The most senior (and it's said most powerful) Republican in the U.S. Senate, Ted Stevens was indicted by a federal grand jury for not mentioning the $250,000 in labor and materials he received from a construction company. Veco Corp. actually lifted Stevens' house in the air while a new first floor was built, and no money changed hands. They also threw in a Viking grill. If you have had any remodeling done lately, you know......

(This fall we are combining our love of the football and our dream of learning to cook. On Sunday morning, following a trip to a local farmer’s market/major supermarket chain, we will be preparing a meal from the city of the Seahawks opponent. Then at halftime we will throw our badly burned hands in the air and make hot dogs.) Chicago and Seattle could not be more different from each other. Chicago is flat; we......

Starbucks, give 'em credit, is able to do more than one thing at a time. Mark of maturity, that. The papers are full of its plans to expand into every corner of the globe; this week it's Russia. On the domestic front, meantime, they're promoting a slogan to follow up on last year's "Geography is a Flavor." The new catchphrase: "Coffee is Culinary." Half a step back to the very American notion, articulated by New......

The food news may seem depressing, but there's hope. Bear with us. In 1651, Thomas Hobbes, not known for his optimism, wrote that the life of man was doomed to be nasty, brutish, and short. Couple hundred years later, the even less-cheery Thomas Malthus predicted that the Industrial Revolution would cause worldwide famine. Yet humans survive, even prosper. Oh, sure, we waste resources fighting one another. Granted, too, that political systems everywhere seem to encourage......

Last night at the Showbox, we were reminded of something Gino Srdjan Yevdjevic said in an interview with us last year: we don't remember the quote entirely, but it was something to the effect of characterizing "world music" as "shit." Not the music or the musicians, per se, but rather the genre, a peculiarly American way of pigeon-holing and marketing foreign music. Gino understood the process only too well: back in the 1980s, he......

Memorial Day weekend is finally behind us, so it's time to settle into SIFF. Yes, it's absolutely lovely outside, but Seattleites can only handle so much sun. Get away from all that UVA/UVB exposure and spend your time in the theaters' comfortable darkness. This week brings the opening of SIFF on the Eastside, starting Thursday at the Lincoln Square Cinemas in Bellevue. And tomorrow night, Anthony Hopkins is in town to pick up his......

Somehow, the world of -ists managed to make it through the week despite news that Jen & Vince broke up. -Chicagoist had fall on their mind as they made squash and fudge, read "House of Leaves" and ">tried to figure out what's next for the Cubs. Not fall related, but still of utmost concern, the whole skinny black pants thing. -Torontoist fought off an evil scourge of raccoons and went to go see who would......

Occidental Square has always been kind of awesome and uniquely Seattle, to this writer at least. It's walled in yet open, yet cluttered, yet ordered. There's a distinctive sense of wood, but the predominant building material is stone or brick. There are no people, but there are trees! Have you ever been to a square in Europe? They're great in their own quaint little way, but they're somewhat of a celebration of treelessness. "Hell yeah......

The Seattle Town Hall is officially On Notice, for having the Elizabeth Kolbert Science Series lecture in the basement. Far too many people were interested in her lecture based on her climate change writing--we were third in line when they locked the doors and turned us away, and the line was still snaking around the corner. They're not quite Dead to Me, because Seattle Channel is filming Kolbert's talk, and will broadcast it online sometime......

DCist helps us make more sense of the world this week. Posts like this concert review are the reason for Scott Stapp. DCist also enumerates the reasons for playing ultimate frisbee, Condi’s tight buns, their love of a local convenience store, and their jealousy of a person in Seattle calling the city. LAist documented graf artist Banksy’s most recent visit to LA in one two three posts. They also found the best possible use......