Monthly Archives: July 2011

Posted inMedia & Culture

Seattle Post-Globe calls it quits

by Andrew Villeneuve

Two and a quar­ter years after the Seat­tle Post-Intel­li­­gencer ceased print pub­li­ca­tion, one of the Web star­tups that emerged in its after­math is clos­ing down: It’s been an event­ful two years – some­times fun, some­times a moun­tain of work, but always worth­while. And now it’s time for the Post­Globe to say good­bye and thank you. […]

Posted inElections

County Council hopeful Richard Mitchell gaining strength as August 16th approaches

by Andrew Villeneuve

Full Dis­clo­sure: I per­son­al­ly sup­port Richard Mitchel­l’s cam­paign for coun­ty coun­cil in my capac­i­ty as Sec­ond Vice Chair of the King Coun­ty Democ­rats. NPI does not endorse or make finan­cial con­tri­bu­tions to can­di­dates for elect­ed office.  Only a few days remain until King Coun­ty Elec­tions begins mail­ing out bal­lots for the August 16th win­now­ing election. […]

Posted inUnscheduled Programming

Parents, teachers, students go to court to get Tim Eyman’s I‑1053 overturned

by Andrew Villeneuve

A coali­tion rep­re­sent­ing par­ents, teach­ers, stu­dents, and law­mak­ers announced this morn­ing that it has filed a law­suit in King Coun­ty Supe­ri­or Court ask­ing that Tim Eyman and BP’s Ini­tia­tive 1053 be ful­ly strick­en from the Revised Code of Wash­ing­ton because it is bla­tant­ly uncon­sti­tu­tion­al. Plain­tiffs include the League of Edu­ca­tion Vot­ers, Wash­ing­ton Edu­ca­tion Asso­ci­a­tion, State […]

Posted inMedia & Culture, Policy Topics, World Commmunity

Homegrown Norweigan terrorist is a right wing eliminationist, authorities say

by Andrew Villeneuve

Although few­er than one hun­dred hours have tran­spired since the world learned of the hor­rif­ic ter­ror­ist attacks in Oslo and Utøya, we’re already start­ing to get a clear­er por­trait of the man who Nor­we­gian author­i­ties say was the mas­ter­mind behind the cold-blood­­ed spate of killing and destruc­tion. Anders Behring Breivik, thir­­ty-two, appears to be the […]

Posted inElections

RE: Grassroots missing from this year’s initiatives — What about last year?

by Andrew Villeneuve

Near­ly one hun­dred years ago, pro­gres­sives suc­ceed­ed in amend­ing the Con­sti­tu­tion of Wash­ing­ton State to pro­vide for three pow­ers of direct democ­ra­cy: The ini­tia­tive, the ref­er­en­dum, and the recall. The pur­pose of estab­lish­ing these three pow­ers was not to sup­plant or replace our repub­li­can form of gov­ern­ment, but rather, to give the peo­ple a way […]

Posted inPolicy Topics, World Commmunity

Tragedy in Norway: Explosions, shootings injure or take lives of dozens

by Andrew Villeneuve

Inex­plic­a­ble, unex­pect­ed tragedy has struck again, this time in Nor­way: Nor­way suf­fered dual attacks on Fri­day when pow­er­ful explo­sions shook the gov­ern­ment cen­ter here and, short­ly after, a gun­man stalked youths at an island sum­mer camp for young mem­bers of the gov­ern­ing Labor Par­ty. The police arrest­ed a Nor­we­gian in con­nec­tion with both attacks, which […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Unscheduled Programming

Senate needs to move forward on confirming new chief for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau

by Steve

There’s good news and bad news for Amer­i­can con­sumers this week. The good news is that on July 21 the land­mark Con­sumer Finan­cial Pro­tec­tion Bureau (CFPB) takes over as the nation’s chief con­sumer bank reg­u­la­tor – it will super­vise mort­gages, cred­it cards, oth­er bank loans, and fees such as those charged for over­draft pro­tec­tion. The failure […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Media & Culture, Policy Topics

U.K. police chieftain resigns as his officers arrest Murdoch confidante Rebekah Brooks

by Andrew Villeneuve

Things just got worse for for­mer News of the World edi­tor Rebekah Brooks: Rebekah Brooks has been arrest­ed by police inves­ti­gat­ing alle­ga­tions of phone hack­ing by the News of the World and alle­ga­tions that police offi­cers were bribed to leak sen­si­tive infor­ma­tion. The Met­ro­pol­i­tan police said a 43-year-old woman was arrest­ed at noon on Sunday, […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Media & Culture, Policy Topics

News of the World phone hacking scandal finally claims career of Rebekah Brooks

by Andrew Villeneuve

Rebekah Brooks, the for­mer News of the World edi­tor who was sub­se­quent­ly pro­mot­ed to a high-rank­ing posi­tion with­in News Cor­po­ra­tion, has belat­ed­ly announced her res­ig­na­tion, bow­ing to sig­nif­i­cant pres­sure from Par­lia­ment, the pub­lic, and even the com­pa­ny’s share­hold­ers: Brooks announced her deci­sion to News Inter­na­tion­al staff in Wap­ping just before 10am on Fri­day, say­ing her […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Media & Culture, Policy Topics

FBI to investigate possible wrongdoing by Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation

by Andrew Villeneuve

Good news: The Fed­er­al Bureau of Inves­ti­ga­tion is report­ed­ly launch­ing an inves­ti­ga­tion into pos­si­ble wrong­do­ing by Rupert Mur­doch’s News Cor­po­ra­tion, only hours after Repub­li­can Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Peter King fol­lowed sev­er­al senior Demo­c­ra­t­ic sen­a­tors in ask­ing the Depart­ment of Jus­tice to look into the mat­ter. In response to requests from mem­bers of Con­gress and at least one […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Policy Topics

Netflix subjects customers to “price change”; opt-out required to avoid paying 60% more

by Andrew Villeneuve

Yes­ter­day, Net­flix sent out an email to its mil­lions of cus­tomers dis­clos­ing that it has decid­ed to raise its prices, effec­tive imme­di­ate­ly for new cus­tomers and effec­tive in Sep­tem­ber for exist­ing cus­tomers. The announce­ment, also post­ed to Net­flix’s blog and its Face­book page around the same time, has since drawn tens of thou­sands of comments, […]

Posted inEconomic Security, Media & Culture, Policy Topics

News Corporation drops bid for BSkyB, citing overwhelming public opposition

by Andrew Villeneuve

Vic­to­ry! Rupert Mur­doch’s media group News Cor­po­ra­tion bowed to pres­sure from the pub­lic and par­lia­ment on Wednes­day and with­drew its bid to take full con­trol of pay-TV com­pa­ny BSkyB. All three main polit­i­cal par­ties were poised to call on News Corp to aban­don its offer in a vote in the House of Com­mons lat­er on Wednesday. […]