At around 3 pm our time on Monday, one of the most powerful earthquakes on record hit the Kamchatka Peninsula, a remote region of Russia that has a population of 290,000. The people there surely felt it, but no one, according to recent reports, was killed or seriously injured. The world-historical seismic event triggered tsunami warnings in Hawaii, French Polynesia, Japan, Peru, and Chile. It seems our planet's largest ocean was sloshing about like bathtub water bothered by a soap-lathering bather. This morning, however, almost all tsunami warnings have been downgraded, and the shores of our region of America—California, Oregon, Washington—only experienced waves that were more curious than destructive. Now, let's get back to the Epstein files.
No, let's talk about the weather instead. The experts predict that today will be as hot as yesterday, reaching a very uncomfortable 81. But starting tomorrow, things will start to get cooler and cooler. Indeed, next week will open with temperatures in the low 70s. The chance of rain, however, will remain depressingly low. Sorry trees, sorry grass, sorry to all of the life forms that use sunlight and water to produce out of thin air the most original food in the world.
Columbia Funeral Home and Crematory, which has been around forever (since 1907), was damaged to a considerable degree by a fire that the Seattle Fire Department confronted at 4 am this morning and extinguished an hour and half later. The funeral home, which is famous for displaying glowing Nativity ornaments on its lawn during the holiday season, had planned to send one of the city's souls to the other side of eternity this Friday. That's not going to happen. Though SFD claimed "no one [was] in the building when the fire broke out," it's uncertain if it categorized a dead person as "no one." Nevertheless, investigators believe that arson is at the bottom of this bad business.
The Pacific Science Center's huge mechanical dinosaurs will lose their jobs after Labor Day. For four decades, these "animatronic beasts" did their damndest to please young and old visitors. And all for what? To get the boot. Their bosses had this to say about them: “They’ve far exceeded expectations thanks to the tireless, heroic efforts of our Pacific Science Center staff.” Where do they go from here? No one wants to say. But they will be replaced by an exhibit devoted to spiders.
Who cares that Finland's geese turn the food they consume into waste? What is the story here, Seattle Times? Someone or another had this to say about Helsinki's public beaches: “[They are covered by] a shocking amount of [goose] poop.” But visit the park—Creekside Park—next to Vancouver BC's palatial Pacific Central Station, and you will also a "shocking amount of [goose] poop." Do I have to say it? Yes, I must. Shit happens.
And what's this? A 15-year-old boy from a drive-past town in southwest Washington, Chehalis, wants to become, when he is old enough, the governor of a state whose GNP is approaching $1 trillion and, as a consequence, has the 4th-highest GDP per capita in the nation. The boy is a Republican. He wants to give lots of money to cops. He also thinks taxes are very bad, and so on and so on. But will someone in Chehalis tell this boy that Washington State is already on the A-list when it comes to capitalism. We, a blue state (surprise!), slam dunk that shit like Sasquatch launched from a trampoline. In short, we couldn't do the big business of accumulating capital any better. You, my boy, live at the end of the world, when it comes down to private enterprise. Now, go back to school, put on the cap with the propeller, and try to think of something that our state doesn't do so well. Something we are truly lousy at.
Will someone also tell the boy in Chehalis that climate change is really something that should be on his mind? The world is already getting hotter by the day; and it's going to be even hotter in 2028, the year he plans to run for the highest office in this state.
Smoke from the Bear Gulch Fire in the Olympic National Park has finally reached the Puget Sound. The fire, which was first reported two days after Independence Day, and, presently, is only 10 percent contained, has already burnt more than 1000 acres to a crisp.
Now that FEMA is being dismantled, we are required to learn from "extreme weather survivors" the best way to deal with a disaster on your own.
Please forward this message to the people of islands in the Pacific, Bangladesh and Somalia.
— Eigen Vuur (@eigenvuur.bsky.social) July 30, 2025 at 6:32 AM
The present aggressive and unrelenting restructuring of American society uses old tools to build something that's unprecedented: subjects who are adapted to accelerating value formation and concentration in a world whose climate has changed dramatically. The destruction of FEMA, basic weather monitoring, NASA's climate science has its logic in the formation of a population that will be spiritually (which is the same as physically) powerless upon the full arrival of a geological era that will demand, if an approximation of a morally adequate response is to be achieved, greater social cooperation and, as a consequence, the deceleration, if not entire replacement, of the dream of endless economic growth. ICE, concentration camps, the brazen shredding of basic civil rights—clearly, we are being conditioned for the continuation of surplus value accumulation in the ecological aftermath.
This is bizarre indeed. But the Department of the Treasury is accepting donations via Venmo to help reduce the US’ $36 trillion debt. Do not do this. It’s the dumbest thing ever proposed in the history of American finance. And not because your pennies will not make a dent on this debt; it’s dumb because the US keeps cutting taxes on the rich and the corporations they own. This Venmo thing is nothing but a performance to make the greatest tools among us feel patriotic. What’s next? A GoFundMe for the US government? For real, a fool and their money soon part.
Let's end this gloomy Slog AM with "Lo Siento BB:/," a melancholy track by Tainy, Bad Bunny, and Julieta Venegas:
