and in
Other NEWS:

In Battle
Over A.I., Meta
Decides to Give Away Its Crown Jewels

The tech giant has publicly released its latest A.I. technology so people can build their own chatbots. Rivals say that approach can be dangerous.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/18/technology/ai-meta-open-source.html

with a Billionaire so
Fabulously-Well-to-DO*
in Charge of World-defining Shit
whatever the Fuck could possibly go Wrong?

*turns out
ranking women's faces
for Fun & Profiteering can
be quite fucking Lucrative!

who Knew?!

"But must be a real shocker for all those legislators in Olympia who said this week that jail is the best place to treat addiction."

It's really very impressive how quickly those talking points were destroyed.

"Former House Speak Nancy Pelosi made calls for Feinstein to resign about the fact she's a woman, not the fact Feinstein is forgetting people's names and recovering from shingles at 89 years old."

Where in the linked article is anything like this said? It is all about Pelosi wanting Feinstein to stay in because it benefits Schiff. The only gender-based comment I saw was the opposite, where Pelosi noted ill men in Congress not getting the same treatment.

I'm no Pelosi fan, but that seems a pretty egregious misreading. Or am I missing something?

Terrible news for the Seattle IS DYING club.

Maybe they can join San Francisco IS DYING, Los Angeles IS DYING, or New York IS DYING:

Seattle is once again the fastest-growing big city, census data shows

Seattle just reclaimed its title as the fastest-growing big city in the U.S.

From July 1, 2021, to July 1, 2022, Seattle had a net gain of about 17,750 people, bringing the total population to 749,000. The city’s growth rate for the year pencils out to 2.4%, easily the fastest among the 50 largest U.S. cities. The rate of growth is quite comparable to what we saw in the 2010s.

https://12ft.io/proxy?q=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.seattletimes.com%2Fseattle-news%2Fdata%2Fseattle-is-once-again-the-fastest-growing-big-city-census-data-shows%2F

@3, she definitely went there: https://abc7news.com/sen-dianne-feinstein-resign-nancy-pelosi-senate-judiciary-committee/13122314/

I'm sorry Vivian, but there is significant theft at local grocery stores. I don't understand the quest to negate it as some right-wing narrative. Maybe go around and talk to cashiers and store managers and report back?

Also:
"Every major medical organization opposes these bans."
Well, there is a profit motive there that should be taken into account to some extent.

Oops, Ashley. (blush)

Seriously doubt your headache was from the smoked unless you are super sensitive. AQI was in the green all day yesterday and today is just barely in the moderate zone, with the forecast heading back to the green later today.

After Feinstein returned last week, looking completely awful, Pelosi's daughter Christine (IIRC) tweeted to remind everyone to get their Shingrix vaccine.

If only Feinstein had done the same in the last 17 years (1st available in 2006), it would just be narcissism and dementia we'd be discussing now.

food
clothing
shelter
y’all

@6 What is this shoplifting phenomenon you speak of? Is this a new thing that was just created since Biden became president, or is it something that has been going on forever and perpetrated by people of all colors and income levels?

@2 where is that talking point? No one claimed criminalizing public drug use is the best way to treat addiction. This law simply allows police to engage and remove people who insist on impacting the community with their addiction. Help can only be provided if you want it, until then we’ll remove if you prove incapable of managing your addiction. And if you think using drugs in public is a victimless crime you’re wrong

https://www.kiro7.com/news/north-sound-news/toddler-pricked-by-dirty-needle-at-everett-playground/753000931/?outputType=amp

@11.....Shoplifting is nothing new at all; its been going on for decades. What's new about it is that it's no longer done on the sly. The shoplifter now just goes in, takes what he wants, and then just walks out. He doesn't have to tuck it under his jacket and sneak out the door.

@11: You can have fun rhetorically however you like. But I don't recall in the past seeing steel bars over windows or having to go to the service desk to buy lighters, or seeing videos of local merchants brazen thefts in the news and social media. So there you go Tony, that's the "shoplifting phenomenon" for which I speak.

