Seattlest watches as a S.L.U.T. is born and Seattle Flickr users go nuts over a local art installation. A restaurant critic demands a Diner's Bill of Rights over a gnat next to her drink, and, in lieu of a Portlandist, Seattlest debates with itself over the identity of the Northwest's crown jewel. Seattlest also joins the guys from Fantagraphics for an ill-fated gun party in the woods. LAist saw national headlines soar this week with......

I try to avoid rants here, but some of the cavalier responses to the recent taser stories have made me feel like I need to go above and beyond a simple comment. Accusations were made that the agonized screams of people being tasered were just the person being "dramatic". One commentor actually said, "Torture?" LOL! LOL? Are you kidding me? Try getting tasered LOL! Of the three recent incidents, there is not a single......

There are a million reasons LA is better than Gainesville, but both are home to major state universities with their own Taser-happy police forces. Earlier today, 21-year-old Florida student Andrew Meyer was apprehended by police and stunned with a Taser gun at a town hall meeting with Senator John Kerry on the UF campus. It seems he was tailed by the police as he came to ask the question -- challenging Kerry for not......

I interviewed Jamie Denenberg, International Marketing Exec for Sony Pictures Home Entertainment and Democratic Fundraiser (currently for Senator Obama's Presidential Campaign) to find out how she got started in fundraising, her political influences and what she thought were the best things about the LA political arena. What's your background in Los Angeles politics, how'd you get started fundraising? I first came out to LA in 1999 where I got my master's degree in journalism......

We don't know about where you are, but it seems like spring can't decide whether or not to happen. Some days are warm, some days are cold, and sometimes you aren't sure which. Baseball may have started up (and soccer/football winding down) but it still seems cold out there. Unless it's not. Anyways, onto the -ists. Austinist happily anticipated fall's Austin City Limits, even though they're not fully recovered from South By Southwest. In......

Monday Dave Winfield signs Dropping the Ball 7pm @ Vroman’s Tuesday Michael Collier Over the Mountains 7pm @ Dutton’s Dave Winfield signs Dropping the Ball 7pm @ EsoWon Books Wednesday John Kerry and Teresa Heinz Kerry sign This Moment on Earth 6pm @ Dutton’s Sarah Thyre presents Dark at the Roots 7pm @ Book Soup Rebecca Walker discusses Baby Love 7pm @ Vroman’s Bill McKibben in discussion with Tom Curwen on Deep Economy 7pm......

As the world holds its breath, teetering precariously on the cusp of the Super Bowl (well, at least in America), the wheels of the -ists keep on turning. Austinist was in a musical frame of mind as they listened to the new Shins album, updated the SXSW band listings and got called "punk rock" for their efforts by MTV. And an ice storm swept through the area. Bostonist said goodbye to John Kerry's plans......

LAist used to work with people who would make us think "am I the crazy one here?" While in Pasadena yesterday stumping for Phil Angelides, John Kerry dissed George Bush by saying that if he was smart he wouldn't have ended up in a quagmire in Iraq. And you've gotta hand it to the Republican Spin Machine, they're doing their best to pretend like Kerry was talking about the Troops. As if. Later Kerry......

- John Kerry calls the President stupid, President and his bros are too stupid to know that they were being called stupid, so Kerry calls them stupid again - johnkerry.com - The Political Director of ABC News is stupid - Tristram Shandy via Martini Republic - Drew Brees doesn't want his mom to use his image in her stupid election - Austin Statesman - Vice President Cheney says Charles Rangel "doesn't understand how the......

New! Updated Roscoe's Edition Have you ever had a perfect waffle experience (PFE)? Not to be confused with the GFE (girlfriend experience) offered by the rotund Dennis Hof and his girls on call at the Cat House. Nor is this what graces your backside after a long time sitting in a pool chair. And we don't mean having John Kerry change his mind on you. (Whoops, LAist sets us back many months by working......

John Kerry has conceded in the Presidental Election. George Bush has given his acceptance speech. And all the while, cable news channels like MSNBC are getting lazier and lazier. LAist remembered when there used to be a time when the graphics and scrolling news at the bottom of the television screen used to be fresh, exciting and new. But lately, cable news channels have apparently hired chimpanzees who are really fast typists as their......

Let's face it. People in California have pretty much resigned themselves to the fact that come November 2nd, the electoral votes from this great state will most likely be piling up for Mr. John Kerry. It's the result of having a very liberal state which almost always ends up voting for the Democratic candidate. That's the reality, and that's fine. But lately, LAist has come in contact with (if you can believe it) a......

For you LA denizens too busy clawing your way up the “Y” of the Hollywood sign, impaling your souls on the spire of the Capitol Records building, or tending bar at the Saddle Ranch, weeping during smoke breaks, your political apathy is understandable. The LA Weekly (LAW) understands too. On the heels of their bound and bountiful “Best of LA” issue, the LAW keeps on kicking out the jams with their action packed “Holy......

Today we were walking along Wilshire Blvd, near La Jolla in the Mid-Wilshire district, and noticed this billboard for Time Magazine looming above us. The red silhouette of a Time magazine cover swings between photos of John Kerry and George W. Bush like a pendulum. One moment George's face is on the cover and the next moment it's Kerry's turn to become the "Face of Time." The Halloween season has us thinking about Poe......

