Posted Wed, Apr 25, 3:49 p.m.

"...I'm sure the residents don't mind that, but for me, it's another part of my city that has made it plain that I am not wanted..." Which is why I now live in Bellingham...

Posted Mon, Apr 16, 6:50 p.m.

While there may be only a handful of actual Starbucks in Europe, there are lots of local coffee shop (two words) chains that are Starbucks in everything but name and primary color...

Posted Thu, Apr 12, 11:31 a.m.

Gosh, yet another self-absorbed Baby Boomer who finds it necessary to alert the media about every lifestyle choice he/she makes. This one's not much different from the people who are always crowing about how they don't watch TV, yet somehow seem to know what happened on recent episodes of 'House' ...

Posted Wed, Apr 11, 7:27 p.m.

Groupon is about the same kind of brain-dead consumerism that keeps Costco in business. Here's hoping its demise is swift and painful for them...

Posted Tue, Apr 10, 11:28 a.m.

This whole business about the SLAUGHTER ON THE HIGHWAYS is an even bigger load of crap now than it was before the passage of the Motor Vehicle Safety Act of 1966. The NHTSA reports less than 33,000 traffic fatalities (not just drivers and passengers of cars, but trucks, buses, light ...

Posted Mon, Apr 9, 7:24 p.m.

...This could be a sign of people's disenchantment with a consumption-based lifestyle that revolves around driving to malls to saddle ourselves with stuff that we can't afford, may not have space for and ultimately makes us unhappy... Or it could be the result of mergers between several big-box retailers and ...

Posted Sun, Apr 8, 2:59 p.m.

@Snoqualman makes a good point—if a passenger train could run reliably, consistently, 90 mph nonstop between Seattle and Portland the trip would take a little over an hour and a half, i.e., commuting distance. About an hour, Seattle to Bellingham, and I'm going to guess about the same, Eugene to ...

Posted Mon, Apr 2, 7:07 p.m.

I'm not surprised the Admiral District is "hyperlocal"... getting almost anywhere else within Seattle's city limits from West Seattle is such a pain, it's generally not worth the effort. Transit, car, it doesn't matter; going to Burien or White Center is much easier. I used to live a few blocks ...

Posted Wed, Mar 28, 2:21 p.m.

...When they succeed in getting government to make it more difficult to go here or there by car, some of us just don't go here or there anymore... Word. Crosscut, I wish your comment system had 'Like' buttons...

Posted Tue, Mar 27, 2:16 p.m.

Jay Inslee is simply a non-entity. He seems to have no charisma, and has articulated no vision. A Democratic Mitt Romney, if you will. I'll vote for him because I simply will not vote for a Republican, not even for dog catcher. But I don't think he's going to win ...

Posted Tue, Mar 27, 2:10 p.m.

The only one of Hearst's news sites that hasn't become an empty shell of its former self is Sfgate.com. I'm going to guess this is because there's still a connection to a functioning daily newspaper, the San Francisco Chronicle. While I am one of those who believe the Times is ...

Posted Mon, Mar 26, 1:17 p.m.

The Mariners' owners have made it abundantly clear that they are not interested in putting a winning team on the field. As long as the Japanese tourists can be sold travel packages and herded through the Mariners Team Store, it's all good as far as they're concerned...

Posted Sun, Mar 25, 10:05 p.m.

@northender, Ms. Hadid's work is nowhere near as cartoonish as Frank Ghery's...

Posted Sat, Mar 24, 7:05 p.m.

I dunno, I still believe letting the Mariners go to Tampa Bay (where Major League Baseball has been a miserable failure, even tho the Rays, unlike the Mariners, have been to the World Series) wouldn't have been so bad. There were any number of other, better baseball teams in serious ...

Posted Sat, Mar 24, 6:53 p.m.

I'm not the least bit surprised. Nintendo was one of the most dysfunctional (not to mention UN-fun) organizations I ever had the misfortune to work for. That it remains in business is truly amazing...

Posted Sun, Mar 18, 6:52 p.m.

In Portland, the food carts tend to be more prevalent on the east side of the Willamette, which is flatter and has more vacant lots. The ones downtown are mostly set up on former pay-parking lots. But I have to agree with @TaylorB1... who cares, really? Portland simply seems to ...

Posted Wed, Mar 14, 9:39 p.m.

Something that would be glaringly obvious to anyone who actually GOES THERE...

Posted Mon, Mar 12, 1:19 p.m.

Before clocks and artificial lighting came into widespread use, humans rose with the sun and went to sleep when the sun went down. Anything having to do with time, Standard or Daylight, could reasonably be called "unnatural."

Posted Sun, Mar 11, 4:24 p.m.

Speaking as a former IT professional, I am appalled at the idea of sensitive data being stored on a device that could be easily lost or accessed. It was all the laptops with customer data that got stolen that made me close my account at Bank of America, not the ...

Posted Thu, Mar 8, 7:17 p.m.

Hugo, once again you offer up a rambling, disorganized dissertation that has absolutely nothing to do with the headline... how exactly are these people "struggling?" And haven't you figured out by now that fickle food fetishists don't give a rat's fuzzy behind about "authenticity" (whatever the hell that is)?

Posted Sun, Mar 4, 7:11 p.m.

This means hip-hop is just about dead, right?

Posted Tue, Feb 28, 10:19 a.m.

"[S]nooty, isolated, and exclusionary" is an excellent description of Seattle in the year 2012. The 2010 Census bore this out rather emphatically, and such racist, classist memes as Smart Growth will make it even more so. That Seattle even wastes time and energy sniffing at Russell Investments' desire to put ...

Posted Mon, Feb 27, 12:25 p.m.

The solution is obvious: ghost malls. Divide all that empty big-box retail space into 400-500 sq ft studios. As @chapala suggests, work only, not live-work. Pennies per square foot. Just like when I was in high school (late 1960s/early 1970s), when nobody wanted to be anywhere near downtown or Capitol ...

Posted Mon, Feb 20, 1 p.m.

Well, Jordan, I would say the proposed arena is more important to more people, being a public (at least, for that segment of the public that can afford a ticket) gathering place. Amazon, OTOH, plans to create three million more square feet of character-free highrise office space which will block ...

Posted Sat, Feb 18, 7:56 p.m.

Uh, you do know the Grammys were LAST weekend... don't you?

Posted Wed, Feb 15, 2:20 p.m.

This is absolutely mind-boggling. The worst thing about fetishized hourly car rentals (e.g., Zipcar) is not having any idea who had the car besides you, where it was driven, and how it's been maintained. Now, handing your car over to some random person who found you online is supposed to ...

Posted Tue, Feb 14, 12:39 p.m.

Hey crossrip, why don't you ask Mr. Brewster to let you write a column? Obviously, you've done a lot of research on the various subjects that you endlessly repeat in all the comments you post, and in this case you've written more words than Mr. Van Dyke! Hardly anyone who ...

Posted Sat, Feb 11, 9:52 p.m.

Just DON'T call the NBA team the 'Sonics'. They're in OKC now; Seattle isn't the Jet City anymore...

