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.
PRELIM Earthquake: M3.2, 4.4 km ENE from Bremerton, WA at 2024/09/29 07:49 PDT https://t.co/BgUNYceCzO
Did You Feel It?: https://t.co/2L8X18KYv9 pic.twitter.com/k58VaBsvbY— PNSN (@PNSN1) September 29, 2024
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.
By order of the Chief. pic.twitter.com/qIAyEODDBX
— Seattle Police Department (@SeattlePD) September 27, 2024
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.
🚨 #BREAKING: At least 50 patients and staff are trapped on the roof of Unicoi County Hospital in Tennessee
This is terrifying.
Emergency crews attempted to evacuate people by ambulance and boats, but the water began rising way too quickly and and is moving too rapidly to… pic.twitter.com/2uaw8B6gdy
— Nick Sortor (@nicksortor) September 27, 2024
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.
Asheville is over 2,000 feet above sea level, and ~300 miles away from the nearest coastline. No place is safe from climate change.
We all suffer the consequences. We must all take action. We are all in this together.pic.twitter.com/Jhq07cU2xy
— Dr. Lucky Tran (@luckytran) September 29, 2024
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.
“using munitions and, likely, US-made bombs”
Munitions AND bombs, huh? They musta been pretty pissed.
Hassan Nasrallah wasn’t a “leader”, he was a really horrible relentless terrorist who killed thousands.
How is that sweet talking of Netanyahu to de-escalate working out for you all?
I hope the warmongers in our midst are enlisting to go fight Bibi’s genocidal wars.
Four ways climate change likely made Hurricane Helene worse
Climate change makes the strongest hurricanes stronger, increases rainfall, increases storm surge damage through sea level rise, and increases the probability of rapid intensification events.
Helene’s landfall gives the U.S. a record eight Cat 4 or Cat 5 Atlantic hurricane landfalls in the past eight years (2017-2024), seven of them being continental U.S. landfalls. That’s as many Cat 4 and 5 landfalls as occurred in the prior 57 years. The only comparable beating the U.S. has taken from Category 4 and 5 landfalling hurricanes occurred in the six years from 1945 to 1950, when five Category 4 hurricanes hit South Florida.
https://yaleclimateconnections.org/2024/09/four-ways-climate-change-likely-made-hurricane-helene-worse/
@3: “How is that sweet talking of Netanyahu to de-escalate working out for you all?”
It’s working out just peachy now that Hassan Nasrallah has been schwacked! Just think, it’s a beautiful morning in Seattle, and Hassan Nasrallah is dead! 🌈☀️
What’s up with you? Still observing the Supreme Leader’s three days of mourning? 😁
@3
And I hope the pro-Hamas crowd is, at the very least donating every spare cent to relief efforts in Gaza. (I won’t hold my breathe)
If they cared as much as they claim to, they’d already be there working with aid organizations.
“Top Hamas commander killed in Lebanon was a UN employee on administrative leave, UNRWA says”
So now the UN admits they can’t screen their employees to maintain their supposed neutrality.
They can’t keep their facilities secure from combatant’s use either.
https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/nation/top-hamas-commander-killed-in-lebanon-was-a-un-employee-on-administrative-leave-unrwa-says/
NOBODY FIRED. NOBODY DISCIPLINED. Taxpayers out $25 million. Will this make Ashely’s Bad Apples column?
https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/law-justice/wa-to-pay-25-million-in-evergreen-students-carbon-monoxide-death/
Employees negligently ignored and disconnected a f*ing carbon monoxide alarm and told residents to go back into the Evergreen supplied housing.
That would require Ashley looking at issues in a broader context and totality. Nope, ain’t gonna happen.
“…Netanyahu gave the go-ahead to bomb the secret underground complex where Nasrallah was from”?
He grew up in a secret underground complex?
@4, By the U.N.’s own climate model, if the world magically went carbon neutral tomorrow, the planet will be 1/3 of 1 degree cooler, 76 years from now.
We can’t be carbon neutral tomorrow. Probably not even if 76 years. Closer, perhaps, but not neutral.
Since you won’t likely be alive to experience the hardly noticeable effects of 1/3 of 1 degree less temperature in 76 years, and likely wouldn’t notice much of a difference even if you were, what is the moral imperative to reduce emissions, at very noticeable impacts on you, and poor people in particular, today in hugely higher energy and other costs?
And I am not denying human caused climate change, or suggesting doing nothing. I am asking what the moral imperative is to address something that will hurt you now, and perhaps, maybe benefit others that may come after you are long dead?
It looks like the bad apples column is about police officers who are actively threatening public safety, not negligent facilities workers who fail to follow building code. Wouldn’t make any sense to cover that in a column about a completely different problem.
