Originally ran on January 3, 2007, and updated for January 2008. more ›

The Seattle Times is reporting, way at the top in an unlikable breaking news sentence (read: cub reporter with a police scanner), that there has been an accident involving the Mercer Streetcar. According to the bolded sentence paragraph, an SUV ran an intersection and collided with an empty streetcar at the corner of Mercer and Terry. more ›

WSF is still dead to us, but Governor Gregoire could make our "holiday card" list if she keeps it up. First the viaduct course correction, now she's scrounged up $100 million to pay for three new ferries. Budget, schmudget! She's all action! Plus, the Port Townsenders, come January, will be reunited with their cars on ferry trips, says the P-I:

Pierce County has agreed to loan one of its boats to the Washington State Ferries, beginning in January, to resume car service between Keystone and Port Townsend.

This Seattlest started his carpet-bagging campaign here about ten years ago, so maybe we have an imperfect understanding of the Fun Forest and it's cultural baggage. When we heard that the City Council had elected to raze the Fun Forest in 2009 our first reaction was "What?! They're clear-cutting the Wenatchee National Forest?!" But then we caught on, as we occasionally do, and realized they were talking about the little carnivalette that lives in Seattle... more ›

Since this week's storm didn’t claim any lives in Seattle, most of us tend to think of the damage in terms of washed out images of I-5 and that Subaru in Golden Gardens. more ›

[Full Disclosure: We were in APP (then called "IPP") from 1st-8th grade.] more ›

Ah, football. We love it. It’s easily our favorite sport to watch as it gets our usual docile selves all fired up and yelling at the television every week. Basketball, even with its fast pace and high scoring, is a bore. And baseball? Baseball is almost as fun to watch as golf or the Lifetime channel. But for all of football’s glory, there remains its biggest upset. Which is that it’s one of those high-testosterone... more ›

We don't claim to be an expert on male attractiveness, but if forced to rank television personalities by hotness or notness--well, let's just say that Bill Nye, "The Science Guy", would be closer to Willard Scott than to Matt Lauer. more ›

From the PI this morning: "Three shot inside Capitol Hill club." Apparently, a fight broke out on Sugar's dance floor around 1:30am; three people were injured, and police aren't saying much more than that. Someone was firing a gun the club, so this isn't one of those ambiguous cases of violence within fifty feet of the club doors. The night's event was Sin Sunday, an 18/21+ weekly event featuring a DJ spinning hip-hop and R&B mash-ups. more ›

Is a new front opening up in the Culture Wars? Seattle school officials say no, but King 5's producers not-so-subtly imply yes. more ›

The protests being staged at the port down in Olympia by the Port Militarization Resistance seem like a huge operation when you read the papers: more ›

Thursday, November 15 at 9 p.m. to Friday, November 16 at 6a.m.For those of you on foot or otherwise transportable, here's the non-specific but relevant info in that case:

SDOT’s contractor will provide a shuttle service for pedestrians and bicyclists from 9 p.m. to 2:30 a.m. between the north and south ends of the bridge (from roughly North 34th Street and Fremont Avenue North to roughly Nickerson and Fourth Avenue North) making the loop approximately every 20 to 30 minutes. Signs will be placed noting the pick up and drop off locations. Buses will be rerouted during these closures. As the date approaches, see Metro Online at http://transit.metrokc.gov or call Rider Information, 553-3000.

We hear the insults. Bloggers are no-names. We are malcontents. We live in our parents' basements, practicing onanism like Tiger Woods practices putting. Well we have news for you, blogger-haters. Laugh no more, because a man who has the earned respect of many for his political activism and musical genius is joining our growing club. Krist Novoselic has started a blog. This hero of the 1990s, a man who had the courage to throw his... more ›

Meanwhile, over on the New York Attorney General's site, Andrew Cuomo is impersonating a pitbull, if pitbulls knew how to file subpoenas:

“In order to fulfill their duty to consumers and investors, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac must ensure that Washington Mutual’s mortgages have not been corrupted by inflated appraisals,” said Attorney General Cuomo. “Our expanding investigation into the mortgage industry has uncovered that Washington Mutual improperly pressured appraisers to provide inflated values that best served the lender’s interest. Knowing this, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac cannot afford to continue buying Washington Mutual mortgages unless they are sure these loans are based on reliable and independent appraisals.”

