Recent Stories in News

The Tunnel + [Unfunded] Transit people have sent out an email denouncing both SCAT's stop-the-tunnel initiative and the more recent Move Seattle Smarter initiative that seeks to protect Seattle taxpayers from deep-bore tunnel cost overruns. 

"The bored tunnel option is the only alternative that keeps the viaduct open during construction, linking neighborhoods and assuring that freight can move through and around this City. The opponents’ plan would put 110,000 vehicles a day on surface streets and I-5 killing business and jobs," says Dave Gering, of the Manufacturing Industrial Council of Seattle, in the release.

WDOT created a visualization of the waterfront boulevard that comes with the tunnel.
I've tried to help it reflect actual traffic.

Gering is quoting the high estimate for daily traffic on the Alaskan Way Viaduct currently, but he fails to mention that the tolled deep-bore tunnel is expected to handle only 47,000 daily vehicles. Some 35,000 cars are anticipated to take--that's right--city streets and I-5.

The difference between the Surface/Transit/I-5 alternative and the deep-bore tunnel is that dealing with surface street traffic is the primary goal of the former, while the tunnel plan does little to mitigate the traffic it sends to I-5 or city streets. There is $190 million recommended for transit as part of the tunnel plan, but it is unallocated, which is another way of saying that the tunnel plan contains 190 million wishes.... (more)

And hot like a brawt: Leavenworth, WA, local ye olde favorite Christmas tourist trap is trying to bring in the young, YouTube-ing crowd with a hip-hop musical parody:

Featuring the town's nutcracker mascot, Woody Goomsba, and local hootchie dancers in dirndles, the video is very, very strange, but has indubitably "reached out to a new audience," which is the Leavenworth Chamber of Commerce's expressed intent. The video was released on Saturday, December 4, with no fanfare, but received 37,000 views on YouTube in the first 24 hours.

By contrast, Tumblr went down for 24 hours and there was much ado, indeed. According to Tumblr, the company had an unplanned issue during planned maintenance and a database cluster went down. Soon after, the world exploded. Fortunately, the start-up restarted, and the universe was able to reform and go on as if nothing of consequence had happened. Whew!

The e-book wars continue, with Amazon now offering Kindle for the Web. The app lets readers use a web browser to read books! Amazing. The announcement came the day after Google announced the launch of Google eBookstore, which is also (obviously) platform-independent. Russ Grandinetti, Kindle Content VP, said that, “Kindle for the Web makes it possible for bookstores, authors, retailers, bloggers or other website owners to offer Kindle books on their websites and earn affiliate fees for doing so.” The news was announced at Google's Chrome event, since Amazon's Kindle for the Web will work on Chrome OS devices. Now that is keeping your enemies close.... (more)

SunBreak editor Michael van Baker makes the point that, from a city planning perspective, having two 60,000-seat football stadiums six miles away is bad. And he is right. From a city planning perspective.

But the University of Washington is not, and should not be concerned with, city planning. Not primarily, anyway. For something as important as the largest public gathering space on the campus, and the most attractive location for such a space on maybe any campus in the world, the needs of Seattle's citizens should be a poor second to what's best for UW.

Does The Sorbonne worry about Paris city planning? Does the University of Oxford worry about Oxford's planning? I don't know, I've never been there. Who do I look like, Rick Steves? I have been to New Haven, CT, and Philadelphia, PA, and and Harlem, NY, and I can tell you that Yale, Penn, and Columbia do not give a crap about the slummy neighborhoods in which they reside. This perhaps is not good citizenship, but it hasn't hurt those universities much.

Being a fourth-generation Seattleite, I obviously don't want my city to turn into West Philadelphia. But I think we can manage on our own. Let the university have (and pay for) their football stadium, let us have ours, and let us both march boldly and partially independently toward the 22nd century and beyond.

A few years ago, Curitiba mayor Jaime Lerner was in town, and I will always remember the look he had on his face, as he remembered learning that we had built one huge stadium for baseball and another huge stadium for football right next door. Along with the awe at the amount of money Seattle had to throw around*, there was clearly pity for our great stupidity and selfishness. 

On Lerner's list of five things for a sustainable city, number five is "make facilities multiple-use." Partly because it's the least you can do if you're using public funds, but also because their presence is a gift from the community. They take up public space, make demands on public infrastructure, so it's part of the deal that they get used as widely and often as possible. 

