Danny Westneat has 50 percent of a good column in the Seattle Times about adapting our hyperconsumptive ways to something we can all live with. But he tries to hang it on the "hypermiler" hook, a buzzword which "means going to extremes—in changing your habits as well as your technology—so you can max out your gas mileage." Going to extremes is what's got us in the mess we're in. What we want is incremental shifts......

Photo by FrayLo Sunday, the Times' Danny Westneat had the story of 91-year-old Rose Walter, who was ejected from Von's Cafe on Pike in December because she didn't have her ID. Rose manages an apartment building on Lower Queen Anne--the very apartment building, in fact, that our sister lived in until last summer. She (Rose) is just about the sweetest lady you can imagine, and we provide this anecdote as evidence: Our sister owns a......

So Danny Westneat is musing on the future of email, on the occasion of the announcement that spam volume has doubled this year, to 120 billion emails per day. Remember the Spam King, he asks? Remember the drop in spam we were promised? Well, it's been more of spike. At our work email, our spam folders fill up solely with ED medication and upscale watch pitches. The narrow range of products is puzzling, but the......

If you were here right now, you'd see us looking around suspiciously like we don't quite trust we're awake because we just read Knute Berger's latest deep thought over at Crosscut and we...agree with him.While promoting green consumption might be politically more palatable than getting people to change their habits and expectations, promoting consumption still offers an answer that doesn't solve the bigger problem. Global warming's hawks have to be honest with us: Fighting the......

Rich vs. Poor, Renters vs. Homeowners, developers vs. locals, Kenny G. vs. Afropop: this blog from High Point has got every one of Seattle's little conflicts all crammed into one tiny teacup. High Point in West Seattle was redeveloped recently to include some moderately priced homes along with a bunch of rent-control-type lower-income housing. We all get along when we live on the same street, right? Well, not quite, of course. Danny Westneat gave......

The advisory vote on the Viaduct is in and a crushing defeat has been issued to the “No and Hell No” campaign by write-in candidate “Hell No and No.” With strong turnouts in West Seattle, Magnolia and Capitol Hill, voters voiced their opinion on the mayor’s tunnel: as of 11:30pm, 69.88% responded in the negative to a tunnel-surface hybrid--a dramatic “Hell No” in our book. And voters rejected the elevated structure alternative with a less......

--Seattle is under assault by marketing terrorists representing the Aqua Teen Hunger Force. We haven't seen any of these suspicious devices for ourselves, but we have a tip that there's one at 2nd and Stewart "except it wasn't the lit-up version -- just a huge poster/banner thing." Please can we not freak out and evacuate the city like Boston? --This is the reason it's ok to be scared and cross the street when you......

We at Seattlest have considered the question of "What is Bellevue" before. What we didn't consider is what the Times' Danny Westneat does today. Is Bellevue a "New Brooklyn"? Westneat's riffing off of a new book called Boomburbs: The Rise of America's Accidental Cities. The book's author, Robert Lang, "argues that our quintessential whitebread suburb is now so packed with immigrants it actually looks more like New York's famed borough." ...He doesn't mean Bellevue feels......

--A Seattle-area business-type is set to compete on The Apprentice this year. It's James Sun, CEO of a "mature alternative to social networking sites such as Facebook.com and MySpace.com" called Zoodango.com. Uh, "Zoodango" doesn't strike us as particularly mature... You're fired. --You are indeed beautiful, cafeteria visitor. You are beautiful. --"And if a Congressman wants to take his oath on a stack of Hustlers, I could care less." --Don't think you can badmouth Pitchfork......

We've been hoping for weeks to publish what Danny Westneat did today--an open letter to everyone who says Seattle's schools are shitty. You've all made your point that Seattle schools stink. But before we subject ourselves to any more of this Seattle self-flagellation, please first indulge me a little quiz. Among our state's 10 largest cities, where do you suppose Seattle ranks for academic achievement? Westneat then supplies statistics indicating that Seattle schools are......

Every time someone comes to visit Seattlest from our pre-Emerald City life there's a moment when the two of us arrive at a crosswalk and Seattlest pulls up in strict abeyance of law and social conditioning and our friend charges through the light, only to recognize sometime halfway down the next block that we're still waiting for the white walking guy signal. When we catch up we explain the situation: Pedestrians obey the traffic......

The Seattle P-I confirmed what SonicsCentral reported yesterday: The Sonics' new owners were looking at possible arena sites in Bellevue yesterday--specifically the old Safeway distribution center east of 405, which has been mentioned before in connection with a new arena. Bellevue developer Kemper Freeman, Jr., who the P-I describes as "Bellevue's biggest booster for moving the Sonics to the Eastside," says he spoke with Sonics President Wally Walker and the new owners, and says......

-Danny Westneat commits a felony in today's Seattle Times by talking about online gambling sites. PoP comments. -The awesome Orcinus blog announced a summertime shift away from right-wing militias and towards environmental issues. And whales. -Amazon.com thinks that it can succeed where others have failed and has begun hawking groceries online. -This chick went to the Anderson Cooper book signing wearing an "Anderson Cooper gives me a boner" tee shirt. -Joel Pinero may have......

One sentence into the lead editorial of today's Seattle Times, we decided to cancel our subscription. Here's the assertion that broke this camel's back: In the aftermath of a mass shooting that took the lives of six Seattle area young people, including two girls ages 14 and 15, there is plenty of finger-wagging. Actually, Seattle Times, there isn't any finger-wagging anywhere except on your editorial page. The P-I, the Stranger, the Weekly, Seattlest, and pretty......

Last year, while Dino Rossi and Christine Gregoire spelunked for votes among felons, troops on leave, and the deceased in their closely-contested gubernatorial race, some saw it as evidence that this state's electorate is divided right down the middle...irreconcilably broken between pinko commie lefty and fascist pig righty. Apparently, we've reunited. State-, county-, and city-wide, the electorate seemed pretty sure of itself about most issues on this year's ballot, including: Whether we want to, occasionally,......