• "Thousands" of Seattle residents have access to Qwest's superfast VDSL2 already, says TechFlash, with a top speed of 40 mbps download/20 mbps upstream, and all for only $110 per month...when combined with your monthly phone service.
• Don't worry, reassures the Seattle Transit Blog, light rail ridership will grow like kudzu. And then the Seattle Times will write about how crowded it is.

We'll preface this review by saying that we absolutely loved Ali Sethi's debut novel The Wish Maker. The fact that he is only 24 years old and could produce such a well-written, excellent debut novel is just outstanding. more ›

For a while we were nursing the small hope that Peter Steinbrueck might make Mayor Nickels' rerun election interesting, but Joni Balter at the Times has snatched that from us: "Steinbrueck will be spending the first of the next four years in Cambridge, Mass. He landed a prestigious urban design fellowship at Harvard University, as he says, 'researching the politics, principles and plan for urban sustainability of U.S. cities.''' What is it with Harvard stealing our mayors, anyway? (H/t to Publicola) more ›

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Dawdy over at Seattle's mental health blog Furious Seasons has been critical of Harvard child psychiatrist Joseph Biederman pretty much since he started his site, labeling him the leader of the "Harvard bipolar kid mafia." But even he didn't know Biederman was strong-arming pharmaceutical companies for dollars in exchange for moving "forward the commercial goals of J&J" (Johnson & Johnson being the makers of Risperdal, which Biederman was touting for use with children and adolescents). This comes on the heels of NPR yanking the Infinite Mind show after host Fred Goodwin was revealed to have accepted pharmaceutical dollars without mentioning his conflict of interest. More, no doubt, to come. more ›

With only a couple weeks till election day, it's nice to see that the Reichert–Burner race has become downright pissy. The latest skirmish is over Darcy Burner's academic credentials. This morning, reporter Emily Heffter took the Republican bait and wrote a piece questioning the veracity of Burner's claim—made during the debate on Oct. 10—that she has a degree in economics from Harvard. more ›

This is the end, the end of free movies, care of Scion. Single tear. Via their Route film series, the youth-oriented car company has already tackled the true-to-life topics of blood diamonds in hip hop and nightclubbing in the late '80s NYC queer community. Now for something completely different: more ›

Well, it's been a month, and that can only mean one thing: time for the next free edgy youth culture documentary, care of Scion. Last time around, the topic was blood diamonds in hip hop; this time it's all about nightclubbing in the late '80s NYC queer community. more ›

Click-YAY! Click-YAY! Click-YAY! more ›

Scion's back in town bringing music, art, and culture to the kids. Sure it's subversive corporate lifestyle marketing to the coveted youth demographic, but we do like that it's free. Their art installation is at BLVD Gallery for a few more nights, while their film series is running once a month at the Harvard Exit. Somehow we missed the September film (Mayor of Sunset Strip), but we'll definitely be there tomorrow night for Bling: A Planet Rock. more ›

In the middle of Steven Pinker's talk at Town Hall last night, the lecture morphed into some surprisingly blue comedy. We'll warn you now: what follows is adult language content. more ›

Famous neo-fro advocate Steven Pinker drops in at Town Hall tomorrow night, 7:30pm. Tickets are just $5. He'll be flogging his new book, The Stuff of Thought. Stuff? What's next, the Lintball of Thought? more ›

Seattlest watches as a S.L.U.T. is born and Seattle Flickr users go nuts over a local art installation. A restaurant critic demands a Diner's Bill of Rights over a gnat next to her drink, and, in lieu of a Portlandist, Seattlest debates with itself over the identity of the Northwest's crown jewel. Seattlest also joins the guys from Fantagraphics for an ill-fated gun party in the woods. more ›

About three lives ago, when we were living in a scientific research station in Ecuador, we watched The Postman (Il Postino) with a group of Westerners. After the movie, which is one of our favorites, we were sitting there, wondering why the room had suddenly gotten all dusty, when a privileged teenage British hipster/tourist named Aelys (pronounced like Alice, but her parents preferred the Welsh spelling) announced that she hadn't liked the movie because it was too slow. Charlie's Angels 2, she liked, but not this. more ›

This will no doubt turn out to be the easiest Science Lecture to get a seat at: next week brings Harvard psychology profesor Steven Pinker (9/26) and double-helixer James Watson (9/27), and then in November there's Jonah Lehrer, author of Proust Was a Neuroscientist (11/13). more ›

Sketch Fest Seattle is into its second (and final) weekend. more ›

Rachel Hynes is a former barista and yet still enjoys spending time in espresso places. She will review them. This is her first such review. more ›

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It's SIFF's last bleary-eyed, numb-assed, popcorn-butter-fingered weekend, so if you haven't stopped in for some film-festy fun, you gotta act fast. We held Audrey upside-down and shook her until she gave us some selections -- no, no, you deserve the best. There's no telling how far we'd go to make you happy. more ›

Sniff sniff, single tear. It's the last full week of SIFF, so you're well approaching your last chance till next year to take in some of that sweet filmy goodness. SIFF's not just movies; this week offers both the Opticlash 2 VJ battle at the CHAC and the Face the Music party at Neumo's, the latter of which includes performances by Viva Voce, Jesse Sykes, and Siberian. Tickets for both are going fast! more ›

We are, in fact, over half-way there, and yet we continue to live on a prayer--a prayer that the latter half of SIFF contains nearly as many fine films as what's been shown thus far. Seattlest applies our well-honed knowledge of all things cinema to the SIFF catalogue in order to point out some notable films playing this weekend: more ›

This week the weather's cooperating a bit more. Nothing like escaping rainy days with a film festival (except if you get stuck in a downpour while waiting in line, so pack that umbrella). Once inside you'll be golden thanks to your perusal of Seattlest picks. Trust us. Golden! more ›

This weekend the National Weather service is calling for mid-70s to 80 degrees. You may want to recover from heatstroke by rehydrating in an air-conditioned theater with other bepinkenned Seattleites, and their melanin-endowed friends savoring their little moment of schadenfreude. (Here's the Seattle Times cheat sheet on the various venues.) more ›

Memorial Day weekend is finally behind us, so it's time to settle into SIFF. Yes, it's absolutely lovely outside, but Seattleites can only handle so much sun. Get away from all that UVA/UVB exposure and spend your time in the theaters' comfortable darkness. more ›

Now that the opening gala has kicked off SIFF all proper-like, it's time to join the orgy of cinema for the next 25 days. For all film screenings, the general/member ticket prices are $10/$8 (and matinees $7/$5), except for gala screenings, which are $25/$23, and the closing night film event, which is $40/$35. more ›

Whitman College: Jeffrey Sachs, economist and author more ›

BENEFIT: The Clif Bar Save Our Snow Tour, featuring DJ Sabzi from the Blue Scholars, stops by Fremont to help start global cooling. First they came for the snow, but we said nothing, because we follow the sun. more ›

*Carrie Clark mp3s here. more ›

THEATER: You have only five more chances to catch WET’s latest offering, In Disdress Now: Redux. Marya Sea Kaminski’s one-woman show was originally developed as as part of On the Boards' Northwest New Works Festival in June 2006. Now the “story of a girl wrestling meaning out of love, porn, and the folds of an enormous red hoop dress” has been expanded into a full-fledged tour de force. more ›

The Seattle P-I reports that Tay Yoshitani, who will succeed Mic Dinsmore, "was the Port of Seattle Commission's unanimous choice from more than 70 possible candidates generated during a 6-month-long national search." Does this mean he'll help the Port understand that it's not got a monopoly, as Bill Virgin was saying the other day? more ›