That president of ours appears to have taken a step again from his intense dedication to crash the US economic system. Trump’s finances workplace “rescinded a memo [authorizing] a federal freeze on lots of of billions of {dollars} in grants and loans.” That memo, which was in essence unlawful, did nothing however ship thousands and thousands of Individuals right into a state of panic. Although some noticed the freeze as part of a plan to position the Workplace of Administration and Finances below the entire management of the White Home, I truthfully imagine Trump has it in thoughts to plunge the US’s monetary system right into a disaster that can, on the finish of the day, focus extra wealth within the palms of some billionaires who’re hell-bent on turning into trillionaires.
I feel I simply heard 4 gunshots. I feel they got here from someplace close to Rainier Playfield. It is 6:10 am. I’ll maintain you posted.
Again to the information (or the blues). Trump’s administration claims that whereas searching for authorities cheese directed at “Marxist fairness, transgenderism, and inexperienced new deal social engineering insurance policies” (the explanation for the freeze), they chanced upon $50 million {dollars} that Biden deliberate to make use of to purchase condoms for Gaza, part of the world that wants meals and housing quite than a mountain of French letters. Al Jazeera has the story.
A decide determined that the previous New Jersey Senator Bob Menendez owed society 11 years of arduous time. Final July, a jury discovered the 71-year-old disgraced politician responsible of 16 bribery prices (he, whereas in workplace, accepted “presents, together with gold bars, money, and a Mercedes-Benz [from] international governments.”) Tears copiously fell from Menendez’s eyes earlier than the sentence was introduced. He additionally begged the decide “to mood [their] sword of justice with the mercy of a lifetime of obligation.” The decide was apparently unmoved by the tears or phrases. But when our justice system was really blind, the general public also needs to have seen tears filling and falling from Trump’s eyes quickly after his “hush cash conviction.” As an alternative, he was free to run for president.
It is now 6:15 am, and I am listening to hella “woop woop,” which is, after all, “the sound of da police.” It is nonetheless darkish exterior.
An American Airways jet trying to land at Ronald Reagan Nationwide Airport collided in midair with an Military Black Hawk helicopter over the Potomac River. The aircraft had 60 passengers; the helicopter, three troopers. Some on the aircraft, which departed from Wichita, Kansas earlier within the day, had been determine skaters who attended the U.S. Determine Skating Championships. NBC information studies that “dozens of our bodies [have been] pulled from the frigid waters to date.” The reckoning at this level is that not one of the jet’s passengers or troopers on the helicopter survived this accident.
The conspiracy theories start:
President Trump is asking the very same questions all of us are. Why did the helicopter ram the aircraft? #planecrash pic.twitter.com/KnEtyqdRXP
— JereMemez (@Jere_Memez) January 30, 2025
Will it snow this weekend? Will it not snow? Which is able to it’s? It appears this essential matter is “nonetheless up within the air.” After all, I would like it to snow. I would like Seattle to freeze for every week or two. Why? Not as a result of it transforms our metropolis into one thing just like that great portray by Bruegel, The Hunters within the Snow. What snow is superb at is killing a number of rats. Heat winters do not minimize it. All they do is ship increasingly of “the gray alive” to our summers.
The gray alive? Right here is the passage from James Joyce’s Ulysses: “An overweight gray rat toddled alongside the aspect of the crypt, shifting the pebbles. An outdated stager: greatgrandfather: he is aware of the ropes. The gray alive crushed itself in below the plinth, wriggled itself in below it. Good hidingplace for treasure.” On the finish of AM, I’ll share a scientific story a couple of frozen rat.
A invoice filed by quite a lot of Democrats in Olympia has rattled some Republicans. The invoice, HB 1630, would require “dairy farms and feedlots to report [to the Department of Ecology] the quantity of methane cows burp and fart.” The invoice is after all rational. Science should decide the affect our dependancy to low-cost beef has on greenhouse gasoline emissions.
Restore work will shut Hyperlink’s UW Station this weekend. The disruption is predicted to increase the frequency of trains to “12 minutes between Lynnwood and U District, and each quarter-hour between Capitol Hill and Angle Lake.” Seattle Instances studies that after the work is accomplished, journeys to UW Station “shall be two minutes faster.” However, Hyperlink’s extension to Lynwood has been nothing however an incredible success. Urbanist reported in December that ridership in October “averaged greater than 100,000 day by day riders.” Certainly, the big-city vitality in trains has grow to be electrical. So many souls, so full of eyes, so busy flying ideas between minds and screens.
Did these gunshots occur? Undecided. The solar is up. Columbia Metropolis is fairly quiet. N’était qu’un rêve? Anyway, that story concerning the two rats put in a freezer by scientists who wished to find out the significance of petting mammals. What occurred is that this. The scientists petted one rat frequently, and confirmed no type of affection for the opposite rat. After 3 months, they put each rats in a freezer. What occurred? The unloved rat gave up and died immediately. The liked and petted one, alternatively, did not. It had the phantasm of hope. It wished to reside. Tomorrow will certainly be a brighter day. It survived the unloved rat by two entire weeks. That is the story. And I can’t recall the place I first heard it.
Let’s finish AM with a tune for the unloved frozen-to-death rat, “This Bitter Earth”: