• Urban farming--Sightline has a nifty article with mock-up photos about what it would be like to really green up our cities. Because, you know, it would be totally cool to have cows on the roads.
• Publicola has its own problems with recent KING5/SurveyUSA polls, offering the hope we could have both a bag tax and a not-Mayor Nickels! Oh, and Erica C. Barnett scratches back at Joel Connelly for flaming her in his column today.

Sightline has a scary post up about the end of unemployment benefits, and how a big dip may be in the works in the economy--and rehiring--doesn't kick in soon. more ›

While Nike and Starbucks get applause for their leadership in sustainability--especially Nike, which joined Johnson & Johnson in publicly scolding the U.S. Chamber of Commerce for its opposition to global warming legislation--Sightline wonders why Amazon, Microsoft, and Boeing aren't putting their lobbying efforts where their corporate climate policies are. "Google has," says Sightline's Fahey, twisting the green knife (our italics), and linking to a video of Google's Director of Climate Change and Energy Initiatives, testifying to Congress. Her point is, "Standing on the sidelines of the debate in the state legislatures and in Congress can be as damaging as standing in the way." more ›

AUSTIN CITY SHIMMY: Bob Schneider made our sister site Austinist's highlight reel for SXSW back in March--winner of the SXSW Band of the Year and Best Male Vocalist awards, Schneider is touring for his new album Tarantula. Country, roots-rock, call it what you will, just don't expect a 45-minute set. With 15 or so albums to draw from, Schneider has more songs up his sleeve than a double-sided LP. Plus, he's at the Triple Door, so you can just sit back and make yourself comfortable. more ›

A friend of ours was at the Washington Conservation Voters auction fundraiser last night, where Mayor Greg Nickels was being applauded for his greenery. But when Nickels got to the part about the deep-bore tunnel, the response was noticeably tepid. Perhaps thinking people needed a little push, Nickels mentioned his excitement about the tunnel again, only to hear some back-of-the-hall derision. Did his staff not tell Hizzoner that real greens don't buy into tunnel-vision? more ›

It's heartening to discover we weren't the only ones who found it possible to envision cost overruns in building Seattle's deep-bore tunnel. Sightline's Clark Williams-Derry: "It's a potentially enormous financial burden, since even the best planning process can't anticipate things that can go wrong with such a massive undertaking." The Seattle Times' Danny Westneat: "I do think it's suspicious that this same tunnel was rejected in December by a stakeholder advisory committee on account of it being way too expensive. Only to have the costs then shrink (!) by $400 million, arriving at a size that happily fits the state's pre-existing budget." Westneat does everything but call those involved bald-faced liars. Since the alternative is that they're delusional, we're not sure which option is preferable. more ›

So here's your update on yesterday's Seattlest poll, inspired by the NRDC claiming that luxuriously soft toilet paper is "worse than driving a Hummer!" since so much toilet paper comes from virgin forests. We wondered if green Seattle was putting its derriere on the line for the forests and the answer is--not so much! Only 29 percent of you reported using recycled-content toilet paper. And by far the largest contingent, 47 percent, were double-ply softies. We don't judge because we're luxury tp-ers, ourselves--we've always felt like we were balancing it out with the one-ply stuff you get in public bathrooms but perhaps that's just an ad hoc rationalization. Here's a scary photo over at Sightline to show us what our quilted habit costs. more ›

TOP BRASS: The Rebirth Brass Band hails from New Orleans, and we're told by someone in the know that "they put on the most fun live show you will ever see in your life. EVAR." The 9-member ensemble features a trio of trumpets, two trombones, a saxophone, a tuba, a snare drum, and a bass drum. They're the only band on the bill and they're "playing all night"--which may not be hyperbole--so prepare to get brassed out. more ›

Hat tip to Sightline's Clark Williams-Derry, who jumped on this Obama quote he found in Newsweek about the need for collective action on global warming--all over the U.S., we imagine, there's barely concealed public policy joy about having voted in a president who's his own think tank. Obama's discussing his performance in debates, and his struggle with answering questions that miss the mark: "So when Brian Williams is asking me about what's a personal thing that you've done [that's green], and I say, you know, 'Well, I planted a bunch of trees.' And he says, 'I'm talking about personal.' What I'm thinking in my head is, 'Well, the truth is, Brian, we can't solve global warming because I fucking changed light bulbs in my house. It's because of something collective'." more ›

While we were in Iceland last week, we had the thrill of paying $7.50/gal for diesel, which means a half tank for our Land Cruiser rental pegged the needle at $75. That helps us keep this news from AAA in perspective: the average price of a gallon of gas in Washington is $3.13. It's dropped 63 cents the past month, thanks in part to people not buying the stuff because it costs too much. But Sightline's Clark Williams-Derry has just put up a post talking about how this volatility in price isn't helping us set a firm course away from oil addiction. more ›

Sightline's Alan Durning has a good post on the connection between spikes in gas prices and recessions. It's very topical on a day that the Dow exhibited tremendous volatility, gaining 936 points. Our economic pulse is shocky, and Durning argues that at least in part its because high oil prices "sucked hundreds of billions of dollars out of the US economy" the last five years. It's this economic suffocation--not just from gas at the pump, but from jumps in manufacturing and shipping costs--that's led people to fail to pay all those mortgages they could barely afford. Meet the pit bull of vicious circles. more ›

Do not have any other blogs before Seattlest. You shall not make for yourself another blog, whether in the form of anything that is in heaven above, or that is on the earth beneath, or that is in the water under the earth, or cobbled together from bits upon the internet. You shall not subscribe to their RSS feeds or comment on their posts; for we Seattlest are a jealous blog, punishing children for the iniquity of parents, to the third and the fourth generation of those who reject us, but showing steadfast love to the thousandth generation of those who love us and hit that little "recommended" button after our posts. more ›

Sightline's Clark Williams-Derry has discovered a funny thing that will happen if Eyman's iniative passes--eastern Washington will be paying for Eyman's scheme to "fix" Seattle-area traffic congestion.

And whatever Mr. Eyman might hope or claim, I-985 would wind up shifting about $180 million in revenues from the rest of the state into greater Seattle. Over 5 years, we expect that the average family of four outside of the Seattle area will ship about $229 in tax dollars to pay for Seattle-area road projects.

That's an actual quote from the AP story on the projected gas price peak in the P-I this morning: "the government tends to err on the optimistic side." more ›