From the Seattle Times: "Imagine a milelong building, filled with office and retail, 90 feet wide and 55 feet tall, stretching from King Street to Victor Steinbrueck Park." Or, imagine if they ever actually made a decision and did something with the Viaduct, rather than unveil plans and artists' drawings. The whole issue has been a joke, and has shown local politicians at their pathetic finest. (Sorry about the outburst, everyone have a wonderful fall......

Seattlest gets around. We cover all sorts of newsy stuff. We've covered houses burning, politicians resigning, musicians overdosing, businesses bankrupting, hikers plummeting, homes foreclosing and all the rest, and every single time, we have seen tears shed. Heck, years ago, we covered a teachers' union meeting when news rippled through the room that Sesame Street creator Jim Henson had just died, and there wasn't a dry eye in the house. The point is, we've......

In a completely unsurprising move, Seattle Times has endorsed Obama for President. The paper's thoughtful endorsement cites the Iraq war and the three Es of Necessity (economy, energy, education), claiming also that Obama's youth and relative inexperience pales compared to his strengths: "We need the leader of the free world to think things through, carefully. We have seen the sorry results of shooting from the hip...On numerous other issues, from media consolidation to health care,......

COMMON SENSE: The one, the only Common is in town tonight at Showbox SoDo! Yes, we avoid SoDo, but we don't avoid good rap--and neither should you. It's bracing! To prepare, put on one of Common's eight albums (try Be) and click through to the Seattle Times' interview with the hiphop royal. Also on the bill: the fast-becoming-ubiquitous N*E*R*D (here's a good MTV intro to the production team). 8 p.m. // Showbox SoDo, // $40......

The King County Animal Care and Control department is far too understaffed to check up on dogs running loose, even aggressive ones, reports the Seattle Times. Animal control officers have reiterated--after a pit bull attack on a 71-year-old SeaTac woman last Monday--that they can't do much until after you've got bite marks. Bottom line: as it's hard to dial with a pit bull hanging off you, hands-free phone technology is clearly more important than ever.......

Your favorite overpriced musically-themed burger joint is on its way to our fair city! According to the Seattle Times, Hard Rock Cafe will be opening a new branch in that old terra cotta building down by the Pike Place Market sometime next fall. They are saying it'll be a 450-seater. It will be so rock n' roll to eat there, and we're sure there will be lots of branded merch available on which to spend......

At Denny and Stewart, there's a billboard with a faux stained glass look and churchy type that says "Imagine No Religion." It's been up for a month or two, and the Seattle Times just ran an interview with the guy who paid for it, Redmond's Mike Christensen. Christensen wanted to advertise the Freedom from Religion Foundation, a 12,000-member association of agnostics and atheists. Online, the Times solicits opinions about the godless billboard. Our favorite is......

Last night, as we were making some Niman Ranch sausage, some Critical Mass bicyclists were almost turned into sausage in the street outside. (We mention the kind of sausage because had it been cut-rate, we might have poked our heads out to take a look, but it wasn't and we were hungry.) At around 7:00 p.m., about 100 Critical Mass bikers were riding down Aloha on Capitol Hill, blocking traffic as usual. One driver didn't......

The same day that the Seattle Times tells us that two south Seattle cement plants are pumping 100 pounds of mercury into the air each year, we learned from the P-I that the Bush administration doesn't think asbestos causes cancer. Chronic exposure to tiny levels of mercury in the air can give you the shakes and make you stupid, but it also accumulates in the earth and in water. We're probably close to being able......

Today in two-newspaper town coincidences: real estate made the front page of both the Seattle Times and the P-I. "King County home sales edge up in June," says the Times, while the P-I makes a stronger claim for temperature-based sales, "Local housing market warming up with the weather." Both are referencing an insignificant increase from last month--compared to a year ago, sales are still down almost 34% and listings are up about 42%. That has......

When we read that the Seattle Times had a large feature on the top paid CEOs in the Pacific Northwest, we wondered what the point was. Everyone knows Bill Gates, Paul Allen, and Jeff Bezos—all local CEOs—are richer than God. And it turns out everyone, this Seattlest included, is wrong. According to the Times piece, the best paid local CEO in 2007 was James Voelker, who runs Bellevue's InfoSpace—a company we've never heard of.......

Ryan Dobosh lived in Seattle from 1989--2002, before moving to Los Angeles. He is in town this week and has some thoughts about his old home. I woke up this morning and had that old familiar dread coursing through my veins. "Did I leave my sunglasses in the car again?" I'm sure you will agree with me, that is THE WORST. Oh well, no matter, I was to get on a plane at noon bound......

Seattlest is grateful for our bus pass and our Zipcar membership. Paying more than $4 a gallon just doesn't sound enticing for us, but we're not surprised when we hear about rate increases and other ancillary fees (like having to pay for our baggage when we fly) being passed onto us for using public transportation. Now, of course, Metro is chewing on the notion of increasing bus fares. Personally, we'd be okay with a......

All of us here at Seattlest pretty much fell for cyclist Tyler Farrar after Seattlest MvB interviewed him this week. After all, he's a local, he's young and funny, and he's going to ride in the Tour de France. What's not to like? So you can imagine our disappointment when we saw that Goldy at HorsesAss read this headline in The Seattle Times: Wenatchee cyclist could get shot at Tour de France Of course it's......

Nancy Leson's blog, All You Can Eat, pays tribute today to this guy, John Hinterberger. No, he hasn't gone to that great Bus Tub in the Sky. He's still very much with us, some 17 years after "retiring" as a regular columnist, restaurant critic, and talk show host. Proof that there's life aplenty after the fromage is eaten and the tiramisù is cleared. (His recipe for clam spaghetti, by the way, is a classic.) Without......

