Despite a recent turn in temperature, Molly Moon's Homemade Ice Cream's newest location on Queen Anne has been tempting those strolling by since the space went from "empty storefront" to "purveyor of tasty treats" back in September. And fortunately for all us (QA residents or otherwise), this uptick in business means Ms. Moon has been able to expand the store's offerings to go beyond the company's dessert, to include the most important meal of the day: breakfast. Well, if your breakfast usually incorporates ice cream. more ›

This just in from the Washington Secretary of State’s blog: voter turnout for the November election may hit levels not seen since Nixon was in office. more ›

Official election night parties usually don't get too rowdy--perhaps an intern has a little too much to drink and gets fresh, but that's about where it ends. Which is why Dino Rossi and Dave Reichert's party at the Bellevue Hilton was just begging for members of the Stranger Election Control Board (at least Lindy West and Bethany Jean Clement), who came prepared with Four Loko. more ›

That's right--thanks to The Future, your private ballots can become public! As the Slog reports, yesterday local youth-in-politics organization The Washington Bus launched My Ballot, a Facebook application which not only lets you pretend-vote, but also lets you see how your friends have voted (if you look to the left, you can see that I have no friends) and the results of the Facebook election so far. The application gives you a ballot based on the ZIP code you enter. more ›

We hate to be the bearers of Monday's bad tidings. That's more Garfield's territory. But this is a something you ought to see. more ›

Mike McGinn got the smackdown from local blogs. Is confidence in the candidate waning, or is the guy just having a bad week? more ›

Mike McGinn, local enviro and an increasing threat to Greg Nickels's re-election effort, is doing his damnedest to make Nickels pay for lobbying so hard for a waterfront tunnel. The Times has a report on McGinn's strategy today, while Publicola points out McGinn supporters have launched a new anti-tunnel website. more ›

Erica C. Barnett over at Publicola has an interesting tidbit this morning: apparently, a local lobbyist has filed an ethics complaints against Mayor Greg Nickels for the above ad. The shot that's causing the trouble is at 40 seconds in. Apparently, that shot of the new Link Light Rail line wasn't filmed from a public area (or so the complaint maintains), raising the question of how the crew got access. It would be a violation for Nickels to use his power as mayor or other public resources to help his election campaign. UPDATE: As comments suggested, it turns out it was pulled from earlier footage, according to Publicola. more ›

A KING 5/SurveyUSA poll shows Referendum 1, the 20-cent plastic bag tax, being defeated 51 to 42 percent. The tax, approved by the city council last year, was to go into effect on January 1, but now Seattle's voting on it August 18, which is what we always do and why nothing ever gets accomplished. As inconvenient as the tax is, we have to ask: Why the hell don't you just get reusable bags like everyone else? Seriously people, shit shouldn't be this hard. more ›

• Techflash, via the magic of Glassdoor.com's ratings, has the skinny on the best and worst CEOs and companies to work for in Seattle. The results? None too shocking.
• Cliff Mass tells you all about noctilucent clouds, which are very, very high. Up. Man, that joke could write itself.

The city faces a $43 million budget shortfall. An unprecedented number of eyes (many of which belong to Seattle journalists and political watchdogs) are trained on the city's every budgetary move. We're just beginning what already smells like a contentious mayoral race towards elections later this year. What better time for Nickels and the city council to start meeting behind closed doors to work out the "very dull" budget-balancing process? Let media report on whatever they see fit, so the public can decide what's boring and irrelevant. That model works for hyperlocal blogs and it will work just as well for government. more ›

Publicola says Sally Clark's office isn't denying that the politician will run for mayor at some point. Investigative fiend Josh Feit was investigating a rumor he'd heard and ran into surprisingly soft resistance to his inquiries; whether or not that means anything other than a spokesperson having a mischievous day is yet to be determined, but this is an interesting scoop. Hmm. Sally Clark in charge doesn't sound awful. It doesn't sound awful at all. more ›

We link to Capitol Hill Seattle content frequently in the Neighborhood News round-ups, but the latest installment of CHS-V, a short video about the election and "hope art" on the Hill, is too excellent not to embed directly. The short features nicely edited interviews with Stranger art critic Jen Graves and Obama garage door muralist Shelley Farnham, among other articulate voices. Enjoy. We're faxing 2,009 kudos to videographer David "Cheesecake" Albright and one of our favorite neighborhood blogs for this post. more ›

Holy crap, y'all! Two more days of the Bush Administration—an era that, at times, felt like it would never end. And yet here we are. Have you volunteered yet for tomorrow, the Obama-initiated national day of service? We'll be on Yesler picking up trash and collecting food. Do join us there or at any other location, and help get the new Obama Administration started right. Meanwhile, revisit the primaries, election season, and the parties of election night in our Flickr pool. more ›

It's a Seattlest special report...from the future! We sent Editor Emeritus Seth Kolloen into 2009--let's face it, he's not getting much done the rest of 2008 besides raiding our liquor cabinet and shooting at "squirrels" who "looked at him funny." Just like Martin Sheen at the start of Apocalypse Now, we hadda send him upriver. more ›

