Results tagged “newsnational”

When you're seen as the number-two city and number-two university in the state you can either embrace it or try and avoid the notion.

When we were last up in Whistler, local stores had signs next to their cash registers that read: "Exchange rate: on par." We figured they just didn't want to bother with the shrinking exchange rate, but there still had to be one, right? We must still be in better financial shape than Canada, sheesh. No?

Thanks to McSweeney's for resurfacing this gem from Seattlest favorite Jonathan Hodgman.

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.

For those of you just tuning in, yesterday we wrote a little piece about the steam pipe that burst in New York. Apparently it pissed a bunch of people off, and we have to concur that actual true (non-sensationalist) details have been slow to trickle in over here. Everything we've read the last couple of days focuses on a "geyser of steam and debris," which seemed like an overblown fearmongering catchphrase at first, but is now starting to sound like that may be exactly what it is.

Seattlest got the news from a coworker yesterday: an explosion in midtown Manhattan had resulted in a collapsed building (MSNBC); then that no, in fact, it was a transformer that exploded, leaving a nearby building "shaky" (CNN).

Our Southern California based Al Qaeda correspondent, Jeff Schell, is here with analysis on the new Intel report regarding Al Qaeda's desire to "use contacts and capabilities in Iraq to mount an attack on U.S. soil."

Al D'Amato isn't a U.S. senator anymore, but continues to act like one. D'Amato's fathered a child at the age of 70, which is four years shy of Strom Thurmond's record, but nothing to sniff at.

We’ve been on a mountain bike clinic road trip smörgåsbord, starting in Bellingham a few weeks ago and then cruising through Hood River and ending up this past weekend near our hometown of Salt Lake City, Utah. This past weekend we coached a camp up in Park City, where it was a breezy 92 degrees for our afternoon rides—a temperature that is ridiculous in its own right yet still a respite from the record-setting spree of triple-digit temps currently being recorded down in the valley. This is not normal. Utah is generally populated by people who say they like the heat, in large part because it’s not too hot. That was our mantra when we grew up here: "It’s not like Arizona hot." Except now it is Arizona hot here.

The headline: "White House E-Mail Inquiry Will Widen." The story: how the Bush administration has quite possibly made a major infraction, broken big giant rules, or in the 's words, "committed 'extensive' [legal] violations."

Yes, this story about some sad sack of a cop and his wife in Michigan is a few days old, but the really enjoyable aspect of this news item comes to you courtesy of Seattle's own Q13 Fox news. Enjoy.

Kyle Sampson, the top aide to Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez, has resigned, as it becomes more and more clear that US attorneys who were fired in December, including Seattle-based John McKay, were fired for political reasons.

Cities in other states. Why, during 24 tonight, did Fox 13 news use their "Coming up" commercial break to tell us they have Breaking News about a bunch of people who got shot in a mall in Salt Lake City? (Granted, we're from there, so we care but we don't understand why this is making the Seattle news.) And why are they reporting on their site about a murder-suicide in Philadelphia?

The other week we were talking about ex-Seattle Weekly reporter Philip Dawdy taking on Big Pharma on his blog Furious Seasons.

Flickr photo by Tifotter

Former Boeing executive Alan Mulally took over as Ford's CEO in September, and so far, well, um...

Ford Motor Co. lost a staggering $12.7 billion in 2006, an average of $1,925 for every car and truck it sold. The company that invented the assembly line and whose name was a byword for the auto industry warned it will bleed cash for two more years before it has a shot at making money.

Continue reading ""The Seattle Way" Comes to Detroit"

At the Elizabeth Kolbert talk last December, UW professor Stephen Gardiner echoed Al Gore and Jimmy Carter's sentiment that the looming crisis posed by global warming is a moral predicament more than a political, religious, or scientific one (albeit, it is all of those other things as well, just not as urgently so). Today we read about a joint coalition formed by both evangelical and scientific types aimed at convincing the current administration and congress (and other evangelical and science types) to work together. Legendary biologist and self-proclaimed "scientific humanist," E. O. Wilson was, not surprisingly, one of the signers. We hope more religious leaders step forward (they're supposed to care a smidge about morals, right?), and that scientists don't shy away from working with them to move from arguing to action.