After talking about it for what seems like forever, it's finally time to buy your SIFF tickets. The SIFF 2008 schedule of films, programs, and special events is now available at both the SIFF website and in the annual Seattle Times pullout guide. SIFF supporters can head over to the box office on the second level of Pacific Place to purchase passes and tickets (or if you prepaid for a block of tickets, select......

DANCE: "Feral ballet" choreographer Zoe Scofield, visual designer Juniper Shuey, and composer Morgan Henderson bring "The Devil You Know Is Better Than The One You Don't" to On the Boards for its Seattle premiere. We're told it builds off "hard luck accounts of adolescence and the suckiness of group dynamics." Dancers are Christiana Axelsen, Ezra Dickinson, Lizzy Melton, Zoe Scofield, and Allison Van Dyck. We're going, we expect good things. 8 p.m. // On......

With 1,967,000 unique visitors in March, the P-I comes in twentieth, in fact, according to the Nielsen ratings of the U.S. online news field. (Oddly, that's a drop of 8% from March last year.) The Seattle Times didn't crack the top 30, so we don't know where they're at. But Village Voice Media, the alien overlords who run the Seattle Weekly, can boast a 12th-place finish, with about 2.8 million visitors to their network. This......

One of the sadder stories we heard yesterday, from a friend who was on the Portland-Seattle train, was about the 17-year-old Kent girl who was hit and killed by a southbound Amtrak as she crossed the tracks. The Seattle Times blame-placers let you know the culprit right in the headline: "Train kills girl, 17, who was talking on phone." Amtrak, naturally, didn't want to let its passengers know that they had just run over someone,......

According to Slog, the Seattle Times is about to lay off 200 employees (at least 45 of them from the newsroom). As a friend noted, it's not entirely surprising. Print media far and wide are bowing to the evolution of demand for media. This Seattlest, for one, only ever touches a newspaper anymore if it's in a bin at our local coffeeshop. And, even then, it's to pull out the crossword. We get all......

In January, Governor Gregoire announced her support to toll the 520 bridge. Today, Gregoire announced lawmakers have approved the aggressive strategy to toll the 520 bridge to help finance the cost of building a new floating bridge across Lake Washington. The toll amounts have not been finalized. The new bridge will cost $4 billion, and commuters will pay for half. According to the Seattle Times, the toll could be as much as $7 each......

WaMu is like a free public water fountain these days. Except instead of water, it's all bad news. And it's not free, it's costing billions. But it is highly public! Last week there was a rumor of a buy-out floating around that lifted the stock slightly. But then JPMorgan Chase & Co. bought Bear Stearns and everyone went, Oh, that's what the buy-out rumor was and WaMu's subprime-mortgage-battered stock plunged again. Moody's Investor Service has......

Woot! Slowly, but surely this Seattlest is starting to see some semblance of equal rights for ourselves and others like us, as a bill has passed the state legislature granting us over 100 more rights. Chris Gregoire is expected to sign it, no problemo. Last year, we were awarded a handful of rather morose rights that mostly had to do with the death of a partner. Very important rights, mind you, but a little......

Pity poor Pluto. In 2006, the International Astronomical Union reclassified the celestial body as a dwarf planet. Along with being totally emasculating, the IAU's declaration meant that Pluto was stripped of its rights as a full-fledged planet, including health insurance (medical, vision, and dental), a sweet parking space, and a Platinum American Express card. Well, now Pluto is fighting back, or at least it's found a group to take up the cause: On Saturday,......

Mariner fans spent last night drinking champagne, and toasting Dave Niehaus’ selection to the Hall of Fame. As we’ve noted many, many times before, his exclusion from the broadcaster wing in Cooperstown is a greater travesty than Guantanamo Bay and the 2000 Presidential Election combined. Since we first heard the news, we have been basking in the glow that someone who brings us so much joy has finally received the highest honor in his profession,......

The Bottleneck Lounge, located at 23rd and Madison, has quickly become one of our favorite bars. Both the staff and the patrons are overwhelmingly friendly, and it's the kind of joint where you end up getting chatty with the bartender or the couple next to you, or where another customer might close out the night by buying a shot for everyone in the bar. Laid-back without being divey, the Bottleneck is just plain chill.......

Today there is an extra skip in our step, and song in our whistle. All across Arizona pitchers and catchers are reporting to work, which means Spring Training is underway. [Large sigh of happiness] The Seattle Times’ Geoff Baker has this glorious day covered on his blog, including the news that Eric Bedard has been named the Opening Day starter. Larry Stone can catch you up on what you have may have missed during......

The February performance of Eve Ensler's Vagina Monologues is commonplace in cities across America. In Seattle, "V-Day" will be celebrated with a performance on February 24th at The Museum of History and Industry (MOHAI). Sponsoring the event is the Seattle Office of The National Council of Jewish Women. To advertise the performance, The Council produced the colorful print you see to the right. The advertisement is running in The Seattle Weekly and JT News,......

Pinnacle Iceberg, East Greenland 2006 © Camille Seaman Over at the Seattle Times, Sheila Farr was knocked out by Camille Seaman's show, The Last Iceberg, at Photographic Center Northwest. You can preview some of her photos here. Like Edward Burtynsky's photographs of quarries and trash heaps, there's a troubling aesthetic at work. Reflected in the dissolving grandeur of Seaman's ice-scapes is global warming. Says Farr:A member of the Shinnecock Indian Nation, born in 1969, Seaman......

Today SIFF hosts the Seattle opening of the documentary The Rape of Europa, about the efforts to save art stolen and/or desecrated by the Nazis in the runup to and during WWII. The Stranger loves it. The Seattle Times loves it. By all accounts, Seattlest shouldn't be as excited by this movie as we are, but we find something poetic about the preservation of culture in the face of war. For now we'll leave you......