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[...]It's almost as if Barack Obama enjoys salting the wounds of his most ardent supporters. My goodness... could Barack Obama's presidency wind up being a four-year-long "Sistah Souljah" moment?
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[...]
The Boston Globe's Big Picture Blog rarely disappoints, and this Decade in News Photographs series is no exception.
Takeaway: It's been a very bloody and war-filled decade, but Paris Hilton doesn't give a shit.
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' [...]Sitting in his transition offices in the Seattle Municipal Tower today, Mayor-elect Mike McGinn said he may try to place a light-rail expansion measure on the ballot as early as next year. During the campaign, he vowed to let voters decide if they wanted to extend the light-rail system to [...]
Beautiful collection of nuclear reactor wall charts for your viewing pleasure.
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[...]WWJD? Why, Jesus would blow Santa away with a double-barreled shotgun, to "force parents to discuss the true meaning of Christmas," of course:
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[...]I’ve been with my GGG boyfriend for three years and he was my first and only sexual partner—up until recently. I was always committed and monogamous, but recently, curious about what sex was like with other people, I fooled around and spent the night with a man I had met [...]
Conservative site Big Government is calling for a boycott of Build-A-Bear because of this (incredibly boring) cartoon about known conservative Santa Claus learning about global warming:
Needless-to-say, this constitutes brainwashing on the sleaziest and most sinister level. The good news is that this nonsense isn’t coming from our government this [...]
SPD Press Release...
On December 22nd at approximately 10:15 a.m. officers responded to a residence in the 1300 block of South Ferdinand Street for a report of a shooting. Officers arrived on scene quickly, entered the residence and located two deceased victims, a 28-year-old female and a 13-week-old baby girl. The [...]
One of the few video games I will always love (along with Super Mario 3 and the original Legend of Zelda) is Duke Nukem. But even if I had never played Duke Nukem before, I think I'd find this Wired story about the collapse of Duke Nukem Forever to' [...]
Take it away, TMZ:
The two morons behind that terrible "Balloon Boy" stunt are finally going to have to pay the price for all of their dumbassery—a cool $42,000. The Larimer County District Attorney's office claims it sent the bill to Richard and Mayumi Heene—demanding the couple pay restitution [...]
Remember that deal that got Nebraska Senator Ben Nelson to back the health care reform bill? Well, the attorney general of South Carolina, Henry McMaster, is now looking into a legal challenge against it and he's reportedly getting help in that effort from his counterpart here in Washington [...]
Last month I told you to go to this—One Night Only Part 3 at the Sunset. I don't know if you did. You should have. I did, and it was great. Even better than I said it was going to be, and I was enthusiastic to an almost' [...]
At approximately 10:15 am officers responded to a residence in the 1300 Block of South Ferdinand Street. The call stated that two people were deceased inside the house, an adult female and a 14 month-old infant. Homicide and CSI detectives responded to the scene and are conducting the investigation.
Records [...]
That's the rumor being reported in the Silicon Valley Insider. Netflix stock is rising based on this speculation. If this happens, Amazon will not just be accused of putting independent bookstores out of business, but independent video stores as well.
We thought we weren't gonna have to listen to the paranoid, homophobic rantings of anyone named Jerry Falwell ever again. We were wrong.
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' [...]
There's a terrific gallery of them at Daily Beast, from the Bauhaus to Surrealist women to Jung's illuminated manuscript and Etant Donnes and the Monuments Men.
And there's also the recent book on the Cisneros collection of Latin American abstraction (exquisite) by Marquand Books based' [...]
Sample Reality points out several major flaws in the brand-new 7th edition of the MLA Handbook. For one thing, it still doesn't have a way to cite video games. For another thing, it's actually fallen backward in citing from the internet:
In a strange move for a group of people' [...]
You have some overdue library items:
I hope you didn't take them to Mexico with you, or sell them to help fund the trip, because that would illegal. Also, please go ahead and update your e-mail address with the Seattle Public Library by clicking here already.' [...]
As you jump on a plane to go home this week, beware, writes Emily Pothast:
Needless to say, emotional pornography can have devastating consequences on a community, and unfortunately the temptation to indulge is at its strongest for many Americans during the holiday season. That’s why I would like to [...]