Note to libs: You don't loose progressive points is you acknowledge crime occurs and other failings of the human condition.

@13 what's the point of criminalizing drug use if criminals still have super easy access to drugs? Yeah I get it, it might take away the sight of it from your sensitive eyes. But it doesn't fix anything.

@15
You don’t lose progressive points…
And yes, I’ve talked to enough store workers and retail workers to get a glimpse of how stressful the constant stealing is on them.

There's also lots of broken glass at parks for people to get hurt on. People are getting killed with cars every day out in public. Let's criminalize everything that might be dangerous to people.

Between the security guards and the metal barriers with gates that screech at you if you try to exit through one, the measures taken to keep desperately hungry people from getting food is gonna rival the TSAs attempts to keep people from blowing up their shoes on an airplane. How long till they do "random" non consensual grocery bag searches?

@bertha
Great Comment!
it even Works this way:

"What's new about [multi-Billionaires purchasing the USofA's Economy] is that it's no longer done on the sly [Hoo-Ray!]. The [multi-Billionaire] now just goes in [to "our" Lawmakers ofices], takes what [-everthefuck brand new Laws] he wants, and then just walks out."*

"we" made it
Super Easy
for them!

"[the poor Billionaire] doesn't
have to tuck it* under his
jacket and sneak
out the door."

not
Anymore
but Well put.

these Symptoms we're
suffering are Not the
Causes that require
Addressing but
like the Movie
says, "Do NOT
Look UP!"

END the fuckoutta
"citizens 'United'"
& Give Back to
US our fucking
DEMOCRACY.

if it ain't
Already
Too Late

*with Regulatory Capture or the
Dismemberment of the FDA
EPA and all those alphabet
soups of Keeping the Cit-
izenry SAFE From the
Capitalists - who've
never seen a Planet
nor a Citizenry that
didn't 'Deserve' a
little Harvesting.

@18: Why so sensitive?
@19: Moreso desperately stoned than desperately hungry

for how Long shall
we Cede Control
to our Most
Cunning
Socio-
paths?

@18 pretty sure busting bottles in public and killing people with cars are also criminal offenses. Glad we’re on the same page now.

"The White House is sending a federal official to embed in the City for two years and strategize solutions for supporting the unhoused"

It's a nice idea, but our homelessness response is already struggling to allocate responsibility between numerous competing nonprofit service providers and government agencies. Adding another layer of bureaucracy seems likely to result in increased spending with yielding meaningful change.

@19: “…the measures taken to keep desperately hungry people from getting food…”

Who is stealing food? Here’s a story from the Stranger in 2021, which combed through the data to find someone who had been jailed in Seattle for stealing food. The Stranger could not find such a person. (https://www.thestranger.com/slog/2021/10/25/62275417/twenty-seven-days-for-stealing-a-souvenir-penny-what-it-would-look-like-to-get-tough-on-misdemeanors-in-seattle)

(They did find someone jailed for stealing alcohol, however.)

@23 no one is getting put in jail for broken glass. And there are constantly stories of drivers not being charged for killing people.

@18: “There's also lots of broken glass at parks for people to get hurt on.”

@27: “And there are constantly stories of drivers not being charged for killing people”

You have citations (urls) and quotes, right?

No one is being put in jail for public drug use either.

I know an older woman who recently stole a sandwich from a convenience store simply because she was hungry. (She is now derisively referred to as "sandwich lady" by our mutual acquaintances.) But shoplifting is mostly compelled by poverty even if the goods aren't taken for direct use. Who do you think is actually carrying out (and taking the risk for) those organized thefts? Desperate people who need the few bucks they'll get for their loot, that's who. Address people's basic needs and shoplifting will cease to be a significant problem.