You can argue over the folly of having the two stadiums--please, have at it--but there they are. Since we do have our two mega-stadiums, it beggars belief that at this particular time in economic history, the University of Washington would decide to raise $250 million for a new Husky Stadium, rather than simply put one of them to better use.

There's a Danny Westneat interview with Mick McHugh that spells out the obvious alternative: Just play at Qwest Field. The logic is unassailable since, no matter what, the Huskies will play at Qwest Field--that's where they'll be meantime if the new stadium is constructed. Seth has argued that tradition is at stake--an intangible good, how do you put a price on that?--and there's no question that it is. Just listen to the UW Board of Regents describe the project:... (more)

After a brief hearing in late November, Amanda Knox's appeal process is set to begin again in Perugia on December 11. The Seattlepi.com's Andrea Vogt says the appeal makes its case along two fronts: offering alternative suspects for the murder of Meredith Kercher, nominated by prison inmates, and continuing to critique the DNA evidence. 

Convicted child killer Mario Alessi has three other inmates who back up his claims that Rudy Guede told him Sollecito and Knox had nothing to do with the murder, while Mafia snitch Luciano Aviello says his brother did it. The DNA challenge is perhaps trickier because, in essence, Knox's defense has to argue that "everyone else" has higher forensic standards than Italy:

The amount of Kercher's DNA found on the blade was such a trace amount it registered with a "too low" reading when analyzed.

A top geneticist at one of Europe's top forensic labs at the University of Salzburg confirmed in an interview with seattlepi.com that it is possible to amplify such a small amount of DNA, as Stefanoni did, until DNA can be identified.

But the expert added that it would not be allowable unless the result could be reproduced, something police biologist Stefanoni said under cross-examination could not be done.

Meanwhile, the race is on for the Lifetime movie about murder of Meredith Kercher to come out--in March--before Amanda Knox's appeal might free her (the Seattlepi.com's source says that a reduction in sentence, if anything, is more likely). A Cambridge grad student with a remarkable likeness to Kercher has been cast opposite Hayden Panettiere's Amanda Knox. Director Robert Dornheim professes not to care that much about the legal wrangling: "What interests me more is the psychology and personality of the protagonists rather than the blood of the crime and the search for those responsible."

 

Does it make sense for the University of Washington to lay out $250 million to renovate their football stadium, while cutting programs and raising tuition, when there’s another 60,000-seat football stadium just six miles away? Of course not.

Unfortunately, life does not make sense, so the University doesn't have a choice. Leaving Husky Stadium would cripple the Husky football team, which is something you don’t want. Even if you aren’t a football fan.

The University of Minnesota football team left their campus stadium in 1982 for the downtown Metrodome, which they shared with the NFL Vikings. Students and eventually alums stopped going, and the football program--once one of the nation's best--has been mired in mediocrity since. An on-campus venue is particularly appealing to student and to the most important constituency--the high school juniors and seniors deciding where to play their collegiate football.

Last year, the Gophers reversed their mistake, spending $288 million for a new on-campus stadium.

College football is about tradition. You go to the same stadium year after year, the stands where your father, your grandfather, maybe your great-grandfather--watched games. The last two years I’ve shared season tickets with my Dad, who used to sneak into Husky Stadium at age 14. Breaking that tradition with a move to Qwest Field would be like breaking a spell.

So, if I’ve established to your satisfaction that a move to Qwest Field would hurt the Husky football program, you may further ask: Who cares?

People tend to forget how a sports team brings a community together like no other cultural event. Holidays like Thanksgiving, the 4th of July, and Christmas tend to have us scurrying to our family units. Even something as simple as the Chihuly museum can divide us. Sports teams bring us together. You may not be a football fan now, but if the Huskies get good again, trust me, you can get wrapped up in the spell too.... (more)

Woodland Park Zoo sports enthusiast Chai ponders who will win the Apple Cup.
(Photo: Dennis Dow/Woodland Park Zoo)

