In today's Headlines, a man was caught frothing his latte, two police officers lost rank over a cartoon, and King County Council took a long time to do the thing they said they would do. more ›

Seattle area websites and the sys admins who tend to them are trembling in fear today after the horrific retrubution for the Mohammad Cartoons was paid upon our collective heads over the weekend. Riots, arson, killings, silly pictures drawn of our idols? No, worse! Hacktivism! A local motor scooter club for women had their site defaced with "If insulting a Messenger of Allah ( God ) is a Freedom of Speech !!!? & it Creates Hating Then, I'll Show you my Freedom Of H4x0ring in Your Servers !!!" and similar. more ›

Federal judge Richard Posner defends President Bush's extra-legal (meaning, surprisingly, not legal at all) spying program thusly:

The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act makes it difficult to conduct surveillance of U.S. citizens and lawful permanent residents unless they are suspected of being involved in terrorist or other hostile activities. That is too restrictive. Innocent people, such as unwitting neighbors of terrorists, may, without knowing it, have valuable counterterrorist information.

Now that Independence Day weekend has come and gone, Seattlest has gotten all that nasty "freedom" and "liberty" and "love for one's country" out of our system---so it's back to cynicism as usual. With that in mind, it's the perfect time to hit up Elliott Bay Book Company for the reading/signing tonight by politically-minded cartoonist Ward Sutton. Ward lived in Seattle from '91 to '95, when he illustrated posters for local bands (of the grunge variety, no doubt). He's back in town this evening promoting his new book o' comics entitled Sutton Impact: The Political Cartoons of Ward Sutton. This is his first-ever collection, culled from his weekly strip in the Village Voice, as well as works created for the New York Times, The Nation, Mother Jones, The New Republic, TV Guide, and other hippie commie pinko rags. In fact, his book features the following warning:

The Attorney General has found that reading Sutton Impact may be hazardous to your unquestioning devotion to the Bush administration, the Religious Right, and the Media Industrial Complex.