Comments

3

Governor ‘Death Wish’ Ron DeSantis (Fla man)
Mississippi Governor ‘our Chirrens LOVES
them sniffles!’ Oops – lost another one!
thass OK -- we got Plenty more!’
Tate (Tater) Reeves (R-duh)
Gubernor ‘Bud’ Abbot
spreading his Covid
all over Texas’ ass

my GAWD how these
‘Pro Lifers’ (R) Love
to kill off the
Electorate

it’s (almost)
like a Disease.

good idea Lazy
we don't 'need'
no stinkin'
Dissent.

say are you from
the Taliban?

4

It seems "pansexuals" are trying to mold human sexuality into a philosophical construct. Humans don't work that way.

5

@1:

Pan-, a prefix from the Greek π៶Μ, pan, meaning "all", "of everything", or "involving all members" of a group

So yeah, satyrs, centaurs, mer-people, minotaurs, and just regular old humans of every gender and sexual orientation...

6

"Residents “will have to figure out how to deal with the ramifications,” says one official.

Stop building shit like golf courses in the desert maybe? Or learn how to extract water from bootstraps.

8

Pan-, non-stick or cast iron?

9

Matt - You and the rest of the sanctimonious social media universe almost sound excited that some children will start dying from COVID so once again, you can show your moral righteousness. Go fuck yourself.

Any leads for a non-religious organization that is helping Afghanistan refugees entering WA state? If so, I'm all in.

10

ya don't gotta be 'morally righteous'
to wonder what it's gonna take for
"republicans" to quit drinking
the fawking Covid.

shall we instead Celebrate
the morally Unrighteous
whose Death Wish
is making our
Economy
unten-
able?

12

Children have been dying from COVID but it is indeed very rare, they make up 0 - 0.25% of the COVID deaths in states that report that data:
https://www.aap.org/en/pages/2019-novel-coronavirus-covid-19-infections/children-and-covid-19-state-level-data-report/

According to NPR Pfizer plans to request emergency use authorization for its vaccine to children 6-11 by September 5th so hopefully those numbers of pediatric deaths will never go up...

https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2021/08/18/1027035486/covid-vaccine-children-under-12-your-questions-answered

13

@7: I'm assuming we're talking about attraction in the sexual sense (let's call it lust for now). So how does someone's gender identity turn on a pansexual's lust as opposed to that person's naked male or female body? Isn't gender identity is tangential to the sexual experience?

14

@9: Matt is notably snarky, but the "Children will die" lede is shouting a warning - that's the way it seemed to me.

15

Welp, Texass Governor Dalek has the ‘rona now. And after all that he and Florida’s moRon deathSentence have done to use the children as COVID 19 homicide bombers to kill as many Americans as possible, all they'll get is millions of dollars from their sleazy donors that own the treatments.

Republinazis are killing their own people.

16

@11 - Not to mention the long term effects on a covid-infected child's development like some of the strange but chronic pathologies seen in adults that have "recovered."

18

17
well
OUR
streets
are Filled
with home-
grown Economic
Refugees so yeah

I wonder if
it has Anything
at All to do with our
using housing as yet
another Capitalist tool?

b. are we
Happy with this?

21

It is incomprehensible that people do not give a fuck about children getting COVID. We could be seeing an entire generation that will become disabled and unable to work.

Meanwhile, Governor Abbott, vaccinated and asymptomatic, immediately got the special, expensive treatment Trump got (that will never available to the general public), which shows you how terrified he is of a virus he thinks is NBD if YOU or YOUR KID gets it. (An ICU nurse who knows he did this tweeted this very thing. These motherfuckers need to be EXPOSED EVERY DAMN TIME).

Fuck the Republican death cult. Why have they not been held accountable for this shit show? Why is Trump still walking around when he is responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people in this country? WHY DO THE MAGAT MASSES REFUSE TO ACKNOWLEDGE THAT TRUMP GOT VACCINATED IN JANUARY AGAINST A VIRUS HE SAID WAS A HOAX AND THEN SAID WOULD MAGICALLY DISAPPEAR?

National Guard rolled out in Oregon statewide to all hospitals. And instead of making people realize how fucking serious this is, it's made the insane masses go even madder with their fucked up conspiracy theories about military takeover/rule. They literally refuse to acknowledge that people are going to go fucking ape shit when they NEED TO GO TO THE HOSPITAL FOR ANY REASON AND CAN'T BECAUSE UNVACCINATED PEOPLE HAVE TAKEN EVERY BED IN THE STATE SICK WITH COVID.