In an oh-so-scientific survey, a "national emerging health care discount service" we'll decline to name (take that, PR flacks!) discovered that the most caffeinated city in the country out of 20 is ... Chicago! more ›

There is something seriously wrong in this city right now. The fight between drivers and bicyclists has been brewing for years, but recently it seems to be reaching a boiling-over point. It pushes what we consider to be sane people, on both sides of the argument, into a state of rage that we honestly find a bit frightening. more ›

Starring Michael Caine as Clay Bennett more ›

New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo claims a subsidiary of First American Corp., eAppraiseIT, has been generating inflated appraisals for First American and Seattle mortgage-lender WAMU. This would represent collusion and would be what's technically known as "illegal." Unfortunately for everyone involved who wanted to keep their job, Cuomo has emails that say things like:

eAppraiseIT's president told First American: "We view this as a violation of the OCC, OTS, FDIC and USPAP influencing regulation."

eAppraiseIT's president told senior executives at First American: "We have agreed to roll over and just do it ..."

David Copperfield may think he can make the word "no" disappear, but it's going to be for a grand jury to decide. more ›

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So we all know the world is going to hell in a hand basket, right? The climate's changing, San Diego is burning to the ground and we're at war because the president lied to Congress. Things are bad. But every once in awhile you come across someone who is doing the right thing because it's the right thing to do. more ›

Did you know that there's only one credible real-estate industry voice in Seattle? It's a marketing firm in town that works with real estate developers. We've learned this from reading Aubrey Cohen's real estate reporting in the Seattle P-I. Here's a search on articles containing the exact phrase "Williams Marketing" -- they're quoted in at least one article per month since last November. (Who are the schmoes paying the P-I for ads when there's so much free ink available?) more ›

One way not to get Seattlest's vote is to endanger our life, like city council candidate Venus Velazquez did on Wednesday night while she was giving a whole new meaning to "Ballard drivers." more ›

Peter Steinbrueck, a soon-to-be--former City Council member, announced legislation today that would require all city departments that review the environmental impacts of projects to take greenhouse gas emissions into account. more ›

Seattlest likes parks. Especially the big ones with plenty of room for family picnics, Frisbee, flag football and lots and lots of gay sex. more ›

In New York, a place where we once lived, recycling does not--despite being mandatory--actually happen. more ›

We failed to notice yesterday, among all the hubub over Councilman Richard McIver's arrest on domestic violence charges, a post from Seattle Weekly political reporter Aimee Curl. McIver remains in jail and has claimed he'll be pleading "not guilty" to the charges. Columnist Robert Jamieson Jr. is taking him to task in today's P-I stating, "For his sake, that stance had better just be a legal formality before coming clean -- or a typo. Otherwise, his career is toast." Declaring any careers toast might be a bit premature, but it's clear the situation isn't good for either McIver right now. His wife is recanting, to some extent, but the initial impression that he allegedly "repeatedly grabbed his wife by the throat and arm during a profane, drunken tirade in their South Seattle home early Wednesday," seems to be sticking. more ›

Rich vs. Poor, Renters vs. Homeowners, developers vs. locals, Kenny G. vs. Afropop: this blog from High Point has got every one of Seattle's little conflicts all crammed into one tiny teacup. High Point in West Seattle was redeveloped recently to include some moderately priced homes along with a bunch of rent-control-type lower-income housing. We all get along when we live on the same street, right? Well, not quite, of course. Danny Westneat gave it a go in this weekend's paper, but nobody's going to lay it out for you like the blog itself does. Click through to the source for this one. more ›

Seattlest's favorite crime (just edging Identity Theft) strikes again, this time in one of Seattlest's favorite places. A copper theft at Snoqualmie Pass temporarily disabled highway signs and safety lighting, which had to suck for people navigating the pass in the middle of the night. more ›

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 many hours to bring the little guys to the pinnacle of urban development, and then, since the game never ends, it took another many hours to tinker the place into slums and ruin, rezoning here, tearing out a transportation hub there, until finally you had to unleash natural disasters upon the land just to keep yourself interested. more ›