• Metro raising bus fare in January (My Ballard)
• Local holiday shopping by bicycle (Beacon Hill Blog)
• The Key Ring Kid busted but 'master key' burglaries continue (Capitol Hill Seattle)
• A grand opening at 23rd and Union: Louisiana Grill celebrates with freebies (Central District News)
• Seattle Times: Film that was partly shot at Eastlake Zoo will screen at Sundance (Eastlake Ave)
• Lenin Lighting 2010: Videos & Photos (Fremont Universe)
• New Brewery in Georgetown??? (Blogging Georgetown)
• Green Lake’s Streetwise Gardener: Dare to Be Dull (My Green Lake)
• School district announces snow make up plan (Magnolia Voice)
• Hiding in Maple Leaf, a holiday hot shop (Maple Leaf Life)
• Local students’ questions, advice featured in national book to Michelle Obama (PhinneyWood)
• Man found dead in Queen Anne alleyway (Queen Anne View)
• Only 10% of Seattle’s Black Students Attend High-Performing Elementary Schools (Rainier Valley Post)
• Ravenna Blog joins the Seattle Times Local News Partnership (Ravenna Blog)
• Parka Party 2010 brings $5,000 in donations to local non-profits (Roosiehood)
• St Dames Celebrates SE Community with Grand Opening & Recipe (Southend Seattle)
• Light rail's mixed blessing (South Seattle Beacon)
• Winter Indoor Floating Market Aboard the Virginia V (The Southlake)
• $57,000 bells for sale at the UW (U District Daily)
• Pedestrian safety a big concern at this time of year (My Wallingford)
• Low-key town-hall meeting for Mayor McGinn in West Seattle (West Seattle Blog)
• Elephant predicts Apple Cup 2010 Winner (Woodland Park Zoo Blog)

WikiLeaks' Twitter stream

Already someone with a lively sense of irony has visited Amazon's listing for the book The Pentagon Papers, writing:

Amazon pulled Wikileaks from their site because it represented classified government documents. So what is the Pentagon Papers still doing on this site? Oh right, Amazon wasn't around in 1971 to cave in to pressure from right wing politicians to betray the First Amendment right to publish classified materials that have been leaked by others.

TechFlash reports that Pentagon Papers-leaker Daniel Ellsberg himself is calling upon Amazonians to get into the transparency habit:

This would be a good time for Amazon insiders who know and perhaps can document the political pressures that were brought to bear—and the details of the hasty kowtowing by their bosses—to leak that information.

At issue is Amazon's claim that because WikiLeaks violated their terms of service hosting agreement by posting material they didn't own, Amazon was forced to terminate their hosting services--that is, it wasn't in response to governmental suasion.  The Stranger's Paul Constant isn't buying it: "They need to issue a brief, clear statement on their information policies so consumers know where they stand with Amazon. If they're not going to fight for their customers' rights, their customers need to know that."

Amazon's hosting of the material aside, Salon's Glenn Greenwald can't understand why Tableau, a Seattle interactive graphics software company, also agreed to pull WikiLeaks charts in response to a request by Senator Joe Lieberman, chair of the Senate Homeland Security Committee. "These charts contained no classified information whatsoever, and disclosed nothing about the content of the cables," writes Greenwald. (See an example here.)

Paul Allen

Washington State University announced today that billionaire Paul Allen is making a gift of $26 million to WSU's School for Global Animal Health. It's the largest single charitable contribution he's made, said Allen, WSU's most illustrious dropout, at an event at Seattle's Convention Center.

"Washington State University has been important to me since I was a student there in the 1970s. Our family foundation, under the leadership of my sister Jody, has supported a number of programs at WSU. And today, I am happy to be able to make a significant personal gift to help WSU broaden its reach and touch many more lives," said Allen in a prepared statement.

The gift makes it the School for Global Animal Health that Microsoft built. The Gates Foundation provided $25 million for the school's construction in 2008. Besides the obvious implications for livestock health, the school will also focus on animal-to-human disease transmission: "Zoonotic diseases--infections transmitted from animals to humans--account for more than 70 percent of human infectious diseases," notes WSU. Construction is expected to finish in 2012, and the new building will be named the Paul G. Allen Center for Global Animal Health. ... (more)

Special to The SunBreak by John Hieger, sports music correspondent.

Our Flickr pool's Slightlynorth provides this Diana Mini shot of Qwest.

Defensive coordinator Gus Bradley isn't the only failed holdover from the Seahawks' past seasons of doom. During last Sunday's embarrassing loss to the Kansas City Chiefs, Qwest Field tortured fans with the tired '90s ballad "Bittersweet Symphony" no fewer than 300 times, adding a cruel soundtrack of despair to an already depressing display by the home team.