22

the Unvaxxed:
our Albatross*
or the Covid's
best Friends?

a. trick question
they're Both!

*Deadly

24

@ 21,

It’s clear now. All right-wing fascist societies like the United States end in mass death, which is why the nation is cracking up.

1/The Republinazis are too stupid, lazy, and incompetent to overthrow the United States government Taliban-style, so they’ve weaponized COVID 19 to kill as many Americans as possible in the world’s first civil-murder suicide.

2/They and their despicable donors will make billions by sickening and killing their own people, since as shareholders they own both the vaccines and the treatments.

3/Their racist voters will vote for white trash supremacy even if it means death for themselves and their families.

25

The total implosion of the conservatism sham due to the smirking catastrophic reign of CaliguBush—two failed foreign wars and a nation-ruining economic collapse—that led to the election of a black president has triggered the latest episode of white America’s genocidal mass psychosis.

This is why what they say and do is self-contradictory, illogical, and just fucking barking crazy—none of it makes sense because it doesn’t have to. It’s supposed to keep people confused and enraged.

Worst of all, the Republinazi politicians, billionaire sociopaths, and soul-sucking corporations that’re against democratic accountability have monetized the cruelty, insanity, and stupidity, so it’s in their financial interests to kill Americans and destroy the United States.

26

@18, @23: the 2016 Seattle's Homeless Needs Assessment actually asked our homeless population how they got that way, and what they needed to exit homelessness. Here were some of the findings:

"Approximately 20% of respondents listed housing affordability issues as the primary event/condition that led to their homelessness; these include rent increases (11%),"

That's right, only 11% said rent increases had caused their homelessness. So if they were not driven out into our streets, then how did they get there?

Over 70% said they could afford less than $500/month; almost 95% gave a figure below $1,000/month. (Put into context, $500/month paid for my very small apartment -- in 1996!; by 2014, the rent on that unit was $1,000/month.) In short, this was not a population which had been recently run out into the street; it was a population which had not been able to afford rentals here in approximately twenty years.

Meanwhile, a majority reported drug use, a majority said Seattle was not the place they most recently became homeless, and a large majority said they were not originally from Seattle.

(http://coshumaninterests-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/04/City-of-Seattle-Report-FINAL-with-4.11.17-additions.pdf)

Our homeless population consists mostly of substance users who moved here from other places. Our attempt to address our homeless population as if they were down-on-their-luck locals has wasted money and left thousands of persons out in the streets to die. If you care at all about having us address the real causes of homelessness, then please stop claiming our homeless population consists of "...home-grown Economic Refugees..." or that they can't obtain homes because of "developers." Neither are true, and it is cruel to pretend they are.

27

Yeah homelessness has nothing to do with the fact that anyone working for minimum wage cannot afford an apartment in ANY STATE IN WHICH THEY LIVE IN THE UNITED STATES.

It's all because of drugs and addicts who want to live on the street.

FUCK OFF.

How many homeless children are there in this country? Are they all drug addicts?
How many people who are forced to work part-time jobs with no benefits that can't afford housing are homeless? Are they all drug addicts?
How many people who served this country in the military, suffering from physical and/or mental illnesses as a direct result of their service are homeless? Are they all drug addicts?

Easy facts to find about who the homeless are and where they come from:

A substantial majority of the cities report that families are the fastest growing component of the homeless population.

Homeless people are a diverse and varied group in terms of age, ethnicity, family circumstances, and health problems.

Contrary to the fears expressed by public officials that their city may attract increasing numbers of homeless people if they do more to help, studies indicate that the great majority of homeless people have been long-term residents of the city in which they are homeless.

There are literally thousands of organizations that collect and analyze date on the homeless. Searching causes for homelessness in the United States provides actual facts, not bullshit presented as knowledge. Facts matter. The truth matters. Reality matters. Your opinion and commentary not based on facts, truth, or reality does not matter.

I mean seriously, if you're going to throw bullshit around and pretend that bullshit is facts you might want to choose bullshit that can't easily be proven 100% incorrect.

The truth about homelessness in this country is that it is a problem that is 100% solvable and preventable. This country and all of its obscene wealth (the money the Pentagon shits down a black hole of no accountability annually ALONE) could house every single person in this country. No problem. 10X over. The obscene amount of money in this country could house every single person in the WORLD. No problem. We simply choose to allow people to be homeless. We simply choose to believe that is an acceptable and reasonable thing to do in a country where some people have more wealth that ALL of the people in the rest of the fucking world COMBINED.

But please, continue smearing your shit around like it's fact.

29

@26,

You wrote, "a majority said Seattle was not the place they most recently became homeless." Though the very first section of that paper you link, immediately following the Executive Summary, is titled 'Majority of respondents living in Seattle/King County when they became homeless' and contains the line "the data shows that Seattle’s population experiencing homelessness are generally “homegrown” with around 70% having said they lived in Seattle or King County when they were last stably housed."

You know, I'm insanely frustrated by the situation as well (albeit down here in Portland, rather than up there) and am genuinely open to new solutions and proposals, probably even including some of those of the "tough love" variety that you all advocate, but I'm also not sure you're being completely up front with your statistics here.

30

@6,

This.

And also, stop growing corn and wheat in California. There's plenty of land East of the Rockies that can grow corn and wheat and have tons of fresh water. Growing corn and wheat in California is stupidity squared.

31

@11,

It's not inexplicable at all that the fascist party continues to exacerbate the pandemic problem. They do it because it makes their bosses, namely monied corporate interests and the ultra wealthy, richer.

They'd eat their own shit if it made their bosses wealthier. It's the only thing they live for.

32

@29,

It's a waste of time arguing with tensor and Sir Toby II on this. They see what they want to see. Those homeless that fuck up Seattle's parks are out-of-town druggies, so they believe ALL of Seattle's homeless are out of town druggies.

I've tried pointing out their faulty interpretation of that report several times and they still persist.

34

@29: Thank you for actually looking at the report. You are correct. Some text of the report is written in a misleading manner, which conceals some of the actual data given in the report. You have to read the entire report to see the full picture. (I suspect this is because the actual responses, given by actual homeless persons, contradicted the narrative already going in our City Council, of evil Amazon driving people out into the street.) The portion of King County outside of Seattle has approximately three times the population of Seattle, and covers 26.5 times as much territory; lumping them together, in a report which was ostensibly about Seattle, obscured how few of the homeless persons in Seattle actually originated here. (Again, the authors seem to have been intentionally obfuscating the data for some reason, perhaps to suit political pressures.)

Here is one of my favorite lines in the entire report: "The majority (49%) of respondents reported they were living in the City of Seattle at the time they most recently became homeless." Of course, 49% is not ever a "majority"! Generously assuming the writer really meant "plurality," the question itself is still misleading. Why was "recently" part of the question? If they wanted to know about where Seattle's homeless population originated, why not just ask where they FIRST became homeless? (Again, I suspect that is because the vast majority first became homeless outside of Seattle, but the report writers chose a question which would obfuscate this reality.) The 49% minority quoted is thus an absolute upper bound on the number of homeless persons who originated in Seattle; the actual number is between that and zero, and we don't know to which end of the range it is closer. However it gets reported, a majority of Seattle's homeless population, by their own admission, arrived in Seattle already homeless. Therefore, they could not possibly have been driven out into the street by housing issues in Seattle.

Consider that even after all of that effort at obfuscation, the authors still produced a report showing exactly what I said it did. That is even stronger confirmation our homeless population are not primarily local, and are not homeless for economic reasons. Either Seattle starts to recognize this reality, or it will continue to waste $100M/year for a very dismal result, one it could have had for free.

@32: Please. When you first read a comment of mine here, noting that a majority of Seattle's homeless said they were from other places, you immediately spat that it was a lie, and demanded I provide proof. When I did so, by quoting this same report, you also then lumped King County in with Seattle, and called me a liar, based upon YOUR manipulation of the statistics! You are the one here who is seeing what he wants to see. I honestly do not know why people find these simple facts so threatening. Perhaps you and xina can get together on that.

39

@27: "There are literally thousands of organizations that collect and analyze date on the homeless. Searching causes for homelessness in the United States provides actual facts, not bullshit presented as knowledge. Facts matter. The truth matters. Reality matters. Your opinion and commentary not based on facts, truth, or reality does not matter."

And yet, I have quoted from one study, and you have quoted from none. What's the line? Ah, yes. "Your opinion and commentary not based on facts, truth, or reality does not matter."

Please continue to enjoy your irrelevance.