Posted Sat, Feb 11, 12:44 p.m.

I never would've guessed the Space Age would come and go in my lifetime, but it did; Kodak's slide into oblivion is sad, but not surprising... the baggage of the past weighs very heavily on lots of things. That Microsoft's focus is still on computers and operating systems makes me ...

Posted Thu, Feb 9, 1:38 p.m.

For gosh sakes, the man's been dead for almost half a century... really, who cares?

Posted Thu, Feb 2, 8:12 p.m.

This is not unique to Portland; it's the same deal in Seattle, and just about everywhere else in the U.S. There is a reason most taxicabs are retired Ford Crown Victoria police cars...

Posted Fri, Jan 20, 2:23 p.m.

It's not a question of if, but when, Boeing quits building airplanes in the Seattle area. For that matter, nobody should expect Microsoft to be around in 20 years, though that will be because Microsoft will be the next Kodak...

Posted Mon, Jan 16, 11:52 a.m.

Before I deleted it, the Qwest iPhone app kept giving me results in *Kansas City*, no matter what city I specified...

Posted Mon, Jan 9, 1:11 p.m.

Once again, I am reminded of why I moved to Bellingham. I've long believed the real reason for schemes like this is to purge Seattle are of all those awful poor people, in much the same way as the Rainier Valley Gentrification Project, aka Link™ Light Rail...

Posted Tue, Jan 3, 1:03 p.m.

The marijuana initiative is quite well thought-out, and something I would support. However, passing it won't change the fact that Federal law still makes possession, sale and distribution of marijuana a crime. Federal law trumps state law. End of discussion. Most of us learned this in high-school civics class, but ...

Posted Wed, Dec 28, 1:16 p.m.

And @smacgry illustrates the biggest difference between the two cities: the priggishness, pedantry and general immunity to pleasure of the Seattleite. Where the stranger in New Orleans will ask how you are because s/he is truly interested, the Seattleite takes pride in having no contact with next-door neighbors, in many ...

Posted Tue, Dec 27, 2:14 p.m.

Bob, the dirty little secret is, most Seattlites don't like kids and don't want them around, sloganeering to the contrary...

Posted Mon, Dec 26, 7:22 p.m.

Mr. Allen is certainly welcome to think he's a visionary if he wants, but compared to, say, Steve Jobs, he's just some schlub who won the lottery. There is nothing truly visionary about anything he's done, and his business ventures have pretty much all failed. And now he wants to ...

Posted Thu, Dec 22, 8:35 p.m.

They've just now figured this out?

Posted Tue, Dec 20, 2:58 p.m.

I'm surprised Mr. Horsey has stuck around as long as he has. Seattlepi.com has become a joke, with very little actual news, even by the most generous standard. I think he sees the handwriting on the wall. His brilliant work will have a far larger audience in L.A., which offers ...

Posted Tue, Dec 20, 2:43 p.m.

@KathryntheGreat, it costs the same to ride between Bellingham and Seattle on Amtrak and Greyhound. But Amtrak doesn't grossly overbook, then scramble to try to find a bus to put the overbooked passengers on and a driver to drive it. At least there were no chickens or goats on board ...

Posted Sat, Dec 17, 9:26 p.m.

Unless they plan to build elevated tracks, what would be the point? A train running at grade would be stuck in the same traffic the 15/18 buses are...

Posted Wed, Dec 14, 12:51 p.m.

McGinn was the less-qualified of the two unqualified candidates. This guy is a fraud, an obstructionist and a doofus. He needs to go, asap...

Posted Tue, Dec 13, 12:21 p.m.

Really, just what is this dude smoking, anyway? The definition of "urban' is NOT 'fetishized rich-white-person theme park,' no matter what anyone thinks...

Posted Tue, Nov 29, 7:58 p.m.

As I've said, anyone who still believes this grand waterfront promenade is actually going to happen must still believe in the tooth fairy and the Easter bunny. No worries about the wind, the highrise condo towers will make a very nice windbreak (and block views of Elliott Bay much more ...

Posted Fri, Nov 25, 8:37 p.m.

The real solution would be a high-speed rail network (you know, like the Europeans have and THE CHINESE ARE BUILDING), so we wouldn't have to put up with this...

Posted Mon, Nov 21, 3:32 p.m.

On a bus, that is. (Being able to edit your own comments would be a nice feature, Mr. or Ms. Crosscut webmaster... : D )

Posted Mon, Nov 21, 3:31 p.m.

I never cease to be amazed at the rail/bus fetishists' inability to grasp one simple concept: people place value on their time. It takes at least an hour to get just about anywhere, from anywhere, in Seattle; I could make those same trips in 20 minutes in my car, or ...

Posted Thu, Nov 17, 12:50 p.m.

Never mind the idea of a $32,000 car you can only drive to work and back, the million electric vehicles on America's roads envisioned by the Obama administration will bring America's Soviet-era electric grid to its knees. Ask any electric utility and they'll tell you, adding a charging station for ...

Posted Wed, Nov 16, 6:26 p.m.

"The Market that so many worked to save in 1971 is just about gone." gabowker, I'm so glad to hear someone else say something I've said for years...

Posted Thu, Nov 10, 11:40 a.m.

I can only speak for myself, but by the time my ballot arrives, I am just so sick of hearing all the blather from candidates and ballot-measure proponents by the time the ballot arrives that immediately mark it and make a trip to the county collection site, just so I ...

Posted Thu, Nov 10, 11:27 a.m.

The party of which Mr. Brewster speaks is missing because 1) City of Seattle offices are nonpartisan, 2) City Council is elected at large, and 3) Washington State adopted a primary system in which the top two vote-getters, regardless of party, advance to the general election. In other words, political ...

Posted Tue, Nov 8, 12:12 p.m.

*Sigh* Olympia and Rainier tasted just like Budweiser and Miller. Their marketing campaigns were more interesting and entertaining than their products...

Posted Tue, Nov 8, 12:09 p.m.

To anyone who believes the grand waterfront promenade depicted in these illustrations is actually going to happen (it is not the least bit funded), I say, I can give you a really sweet deal on this bridge I own in Brooklyn...

Posted Tue, Nov 8, 12:07 p.m.

No, but they certainly contribute to a highly fetishized notion of "urbanity" that is in no way urban...

Posted Sun, Nov 6, 1:27 p.m.

Knute, World's Fairs are so far past their sell-by dates, they're even past the point of being compost. I say again, it's not 1962 anymore... deal with it.

Posted Mon, Oct 31, 9:25 p.m.

I poked my head into the GO in Bellingham once, and didn't see anything really compelling, price-wise or otherwise. I'll have to take a closer look. Trader Joe's is proof there is such a thing as brainwashing... there is nothing there that isn't better AND cheaper anywhere else. Target's wine ...

Posted Mon, Oct 31, 5:59 p.m.

"...there are older scooters and motorcycles that produce more harmful emissions than cars..." But there are WAY more leaf blowers and gasoline-fueled lawn mowers, which are in use almost daily, and which emit far greater quantities of pollutants. This is nothing but a straw man, and utterly meaningless. Back in ...

