illo from the 1962 world's fair guide book

• Knute Berger looks back at predictions for 21st century greater Seattle made during the 1962 World’s Fair. Surprisingly, population growth in the region is a bit lower than was then predicted. Still no flying cars or domed cities, though.
• The grownup Frances Bean Cobain has posed for a fashion shoot. All thin, dark haired, and attitude-y. But all those cigarettes? They’re not rebellious, just icky.
• Joni Balter, a member of the SeaTimes‘ “all taxes = bad” editorial board, surprisingly issues an essay decrying politicians who sign on to simplistic pledges, such as GOP operative Grover Norquist’s “no new taxes ever” pledge.
• Could the revised, Costco-invented, liquor privatization scheme actually increase state revenues? And, more importantly, would any extra revenues be eaten up by alcoholism-treatment costs and DWI prosecutions?
• Somebody’s prediction for where home prices will rise the most in the next year? Tacoma.
• If AT&T gets to take over T-Mobile USA, the latter’s 30,000 employees (including the 3,000 or so at its Bellevue national HQ) could be essentially done for.
• The state’s economy’s not getting any better any time soon.
• The plea-bargained “barefoot bandit” has a movie deal. All the proceeds will go to his crimes’ victims.
• A “revolutionary collective” has announced plans to protest Metro’s threatened service cuts by refusing to pay bus fares. Somehow I think this won’t help.
• Bert and Ernie are as (officially) non-gay as Laverne and Shirley.
• Standard & Poor’s and its fellow investment rating agencies have spent millions on lobbying to keep the financial markets unregulated. We all know how well that’s worked out.
• Bee Lavender at HipMama (the site based on the alt-culture parenting zine) has her own first person perspective on the London riots:

Many of the people out on the streets this week are usually invisible. They are part of an underclass, an underworld, where the rules are different and you have to take what you can to get through the day. Given the chance, many would in fact make something better out of their lives – but they don’t get the chance. What little equilibrium existed even a year ago has now vanished, and they are raging. Because they have no hope, no future, nowhere to go and nothing to do.