It's inexcusable for a franchise consistently plagued by insufficient toughness to leave fans hostage to an aging pop anthem more befitting a romantic comedy than a vicious pass rush.

If blitzing, sacks, and intimidating tackles are few and far between in Seattle, inspired local music is not in short supply. You would think the guy who built the Battlestar Hendrix Museum might have an appreciation for pairing a tune with the appropriate vibe and venue--but in this case Allen or his tone-deaf Vulcan minions have left the tiresome "Bittersweet Symphony" on the stadium loop too long and the on-field consequences of repetitious, existential pop crap are obvious; Lofa Tatupu can no longer tackle. Marcus Trufant looks depressed.

"You’ re a slaaaave to money then you diiiiie."

Would you want to make a brain-injuring tackle after hearing that lyric for the third time in four plays? Me neither. I recommend Paul Allen unloan Jimi Hendrix's Woodstock guitar to prevent further Jimmy Kimmel Fallon blasphemy and familiarize himself with some of the local artists in his museum that could actually rock the anemic Seahawks back into crunching Northwest form.

You hate America if you're not roused by "Man in the Box." Perhaps Jerry Cantrell's heavy riffs might finally produce something from Aarron Curry other than high-priced confusion on bootlegs--we can only speculate until the change is made.... (more)

Tunnel enthusiasts and anti-enthusiasts: Stay focused! There's a lot of arguing yet to be done. 

Nick Licata, in one of his many hats

The City Council's Nick Licata has dedicated this month's Urban Politics newsletter to an update on the long and winding road that is the deep bore tunnel's political future, Seattle Transit Blog has just published not one but two think pieces on the unthinkable ("Viaduct or Tunnel," and the compelling "RE: Viaduct or Tunnel"), and tonight at 7:30 p.m., The Stranger invites you to a Town Hall forum: "The Deep Bore Tunnel--What Could Go Wrong?"

The Stranger's news editor Dominic Holden "moderates" a skeptically-stacked panel that includes Mayor Mike McGinn, Councilmember Mike O'Brien, and Drew Paxton (Move Seattle Smarter). No official or unofficial representatives of the tunnel are on the panel because they refused the invitation to speak. WSDOT declined, stunningly, because they are in a public comment period.

Licata highlights two challenges to the deep bore tunnel. Move Seattle Smarter is busy working up an initiative that would rule out Seattle taxpayers ending up on the hook for potential cost overruns. And Tim Eyman, as I've previously mentioned, believes that I-1053 requires that tolling to pay tunnel construction would require a legislative vote. Notes Licata:

It may not be easy for the legislature to set tolls without opening up the issue of project funding and cost overruns. Worse, if the costs for the tunnel go over the set-aside contingency (i.e. goes over budget) the state legislature would need a two-thirds vote if they were to raise taxes to pay for the gap.... (more)

So you're sitting at home, and you decide you want to watch something on Netflix. You've got Comcast (excuse me, Xfinity) broadband, streaming is a snap. You pay extra for that bandwidth, but it's worth it and now is one of those times. 

You'd be upset if Comcast looked over your usage and charged you $1 for streaming a movie from Netflix, wouldn't you? You're already paying them for bandwidth. And Comcast knows that.

So that's why they're charging the company that streams Netflix movies instead. Level 3, Inc., operates one of the internet backbones that Netflix uses to stream their content, and Comcast presented them with a "take it or leave it" offer on November 22. If they didn't pay up, Comcast subscribers wouldn't get Netflix, at least, not online.

"With this action, Comcast is preventing competing content from ever being delivered to Comcast’s subscribers at all, unless Comcast’s unilaterally determined toll is paid--even though Comcast’s subscribers requested the content," said Thomas Stortz, Level 3's Chief Legal Officer. 

"Comcast, the largest U.S. cable TV company, has set up an Internet 'toll booth,' charging Level 3 whenever customers request content," sums Bloomberg. It may be a toll booth, but it's a phantom toll booth, at least to Comcast customers. If Level 3's costs go up and they charge Netflix more, and Netflix's costs go up, and they charge you more, that's...well, that's good for Comcast's On-Demand division, isn't it?... (more)

End of October, a wave of credit card fraud caught people's attention, with BECU acknowledging some 100 cases reported by its Capitol Hill customers. A month later, the U.S. Secret Service is saying that over 1,000 credit and debit card accounts may have been breached by a foreign hacker. Reports Bank Info Security:

The scheme appears to involve the sale or distribution of the stolen account information to numerous individuals across the country, as well as in foreign countries. Those individuals then used the information to make purchases against the consumer accounts. 

