POLITICS JUNKIE: The jury's still out on whether or not McCain is going to display how capable he is of handling politics and governing at the same time (i.e. the job of the president) by showing up for tonight's debate in Mississippi. But, the Presidential Debate Commission will be there, a giant pool of reporters will be there, and his opponent Barack Obama will be there ready and willing to turn the whole thing......

The thing that can make improv comedy so fun is that you never know what you're going to get, and neither do the artists performing in the show. There was enough funny in Election Show that we're willing to imagine that some nights are far better than others. Clearly these folks are good at what they do—they never committed the cardinal sin of breaking character, among other things—but, when all was said and done,......

It ain't easy being Scott McClellan. He's considered a traitor, snitch, and turncoat by the right, while the left decries him for not blowing the whistle sooner—either way, he's not getting many Christmas cards this year. Last night, McClellan appeared at a sold-out Town Hall to discuss his memoir What Happened: Inside the Bush White House and Washington's Culture of Deception. Barry Mitzman moderated, and thankfully, the Q&A was handled via notecard submission, thereby......

Congratulations are in order today for Patty Murray and Rick Larson, as a federal bill they both sponsored, aiming to declare Wild Sky Wilderness near Seattle a protected area is getting signed by our fearless leader, George W. Bush. So says the Times: The House gave final approval to the bill last month. It designates 167 square miles in the Mount Baker-Snoqualmie National Forest north of Sultan, Wash., as federal wilderness, the government's highest level......

Last month, four-fifths of Pearl Jam touted their own Obama-song, unofficially signaling the band's endorsement of the (delegate) leading Democrat. Unofficially, because Eddie Vedder wasn't involved. Then Ralph Nader—Eddie's favorite former candidate—joined the presidential race. Would the frontman split from his bandmates or maintain political solidarity? Now we know. Eddie likes Barack Obama. Evidence: The Body of War soundtrack-contributing artist is one of 24 "celebrity judges" (our quotes) to judge the entries of MoveOn.org's......

There are a lot of things we can see being seized at the border between Canada and the United States: handguns with the serial number filed off, bricks of heroin, briefcases with the radioactivity sign on the side. Hard drives we'd expect to make it through, but unfortunately we'd be wrong. The guy bringing the masters of the songs Chris Walla recorded in Vancouver back down to Seattle had the drive containing them yanked by......

We'd be there, but the man's keepin us down. Damn him. The man, that is. Damn the man. From Upcoming: Meet at the Bradford center to coordinate protest actions at the Downtown Bellevue Hyatt. Corner of NE 8th and Bellevue Way. George Bush will be in town as the main attraction for Doublespead-Dave Riechert's fundraiser. The intersection of NE 8th and Bellevue Way is likely to be blocked. We can line the streets all along......

Pearl Jam capped off this year’s three-day Lollapalooza blowout on August 5, and as anyone who knows much about the band might expect, singer Eddie Vedder badmouthed Big Government (Mr. Bush) and Big Business (BP Amoco) on stage. If you weren’t lucky enough to be there (as we weren’t), but caught AT&T’s “live” Blue Room webcast of the band’s performance, you missed some of Eddie’s poli-sci jabs because they were strategically removed. What did......

Well, you did it, Seattle. You got into the finals at American-freaking-Idol. What the hell? It wasn't supposed to be like this. You were supposed to fade out gracefully when everyone realised that there were some real hard-core singers involved with this competition. But no, Seattle. You had to flash those bedroom eyes of yours, do your best (a.k.a. worst) James Brown-ish dancing. You had to beatbox and reach your hand out at the camera......

FILM: The NW Film Forum is screening the potentially watchable Climates, which won a less than inspiring 71% at the rotten tomato site. Of course you can't go by those ratings since a masterpiece like Anchorman scored a feeble 64%, but an over-rated gorefest like Pan's Labrynth won a ludicrous 95%. That's worse than Al Gore losing to George Bush. 7, 9:30 // 1515 12th Ave // $8.50 MUSIC: The last time we did......

Remember last week when it was sunny and crystal clear outside? The skies were blue, and we could make out mountain trails on the Cascades. In the evening when the sun set behind the Olympics and Mt. Rainer was glowing in the pink light, we wondered if there was a more beautiful place to live. Well, that image has been replaced by gray skies and insurance claim agents racing around the region. We are getting......

God, we're so sick of Snakes on a Plane that we want to kill anyone and everyone that makes a "something on a something" joke. But then we realized that there was no way we could ever win this fight, and, hell, if you can't beat them, we might as well join them. And with that, you have the theme of this weeks' Gothamist network post. Austinist makes it easy for us, with Candidate......

Hip-hop is ruled by ego. Whether it's the ego of an MC, that of a DJ, or a combination of the two, hip-hop is dominated by superlatives. Descriptions of being the biggest, baddest, and richest are the typical trappings of mainstream hip-hop, which is nothing new. The underground scene has its own failings, focused instead on being "realest," clamoring to fit as many syllables as possible into every bar. In both cases, the result......

Sixteen years ago today Randy Johnson threw the first no-hitter in Mariners history. The 6'10'' lefthander scattered 6 walks in the 2-0 victory over Detroit. 20,014 lucky fans (we still have our ticket stub somewhere) packed the Kingdome on that probably rainy Saturday night. Across the region tens of people were glued to the radio as Dave Niehaus called the action. The final pitch, which actually bounced off of the roof before landing in the......

All of the attention this weekend is on the Super Bowl, but really, who cares? There's a feigned hometown pride, but really, for most of the players in the professional ranks, they're going to play for whoever pays them the big bucks. George Bush may claim to care about black people, and the Seahawks may claim to care about Seattle, but let's wait and see what happens when it's time for contract negotiations. Our point......

When accounts of George Bush's apparent endorsement of "Intelligent Design" hit the media a while back Seattlest saw it as the president's way of boosting the result count for a google search of "bush intelligent". Soon after, though, our jaw slackened and we began staring through a poster on the wall and into the middle distance. Our tools have been getting progressively cruder since then, and ooooOO! OOoo-Oooo Ahhhh! During what was no-doubt to be......