While the country was busy blindly voting for whoever they fancied, Seattle Weekly writer Don Ward was hard at work being a true patriot and writing an important blog post for the Weekly. We only wish he'd opened our eyes sooner before we so ignorantly cast our ballot. more ›

We’re only going to be in our twenties for the next three weeks, so lately we’ve been trying to feel younger--and there is no better place to accomplish this than at a local district Democrat meeting. Once again we were one of the youngest people in the room. We love you sweet, sweet democracy. more ›

Last year, we had the joy of walking around town before the precarious date of 6/6/06 and seeing images of nuclear holocaust strung across every light poll in town (meaning on Capitol Hill). This year, we get the pleasure of anticipating our big 3-0 on a far more auspicious date: 7/7/07. more ›

Holy smokes! Giant fish on the MTA, Paris Hilton in jail, then out, then in again, Al Gore, goatses, blumpkins, Matt Damon, and baby art critics! It's been a busy week across the Ist-A-Verse, and here's a smattering of what's been going on. more ›

I love Al Gore and I was really looking forward to seeing him talk at Town Hall on Monday night, but I was under no illusions that I would get to see him announce that he was running for President. I fell for that one before. When Barack Obama came through town on a book tour I got in a blood-boiling, fist-pumping frenzy for some kind of announcement, but what I got was a tepid book tour speech that was more brains than brawn. Same thing Monday night, except this time I knew what I was getting into. Besides, no politician (or “recovering politician” as Gore referred to himself) is going to make a major announcement in the latte-sippin’, Volvo-drivin’, tree-humpin’ Pacific Northwest. Sorry, Seattle. more ›

Al Gore’s fiercely-argued new book, The Assault on Reason, is an indictment of current policy making -- especially the President’s use of power and his handling of the war. But in Gore’s view, the real problems lie deeper. Gore argues that the marketplace of reasoned debate on which our country was founded is being endangered by a variety of things: the use of fear and the misuse of faith, the distractions of our entertainment culture, and the concentration of power in the national media and the executive branch.

BOOK CRUSH: Librarian Nancy Pearl´s latest book is Book Crush, a guide to books you loved when you were growing up. How does she know? Head over to the launch party and find out. more ›

The Daily Show appearance of the guy who staged a semi-successful one-man Holy War against An Inconvenient Truth in Federal Way has already been posted elsewhere, but we can't help reposting. He's really a funny guy--his Church Lady and his Al Gore impressions are hilarious and it seems like hanging out with him would be like spending some high energy time with Robin Williams, if Robin Williams were a religious nut who believed that any day now god is going to piss wrath all over the sun and rapture us all (well, not us, obviously, but like Kirk Cameron and those guys) up to heaven. Props to the Daily Show for letting this guy do his bits for awhile before hitting us with the brimstone. more ›

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They can handle uncertainty--it is a professional requirement, in fact--but they tend to avoid speaking about their research unless they are very certain about something. (At least the good ones do.) Increasingly so, the precision and certainty of science are being put on trial on a public scale never before experienced. And to a degree, the admirable tendency of scientists to demand certainty is in conflict with our need as the public to potentially act on less inviolable evidence. more ›

SEATTLE ARTS & LECTURES: Art Spiegelman's 1992 Holocaust tale Maus (based on a true story) won the first Pulitzer Prize awarded to a comic book. Its success paved the way for the graphic novels thriving today and led to Spiegelman's ten years on the staff of the New Yorker. In the Shadow of No Towers (2004) gathers his recent broadsheets of disenchantment with the war on terror. more ›

Austinist gets arty with an interactive guide to SXSW, loved some local art galleries and a new art exhibit and lamented the possible loss of "Friday Night Lights" production to New Mexico. more ›

MUSIC: Tim O'Brien, Jerry Douglas, Chris Thile & How to Grow a Band, Darrel Scott Band, Doyle Lawson and Quicksilver, Uncle Earl, and many more at Wintergrass. Wintergrass is one of the biggest bluegrass festivals in the country, and this is one of the best line-ups they've had in some time. It's worth it to go see all the bands, or just to hang out in the lobby and jam out all weekend for free. more ›

Federal Way got all the press, but more than one school in Washington can ban An Inconvenient Truth. Yakima was in on it too. The Associated Press is reporting that a panel of teachers, parents, administrators and right-thinking people have decided that the film can be shown to a Yakima school's Environmental Club. Environmental Club? At least in Federal Way it was a science class. The Environmental Club? What kind of environmental club worth it's charter hasn't already screened Inconvenient Truth. The kind in Yakima is apparently the answer. more ›