Capitol Hill Seattle (CHS) reported on the story from the ground up, discovering that the Broadway Grill restaurant was the victim of a hack of its software, and then the hacker was able to "leapfrog from the restaurant's access to a critical server in the transaction process where account information was available."

"He was able to access numbers off the server going back prior to October," Secret Service Agent Bob Kierstead told CHS, gaining access to accounts of people who had never eaten at Broadway Grill. At that time, fraud reports had totaled about 400. ... (more)

We're headed for a "very wet Monday afternoon" says KING 5's Rich Marriott, as a storm blows in with wind and rain. Up in the mountains that means snow, and if you're planning on a trip through the passes, consult with WSDOT first. Higher elevations are expected to get some six to twelve inches of snow from this storm. 

Speaking of the weather, Cliff Mass is excited about two new ways you have to track weather online. There's a radar aggregator the UW has cooked up (that's where the screenshot comes from), and the kids in atmospherics have put together WINDWATCH, which...well, the name is fairly self-explanatory. 

It's also timely, since this storm is expected to bring high winds just north of Seattle, and you can see what the models predict. Looks like the worst of it is supposed to come around 10 p.m. this evening.

A Husky fan demonstrates size of Sark's balls (via Facebook)

Your season's on the line. Two seconds left. Down by three points. Six inches from the goal line. You need a win to make the postseason. Do you kick a field goal and try to win in overtime? Or risk the whole #$!$@% thing on one play?

Husky football coach Steve Sarkisian chose the latter, the Huskies won, and now Sark's testicles--specifically, their size and constitution--are a matter for public comment.

"Retracting (happily) my previous comments re: Sark. Giant big massive balls." -- TBTL's Luke Burbank (@lukeburbank)

"Boulders on Sark right there. Wow." -- @warrencb11

"Sark will need wheelbarrel to carry his cajones after this week." -- @kingwabbit

"Sark tiene grande cajones." -- @_bmc123_

"HOLY FUCK!!! YESSSSSSS!!!!! #HUSKIES!!! ! Sark has HUGE stones" -- @Ryan_C_M

So, Sark, how much time did you take to decide whether to go for it? "None, really," he told reporters after the game. "We've been aggressive since day one since I got here, and we're not going to change."

After deciding to go for the win, Sark had two tasks. First, to decide what play to run. Second, to rally his troops.

He'd run a quarterback sneak to the left on the previous play, and saw that Cal would be looking for it again. "They were really piled in the A-gaps and the four-point stances," he said. So he threw the Bears a change up: a dive to running back Chris Polk to the right.... (more)

• Many brave the cold for the 2010 Turkey Trot (My Ballard)
• Armed man killed by SWAT team (Beacon Hill Blog)
• How they're going to demolish the McGuire (Belltown Messenger)
• Belltown: News in Review (belltownpeople)
• 15th/Union hatchet murder: Coverage round-up (Capitol Hill Seattle)
• Three say held up at gunpoint, hit with pepper spray at Columbia and MLK (Central District News)
• Fire damages Lakeview Boulevard apartment (Eastlake Ave)
• Get To Know The Fremont Siphon (Fremont Universe)
• An alternate view on snow days (Blogging Georgetown)
• When Green Lake froze: A look back at winters past (My Green Lake)
• Thanksgiving day fire in Magnolia leaves 1 dead (Magnolia Voice)
• Burglary prevention tips for the holidays (Maple Leaf Life)
• Aftermath of this morning’s Greenwood fire (PhinneyWood)
• QA pet tragically electrocuted on Thanksgiving Day (Queen Anne View)
• 911 Log: Kid iJacked at Gunpoint on Beacon Hill + More (Rainier Valley Post)
• Missing a part of your frozen flock? (Ravenna Blog)
• Cliff Mass Bingo! (Roosiehood)
• Hundreds fill streets in huge melee outside Seattle club (KOMO SoDo)
• Lightrail Happy Hour Stop #2: University St (Southend Seattle)
• Task force tries to tackle transit shortfall (South Seattle Beacon)
• Person of the Week: U-District Farmers Market’s Bill Whitbeck (U District Daily)
• Christmas display to light up Tangletown (My Wallingford)
• Followup: Storm-evicted, & rescued, Lincoln Park bees’ ‘comeback’ (West Seattle Blog)

"Savior" Must Save Himself

Probably Joni Mitchell did not write "Big Yellow Taxi" with college football in mind, but really, don't it always seem to go, you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone?