40

@26, 34 et al

perhaps you’re correct and it’s just junkies and alchys and perhaps when the Wave of Evictions comes a' callin' on how many Millions of our shallow-pocketed (‘THNX Antima / Antiva! For all your help!’ --the Covid) Renter class and they cannot all be absorbed on OP’s couches or in their neighbors’ chicken coops or tool sheds -– my point –- housing as Commodity with Winners and losers occupyinig our Commons: THIS is what we came up with? shall we just Buldoze them peridiocally to keep up Appearances? btw -- every had half an hour to Evacuate but you were 45 minutes away from 'Makeshift' your current yet exceedingly temporary domicle? oh and ALL your SHIT was in your hovel (if you were lucky)?

b. are we Happy with this
is this the fucking Best
we can fucking DO?

where the Fucking FUCK did America GO
we usta Kick Ass or were Told we did
but let’s tell a Different story now &
make Housing a Fucking RIGHT.

oh & with a name like Tents-r
I’d be bloody Careful

41

@37,

Yes, I did admit it. Pretty sure it was YOU who convinced me the park-occupying homeless were the out of town meth heads. I think you said they come from West Virginia or the Appalachian regions or something.

But they are not representative of the homeless in general in Seattle, who, according to the very report @26 gives, 85% came from Washington state, not 2,000 miles to the East. And are not heroin, meth, or crack addicts. They mostly drink alcohol and or "other," which is probably pot, great job leaving that off the list survey writers. Whether they're addicts or just occasional users isn't clarified because evidently the survey writers didn't bother to ask that question either.

I've looked through that stupid report several times and I question its methodology. I wish they had an actual survey in the appendix because they don't say how they asked responders about drug use. tensor even questions its methodology @34, yet still uses it to cite facts. Well, is it reliable or not?

But whatever. You guys are welcome to hate on the homeless all you want.

42

@39 tensor I don't need to quote from anything. the information can be found. you provide a reference to your bullshit line and yet can't even interpret the data. no matter how much data is provided and my time here on SLOG I have provided reems of it, it is ignored. It's not my job to educate you. When anyone can look up "who is homeless" and "causes of homelessness" and "where do the homeless come from" there is no need to provide endless links. if you are incapable of educating yourself, that's your problem.

You have been told repeatedly by others that the information you provided is not factually accurate (in that it doesn't back up your bullshit statements) and you STILL double down. Your refusal to acknowledge facts and accept reality is your problem. Facts don't change and reality doesn't cease to exist because you don't believe in them. If you actually cared about facts and reality you wouldn't be posting endless reams of bullshit and then telling other people it's their responsibility to educate you.

43

@41: Please don't conflate hating that there is homelessness as hating on the homeless.

45

@40, @41: No one said all of Seattle's homeless were drug addicts, and no one said they all came from very far away from Seattle. Now that you can't deny the facts, you erect straw men to bash. You're so tiresomely part of the very problem you excoriate others for not solving. When you pretend a population with many drug users, who moved to Seattle from other places (near or far, it does not matter) really consists of people who love Seattle and just need a hand up, you set everyone up for failure. (Do you really believe that anyone who loves Seattle would literally shit on the place?)

The majority of Seattle's homeless surveyed admitted to using drugs. How many used drugs without admitting it? So that 55% is another boundary, this time an absolute lowest limit on the number of substance users in the homeless population. @40, back at @18, you were claiming Seattle's homeless were "...home-grown Economic Refugees...", and you were wrong on both counts. How can you possibly assist anyone when you describe them for the opposite of what they are? So, having been forced to abandon those smug lies, you now point to the looming evictions (which have been constantly imminent for what, a year now?). Seattle's economy was very strong before COVID, and it will be strong upon the end of COVID. As of right now, there will be no reason for mass evictions. Yes, you really, really want Seattle's homeless population to have been run out into the streets by soulless corporations and rich people. But that's not what happened, and when you pretend it did, you make the already-difficult job, of getting substance-abuse and mental-health resources to the homeless people who desperately need that help, just ever slightly more difficult. That's what you're really doing here. I hope you're not particularly proud of it.

Do you want to build public housing, or publicly-subsidized housing? I am 100% for that. Why? Because I'm an engineer, and while I don't design buildings, I have plenty of colleagues who do. A huge, ongoing effort to build enough homes for everyone who is now homeless would not merely put huge amounts of money in the pockets of engineers, architects, construction workers, building-trade supply firms, etc., it could make entire careers in some of those fields. So bring it on! How many units? 10,000? Don't be modest! Make it 20,000 or 50k or 100k. Everyone who works in Seattle could afford to live there. No more long commutes for students, baristas, daycare providers, teachers, street cleaners, department-store clerks, Department of Licensing associates, fire fighters, or anyone else. Get all of those cranes, and many more, back up on Seattle's skyline! Create a world-wide shortage of tower cranes! Make those tottering, run-down brickpiles a thing of the past!