Posted Sat, Oct 29, 1:34 p.m.

The last time I purchased a television set, I took it out of the box, plugged it in, hooked it up to the cable outlet, turned it on, and watched it. When I was forced to get rid of it 22 years later, it worked as just well as it ...

Posted Thu, Oct 27, 1:48 p.m.

"Hartford is Seattle. Few understand that but it is deeply true. Both are suburban..." The truth one dare not speak. Be careful, the urban fetishists may issuet a fatwa on you...

Posted Wed, Oct 26, 6:54 p.m.

Actual, genuine tax reform would be even better, but that's so not gonna happen in our lifetime...

Posted Wed, Oct 26, 6:52 p.m.

That's because the fine for jaywalking is $54, and writing jaywalking tickets is so much easier for the cops than, I dunno, arresting people for committing actual crimes...

Posted Sun, Oct 23, 1:42 p.m.

Amen, brother.

Posted Sun, Oct 23, 12:09 a.m.

...we clearly all want this device... Speak for yourself, Skip. That it's so completely tied to Amazon is the most compelling reason NOT to buy it...

Posted Sat, Oct 22, 1:15 p.m.

People are migrating to red states because housing is WAY cheaper, not because of budget difficulties in blue states. Take any Forbes/Fox analysis with a very large grain of salt...

Posted Thu, Oct 20, 3:33 p.m.

The deal in Portland is, the mayor (elected by the voters) and members of the city council (elected at large) are all *commissioners*, each overseeing a portfolio of city agencies. The Police Bureau is usually in the Mayor's portfolio, though current mayor Sam Adams gave that one up for a ...

Posted Thu, Oct 13, 1:39 p.m.

Costco is tough to demonize (it's not Blackwater or, God forbid, Walmart Au contraire, Costco is gaming the political system in order to steal hundreds of millions (if not billions) of dollars from the taxpayers of Washington. Ample cause for demonization, especially since I don't see Walmart doing anything like ...

Posted Wed, Oct 12, 2:01 p.m.

So Mark, how much did Community Transit pay you for this little puff piece? And when exactly did Canada (home of New Flyer Industries, which builds most transit buses operated in the U.S.) become "overseas"? Really, like so many others who write for this digital rag, you need to get ...

Posted Tue, Oct 11, 7:04 p.m.

@GaryP, articles like this are what happens when you try to produce a news (or in this case, "news") site without paid writers on staff...

Posted Mon, Oct 10, 12:40 p.m.

"...We idealize the bucolic countryside..." Ronald, these days people fetishize it.

Posted Mon, Oct 10, 12:35 p.m.

Stuff White People Like dot com, #36.

Posted Fri, Oct 7, 1:55 p.m.

In all my time living in Seattle, I never have (and still don't) understand just exactly what the Department of Neighborhoods is for. Council districts would seem able to accomplish the same thing, along with making members of the City Council accountable to those who elect them. Unfortunately, in "progressive" ...

Posted Fri, Oct 7, 1:51 p.m.

The Italian "justice" system can be charitably described with a word beginning with 'C' and ending with 'K'. It is unfortunate Ms. Knox was unlucky enough to get caught up in it, and I for one am very happy for her release and return to the U.S. And I am ...

Posted Fri, Oct 7, 1:40 p.m.

And yet two places above this is a headline that reads "US may be on the brink of a depression." The wrong newspaper closed...

Posted Wed, Oct 5, 9:16 p.m.

By the day, Microsoft slips further and further into irrelevance as it becomes the new IBM. When a Zits comic strip features teen Jeremy doing an eyeroll as his baby-boomer father waxes poetic about his new desktop computer (father delivers punchline: "I've just gotten comfortable with another obsolete technology"). MSFT ...

Posted Mon, Oct 3, 8:13 p.m.

The three counties around Portland (the TriMet region) have enough of a private-sector economy that the very modest tax on employers imposed there has been enough local taxing to support scores of miles of light rail build-outs Actually crossrip, the people who run TriMet, unlike those at KC Metro and ...

Posted Mon, Oct 3, 4:44 p.m.

No kidding. The cities on this list are home to major research universities and/or the world's top technology companies. And the metric seems to be number of patent applications per 100K population. Okay. Hey Crosscut (and all other Seattle media): the continuing stream of such spreadsheet-infused lists is NOT NEWS, ...

Posted Mon, Oct 3, 4:36 p.m.

Oregon has no sales tax and an even more lousy economy Actually David, Oregon has no economy to speak of. The state's extractive industries have long since ceased to be a factor, and Portland's chronic high unemployment goes back generations. Both Oregon and Washington would benefit from comprehensive tax reform, ...

Posted Fri, Sep 30, 1:04 p.m.

If the United States were under a parliamentary form of government, all of this would be so much easier: Mr. Obama would've long since lost a party leadership election (since he's shown rather conclusively that he can't lead), the Tea Party would be an actual party (existing at the lunatic ...

Posted Thu, Sep 29, 4:39 p.m.

I think @gammonhead has a point... rooting for the Giants is nowhere near the exercise in futility being a Mariners fan is. After all, the Giants have actually won the World Series. The M's haven't even been...

Posted Tue, Sep 20, 8:50 p.m.

Like the one that will be happening in the United States?

Posted Tue, Sep 20, 4:39 p.m.

Whatever you do, just fetishize the bejeezus out of everything you eat!

Posted Mon, Sep 19, 2:54 p.m.

Most retailers say the ground-floor retail spaces in most cookie-cutter condo boxes are too small to be useful for any meaningful retail. So we get Quizno's, Edward Jones Investments and nail salons everywhere. And a city can only support so many of those. Seattle once again shows how it really ...

Posted Fri, Sep 16, 12:48 p.m.

No, because Seattle is unique in its collective inability to get over ANYTHING. Witness the vitriol in comments related to any article about Howard Schultz... "I won't go to Starbucks because he sold the Sonics," whine, whine. And the bitching (still!) about how "we voted against the stadiums but they ...

Posted Thu, Sep 15, 7:13 p.m.

Hate to break this to you Feliks, but local TV has been "over" for nearly 20 years...

Posted Mon, Sep 12, 12:02 p.m.

The part about density creating jobs is a bit puzzling. It seems to me the jobs created in the infill developments so beloved by Mr. Valdez and his friends are low-paying service jobs. Quizno's, H&R; Block, convenience stores are what fill the mandatory street-level retail spaces. However, the housing is ...

Posted Thu, Sep 8, 2:52 p.m.

pepper2000, +1 (A 'like' button for comments would be nice to have, Crosscut)

Posted Wed, Sep 7, 4:03 p.m.

Like Stuffwhitepeoplelike.com always said, White People want every place to be Europe. Or in this case, Theme-park Italy (thanks, Rick Steves). I must ask, how "sustainable" is a place with no economy? Not that Mr. Wolfe would know anything about that...

Posted Tue, Sep 6, 5:39 p.m.

