At the Burien Transit Center, for a couple of years now, there’s been a construction-style portable toilet. It’s a big plastic box with a door you can close and latch, and a seat that looms over a lake of shit and piss, which is emptied once weekly.
As a bus-rider on the south and west side, I’m often in Burien, and that honey bucket was always icky and sticky and stank, but I used it dozens of times, and appreciated it. I even like to think that I’m part of the reason it was installed, only a few weeks after I shat on the concourse at the Transit Center, and wrote a letter to Metro Transit about it.
But a couple of weeks ago, the icky, sticky, stinking restroom was removed, and replaced by a high-tech and allegedly self-cleaning toilet, with electricity and flush-plumbing and a sink!
You’re thinking this is better than a toilet that’s just a pit for pooping and peeing in, but actually, it’s worse.
To access the new facility, you scan a QR-code with your phone’s camera, or send a text to Throne Labs Inc, the company that’s been contracted to install, clean, and maintain the restroom. And indeed that’s simple, if you have a smart phone, but if you don’t, there’s no longer a restroom you can use at the Burien Transit Center.
Goes without saying, life in the big city and all, people who ride the bus aren’t rich, often aren’t even lower-middle class, and might not have smart phones. And a lot of people who used the honey bucket were homeless, and definitely don’t carry smart phones.
Poor people and homeless people are people. That’s a bold statement, I know, and so’s this: People need to poop and pee, even poor people, even homeless people. If they can’t poop and pee in a public toilet, they’re going to poop and pee in the bushes, on the sidewalk, or someplace else you’d rather not find poop and pee.
So I’m skeptical of this new toilet, on principle.
But one fine afternoon, when the toilet had been there for a week or so, your reporter needed a restroom. I approached this new monument to feces and urine, to solve the riddle of its entrance and use.
“Available,” said a large electronic readout on the door. I read the instructions, but I have never used a QR-code and hate my phone’s camera, so I texted the number on the sign, thinking that would open the door. Nope. Throne Labs Inc replied with a six-digit number, which I was supposed to input somewhere, which would, they promised, open the door.
It all began creeping me out. Where’s the privacy notice, explaining what Throne Labs Inc does with its database of pee-ers and poopers’ phone numbers? Instead of inputting the access code they’d sent, I replied, “What do you do with this information?”
Got no error message in response, but also got no response. Presumably, users’ phone numbers are sold for marketing purposes, yielding more profits for Big Toilet, and spam from adult diaper manufacturers for me.
So I walked across the asphalt and peed in the bushes, not far from where the honey bucket used to be.
On further stops at the Burien Transit Center, a few further problems have become apparent.
The old john, the open pit in a man-sized plastic box, had been across from the waiting area, sorta secluded. This new toilet is on the platform, right where riders wait for the RapidRide #F. You’re literally peeing and pooping in the heart of a busy bus depot. You might as well announce to the crowd, “I’ll be taking a dump now.” And there’s always a crowd.
Also, this new restroom is tall, and blocks view of the readerboard that lists arrivals and departures. To see that info, you now need to walk about ten extra steps.
Also, it’s supposed to be a self-cleaning toilet, but a truck and workers from Throne Labs Inc are present about a third of the times I’m at the bus station.
I don’t know shit about the business model for Throne Labs Inc, and there are no ads yet, but I’ll wager big bucks that the new restroom will soon be festooned with advertising all over its outside and inside.
And then, one weird day when I didn’t need a toilet, I was sitting on a bench at the bus station, waiting for my ride home, when — whoosh — the restroom door slid open. Nobody was there. Nobody walked in. Nobody walked out. Nobody had asked for the door to be opened.
Curious, I walked up the ramp and looked into the restroom, then stepped inside. The door whooshed closed behind me, like the doors on Star Trek.
It’s a basic restroom, toilet on one side, sink on the other, but there’s no lock — nothing to twist or latch, to make sure nobody else comes in. Ten minutes after you enter, or sooner if you’ve flushed and a sensor detects that you’re walking toward the door, it opens.
So you’re trusting Throne Labs Inc with your phone number, and trusting them to lock the door, and to keep the door locked while you’re doing what you came to do, and trusting them to unlock and open the door when you’ve wiped and flushed.
This is the same company that opened the door a few minutes earlier, when nobody had requested the door be opened.
Like I said, I didn’t need a toilet that day, but any time nature calls at the Burien Transit Center, you’ll find me back in the bushes, near where the honey bucket used to be.
Excerpt: The Trump administration has forced out the three remaining members of an independent, bipartisan commission that supports states in administering their elections, the White House confirmed on Thursday. The move comes as President Trump seeks to cast doubt on the outcome of the upcoming midterms and impose control over how ballots are counted.
Excerpt: Voting was already underway when the ICE agents arrived at a polling site in Syracuse, New York, during the state’s primaries in June. The agents were there to see Paigelynne Gonyea, a poll worker who says they were concerned about an Instagram post she had supposedly made in January “doxing” an ICE agent. The only post she could find was one she had made crediting the Minnesota Star Tribune for identifying Jonathan Ross, the ICE agent who shot and killed Renee Good during the federal incursion in Minneapolis this winter, and calling for his indictment.
