The P-I is running an AP story with the headline: "Seattle home sales plummet 41% from a year ago," (lede: "Seattle and Portland were among the top 10 metro areas in the nation with the most pronounced drop in sales") while the Seattle Times counters with "Record U.S. home-price decline in August attracts buyers." So there's an upside? "...sales are sluggish in formerly stable markets like the Pacific Northwest and Charlotte." Oh. At least we've......

There has been several flavors of WTF news from all over today. You have your tragic WTF news, the duh WTF news, and the just truly head-scratching WTF news. Behold: WTF Skagit County?!?WTF King County?!?WTF John McCain?!?Photo Courtesy of the AP. John McCain meets the teen father-to-be of Vice Presidential Pick Sarah Palin's grandchild.......

Vandalized GOP booth, courtesy King County RNC. It's not like the GOP has been absent from the news lately, with the RNC in full swing and the swirls of controversy surrounding Gov. GrandMama Palin. Still, we're surprised the blogosphere hasn't gone crazy over the vandalism of the Republican Party's booth at Bumbershoot this weekend. According to a vaguely-worded press release from the King County Republican Party, their booth was closed on Sunday when "unidentified......

The summer fire safety burn-ban will be lifted in King, Pierce, Snohomish, and Mason Counties at 8 a.m. this Friday. According to local fire marshalls, the ban is being lifted because area forests have enough moisture to "considerably reduce the risk of fire." That means if you've been partaking in President Bush's one-time favorite summer vacation activity--clearing brush down on the ranch in Crawford--you are now free to burn that brush bonfire style. But no......

"Elliot Bay Water Taxi" courtesy of Seattlest Flickr Photographer seattlerealtorgal The Rainier Valley Post lets Beacon Hill residents know that the water advisory has been lifted and you no longer need to boil your tap water.MyBallard thinks they may have found the most expensive piece of property in Ballard. A 325 square foot shack "condo alternative" selling for $199,999.The B-Town Blog is closely following Burien's annexation request.Fear not Apple lovers, Steve Jobs isn't dead--whatever the......

Wednesday morning, Route 301 from Shoreline to downtown Seattle. Waiting patiently, sweating profusely, standing on an over-crowded bus yet again. It's been in the news many times this year. Ridership is up. And with gas prices as they are, we expect the number of people riding will only climb higher. Back in 2006, King County Executive Ron Sims announced a plan to deliver "up to 21 million more annual bus rides within 10 years." Transit......

Earlier this week, as MyBallard noted, King County Metro reported that Seattle bus ridership in the first three months of 2008 is six percent higher than the same period last year, which we think is great. The more of us on buses, the less of us driving. However, the more of us on buses, the more chance there is to encounter obnoxious cellphone users, which we do not think is great. So we were psyched......

If you have not made it into Beveridge Place Pub in West Seattle for their Barleywine Bacchanal yet, it's not too late. Tonight, they will be tapping three different vintages of the Lagunitas Olde Gnarly Wine ('04, '06 & '07), which enables you to see exactly how this beer changes over time. At 9.7% alcohol, it shines after a few years. The contrast between the '04 and '07 should be very interesting. Stay away......

You can spot people working in the investment sector more easily these days because of that tell-tale bulge from their adult diaper. As the subprime mortgage crisis expands ("from beneath it devours"--yes, now it's clear) to implicate ratings agencies ("The risk is sliced so thin it actually vanishes!") and banks' off-book SIVs (more powerful but prone to rollover in accidents), people who had no idea they held risky investments are finding that out at about......

According to our current addiction, the Democratic Convention Watch blog, some less than stellar reporting created confusion over the status of Rep. Jay Inslee's endorsement of Clinton. Inslee, who represents Washington's 1st Congressional District (Bainbridge Island, Kitsap Peninsula, north King County and parts of Snohomish County) is a super delegate. As we all know by now, the super delegates could be the ones to decide the nomination this year if the pledged delegate counts......

It was an active week in the on-going legal battle over the prescription of the Morning After Pill (Plan B) in Washington State. Amidst legal challenges to a state-wide regulation that requires pharmacists to fill all valid prescriptions, a federal judge in Tacoma said pharmacists can still deny customers the morning after pill if they have moral objections to the use of the pills. The ruling came the same week NARAL Pro-Choice Washington published......

Unlike Kevin Henry, Congressman Brian Baird, of Washington's third district, has endorsed Barack Obama. He joins Congressman Adam Smith, Governor Gregoire, and Pearl Jam as state leaders on Obama's side. Hillary Clinton has the the support of Senator Murray, Senator Cantwell, Congresman Jay Inslee, and King County Executive Ron Sims.......

Current Los Angeles County Registrar Dean Logan is in the middle of a another controversy. This is the same Logan who was in charge of King County Elections before they lost ballots, credibility, and eventually him. Nine percent of the county's completed ballots show no vote for president. Apparently some voters didn't mark a circle at the top of the ballot signifying that they were voting Democratic. Normally we'd be sympathetic with the Election's Department;......

CHAC's indefatigable Matthew Kwatinetz is organizing trips to Olympia to show support for extending the use of King County's Lodging Tax for culture. Kwatinetz claims that without the extension, arts funding could be "cut from $35 million per year to less than $2 million per year." Thursday morning's caravan leaves from CHAC at 10am. Who knows, maybe you'll run into Josh Feit in the Olympian halls of power. Think about that.HOW: Buses and vans will......

Last week federal subpoenas were flying around downtown, irking the hell out of anyone who did business with the Mic Dinsmore-era Port of Seattle and was told its practices were just "unconventional." If you can't wait to read the depositions, there's a terrific Seattle Times story about the "Steakhouse deal", which seems to involve ex-Port CEO Dinsmore, airport director Mark Reis, and contractor Gary Merlino in an illegal three-way at "Spencer's for Steak and Chops,......