Running metaphors. Baseball metaphors. Prize-fighting metaphors. It's no secret that the press loves to equate the scrum of American politics with, well, a rugby scrum. Sports lingo gives us ink-stained wretches a convenient explanatory shorthand (understandable by even the slobbiest of football slobs) to use in whittling down the impossibly complex narrative of a modern Presidential campaign into an easily digested blurb or soundbite. The candidates themselves play into this simplification, often by associating......

Tonight's the night Democrats have been drooling over since John Kerry announced his selection of John Edwards as his running mate: the night Dick Cheney is, in effect, cross-examined by the hot shot attorney who once won a record $25 million judgement against a negligent pool manufacturer. Whether Edwards can deliver more than a glancing blow to the stolid, unshakeable Cheney is an open question, however. Edwards has been somewhat unimpressive, in fact almost......

Before we begin, LAist would like to eat crow (low carb bread, please, and hold the mayo). Yesterday in this space, the suggestion was made that last night's Presidential debate would be devoid of substance and drama—not unlike an Ashley Judd movie, or Orange County. We were wrong. Instead, we were treated to the sight of President George Bush confronted with a thoughtful, reasoned critique of his foreign policy, and brother, it wasn't pretty.......

George Bush and John Kerry finally crawl into the ring tonight to do rhetorical combat in one of the most important, historic, meaningful, stupendous, and all-around spectacular television events of all time!! Or so we've been told. In truth, this thing is as scripted as "The Apprentice" and as dramatic as "Lost." With the campaigns having signed a memorandum of agreement that has more stipulations than a Van Halen backstage contract rider (post David......

The mainstream media is many things: hidebound, conservative, and often cowed by powerful political and financial forces. But when they smell blood in the water, when some enterprising news outlet has worried out a story that will sell papers and deliver eyeballs, they will attack with unexpected fury. Just ask President Bush. Scarcely a week after leaving NYC on the crest of a double-digit bounce in the polls, the press has turned on him,......

Day 4 Recap: - President George W. Bush took center stage last night, accepting the GOP nomination and trumpeting his administration's record over the last four years. In the Bizarro world of W's mind, phony Medicare "reform" is not really a sop to huge drug companies; tax cuts that have fueled a record breaking budget deficit are growing the economy, not tanking it; millions of lost jobs were the fault of Bill Clinton and......

Day 3 Recap: - It was revealed last night that the undisclosed location Dick Cheney has been known to frequent was actually the dark side of the moon, so removed from reality was his assessment of the successes thus far of the Bush administration. After polishing the President's non-existent laurels, he launched into a mean spirited attack on John Kerry that was dishonest, dishonorable, and, alas, highly effective. - Zell Miller completed his conversion......

Day 2 Recap: - Der Governator (looking ever more plasticized) trotted out his stale "girlie-man" line and name-checked Richard Nixon(!) in his speech extolling the virtues of George Bush, while Maria Shriver looked on, and Joe, Jack, and Bobby rolled over in their graves. - Laura Bush tried her best to put a compassionate face on her husband the "wartime president," and the Bush twins sobered up long enough to deliver a few flaccid......

Day 1 Recap: - John McCain kicks off his 2008 Presidential campaign by verbally bitch-slapping Michael Moore, to the delight of Republicans and Michael Eisner. - Rudy Giuliani invokes 9/11 and compares Bush to Winston Churchill(!?!), all in one speech. - Bush himself tells Matt Lauer he doesn't think the war on terror can be won. Whoops, wait a minute, it can be won, there just won't be a formal declaration of peace. Day......

The Republican National Convention opens today in New York City (after a welcome from hundreds of thousands of anti-Bush protestors), and LAist thought that our readers, being from one of the Bluest of Blue States, would appreciate a primer of what we can expect to hear from the Red Staters of the GOP. [Ed note: You can check out Joshuah Bearman's RNC coverage at LA Weekly.com for daily reports.] What you will hear: •......

Happy Tuesday, readers. A nice selection of events have presented themselves today, so get out there and have a good time! At The Echo, Concerts for Victory presents John Doe, Kristin Hersh and Grant Lee Phillips, along with Blake Hazard and Bedroom Walls, in a concert to benefit John Kerry. Doors open at 7:30 PM and tickets are $15.00 pre-sale and $18.00 at the door. (18+)......

Along with many of our local lawmakers, the Hahn-Villaraigosa rivalry has been transported to Boston this week. Both the Los Angeles mayoral gig and convention stage time are highly sought-after, and so far Villaraigosa is in the lead � by one minute. (LAist previously discussed the attention given to L.A. mayoral wannabes at the DNC.) Villaraigosa�s connections to presidential hopeful John Kerry and his position as co-chairman of the Democratic Party platform committee nabbed Antonio......

Today, Emily Yoffe explores our political fixation with good looks on the LA Times opinion page. After spilling some ink in honor of the much-discussed VP hopeful John Edwards, she takes a historical view: Abraham Lincoln received a letter from an 11-year-old girl, Grace Bedell, that read in part, "If you let your whiskers grow � you would look a great deal better for your face is so thin. All the ladies like whiskers and......