(Grant M. Haller/Seattle P-I)

Today I got an e-mail from a newbie named Marcos who wants to know where he can find the best Fourth of July fireworks show in Seattle:

My top consideration is - which is the BEST one. Secondary consideration - traffic. Tertiary consideration - availability of food and entertainment.

Lake Union and Elliott Bay are the popular choices in town. And there are loads of other events.

Which would you recommend? When is the best time to arrive? Any other tips for readers like Marcos?

P.S. - For more on how workers have prepared for the shows, check out P-I reporter Evi Sztajno's story.

P.P.S. Taking a camera to the show? Don't forget to upload your best shots to MySeattlePix.

We laughed, gasped, questioned and pondered - and have come up with the top 10 reader submitted names for the new NBA team in Oklahoma City.

Some, of course, are tongue in cheek. But others refer directly to Oklahoma history and industry. So for one last laugh, here are our choices. Vote for your favorite here.

It may be months, even years before we in Seattle can look at the team in Oklahoma City without at least some resentment.

But that's no reason not to listen to the other side.

Oklahomans have been criticizing Seattleites on our earlier post soliciting name suggestions for the new team. Many acknowledge Seattle has a right to vent. Others took offense.

And Seattle readers aren't being too friendly in response.

Oklahoman David Richard sent an e-mail I thought struck a gracious tone in an ungracious time. It's posted below. Let me know what you think.

The initial idea on the blog for "helping" name the new Oklahoma basketball team was a cute idea.

Once the Sonics fans finish venting, I hope you will point out to them that the residents in Oklahoma have the same influence over the Sonics' move as the Sonics fans did over the team's departure (none).

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Everything must go.(Josh Trujillo/Seattle P-I)

Want some Sonics gear before the team disappears?

Hurry.

I'm sitting outside the Sonics Store by Key Arena and everything Sonics - I mean everything - is on sale. The mob that gathered soon after the store opened at 10 a.m. is gone, but there's still a steady flow of customers that employees don't expect to taper off anytime soon.

Inside, mourning fans are making the best of a bad situation, buying at a bargain the remains of the team they've loved their whole lives.

"I was five years old. Dad was watching a basketball game on TV," said 18-year-old Jordan Gisler of Lynnwood. "I said, 'Who is this, playing?' He said, "It's the Seattle team. It's the Sonics."

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"Waldo," a flower that smells like rotting meat, is expected to bloom sometime in the next week. (Volunteer Park Conservatory)

You read that right.

The corpse flower, a rare flora that smells just like you'd expect, is about to bloom this week at the Volunteer Park Conservatory.

It's such a unique little thing, staff there gave it a name. They call it Waldo.

Amorphophallus titanum grows wild in the rainforests of Indonesia, but is being cultivated in gardens all over the world. The flower can weigh up to 80 pounds and stand as high as a grown adult.

Waldo is on loan to the Conservatory from the University of Washington. It first bloomed there in 2005.

The flower is available for viewing (and sniffing) daily at the Conservatory, 1400 E Galer St. at the north end of Volunteer Park, from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. You can also track the bloom online on the Conservatory Web site.

Fans line up to buy Sonics merchandise at deep discount Thursday. (Josh Trujillo/Seattle P-I)

Let me clarify: Everything Sonics is 75 percent off. Storm merchandise is still golden.

Of course, these discounts come the day after the city of Seattle and the Sonics decide to part ways.

P-I Reporter Casey McNerthney called them, and it's true. The store just reopened, and there was a mob of people outside waiting.

Casey and fellow reporter Moises Mendoza say that there's plenty of stuff left, but that folks are buying things by the armful. eBay, anyone?

An Eastern Washington woman who bribed officials from Liberia to assist in an international diploma mill operation was sentenced Wednesday to three years in federal prison.

When Dixie Ellen Randock, 58, formerly of Colbert, gets out, she'll have her business and personal financial dealings, as well as her computer monitored by the feds.

