Jake Ellison

No question, Steve Ballmer has always been a mogul, it just hasn’t seemed like it in the media. For instance, there’s all that “monkey boy” business on YouTube that so far has been watched 4,078,680 times.

Then there was the guy who made international news by calling for Ballmer to be fired.

Now, though, the love is on. In a long and humanizing article in Business Week today, Ballmer gets his due as the man at the top of a resurgent Microsoft.

"We've been doing nothing but investing in this town."

On Nov. 2, JP Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon came to Seattle to address business leaders at an event put on by the University of Washington’s business school. The event attracted a great deal of heat from the Occupy Seattle protesters, which we wrote about: “Anatomy of a protest: Occupy Seattle vs. Jamie Dimon of Chase.”

Reporters were not allowed into the event to hear what Dimon had to say, though some were allowed to interview him before hand. KPLU was not among them.

We got a copy of a video of the event through the Freedom of Information Act. Inside, you can watch several snippets of his responses to questions as well as the full video of his speech at the Business Leadership Celebration event.

We in the Northwest are prone to navel-gazing over matters related to our character and the things we do … and don’t do.

Maybe it is the months of clouds, mist and rain, but like the proverbial Eskimo has many ways for talking about snow, we in the NW apparently have many paths to introspection.

RICHLAND, Wash. – After more than a year of waiting, a high-profile Hanford whistleblower will argue in court Monday that his case should be heard in front of a jury. But federal contractor Bechtel argues the case should be thrown out.

(Warning some of the links in this page, as well as performing the talked about Google search, could result in the display of a NSFW website page.)

Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum’s showing in the Iowa caucus this week has put Seattle’s notorious sex blogger, political commentator and Stranger editorial director back in the news for political hijinks.

A white whale, also known as beluga, puffs a ring at Kamogawa Sea World in Kamogawa, east of Tokyo, Japan, Sunday, Dec. 25.

What happens when the captain of the financial industry is brought to Seattle to celebrate business leadership in the middle of a populist revolt aimed directly at the wealthy and financial companies?

Pepper spray. Arrests. Speeches. And a very nervous Seattle business school, caught in the crossfire, whose gala event of the year could be wrecked. What follows is a close look at the events and decisions leading up to the Nov. 2 clash in downtown Seattle gleaned from emails and documents obtained by KPLU. 

Paul Allen’s new company, Stratolaunch Systems hopes to bring airport-like operations to the launch of commercial and government payloads and, eventually, human missions. Plans call for a first flight within five years, according to a company press release.

The air-launch-to-orbit system will mean lower costs, greater safety, and more flexibility and responsiveness than is possible today with ground-based systems, the company declares.

The boom in natural gas drilling in the U.S. has led a handful of companies to propose liquefying the gas for export. one project in Oregon could be close to a decision on its export license.

Sen. Maria Cantwell is calling for stronger communication between American and Canadian officials following the disclosure that Canada failed to reveal the results of tests that appear to show the presence of a potentially deadly salmon virus nearly a decade before a salmon-virus scare this fall.

This is the second time that Canadian officials have been accused of muffling a scientist’s findings concerning viruses and salmon.

From Slate, NASA has released a short video (above) of the 1,300-foot-wide asteroid that came within 202,000 miles of Earth this week.

From the numbers expert at the University of Portland comes another bit of fun with a palindrome date.

Seattle Times reports that the second try, plus more than $22 million, was the charm for Costco Wholesale in attempting to kick the state out of the liquor business and allow private retailers to sell liquor in Washington.

Initiative 1183 was passing with more than 60 percent of the early returns, including King, Pierce, Snohomish and Spokane counties. "We are very pleased and grateful to all of the coalition members across the state," said Joel Benoliel, Costco's chief legal officer.