Ahoy, mateyes! said the bed bugs.
"Ahoy, mateys!" said the bed bugs. Courtesy the motherfucking Navy

Sensing they were walking into a public relations nightmare, Senate Republicans have made an abrupt about-face, and have agreed with Dems to extend the debt ceiling (i.e. the government's ability to borrow money) into December—a move that may have possibly avoided a global economic emergency. (Sorry, we're not giving the GOP credit for doing what was merely "the decent thing.")

Well! The Seattle Times Editorial Board and the Stranger Election Control Board agree. Vote Sarah Perry for King County Council.

FYI: The Stranger Election Control Board's general election endorsements come out next Wednesday, the same day ballots get mailed out.

Yesterday in Slog PM, Charles overviewed the racist mailer from Councilmember Kathy Lambert that targeted her colleague Councilmember Girmay Zahilay: Lambert seems to have stuck to her indignation. She told KING 5 it was "preposterous" that her actions were racist, saying, "I do a lot of work in Africa so if I had something against him because of his color I wouldn't be doing the work I do in Africa.” She's had plenty of time to learn from her mistakes.


Gay City has a new home: They hope to move into the Pine Bellevue office building at 400 E Pine by the end of the year, reports Capitol Hill Seattle blog.

Sub flub: A Bremerton-based submarine called the USS Connecticut, described as "one of the U.S. Navy's most advanced and secretive submarines," hit an "object" while submerged in the South China Sea on October 2, the Navy announced today. 11 sailors were injured, although none of the injuries are life-threatening. Here's the Navy:

The submarine remains in a safe and stable condition. USS Connecticut’s nuclear propulsion plant and spaces were not affected and remain fully operational. The extent of damage to the remainder of the submarine is being assessed. The U.S. Navy has not requested assistance. The incident will be investigated.

Maybe we can blame... bed bugs? The USS Connecticut has a history of nasty bed bugs. This is from March of this year:

It got so bad that some crew members took to sleeping in chairs or on the floor of the crew’s mess to escape the elusive bloodsuckers during their deployment, said one petty officer.

“People were getting eaten alive in their racks,” said the petty officer, who alleges that the infestation spread to several enlisted berthing spaces and at least one officer state room.

[...]

“If someone’s sleep deprived because they’re in the rack getting eaten alive by bedbugs, he could fall asleep at (the controls) and run us into an underwater mountain,” the petty officer said.

Just saying.

A new Senate Judiciary Committee report details the extraordinary lengths Trump went to in his attempt to overthrow the 2020 election, pushing GOP leaders across the country to declare massive voter fraud, and using intimidation tactics against the Justice Department to the point where there were almost mass resignations. Please, no Trump 2024.

Meanwhile Trump and his lawyers are advising his former aides—including Mark Meadows, Kash Patel, Dan Scavino, and Stephen Bannon—to ignore subpoenas to appear before Congress and answer questions about the former president's involvement with the January 6 domestic terrorist attack on the capitol. (Good! We'd love to see all these guys in jail.)

Pfizer pharmaceutical is asking the FDA for emergency approval of their COVID vaccine for kids ages 5 to 11, and an FDA advisory committee has agreed to consider it at a meeting later this month.

Good luck trying to go to the San Juans: Crew shortages are leading to lots of cancellations.

Today in "things we don't talk about enough": "Artist puts coffin on Trump's Hollywood star to highlight preventable COVID-19 deaths."

People are eating up the news that William Shatner is headed to space, thanks to Jeff Bezos's Kent-headquartered Blue Origin: "Bezos reaches for a star," reads one New York Times headline out today, featuring snazzy lines, like: "The billionaire space race is happening, whether we choose to pay attention or not. Of course, the billionaires would prefer that we did."

We're no Musk fanboys, but we've been thinking about this exchange all week:

What do you call the neighborhood around the Seattle Center: Lower Queen Anne? Uptown? West Seattle Center? The question came up today because we mentioned there's a new record shop opening up in Queen Anne, and someone on Reddit complained we should've said Uptown.

The City calls it Uptown: Seattle City Councilmember Andrew Lewis proposed a resolution earlier this year to officially call that area Uptown. It passed 8-0 (Strauss didn't vote), and Google followed suit by updating its map. But culturally... the name doesn't seem to stick.

Nathalie Graham texted Councilmember Lewis about his resolution back in April: Here's what he said.

What do you say to people who think the change is dumb?

Lewis: "Uptown is in the process of forging its own unique identity separate from Queen Anne. They asked me to put forward a resolution affirming the Uptown name for the neighborhood. People are free to call it what they want, but it’s clear Uptowners want that to be the official name."

We're sticking with Lower Queen Anne: But we're open-minded about Uptown. That said, we don't have skin in this game; most of us live on Capitol Hill 🙃




Wait, wait, one last thing: Is Shaq in Uptown?