Monthly Archives: April 2011

Posted inHumor & Satire, Media & Culture

The second roast of Donald Trump

by Andrew Villeneuve

Read­ers who are reg­u­lar view­ers of Com­e­dy Cen­tral may recall that the net­work not long ago aired a roast of Don­ald Trump, the most recent in a series of pro­­fan­i­­ty-laced celebri­ty roasts that the Via­com sub­sidiary has spon­sored. Ear­li­er tonight, Trump was unex­pect­ed­ly roast­ed for a sec­ond time in as many months — except this […]

Posted inPolicy Topics, Technology

Ubuntu 11.04 “Natty Narwhal” released

by Andrew Villeneuve

For the last sev­er­al years, the end of April has meant anoth­er release of Ubun­tu (the world’s most pop­u­lar GNU/Linux dis­tri­b­u­tion), and 2011 is no excep­tion. Yes­ter­day, Canon­i­cal — which spon­sors the devel­op­ment of Ubun­tu — announced the release of Ver­sion 11.04, code­named “Nat­ty Nar­whal”. Nat­ty suc­ceeds Mav­er­ick Meerkat, which was released back in October […]

Posted inAnnouncements

Thanks for a memorable evening!

by Andrew Villeneuve

Our 2011 Spring Fundrais­ing Gala is now his­to­ry. After months of plan­ning and prepa­ra­tion, the big night final­ly arrived… and we had a blast! On behalf of NPI’s staff and board, I want to thank every­one who par­tic­i­pat­ed in the event, par­tic­u­lar­ly our Mas­ter of Cer­e­monies, Bob Fer­gu­son, and our speak­ers — Tim­o­thy Ford, Reuven Carlyle, […]

Posted inUnscheduled Programming

Meet the hypocrites: Donald Trump

by Ken

Since real­i­ty show host and cor­po­rate blowhard Don­ald Trump has decid­ed to express his polit­i­cal views and go through the motions of being a seri­ous polit­i­cal can­di­date, we’re hap­py the treat him as one. While the Don­ald breath­less­ly blew his own horn this morn­ing regard­ing the Pres­i­den­t’s birth cer­tifi­cate (some­thing this shame­less self-pro­­mot­er does frequently), […]

Posted inHumor & Satire

White House releases President’s long-form birth certificate; birthers not satisfied

by Andrew Villeneuve

Appar­ent­ly hop­ing to fan the flames of the “birther” con­tro­ver­sy (which is mak­ing the right wing look ridicu­lous) Pres­i­dent Oba­ma today autho­rized the release of his “long-form” birth cer­tifi­cate, which, under the laws of the State of Hawaii, would oth­er­wise not be sub­ject to pub­lic records requests. I’m guess­ing the White House knows full well […]

Posted inHolidays

Happy Easter 2011!

by Andrew Villeneuve

Rejoice! Rejoice! This is the day that the Lord has made, be glad about it. Every­body rejoice, rejoice! This is the day that is made — be glad.  — Lyrics from Rejoice by Ken­neth W. Lewis For your read­ing plea­sure on this joy­ous East­er Sun­day, here is an account of the Res­ur­rec­tion of Jesus Christ from the […]

Posted inAnnouncements, Events

NPI’s 2011 Spring Fundraising Gala is only one week away… and you’re invited!

by Andrew Villeneuve

As of this evening, our 2011 Spring Fundrais­ing Gala — which will take place at the Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­ter at Mer­cer View — is just one week away.  It’s shap­ing up to be one of the best events we’ve ever put togeth­er, and we hope to see many NPI sup­port­ers there. The speak­ing line­up con­sists of Bob Ferguson […]

Posted inCivil Liberties, Policy Topics, Technology

Researchers’ discovery demonstrates that Apple users don’t really own their devices

by Andrew Villeneuve

Two secu­ri­ty researchers inves­ti­gat­ing visu­al uses for geolo­ca­tion data revealed today that gad­get giant Apple has been secret­ly ship­ping spy­ware inside of its mobile oper­at­ing sys­tem (iOS) that con­stant­ly records its cus­tomers’ where­abouts. The dis­cov­ery, which has ignit­ed a firestorm of crit­i­cism, was first made pub­lic at O’Reil­ly Radar by the researchers (Alas­dair Allan and […]

Posted inOpen Government, Policy Topics

How do we change Congress and put an end to rampant corruption?

by Andrew Villeneuve

When our found­ing fathers put togeth­er our plan of gov­ern­ment at the Con­sti­tu­tion­al Con­ven­tion in Philadel­phia, they spent a great deal more time ham­mer­ing out the details that con­cern the leg­isla­tive branch (Con­gress) than the details that describe how the oth­er two branch­es are sup­posed to work. This was not acci­den­tal — our found­ing fathers believed […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Education, Policy Topics

The search for a long-term answer for coherence in Ryan Blethen’s columns

by Andrew Villeneuve

Appar­ent­ly obliv­i­ous to the real­i­ty that he has as much cred­i­bil­i­ty as Tim Eyman does when it comes to talk­ing about pro­tect­ing pub­lic ser­vices, Seat­tle Times edi­to­r­i­al page edi­tor Ryan Blethen has penned yet anoth­er col­umn lament­ing the dire straits that Wash­ing­ton’s pub­lic uni­ver­si­ties are in. The piece, which ran in today’s Sun­day edi­tion, does a […]

Posted inAnnouncements, Events

Jay Inslee to speak at NPI’s 2011 Spring Fundraising Gala on Mercer Island

by Andrew Villeneuve

I am delight­ed to announce this morn­ing that Jay Inslee — my rep­re­sen­ta­tive in Con­gress and a true cham­pi­on for eco­nom­ic secu­ri­ty and envi­ron­men­tal pro­tec­tion — will be speak­ing at NPI’s 2011 Spring Fundrais­ing Gala (with all pro­ceeds to ben­e­fit NPI), hap­pen­ing two weeks from tomor­row on Mer­cer Island. If you fol­low nation­al pol­i­tics, you […]

Posted inAnnouncements, Events

Camp Wellstone returning to Seattle: Don’t miss an outstanding training opportunity

by Andrew Villeneuve

Camp Well­stone, the sig­na­ture train­ing offered by the orga­niz­ing genius­es at Well­stone Action, is return­ing to Seat­tle for the sixth or sev­enth con­sec­u­tive year — I’m los­ing track 🙂 — about a month from now. The 2011 camp will take place at Seat­tle Pacif­ic Uni­ver­si­ty on May 13th, 14th, and 15th. (SPU is actu­al­ly where it […]