General David Petraeus is a details man. Over the course of two hours at Town Hall last night, the former Commanding General in Iraq spat out more names, dates, facts, and figures than we knew what to do with. This is why we have to make an concerted effort to remember a new acquaintance’s name while Petraeus currently serves as the Commander of U.S. Central Command. more ›

This guy, a Fort Lewis officer, thought it was a great idea to embezzle $700,000 from Uncle Sam during a recession and a war. Genius! Did he think they weren't gonna notice that kind of pocket change missing from the coffers? The only explanation we can come up with is that his 14-month service in Iraq was more traumatizing than has yet come to light, and if that's the case, our heart goes out to him--but dude still owes the country some cash. more ›

End US Support for Israel’s War on the PalestiniansIf you've got a mind to add anything to the list, we bet you can. Get down to Westlake Plaza for the "City-Wide Inauguration Day Celebration and Rally" that's supposed to last until 4 p.m. more ›

The gossip flew fast and furious last night and early this morning when it appeared Governor Gregoire had gone AWOL with only the promise of an early morning press release to explain things. Of course, that press release was a complete disappointment. She's not pregnant, gay, or accepting a job with the Obama administration. And no, we didn't get federal economic stimulus money for the viaduct repairs (yet). Gregoire is in Iraq meeting with members of the National Guard, so simmer down with your rumor-mongering. more ›

LIVING LEGENDS: No, not Twiggy. We're talking about the hiphop crew out of Cali, two members of which will be performing at Neumos tonight. The Grouch and Eligh are touring for the holidays (official tour title: "How The Grouch Stole Christmas"), sharing the evening's bill with Bayliens and 206 Zulu cornerstones Alpha P. The duo will release an album called Say G&E in the spring, so attendees tonight should be getting a sneak peek at the new material; we've also heard The Grouch's solo album Show You The World, which fans of underground and indie hiphop (a la Atmosphere) are encouraged to check out. more ›

The latest on 1st Lt. Ehren Watada, the Washington soldier who refused to deploy to Iraq in 2006 on the grounds that he believed the war was illegal: a federal judge ruled this week that re-trying Watada on three of the five counts against him in current court martial proceedings would constitute double jeopardy, and therefore he may only stand trial for the remaining two charges. In February of 2007, the first time Watada faced the courts for his unusual actions, the judge declared a mistrial. Looks like our man will be on desk duty for quite awhile yet! more ›

Face it, folks: it's fall in Seattle, and along with cooler nights, leaves changing color, and the beginning of football season, fall also marks the annual Scion independent film series. Yes, it's corporate-sponsored lifestyle marketing aimed at the hip youth demographic, and yes, they just want the kids to buy their damn cars, but we're willing to shill for it when 1) it's free and 2) the films shown are actually worth seeing. The series kicks off tonight with Heavy Metal in Baghdad, the first full-length film made by the good people at Vice: more ›

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. more ›

ART & TRAUMA: The Center on Contemporary Art in Ballard is kicking off its series of "After Dark" events with Slow Healing—a documentary/multi-media presentation about veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who have returned from the field with Traumatic Brian Injuri (TBI). There'll be a slideshow at 9 p.m., followed by Butoh dancing and SEA SHOW. more ›

The Saturday night SIFF Cinema screening of the documentary Heavy Metal In Baghdad provided the best possible antidote we could have hoped for to the asinine and maudlin SIFF opener Battle in Seattle: Stuart Townsend's misfire was so bad it may have actually inflicted a deeper scar into our collective psyche than the actual WTO riots ever did. While both films aspire to show an up close and personal look at what it’s like when real people are caught up in conflicts of geo-political significance, only one of these efforts doesn’t suck. We'll take it a step further and say that Heavy Metal In Baghdad is the best film we've seen all year. more ›

"yellow dragon on pole" by Seattlest Flickr Pool Contributor Seattle rainscreen. Thanks! more ›

So says the P-I:

U.S. troops in Muslim nations where pig-eating is a religious no-no, have been requesting the local startup's product, dreamed up by two guys who stayed up late into the night brainstorming in 2006, to sprinkle on their MREs and anything else edible overseas.

"Protesting out of the rain" by Espressobuzz
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According to federal prosecutors, Washington State representative Jim McDermott's 2002 trip to Iraq was secretly financed by Saddam Hussein's intelligence agency. McDermott, a strong opponent of the war in Iraq, traveled to the country in October 2002 with two other democratic representatives. The trip occurred during the zenith of President Bush's push for the war, while McDermott and his fellow travelers urged for a diplomatic solution to be found. more ›

Five years later, it still feels strange and distant; Iraq is still mired in violence--though we argue about whether it's on the wane or the rise--and yet the degree to which it touches on our daily lives seems to have to do more with politics than with the real world consequences of war. Most Americans are so safely distanced from the fighting that we can't wrap our heads around what it's actually like for those of our countrymen whose loved ones are patrolling the streets of Baghdad in body armor as we sit here, comfortably reading about it on a computer screen, let alone what it must be like to be there, as a soldier, or even worse, as an Iraqi. more ›

