I can’t say enough how much I enjoyed this week’s pro-bike manifesto by Eli Sanders. To his list of bike death traps in Seattle, I would add the following: Olive Way coming up Capitol Hill from the west, where there’s barely room in the lane for even one car, much less a bike; Pine Street coming up the hill from downtown, where the city dealt with biker complaints by painting a bicycle icon right in the lane, thus encouraging cyclists to feel safe even though they’re still in the middle of traffic; and Leary Way, a terrifying free-for-all with no bike lane and 40-mph traffic.
Seattle’s not a TERRIBLE city for bicyclists; but with all the lip service the City Council and mayor give to making the city bike- and pedestrian-friendly, it should great. Bike lanes (unlike, say, tennis courts and skate parks) aren’t just recreational; they’re part of our transportation infrastructure, and as such, they shouldn’t be a luxury.

I no longer have a crush on Maria Cantwell. In today’s Seattle Times, she supports Microsoft’s decision to yank its support for the anti-gay-discrimination bill.

see http://www.americablog.org/

I guess it’s not a big surprise that she’d kiss up to Microsoft. They are her top contributor at $100K. Preston Gates (Microsoft’s law firm) is her third top contributor at $37K.

Breathing other people’s smog is my least favorite thing about Seattle nightlife, but now there’s real hope that we could follow California and Manhattan in banning smoking indoors. If you haven’t signed I-901, the indoor-smoking ban initative, stop by my desk. Healthy Indoor Air for All Washington needs 225,014 signatures by July 8 to qualify for a statewide vote in the fall. If it passes, I’ll have to find something new to bitch about (and we’ll all live a little longer).
 

Continue reading "Smoking kills brain cells" »

I already love this book, by Don Watson, the subtitle of which is “How Cliches, Weasel Words, and Management-Speak Are Strangling Public Language.” Sample line: “Errors of gramar are irritating; slovenly, colloquial, or hybrid speech can be gruesome; but English also gets much of its vigor and resilience from spontaneous invention and the colonial cultural mix. Compared to the general malaise, even the language of the law is harmless and at least amuses those who practice it. These failings are to the language as a few biting insects are to the tsetse fly: as an itch is to a slow, sleeping death.”

Also, I agree that “unfuckwittable” is great.

Word of the day courtesy of Larry Mizell Jr.: unfuckwittable (means badass, I think).

Continue reading "Eh? What did you say?" »

That’s all.
Except to say that this morning, our president signed the Family Entertainment and Copyright Act, legislation designed to protect companies that seek to censor Hollywood movies to make them less objectionable for “families,” which is to say Christians and Mormons who want to participate in the consumption of all the Godless filth these Jewish companies create, just without so many bad words and nipples. Traditionally, the companies that engage in this censorship take mainstream films, edit out the dirty parts according to what they believe conservative viewers would feel uncomfortable seeing, then rent the butchered versions. The objectionable footage can consist of anything from…

Continue reading "Scottish Oatmeal?" »

i would like to note that the cheesy concept of a “permalink” brought to mind the excellent new yorker article i read over scottish oatmeal this morning, about global warming in the arctic. it features a lot of discussion regarding permafrost, and how when it melts it makes hexagonal depressions, which is impressive. also cool: global warming is one thing you can both believe in, and be against. unlike, say, god. but like, say, country. this entry has been brought to you by the letters “s,” “k.” and “i,” and the question: “do HTML commands work within a slog entry?” ciao.

BusinessWeek’s cover story this week coincides with our leap into Blog land.

BusinessWeek’s zeitgeist reporting on the corporate world (know your enemies) is always hep to the dystopia advancements.

Business Week