Slight problem with this thesis: Silicon Valley is NOT in San Francisco... San Jose, which is 50 miles south, is the center of SV. And it's not particularly dense, even though it is now the most-populous city in the San Francisco Bay Area. Not being on a peninsula, it has ...

Posted Mon, Sep 5, 12:05 p.m.

@gabowker, I refer you to RCW 46.61.755 Traffic laws apply to persons riding bicycles: "(1) Every person riding a bicycle upon a roadway shall be granted all of the rights and shall be subject to all of the duties applicable to the driver of a vehicle by this chapter, except ...

Posted Sun, Sep 4, 6:14 p.m.

Well said, jabailo. SLU is characterless office park...

Posted Sat, Sep 3, 9:59 p.m.

Me Baker, the answer to your question is in about 1965 the city of Seattle annexed unincoporated King County between the previous city limits at 85th Street and 145th Street. The city of Shoreline was created in 1995.

Posted Fri, Sep 2, 11:34 a.m.

David, when I last checked there still no funding for this grand promenade. The more likely outcome will be a wall of high-rise condos for the wealthy, which hardly "connects" downtown Seattle to the waterfront. Which is artificial, created from fill...

Posted Wed, Aug 31, 1:52 p.m.

Hate to break this to you, but the 2010 Census shoots your premise down in flames--suburban areas grew and big cities shrunk (Houston and Phialdelphia being notable exceptions). Seattle especially showed this. That there were more foreclosures on the edges resulted from more sub-prime mortgages in those areas. Yes, they ...

Posted Tue, Aug 30, 4:49 p.m.

The children are on the Eastside, Snohomish County, and south King County. Except for the fetishized children of the wealthy, who are the only ones living in Seattle who can afford children.

Posted Tue, Aug 30, 4:45 p.m.

Poverty is the new prosperity. I couldn't afford anything at Masins even when I was making the big bucks...

Posted Fri, Aug 26, 10:05 p.m.

There's this company called REI. Maybe you've heard of it. They sell this stuff called "rain gear." You know, like bicyclists wear when the weather's crummy...

Posted Thu, Aug 25, 12:26 p.m.

I've long believed the United States would be much better off under a parliamentary form of government. Parties would have to stand for something, and the ones that resonate with enough voters to win significant numbers of seats would be the ones in charge. There'd be the added bonus of ...

Posted Fri, Aug 12, 6:32 p.m.

@GaryP, a Vespa is not a "moped." A moped is limited to a 50cc engine of 2 bhp or less, and a top speed of 30 mph on a level surface, by Washington State law. Vespas and other similar devices are called "scooters" by the powersports industry and Class 1 ...

Posted Fri, Aug 12, 2:21 p.m.

Well, as you point out, there's a whole lot more for tourists to see in France. Even though I'm a Seattle native, about all I can suggest to anyone visiting for the first time would be Space Needle, Pike Place Market, ferry ride to Bremerton/Bainbridge and maybe the library and ...

Posted Fri, Aug 12, 2:02 p.m.

When Ron Sims ran for governor he proposed replacing the state portions of the sales and property taxes (and eliminating the B&O; tax) and replacing them with an personal & business income tax of no more than 4%. This would've cost everyone less, brought in more revenue and would've been ...

Posted Fri, Aug 12, 1:41 p.m.

@ dbreneman, the reason you don't see bike lanes as we have them here is because the bike routes are completely separated from motor vehicle traffic. Everyone in Europe agrees that such an arrangement is safer and results in more efficient traffic flow; cars and bicycles get in each others' ...

Posted Thu, Aug 11, 11:16 a.m.

I also employ @Laurence's tactic... it works, for sure! I am really more offended by Ms. Lightfoot's rationalization of the deceit, coercion and intimidation employed by Dialogue Direct's canvassers--we're talking about armed robbery here, but without the weapon. But then, her idea of helping the homeless is to buy one ...

Posted Tue, Aug 2, 8:55 p.m.

Hey GaryP, I used to be an avid bicyclist, but a bad knee, a bad hip and only 2/3 of a right foot make it impossible for me to ride a bicycle. It would sure be nice if even a few of the smug, sanctimonious bicyclists (who are far more ...

Posted Tue, Aug 2, 12:28 p.m.

Yes, like Paris, London, Barcelona, Berlin, Prague, Vancouver, and, yes, San Francisco All of which have become gentrified theme parks, having banished their working/middle classes to the hinterlands. or at least the outer-ring suburbs...

Posted Tue, Aug 2, 12:24 p.m.

I like the Nissan Leaf, but the fact remains it's a $32,000 car that can't go as far on a charge as my (California emissions-compliant, 4-stroke) Vespa motor scooter goes on a fill-up, which is about 1.75 gallons of gasoline. And filling the Vespa takes about 30 seconds. But that's ...

Posted Fri, Jul 29, 1:57 p.m.

BlueLight, it's more like none of the former P-I staffers who started Seattle PostGlobe could made to understand that almost no one in Seattle gave a rat's furry derrière when the print P-I closed. Never mind what the Web site became... : P

Posted Fri, Jul 29, 1:54 p.m.

A disturbing number of our fellow Americans embrace the Republicans' vision of America as an authoritarian banana republic. My age and my health unfortunately mean emigration is not an option for me. : (

Posted Wed, Jul 27, 12:17 p.m.

Anyone who thinks Boeing will still be building airplanes in the Puget Sound area 20 years from now simply isn't paying attention...

Posted Wed, Jul 27, 12:16 p.m.

Word.

Posted Wed, Jul 27, 12:14 p.m.

I had to make sure I was in the right place--an informative, well-written, thoughtful piece of investigative journalism? In the Seattle Onion? Will wonders never cease? If there were a lot more of this kind of stuff, I'd even consider subscribing...

Posted Tue, Jul 26, 12:06 p.m.

I'll tell you when, ba: never. With a very few exceptions, Crosscut can only afford to exist by publishing articles by unpaid contributors. And these people all work or have ties to some special-interest organization, so the articles reflect the organization's POV or agenda. Except for the guy who suggested ...

Posted Mon, Jul 25, 8:22 p.m.

And the (few) buses still running are often too crowded to accommodate disabled people, bag-laden grocery shoppers or mothers with infants in perambulators, all of whom are thus also effectively abandoned: again a de facto service reduction of 100 percent That''s why I bought a Vespa. Never mind the meme ...

Posted Mon, Jul 18, 12:51 p.m.

I'll take Jon's theatre tickets, or whatever else you might be looking to give away. ; )

Posted Fri, Jul 15, 4:41 p.m.

the Puget Sound metropolis will remain notorious for the worst public transport in the United States – at least 40 years behind any demographically comparable part of the nation @lorenbliss, I am so glad to see that someone else realizes this. I've been saying it for years. I know of ...

Posted Mon, Jul 4, 7:05 p.m.

All this talk of process regarding a major overhaul of the Constitution is, quite frankly, moot. What happened in Tunisia, what happened in Egypt, will happen in the United States. Not tomorrow, not next week. But it will. The plutocrats and oligarchs who so eagerly run roughshod over the rest ...