In a previous lifetime, Husky fans didn't worry about whether their team would go to a bowl game. They worried about which one. Former head coach Jim Lambright, a defensive genius and heir to Don James, was fired after leading the 1998 Dawgs to the Oahu Bowl, partially because UW fans thought the Oahu Bowl was as beneath us as beating Oregon State by any less than three touchdowns.

Now, after seven seasons without a postseason appearance (despite the fact that the number of bowl games has grown 40 percent in that time), Husky fans would be thrilled with any bowl. Beef 'O Brady's St. Petersburg Bowl? Sign us up, and pass the Nachos 'O Brady (TM).

Teams need at least a .500 record to make a bowl game. The Huskies are 4-6. So they'll need a win Saturday at Cal to keep their hopes alive. The Dawgs are a 7-point underdog against a Cal program that's in disarray. A 48-14 blowout loss to Stanford in "The Big Game" has Cal fans disheartened. Their once potent passing attack was already bad with disappointing senior Kevin Riley behind center--then Riley got hurt. Replacement Brock Mansion, a junior, hasn't thrown a TD pass in any of his three starts, and has tossed 4 interceptions.... (more)

Pro tip: A laptop aids in the pounds-per-hour to kilograms, and Fahrenheit to Celcius conversion.

Our correspondent Mindy Jones is a Seattleite living in Paris for two years. When she's not busy trying to figure out what the French are saying, she's busy trying to figure out what to say to the French. She posts frequently at An American Mom in Paris.

Holidays abroad can be lonely. When a holiday rolls around, we ache a little and talk about home a lot. We put on happy smiles for the Skype session involving every relative we have, plus a few we didn't know existed, all of them crammed into one room chatting and laughing and having drunken angry fistfights while we suffer the family togetherness from too far away. Then we crawl into the corner to cry and drink wine.

Thanksgiving, especially, can be bleak because it's a non-event here in pilgrim-free France. Christmas and New Year's are happy times because the city is full of fellow revelers but for Thanksgiving, you're on your own. You still have to go to work and you don't get the long weekend to eat cold turkey sandwiches and buy bigger pants.

Last year, determined to make Thanksgiving happen in the middle of Paris, we banded together with a group of fellow American ex-pats. New York Mom was in charge of procuring and cooking the bird. The butcher's eyes widened when she said she wanted to purchase the grandest turkey in all of France. He frowned and said the turkey she wanted was way too big for seven adults and a handful of children. She said, Duh, that was the point. He unhappily sold her the bird, probably assuming most of it would go to waste, but he doesn't know Americans like we know Americans. 

I was in charge of my specialty, midwestern cheesy potatoes--"midwestern" because the recipe calls for a can of cream of mushroom soup and a crunchy corn flake topping. I was also responsible for tracking down a jar of cranberry sauce. No one in our group liked cranberry sauce but we agreed it should still be present on the table, preferably plopped into a bowl and still in the shape of the can like mama used to make.... (more)

Photo: Capitol Hill Seattle blog

Mid-morning Monday, as snow was falling, Michael LaRosa walked up to a man he didn't know and repeatedly struck the 58-year-old's head with a hatchet, killing him, say Seattle police. The murder, on the 1400 block of East Union Street, occurred in view of students in a nearby school. ("I don't know what came over me, because I've never done murder, you know," LaRosa later told detectives.)

The Seattle Times contacted LaRosa's half-brother, in Florida, who said LaRosa has been diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia, but occasionally believes he's well enough to quit taking medication. "Since moving to Seattle nearly three years ago, LaRosa had become a patient at Sound Mental Health on Capitol Hill and enrolled in Seattle Mental Health Court as part of a 2009 municipal-court case involving an assault on a security guard," reports the Times.

For Capitol Hill residents, those circumstances bring back all-too-vivid memories of the 2007 New Year's Eve murder of Shannon Harps by a Sound Mental Health patient with paranoid schizophrenia. (CHS: "In 2009, James Williams, who was receiving treatment and medication from Sound Mental Health prior to his crime, pleaded guilty to the stabbing murder of 31-year-old Shannon Harps....")