Dixie was the ring leader. But along with her husband Steven Randock, the couple was responsible for issuing degrees from bogus schools, as well as printing bogus degrees from real colleges and universities. The feds say she sold more than 10,000 fake high school and college degrees before she was caught.

A federal crackdown of diploma mills a couple years ago revealed that at least 135 federal employees, including a White House staffer and some at the National Security Agency, had used fake academic credentials supplied by the Randocks' operation.

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Update, 12:12 p.m.: Due to the vast (and hilarious) response to this post, we're going to pick the top 10 suggestions at 4 p.m.

Oklahoma City has never had to name a basketball team. So as the city that's reluctantly handing one over, we might as well do the gracious thing and offer a few suggestions.

Here in the newsroom, we've come up with some real winners.

How about the Oklahoma City Raiders? The Stealers? Abductors? Counterfeits? The Oklahoma Spoiled Lattes? The Oklahoma Wheat?

As you mourn the loss of our NBA legacy, leave your ideas. And make them funny - please. We could all use a laugh.

Earlier we asked whom you blamed most for the settlement that's set to wrench the Sonics from 41 years of Seattle history.

Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz

The winner: Former Sonics owner and Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz.

Commenters explained why in less than friendly terms on our soundoffs. But so did Mayor Greg Nickels, another high-ranker, in just four words at today's devastating news conference.

"Local ownership is critical."

Schultz didn't know that back in 2006, when he sold the Sonics to the team of Oklahoma City investors who today won the battle to take the Sonics back home.

That's probably why so many of you pin the blame mostly on him, even though apart from his hail-Mary lawsuit he's been largely uninvolved in the squabbles. He set the stage for them.

Anything he can do to make it up to you?

Hear that?

It's a death knell. A funeral choir. The slice of a hacksaw. Whatever. It's the sound of a city losing a vital piece of its identity.

That's right, it's over. The Sonics are gone.

We don't know when we'll get over it. But we do know who to blame. According to the poll I posted less than an hour before the details of this $75 million buyout came through, the big, bad guys are former Sonics owner Howard Schultz and, most consequentially, Mayor Greg Nickels.

No politician should ever expect love from his public. But in the next several days, Nickels is likely to get nothing but vitriol -- the kind that's been pouring in all day on our SoundOffs.

"Nickels GET OUT OF MY TOWN," wrote kakashi.

"Nickels is an idiot. Is this a shock?" wrote gettingreal.

"I'll be licking stamps and making phone calls for ANYBODY - animal, vegetable, or sheep - who runs against mayor Fathead," wrote vinella.

Nickels is the mayor who lost us the Sonics. Not sure that smear will ever go away.

Allstate says these Seattle drivers should get off the road. (Grant M. Haller/Seattle P-I)

You always knew Seattleites were awful drivers. Allstate Insurance just confirmed it.

Seattle drivers rank 148th in driver safety out of America's 200 biggest cities, according to an analysis by Allstate released Tuesday.

The analysis, which the insurance giant has been doing for the past four years, used the most current data to rank the likelihood that drivers would get in crashes.

Drivers in Sioux Falls, S.D., are the country's best according to the report. They're 31.6 percent less likely to get in crashes than the national average.

Seattle residents, meanwhile, are 20.7 percent more likely to get in crashes than the national average.

Things could be worse though. In Washington, D.C. - which Allstate says has the country's worst drivers - people's odds of getting in crashes are 83.6 percent higher than average.

The report excluded data from four cities in Utah, Colorado and Florida and all cities in Massachusetts.

Have any stories of close calls? Are Seattle drivers really that bad?

Update: The U.S District Court Web site has posted a notice about today's settlement here. There's no ruling - just word on the agreement.

With all signs now pointing to a settlement between the city and the Sonics, maybe the most important question we should be asking isn't whether it should happen - but how.

Sonics reporter Greg Johns has said that a settlement would include some sort of buyout and leave the Sonics name in Seattle, "assuming the league offered some certainty that Seattle would receive a new team in the future."

