THIS IS WHY!!!! WE CALL!!! GREAT JOB EVERYONE 🩷 KOSA did pass the house but remember the senate has a conflicting version. Keep calling, it matters!

Free Speech Coalition@fsc.bsky.social · 13h ago

SCREEN Act, which would have required mandatory age-verification for sites (like this) that allow "material harmful to minors" failed to pass out of committee after thousands and thousands of people called their Senators. More work ahead!

Hey #WAState, @cantwell.senate.gov is in favor of the mass surveillance and censorship bill calling itself the “kids online safety act” (KOSA). If you don’t want to upload your ID to every single website you ever need to use, call her office and tell her this is bullshit.

Tools are easy now, data is hard

It is a very complex week, but I WILL find time to get to Elliott Bay to get this.

robert j bennett, ceo, results omega@robertjbennett.bsky.social · 2d ago

hey! that’s today!!

What a batshit first sentence to an editorial excoriating the mayor of Seattle for removing a controversial police chief appointed by her predecessor, something our mayors have routinely done. The conspiracy brain at play: "How dare this scheming woman try to distract us from her incompetence!"

Possession by A.S. Byatt, I Capture the Castle by Dodie Smith

David Weiskopf believes in you@dave.bzky.team · 10mo ago

What is your favorite English-language novel? (Free spaces for Middlemarch, Pride and Prejudice, and Moby Dick -- what else you got?)

One thing I've been dwelling on is how computing engineering and discourse rely thoroughly on a substance ontology of information, with dumb consequences. I've just found out that @romainbrette.bsky.social, looking at the same in neuroscience, calls it "epistemic phlogiston." I'm so stealing that.

Dog Steals Pizza

Alt: Dog Steals Pizza slice

static.klipy.com

It's time to post the current election turnout breakdown by age bracket chart again and remind you that ballots are due by Tuesday!

god’s will

Matthew Pfab@matthewpfabwx.bsky.social · 4d ago

Blue Angels have been canceled Saturday due to gusty winds. Winds have gusted 25-30 mph around #Seattle, but remember that crosswinds above the surface are higher. #wawx #Seafair

The stars are one thing, the constellations are another.

Wagatwe Wanjuki@wagatwe.bsky.social · 6d ago

"genuine neurodevelopmental disorder" and "a social construct" are not mutually exclusive? money is a social construct yet no one debates whether it's "real"

man thank god for the blue angels because how else would we experience this brain-melting noise and pollution for no reason except fleeting military spectacle

There are more than 52,000 Black people in Seattle. That's larger than the population of 255 cities in Washington. So can we please stop talking about "the Black community" as though it's a monolith?

Such a good way to phrase it.

Cheryl Lynn Eaton@cheryllynneaton.bsky.social · last wk.

I love this for us and them. Every pin is welcome to press against the bubble. Join the party.

People should read more classics.

Reminder to vote for Nilu Jenks for city council in D5 @niluj.bsky.social

Ryan Packer@typewriteralley.bsky.social · last wk.

Debora Juarez says she's a no as well. "I don't believe that appeals are holding up housing production," she says. The council would be taking up Phase 2 of the Comprehensive Plan right now if not for SEPA appeals, and might already have passed it.

Sometimes Seattle City Council feels like people who would be better off on an HOA board arguing about grass being half an inch too long.

Erica C. Barnett@ericacbarnett.bsky.social · last wk.

Kettle says it's not "right to declare our neighbors are weaponizing" the appeals process because of the war in Iran and the gun violence epidemic. Of course he is only chiding people on the pro-housing side. The anti-housing folks have been vitriolic, but he isn't tone policing them.

The alternative to density is sprawl, which not only requires deforestation, but also forces people to make long commutes, typically by car in this region. People who don't want new neighbors are supporting sprawl, whether or not they want to save individual trees in the yards near their houses.

Parking spots to trees! “We have 1.6 million parking spaces in Seattle but only about 800,000 residents. Endless parking lots and pavement exacerbate heat islands and stormwater runoff, and toxic tire dust is killing our salmon. Let’s convert some of that asphalt to green space!” 1/2

one participant called the other a "Trotskyite trollop"

Car dependency was not a choice. It was and is the deprivation of choice. Facing the loss of her bus service, Mildred Cooper looked for others in Long Beach whose mobility was also at risk. She collected 7,231 signatures. When that did not suffice, she collected 2,400 signatures more.

Is this a good time to mention that in college my History of Translation lecturer (Michael Cronin) told us that one of the first vernacular translations of The Illiad was into Irish, and the translator had to give the main characters dogs because in Gaelic society a free man had a dog

Our City and region are going to continue to grow in population. We can’t stop that even if we wanted to (and that’s not what I want). So where are people going to live? Are they going to live in the City or are we going to cut down more forests and farmland to build suburban housing?

And when we talk about housing, I think we need to get away from the framing that it’s ordinary citizens fighting against evil greedy developers. Because often what we are really talking about is current residents fighting against denser housing for new/additional neighbors.

If we work together and plan strategically, we can have abundant & affordable housing, w a robust urban tree canopy, clean air and water. But this is a confusing topic, and there is some misinformation about our bill, so we’re trying to get info out, like this FAQ council.seattle.gov/2026/07/24/f...

FWIW, I've had several near misses exactly like this as a pedestrian. In a crosswalk, fully stopped car 3 feet from me just starts moving because they literally did not look in front of them. Drivers, get it together.

A. Zivarts@nondriver.bsky.social · 2w ago

Got hit by a car on a bike ride today. Fortunately it was very slow speed. The car was fully stopped and drove into me as I was in a crosswalk. I was actually really scared at first because I thought the driver saw me and l was actively trying to kill me...

Amazing life hack! Unless you need to do so to earn a living you can just not read The New York Times or The Atlantic, and block them on social media (and filter their domain names). I guarantee you won’t miss anything important, only the constant stream of hateful opinions they post.

Don't underestimate the power of the neighborhood listserv. I helped organize transition our local parenting listserv to a new system (to defeat spammers) and now half the time I meet new parents around town they say, "wait, THE Gwen Snyder? Of [listserv]?" Very funny but also: trustbuilding!

At Rome’s Centrale Montemartini - a former power plant turned museum - Roman sculptures are displayed among industrial boilers and turbines.

One of my cherished memories of Old Twitter is when I asked "Culturally speaking, what's the opposite of sobremesa*?" and someone answered "Protestantism." * custom of lingering convivially at table after the meal is over

IT'S FINALLY HAPPENING The slip lane from Denny Way to Yale Avenue closes permanently NEXT WEEKEND www.theurbanist.org/sdot-prepare...

SDOT Prepares to Roll Out the Route 8 Red Carpet on Denny Way

Long-awaited upgrades to one of the city's busiest bus corridors are just a few days away, with SDOT set to permanently close the often-clogged slip lane onto Yale Avenue on August 1. A full eastbound...

theurbanist.org