Pollution doesnt pay! Until we pass this carbon tax of course
Pollution doesn't pay! Until we pass this carbon tax, of course. ANGEL_NT/GETTYIMAGES.COM

Two injured in Central District shooting: Two women were injured in a late-afternoon shooting yesterday. A passing car fired shots into their car’s open window. They were struck. It’s an ongoing investigation. That’s scary. One commenter on this post isn’t filled with righteous indignation over the injuries the women suffered. No, this person is mad because this happened right near their neighborhood after they “spent 4.5 MILLION to build a BEAUTIFUL home RIGHT near this disgusting act of VIOLENCE [sic].” Nice, congrats on the house, man.

Rideshare is making us a bunch of car-loving fucks: Don’t get me wrong, hailing from Los Angeles's Inland Empire, (EDIT : I sent this to my mom and she informed me that I'm not actually from the Inland Empire. I thought "The Valley" was "inland." Sue me, mom.) I’m a slut for cars. But Seattle transit won my heart long ago. Uber and Lyft are doing the opposite for Seattleites who’d rather walk or bus. Last year, 94 million additional miles were driven in Seattle because of rideshare. The Seattle Times found that people took 20 million rides with transportation network companies. There are 14,000 Uber drivers in Seattle alone.

The carbon tax on Washington’s November ballot could make history: If Washingtonians vote in favor of the carbon fee that “charges polluters for the right to emit carbon dioxide and other potent greenhouse gases.” If this policy passes, it will make Washington the only government in the world to enact a policy of this kind. It’s an aggressive policy to combat climate change. On the ballot as Initiative 1631 (remember that!), the carbon tax is one of the most ambitious climate policies since Trump took office, according to the Atlantic. Let’s set a precedent, Washington!

BREAKING: Rest in peace, Aretha. The Starbucks I'm writing this in is playing only her music in tribute. Thank you, Starbucks baristas.



Local news standing up to Trump: Today more than 350 publications are publishing editorials about how Donald Trump is a threat to a free press. Pay attention this morning.

Amazon is going after movie theaters now, too: Bezos & Co. want to acquire Landmark Theatres. I guess that’s not too much of a jump since Amazon Studios is popping off these days. That’s some vertical integration shit right there. How very Carnegie. Also the tech-owned-movie-theater thing has been done before by Microsoft’s Paul Allen, and he did it better because he gave us the Seattle Cinerama (Seattle’s most epic movie experience, if you didn’t know).

Seattle teachers (educators who enrich young lives) want a livable (able to live) wage: They’re rallying outside district headquarters today to fight for better pay. One of the arguments Seattle Public School teachers are using is that districts outside Seattle cost less to live in yet pay their teachers more. This is likely a reference to Edmonds teachers who recently won a sizable pay increase.

Blessed be:


Entire Tacoma family killed in Oregon crash: The family was headed to Tacoma for an end-of-the-summer trip. In Eastern Oregon, a car crossed the center lane of the road and collided into the family’s car. Seven people died. Five were children.

Gentrification threatens Chinatown elders: The neighborhood has been a hub of construction since 2013. Most of those new developments were approved before the Seattle City Council upzoned the neighborhood this past year. That’s just increased the construction boom in the area. Property values are skyrocketing and family-owned businesses and longtime residents are finding it harder and harder to keep their heads above water.

Canadian tourist robbed at gunpoint as he dangled over a roof: A man reported to SPD that he had been forced over a Capitol Hill rooftop at gunpoint. His attackers made him dangle there until he forked over some cash. This is 2018, and the man, unsurprisingly, had no cash on him. He had to call a friend in Vancouver to make a wire transfer. Once the transaction was completed, the victim was allowed to leave the roof. He canceled the transfer, found a police precinct, made his report, and the police were able to identify the suspect. No arrests have been made.

An old tweet that no one should forget: Just want you guys to think about this.



Ryan Zinke doesn’t think climate change is the wildfire culprit: News flash! Ryan Zinke is a twat and an idiot. That dolt is blaming “ecoterrorists” for California’s wildfires. I want to keep telling you about this story, but my free trial with the Washington Post ran out. My incognito browser free trial ran out, too. Someone with a subscription report back.