Posted Fri, Jun 17, 2:51 p.m.

Seattleites once again show the world that they simply do not grasp the concept of a big city. I second @NickBob's comment, and also @beaky's comment awhile back requesting people in Seattle who get their undies in a twist about stuff like this to retire to their yurts...

Posted Wed, Jun 15, 11:21 a.m.

"Seattle" and "big ideas" in the same sentence? In 2011? What parallel universe do you live in, Mr. Berger?

Posted Thu, Jun 9, 1:05 p.m.

I am continually hounded to get "screened" for various things, and when I ask health professionals why I should submit to these procedures, they cannot give straight answers. Never mind that I have no family history of any of these dread diseases. Also, I am now being told my blood ...

Posted Wed, Jun 8, 8:04 p.m.

You refer, of course, to Walt Kelly and his comic strip, Pogo. Right?

Posted Tue, Jun 7, 1:33 p.m.

In other words, Mr. Prelutsky does not fetishize food. I had no idea there were still such people in Seattle...

Posted Mon, Jun 6, 2:16 p.m.

To the north, Bellingham is embarking on a grand plan to transform the site of a former Georgia Pacific mill Really? I've been in the 'Ham for about a year, and in that time a whole lotta NOTHING has happened. In fact, there is a squabble about the 10 (mile-long) ...

Posted Fri, Jun 3, 1:14 p.m.

Knute, for over a decade the people of Washington have made it abundantly clear they want to live in Mississippi. Or Louisiana, your choice. They DON'T CARE about this stuff. Fine. Stop beating a dead horse. California is closing something like a quarter of its state parks and monuments. Jack ...

Posted Wed, May 25, 2:59 p.m.

Operative word: "had." Boeing will be gone in the not-too-distant future, and most likely, so will Microsoft. Seattle will become Venice...

Posted Wed, May 25, 2:47 p.m.

Passive-aggressive provincial clueless idiots.

Posted Wed, May 25, 2:45 p.m.

I don't quite understand what a "Jock Tax" would tax. California has an income tax, which is levied on any income earned in California. It isn't just jocks, it's levied on IT contractors, actors or anyone else who earns income by doing work in California. Jocks pay income tax for ...

Posted Wed, May 18, 1:37 p.m.

What happened in Tunisia and Egypt will happen in the U.S. Maybe not tomorrow, but soon. Plutocrats and oligarchs always seem to forget that oppressed people will one day realize they have nothing to lose by rising up against their oppressors...

Posted Tue, May 17, 2:28 p.m.

Either of them would be a bigger train wreck than Mike McGinn...

Posted Tue, May 17, 2:26 p.m.

It looks like this time there might be people running for mayor who actually understand what city government does, and does not do. Such was not the case last time...

Posted Sun, May 15, 6:18 p.m.

Or just don't get one. Colonoscopies are expensive; the healthcare industry is really more interested in sucking money out of the taxpayers and the insurance industry than in anyone's health. All of this "screening" is what's causing the cost of healthcare to go through the roof...

Posted Tue, May 10, 1:27 p.m.

The Vancouver Grizzlies existed because at the time the NBA had its last expansion, one of the McCaw zillionaires thought it would be cool to own an NBA team, and managed to convince the NBA to let him have one. It was rather obvious few cared what happened to the ...

Posted Fri, May 6, 12:11 p.m.

Back in the days when there were two newspapers and even a television station that considered coverage of city hall a vital and necessary part of their mission of public service, you read or viewed stories about stuff like this all the time. Today, there's more actual news on SLOG ...

Posted Thu, May 5, 1:55 p.m.

Yesterday the Syrian government acknowledged that it has detained Ms. Parvaz, and other reports say she is alive and well. So she's no longer missing, just being held against her will.

Posted Thu, May 5, 1:50 p.m.

Ah, Seattle Process. I'm so glad I don't live there anymore.

Posted Sat, Apr 30, 2:15 p.m.

@Iponder, you must not read Hugo's restaurant reviews...

Posted Mon, Apr 25, 12:29 p.m.

Eating at Jollibee is not like eating Grandma’s cooking, nor is it the most deeply authentic experience a diner can have eating Filipino food. So what? This is emblimatic of a worldview that sees every place outside of the United States as some kind of theme park. I have a ...

Posted Mon, Apr 18, 2:09 p.m.

At least Mr. Holden is not suggesting there be more mimes in downtown Seattle...

Posted Thu, Apr 14, 7:56 p.m.

Knute must be absolutely giddy...

Posted Thu, Apr 14, 3:51 p.m.

What the Mariners really need is to trade owners. I am grateful Mr. Yamauchi stepped up and led the group that among other things prevented the Mariners from moving to Tampa Bay (where we've seen that Major League Baseball has been a total failure), but the Seattle Mariners are NOT ...

Posted Thu, Apr 14, 3:39 p.m.

In Portland, there are food cart food courts on vacant lots. A wonderful idea, and I think the City Council might have discussed it, concluding that food carts are indeed cool. However, in Seattle the remote possibility that someone might get ill from eating from a food cart has stopped ...

Posted Wed, Apr 13, 2:24 p.m.

The Johnson Space Center, which is arguably far more deserving of a space shuttle than the Museum of Flight, isn't getting one, either. "Chances are that at least three of them will make their final journeys on the back of a Northwest-designed and built 747." So what? Get over it. ...

Posted Wed, Apr 13, 2:16 p.m.

...have Fox News Channel. We've turned our schools into state-subsidized daycare. We have a political class, and nobody seems bothered by the idea that how much you donate determines how much access you have to elected officials. The results are the same, the only difference is how you get there.

Posted Fri, Apr 8, 7:08 p.m.

I certainly hope stabilizing the hillsides north of Everett is on the list.

Posted Fri, Apr 8, 7:07 p.m.

Gee, Feliks, I don't suppose the idea of, I dunno, ASKING someone what's going on crossed your mind. Did it?

Posted Tue, Apr 5, 1:06 p.m.

As Stuffwhitepeoplelike.com says, White People (like you, Sue) want the place they live to be Europe...

Posted Thu, Mar 31, 2:18 p.m.

You really need to get out more, Hugo. If one spends any time at all in Bellevue, it quickly becomes apparent how much more diverse (i.e. ethnic) the place is, and has been for many, many years. Particularly in the Crossroads neighborhood, where, as Rick Steves likes to put it, ...

Posted Tue, Mar 29, 12:42 p.m.

I paid $25 to the Kalakala Foundation to take a tour of the boat when it was moored in Lake Union. Structurally, it was in horrible shape, and I can only imagine it's gotten worse since then. Restoration? It would probably be cheaper and easier to build a replica. FWIW, ...

Posted Fri, Mar 25, 7:27 p.m.

"He lauds Seattle for doing all the right urbanist things (density, diversity)" Right. That must be why the 2010 Census data show the percentage of Seattle's white population INCREASING by, what, six percent over 2000?

Posted Sun, Mar 20, 12:10 p.m.