The more information we gather about the world itself, and about the many things in the world, the closer we get to what it is that separates humans from other animals. Unlike other creatures in the tree of life, the human is one that's doomed to always think and worry [...]
...remains under construction. One of the most thoughtful contributions so far is one of the earliest: Girl, Interrupted: The Life and Death of Brittany Murphy, posted Sunday afternoon on Jezebel:
It's something we've watched in progress throughout this entire decade: young women who are held up' [...]
It is that time of year when we finally have to close the books on Strangercrombie and tally exactly how much we made for our three great charities in 2009. Which means that you have until Christmas Eve to purchase a deck (or two, or three, or [...]
Koo koo koo! I jus' luuuv haw e'rbody is an ARTIST riii' around Chrisssmas. Shoot 'em BOY, git 'em! That there is ART!
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' [...]We're enthusiastically pro-density here at The Stranger. Seattle is becoming a big city—and it will become a bigger city—so accepting reality and helping to plan for urban density is the best way to keep Seattle from becoming a sprawling mess like LA or Phoenix. But not all taller buildings should' [...]
Chow
Loving HutLoving Hut is an international chain of vegan restaurants ruled by Supreme Master Ching Hai, whose teachings insist heaven will be blocked to carnivores, and who might be insane. "Meat is mostly virus," says Supreme Master TV, played on a [...]
Popsci interviews a Bainbridge Island man who built a robot to help him pedal his bicycle. The construction took a year, and the completed robot (whose name is Joules) is pretty neat:
The money quote, about why the pedaling robot has a neat-looking helmet: “It’s cool to make a paper [...]
Says the governor:
My thoughts and prayers are with the two wounded Pierce County deputies, their families, friends, and the entire law enforcement community.
I am deeply troubled by the recent series of attacks on our law enforcement officers. I ask that all Washington citizens join me in sending [...]
Posted by news intern Sarah Lloyd
On December 15, surveillance cameras in a downtown office building recorded a man "stealing a black bag from an unoccupied office," according to a Seattle police report. It was the same man caught on surveillance footage at Washington Mutual Towers in an earlier burglary.
The next [...]
Doubtful. But things have gotten so tense—and ridiculous—over there that majority leader Harry Reid thinks it's worth a shot:
I've said to a number of people, Rodney King—'Let's just all try to get along.' That's the way we need to do it.
Well, we finally got the slideshow machine jump-started (turns out it was just the distributor cap was loose), and you can find it here.
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[...]Here is the video that's exploding all over the internets showing a Washington D.C. cop bringing a gun to a snowball fight.
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[...]
Captured near the Pike entrance of Freeway Park:
This composition—the leaf, the needle, the eaten pear, the spent cigarette—is pleasing because it has escaped the merely accidental and orbits the planet of some strange or obscure meaning.
Not a surprise: Suspect who shot Pierce County detectives had history of domestic issues.
Two out of three: Health care bill passes second vote.
Turncoat: Democratic Rep. Parker Griffith will announce Tuesday that he's actually a Republican.
They'll dominate that too: Apple getting into the TV business.
A surprise: [...]
Two Pierce County sheriff's deputies were shot and are in critical condition after they responded to a domestic-violence situation near Eatonville tonight, according to the Pierce County Sheriff's office.
A third man, the suspect in the shooting, is dead, according to law enforcement sources.
The PI has more:
Police said [...]
This film shows the known universe as mapped through astronomical observations.
Every satellite, moon, planet, star and galaxy is represented to scale and in its correct, measured location according to the best scientific research to-date.
Kind of makes this whole Tiger Woods thing seem sort of insignificant, huh?
I got this email from the veteran environmental artist—sort of like a Christmas card, I guess—over the weekend. The subject line was "shoveling to keep snow, orono maine."
Senior engineering students are requested to hand shovel snow at the college of engineering plaza. This collective effort [...]
Christian retailer Boss Creations is going to put the Christ back in Christmas by shoving a giant fucking crucifix into your Christmas tree.
