The Washington state Supreme Court says you can. They agreed with Chris Clifford, who argued that Port of Seattle commissioner Pat Davis committed malfeasance when she, as commission president, signed an agreement with outgoing Port CEO Mic Dinsmore to pay his salary a year after his retirement. In fact, the Court agreed 9-0 that Davis "intentionally acted outside the scope of [her] duties by signing an agreement with Dinsmore." Clifford now needs to collect 150,000......

The Supreme Court ruled today that we get to keep our top-two primary system, which will take effect in the August state primary. Remember, we all voted on that system and then it got thrown out? Well, as it turns out, we get to keep it. According to the Seattle Times: Writing for the 7-2 majority, Justice Clarence Thomas said that overturning Washington's plan would have been an "extraordinary and precipitous nullification of the will......

The Supreme Court announced today its decision to hear a case with Seattle ties. The Court will be considering reinstating a murder charge against a driver involved in a drive-by shooting outside Seattle's Ballard High School in 1994. This fall, the Court will hear the case of Cesar Sarausad II, who was convicted of murder for his role in the shooting. Sarausad was the driver of the vehicle involved in the shooting, which killed 16-year-old......

We have gathered some of the top political writers in the country and asked them to discuss the presidential race throughout the year. Today they will discuss the Democratic race between Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. Seattlest-- How do you feel Senator Clinton's recent attacks on Senator Obama are shaping the upcoming Texas and Ohio primaries? Jeff (San Francisco Chronicle)-- I've got to come clean with my dirty secret-- I'm starting to get cold feet......

Seventeen teams showed up at the Old Pequliar last night to see if our voice would give out. We managed to get through the evening without having a Peter Brady moment, but we're grateful to those of you who were willing to step up to the mic at a moment's notice. We thought we'd produced a slightly more difficult quiz than usual, but we were proven wrong -- every team got 40 or more......

Study up on Jesus. That was the topic for last night's hardest round at Seattlest Trivia. Average score/ 5.9 out of 10. Can you do better? 1) In 1966, the Ku Klux Klan burned Beatles records after who said the group was “more popular than Jesus now”? 2) The Depeche Mode song “Personal Jesus” was inspired by the autobiography Elvis and Me, written by whom? 3) The Jesus and Mary Chain’s song “Just Like Honey”......

If you want to know what goes on in a particularly good creative writing workshop, the first half of First Class at ACT handily answers that question. As the brilliant bipolar poet Theodore Roethke, John Aylward delivers a blizzard of insights into the writing process, growling, stalking back and forth, and sounding like Team Poetry is down just by 10 at the half and ready to make a comeback. Poet/playwright (and former Roethke student) David......

The state of Washington is a magnet for the eye of Sauron/righwing punditocracy right now. First it was the offensive launched in the War on Christmas by the Port when they defiled Christ by removing the Holiday trees from Sea-Tac. Then An Inconvenient Truth was banned and unbanned from educational venues in Federal Way, but today it's our same-sex marriage proponents down in Oly that are ruffling feathers - They've proposed a ballot measure that......

For weeks Mike McGavick has seen the same poll standing stiff. The latest Survey USA Election Poll has Maria Cantwell at 54% and Mike!!!!!! at 42%. The poll was taken the weekend after the kick-ass debate on KING-5, and during the release of McGavick’s Seattle Times endorsement. He has been stuck between 37% and 42% since August, and for the next week will just have to suck up that poll and push hard towards the......

Those sad, wet, cold people holding signs and waving to you this morning means that it is Election Day. Well not a real one, but a primary. Primaries are designed to get rid of the poor, self-righteous candidates, and settle on two candidates financed by special interests and who are seeking elected offices for purely selfish reasons. In the Democratic Senate race, Maria Cantwell defeated Hong Tran the day Tran didn't become a cable television......

Its okay everyone you may un-board your windows and come down from the hills. The State Supreme Court’s upholding of the Defense of Marriage Act means that God will not be seeking revenge on our state through a “natural” disaster. In fact, He will probably reward us. He may provide us with a glorious unicorn covered rainbow, make it rain gold bars, or give everyone in the state a coupon to The Olive Garden. Since,......