Do you know what all of that will not accomplish? It will not get most of Seattle's current homeless off of the streets. That is because housing-affordability has no meaning for someone whose first and last dollar goes to buy meth', or for someone suffering from mental illness. That is the reality of Seattle's current homeless population. The longer you ignore that reality, the worse it will become. You've been ignoring it for over half a decade now, and it continues to get worse. Compared to getting homeless persons off hard drugs, buying them brand-new homes can be a very small public expenditure indeed, and drug treatment doesn't have the cachet of gleaming new buildings on the skyline. Making it ever harder to do serves no good purpose.

Just one last set of clarifications:

"tensor even questions its methodology @34, yet still uses it to cite facts. Well, is it reliable or not?"

I questioned no methodology, and I strongly suggest you not throw around fancy terms you do not understand. The data and the text of the report do not always completely agree, and when they do not, the text always slants in the same direction, which is away from the direction to which the data points. Therefore, I tended to ignore the text, and focus on the data whenever possible. It was other commenters here who seized on the text (especially the conflation of King County with Seattle) as a way of questioning the data. That does not follow. The data speaks for itself.

It's really very simple: conclusions should flow from data. Data should not be selected to reinforce predetermined conclusions. (I'm pretty sure that last statement is the one which has you guys confused and enraged.)

46

@45,

Your very first line:

"@40, @41: No one said all of Seattle's homeless were drug addicts"

Four paragraphs later:

"Do you know what all of that will not accomplish? It will not get most of Seattle's current homeless off of the streets. That is because housing-affordability has no meaning for someone whose first and last dollar goes to buy meth"

From your report:

Drug Use - Meth: 17.2% (that came in 4th place among the 6 choices. So not "most of seattle's current homeless")

You've got just as many predetermined conclusions as anyone else here.

"The data speaks for itself."

But without the survey questions, the context is lost. The report doesn't provide the survey, so I question its methodology. If you knew anything about that fancy term, you'd question it too.

48

@38 on the bright side, we aren't at Portland's level of pyro...yet. Swing by the portlandlookslikeshit instagram any day of the week and there's like 4 new fires lol. Motherfuckers just steal cars there and set them on fire...because reasons. Amazon? Down on their luck? Meth? Probably meth.

49

blame the drugs
blame the Victims
do NOT blame this
ridiculous System that
fucking Allows this to happen.

50

@46: I was giving meth' as an example. More homeless reported using alcohol. A majority (55%) reported using some drug. That is likely the low bound on the number who do. My point being that not all of the housing we can build will, by itself, get drug users housed. Feel free to quibble with that anytime you like.

I also like everyone yelling about how flawed this data set supposedly is, and yet, no other data is offered. Facts are for losers, apparently. And, to be fair, you've conducted years of smug, self-satisfied, virtue-signaling 'dialog', giving orders on how to solve this problem, without ever having to use so much as a single fact. So, why should you start now? Sure, homeless people will continue to rot and die on Seattle's streets, but nobody really cares about them.

I stand by the data. A majority of Seattle's homeless population moved here from other places, cannot afford the modern rents in Seattle, and uses drugs. That is the population Seattle tries, and fails, to house. Pretending Seattle has some other homeless population may make commenters here feel good, but the only result on Seattle's streets is more death. Congratulations.

51

we
Get it
peeps migrate
and they use Drugs
to numb the Indignities

breaking news:

it isn't
only Seattle
it's Housing
(and Humans)
as Commodity.

it's baked in
but we can bake
it right back out but
not by blaming the vicitms.

if they're
on your lawn
in your parks
and shitting on
your sidewalks etc
then you're a victim too.

the Problem

is the System.

52

"My point being that
not all of the housing
we can build will, by it-
self, get drug users housed."

wow.
finally.
you Are an engineer

how long have you
worked for Amtrack?

53

THE SYSTEM, MAN! IT'S OUT TO GET ME, MAN!
the 1970s called and they want all the acid you did back.

54

@52 -- driven for
Amtrack rather

@420 -- catchy handle.

so you'e 10-4
with the Status Quo?
stepped on many Needles?

55

@52, @54: Wow, that engineer crack sure was clever. For you. And you only needed to explain your 'joke' once! That's a real breakthrough for you, that is. Congrats and all that.

The good news is, I guess you can retire from Slog now, as you'll never again reach such dizzying heights of hilarity. Trust me on this.


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