I never cease to be amazed by the kinds of things people project onto a movie that was nothing more than a grade-B Errol Flynn pirate flick, set in space, with a special effects budget. It's been 34 years, for gosh sakes! As William Shatner said in that famous Saturday ...

Posted Fri, Mar 18, 1:38 p.m.

Hugo, you must not have read about the results of the 2010 Census, that show an overwhelming trend of immigrants migrating to the suburbs. As you correctly observe, Thai food has long since been Americanized; I'm going to guess early Thai restauranteurs discovered, for whatever reason, that their customers didn't ...

Posted Fri, Mar 18, 1:29 p.m.

"how could he have written so glowingly in The New York Times of Seattle’s showing the world the 'benefits of concentrating smart people in dense cities.'" How indeed? Isn't this really about concentrating rich white people in dense cities? New York, Boston, San Francisco, even Portland are much whiter and ...

Posted Fri, Mar 4, 2:52 p.m.

Like the one that lets Microsoft avoid paying sales tax in Washington by licensing software out of Nevada?

Posted Sat, Feb 19, 6:50 p.m.

The problem at the Port of Seattle is not who signs the drivers' paychecks, it's THE TRUCKS. If you've ever been anywhere near the Port, you would see the trucks these people drive are used-up beaters, which are all they can afford on the peanuts they're being paid as "independent ...

Posted Sat, Feb 19, 11:43 a.m.

Haven't you heard? The dream of the '90s is alive in Portland. It's a city White People Like. The New York Times writes about Portland (Oregon) all the time.

Posted Mon, Feb 14, 2:06 p.m.

And to think David Brewster thinks large numbers of people are going to PAY for drivel like this? On a good day Crosscut most closely resembles the Onion, and at no time offers anything like compelling reading. Well, in my own case it's rather entertaining in the "my God, they ...

Posted Mon, Feb 14, 1:55 p.m.

I get it: it's a cookbook version of Windows. The bigger question is, why should ANYONE care the slightest little bit what Nathan Myhrvold might have to say about the subject of cooking?

Posted Sun, Feb 13, 11:58 a.m.

As for the ghost malls, here's the solution: Cheap artist's space. Just like the formerly (arguably still) decrepit warehouses in, say, Pioneer Square. But it's in the SUBURBS gasp the urban utopians. Hey, Pioneer Square and Belltown were part of an urban wasteland that rivaled anything in Detroit when I ...

Posted Sat, Feb 12, 11:55 a.m.

What has happened in Egypt, and is about to happen elsewhere in the Middle East, will happen in the U.S. The plutocrats are too smug and too arrogant for it not to.

Posted Thu, Feb 3, 1:55 p.m.

Knute, the Pothole Rangers were created by Norm Rice, not Greg Nickels.

Posted Mon, Jan 31, 7:13 p.m.

Congrats to Ms. Chung. I sincerely hope her book goes on to be a bestseller, and that she gets a nice, big check for the movie rights. However, I can't help but think there'd be no story on Crosscut if the book had been about a taco truck. I don't ...

Posted Wed, Jan 12, 10:41 p.m.

I read this thing twice and all I see is a bunch of psychobabble. No actual solutions, though everyone agrees, things generally suck and something needs to be done. You'd think the article was about Seattle...

Posted Tue, Jan 11, 12:58 p.m.

"People living in informal urban settlements (a.k.a. slums) continue to redefine urban living, often in remarkably creative ways" Someone not familiar with your other writings on Crosscut would think this is a joke. But you consider homelessness a lifestyle choice, so I'm really not surprised. If this post had appeared ...

Posted Tue, Jan 11, 12:54 p.m.

I had lunch there once. It was expensive, and frankly wasn't that great; the Spud has much better fish & chips. Knute, when are you going to accept the fact that it's not 1962 anymore? I'm a native myself, but the significant buildings all got knocked down decades ago. And ...

Posted Mon, Jan 10, 8:33 p.m.

I had horsemeat once. Had I not known it was horsemeat, I would've guessed it was beef. Same deal with bison. Those fine folks at PETA are trying to convince people that horsemeat is somehow poisonous, and bad for you. Whatever. Most Americans think of horses as pets, so they ...

Posted Thu, Jan 6, 6:54 p.m.

Maybe it's because teriyaki doesn't travel very well. Geez.

Posted Thu, Jan 6, 12:19 p.m.

For starters, one color is probably easier (therefore cheaper) to print on the cups, no small saving considering how many millions of them they go through. The corollary to this is their logo has become so ubiquitous and so familiar that just seeing the mermaid (or siren, if you prefer) ...

Posted Wed, Jan 5, 5:49 p.m.

Don't think for a minute that a pair of TV stations each in the 13th- and 24th-largest media markets in the U.S. (Fisher owns KUNS in Seattle and KUNP in Portland, which are affiliates of Spanish-language network Univision) aren't going to be interesting to some big media company. Especially at ...

Posted Tue, Jan 4, 11:39 p.m.

It is safe to say radio is officially dead. You don't have to listen to commercials on your iPod...

Posted Mon, Jan 3, 8:05 p.m.

Uh, her name is Erica BARNETT...

Posted Mon, Jan 3, 12:37 p.m.

The people of Washington have made it abundantly clear they want to live in Pottersville, not Bedford Falls. Fine. Let them.

Posted Mon, Jan 3, 12:35 p.m.

A Seahawk victory in the Super Bowl would serve to underscore just how badly the Mariners suck.

Posted Sun, Jan 2, 6:37 p.m.

Hey folks, ya just got spammed... you really should consider adding the ability to flag comments.

Posted Sat, Jan 1, 7:51 p.m.

Alex, the Mary Tyler Moore Show was set in Minneapolis, NOT Minneapolis/St. Paul. Minneapolis and St. Paul are two separate cities, in different counties. And having seen every single episode multiple times, I don't see how you can say the show's setting was anything other than an afterthought--Mary wasn't particularly ...

Posted Thu, Dec 30, 2:07 p.m.

“Yeah,” he said, “this kind of restaurant could absolutely work in Seattle.” Oh, crikey. Fetishized teriyaki. I don't suppose the idea that Seattle has so many teriyaki places because all you need is a commercial rice cooker and a small grill, which fit very nicely in a cheap hole-in-the-wall retail ...

Posted Tue, Dec 28, 1:06 p.m.

Well, the Tea Party wants to turn the United States into a banana republic, so this would seem to indicate we're getting close... :-P

Posted Sun, Dec 12, 7:26 p.m.

If I may comment on the ACTUAL SUBJECT of the article: Once again, Stuffwhitepeoplelike.com is correct in its assessment that White People want everyplace in America to be Europe. Let's do what Turin does, and everything will be all right. However, the car-hating Mr. Johnson shows he knows nothing of ...

Posted Fri, Dec 10, 3:43 p.m.

"Oh, look Toto! It's the Emerald City!" Knute, please stop projecting your fetishization of Seattle on everything. Not a one of downtown's skyscrapers were designed or built with any thought given to anything but the building itself. Seattle's skyline is made up of buildings that resulted from COMMERCIALISM, pure and ...