As war protest songs go, they don't come more pointed or authentic than Eddie Vedder's "No More," which the Pearl Jam frontman extrapolated from 26 year-old veteran Tomas Young's brief—and literally paralyzing—Army tour of Iraq. The song's video, poured into the tubes yesterday by "online political and social action community" Think MTV, is just as sincere and direct. more ›

Last night at Benaroya Hall, author Richard Powers read from a new short story called "Modulation." It was classic Powers; a dense, far-reaching, and meticulously vivid tale of a computer virus that infects music player devices via filesharing sites. He weaves the story around four different individuals: a Japanese hacker recently released from prison and now employed by the RIAA to huntdown filesharers, a Brazilian journalist researching soldiers in Iraq who blast ear-crunching music from their vehicles when they go out on missions, a forlorn music scholar on the eve of his retirement from a mid-western University, and a young laptop battler who agonizes over keeping track of the ever-multiplying sub-genres of electronic music and enthralls with his live performances of entirely computerized music that rely heavily on audio samples from early-80s video games. more ›

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We have gathered some of the top political writers in the country and asked them to discuss the presidential race throughout the year. Today they will discuss the Democratic race between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. more ›

So we're happy to see it turn up on local screens again this Sunday, at the SIFF Cinema. We could point you to a bunch of reviews that mostly tell you it's a great movie (literally so, in Ebert's case), and many of which are happy to point out the lessons we should learn about Iraq after watching this film. But we thought it'd be more interesting to quote Bosley Crowther from his 1967 NY Times review (oh: SPOILERS for history):

Essentially, the theme is one of valor—the valor of people who fight for liberation from economic and political oppression. And this being so, one may sense a relation in what goes on in this picture to what has happened in the Negro ghettos of some of our American cities more recently. The fact that the climax of the drama is actually negative, with the rebellion wiped out and its leaders destroyed, has immediate pertinence, too. But eventual victory for the Algerians — and therefore symbolic hope for all who struggle for freedom— is acknowledged in a sketchy epilogue.

Not that there's anything remarkably surprising about this. Most of us here in this hippy haven understand full well that the War in Iraq was forged under false pretense, and there have been plenty of news stories in the past five years to back up our suspicions. more ›

Despite being narrated by Sean Penn, it's fairly lo-fi -- a cool-headed interview with media critic Norman Solomon intercut with film and video footage to illustrate salient points on how gullible/acquiescent the American public is when it comes to run-ups to war and how supine the media generally is until after the fact, when lone, contrarian voices are celebrated as if "we knew it all along." more ›

Starting tomorrow night, SIFF Cinema is showing Imaginary Witness: Hollywood and the Holocaust, a documentary that examines Hollywood's relationship and depiction of one of the 20th Century's defining events. more ›

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 Homeland Security. more ›

The Hugo House Literary Series kicks off Friday night with "Lost in Translation," and the program features Seattlest-favorite and monologist Mike Daisey, novelist Randall Keenan and historian Lesley Hazleton. more ›

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

The post we wrote yesterday about Rick Steves ("Rick Steves. The man lives in a pleasant world.") seems reasonable if you only know the man through his travel shows on PBS. He was on the Town Hall stage for all of about four seconds last night before destroying that illusion. Actually, he lives in a few different worlds; one here, in Edmonds, Washington, U.S.A., and another in Europe where he spends a third of every year, and the conflict between those two equal something other than "pleasant." Steve was pissed last night during his "Travel as a Political Act" talk. It was an angry, wrathful travel guru working the microphone--A much different animal than the "This is reeeealy great" PBS guy in sensible shoes. more ›

Last night Richard Wiseman -- "Britain’s only chair in the Public Understanding of Psychology" -- spoke at Town Hall about his study of quirkology. Which, if you don't know, is the study of the offbeat in human behavior as a way of shining light on why we act the way we do. Here's a short recap of what we learned about: more ›

Next up was Juno, the latest comedy from Jason Reitman. We loved his first feature, Thank You for Smoking, and had heard nothing but good buzz about this flick, which is kinda Knocked Up meets Superbad, if Judd Apatow stopped focusing so much on male friendships and paid more attention to the pregnant girl. As the titular acid-tongued, preggo high schooler, Ellen Page keeps on getting better and better, and the rest of the cast (JK Simmons, Allison Ranney, Jennifer Garner, and Jason Bateman, reunited here with his TV son, sweet baby Michael Cera) ain't no slouch neither. A couple minor quibbles: if anything the film is too cute by half. We don't need pop culture references for the sake of pop culture references: "No, It's Morgan Freeman. I'm here to collect some bones." And we certainly don't need a quirky folk song introducing every goddamn scene (Wes Anderson much?). Still, the film was ultimately very moving -- we always appreciate it when a foul-mouthed movie turns out to have some heart. more ›

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