As far as the terms of the actual settlement, our readers are already making demands. Most seem to concur with conventional wisdom. A few add things like charging Bennett all the legal fees and allowing Schultz' suit to continue. Others get a little nuts.

Here's a selection. What do you think?

MartzMimic: I say Clay pays off the debt, leaves the name and each side pays its own attorneys.

Oh_For_Pete's_Sake: The only acceptable settlement: Bennett sells the team back to Schultz, and then leaves town.

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Update, 2:56 p.m.: The response has been quick - and decisive. Less than 10 minutes after the poll was posted, with 200 votes cast, 60 percent of respondents have come out strongly against a settlement.

Details came in this morning about supposed settlement talks between the City of Seattle and Sonics chairman Clay Bennett.

And now the Seattle Times is reporting that the two did, in fact, settle - and that we'll hear more details at a 5 p.m. press conference.

We've been covering this whole Sonics fight for a while. And if there's one outcome most of our commenters hated, it was a settlement.

"A settlement would be insane," wrote Mr. Pac-10 on reporter Greg Johns' latest report. "This is the worst time to wimp out!!!"

"I hope this report is not true," wrote reader Kyle Johnson. "Any council members or city officials involved or pursuing any settlement talks before decisions in both court cases are reached should resign."

We're posting an online poll, so let us know: Would you support a settlement? Vote here.

Update, 1:45 p.m.: The Oklahoman is reporting that Seattle city officials are negotiating a settlement with Sonics owners before an expected ruling Wednesday afternoon.

Today at 4 p.m., it happens. A U.S. district judge will decide whether the Sonics can break the lease that is keeping them in this city.

Talk about suspense. What seemed like a strong case against Clay Bennett and the rest of the team's owners may have turned against Seattle during last month's trial:

"Going in, I would say the city had the upper hand," attorney Randy Aliment told P-I reporter Greg Johns. "But there was some conduct that turned it into a contest, so we'll have to see whether the so-called unclean hands disrupts what could have been a pretty straightforward case. I don't know. I think it's up in the air. In the end, it became a contest."

To catch up with the case, check out our Sonics page and trial blog, especially the posts with closing arguments from the city and the team.

The ruling will be posted on the court's Web site, and we'll have it immediately on our site, so be on the lookout. Also, mayor Greg Nickels has scheduled his press conference for 5 p.m. We'll have a reporter there ready with the details. Should be a busy afternoon.

While we wait, post your final thoughts here. It seems like a toss-up. Who should get the jump ball?

You might think fireworks are great fun, but chances are your pets don't feel the same way. To their sensitive ears, World War III happens once a year, around this time, and it sends them over the edge.

Some run away, some knock down doors, chew through fences, you name it.

Protect your favorite pooch or pet from fireworks freakouts (Getty Images)

The Seattle Animal Shelter urges pet owners to take extra precautions to protect their four-legged friends, including making sure they're licensed and wearing proper ID. Pet owners who have licensed pets that show up at the shelter are called and if the pet is found out and about, it will be returned to its owner.

Other tips from the shelter and The World Wide Pet Industry Association (WWPIA), the oldest non-profit association dedicated to promoting responsible pet care, follow.

What will you do with your pet this holiday weekend?

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Surprise, surprise, America. We are not the happiest country in the world. But maybe we're the happiest city?

According to the World Values Survey, the United States ranks 16th on the list of happiest countries. The Dutch are first. The Zimbabweans - last.

The study asked just two simple questions of the 35,000 people it surveyed. Now I'll ask you.

Take a deep breath and a step back. Think of Boeing, coffee, condos, the Space Needle, the Sonics trial, the weather, gas prices, Microsoft, the Mariners season the viaduct and oh yeah - your own life - then answer this:

A Seattle police officer with a sharp eye and a time machine could have gotten a lot of money from drivers on Mercer Way today.

From my stakeout off the intersection of Mercer Way and 8th Avenue North, between 5:30 p.m. and 6, I saw 44 people drive toward I-5 while talking into their cell phones.