We may have the lowest crime rate in 40 years, but it sure doesn't feel like it. Depressing crime news item #1 The guy cops thought might have killed Shannon Harps did not kill Shannon Harps. At least, his DNA didn't match samples found at the scene. He'll likely be released today. Once again, cops are suspect-less in the murder which happened three weeks ago now, and the terrifying possibility that Harps was murdered at......

Coming home from work on the bus last night, we got to thinking about how even getting to vote on a light-rail package this year is going to be an uphill fight. The dire prospects for light rail anytime soon pushed us to extrapolate the costs to our psyche of waiting during the ride home. First we had to run a few blocks in the rain to catch the 8. While admittedly, we should have......

The fallout from State Auditor Brian Sonntag's review of past Port of Seattle business practices continues. The P-I reports this morning that:Sen. Karen Keiser, D-Des Moines, announced she plans to introduce legislation to repeal the Port of Seattle's property tax authority.We appreciate our legislators noticing that there's a Port of Seattle at long last, and that oversight has been lacking. But cutting off the property tax? Here's what's at issue, again summarized by the P-I:That......

What is it about Seattle and innovative cabbies? It was a cabbie who co-came-up-with the idea for the monorail (along with a poet), and now we've got a cabbie jumping into the digital age: along with books, mp3s and pornography, you can now shop for cabs online. Using TaxiDriversDirect.com, you can find direct contact info for cabbies by day/time. Screw central dispatch: call 'em direct (at least 30 minutes in advance) and arrange for them......

How about opening your big yap in person for a change? Join the panel discussion about how to keep a healthy arts community on Capitol Hill. Meet up at CHAC next Wednesday, the 16th, at 5:30pm and plot next moves over a martini. As hosts the Capitol Hill Chamber of Commerce put it:In 2007, the Urban Land Institute named Seattle the #2 real estate market in the nation (after Manhattan), and Americans for the Arts......

Details are starting to leak out about the Carnation woman suspected of killing her parents, her brother and her wife, and their two kids Christmas Eve with the help of a boyfriend. The P-I got the scoop from Ben Anderson, the suspected killer's nephew and grandson of the victims.:The violence, Ben Anderson said, stemmed from a dispute over money, and a long-standing fight between Michele Anderson and her parents. He said his aunt had been......

Monday afternoon, instead of sitting around in our pajamas and baking cookies, we had the pleasure of attending a King County Food Worker class, a necessary evil which must be endured in order to obtain a Food Handler’s Card. On our scant and unpaid time off, we the food workers of King County trundle off to strange and inconvenient locations to listen to a lecture, watch a video and fill in a Scantron sheet. The......

We really don't feel it's the day after an election until we overhear people talking about how they forgot to vote, didn't know there was an election, and how they'll definitely vote next time. If they had been paying attention from August through this morning, they would have learned that Seattle voters will not let you drive 50mph down Market Street after a few drinks, but they will let you work for an anti-gay organization,......

And it fucking sucked! Proposition 1, the roads and transit thing, was stabbed in the eye with a hot needle. It was closest in King County where it wasn't close (55%-44%), with Snohomish and Pierce counties pwning it 57%-42%. Money quote: "There is no Plan B." Tim Eyman's anti-tax initiative sucker punched almost every county except King, Jefferson, San Juan and Whitman. Resolution 4204, which would have allowed school district levies to pass with a......

When we sat down to do our endorsements we reached a disturbing conclusion. We cannot, in good conscience, vote for anyone. Position 1 Jean Godden: Wrote for the Seattle Times when it endorsed Bush in 2000. Joe Szwaja: Involved in a 1990 domestic dispute in which his then-girlfriend threw a bottle at him and he threw a plate at her. Position 3 Bruce Harrell: Doesn't spend enough time with his 15-year-old son from a previous......

For some reason no big deal is being made of the rails-to-trails thing going on right now on the Eastside. Preventing the addition of capacity to I-405 is a big deal to Seattle environmentalists, but the impending doom of a potential passenger rail corridor that runs north-south from Renton to Snohomish is of no interest. We don't get it... One guy who does get it is Chuck Mott who seems like an interesting guy.......

Remember SimCity? Seattlest had some incredible towns built in that game, with commercial and residential districts packed full of shiny, tall towers and trains and street traffic all flowing as effortlessly as rivers. Scroll way over to the left to the edge of the city grid; now that is a healthy industrial district, perfectly bisected by a pollution-eating green belt. The landmarks sprouted everywhere and the money and accolades poured in. Of course, it took......

Front-page screamer in the P-I today: School crimes under wraps. The P-I (disclosure: I write freelance sports pieces for them) reviewed Seattle School records and found cases of assault that weren't reported to police. Instead, school administrators tried to deal with these incidents on their own. King County prosecuting attorney Tomas Gahan ain't happy about it. Says he: "I don't want the principals or administrators to sort out what is a crime and what isn't.......

Real estate search engine Rotten Neighbor promises to help you "find bad neighbors before you move." What evils have users uncovered behind the closed doors of the Emerald City? Near Carkeek Park: Grouchy Old Man w/ Loud Music The grouchy old man who lives here likes to play his radio very loudly in his backyard. Lately he has begun playing it in the middle of the night and the cops have been called several times.......

Seattlest just got done attending the press conference for the re-opening of the Downtown Bus Tunnel. After two years of work, it's set to reopen next Monday. That's exactly two years (as King County Exec. Ron Sims was fond of repeating over and over today) after it closed. We have to say, we're pretty impressed with what they've done. Needless to say, it's a pretty big achievement in a region not exactly known for making......