Horrific floods.
Great flood pic!
Ironically, we’re gon-
na need Bigger Pickups.
@2 — “I hope the
warmongers in our midst are
enlisting to go fight Bibi’s genocidal wars.”
they,
like AIPAC,
prefer to Work
from Home. it’s a
much Easier commute.
@6: “And I hope the pro-Hamas crowd is, at the very least donating every spare cent to relief efforts in Gaza. … If they cared as much as they claim to, they’d already be there working with aid organizations.”
You know what’s funny, I actually have worked in a Palestinian refugee camp, and I’m on here like, “Kill the goddamn terrorists as fast as humanly possible! Hit them hard and don’t let up!”
Your daily reminder that Hamas does not give a single solitary fuck about the Palestinian people and is just as complicit in everything going on as Israel is. Hamas is not, and will never be, the “good guys.”
@12: I don’t follow…
@12
sorry!
that quote
was from @4.
“… he was a really horrible relentless
terrorist who killed thousands.”
–@2
yeah.
that’s just
bibi being bibi.
let the
Nuremberg Trials
begin. post fucking Haste.
@16
or Armageddon.
whichever comes first.
@6 and you and the other people all worked up about terrorists infringing on Israel’s right to exist should be volunteering with the IDF right?
Here’s the website: https://www.idf.il/en/mini-sites/how-to-join-us-and-voluntary-programs/volunteer-programs/
@4 and @10 – So why isn’t there more outrage from the left over cryptocurrency and blockchain mining and its huge use of water and electricity? Those industries have their supporters both in the establishment right and the establishment left. The villains are really not those of us buying gas powered cars and trucks.
“Kill the goddamn terrorists
as fast as humanly possible!
Hit them hard and don’t let up!”
–@6
you wanna Nuke
Israel? sure ya
wanna Go
there?
oh, right —
Welcome to
Armageddon.
@11, “Actively threatening”. What she describes hardly fits the bill of actively threatening.
How is disconnecting carbon monoxide alarms and sending people back into a gas filled house, not actively threatening?
Her refrain is nobody got fired, disciplined, or the discipline was inadequate. What should the discipline be for actively sending people into a gas chamber to die and costing $25 million.
Maybe employees aren’t fired or disciplined, not because they are cops, but because they are public employees and public employees under the 14th and 5th Amendments aren’t “at will” employees that can be fired for any (non-racial, non-disability) reason, or no reason at all, such as in the private sector? Disciplining and firing public employees is the issue, not disciplining particular classes of employees.
As long as public employees use the power of being the landlord to kill, rather than some act or omission while enforcing the law, it’s O.K. The dead are somehow less dead. $25 million wasn’t taken from providing life changing and life extending higher education to citizens. Got it.
@15, That means you undershood Kristo’s words correctly. You aren’t alone in not following his disjointed non-sequitur.
@19: To be fair, climate change was utterly rampant long before cryptocurrency was invented. People who buy gas-powered cars and trucks are not INDIVIDUALLY the villains, but COLLECTIVELY gas-powered transportation emits vastly more climate-changing carbon than crypto does. (Don’t blame this individual villain, though, I drive a Tesla! 😄)
And to be even fairer, just about environmental organization in America is up in arms about crypto. It’s not like these people are asleep at the switch.
@21
“How is disconnecting carbon monoxide alarms
and sending people back into a gas filled
house, not actively threatening?”
and
“What should the discipline be
for actively sending people
into a gas chamber to die
and costing $25 million.”
once again:
Nuremberg Trials.
and Popcorn. LOTS of it.
@23, Your Tesla is not carbon neutral. It’s better than an IC car, but its not carbon neutral. It took carbon to mine the components in the batteries, carbon to manufacture the batteries and car, carbon to deliver the materials, and carbon for some of the electrical charging. It creates a toxic disposal problem with those batteries.
All of our consumption choices have carbon consequences. There isn’t any free lunch.
21, dude, it’s a column about bad cops. That’s the theme. I understand this makes you cry but if you want to read a column about negligent government staffers you can write it yourself, though it sounds like these guys are getting their due anyway. Unlike the menaces to public safety Ashley covers.
@18
Did my time in uniform 30 years ago.
Israel and Hamas can keep killing each other until there is no one left on either side.
I’m not a fan of either.
Somebody should compile a list of the multimillionaires / billionaires living near Commencement Bay who have birthdays on the date of the annual guerilla fireworks show.