Address people's basic needs and shoplifting will cease to be a significant problem." --@CKathes

Well put.
I thought this
was well-put too:

@1, 19, 20, 22 & 30 et al
speaking of Redistributing:

nyt
Why the Supreme Court Is Blind
to Its Own Corruption
May 18, 2023

--by Randall D. Eliason
[Mr. Eliason is the former chief of the fraud and public corruption section at the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Columbia.]

Over more than two decades, the Supreme Court has gutted laws aimed at fighting corruption and at limiting the ability of the powerful to enrich public officials in a position to advance their interests.

As a result, today wealthy individuals and corporations may buy political access and influence with little fear of legal consequences, either for them or for the beneficiaries of their largess.

No wonder Justice Thomas
apparently thought his
behavior was no
big deal.

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/18/opinion/supreme-court-clarence-thomas-corruption.html

here's the top Readers' Pick
from the Comments:

Justice Thomas is actually consistent in his voting record and lifestyle. He sees nothing wrong with large donations corrupting both political parties and he sees nothing wrong with personally selling out to the highest bidder.

There needs to be an amendment to the U.S. Constituton that overturns Citizens United. We cannot expect the Supreme Court to do this for us. Until we do this our democracy is a sham.
--Robert Scull; Cary, NC

https://www.nytimes.com/2023/05/18/opinion/supreme-court-clarence-thomas-corruption.html#commentsContainer

our "Democracy"
IS a Fucking sham.
end citizens fucking
united or BUST, bitches.

if Soulless
Corporations
can be people too!
Friendo then Why not
Artificial "Intelligences"?

how Low
can you Bow?

@30: Sigh Shoplifting in Seattle feeds addictions, either directly (stealing alcoholic beverages), or to trade for drugs, or for money for drugs. Food assistance and food banks are readily available. That’s why the Stranger could not find widespread thefts of food, and could not find a single person jailed for theft of food. Hungry “victims of capitalism,” or of “culturally imposed poverty,“ stealing to feed their children, simply do not exist in modern Seattle.

@12 Yesman: Um, no. Ronald Reagan, the founding father of "Tax cuts for the rich" and his disastrous "trickle down economy", and every rabidly pro-capitalist RepubliKKKan since Reagan and the Bushes to the Orange Turd, Donald Trump, and counting have been the cause of modern crime. Are you afraid your fellow MAGAts will kick you out of the boys' locker room if you don't spew willful misinformation? What on Earth would Elon Musk and Lemon Tuck Carlson SAY?

@20 & @22 kristofarian and @30 CKathes: BINGO for the WIN!!

Happy 43 Year Anniversary of the historic eruption of Mount St. Helens. Where were you when the mountain blew? Should we have another one of that magnitude any time soon, we can pretty much kiss Washington state goodbye.

@31 & @32 kristofarian: WORD.

@30: that's not why TVs were getting brazenly jacked from Target, or why sealed Lego sets were showing up in the PPM junk shop ( https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/law-justice/seattle-police-arrest-pike-place-market-store-owner-suspected-of-trafficking-stolen-lego-sets/ ), or why organized groups of people were shuttling in and out of Bellevue Square emptying Nordy's of designer purses (they were loading vans in front of a co-worker's house).

it's money, and money for drugs.

@35: Relax, @12 was being blatantly sarcastic.

@24: “…we can’t just give these losers free housing we must instead give them super crazy expensive (to us taxpayers) housing in the form of jails.”

Because housing is so incredibly plentiful and inexpensive in Seattle these days, right? It’s knowledge like this which makes your comments worthy of reading.

(Given how all of that plentiful and inexpensive housing is located in a seismic zone, you might want to tell us how sheep’s bladders may be employed to stop earthquakes.)

Crime data from grocery stores should be relatively easy and quick to obtain, which would put an end to the arguing about whether there is more of it or not.

Obtain exact addresses of all the grocery stores you're interested in looking at, and request crime stats for those addresses from each of the PD's where the store(s) are located for past year and for whatever year in the past you want to compare it to.