At the Elizabeth Kolbert talk last December, UW professor Stephen Gardiner echoed Al Gore and Jimmy Carter's sentiment that the looming crisis posed by global warming is a moral predicament more than a political, religious, or scientific one (albeit, it is all of those other things as well, just not as urgently so). Today we read about a joint coalition formed by both evangelical and scientific types aimed at convincing the current administration and congress (and other evangelical and science types) to work together. Legendary biologist and self-proclaimed "scientific humanist," E. O. Wilson was, not surprisingly, one of the signers. We hope more religious leaders step forward (they're supposed to care a smidge about morals, right?), and that scientists don't shy away from working with them to move from arguing to action. more ›

--Seattle Song scales Mt. Si for the scenery. more ›

Of course, if your name was Frosty, wouldn't you want to pretend that global warming doesn't exist, too? more ›

We watched the CNN special tonight that went behind the scenes at Time magazine and documented the process by which they choose their annual "Person of the Year" award. Those who love to rail against the MSM will be pleased if not flattered by their decision, and no doubt many bloggers and other contributors of "user-generated content" (which should get awarded "Most Overused, Awful Buzz Word of the Year") will rejoice. Many will say it is 2.0 navel-gazing at its worst. more ›

There's a great opportunity to participate in a hack of Amazon.com today that won't net you a big list of credit card numbers or any free books or anything, but it will let you feel like you put one over on a local giant while at the same time helped a local website save the planet. And who would pass that up? The WorldChanging book which we've been mentioning lately (here and here) is for sale at Amazon and doing well, but WorldChanging.com and their book's publishers don't really have the capacity to do the huge marketing push that is necessary today to get a book in front of a whole lot of people. In lieu of millions of dollars of PR they've designed a situation that should get WorldChanging: A User's Guide for the 21st Century way up on the Amazon bestseller's list. That list is more or less real time as it takes into consideration only sales over the last twenty four hour period, so if a whole lot of people buy a book at the same time that book is likely to be an Amazon bestseller, if only for a day. A day is enough, though, to get a whole lot of notice. People pay attention to what happens on Amazon. more ›

Locally-based techno-environmentalists WorldChanging.com are hyping their book on Saturday at Town Hall and badass science fiction author and green futurist Bruce Sterling will be there to talk about it with WorldChanging editor Alex Steffen - Bruce wrote one of the book's introductions and recently sent this to one of his email lists: more ›

-If you thought high demand is responsible for high housing prices, Seattle Bubble asks you to think again. more ›

We had trouble figuring out exactly what Ballard is doing to convince the world it's so green and environmentally huggable, but whatever it is, it's working. Al Gore has apparently even jumped on the alternative fueled bandwagon and started heralding Ballard's credentials. Check him out in this NYU speech: more ›

Went to this NetGreen thing today at Bergen Park in Ballard. Took the bus, even. Dozen or so "electeds" on hand (city, county, federal) with their attendant staffers. Lots of bikes. An electric Xebra Zapcar. Lots of self-congratulatory speeches. more ›

Oh Al Gore you're so darn funny. You're just ridiculous. You and your "global warming" and the idea that there's someone responsible for it...How do you come up with this stuff? Everybody, look at Al Gore and his little army of penguins and pay no attention to the fact that our laughter is just a little too forceful to not have originated from a place of fear. more ›

Earlier this month, the National Parks Conservation Association celebrated the 100th anniversary of the founding of our country's National Park system. Perhaps trying to steal a little limelight from Al Gore, President Bush managed to avoid his father's inactivity in this arena by using the 1906 Antiquities Act to establish a national monument in New York (an African Burial Ground) and creating the world's largest protected marine area off Hawaii's coast. (His pop joins the illustrious ranks of Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan as the only 3 presidents not to do anything with the national parks act while they were in office. But even their public approval ratings never dipped quite as low as W's.) more ›

-That weird storm earlier caused eighteen thousand cars to crash into each other on I-5 near the Thorn Lane exit. more ›

Shanghaiist probably knows a little more about China than the Chicago Sun-Times. Giving them the benefit of the doubt on that one. The city does to have a music scene. Don't even front like they don't. They also have Dorito bananas and white guys shopping for wives. What they don't have is any more tolerance for jaywalkers. more ›

Seattlest got invited to the screening of the new Al Gore flick, An Inconvenient Truth, at Pacific Place last night. (It opens Friday, June 2 in Seattle.) For an Al Gore flick, Mayor Greg Nickels and King County Executive Ron Sims show up. (And they pretend to make nice, because columnist Brodeur scolded them about not playing well together.) Then after the film, Chris Gregoire comes out and introduces surprise guest Al Gore and the crowd goes wild. Especially when she says how a few years ago at a rally, she had the privilege of introducing Gore as the next president, "-- and I was right!" more ›

There were a bunch of events in Seattle last week that revolved around climate change that may not have reveresed the affects of global warming all on their lonesome, but were definitely the kind of thing we'd like to see more of. Most of it revolved around the mayor's report on climate change that he presented along with the greenest presidential never-was kicking around, Al Gore. Officially it's the "Mayor's Green Ribbon Commission on Climate Protection" and it's here on the web. more ›