OK, we fell for it. For all those who claim that liberal interest groups don't spin like conservatives, pay attention. In a press release from late December 2006 (and other releases dating back to at least 2004), the public-agency hound watch organization PEER (Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility, which has many park employees as members) had intimated that employees of the Grand Canyon have been asked not to tell tourists about the scientifically-derived, geologic age of the national landmark. But to be fair, a whole lot of other people have fallen for this too, including the seeming "gag order" on employees coughing up to canyon's real age. Admittedly, that may just say more about the company we keep, but the fact is, Seattlest let its guard down.

Oh, the Discovery Institute minions must be wriggling with glee over this one. Apparently bowing to pressure from the Bush administration, Grand Canyon rangers are no longer allowed to tell park visitors how old our most famous chasm is. In order to avoid "offending religious fundamentalists" who seem to think that Noah might have parked his ark there. Seriously, could there be a better time to easily ignore that man, when everything that comes out of his mouth has a 99% chance of being dead wrong? Dear National Park Service: grow a pair, pronto.

Tom Brokaw: Okay, who are we up to?

We watched the CNN special tonight that went behind the scenes at Time magazine and documented the process by which they choose their annual "Person of the Year" award. Those who love to rail against the MSM will be pleased if not flattered by their decision, and no doubt many bloggers and other contributors of "user-generated content" (which should get awarded "Most Overused, Awful Buzz Word of the Year") will rejoice. Many will say it is 2.0 navel-gazing at its worst.

We'll take Seattle's problems over New York's any day. From today's Daily News:

President Bush has announced that Donald Rumsfeld will be replaced with former Mt. Vernon resident Robert Gates, who is currently the president of Texas A&M University.

Gothamist, among many others, is reporting that a plane has apparently crashed into a building on the upper east side--you can see the exact location on 72nd via Gothamist's Googlemap hack. Currently it is being reported as a helicopter that crashed into the building. You can see pictures at the Gothamist site (national news sites didn't have anything yet, but they've got screen captures from local news up on their site).

When we lived in Los Angeles we worked for the Los Angeles Unified School District, more specifically we worked on grant trying to determine if the state mandated mathematics pacing plan was helping or hurting students. Guess what there Oppenheimer, it was hurting them.

The Boston Globe's Jeff Jacoby is disturbed by a disparity in the national media's treatment of Mel Gibson's liquored-up anti-semitic rantings versus Naveed Haq's shooting spree at the Jewish Federation:

Unless you've spent the past week submersed in the Mariana Trench, you know that the intoxicated driver in Incident A was Hollywood's Mel Gibson, who railed at a Los Angeles County police officer about the "[expletive] Jews" and how "the Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world." The story was soon everywhere. In the first six days after his arrest, the media database Nexis logged 888 stories mentioning "Mel Gibson" and "Jews." And that didn't include the countless websites, talk shows, and smaller publications that also took it up.

Continue reading "Gibson Beats Haq, 888 to 236"

We wouldn't think that failing to get your daughter into Ballard High School would be so disappointing that you'd take it all the way to the Supreme Court. After all, who wants their daughter to be a Beaver for life?

In yet another of the Bush administration's sneaky attempts to control the message that the public hears about matters involving science, the Bush gang has decided that all questions about Washington State salmon policy be fielded by political appointees, most of whom don't even live in this state. By using appointees, Bush can build up his crony train and spew whatever bullshit they want about the science behind our salmon situation.

Just a quick nod to our brothers in ist down in Houston and their coverage of the Enron thing. The trial wrapped up today when Lay was found guilty of all the charges brought against him and Skilling was found guilty of most.