FCC shut down Alex Jones’s radio station: It was a pirate radio station. The Federal Communications Commission tracked the signal to an Austin, Texas, apartment building. Liberty Radio was fined $15,000. It had been operating on a channel without a license since 2013.

Former CIA director has his security clearance revoked: John O. Brennan was the director of the CIA under President Barack Obama. He is also an ardent critic of Donald Trump. In a petty act of retaliation—a phrase so appropriate for Trump—the president revoked Brennan’s security clearance. This is just the latest ousting of a top level national security official who has defied Trump. I guess “draining the swamp” means “getting rid of anyone who is critical of me” in Trump’s definition. Brennan took to Twitter to comment:


A My Little Pony animator is in jail on child porn possession charges: This guy, Tom Wysom, is credited as an animator on 26 episodes of My Little Pony and 23 episodes of Littlest Pet Shop. He also was the proud owner of 60,000 images of child porn. He said it helped him with his clinical depression. He's in jail now.

More child porn for your Thursday: Not actual child porn, but another child porn story. I thought I should clarify. You know, just in case. Anyway, a Pennsylvania grand jury found that priests were running a child porn ring out of the Pittsburgh Diocese. The report the grand jury released details horrific abuse incurred on victims by this group of priests. The group “raped children, shared intelligence on potential victims and manufactured child pornography in parishes and rectories,” reports the Morning Call.

That Colorado baker is at it again: You know him as that asshole who won a Supreme Court case after his refusal to bake a cake for a same-sex couple. Now he’s suing the state again. This time he refused to make a cake for a transgender woman. Colorado said there was sufficient evidence of discrimination by the baker. The baker is putting up a fight, obviously.

An update from my alley:

If you are reading this and you are my parent, pause for a second and skim below. If you choose to continue reading, I am preemptively “sorry.”

I don’t know much about condoms. I mean, I get their purpose. I understand the concept, what they’re made of, the basic principle. But difference or brand preference? Lost on me.

My first boyfriend had a preference for some brand that started with a K. I don’t remember what it was. When I mentioned it to my friends—because apparently I was that open with them back then—they said something like, “Oh, that’s a cheap brand” and “I hope you don’t get pregnant.” Well, yeah, me too.

That relationship didn’t go too smoothly. It had its ups and downs, but it definitely wasn’t ribbed for my pleasure. Was the condom brand a kind of litmus test I should have paid attention to?

There have been Trojans and Skyns and that eclectic sampler pack I bought from Babeland on election day 2016 because if you voted you got a free vibrator (for Democrats) or butt plug (Republicans, obviously) with any purchase.

Regardless of personal experience, I had never seen or heard of the type of condom that was scattered en masse around my alley the other day. The label was in Japanese. There were 50 or more sprinkled on the cracked concrete like a dusting of early December snow.

To buy such condoms in bulk either denoted extreme frugality, confidence, or a doomsday prepper mentality.

Let’s go with the latter. That's more fun to picture.

I want my alley’s condom fairy to be a Cascadia Quake Fear-monger, a “The-End-Is-Nigh-Fuck-While-You-Can-But-Do-So-Responsibly” kind of person. I pictured them as a safe-sex aficionado with an earthquake kit in every room of their house or corner of their apodment. The bricks in your building? Definitely not earthquake safe and you can’t change that. Your postapocalyptic sex life? Definitely in your power, who knows what will be in that volcanic ash, here’s a condom.

This is a stretch. I know. Especially because my house is located like 10 blocks away from a slew of fraternities. But hey, who says frat boys aren’t thinking about the end of the world every day of their short lives? That’s gotta be why they drink the way they do.

Either way, I left the condoms there for whomever might actually need them. My earthquake kit remains condom-less. Also nonexistent. I should fix at least one of those things.

Tonight's best Seattle entertainment options include: Playwright Holly Arsenault's The Great Inconvenience, a screening of a documentary about Syrian migrant construction workers, Taste of Cement, and a tribute to country-music greats Bonnie Raitt and EmmyLou Harris.