The agents at the poll site asked Gonyea to sign a warning notice that said it was unlawful to “threaten to assault, kidnap and/or murder” federal officials or their immediate family members in an effort to impede that federal official’s work. The form also requested that she remove her post “and/or discontinue” her behavior.
“My signature would have been an admission of guilt,” Gonyea says. “I refused to sign it.”
ICE did not respond to a request for comment for this story.
The incident, which was first reported by local news outlet Syracuse.com, was unsettling in many ways, but one part stuck out to Gonyea: the warning notice said it was sent by ICE’s Office of Professional Responsibility.
“That office is supposed to be for internal investigations,” says Gonyea, “and now they’re using their own internal departments on American civilians.”
OPR is supposed to act as an internal watchdog. It’s responsible for inspecting detention facilities, investigating allegations of employee and contractor misconduct, and processing security checks for new applicants. On its site, it says it also protects against “external threats” by managing badge access to buildings and maintaining the agency’s network security. But lately, court documents indicate, it appears to be pursuing more civilians like Gonyea for what they say online.
In a court declaration filed in April, an ICE official said that between January 2025 and March 2026, OPR investigated 131 cases involving “incidents of doxing and threats directed towards ICE employees nationwide.”…
Excerpt: Consider that a highly educated political leader was told he had to let government agents interview his children, and that his children could not stay in their own home. There was no plausible evidence whatsoever of any wrongdoing. There was an anonymous tip from someone who claimed they heard from someone else (also unnamed) that years earlier Buttigieg had confessed to crimes that made him a risk to children. Any freshman police officer would know this vague, uncorroborated, double hearsay would never be enough to obtain a warrant to conduct a search or take custody of anyone. But Buttigieg, a parent with far more privileges than most, apparently believed he had no choice but to comply. He was not told his rights. He wasn’t even provided with the allegations against him.
Excerpt: I do, however, think that this might be the most revealing anecdote about just how seriously Bove takes his responsibility. Set aside, for today, the question of whether it is “appropriate” for an ostensibly independent federal judge to feel so passionately about the president who appointed him that he plasters the president’s grim visage across a little screen he carries with him everywhere he goes. Instead, think about people in your life who might be inclined to use a photo of Donald Trump in this manner. Are they normal, reasonable people whom you would describe as functioning adults with a firm grip on reality? Or are they Facebook-brained MAGA dead-enders who believe that brown people wielding counterfeit ballots conspired with Joe Biden to steal the 2020 election, and that January 6 rioters are American heroes for their efforts to stop it?
Excerpt: Marbley’s opinion also examined years of public statements by Trump and Vance, concluding they provided important context for evaluating the administration’s immigration actions.
The judge cited Trump’s previous remarks describing certain nations as “shithole countries” and his repeated claims that immigrants from some countries were “poisoning the blood” of the United States.
Based on those statements and other evidence discussed in the opinion, Marbley wrote that Trump “clearly prefers white people” over immigrants from regions including Africa, the Caribbean, South America, and parts of Asia.
Excerpt: An investigative producer for the station, Danny Monteverde, and the outlet’s attorney, Elana Beiser, were subsequently handcuffed after the courtroom was emptied and locked. The pair, along with other media who were not handcuffed, had protested deputies’ orders to leave the courthouse entirely.
Excerpt: Waymo cars have interior cameras, and the images can be monitored by the company’s employees. In “more urgent circumstances,” the support team “may access live video during a trip,” Waymo’s support page says.
Me again: Well, that’s cool — step into a driverless taxi that can lock you inside and kidnap you, at a remote employee’s discretion.
Excerpt: Mr. Bunch described in his 2019 memoir the moment he took the new president on a tour of the African American history museum in early 2017. Mr. Trump appeared uninterested in the history of slavery in the United States, Mr. Bunch wrote. As they passed an exhibit on the Dutch role in the slave trade, Mr. Trump’s only comment was, “You know, they love me in the Netherlands.”
“I was so disappointed in his response to one of the greatest crimes against humanity in history,” Mr. Bunch wrote.
Excerpt: Finland’s president and Norway’s prime minister started workshopping their text messages to Trump, talking about which words they should render in capital letters. Sometimes, the Norwegian leader preferred his Finnish counterpart to send a message. Nordic officials worried that the mere mention of Norway, home of the Nobel Peace Prize, could reopen a sore wound.
Often, the Europeans played Trump’s own terms back to him: When the president echoed Vladimir Putin’s dislike of a ceasefire in Ukraine, they started describing their peace plan, which amounted to a ceasefire, as “stop the killing.” Trump lectured top EU official Ursula von der Leyen for advocating sanctions on Russia, so she started referring to economic pressure as tariffs.
A succession of leaders visited the White House, hoping to carefully mold Trump with talking points hammered out in coordination calls, to avoid any open disagreements. Weeks into Trump’s second term, Macron visited to discuss NATO and Ukraine. The two spent hours together, and the U.S. president seemed open to his ideas. They used a tablet to dial into a video call led by Justin Trudeau. But as the Canadian prime minister was talking, Trump, frustrated with a technical issue that prevented him from chiming in, lobbed the device over the Resolute Desk and onto the floor, an official present said.