Now, I'm of course not a religious man, but isn't there something really gross about that? Like bringing a tiny coffin to a baby's' [...]
Apparently the whole neighborhood is up in arms (tee-hee) where this work of art by the Kabakovs is installed on a mental hospital.
(Thanks, Jop from Amsterdam!)
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[...]You have three days—and several more key votes—left until the health care reform bill clears your chamber. It's missing a public option. It's infuriating some on the left with its mandates and abortion funding restrictions. But it's also, overall, a good bill that's poised to cover 30 million [...]
I know that title sounds impossibly ambitious, but someone with a pretty irritating voice has managed to actually fit all 900,000 major flaws with the first Star Wars prequel into a scant 70 minutes!
Here's part 1:
The weird voice thing is annoying, and the bizarre I'm-really-a-serial-killer subplot could be' [...]
Two things for you to consider this Monday afternoon.
1. You really must hear Seattle artist Anne Mathern's whistled version of Bach's Toccata and Fugue. (It is not new, but it is great.)
2. Anne Mathern is headed next month to the Mountain School of Arts in L.A. (Maybe you [...]
The line should be familiar by now: this health care reform bill isn't perfect, but it's still an historic achievement.
I know that's not where many of our commenters are these days—the "kill it" sentiment still runs strong in our threads—but it's where Washington Senator Maria Cantwell is, according to' [...]
Right now, in Questionland, you can get holiday baking advice from Quill Teal-Sullivan, the master baker behind all the delicious treats at Oddfellows Cafe. Here's just an example of some of Quill's advice:
"Got any good ideas for bread pudding?"
Bread pudding is like a fantastic blank [...]
Will SuttonBeresCuller become the next Christoph Büchel?
The artist trio is spending the first six weeks of 2010 in residency at the MacDowell Colony in New Hampshire, and then heading over to Massachusetts for four days at the invitation of MASS MoCA.
Ben Beres [...]
An HP MediaSmart Computer that is supposed to follow the face of its user wherever they move apparently can't recognize African-American faces. Here is the video:
Many of the commenters on the video (the ones that are not completely racist and horrible, that is) seem to think the problem is that' [...]
From the ashes of Crawl Space has risen a new project called TARL. (TARL, TARL, TARL. I like saying TARL.)
TARL does not stand for anything. TARL has a web site that describes TARL this way:
Multi-location team-driven object selection and processing collective. TARL's objectives are' [...]
Remember back in October, when I first told you about Erick Williamson, the Virginia man who was arrested when a neighbor looked in his window at 6:30 am and saw him naked?
He's been pronounced guilty. His 180-day jail sentence was suspended, meaning that there is essentially no punishment, but [...]
Mexico City lawmakers today made the city the first in Latin America to legalize same-sex marriage, a change that will give homosexual couples more rights, including allowing them to adopt children. The bill passed the capital's local assembly 39-20 to the cheers of supporters who yelled: "Yes, we" [...]
Rather than point out the pleasure of intimate relationships arrives from a sharing which both parties are in agreement with; I will share experiences for you to ponder when one might consider someone's partner a selfish lover for not indulging their fetishes. I have had many exes to whom I [...]
...for collections of sexy Christmas-themed photos culled from M4M dating sites.
NSFAnything. (But if you're a fan of boners and Santa hats, you won't want to miss it.)
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[...]Here (via Edward Champion's Twitter) is a post of the ten biggest literary feuds of the aughts.
I enjoy a good list of literary feuds, especially when they involve such nastiness as calling an author "dull, colourless, humourless, vulgar and a complete failure" and a “bitter, vulgar slut," a" [...]
The progressive and radical left exist in a world that produces disappointment after disappointment...
Obama is a disappointment; healthcare reform is a disappointment; Afghanistan is a disappointment; Copenhagen is a disappointment. Why all of these disappointments? Because one of the defining virtues of leftist [...]
Earlier today, Dan linked to an article in the Seattle Times that exposes the governor's office surreptitiously trying to defeat Mike McGinn and elect Joe Mallahan mayor to save the proposed downtown tunnel. The electioneering—which the governor's office denies—isn't shocking, given that Gov. Gregoire endorsed Mallahan, and we've reported [...]