Posted Fri, Dec 10, 3:34 p.m.

"While a burger served at Dick’s is not appreciably different than one served at other fast-food restaurants, the experience of eating there is singular and unique to Seattle." No it isn't. Every city had a place like Dick's, once. Heck, Seattle had more than one--By's and Dag's ("Home of the ...

Posted Wed, Dec 8, 5:23 p.m.

A Bellevue arena would also take the traffic pressure off 520, since most Sonics fans seemed to live on the Eastside, anyway. Lots of NBA arenas are in the suburbs, and a new arena could be built with the NHL in mind. David, your proposal makes all kinds of sense. ...

Posted Sun, Dec 5, 12:30 p.m.

Actually, Judy, the flash mob piece was about as pointless as this one. But then I've noticed what appears under your byline is not particularly insightful, or even interesting. But that's a problem with Crosscut generally, and curiously has gotten worse as the begging for money has intensified. Why anyone ...

Posted Sun, Dec 5, 12:21 p.m.

ONLY SIXTEENTH?!! Horrors!! Whatever will we DO??? Stop obsessing over these stupid, meaningless lists for starters...

Posted Sat, Dec 4, 12:39 p.m.

Okay Judy, what's your point?

Posted Sat, Dec 4, 12:37 p.m.

Pepper, the "intelligence failure" that resulted in 9/11 was the failure of anyone in the U.S. Government to act on the idea that, following the fall of the Soviet Union, the biggest threat to the U.S. would come from terrorist organizations based in the Middle East...

Posted Mon, Nov 29, 1:01 p.m.

So Knute, you're saying "Let's be Rome." If someone digging a hole there happens to run across some ancient Roman latrine bucket, everything comes to a grinding halt. "Historic preservation" for many is really just a more genteel form of obstructionism. The main objection some people have to anything being ...

Posted Sun, Nov 28, 1:35 p.m.

So the bicycle is a fashion accessory. Just like the chickens. Just like everything else upscale White People get all giddy about for six months or so, then drop for the Next Big Thing. People ride bicycles in Amsterdam because there's NO ROOM FOR CARS. In Copenhagen people ride bicycles ...

Posted Sun, Nov 21, 12:52 p.m.

As any reader of Stuffwhitepeoplelike.com knows, White People want the place they live to be Europe. Except the people who run Seattle, who want it to be Singapore...

Posted Sat, Nov 13, 3:46 p.m.

This should prove conclusively that the Democrats are utterly hopeless. The Republicans couldn't have gotten a better outcome if they'd infiltrated the party leadership themselves. Get ready to live in a Fascist banana republic, folks. My age and health prevent me from emigrating... :P

Posted Wed, Nov 10, 5:08 p.m.

I'll bet a high-level commission will propose the solution that has been patently obvious for, what, 40 years: a state income tax, made revenue-neutral by corresponding reductions in sales and property taxes. And replace the B&O; tax with a corporate income tax (I don't know why this one won't fly, ...

Posted Mon, Nov 8, 6:59 p.m.

Things like this are complicating TV to the point where it's far more trouble than it's worth. I envy my friend who has a flat-screen TV hooked up to a roof antenna.

Posted Thu, Nov 4, 9:39 p.m.

"The building itself could have been a Denny's in a former life" Actually, it was. And the street it's on is called *East* Marginal Way. You've been here eight years? Really?

Posted Thu, Oct 28, 7:28 p.m.

I used to get an absentee ballot even if I was going to be home, and I've lived in Oregon in spurts of one or two years. I can honestly say the scenario you describe has never happened to me. Quite honestly, election campaigns have become so long and so ...

Posted Thu, Oct 21, 6:35 p.m.

So David, I'm thinking, based on what you've written here, that the answer is no... am I right?

Posted Wed, Sep 15, 1:28 p.m.

What the 50th Anniversary of the World's Fair represents is a reminder that nothing like it will ever happen again... that the Seattle of the early 21st century, despite its delusions, is a small-minded, provincial backwater that doesn't possess the capability to think of anything beyond what already exists. Let ...

Posted Tue, Aug 10, 11:58 a.m.

Seneca, the team is not owned by Nintendo, but majority-owned by Hiroshi Yamauchi, who was a former chairman of Nintendo Company Ltd. of Japan. The team's CEO, Howard Lincoln, was previously CEO of Nintendo of America. I used to work at Nintendo, and say what you will about its products ...

Posted Fri, Aug 6, 12:50 p.m.

So Feliks, how much did you get paid for this PR puff piece, anyway? KEXP is just another overhyped, fetishized college radio station, with the added bonus of a supporting organization that has grown like a cancer cell. If they can afford to pay John in the Morning $120K a ...

Posted Mon, Aug 2, 11:14 a.m.

I've been telling people to enroll their kids in a Mandarin immersion school for years, but after reading this, I think EVERYBODY should do that...

Posted Sun, Jun 13, 11:36 p.m.

Let's see... first there was fetishized coffee, then fetishized doughnuts, then fetishized cupcakes, and now, fetishized pie. I've always thought the reason there are only two specialty pie places in Seattle is because their pies aren't any better than the ones you get at Safeway, QFC, etc., but they are ...

Posted Wed, Mar 17, 9:09 p.m.

Hmm. Fetishized farms. Stuff White People Like, dot-com...

Posted Mon, Mar 15, 2:49 p.m.

The Seattle of my youth was a laid-back medium-size city with a sense of humor. This proves once and for all that such a place no longer exists.

Posted Mon, Mar 8, 12:28 p.m.

And to think David Brewster wants people to PAY for stuff like this...

Posted Mon, Mar 8, 12:21 p.m.

Gosh David, Crosscut is becoming as annoying as KCTS, which descended into perpetual panhandling mode ages ago. Consider this: The Wall Street Journal and Consumer Reports are able to charge for their content because their content is *compelling* and *valuable*. Crosscut is mildly interesting, occasionally, but in the end it's ...

Posted Tue, Jan 19, 8:47 p.m.

Hmm. Fetishized food meets fetishized simplicity. Would love to see how these people would deal with a 7.0 earthquake... p.s.--David, there's no place to report comment spam!

Posted Fri, Jan 1, 10:34 p.m.

Or maybe it's because nobody under age 50 listens to NPR, and those who do catch the New York segment so they can be in bed by 9:30...

Posted Sat, Dec 19, 5:47 p.m.

No it isn't. The "Fun Forest" is the lamest excuse for an amusement park in North America, if not the world. It's not unique, unless your idea of "unique" is "pathetic." Leave it to Seattle to thoroughly fetishize the most mundane and mediocre of, well, anything in support of some ...

Posted Thu, Jul 9, 11:34 a.m.

"The transit-oriented, high-density development will bring in people specifically hoping for a more rail-centric lifestyle. In other words, the corridor will eventually import many of its riders and enthusiasts" I believe the word for that is "gentrification." It's been so painfully obvious from day one that's really what this project ...

Posted Fri, Jul 3, 12:19 p.m.