-The Supreme Court decided that Bush's Guantanamo trials are illegal today in what the NYT refers to as a "stinging rebuke." -Triple whammy for Microsoft: They're cutting 148 sales jobs, Office will be late, and Vic Gundotra left for Google. -Which one of these guys do the Mariners pick up to stay competitive in the A.L. West? Or for next year? -Gnomedex kicks off tonight and tomorrow John Edwards will be talking to attendees......

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? But there's no accounting for some people, like Kathleen Brose, president of Parents Involved in Community Schools (PICS). She--well, her lawyers--argue that a racial tiebreaker kept her daughter out of Ballard High, a historic......

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. You can imagine how......

Shanghaiist probably knows a little more about China than the Chicago Sun-Times. Giving them the benefit of the doubt on that one. The city does to have a music scene. Don't even front like they don't. They also have Dorito bananas and white guys shopping for wives. What they don't have is any more tolerance for jaywalkers. Bostonist sees Boston and Somerville each whip out their art and face off. A plagiarized novel is the......

ID=1984: Continuing on yesterday's Database Of Oppression theme, Mayor Nichols is pushing a city database to hold information on troublesome night spots. Creep On The Loose: Another sexual assault is being attributed to a serial offender near Tacoma. On Monday a woman awoke to find an assailant inside her apartment with two males already bound. The men were able to free themselves, but the attacker escaped. Our Father, Who Art A Thug: The Lake Chelan......

Recall elections are awesome. A few years ago we were lucky enough to go through one in California. It turned an ordinary fall into a non-stop free for all of stump speech watching action. In the end we got a new governor who knows a little something about excitement, and the American political process got a little gooder. Now the Washington State Supreme Court may give the good people of Spokane a chance to hold......

The big news in the music world today revolves around the most rocking of government branches, the Supreme Court, where the justices unanimously voted against Grokster and for the movies/music industry. The argument presented by the movie/music industry made the case that Grokster was designed only for copyright violations and that the parent company should therefore be help liable for people using the software in the way that it was intended. The tech industry argued......

Judge John Bridges of Chelan County Superior Court just finished reading his ruling on last year's governor's election. He ruled against the Republicans, saying that for him to overturn the election based on proportional analysis, without proof of fraud, would be "the ultimate act of judicial activism." Sound Politics, Stefan Sharkansky's blog, will soon have something to entertainingly polemical to say, we'll bet. Both the P-I and Times will soon post stories about this......

The trial over last year’s governor’s race is finally underway with opening arguments in Chelan County. It looks like this will be a contentious two week event with both sides agreeing that the case will ultimately end up before the state Supreme Court. The Republicans will have to show that the illegal votes cost Dino Rossi the election. They will try and do this by using statistical analysis, in which lawyers from the GOP......

Washington has long been called the San Diego of the Pacific Northwest. However, it remains to be seen that if like San Diego our top political spot is heading for a re-vote. Chances for such a vote seem unlikely, but Seattlest knows this: never say never. Judge Bridge's ruling that proportional analysis can be introduced gave Republicans a second life. With Republican lawyer Mark Braden said without this evidence, "We could not have gone......

If you are at all interested in digital media, copyright, technology, and your rights online, you are probably following the Metro Goldwyn Mayer, et al., v. Grokster case currently being tried by the Supreme Court. The essential nuts and bolts of this case is whether or not software creators can be held liable if their technology can be used to perpetrate copyright violations. The case is also a discussion of the famed Betamax case......

We’ve all had a great deal of fun watching this wacky governor’s race. First there were the recounts (insert sound of slide whistle), then there were the found ballots (insert sound of clown laughing), then there were the list of felons and dead individuals who voted (insert sound of pie hitting someone in the face), and now we have the death threats (insert sound of awkward silence)…Ahem, will this fun ever end? The next......

With the throwdown in Olympia over gay marriage about to kick off, the occasion was marked in Seattle by a march from Capitol Hill to Downtown. While a Capitol Hill march in support of gay marriage may seem like preaching to the choir, a Post-Intelligencer poll shows just over 50% of readers support legalizing same-sex marriage in the state. As the first movement on the issue since the Presidential Election in November, the wranglings in......

Seattle smokers are breathing a little, uh, easier, today after the state Supreme Court struck down a Pierce County smoking ban, stating that banning smoking from Pierce County bars, restaurants, and casinos is in conflict with state law. There is a law at the state level that prohibits smoking in public places, but it exempts bars, restaurants, bowling alleys, and casinos as well as a few other traditional haunts of the smoker. Of course, Pierce......