I'm not sure about WA, but in TX and most states, that is "open record" info. I would think WA would be, too. The person requesting may have to pay small fee for the data, tho.

Hungry “victims of capitalism,” or of “culturally imposed poverty,“ stealing to feed their children, simply do not exist in modern Seattle. --@tentsy

and you know this How?
text and links?
thnx!

thanks auntie Gee!
my Copy cum
Pasta* knows
no Equal!

*served
Daily

@41: “and you know this How?
text and links?
thnx!”

Already done, @26.
You’re welcome!

@38: Sarcasm, my ass. If there is anything blatant in @12's comment, raindrop dear, it's a false and unwarranted accusation aimed at former President Barack Obama. #44 served two full terms in the White House and never once had a single scandalous day during any of those eight years in the Oval Office.
Meanwhile, every day of the Orange Turd's disastrous term in the White House was nothing but fear mongering, lies, corruption, and scandal, wildly celebrated by ~75 million gullible idiots who have no ability to vote wisely. DJT is currently being charged with 34 counts in a long list of federal crimes, including committing high treason, ordering a violent coup to overthrow the U.S. government because it didn't like the results of a fair and just election on November 3, 2020, plotting the death of its own VP, election tampering (particularly in Georgia), and multiple lawsuits of predatory sexual assault.
Oh, and who finally took out global terrorist, Osama bin Laden, raindrop dear? It wasn't George Dubya Bush, who declared the costly 20-year wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, though he claimed "Mission Accomplished!" upon finding "weapons of mass destruction" (yes---in sugar bowls in the White House kitchen, I believe, for starters).
And let's not forget the stock market crash of 2008 during Dubya's second term of gross incompetence.
SEAL Team 6, on secret mission May 2, 2011 captured Osama bin Laden in his private compound, under Barack Obama's watch.

Most of the Safeways I have been to recently have created stores within the store. Inside the inner store is stuff like booze, laundry detergent, diapers, tampons, and cold medications. But of course they're also putting those entrance turnstiles in. It's a matter of time before Bartell's on Rainier either does the same thing or just closes, like the U-District store did, which would be a disaster for the neighborhood. But the shoplifting really is brazen.

One place that has it down is the Hilltop Red Apple on Beacon. They chase after and beat down anyone who tries to steal from them.

@45 - that sounds like a major
Lawsuit just waiting to happen
have they no Drones to follow
them Home and reappropriate
their (allegecly-) stolen goods?

what's taking Bezos
so Long? let us get
the Fascism balls a-
Rollin'! hunt 'em
down string 'em
up it's the Wild
Wild West and
all yours* for
$99.99 per
month. a
Steal if
I may
say
so.

*livestreamed!
[the blood'll
run you an
extra $50]

you can even Vote
on the Cause
of Death.

for another
$99.99

“No one claimed criminalizing public drug use is the best way to treat addiction.”

Hahahaha. No one? Hahaha.

Oh. No. Only you posting constantly that decriminalizing it is the apocalypse.

My god you are a worthless lying shit bag.

I’m getting a distinct Les Miseables vibe from today’s slog entries and comments.

And no, not the musical.

@47 Decriminalizing would be an apocalypse. That is true. Where we differ here is having a criminal penalty for public use of drugs is not about helping the addict get treatment. As has been noted many times you can't force people into treatment. Having a criminal penalty is for the rest of us who want to walk down third avenue without breathing in fentynal smoke or worry about our kids getting poked by a used needle at the park. If you want to use in private that's on you but when you start impacting the rest of us you are an asshole and if you keep doing it then you should get a time out. All the arguments on decriminalization center on the addict and the rest of us are just expected to suck it up because they have an "issue" they can't control. That's unacceptable. If some of the dipshits getting arrested finally see the light as part of the process and accept help that's even better but make no mistake criminal penalties are about protecting the public with no regard for whether or not the addict is ready to accept help.

@6 Raindrop, look you transphobic shit-for-brains...