King County counted another 20,000-odd votes today, leaving Dave Reichert (R) up 1,965 votes over Democrat Darcy Burner in the 8th Congressional District race. It doesn't feel right to be calling it a race, exactly, at this point, unless there are molasses races we don't know about. There are still about 276,000 King County votes to be tabulated, and at 20,000-30,000 per shift, it's going to be a while yet before we have a final result. And then the recount can start. For those of you scoring at home, Peter Goldmark has a lead of over 40,000 on Doug Sutherland for Public Lands Commissioner, and Randy Dorn is up 43,000 over incumbent Superintendent of Public Schools Terry Bergeson. more ›

more ›

You've all heard about the presidency, yes? We're also getting a new puppy! more ›

We all know the results of last night's election, however it is what all the blogs were talking about yesterday... So, we hope you enjoy your very last (for this cycle) election-heavy neighborhood news.
• West Seattle Blog hunkered down at The Skylark Cafe and made it Election HQ to watch the results roll in last night.
• The support for Obama moved over from Basset Hounds to dogs in general, according to the Capitol Hill Seattle Blog.
• The Central District News faced long lines when voting yesterday at TT Minor. Our busy busy friends, the Geeky Swedes of My Ballard, PhinneyWood, and The Magnolia Voice also reported long lines and lots of voters in their respective neighborhoods.

Jesus, we feel so much better already. Landslide. We like the sound of that. Now we just need Governor Gregoire to hang in there. more ›

Our ceiling flooded all of a sudden this morning, after our last post. But what's a little fallen, drenched ceiling when there's a once-in-a-lifetime presidential election going on, eh? We left our friendly maintenance guy to talk to himself, sop things up with rags, dry things out with lamps, and headed back over to the Baltic Room for a little E-Day madness. There were at least as many people there as had been there when we left. Signs were everywhere. Food and drink was everywhere. Someone made Obama cookies, as you can see (delicious! probably all gone now). more ›

Yeah, that's how stoked Seattlest is today. more ›

• Since doing your civic duty (not to mention voting in a historical election) might not be enough to get you to vote today, the Big Blog brings you 7.5 things you can get for free on Election Day.
• Capitalizing on tragedy, local gangs are in the midst of a string of retribution shootings, presumably in response to the shooting we mentioned in yesterday's Neighborhood News. What's that saying? It seemed so trite, but now so true: "two wrongs don't make a right."
• If you live in Phinney Ridge, Wallingford, or Fremont, and you didn't have power yesterday morning, you can blame it on a goose. The bird paid the ultimate price for flying too close to your neighborhood power lines.

• West Seattle Blog has been covering a weekend diving accident at Seacrest which left one man struggling for his life at Harborview.
• The Central District News also spent the weekend updating and covering a sad story of two youth shot near Garfield High School. One of the young men died at the scene, while another was taken to Harborview to care for his injuries.
• Oh no. Now that Halloween is over, the Christmas/holiday lights and decorations are arriving. Capitol Hill Seattle reports the lights are already being strung up and down Broadway.

• Yet another reason we love Seattle: a vendor was selling pasties at a Catholic School fundraiser/bazaar. We are pleased to report that Magnolia Voice has some photographic proof this actually happened and that the vendor received no ruler raps on the knuckles.
• Pedestrian safety is near and dear to our heart and to our rebuilt knee after experiencing life on the bumper end of our own car v. pedestrian equation. So we will certainly be applying to the Mayor's Pedestrian Advisory Board, and we think you should too.
• After all that anticipation for Zaw, Capitol Hill Seattle already has "5 Ways To Fix Zaw's Broken Pizza." Not exactly the glowing review a new business hopes to receive from the local neighborhood blog.

• Forgive us if we only post cool neighborhood pumpkin photo links from now until Friday, because we can't help our Halloween-loving selves. Today's splendid carved creations come from West Seattle Blog.
• Capitol Hill Seattle wants to know what your Election Day plans are, besides, of course, you know, voting.
• It worked! After 6 missing days, Seattlest posted about a missing True Value truck yesterday and it was found. We kid, we kid, but we are glad that the Greenwood True Value got their truck back.

This photo from our pool was taken a year ago, at a time when it seemed like that dude who was talking about hope and change was a serious long-shot for his party's nomination. Seattlest remembers that very well, because we've been obsessed with this damn election for that long (actually, quite a bit longer than that, even). more ›

Seattlest has a brilliant idea for your re-election bid in four years. Can you do us a favor and create a check box on your website, next to where we might provide our email address when we donate or sign up for an event? We would like that check box to read "I am an enthusiastic supporter of Barack Obama who is also a dedicated voter. You have my vote. Definitely. Please spend your money on mail-bombing undecideds, rather than me." This would, of course, be accompanied by a check box reading, "I'm thinking about voting for Barack Obama, but I'm not sold. Please email me every ten minutes." We're just saying we'd like to have a choice there. Speaking of choices...have you guys voted yet, or what? What are you waiting for? more ›

King County has eight count 'em eight amendments on the ballot this year, and it's not always easy to tell what they are going on about. We've fielded a few emails from people who wondered what we thought, and we offer you the fruits of that conversation. A caveat: we didn't overthink these. If there wasn't a compelling reason to be fer it, we were agin it. more ›

GET OUT THE MUSIC: Our brothers and sisters over at LAist recently interviewed singer-songwriter Amie Miriello. She's on the rise these days, after leaving her band Dirtie Blonde and striking out solo. She'll be opening for one of Austin's finest, Bob Schneider. He has some of the most heartbreaking songs we know. But then, he also has songs about bar fights and monkeys. So, you know, there's balance. more ›