The Independent has a great story up about how the Nazis tried to steal Christmas.
"The baby Jesus was Jewish. This was both a problem and a provocation for the Nazis," explained Judith Breuer, who organised the exhibition using the items she and her mother collected at flea markets over [...]
Have Democrats finally had it with the lying liars?
Sen. Franken stopped just short of calling Sen. Thune a liar to his face. And now Sen. Whitehouse calls bullshit on all of his GOP colleagues. More like this, please, more backbone, more calling out, more confrontation, more push back.
[ [...]
Like, say, a common interest in 16-year-old parishioners.
Putting together YPW can be a depressing affair. There are the usual victims, of course, the tweens and teenagers raped in the backs of vans by their youth pastors, pressured intohaving abortions by their youth pastors, groped in church basements [...]
There is no way that some untrained Hobbits could cause the collapse of a mile-high tower of Dark Magick.
(Thanks to Slog Tipper Lara.)
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[...]
Conflict of Interest
Almost Human: Madonna on FilmHow can Madonna, a supernaturally talented genius of cultural performance, fail so spectacularly when she tries to approximate human behavior on-screen? David Schmader, our own supernaturally talented genius of trash cinema, has been chipping away [...]
Hola. ¿Donde esta la biblioteca?" title="Hola. ¿Donde esta la biblioteca?" width="500" height="335" />"Hola. ¿Donde esta la biblioteca?"
It's great, because of the faces:
Flame & Citron transports us to the often forgotten world of the face, the human face. Most films do not know of this world, or stay away" [...]
Over in Questionland Kristen Bell wonders....
Since Dan Savage is so outspoken about how fatness kills people, do you think he will comment on the death of an anorexic drug user?
Sure, Kristen, I'll comment: Sometimes skinny people drop dead—everyone drops dead eventually, right? And while I don't know that Brittany [...]
Holy shit, you guys, Lindy West totally called it: Avatar may have some problems (mostly in the script department), but it's an enormous, beautiful, energetic sci-fi action movie. The only thing I would completely change would be the score (the pan flutes were way too hippie-earthy-schlocky.) [...]
Like a billion other people, this weekend I went to see Avatar and—surprise!—it was amazing. This is a good thing, because movies that cost $300 million and are not amazing are in trouble. But after seeing Avatar, I feel like spending $300 million on a movie is [...]
It's time to remind Seattle Times readers of the paper's Dec. 18 editorial, "Set health-care reform aside"?
That's exactly what the Times is doing right now on its homepage, and it's a rather amazing link choice.
Really, the newspaper truly believes, even now, as Democrats are on the cusp [...]
If state officials think the tunnel is theirs, why doesn't the state pay for it? All of it, including overruns?
The e-mail went out the day after the August primary. Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels was losing, and Ron Judd, a senior adviser to Gov. Chris Gregoire, let the staff know he' [...]
On the main page of The Oregonian, a story about an Oregon-bound ship that is "adrift about 540 miles southwest of Alaska’s Adak Island..."
28 crew members aboard a crippled cargo freighter [are] being tossed by 20- to 30-foot waves in the stormy North Pacific Monday morning.
The first [...]
Really?: Health bill passes key test in the Senate. Everyone still pissed at each other.
Snowed In: East Coast starting to thaw out.
Tell me something I don't know: Dark liquor hurts the morning after.
Tell me something I don't believe: Brittany Murphy "Appears to have died of natural" [...]
BBC reports:
Cuban President Raul Castro has lashed out at the US, accusing Barack Obama's administration of endorsing efforts to undermine the communist regime. In his annual address, Mr Castro said the US had sent a government contractor to supply dissidents. The unnamed US citizen was detained two weeks ago.
[...]
Only in Africa:
ABUJA, Nigeria, Dec. 21 (UPI) — Police in Nigeria's Kogi state Monday were looking into what caused a truck loaded fertilizer to crash into a crowd, killing scores of people, officials said.
Several media outlets reported officials confirmed at least 55 people died but the BBC said [...]
You just lost to the worst team in the NFL. You are the worst team in the NFL (see comments).
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[...]
