This is what the kids are wearing, apparently.
This is what the kids are wearing, apparently. Official OK BOOMER sweatshirt created by @toasterpancakes on tiktok

The spookiest news you'll read all week: High tides are coming. A new paper published today calculates "some 150 million people are now living on land that will be below the high-tide line by midcentury," reports the New York Times. Southern Vietnam is at risk of disappearing. Water could "consume" the heart of Shanghai. "Much of Mumbai... is at risk of being wiped out." It's bleak.

Fourth time's a charm for Boris: On his fourth bid, the UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson has won a vote that will create a snap general election on December 12. "The pre-Christmas vote will be the first December poll since 1923," writes the Guardian. This is huge news, a vote that could potentially provide clarity to the ongoing mindfuck that is Brexit. (It probably won't, though.) It's hard to predict how the vote will go, as one-third of British voters are estimated to have switched parties in the last two elections.

Meanwhile, in America: *pat pat*

And in Idaho: A couple dressed as Native Americans made loud "Indian war cries" in the middle of a Sheri's restaurant. They were asked to leave.

Rep. Jayapal gives some insight into the impeachment inquiry: An Axios reporter tweeted that Jayapal "imagines" the House will bring some impeachment inquiry witnesses who have already testified to testify again publicly, and that the transcripts of their private testimonies will be made public.


Tableau employees protested their employer in Gas Works Park today: The Tableau Employee Ethics Alliance rallied today to encourage the company to "publicly cease its policy of complicity towards the systematic human rights abuses being carried out by Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE)." GeekWire has more here.

We might hit record lows in the Puget Sound region over the next couple of days: It's been cold. Real cold. I wish it would snow.

New poll shows Sanders and Warren leading in New Hampshire: Sanders is at 21% and Warren at 18%. Biden is all the way back at 15%, with Buttigieg at 10%. Would Buttigieg be leading if Biden wasn't taking up all that moderate air?

It's "the End of Friendly Generational Relations," writes the New York Times: What finally eroded longtime "friendly" relationships between the generations? Not the Gen X Doom Generation. Not the Millennial Occupy movement. No, it was this hoodie, apparently.


"OK BOOMER" has "become Generation Z’s endlessly repeated retort" after this TikTok video, below, which seems to originate the phrase. It then became a TikTok trend. (Read this if you need a TikTok primer.) Now it's a sweatshirt that I want to own. I suspect the New York Times's discovery means we're about ~two days away from Baby Boomers coopting the trend.

Boeing's CEO Dennis Muilenburg had his first day of D.C. hearings: As Seattle Times's Dominic Gates writes, "His appearance at least clarified how the company accepts only limited accountability for what happened." Senators weren't particularly satisfied. One senator described the Max aircraft as “flying coffins,” while another senator said, “I would walk before I would get on a 737 MAX … I see corners being cut.”

Right-wing commentators tried their hardest to discredit today's impeachment inquiry testimony from Lt. Col. Alexander S. Vindman: A Fox News pundit suggested Vindman committed "espionage" against the US. More, from the New York Times:

Colonel Vindman, who received a Purple Heart after he was wounded in Iraq, is a Ukrainian-American immigrant who was 3 years old when his family fled to the United States. On her Fox News program on Monday, the conservative host Laura Ingraham sought to turn his ethnic background against him, noting that Ukrainian officials had recently sought the colonel’s advice about interacting with Mr. Trump’s personal lawyer, Rudolph W. Giuliani.

“Here we have a U.S. national security official who is advising Ukraine while working inside the White House, apparently against the president’s interest,” Ms. Ingraham said. “Isn’t that kind of an interesting angle on this story?”

Conversely, Mitch McConnell produced a Headline of the Day: "Mitch McConnell's extraordinary efforts to say nothing at all"

I'm bringing Cinderblock back: Since she was so popular with commenters last Friday.