@19, google:
https://earthjustice.org/feature/cryptocurrency-mining-environmental-impacts
https://grc.studentorg.berkeley.edu/the-sustainability-of-bitcoin-and-its-impact-on-the-environment/
https://www.whitehouse.gov/ostp/news-updates/2022/09/08/fact-sheet-climate-and-energy-implications-of-crypto-assets-in-the-united-states/
(crypto is also a pyramid scheme masquerading as a currency but that’s another matter altogether)
from Democracy Now:
“Israel’s
Barbaric Glee over
Nasrallah’s Assassination Is
a New Low for Israeli Society”
–Gideon Levy
Amy Goodman: You have Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister, ascending the podium at the U.N. General Assembly. Apparently right after, he gave the go-ahead for the assassination of Nasrallah.
Right before he came up on the podium, dozens of world leaders walked out. If you can talk about the significance of this decision and then the bombing of Yemen and, of course, the continuation of the assault on Gaza?
Gideon Levy: You know, Amy, listening to your program is enough. Israel is shooting here, and Israel is assassinating there, and Israel is bombing here, and Israel is bombing there. Where are we aiming to? I mean, all those operations might be [inaudible], to them, are justified. But what comes next?
This thought that Israel can solve everything by force and that war is always the first answer for everything must change, because, otherwise, we will really find ourselves one day totally lonely in the world.
Even the United States, which supports Israel still blindly and automatically — and I must emphasize on your show that the United States is a full partner for everything that Israel is doing in the last year, including the massacre in Gaza — even the United States will wake up one day. And then what?
oodles More on the
Genocidal War YOUR*
Tax Dollars’re paying for:
https://www.democracynow.org/2024/9/30/israel_assassinates_hezbollah_leader_nasrallah
“And then What?”
ah
maybe
Armaegeddon?
*Gleefully!
@10- what you probably should be asking is, how much warmer will the planet be in 76 years if we don’t go carbon neutral now? The answer is a bunch. And you won’t like it. Also, a big part of the reason your Tesla is not carbon neutral is that the power used to power the factories that are making it is still coming from fossil fuels. Once that system is electrified and working on renewable energy, the car, like everything else we produce, will be one hell of a lot closer to carbon neutral.
Also, all of these flooding pictures from Florida have to be fake news. We all know there’s no climate change in red states. I bet George Soros paid some illegal immigrants to photoshop pictures from Bangladesh to look like Florida.
@27: “Did my time in uniform 30 years ago. Israel and Hamas can keep killing each other until there is no one left on either side.”
My, aren’t you the enfant terrible of the internet! 🤪
“We all know there’s
no climate change
in red states.”
–@dvs
them
Geniuses
Outlawed it
so they oughtta
be Fine (didja see
Desantos’ thigh-high
Global Warming-hedging
beautiful White Boots? Sweet!).
@26, My point exactly.
The Stranger, selectively, and inconsistently, only cares about your tax dollars and mine being paid out because of bad decisions by public employees doing law enforcement. It only cares when the dead are killed by public safety employees, not any of the other public employees, even though the dollars are just as green, and the citizens are just as dead at the hands of state power.
People are just as dead, and the dollars just as green, but in your mind, and Ashley’s, other public employees that kill are less of a menace.
@31, According to the U.N.’s own model, exactly 1/3 of 1 degree warmer. That isn’t nothing, and shouldn’t be ignored, but at what cost to human life. Driving up costs of energy, and slowing the proliferation of cheap, reliable electricity to the developing world, shortens life spans and kills, in the here and now.
‘Israel laid siege on a Beirut suburb Friday with an “overwhelming air raid” using munitions and likely US-made bombs.’
A siege consists of circling an area (usually a fortress or city) with troops, preventing all entry and exit, and attempting to starve the inhabitants into surrendering. As Israel has no troops on the ground in Lebanon, I believe the hyperbolic statement the Stranger tried to make here was “laid waste to,” although that would also be wrong. Israel used a series of bunker-buster bombs to penetrate the hardened shelter Hezbollah had built underneath a residential neighborhood. Hezbollah’s use of the Lebanese civilians in that neighborhood as human shields made those civilians into legitimate military targets, and Hezbollah’s use of hardened shelter made the Israeli use of force proportionate. Please go complain to Hezbollah about these civilian deaths.
If the Israelis used US-supplied bombs to take out the leaders of Hezbollah, then I consider that my tax money well spent.
@36:
The problem with “tak(ing) out the leaders of Hezbollah” is that as soon as we take out one, someone else is appointed as the new leader, and then we have to take THEM out too.
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…
@33
Well then.
You’ve really put me in my place haven’t you?
Don’t know if I’ll ever be able to recover from a taunting such as that.
On the other hand, that you give my words enough thought to be bothered by them is touching.
I’ll do my best to return the favor sometime.