At $124 a pop, that's $5,456.

Well, OK - not exactly. The state's cell phone handset ban, which took effect today, is a secondary offense. A cop would have to pull you over for something else to give you the ticket.

No one was speeding, I don't think. But a few drivers weren't buckled in, some cranked the music way, way too loud and the driver's seat dancing in one white Ford F-350 was, if not illegal, completely uncalled for.

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Kristy Lee Cook, the closest thing Seattle had to a local contestant on this year's American Idol, joins a long list of non-winners who land record contracts.

The 24-year-old Selma, Oregon, singer signed with 19 Recordings/Arista Nashville, joining Idol graduates Kellie Pickler and Carrie Underwood on the label.

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Starbucks has announced it is closing 600 underperforming stores in the United States.

No word on whether any of those are in Seattle, but we're working on the details.

In the meantime, which local Starbucks stores do you hope stay on? Any you think might be running out of steam?

Two houses in the 6700 block of Seventh Avenue Northwest dwarf the homes on either side. Megahomes may mean more money for developers, but owners of smaller neighboring houses aren't pleased. (Grant M. Haller/Seattle P-I)

Building a big house on a small lot could get a lot tougher, if the Seattle City Council approves a proposal to limit the size of homes on smaller lots in single family neighborhoods.

But is this an example of the community banding together for the common good? Or the mob encroaching on personal freedoms?

That's the debate on today's soundoff.

"On the opposite side of freedom is community, and in Seattle we've erred too much on the freedom side," Paul Spitalny told P-I reporter Jennifer Langston. Next door, a new home is threatening to dwarf Spitalny's Wallingford Craftsman.

The house blocks the sunlight in his window. But does a neighbor's view trump a person's right to build on his property? And are community and freedom really so at odds?

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If you've been watching the local news at all, you're probably well aware that a bank robber in a wig and his accomplice caused something of a scuffle this morning.

You can follow all the developments on the Seattle 911 blog, where the P-I breaking news team is posting updates on the West Seattle Wells Fargo bank robbery and the ensuing downtown standoff.

They include statements by a cashier at the Admiral Chevron gas station across the street, who saw the robber's backpack explode in red ink as the getaway car sped off down California Avenue.

The cashier, Harold Chacon, said he remembers when the dye was blue. This isn't the first time that bank's been robbed.

Chacon claims it's the third he's seen in the last 10 years. One notable incident happened two years ago, when a rampant robber pointed a gun at tellers and told them to fill it with money. He was later caught. You can read that story here.

For those who live or work close to that bank -- what did you see this morning? And how often have you seen it before?

From P-I reporter Casey McNerthney:

The day after about 400 runners missed shuttle buses to the Seafair Marathon starting line, organizers sent an e-mail offering them free entry to this month's Torchlight Run or next year's marathon.

Seafair officials also said they would donate half the runner's registration – between $65 and $100 depending on sign-up date – to the Floyd & Delores Jones Cancer Institute at Virginia Mason.

The buses, paid for by Seafair, began transporting runners from Bellevue Downtown Park to the Husky Stadium starting line at 5 a.m. Organizers scheduled 30 First Student school buses to make four trips each with a capacity of about 50 people, Seafair spokesman Dan Wartelle said Sunday.

The marathon's Web site "strongly recommended" runners arrive early for the 15-minute shuttle. But more people than expected arrived for later buses and the final 6:45 a.m. shuttle.

Runners -- do Seafair's actions help make up for missing the race?

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One-hundred forty-four riders are camping out in Sultan tonight after Day 1 of what is believed to be the biggest cross-country biking trip ever.

Along with tents, water bottles and dinner, many of them are pulling out laptops -- getting ready to post on more than 60 public blogs where friends and family can follow their journey.

The summer-long Sea to Sea cycling tour started this morning at Golden Gardens Beach when the cyclists dipped their tires in the Pacific. It will end in Jersey City, New Jersey, August 30 on the shores of the Atlantic coast.