@50: Oh yeah? You're the one ending a comment with an ellipses, and you call me transphobic? Good Lord!

@47: “No one,” in context, refers to the legislators quoted in the linked article, and the statement is true in that context. You’ve already been banned from here multiple times for aggressively making dishonest personal attacks, and you don’t seem to be learning.

@49: Criminalizing drugs has been a disaster, but so has the de facto decriminalizing of them in Seattle, without the consent of the governed. Seattle needs to recriminalize theft, assault, and the other behaviors which support addiction, like camping. That will have the effect you seek, without reinstalling the failure that is drug prohibition.

@5 OK, I think I see now and it is just a badly written sentence.
"...made calls for Feinstein to resign..." typically means the subject of that clause was calling for the resignation. This was a terrible way to try to say that she characterized calls made by others as being about the fact Feinstein is a woman.

@45
Plus, the Red Apple has a very tight knit community, as a smaller store serving the local community.
The QFC on S McClellan is the Wild Wild West by comparison.
I suspect the Safeway on Rainier Ave S is somewhere in-between.

@54: You lie. Here's what really happened:

https://calmatters.org/commentary/2019/03/hard-truths-about-deinstitutionalization-then-and-now/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_Health_Systems_Act_of_1980

Ronald Reagan was following the prevailing effort by multiple parties at the time to free people from horrible conditions.

@58: So why should we care about that now?

But thanks for the reminder. "Blood Alley" (1955) with Lauren Bacall in now back on he rewatch list!

@60: I have no issue with you ruminating over this as long as you want.

Marion Robert Morrison, aka "John Wayne", is right up there in the pantheon of Hollywood-generated "patriots".

I don't believe in hell, but if there is indeed one, I hope that Nixon, Reagan, and Marion Robert Morrison are all joined together as a human centipede - and that the devil has made arrangements for GW Bush and trump to be added.

@63 Catalina Vel-DuRay wins the entire thread!! Bravo! I fervently second it.

@63: That comment is disingenuous and distasteful. These were fine men who contributed to society in public service and entertainment, who, like us all, have our lives blemished by a few shortcomings.

Raindrop dear, may I respectfully suggest that you talk a long walk on a short pier?

No

@67 wasn't respectful to your respectfully asked question.

Let me change that to you may respectfully suggest, and I will respectfully decline.

@49: Cherry picking political blunders nearly 40 years ago doesn't explain or excuse current events.

Raindrop dear, could you provide of a list of the good things Reagan did, instead of just spouting pious cliches?

Got rid of the FCC fairness act - The best!
Tax cuts
Got Carter's inflation and high interest rates down
Immigration (He was definitely pro)
Ended cold war with Soviet Union

But I'm not here to convince you otherwise or rebut your rebuttals. Your hatred for him has so metastasized after all these years it's beyond debating at this point.

@65: Marion Robert Morrison was a prototypical Tough Guy On The Internet decades before the latter even existed. Despite endlessly playing fighting hero characters, including military ones, he actively avoided military service during the Second World War. (https://www.military.com/history/why-john-wayne-was-labeled-draft-dodger-during-world-war-ii.html/amp)

@73: “Got rid of the FCC fairness act - The best!”

You mean the Fairness Doctrine, which ensured the holders of broadcast licenses could not simply firehose their listeners with propaganda. After it was gone, a loser like Rush Limbaugh could spend all day, every day, simply lying about everything from the Clintons to his own drug addiction, racking up multiple divorces and eating OxyContin whilst lecturing on the Clinton’s marriage and the need to lock up druggies poorer than himself.

Broadcasting in the public interest, on the public’s airwaves, suffered tremendously. Of course you think it’s a win.

@42 kristofarian: Is your pasta available in gluten free Alfredo? There goes my diet... ;)

@73: I wouldn't list tax cuts among any high points during Ronald Raygun's two disastrous terms in the White House, raindrop dear, unless you're among the KKKorporate rightwing capitalist millionaires and billionaires who profited by "trickle down" Reaganomics. Additionally, Nancy's allegedly "Good Little Christian" hubby proved his homophobia by looking the other way from the onset of the AIDS epidemic onward, sought to cut social programs from the poorest of U.S. citizens, and stubbornly insisted that ketchup was a vegetable.

