I have mixed feelings about this. I’m a public transit maximalist, but I’m also old enough to feel like any progress is still progress. The loss of the Avalon station sucks but I’d be ok with it if the bus lines that run 35th got a big old makeover with bus additions, which looks to be the offer.

It’s a slippery slope. If you allow for a sidewalk for children between a school and transit, where does it end? Safe sidewalks for adults? What about able bodied adults? Shouldn’t we be means testing sidewalks or are we just gonna hand out free sidewalks to everyone?

That’s communism, friend. Can’t have it.

Disclaimer: I’m not giving advice here and I don’t have insight into Rad’s specific situation. I am very, very progressive, I love regulation, and I own a Rad bike. I don’t have the battery in question. I like my bike, but I don’t love Rad. I also happen to know quite a lot about the CPSC.

The CPSC is typically led by a board of 5 members. Trump fired the 3 Democratic members which was plainly illegal but the appeals court order to reinstate them was struck down by the Supreme Court in an emergency order (dirty Supreme Court doing dirty Supreme Court things). 1 of the remaining 2 members resigned, leaving a single person in charge of the entire CPSC. CPSC’s power comes primarily through two vehicles: enforcement action (fines) referred to the DOJ for charges (usually for companies that it believes are intentionally hiding defective products), and going public when it wants to apply pressure (like we’re seeing here with Rad).

With a solo Republican commission running the place, you would think this would result in a toothless agency that was generally uninterested in enforcement. You would be very, very fucking wrong.

I’m a guy that’s complained that the CPSC should be more aggressive, but their stance in the last six months (and especially the last month) has gone waaaaaay past reasonable. They’re firing off demand letters in all directions, at anyone and everyone. They’re fully on the attack. If there’s even a whiff of product problems, they’re attacking first with maximal threats.

Why is this a bad thing?

Companies (most of them) self report issues with their product and work with the CPSC on solutions, if one is needed. That is how the CPSC is made aware of the vast majority of product issues. A company realizes there’s a product issue and is incentivized to work with the government to fix it, instead of hiding it and hoping nobody notices. This is a system that works surprisingly well because executives can be held accountable (including criminal charges) if they hide issues and don’t want that liability hanging over them while at the same time, consumers are protected by the willingness of companies to be open and honest. The only real friction between companies and the CPSC is when the CPSC thinks a company should have been more forthcoming or figured out the problem sooner. Again, this is a good thing because it incentivizes companies to be proactive in product safety.

But now the CPSC is changing the equation. It’s going after EVERYBODY that’s self reporting, demanding maximum fines. Now instead of executives deciding how to work with the CPSC on product safety, they’re deciding whether or not they can win a court case that the CPSC brings against them for self reporting.

Or put another way: you’re an executive. you know the CPSC is gonna sue you for reporting a product issue. can you beat the charges saying you weren’t aware there was a specific issue with a product that should result in a report to the CPSC? if so, why the fuck are you even reporting it to them at all? why would you have a dept in your company that looks for product problems if it’s going to cause you to get sued for knowing and not reporting? shouldn’t you be firing those people immediately?

Again, I don’t know the specifics of Rad. Maybe they’re the bad guys here! But maybe the CPSC’s asshole idiot behavior is what’s going on.

I came here to be told who to hate and instead got the tiniest bit of hope when I saw two posters with recommendations.

Well that was somehow worse than I thought it would be.

It is difficult for me to square a need for law enforcement with the reality that the people doing it are often not the people you want doing it.

The old saying about how I’d never join a club that would have me seems apropos.

My councilperson is Rob Saka. His deep commitment to more cops being the answer strikes me as deeply unserious.

Wikipedia functionally ended the market for encyclopedias. When I was a kid I would go to the library and read it just to see what random knowledge was in there. Traveling salesman would sell encyclopedias door to door and they were hugely expensive. Then Encarta came along and it was mind blowing you could have all that information on some CDs. Then Wikipedia killed all of them and did it for free.

Where do you look for stuff like that?

My account has been locked up because my daughter has three separate BG3 games going with friends. Last week my son said we need to put a time limit on her because nobody else can play on Steam.

If you’re ok with small spaces, the Seattle underground tours are really really fun.

I live in West Seattle so I’m biased, but I think the best park in the city is Lincoln park over on the west side of West Seattle. Grab some sandwiches (or ice cream) from Husky Deli in Alaska Junction then head down to Lincoln Park, get a bench down by the waterfront, and just hang out. The southern most part of Lincoln Park is the easiest way to get to the water. You can go thru the park too (which is a big beautiful urban forest) but the walk down to the water thru the park is a little steep, especially for people not used to hiking.

If dorky Americana type stuff is fun for you, there are lots of semi-pro sports happening around then. Our family likes going to the Dub Sea Fish Sticks games here in West Seattle, but there’s teams all over Seattle. The Fish Sticks play low level baseball and it’s much more people having a good time outside and screwing around than actual serious baseball. There’s also Ballard FC for soccer, with the same vibe.

Jesus Christ Saka get a fuckin staffer so you stop being the clown of the council.