer police killings for many reasons but it’s less about the number than what happens afterward. Since we don’t have anything like that in the US the next best option is for journalists to inform the public of the police’s many dangerous failures and if The Stranger is making you angry then they must be doing something right.

  19. @65, So look at the citations provided. Were teachers that assaulted students charged? Fired? How about Ferry workers that let a drunk driver lose to kill two people? Wait, they didn’t just not detain them, they woke them up and told them to leave. $8.6 million paid out by WSF? How about the maintenance workers at Evergreen state who disabled CO detectors and sent tenants back into the gas? $25 million paid out. So no cops aren’t unique in not being criminally charged, not being disciplined, being fully indemnified against civil suits, and having their employer assert qualified immunity as a defense of their employees injurious and death imposing acts and omissions. Not unique at all. It’s a factor with all public employees. Not unique at all to cops.

    Public employment is not “at will” like the private sector. The 5th, 14th, civil service laws, pose substantial hurdles to discipline and firing unique to public ALL public employment.

    Nor are cops not being criminally charged in homicides all that unique verses the public. Over twice as many non-cops as cops each year are not charged for homicides by asserting they feared imminent serious physical injury or death, justifying their use of deadly force. So that’s not unique to cops either. Quite the opposite.

  21. @65, BTW, on another policing note, here is an example of public employees and senior leaders being evidence-based and making government more efficient.

    Interim Chief Sue Rahr is spot on with this policy change:

    https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/law-justice/seattle-police-wont-respond-to-tripped-security-alarms-without-verification/

    The only criticism, and its a minor one, is why did it take SPD so long to make this policy change?

    We will all be safer with this change.

  23. @72 — good Advice

    Tho when daddy’s a

    Terrorist he tends to

    Look askance — or

    Worse when quer-

    ried re any WMDs

    happening to be

    Lying around on

    the garage floor

    @70 ~ ‘so myopic’ Is el cap’n*

    & afew’fax’2dissuadeyou &

    Gawdonlyknowswot?

    Previous.

    *his White Whale

    was normalizing

    war weaponries

    chasing & harp-

    ooning his tale

    he drownded

    suddenly under

    the crushing weight

    of Too Many Statistics

    justifications and inanities

    & was put to a well-deserved

    and exceedingly Belated Respite.

    3-1 says his next incarnation’s

    the phuckingPhoenix or may-

    be the EnergizerWabbit or

    theFlushresistantfloating-

    turd, one of donold el-

    trumpfster’s most

    Cherished Faves:

    FifteenFlushes

    and thumper’s wormmy’s

    Unleashed chatterbot

    on methamphet-

    amine or crank~

    the Verdict’s

    still Out.

    there Will

    be a Test.

  24. @30: So, you and “Democracy Now” are upset the Israelis are happy about the death of Hezbollah’s longtime leader? Hezbollah has driven Israeli civilians from their homes in the north of Israel. No sympathy for terrorists.

    “…including the massacre in Gaza.”

    B-b-but I thought only PRO-GENOCIDERS used any term other than GENOCIDE!!! Those so-called “Democracy Now” folks are really asking for it. Go get ’em! Names must be stolen! Then called! That’ll show ’em!

    @46, @47: We’ve been over this already, last week, where we had to explain to you the ICJ had NOT found Israel practicing apartheid. Please let us know if you need that explained to you again.

  25. @31 and @32 dvs99: I won’t be around in 76 years, but weather extremes have me plenty worried about the future. It amazes me how legislators in red states are in such deep denial about their fossil fuel gluttony—right up until they’re underwater from a Category 4 hurricane. Then they’re after the feds pronto for emergency infrastructural assistance their state doesn’t seem to have funding for. So many feel it’s “God’s will”. Like thoughts and prayers alone are going to solve everything.

    I know of a retired Music professor from Western Washington University and his wife who sold their home and moved to Asheville, North Carolina to be with their kids and grandkids. I hope they’re all okay.

    I have a Bellingham native friend who moved to Louisiana eight years ago. While she’s grateful that Louisiana got spared this time, she feels sorry for everybody in Florida, Georgia, North and South Carolina, and Tennessee impacted by Hurricane Helene. I do, too. The billions in damage is insane! 110 dead and a good number missing. I won’t be able to unsee the people trapped on the roof of that hospital.

    And the storms off the Gulf of Mexico are only getting worse.

    Manmade climate change is real. What more proof do deniers need?

  26. “So, you and “Democracy Now”

    are upset the Israelis

    are happy”

    We’re ‘upset’?

    no, Wormtongue, but it

    appears your sociopathic Glee

    is as unappealing to Democracy

    Now & their viewership as it is to me &

    likely to others here at Seattle’s Only news source

    it’s something you’ll

    never be able to

    understand.

    Understand?

  27. @76: So, what name will you steal to call “Democracy Now,” for their unforgivable impertinence in using “massacre” (a word you’ve specifically rejected in the past, BTW) instead of your clearly-required “genocide”?

  28. @77

    nonsense.

    Any reading of my

    comments’d clearly

    see a liberal use of the

    term Massacre in my multiple

    condemnations of bibi’s War on Palestinians

    Except yours.

    your unmitigated and

    Barbaric Glee at the Suffering

    of others is Disturbing not only

    to me but to others here @tS as well,

    who’ve made their feelings well-known on this.

    & as for repurposing

    which you call stealing

    get Over it,

    Wormtongue.

    it’s already been

    Established that JRR Tolkien’d

    likely heartily Approve of your sharing

    his secondmost-loathsome creature’s name

  29. @74 The UN says:

    “Additionally, the Assembly requested the UN Secretary-General to present proposals for a mechanism to follow up on Israel’s violations of article 3 of the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination, as identified by the ICJ.

    Article 3 refers to racial segregation and apartheid and the undertaking by International Convention’s States Parties to prevent, prohibit and eradicate all practices of this nature in territories under their jurisdiction.”

    https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/07/1154496

    Let me put in words even you ought to understand:

    The International Court of Justice said that Israel violates article 3, which mandates states to ban all forms of racial segregation AND apartheid

  30. @72 “Don’t let your dad hide his rocket launcher in the garage.”

    but would you believe it if the only evidence is your neighbor saying so?

    Now, I am not saying that someone somewhere doesn’t have a rocket launcher in the garage but that is a very different proposition than what Western news stenographers are “reporting.”

  31. @80: A few tens of thousands of someone’s somewhere, as a matter of fact! 😀 The Party of God built an Army of God, and now they get to find out whether there is a God!

  32. @81 The question is not whether Hezbollah is armed to the teeth. The question is whether there is evidence those weapons justify obliterating civilian housing and infrastructure

  33. @79: Yes, but the ICJ’s ruling, which you didn’t quote, carefully avoided a finding of “apartheid,” even after recognizing it was covered by Article 3. If they’d wanted to find “apartheid,” they would have done so explicitly. That’s how court rulings work.

    You’ve made it clear you have a huge desire to label Israel an “apartheid” state. The ICJ’s ruling doesn’t support or validate your desire. That’s your problem, not anyone else’s.

    @80, @82: Israel knew the leaders of Hezbollah were meeting in a hardened bunker, Israel knew when, and Israel knew which residential neighborhood Hezbollah was using to shield that bunker. So your question seems already answered.

  36. @78: Anyone reading your comments would know that you’ve repeatedly and loudly insisted upon calling the Israel-Hamas war a “genocide,” by Israel, to the point of your name-calling as “Pro-Genociders,” anyone who dares questions your use of the word “genocide.” Yet Democracy Now can avoid using the word “genocide,” without a peep of protest from you. As always, your outrage remains highly selective.

    “it’s already been

    Established…”

    Your ignorant opinion of what a dead man might think doesn’t ‘establish’ anything, other than you opine ignorantly. In reality, professors tend to be highly protective of their intellectual property — and Tolkien wasn’t just any professor, he was a Fellow at Oxford University. So he might not have regarded your brazen theft of his intellectual property as forgivingly as you ignorantly opine.

  37. @86

    more neoconic nonsensical drivel

    Wormtongue? whom you’ll

    Always Be at least to Me,

    and JRR who Never met

    a Liar he could endorse

    ‘specially such a blood-

    thirsty one such as

    well, You know

    Whom!

  38. Oh look!

    see: what bibi’s

    Keep-outta-Prison

    Gambit/Campaign/

    Genocidal War on Gaza’s

    Doing for Jews Planet-wide?

    and all you Cheerleaders’re

    making 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

    well-Played

    Wormtongue

    & your sockpuppy

    the little thumperino et al

    this was

    ENTIRELY

    Predictable

    and you Played

    into Hamas’s Bloody

    Hands like children offered

    a cherry-red Lolipop. you was

    Exceeedingly,

    Pre-Dictably,

    well-played.

    and

    JRR’s

    pissed.

  39. @87: Your pretended knowledge of a dead man whom you never met continues to impress, albeit not in the way you probably intend. Thieves gotta steal, so you’ll keep doing it. More importantly, stealing someone else’s property, and uncreatively abusing it to make cheap attempts at insult, is likely the closest thing to actual useful creativity you’ll ever manage, so you’ll really keep at it.

    @88: Persons who already do not want Jews or Israel to exist will take offense at both of those continuing to exist. Just as Tolkien is in no way responsible for your brazen theft of his intellectual property, Israel defending itself is in no way responsible for the reprehensible acts of haters.

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