@74: Oh please, just think about it. Would you want Rachel Maddow to have to devote a segment to Sean Hannity?

The fairness doctrine was created when the spectrum was much smaller and the means to broadcast was just the big three and PBS.

Now everyone can enjoy their own propaganda without other propaganda telling them they're just listening to propaganda.

@76: Has it ever occurred to you that maybe propaganda is not appropriate for actual democracy, and we should not have allocated a public resource to broadcasting it?

Likewise, having a cowardly draft-dodger constantly playing military heroes in War Is Great Adventure movies might also be bad for real-life peaceful conflict resolutions?

Raindrop dear, it's one thing to know absolutely nothing about the Fairness Doctrine. It's quite another to prove it.

The tax cuts were a disaster. Just another GOP giveaway to the wealthy at the expense of normal people.

Reagan didn't end the cold war. Pope John Paul II and Lech Wałęsa helped, but it was Mikhail Gorbachev who saw the writing on the wall and finally bought the thing to an end. Unfortunately, the hard-liners in the former USSR got themselves a Useful Idiot who eventually rose to the top of the GOP and became President of the US.

@78 Spot on...
And thanks for the turbine blade recycling tip from the other day. Did not know about that.

Yes, it was Reagan who put the handwriting on the wall. Don't forget STI (Star Wars) that turned up the heat.

So prove how you think the Fairness Doctrine would be used today. As if you ever missed it.

Tax cuts are always good economic growth health. More money back in the pockets of the workers who earned it is always a good thing.

@75: At least Reagan didn't go after the gays like Bauer and Robertson might have done. You forget how popular Reagan was, even during the height of AIDS. There was a Reagan campaign float adorned with drag queens in the gay pride parade of 1984 on Capitol Hill. I blew them kisses.

To summarize, presidents are not saints. Thank God.

Sillly Raindrop. STI was a giveaway to the defense contractors who had greased the skids for his campaign. When I was in ROTC in college in the 80's, even us dorks knew that the USSR was on the brink of collapse.

(but now that you mention is, let's add Reagan's backdoor dealings with Iran to keep the hostages in captivity to his long list of horrible things)

The Fairness Doctrine simply said that opposing views should always be presented and that stations who choose to editorialize must provide a way for the opposition to respond. Like if KING5 ran a story saying Raindrop was a poopoo head, you would have the chance to say that you weren't a poopoo head.

The bigger issue is that of station ownership, and you can bring that one down on (I think) Clinton, but Reagan's willingness to not entertain opposing points of view was indicative of the general sleaziness of his administration.

Any gay person, let alone a drag queen and especially anyone living in Seattle, who was willing to support Reagan in 1984 was a sociopath.

@81: Why should opposing views always be presented?

@81: Every state in the union went for Reagan in 1984. That's a lot of sociopaths, gay or otherwise.

@84: Because they have their own venue.

Raindrop dear, it was only the Reagan Gays that were sociopaths. The rest were rubes. As HL Mencken famously noted no one ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people. Reagan used his studio system training to put a kindly face on greed and racism.

@78, @81, and @86 Catalina Vel-DuRay: Spot on! Keep on rocking the house.
Here's hoping that one day raindrop will finally see the light if not the handwriting on the wall.
and
@86 Catalina Vel-DuRay: Indeed. Ronald "Mr. Cue Cards" Reagan is the Grandfather of Capitalism.

@86: You should know after all these years and after all the times we've discussed Ronald Reagan, my opinion hasn't changed. Your efforts though, are amusing.

Raindrop dear, just because you have a problem with reality, that doesn't mean I won't stop trying to help an old friend like you.

Aww, you're a good friend too dear.