Anne Trubek writes for Miller-McCune about the overwhelming response to an earlier column she wrote.
In the article, [for GOOD Magazine] I argue that we should stop teaching cursive in primary schools and provide some background on the history of handwriting to back up my claims. [...]
From the New York Daily News:
Movie star Brittany Murphy is dead of a heart attack at 32. She went into full cardiac arrest early Sunday and could not be revived, the Website TMZ reported. The Los Angeles City Fire Department got a call from the home [...]
Film
It's a Wonderful LifeThe ubiquity of It's a Wonderful Life has turned it into cultural wallpaper: It's easy to forget the film's improbability as a go-to Christmas classic. (And the improbability of Frank Capra—anti-Semite, Mussolini admirer, informer for J. Edgar Hoover—as [...]
Posted by news intern Sarah Lloyd
At the Corner Mart: Des Moines police shot and shot and killed a man following a domestic violence call.
Another One: A man was shot and killed by police in Lacey following a dispute over an iPod.
Can I Keep Him? If you find [...]
Awful Library Books has posted images from a book titled Don't Make Me Go Back, Mommy. It is "a child’s book about satanic ritual abuse."
It is decidedly not for children.
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' [...]Gee... I suppose this Garrison Keillor column is supposed to be satire—you know, like the column Keillor wrote attacking gay parents. But that was then. Keillor's target now are all those Jews and Unitarians out there who are attacking Christmas:
If you don't believe Jesus was God, OK, go [...]
And "oddly jumbled address," says SusanG at Kos, but the president slammed Republican obstructionists who are attempting to block a vote on the bill and called for an "up or down vote" on health care reform. The Republicans loved calling for "up or down votes" back when the GOP [...]
Wake
Schoolyard Heroes, Kane HodderTonight we bear witness as Kane Hodder and Schoolyard Heroes march themselves to the grave; after tonight, the bands will never play again. Schoolyard Heroes have been bringing badass monster mashes to the masses for the better part [...]
Posted by news intern Sarah Lloyd.
More Staff Picks: Another round of McGinn staffing decisions have been made, including leaving Seattle Public Utilities director Ray Hoffman in place.
My Next Vacation: The Hanford Plutonium Finishing Plant in Richland is now open to guests.
Fun!: R-71 and I-1033 numbers are [...]
The Dems have the votes—so says TPM. NYT report here, Washington Post report here.
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[...]Um...
The Army general of U.S. forces in Northern Iraq has banned pregnancy among military personnel in his command, NBC News reported on Friday. Anyone who becomes pregnant or impregnates another servicemember, including married couples assigned to the same unit, could face a court-martial and jail time, according to an [...]
This was the best question put to McGinn on "The Conversation" today:
About our upcoming mayor's personal grooming. I don't know how to approach that tactfully but this city absolutely cannot have a mayor who is as slovenly looking. We don't want him to go around this country or anyplace else [...]
"If every elected official who ever smoked marijuana voted to legalize it would probably be legalized in an instant. We recognize that, like alcohol, it's something that should be regulated not treated as a criminal activity and I think that's where the citizens of Seattle want us to" [...]
Oh, sure, we have Cliff Mass here in Seattle, but the good people of New Hampshire have relied on the dulcet tones of Al Kaprielian for all their weather needs for the last 26 years. When I lived in Boston, he provided me with hours of entertainment. Here's a fairly [...]
For those who are interested, my second Pop Life conversation is happening at Hidmo this Sunday:
The subject will be somewhere between human memory and urban space, and how it relates to the two ideas discussed in the first conversation—pansemioticism and the Spinozian body. The [...]
I didn't notice this article yesterday, but this is a bummer. Not that I've ridden those rides in years, but this still makes me a little sad and nostalgic. No more Log Ride!
The Fun Forest's big rides are being sold, dismantled and shipped off. The south part of Fun Forest, [...]
The new head of Seattle Public Utilities under Mayor-elect Mike McGinn will be Ray Hoffman, who has held the position as a caretaker under Mayor Greg Nickels. Five others who worked in the Nickels administration are being reappointed. The release from McGinn is after the jump.
Meanwhile, McGinn has appointed [...]
