More like off the diamond-studded cufflink. Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney called a press conference to explain that his secretly recorded comments dismissing 47 percent of Americans as welfare queens were merely "off the cuff" and "not elegantly stated," so, you know, nothing to see here. Yeah, well, either way he's still a dick.

"A depressingly inept presidential campaign." That's conservative columnist David Brooks lambasting "Thurston Howell Romney" for comments Brooks describes as "a country-club fantasy." Ouch. "When will the incompetence stop?" Brooks asks. Hopefully in November, a weary nation replies.

Speaking of Romney... Former Supreme Court Justice David Souter warns that "pervasive civic ignorance" in the US could bring on a dictatorship.

Cue the angry Seattle Times editorials. SPEEA negotiators unanimously advise the union's 23,000 members to reject Boeing's latest contract offer. The white collar engineering union's contract expires on October 6.

Prison break. 132 inmates escaped from a Mexican prison just across the Texas border, through a 21-foot tunnel.

Occupy Nostalgia. A couple hundred protesters gathered at Westlake Park yesterday to mark the one year anniversary of Occupy Wall Street. Meanwhile, you wouldn't know it from most of the news coverage, but 150 occupiers were arrested at similar protests in New York yesterday.

Occupy Free Ride Area. Members of Seattle's Transit Riders Union plan a march on September 28 to protest the end of the city's Free Ride Area.

Electric rates up. The Seattle City Council unanimously voted to approve City Light rate increases equalling about 10 percent over the next two years.

Utility rates up. Sewage, garbage, and storm water rates could rise 22 percent over the next two years.

Highway 99 tunnel toll down. House Transportation Committee chair Judy Clibborn says she's ready to accept less tolling revenue for the Highway 99 tunnel, if that's what it takes to keep the toll low enough for people to actually use it.

Talk about a fraud. Early in his term, Attorney General Rob McKenna made combatting fraud and identity theft a main focus of his administration. Turns out Washington still has the eighth highest rate of fraud in the nation.

Doctors perform world's first mother-to-daughter uterus transplant. Yay?

And finally, the Democratic House Majority PAC is spending $380,000 to run this anti-Koster/war-on-women ad in the Seattle market: