Metros time machines actually work. Links, on the other hand, are almost always the deadest robots out there.
Metro's time machines actually work. Sound Transit's, on the other hand, are almost always the deadest robots out there. Charles Mudede

Guilty? Certainly not that white boy from Antioch, Illinois, but certainly all three white men who participated in the 2020 murder of a black jogger named Ahmaud Arbery. So, the "long and dirty toenails" defense did not work. I'm sure there's an America where killing a black man for showing toenails that white supremacists find offensive is totally justified, but that America, which is not impossible, did not make an appearance in the Brunswick, Georgia, courthouse today. CNN: "Travis McMichael, his father Gregory McMichael and William 'Roddie' Bryan Jr. were found guilty of murder in Arbery's death. Each faces the possibility of life in prison."

Who are we? We have formed an alliance with the escalators. Thats who we are.
"Who are we? We have formed an alliance with the escalators. That's who we are." Charles Mudede

One day the time machines in Link stations will find a way to work just as smoothly and dependably as the ones that service a number of Metro's bus stops. At present, the time machines and the escalators appear to be cut from the same dispiriting cloth.

This morning, Rich Smith brought to my mind's eye the picture of a future that sees Sawant recalled. What would happen is something like this: "The council picks Sawant’s replacement, then that person is up for reelection in the 2022 general (if they want it), and then whoever makes it out of that race will need to run for reelection again in 2023. That could mean pretty fly-by-night representation in the district for a couple years." Two years wasted because a bunch of goofballs emboldened by the bones of our masters.

Speaking of those extremely well-funded goofballs: Today the state's Public Disclosure Commission granted an anti-Sawant PAC's request to raise and spend an unlimited amount of money in support of the Recall Sawant campaign. Hannah reported on the PAC's leaders and its familiar donors (developers, landlords, Republican donors, and everyone else who wants to exploit renters). Since she wrote about it, ICE landlord and Trump donor Martin Selig threw in $1,000. Now they'll all get to donate as much as they'd like.

Floods, rather than human stomachs, claimed the lives of about 500 cattle in the Fraser Valley flooding, reports the British Columbia Dairy Association.

You can bet your bottom dollar on this: The costs of climate change are only going to up. And up. And up. KIRO 7: "Damages from flooding last week in northwest Washington’s Whatcom County could reach as high as $50 million, officials said, as forecasters warn that multiple 'atmospheric rivers' may drench the Pacific Northwest in the coming days." And more of this kind of super-rain is coming our way.

What my good Canadian friend and interior designer Lindsay Brown has to say about what's happening in our not-post-growth times:

I don't care. I will never care. And fuck all of you.

But I do indeed want to learn more about Aaron Rodgers's Covid Toe. The Trumpy (meaning, anti-vax) Green Bay Packers quarterback is back in the game despite all of his lying and conniving. Though the virus did not claim Rodgers's life, it did do a number on his white toe, which that white lady lawyer in Georgia might find to be attractive or even heavenly. Wall Street Journal reports that the "quarterback has been dealing with a mysterious and painful toe injury."

Not even Dollar Tree missing this whole phony inflation train. It's now selling stuff for a buck and a quarter. The company blames the usual suspects of our day for this very sad state of affairs: "'....Historically high merchandise cost increases,' including freight and distribution costs, as well as wage increases." And, yes, Dollar Tree ends a day with more money than it had at the beginning of that day.

Who is also doing a Dollar Tree? Nordstrom. This retail giant didn't hit its targets. Profits (over $60 million) were not nearly enough. Wall Street, still the capital of capitalism, demands much more of much more until kingdom come. How wearisome. Nordstrom failed to do this one thing, and so the value of its shares fell today. Who is to blame for this catastrophe? Puget Sound Business Journal: "Nordstrom reports sales hurt by low inventory, high labor costs". In short, the new supply shop and the age-old demands from what can only ever be uppity workers to capitalist eyes.

Biden is now blaming some of the inflation on none other than corporate greed. These commercial institutions are taking advantage of a narrative pushed by the GOP and a bunch of orthodox economists who see everything that's not right with America in the government's pandemic stimulus programs. The thinking is as old as the hills: the flood of government cash is pushing up prices because it made too many dollars seek fewer and fewer products. That sort of nonsense. There was, for sure, going to be some inflation during the recovery from the lockdown crash of 2020, but this could be explained by an adaptive lag. The inflation we are seeing these days, however, seems to have passed that period and is no longer structural. It's about bagging a bonanza of profits. Prices can really rise for the first time since Paul Volcker crushed inflation with high interest rates in the 1980s.

Today in "cry me a river": "High gas prices are hitting heavy-duty pickup owners hard."

How did the epic journey of an Oregon-born wolf end? It was struck by a car. This bold animal traveled south for over 1,000 miles just to be road kill. "No foul play was suspected in the death of the male wolf known as OR93, the California Department of Fish and Wildlife said in a news release."

Because it's an all-American kook classic. Because it's Sarah Palin's highest cultural achievement. Because of the poor big bird's feet. Those feet. Moving but only going nowhere.

What does the young man, Brian Weeden, chairman of the Mashpee Wampanoag, who now represents "the Native American tribe that fed the pilgrims'' back in the bad old days, has to say about this Thanksgiving? You don't know already? What you on? Of course he sees things from the other side: “I personally think that it’s just another reminder of all the horrible things that this nation has done to not only us, but all native people”. But that's not all. The fact that there is even a Brian Weeden to express this opinion shows the resilience of his people, his ancestors.

Weeden to Time Magazine:

[T]he fact that I have the honor of representing the tribe—one that a lot of people think is extinct—is a blessing in itself. It shows the resilience of our ancestors, and that we will keep on being here for generations to come.

Let us end this PM with, of course, Luke Ray's "Rumble":