News Clips— Smiling/Crying

October 9, 2006 12:00 am

Smiling And Crying
  • Seattle sports fans finally had a multiteam week to remember, with the Mariners 15-4 start against division rivals and a promising Seahawks draft. To make things nearly perfect, the Sonics stopped playing.
  • Local book lovers absorb a double blow, as an antitrust suit by independent booksellers against national giants Barnes & Noble and Borders fizzles and the Seattle Times trims its Sunday book review pages.
  • Bill Gates has taken a national survey that named Microsoft as the company Americans would most like to see running the US government to heart: On his lunch hour last Wednesday, he purchased a half-dozen Congressmen.
  • Chicago residents were plagued by a visit from tax-break-hungry Boeing executives; ordinary citizens got in on the act by tucking dollar bills into Phil Condit’s trousers.
  • Could things be better for Ron Sims? His prospective opponent in the county exec race is Kirkland City Council member Santos Contreras—a man best known for losing a legislative primary to Seattle Weekly football columnist Luke Esser.
  • US Sen. Maria Cantwell is under scrutiny by federal regulators over an alleged “sweetheart deal” on a personal loan she used to finance her campaign. Some great deal—it enabled her to keep all her supervaluable RealNetworks stock.