Excerpt: Tuesday’s judgment made Le Pen ineligible to hold public office for 45 months rather than 60, with 30 suspended. As the ban has been running since last year’s ruling, the required 15-month ban has already been served.
The appeal court said that although it had confirmed Le Pen’s guilt, it had also taken into account “the voter’s freedom of choice, a prerequisite for the expression of democratic suffrage.”
Me again: Is France stupid enough to do what America’s done?
Excerpt: USDA data released on July 2 included record sales of 38,434 metric tons to Chile and 32,274 metric tons to Italy, neither traditionally a major market for U.S. beef. On Thursday, USDA revised those sales to 367 tons to Chile and 350 tons to Italy. The agency also revised sales downward to 14 other countries.
Excerpt: Wilson is a self-described Christian nationalist. He’s called for repealing a woman’s right to vote. He’s defended slavery. He believes homosexuality should be a crime. Wilson also wants the U.S. to become a Christian theocracy, even though the Constitution prohibits the government from establishing a national religion. Those beliefs are extreme, and a few years ago, they were fringe. But today, Wilson’s teachings are entering the mainstream according to religion scholars. The most prominent member of his church network is the defense secretary, Pete Hegseth. That is why I recently sat down with Doug Wilson at his main church in Moscow, Idaho, where I started by asking him about that relationship…
Even an ordinary jail under ordinary conditions is a horrible place for health care — your daily meds have probably been confiscated, in smaller jails there’s literally no medical care unless a guard dials 9-1-1, and in larger jails healthcare is contracted out to the county’s least competent doctors and nurses. ICE jails are even worse.
ICE has made this claim in several ICE shootings — it’s like a boiler template, or AI — and it always turns out to be bullshit. And here we go, like clockwork, two days later:
Excerpt: On Friday, the three men with Mr. Araujo said through a lawyer that he had not used his vehicle as a weapon or tried to run over the immigration officers. The men were arrested and provided their version of events to the lawyer, Hugo Balderas-Ibarra, who visited them in immigration detention.
This article has been written and published a dozen times before, never true. It be more cost-effective for the New York Times to re-run one of the earlier articles, instead of writing and publishing new ones all the time…
Excerpt: While it may seem as though Michigan is the epicenter of US Cyclospora activity, true case counts are unknown. As of July 1, 2025, FoodNet, the main foodborne illness surveillance arm of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), made tracking Cyclospora optional.
Excerpt: Harris gave the teen verbal commands at gunpoint and Eccles complied, according to GBI. The teen was lying on his stomach as Harris attempted to take him into custody, with the officer holding a firearm in one hand at the teen’s back and handcuffs in the other, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.
“During the process of attempting to handcuff Eccles, Harris accidentally fired his firearm,” the affidavit stated. “This accidental discharge resulted in the injury and death of Eccles.”
Me again: If you’re using one hand to handcuff a guy who’s complying & lying on his belly, and in your other hand you’re holding a loaded, cocked pistol to his back, and — boom — your gun goes off, would you call that “accidental”?
Excerpt: Wrongful convictions have long been the most expensive kind of police misconduct in Chicago, costing taxpayers $131.5 million in the first six months of 2026, according to an analysis of city data by WTTW News.
Excerpt: We associate bohemianism with artists and upper-class women — largely because they were celebrated for it — but those women had the resources to live their bohemian lives in safer, private spaces; poor people dragged from around the city to the Women’s Court had to live their rebellions in public.
Excerpt: “No, I haven’t any complaints,’ the prisoner replied. “Of course, there are two things that trouble us: we don’t know how long we will be kept here and we are separated from our families. But the food and treatment are as good as can be expected and I have no complaints.”
Excerpt: The land grab is almost certain to be legally contested. Unlike when the base’s restricted zone was expanded in 1995 to encompass the then closest view points, known as Freedom Ridge and White Sides, any closure at Tikaboo Peak would not be contiguous with Area 51’s boundaries. Instead, it would form an island of restricted space many miles from any other.
With Tikaboo Peak inaccessible, the closest known point to gain a full view of the base is now at Reveille Peak, which, at 45 miles from the base, adds another 19 miles of distance between the facility and the public’s eyes.
Nothing will meaningfully improve until billionaires fear for their lives.
7/12/2026
News always and only from reliable sources, and I decide what’s reliable — no right-wing bullshit, no Substack because fuck Nazis, no RawStory, Newsweek, or other clickbait sites, and no Glenn Greenwald, Ezra Klein, Matt Taibbi, Matthew Yglesias, or other famous writers with nothing left to say. Written news is preferred; video links will be rare, and damned near never to videos where the reporter sits, stands, or strolls in front of a camera — that’s show biz, not news.
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Special thanks to Linden Arden, Becky Jo, Joey Jo Jo & John the Basketemeritus, the aforementioned Mr Meyer, Dave S, Name Withheld, and always extra special thanks to my lovely late Stephanie, who gave me 21 years and proved that the world isn’t always shitty.