The ride is the second major cross-country trek organized by the Christian Reformed Church. It is for fun, of course, but it's also for a cause. Each rider raised at least $10,000 for poverty. Altogether, they've gotten $1.5 million, said spokesman David Raakman.

"This is the kind of cause that everyone can get behind," he said.

Everyone can track it, too. One rider carries a device that tracks the group's location and publishes it on the tour's Web site.

A van from the Essential Baking Company fills up with biodiesel at a Propel station. (Propel)

Drivers in South Lake Union might have noticed a weird new building go up this weekend on Westlake Avenue and Valley Street.

It looks kind of like a gas station. But, Propel Biofuels would rather you call it a "Clean Fuel Port." And the Seattle-based alternative fuel company hopes it will convince you to make your next engine a diesel engine.

But will you?

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After spending two weeks high up in a fir tree, the 7-year-old lynx that baffled experts at Northwest Trek finally came down -- dead.

A lynx walks the floor of its exhibit at Northwest Trek in Eatonville, where one of the cats died over the weekend. (Northwest Trek)

"It's so upsetting for our keepers," said park spokeswoman Cherilyn Williams. "They really tried to find some way to lure her down."

The lynx scaled the 120-foot tree for her sister, who climbed up June 4 and didn't come down. Sensing she was calling her sibling, staff at the Eatonville wild animal park let her go up. The first lynx came down June 13. Then, despite the efforts of the keepers, and the lack of any food, the second lynx stayed.

And stayed. And stayed.

She fell down dead Saturday, June 28.

Staff have installed sheet metal on the tree's trunk to prevent the two remaining lynxes from repeating their companion's fatal stunt.

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About 2 years ago, I hung out with some guys who had signed up to do something slightly crazy: create a short film from scratch, shoot it and edit it, within 48 hours.

But they did it, and it was hilarious. (Maybe the talking, telepathic pug had something to do with it, or not sleeping for 48 hours.)

The 4th Annual Seattle 48-Hour Film Project kicks off Friday July 11 at 7 p.m. Teams gather and are given a character, a prop, a line of dialogue and a genre to be included in their film. All the films have to be turned in by 7:30 p.m. on Sunday July 13. You can still sign up or e-mail seattle@48hourfilm.com.

Screenings of the films will be at the Neptune Theater in the University District (1303 NE 45th St.) on Tuesday and Thursday, July 15 and 17, at 6:30 and 9 p.m.

Seattle bartenders: Are you a master mixologist who also has a flair for creative concoctions and the ability to work with a team? Try out your skills July 14 at Sole Repair, 1001 East Pike on Capitol Hill, to compete for one of 10 spots from Seattle for the Cocktail World Cup in New Zealand, Sept. 7-14.

The United States Bartenders' Guild will be judging the 5th annual event, sponsored by 42BELOW Vodka, in Queenstown, New Zealand.

Contenders don't need to pay anything to enter, but they do need to:
- Be 21 years of age
- Be currently working or previously have worked in an establishment serving alcohol
beverages within your country and community of residence
- Reside in the country and community from which you are applying
- Create an original cocktail preferably (not required) using 42BELOW Vodka
- Have a valid passport

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Ralph Arnett (middle) poses with his two brothers, John and Randy, upon claiming his $1 million prize from the state lottery. (Washington Lottery)

A disabled Kirkland veteran who just won a million dollars in the state Lottery Raffle game would like to thank the 140,000 or so people who didn't buy a ticket.

"That really improved my odds," said 40-year-old Ralph Arnett.

Arnett bought the winning ticket Friday at Sami's Shell Station at 10801 68th Street in Kirkland. The Lottery Raffle game guarantees three million-dollar winners. The first was a 29-year-old legal assistant from Marysville. Arnett is the second.

"All weekend I had to babysit the ticket -- this little tiny piece of paper that was worth so much money," Arnett said. "I slept two and a half hours Friday night. I was just excited."

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