1. The YouTube wars continue: T-Mobile executive-turned-mayoral-candidate Joe Mallahan has counterattacked the attack ad that Mayor Nickels put on YouTube two days ago.

Mallhan's ad doesn't so much answer Nickels' attack (the Nickels ad put the camera on Mallahan's lacking knowledge of city issues), it simply brings the debate back to where it was when Mallahan was gaining ground—it trashes Nickels' record with Mallahan smiling in the background.



2. A U.S. District Court Judge has halted Glacier Northwest's controversial mining expansion project on Maury Island, mandating further environmental review.

The decision vindicates state Rep. Sharon Nelson (D-34), brand-new state lands commissioner Peter Goldmark, King County Council Member (and King County Executive candidate) Dow Constantine, and neighborhood activists with  Preserve Our Island (who sued), who have been battling Glacier's mining project for years.

Goldmark has been in the thick of the fight most recently. The Seattle Times summarizes :

Last year, the company gave $50,000 to a political action committee that supported former Republican State Lands Commissioner Doug Sutherland's re-election bid. Sutherland lost, but signed a lease for the project days before leaving office. His successor, Democrat Peter Goldmark, who's campaigned on a promise to try and stop the project, immediately announced plans to more thoroughly scrutinize the lease. In early July, he ordered the company to do no work until it could prove to him Puget Sound would see no harm. Earlier this week, the company responded with a 17-page letter — and a promise that it still planned to start work next week.

Here is the judge's decision.

3. The Nortwest Film Forum needs to raise another $35,000 in the next two days according to the latest plea from NWFF executive director Lyall Bush. The indie film mecca has been in crisis mode since it publicly announced on July 30 that it needed to raise $70,000 by August 15.

4. Metro bus drivers have been complaining to King County Council members about delays caused by Link Light Rail in the downtown transit tunnel. The (alleged) problem: Because of safety restrictions, buses and rail can't enter tunnel stops at the same time. When a train is in front of a line of buses, the buses have to stop repeatedly to wait for the train to load and unload, resulting in delays as buses stack up behind the train.

Metro and Sound Transit spokespeople said they hadn't heard of any major delays resulting from joint operations in the tunnel.

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