Yes, malls are walkable. The difference is that you can't walk to the malls from home Sure you can. Bellevue's Crossroads neighborhood, where I grew up, is eminently walkable, bikeable, and well-served by transit. Before suburbanites became pathologically paranoid (no, there aren't pedophiles or terrorists around every corner... really), kids ...

Posted Tue, Jun 2, 11:36 a.m.

Why not just take out the sidewalks? Almost nobody walks across the bridge, anyway (no one walks on Aurora Avenue, for gosh sakes); no one needs to walk across the Aurora Bridge. No one needs to bike across it, either. This would be easier and cheaper, even with the median ...

Posted Wed, May 27, 12:23 p.m.

No duh... I would suggest Bellevue's Crossroads neighborhood, where I grew up, is as walkable, and much more diverse, than any of the Neighborhoods White People like in Seattle...

Posted Tue, Apr 28, 12:14 p.m.

Admit it Knute, this is just another example of putting a warm and fuzzy spin on a plan that really is all about getting rid of all those awful people who don't look, think or act a certain way, or don't belong to the same economic class. Most people can ...

Posted Sun, Apr 12, 1:39 p.m.

I wish everyone the best of luck, but honestly I find reading a newspaper or magazine online to be a total pain in the butt. And if Seattlepi.com is already aggregating stuff from other sources, how is this going to be different?

Posted Thu, Apr 2, 2:09 p.m.

Gosh, Knute, what's next? The only way to achieve the allegedly pristine environmental state you seem to aspire to is for all humans to kill themselves off, like lemmings. Except the millions of decomposing bodies would release billions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere...

Posted Thu, Mar 5, 2:12 p.m.

I think Obama understands that the fourth amendment to the Constitution (you know, the one about being secure in your personal affairs) is still in effect, and that this "mileage tax" is an blatantly egregious violation of that amendment. It is nobody's, especially the government's, business how far and where ...

Posted Wed, Feb 25, 7:03 p.m.

Factual error: The United States is not the nation that invented the car. Depending on your definition, that was either Nicholas Cugnot (France) in 1787 (a steam-powered, self-propelled 3-wheeled cart), or Karl Benz in (a gasoline-fueled, internal-combustion engine-powered 3-wheeled carriage) in 1899. The U.S. embraced automobiles after Henry Ford made ...

Posted Fri, Feb 6, 3 p.m.

Now that I've lived in West Seattle for six months (and on Queen Anne Hill for eight years before that), I have to ask just where this "diverstiy" everyone talks about is. Both places are populated almost entirely by upper middle class white people who drive Priuses, have nannies and ...

Posted Thu, Feb 5, 12:32 p.m.

The Oregonian is doing as well as it is because it doesn't have to compete with another daily (Newhouse bought, then shut down, the Oregon Journal), and its circulation is statewide. Lots of towns in Oregon don't have a daily newspaper (I dare say, lots more than in Washington). Yes, ...

Posted Wed, Feb 4, 1:47 p.m.

Seattle seems moderate in how much we care what others think Excuse me? No other city on this entire planet obsesses with its rankings on meaningless lists, and whether or not it is perceived as a world-class city (whatever the hell that means) than Seattle. You must not know what ...

Posted Mon, Jan 26, 1:58 p.m.

"...A centralized, regional plan is a great idea and it is the way it should be done. It is also largely unrealistic..." Really? Tell that to the people in Portland, which has had just such an agency (called Metro) for like, what, 40 years? When I lived down there, it ...

Posted Tue, Dec 30, 12:08 p.m.

Here's a novel concept: why doesn't Oregon stop having the lowest vehicle registration fee in the country ($54 for two years)? The U.K. imposes an annual fee called the Road Fund Licence (i.e., tax disk), which is on a sliding scale based on vehicle size and fuel consumption. No Big ...

Posted Wed, Dec 24, 4:17 p.m.

"Or are we living in an age of symbolic, self-congratulatory environmentalism?", In a word, yes. Before Oil Shock III and the onset of Great Depression II, Toyota's marketing people noted that, even though the company offers a range of hybrid vehicles, the Prius was the only one that was basically ...

Posted Wed, Dec 24, 4:03 p.m.

Gosh, this sounds like a more subtle, nuanced version of building a wall and not letting the Evil Californians in. I am finding the fetishization of just about every aspect of life to be quite tiresome, and wish the people pushing this Slow (whatever) thing to find something less irritating ...

Posted Fri, Oct 24, 12:03 p.m.

I dunno, I've always wondered why it's so important to keep a company that has to engage in unsustainable business practices to keep its doors open, and that has to goad its customers into unsustainable business practices to be able to buy its products? Especially when its only competitor is ...

Posted Fri, Oct 24, 11:48 a.m.

Y'know, the last time I checked, the Fourth Amendment had not been repealed. That's the one that talks about being secure in one's personal affairs without the government sticking their nose in. It is NOBODY'S BUSINESS (except someone to whom I might sell any of them) how many miles I ...

Posted Wed, Aug 27, 12:25 p.m.

We tried this, remember?: Didn't Bob Walsh head up a committee to study (hey, Seattle process) the idea of submitting a bid for the '08 games? And wasn't it pretty much DOA due to the usual Seattle provincialism and priggishness? My gosh, building a new facility might displace the homeless ...

Posted Fri, May 2, 5:41 p.m.

Not really a suggestion, but something funny: A wag in San Francisco suggested the Giants' ballpark, which was about to undergo yet another name change due to the merger/acquisition/whatever of the corporate naming rights holder, suggested the place continue to be called SBC Park (previously Pac Bell Park, now at&t ...

Posted Sat, Apr 19, 2:30 p.m.

Gosh, Knute, I guess you really aren't a fan: The Miss Bardahl that was known as the "Green Dragon" is not the one pictured, which was the last boat to carry the Miss Bardahl name. Take a look at the Miss Bardahl Web site, a link to which is contained ...

Posted Tue, Feb 5, 3:16 p.m.

I can't has cheezburger?: Kitteh say I can haz Dick's cheezburger!

Posted Fri, Jan 18, 11:17 a.m.

About George Benson: Uh, I just checked, and Mr. Benson is still dead...

Posted Thu, Jan 10, 11:41 a.m.

Techie libertarians are so funny: I'm always amused by techies who call themselves "libertarians" and want to get rid of the government. It's through trillions of dollars of government subsidies (defense research, procurement, the Internet) that information technology has reached the point where it is today, making it possible for ...

Posted Wed, Jan 9, 11:05 p.m.

RE: Best of the Best ignored: You might find the Honda FCX Clarity interesting, though you can only get one if you live in certain cities in Southern California. It's a lease only. General Motors has done considerable research on hydrogenfuel cells, and has even placed 100 fuel-cell Chevrolet Equioxes ...

Posted Sat, Apr 21, 4:09 p.m.

RE: two questions: 2) Why the hell didn't you build rail when the feds would have paid 90%? Idiots... The idiots were the voters of Seattle and King County... a rail rapid transit system was on the ballot twice and was turned down both times.