Ah, the evolution of the public mood! Remember last Wednesday, when we all had a good laugh at the schools' reliance on infamously inaccurate weathermen to shut down schools, giving all the kids a snow day with no snow? The jovial mood that first night of heavy snow-fall, as the kids turned streets into luges, goodwill was in air, and the spirits were flowing freely? Wasn't all that nice? more ›

The Slog decided to do their version of "Are You Smarter Than the Standardized Test You Support?" with State School Superintendent Terry Bergeson, and she failed. Bergeson was given three sample questions from Port Angeles WASL tests. One from each WASL group tests 3rd, 7th, and 10th graders. The Superintendent only answered two of the three questions, and she answered them both wrong. Realizing she was busted, Bergeson signed the test with a frowny-face...how very 7th grade of her indeed. more ›

If you wanted to buy a few books, a used movie, a car, and a new outfit all in one place—right this very moment—well, you're out of luck. Amazon.com, the internet's purveyor of everything, seems to have crashed. The New York Times is reporting the site failure is an "unplanned event" that had already been happening for an hour when they posted at 10:37 PST. A check-in on Amazon at noon finds the same error message. We've questioned our friends who work at Amazon about the site's troubles, but we figure they are otherwise occupied with figuring this thing out and trying to keep their heads from exploding. more ›

The Alaskan Way Viaduct is sketchy. So much so that it was featured in Popular Mechanics' special report "The 10 Pieces of U.S. Infrastructure We Must Fix Now." The Viaduct graces the list, which also includes Atlanta's failing water system, New Orleans' canal locks, Chicago's notorious O'Hare Airport, and the country's oldest suspension-bridge, the Brooklyn Bridge. more ›