… and now
We’re sending
not just Precious
Treasure but Also
Troops. just to keep
one mf outta Prison?
our money
well spent
let the Deaths
spiral, baby.
@35: “According to the U.N.’s own model, exactly 1/3 of 1 degree warmer.”
Ha ha ha! The Slog has recently seen a rash of commenters unable to successfully read UN documents, but you have achieved a new height in misapprehension. Here is a dumbed-down summary straight from the UN, the figure you want is Table SPM.1 on page 14, and the column you want is “Long term, 2081–2100”:
https://www.climate.gov/news-features/understanding-climate/climate-change-global-temperature
Climate change! It’s a whole thing! You might wanna read up on it!
@35, @40: Sorry, wrong link, here’s the UN one:
https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/downloads/report/IPCC_AR6_WGI_SPM.pdf
35 it’s a column specifically about the police, presumably because they are 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. Tax dollars aren’t much of a concern when people don’t face justice or excessive civil payouts for reasons that should not require explanation.
If your hobbyhorse is negligent bus drivers or maintenance workers feel free to start a blog or something.
“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. “
who needs
fucking Armageddon?
we’ve got Big Oil! drill, bitches.
fucking
Drill.
Earthlings’ve
put the Wrong People
in Charge whilst Money Rules.
the Universe’ll
use US as the Textbook
for How to Destroy a Biosphere.
meanwhile, gleeful
Cockroaches
Rejoice.
@37: The last leader of Hezbollah was in that position for decades. It will take awhile for them to find someone else, and maybe the civilians in the north of Israel can return to their homes.
Perhaps Iran can have another revolution, throw the theocrats out of power, stop beating women at home, and stop funding terrorists abroad? That would probably work better than our current method, yes. But for now, there are pagers, walkie-talkies, and bunker-busters.
Terrorist sympathizers and anti-semites to my left! Climate deniers and holster-sniffers to my right! What the hell kind of website is this! 😀😀😀
UN General Assembly demands Israel end ‘unlawful presence’ in Occupied Palestinian Territory
With a recorded vote of 124 nations in favour, 14 against, and 43 abstentions, the resolution calls for Israel to comply with international law and withdraw its military forces, immediately cease all new settlement activity, evacuate all settlers from occupied land, and dismantle parts of the separation wall it constructed inside the occupied West Bank.
The General Assembly further demanded that Israel return land and other “immovable property”, as well as all assets seized since the occupation began in 1967, and all cultural property and assets taken from Palestinians and Palestinian institutions.
The resolution also demands Israel allow all Palestinians displaced during the occupation to return to their place of origin and make reparation for the damage caused by its occupation.
The resolution stems from the advisory opinion issued by the International Court of Justice (ICJ) in July, in which the Court declared that Israel’s continued presence in the Territory “is unlawful”, and that “all States are under an obligation not to recognize” the decades-long occupation.
Click here for the full text of the resolution and here for our live coverage of the meeting.
Tweet URL
Threat to peace and security
The Assembly “strongly deplored the continued and total disregard and breaches” by the Government of Israel of its obligations under the UN Charter, international law and UN resolutions, stressing that such breaches “seriously threaten” regional and international peace and security.
It also recognized that Israel “must be held to account for any violations” of international law in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including of international humanitarian and human rights laws.
The text says Israel “must bear the legal consequences of all its internationally wrongful acts, including by making reparation for the injury, including any damage, caused by such acts.”
The General Assembly highlighted the need for the establishment of an international mechanism for reparations to address damage, loss, or injury caused by Israel’s actions.
It also called for creating an international register of damage caused, to document evidence and related claims.
International conference
The resolution also includes a decision to convene an international conference during the Assembly’s current session to implement UN resolutions pertaining to the question of Palestine and the two-State solution for the achievement of a just, lasting and comprehensive peace in the Middle East.
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.
@46 Among all these damning charges note the last 2 paragraphs:
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/2024/07/1152296
@13 oh, so you have heard about Palestinians after all, despite your complete silence about their having continuously occupied Palestine for at least 3700 years, which is much much longer than people who immigrated there ~100 years ago.
Why do you think Palestinians are in refugee camps? anything to do with terror and ethnic cleansing, as pointed out by UN human rights experts perhaps?
we put the
United Nations*
in our Backyard &
then IGNORE IT except
when it happens to Suit US.
seems like Not supporting
genicidal terroristic
members’ actions
oughtta be Up
for a Vote by
Americans.
whose
‘democracy”s
been bought & paid for
by whomever’s Got the biggest Piles.
*NO Relation to
‘Citizens United.’
@47 wrong UN link
Good one is: https://news.un.org/en/story/2024/09/1154496