About a year ago, I wrote a piece called "King County's Mental Health is Deteriorating," based on an interview with Amnon Shoenfeld, director of the King County Mental Health, Chemical Abuse and Dependency Services Division. Schoenfeld mentioned the stress his department was under to deal with people whose mental illnesses made them unsafe for society, as funding was being cut for programs that paid for medications, and kept the dangerously unstable under constant supervision. ... (more)

Isaiah Thomas

Lucky Dawgs. Instead of suffering through #snOMG, they're in Maui (today's high, 81 F) playing in the elite Maui Invitational. Today at 6:30 p.m. PST they'll play against a nationally-televised game against one of college basketball's legendary programs, the University of Kentucky.

So, in a sense, lucky us. With a night that's almost guaranteed to be spent indoors, your entertainment options aren't limited to whichever CSI is on tonight. Instead you can watch what I expect to be one of the most thrilling games in Washington basketball history.

If you read any article about this game, you will no doubt encounter the fact that star Kentucky freshman Terrence Jones originally committed to Washington, then changed his mind and went to the Wildcats. This has been anointed a "Story Line" by rabid fans and media, but "Story Lines" rarely make for compelling sports.

What makes this game so compelling is the battle between talent and teamwork. The Huskies have humiliated all three of their opponents this season. Not just offensively (the Dawgs are averaging 107.3 points/game, best in the nation), but on defense, where the Huskies have forced 68 opponent turnovers.

The Dawgs aren't just talented, they are playing with a team focus that I've never seen from them before.... (more)

This morning, the following roads are closed:

• 1700-2200 block of East Madison Street
• 19th Avenue Eeast and Boyer Avenue West
• Dravus Street from 20th Avenue West to 27th Avenue West
• 6th Avenue South from Yesler Way to South Main Street
• Northeast 51st Street and Latona Avenue
• Northeast Denny Way from Melrose to Stewart
• 23rd Avenue East at Alder Street
• Marion Street between 1st and 2nd Avenue
• Northeast 50th Street at University Way
• Northeast East Marginal Way South at South Michigan Street
• 6th Avenue at Madison Street

Looking west on E. John St.

Here's the latest street closures from SDOT:

• Northbound and southbound Alaskan Way Viaduct
• West Dravus Street between 20 and 27 Avenues
• Battery St. Tunnel
• NE 5100 block of Latona Ave. N
• Denny Way between Melrose and Stewart Sts.

I would just add that the streets are sheets of ice, and an hour ago I watched two cars do full 360s down Denny over I-5. They were creeping along, not speeding--it's just extremely slippery out there. SDOT will be out salting roads, but they warn that bridges and elevated structures require an abundance of caution. The storm is supposed to finish its snow-dumping work by 10 p.m., but the morning commute will still be ice-tastic. Less stressful photos after the jump:... (more)

Photo: Ryan Hawk/Woodland Park Zoo

(My apologies if you were in the mood for some brawny men building a snow fort.) The Woodland Park Zoo closed to the public at 3 p.m. today because of the snowy conditions, but that doesn't mean zoo residents had to huddle inside, too. The bears were putting those fur coats to good use.

Our Flickr pool's shawnmebo is already back with snow day shots! That's fast!

UW meteorologist Cliff Mass has been putting out updates fast and furiously regarding the snow forecast for today, which is changing hourly as snow accumulates. Now he's concerned about "serious snow."

His latest post (titled "Humility") says we're pretty much guaranteed "2-4 inches south of the city, with roughly 1-2 inches on the north side. More as you head towards the Cascades and south." (Let's go to the radar!)

But looking at the way things are setting up, that might not be the worst in store:

The 11 AM surface map...just available shows a 1002-mb low over the NW tip of the Olympic Peninsula and the latest visible image show VERY unstable air offshore. If the low goes south of us and draws some of that cold, unstable air in...and it meets the cold stream from the north, we are talking about serious snow (6-12 inches).

Mass was earlier led astray by models which had the low farther south of Seattle, bringing us a blast of cold air but not much in the way of snow. ("Clearly, this was not a great success for the models--clearly more is getting farther north than forecast this morning.")

Might as well head home and fire up the hot chocolate, and wait to see what transpires.