As Far As You Know

Once again, a certain college located in Williamstown, Massachusetts sits atop the list in the annual U.S. News & World Report college rankings. This is the second such kudo for Williams in a week, following the Forbes ranking list (which was different in that it lumped research universities and liberal arts colleges in the same category) that also had Williams at #1. Not that I put much stock in these rankings, but still it's nice . . .

Back in the States after nine days in "America's hat" (a.k.a. Canada). My 5:45 train from Vancouver to Seattle was converted into a bus trip--at least for the first part of it, as there was a drawbridge out just north of the border. So about 180 of us traveled by bus to the border station, where we were processed by the Homeland Security folks, and then to the Amtrak station in Bellingham, Washington, which is a beautiful little town from whence the ferries to Alaska depart. The Cascades is a terrific train, with tremendous views of the coastline and a pretty cool dining car (check out the ceiling mural--a map with illuminated lights).

Additional delays on the train meant that we arrived in Seattle about 75 minutes behind schedule. No worries, as the station was just a few blocks walk to my hotel in the Pioneer Square district. Feeling fairly exhausted from a day touring Vancouver, I am ready to hit the sack.

For the second day in a row, I toured a city mostly on foot. (An especially good workout today, since Seattle is far hillier than Vancouver.) I did some touristy things, such as going to the Space Needle's observation deck--it was a cloudless day, so the views were very nice. This is another great town.

. . . about the proposed Islamic community center near the World Trade Center site.

via Reddit:

[Rush] Limbaugh sarcastically suggests that we build a Hindu temple next to Pearl Harbor and a mosque next to the Pentagon . . . without realizing that Shinto, not Hinduism, is the most common religion in Japan, and there is already a mosque inside the Pentagon and a Shinto temple next to Pearl Harbor.

Meanwhile, in a moronic analogy that is wrong on so many levels, Newt Gingrich equates American Muslims with Nazis (via Media Matters):

Seriously, where do we get these guys?

I am becoming a fan of light rail. I used the new system built for the Winter Olympics while in Vancouver over the weekend and I took SoundTransit from my hotel to the Seattle airport this morning. It's cheap, reliable, and efficient transportation. The trains share an underground tunnel with Seattle buses downtown and then work their way through the southern parts of the metropolis at ground and elevated levels before terminating at the airport.