Commenter Simonian brings up an excellent point: who, exactly, is this Greg Smith who may or may not be running for mayor against Greg Nickels? Here's what we dug up: He's the head honcho at Urban Visions, a real estate and development firm with lots of reassuring greenspeak on its website: the phrases "sustainable practices," "community," "energy-efficient," "increased density" and "future generations" all make an appearance on their Beliefs page. The company has spearheaded projects......

If you haven't voted yet today, what the hell are you waiting for? But just in case you need a little musical enticement to get you to the polling place and/or post office, the lovely and talented Three Imaginary Girls have put together an Election Day podcast. Featuring a smattering of Northwest/indie/pop bands, including Damien Jurado, A Gun that Shoots Knives, and (the so appropriate) These United States, the Girls encourage you to download the......

Starbucks--and Babeland, and Krispy Kreme, and Ben & Jerry's, and Irwin's, and Cupcake Royale, and probably other places we haven't heard about--got a lot of publicity when they offered to give away free coffee to anyone who voted today. (And maybe more Facebook publicity than they hoped for. ) Turns out, though, that bribing rewarding voters with free stuff violates some of those pesky election laws. Never fear, though: You can get a free tall......

"The Pumpkins Have Spoken" (and we have, too....Vote!!) by Seattlest Flickr contributor Jay Cox Since doing your civic duty (not to mention voting in a historical election) might not be enough to get you to vote today, the Big Blog brings you 7.5 things you can get for free on Election Day.Capitalizing on tragedy, local gangs are in the midst of a string of retribution shootings, presumably in response to the shooting we mentioned in......

For many Seattle residents, the Death With Dignity Initiative (I-1000) gets a heartfelt, fairly immediate vote of approval. P-I columnist Joel Connelly is not so sure. Today's paper includes Connelly's long-ish rant about I-1000 supporters' misguiding ads on the radio, and he awards the initiative his "Sheer Gall Award" for its advertisements' "anti-Catholic" "landslide of distortions." We suggest you read his fact-checks and decide for yourself.......

Tera will be catching the Saturday evening premiere of Spring Awakening at the Paramount. Saturday evening will be followed with a leisurely plane ride to Orlando where she’ll be trying out for the Mickey Mouse Club, or riding rollercoasters--however you want to look at it. Kim is off to the Moore tonight for Dar Williams, followed by birthday festivities with her smartest friend. Tomorrow, it's a double-header at the Tractor;Catie Curtis plays the early show,......

King County absentee ballots went out yesterday! Here's the Wash. State 2008 Online Voter Guide for this election. Here's your King County voter's information, including a beautiful video about how to fill out your absentee ballot: How to vote your absentee/mail-in ballot from King County Elections on Vimeo.......

The deadline for registering to vote in Washington State is this Saturday, October 4th. We know all of our readers are well-informed, politically savvy, perpetually active voters, but you still might want to make sure your voting status is up-to-date. If you don't mind using a partisan website, Obama-affiliated VoteForChange is a super-easy tool to verify and update your registration status and address of record. The other options are the Washington Secretary of State's MyVote......

Well, that was fun! Absentee ballots are still pouring in, but yesterday's (rather predictable) primary results have been announced. Dino Rossi and Christine Gregoire are neck and neck and by far the top two gubernatorial candidates, so settle in for a truly American-style bloody campaign this fall as they race to the finish line. Check out Slog's exhaustive coverage, starting here with the percentage results. And KIRO 7 has post-election interviews with both Gregoire (with......

After a committee vote yesterday, the full City Council is set to decide on Monday if Seattle will adopt a 20-cent fee for plastic bags at grocery, drug, and convenience stores, as well as a ban on polystyrene food and drink containers. If passed, the fee and ban will go into effect on January 1, 2009. Stores that use the plastic foam containers to package meat will have a year to figure out an alternative......

With Oregon and Kentucky going to the polls today, Obama ready to take over an even clearer lead in pledged delegates, and Hillary poised to trounce him in whiteland, there's a lot of discussion on the interwebs about whether or not Hillary's supporters will get behind Obama when it's all said and done. It's a valid question. Obama is an eloquent intellectual who hasn't bothered to pander to the under-educated, under-paid among us. As......

The intrepid and dedicated bloggers over at My Ballard.com have been providing nearly minute-by-minute coverage of the Seattle Landmark Preservation Societies vote on the old Denny's building on 15th and Market. According to their pain-staking notes, around 6:30 the board's final vote of 6 to 3 in favor of landmark status, was met by gasps and cheers by supporters in the audience. The vote means that the building cannot be demolished and replaced by......

Urban travel blog Gridskipper is in the final round of their search for the -iest cities in the world. And in this case, all the -iests are sex-related: By Friday of this week, the world shall unequivocally know which city is the fetishest, which city is the lesbianest, which city is the gayest, which city layeth with the minions, which city is the least-sexiest; which city ye shall call Man and which ye shall call......