Results tagged “discovery”

BOOKS: Dave "Mr. McSweeney's" Eggers' latest is titled What is the What: The Autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng. Mr. Deng himself--a survivor of the Darfur shitstorm--discusses his life tonight. Bring tissue.

Oh, the Discovery Institute minions must be wriggling with glee over this one. Apparently bowing to pressure from the Bush administration, Grand Canyon rangers are no longer allowed to tell park visitors how old our most famous chasm is. In order to avoid "offending religious fundamentalists" who seem to think that Noah might have parked his ark there. Seriously, could there be a better time to easily ignore that man, when everything that comes out of his mouth has a 99% chance of being dead wrong? Dear National Park Service: grow a pair, pronto.

Seattlest went undercover last night, attending a book launch party for The Politically Incorrect Guide to Darwinism and Intelligent Design by Dr. Jonathan Wells, senior fellow of the Discovery Institute. The party was held in the Rainier Square Atrium and was open to the public - when a press release announcing the event popped up on our Technorati watchlist for "book signing Seattle" last month we put it immediately on our calendar.

Seattlest lives a neighborhood over from the University of Washington, and in our day to day lives we're kind of ambivalent about that fact, but every now and then we really think about it and we're happy to be in close proximity to such a large and distinguished house of knowledge. They teach stuff there, and more than that, they learn stuff. Science, language, the arts, and the inexorable forward motion of the human condition happening just a few streets over, 24/7!

Tuesday 8th

Fans are a bitch sometimes. If you ever watch any of the Tour stages, you'll likely marvel at a) how close they let the fans get to riders, even in the final kilometers (where at least they're behind barricades) and b) how insane Tour fans are in Europe. On the mountain climbing sections, you'll inevitably see these crazy guys running next to and even in front of the riders. And yesterday, the yellow-jersey wearing Norwegian leader Thor Hushovd, was struck by a promotional "hand" being waved by a fan (either plastic or cardboard, we're still not sure) and severely cut. We don't think we've ever seen this much blood on the tour before. Ew.

Mark Bowden, author of the best-seller . Bowden has been touring for months, but he is still enthusiastic about this story, leaning eagerly forward onto his hands as he spoke.

Transportation nerds, civics geeks and mayor's office moles will all likely be in attendance tonight for the People's Waterfront Coalition's event at Town Hall with John Norquist (former mayor of Milwaukee, New Urbanist type), Scott Bernstein (Brookings Institute Center for Urban and Metropolitan Policy), Anne Vernez Moudon (UW professor of Architecture, Landscape Architecture, and Urban Design and Planning), Bruce Agnew (Cascadia Center, Discovery Institute) and David Brewster (founded Town Hall, founded Seattle Weekly). That's a lot of expertise in one room, even for Town Hall. They're going to talk about the impact of replacing elevated highways with grade-level streets in presentation and discussion formats.

We wanted to attend the Town Hall evolution vs Jesus Freaks debate last night. It was on our calendar and we had all our stuff layed out. Pen, notebook, pillowcase full of doorknobs... That's the wrong attitude, though. You can't beat science into someone's head, it turns out. Someone emailed us with the right attitude today, though, and we'd like to share it with you. Thanks for the email Samantha.

There are some amazing, talented scientific minds at work here in Seattle. Sadly, barring some recent high-profile exceptions, they don't get much media time. Instead, who do the press turn to when pimping a story about "mysterious sonic boom sounds" with a seemingly scientific slant? Local Seattle UFO experts. Thanks San Diego Union Tribune, we'll put that on our mantle right next to all the press about the Discovery Institute.

You're watching this show "The Deadliest Catch" on Discovery right? If you're not the second season is just starting and typical of modern day television they show every episode eight hundred million times over and over again so you'll have no troubles catching up with the fleet. The show follows a handful of crab fishing vessels up in Alaska through their season with a bunch of cool videography and a ridiculous narrator ("DEATH IS ALWAYS PRESENT AT SEA" and that kind of thing). It's awesome.

We mentioned briefly yesterday that Seattle was on the list of potential sites for the 2008 Republican National Convention and that we have been itching for someone to shout at for a while now. If their convention came to be here in 2008 would it be a WTO type of mess of democracy or would protesters be contained in their pens and ignored by the TV? There's no way of knowing. Still, you have to wonder why exactly the GOP would even consider a liberal outpost like Seattle (or Portland, also on the list, for that matter) believes itself to be. We're within driving distance from the border and Eugene, Oregon. Shouldn't that exclude us from consideration? What are the criteria?

Roger Downey and his merry band of straight-faced reporter types who just happen to write for an alternative weekly newspaper printed everything you never wanted to know about the Discovery Institute in today's paper. We say "everything you never wanted to know" because, really, who cares about Intelligent Design and the Discovery Institute? Isn't that something that Pennsylvania and Arkansas and Conservative Wackolandia have to pay attention to for a few minutes while their courts shoot down the best efforts of their "educators" to trump science with godliness?

This Snowy Owl has been doing the town lately and has been spotted in a number of places including Discovery Park and Capitol Hill where he was captured on film by an alert flickr user. Every couple of years Snowy Owls will migrate south from their hood in northern Alaska when it gets particularly cold (it's -36° in Barrow right now, which is cold compared to the 55° our apartment was this morning after the furnace puked, yeah, but not particularly cold for Barrow) or when the vole and lemming populations dry up. Still, Washington is at the very bottom of its known range.

We came across this news item and felt that the Reality TV watchers out there would appreciate a link. Minnesota newspapers are reporting on a Seattle family that got shanghaied by The Discovery Channel on the promise of a free vacation.

This week, federal judge John Jones knocked down the mandate from a Pennsylvania school board that their science teachers present Intelligent Design as a valid alternative to evolution in their classrooms. While he was at it, he smacked the Dover School board for being a bunch of disingenuous liars. Scientists, teachers, and intelligent people from all walks of life, religious or otherwise, rejoiced.

The Seattle P-I wants to have it both ways. First there's this scooter-booster wind-in-your-hair, pocket-change-for-gas story, then Daddy Buzzkill appears with the a second story's breaking news that you're 26 times more likely to die riding a motorcycle than in a passenger car. Also, if you buy liability insurance, which you're not required to do, it could cost you money. $150 - $300 a year! Uh...so?

Seattle as a city is currently in danger of becoming the guy at the party with the undone zipper. When we come strutting out of the men's room anxious to talk about technology and the environment and progressive politics all anyone can see is the Discovery Institute hanging out of our pants. Seattlest cringes every time the national media references a particular "Seattle-based think tank" - They won't let us pretend for a minute that we're not ground zero of the Intelligent Design "controversy."