Seattle.BloggersPub

This is a recent image of Miriam, my 18 month-old twin. I’m not gonna go all daddy sloppy about how damn beautiful she is. But you get my drift. She gets the hang of the camera and poses for it. Adin, the other twin, marches right up to the camera and […]

Splashed all over page one today: the US economy shows strong growth. (And by “economy”, of course, the media actually mean GDP plain and simple.) But do the GDP numbers lie?

Readers of this blog probably know we’re a bit touchy on this subject. Today, I’ll spare you my ranting and pull a quote from Ezra Klein at Tapped:

,,,macro data tells you very little about the economic experience of most folks, which accounts for the massive disconnect between how the Bush administration and the media seem to think the economy is doing (tubularly!) and the 63% of the public who think the situation fair or poor. For some more indicative numbers, head over to the Wall Street Journal, where you learn that wages and salaries grew only 0.7% over this period, while prices for U.S. consumers rose 2.7%. The labor market, which has tightened up, is seeing a weird combination of low unemployment without corresponding wage growth.

That just about gets it right.

Thomas R. Pickering, former number 3 in the State Department and U.S. ambassador to Israel (1985-1988) spoke some interesting truths in a speech last week covered by the Daily Star’s Rami Khouri. Pickering, who was once in the running to become Secretary of State (but lost out to Madeleine Albright), is attempting to inject […]

Brad Burston has written yet another lucid, compelling and compassionate essay in Haaretz on the common threads in the Israeli and Palestinian collective psyche. If only both sides could retain in their minds their shared values and experiences, then solving this bone-crushing conflict might actually be possible. His piece was written for Passover, […]

Tomorrow’s Daily Yomiuri has an article about Japanese workers voting Ichiro as the ideal company president “because he has talent, leadership and trustworthiness.” The Tokyo Chamber of Commerce credits the results to Ichiro’s leadership at the WBC last month.
Anyway … let’s play along with this. The Yomiuri article notes that the top 5 vote-getters […]

I’ve always wanted to soak up the sun and enjoy the casual atmosphere of spring training, but if this is true … all the more so!
According to the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, the Mariners and Indians are rumored to be planning a spring training game at Aloha Stadium next spring.
(Scroll down to catch the M’s bit near […]

I love NFL Draft day (Saturday). Two entire months of stale Super Bowl remnants end as the NFL puts on a two day made for tv experience where we can watch the over-analysis of talent, potential, attitude, background, and cohesion.
For every draft day sucess, there are at least one or two draft day debacles.  ESPN has put together a List of […]

By most indications, the Seahawks are most interested in finding a good CB with the 31st pick on Saturday. But they’re not so desperate that the best available CB is a lock to be called. It’s a pretty good position to be in, and made even better since this draft is said to be deep […]

Pesky non-native invaders they may be, but the European Starling may have human-like powers of linguistic communication. According to new research, starlings have the ability to recognize recursive grammar–the insertion of an explanatory clause in the middle of sentence–though in the form of warbles or rattles, rather than words. This is sort of a big deal because recursive grammar was, until recently, believed to occur solely in human languages.

In fact, it was supposed to be one of the distinctive features of Homo sapiens‘ intellect. Now it turns out we’re not as different from the aptly named Sturnus vulgaris as we’d thought. To me, that’s one of the fascinating aspects of biology: it often reveals that we are less unique than we think–and more deeply embedded in a wildly complex web of living things.

The lovely MP sends along the pressing news of this morning’s tour of the Living Barge around Elliott Bay. Cribbed directly and completely from Seattlest, here’s the scoop:’Living Barge’ Tours Elliot Bay Today Seattlest // By seattle_dan// 4-27-06 …