Street purgatory: The Seattle Convention Center closed down the block Ninth Avenue between Pike and Pine in front of the Paramount Theater for a weekly night market in August. They painted the street with big circles and white lines, which a permit required event organizers to remove. The street is still closed because even pressure washers can’t blast the paint off and drivers could mistake the circles and especially the lines for lanes (see: car accident).
Natural gas initiative is no more: The Washington State Supreme Court ruled I-2066, a stupid law designed to inhibit Washington’s transition away from fossil fuels, was unconstitutional on Thursday]. The Court upheld a lower court decision that found the law was too broad and violated the state’s single-subject requirement, which mandates legislation must deal with only one issue. Led by the Building Industry Association of Washington, Washington Hospitality Association, and financially supported by Let’s Go Washington, I-2066 required utilities to provide natural gas if a user requested it, barred the Washington Utilities and Trade Commission from approving any multi-year rate plans that weaned users off natural gas, and weakened building codes that made natural gas more expensive for new construction.
Good night you disgusting animal: Rep. Joel McEntire, R-Cathlamet has allegedly been harassing his own constituent, a healthcare worker named Britney Brown, because she called him out for using the r-word. After trading jabs online, McEntire began privately messaging Brown and her friends. In one message to her, McEntire wrote: “Good night you disgusting animal.” McEntire then urged his followers to contact Brown. He threatened to release her information, and even told people to vandalize her car. Brown said her contact information has been leaked and her car was keyed. A Cowlitz County District Court judge issued an anti-harassment protection order against McEntire. He plans to appeal the order.
New train alert: Amtrak is getting new trains on its Cascade Route. The new Airo trains provide more seats, they’ll be more fuel efficient, but they will not be faster. They’re replacing trains that haven’t been updated since the 1980s. Is train travel finally getting modernized in the US? Well, no. But it might be getting better? The Airo trains will pull into the station on September 30.
New cat alert: For the first time in 100 years, researchers have found a new cat. They say it is slender, spotted, and has rounded ears. The Leopardus tilcayo, or the tilcayo tiger cat, hails from Bolivia and is smaller than a house cat. In fact, this guy looks just like my new kitten (Hiccup). Does he also climb under the covers with you at 3 a.m. and attack your bare legs with his razor claws? Only time will tell. Scientists are jazzed about finding this new cat and have no idea how many cats are left to be discovered. Hopefully one million new types.
The weather: Another pleasant sunny day. The weekend will be much of the same.
But don’t be lulled into a false sense of security! It’s time for your seasonal vaccines. Get your flu, RSV, and updated COVID shot this fall. If you are a big baby about needles, for the second year ever, you can get your flu vaccine via nasal spray.
The attack on mail-in voting is over: In the days since the US Supreme Court overturned President Donald Trump’s executive order attacking mail-in voting—though they really let us sweat about it, didn’t they?—the US Postmaster General said his agency is no longer working on the computer system central to Trump’s plans. The order would have directed federal agencies to create state citizenship lists and only send ballots to people on those lists. The USPS special online portal, which surely would have worked flawlessly and fast, is now dead.
Bye, bye, Buffet: Billionaire Warren Buffet, 96, is stepping down as chair of Berkshire Hathaway, a role he’s held for more than 50 years. His son, Howard, will take over as chair.
An excellent gift idea: A massive green orb is the perfect gift for any occasion.
On the subject of capitalists and capitalism: Seattle is getting its own Monopoly game. Seattle will be the second Washington city to get a Monopoly game. The first city to earn that distinction was, appropriately, Bellevue. You can weigh in on what should be included on the Seattle gameboard here. Considering our love of the free market, perhaps Seattle’s only newspaper, The Stranger, should get a spot?
Driver charged in fatal LA bus crash: The driver who was high, drove the wrong way down a busy street, ran a red light, and plowed into a Los Angeles city bus, killing two bus riders, has been charged with second-degree murder. While covering the crash, an NBC4 Los Angeles news helicopter crashed, killing a reporter, the pilot, and a pedestrian on the street.
A crazy Texas race: A seat on the overlooked, influential Texas Railroad Commission—the three-member board that regulates the oil and gas industry—is coming down to Joe Rosenthal, a Democrat who has worked in and around the subject matter for decades, and Bo French, a virulently racist Christian Nationalist. Rosenthal thought he’d be facing the seat’s incumbent, a regular Republican too cozy with oil and gas to do the job well. Nope. French, an investor and former chair of the Tarrant County GOP, openly advocates for ethnic cleansing. He’s wild enough that members of his racist party have spoken out against his racism (for example, posting a picture of South Asian University of Texas graduates and writing “the problem is now obviously far worse than anyone imagined.”) And yet, French may win. Mother Jones has more here.
What if Katie Wilson gave us the same green bus shelters those lucky ducks in New York are getting. Green roofs on their bus shelters! We should do the same. Though, we’d have to actually have functional bus shelters and adequate late-night service first. (On the subject of bus shelters, they don’t count as bus stops. This problem keeps happening at my local stop.)
A headline from hell: “How Three Brothers Built an AI Slop Empire by Buying Legitimate News Sites and Turning Them Into Zombie Content Farms That They Say Get 50 Million Page Views per Month”
Oops: Organizers of a men’s field hockey match at the Asia games played the wrong national anthem for South Korea ahead of their match against Bangladesh. They played the North Korea anthem instead. Unrelated but still sort of related, South Korea will not be sending its military to the Middle East to support the US, despite Trump’s calls for aid.
