Seattle

Seymour Hersh in Seattle: Asks What Kind of People Are We?

Posted by Jeff

I went to see Seymour Hersh at Town Hall in Seattle. He gave a 90 minute lecture with 30 minute Q&A which was energetic, fast-paced – sometimes in its weak points rambling. But overall, it was a powerful overview of the corruption of the Abu Ghraib scandal and Bush and Rumsfeld’s policies of covert torture. An audience member asked at the end – what’s the story? Hersh responded that he guessed the story was Who Are We? What kind of a people sit back as their democracy crumbles at the whim of an idealogue like George W. Bush and do nothing?

Hersh also made some powerful points about Lebanon and Israel:

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Should Seattle make riding Metro buses totally free?

Posted by Jeff

Traffic has gotten steadily worse in Seattle over the past ten years. Lately, nearly everyone is telling me their personal stories about the declining quality of life here because it’s just so darned hard to get around.

Today, Mayor Nickels asked Seattleites to do their part by biking more and voting for a levy to help us reduce our city’s greenhouse gas emissions. One of the few good things Nickels has done is lead the way nationwide for major cities to meet the Kyoto Protocol emissions guidelines in defiance of the corrupt Bush administration.

I think that Seattle needs to make it’s Metro buses totally free.

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Mayor urges Seattleites to help slow climate change

Posted by Jeff from Seattle Times

One of the few things that Mayor Nickels is right on and showing leadership on. How about free metro buses across the city?

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You can go home again

Posted by Jon from Seattle Post-Intelligencer

interesting story about how married couples moving in with their parents is hitting the mainstream in Seattle.

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Idealog: Yes on 933 is Lying to Rural Property Rights Activists about Eminent Domain

Posted by Jeff from Idealog.US

So, the Yes on 933 folks have put together a slick flash animation focusing on how 933 would stop Washington State from invoking Eminent Domain. The problem is it's a gigantic lie. Initiative 933 mentions Eminent Domain only twice in its preamble. None of the acts' operating provisions - the sections that make law - mention eminent domain at all. I'm concerned that the Yes on 933 folks are taking advantage of rural property owners - tapping their resentment at politicians to get them to vote for this initiative. Instead - rural voters are just getting used to push through an initiative that will be a free for all for developers and lawyers.

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News brought to you by the average Joe

Posted by Jeff from Seattle Times

Blogs have long been a home for personal essays and observations, but they're also a key tool for citizen journalists. Some of the best-known citizen journalism sites started off as blogs, but have since acquired a more professional sheen. A notable example is Talking Points Memo, a well-read, three-employee political blog that its creator says is profitable. "What's powerful about what the Web has done is it allowed a lot more voices and information to make it to the surface than ever before," said Jeff Reifman, a Seattle software developer who worked at Microsoft for eight years. Reifman recently redesigned his news-aggregator site and changed its name from CommonTimes to NewsCloud. But writing is difficult, he said, and it takes time and expertise to cover a "beat." Generally, people who write blogs are not in it to break news. A recent study by the Pew Internet & American Life project said that only a third of the 12 million American adults who keep a blog consider them to be journalism.

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Starbucks Raises Prices on Coffee

Posted by Jeff from Chicago Tribune

Starbucks Corp. said Thursday that it planned to raise prices of its lattes, cappuccinos, drip coffee and other drinks by 5 cents, or an average of 1.9 percent. O'Neil said the company decided to charge more because costs, including fuel and energy, are going up.

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