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Thursday, January 31, 2008

Lost tribe found at BYU

Brigham Young University Democrats (there really are some) watched Bush's final State of the Union Address, raised some heck and got in the Washington Post.

Post reporter Joel Achenbach caught the flavor of BYU D-bauchery:

Like so many college kids in America, they weren't going to sit through a SOTU speech without turning it into a drinking game. So it was that every time the president said a certain word ("terror," "enemy," "evil") or mangled the language ("nucular," "Zimbawe"), they bolted down a beverage. Of course, as Mormons, they had to stick to soda. They ingested heroic, indeed sickening, quantities of root beer, ginger ale and 7-Up, even the rather edgy Mountain Dew.

Utah's blue blood is running hot because Obama and Clinton are actually running TV spots in the state. "It is also utterly novel," Auchenbach writes. "No one here can recall ever -- ever -- having seen a presidential TV ad in Utah."

And, of course, Mitt Romney will be on the Super Tuesday ballot and he "might as well be a native son."

Utah's new Welcome Wagon

The lines between being aware of crime, scaring the hell out of ourselves and giving up our privacy entirely to Big Brother get hazier every day.

The state is providing an online crime reporting service that will give Utahns a history of neighborhood crimes over the last 30 days — murders, robberies assaults, sex offenses, even car burglaries. And of course, you can look up the photos and locations of all the registered sex offenders in your 'hood.

Go to CrimeReports.com, put in your address and let the adrenaline flow.

Today, the Utah House unanimously approved "Jessica's Law" that would lock up certain sex offenders for at least 25 years.

Watching the bill's passage was Jessica's father, Mark Lunsford, who would argue for having crime information at your finger tips. Jessica was kidnapped, raped and buried alive in 2005 by a convicted sex offender who lived in her neighborhood.

Sen. Howard Stephenson introduced Lunsford (above, center) along with Utah's own Ed Smart (left), describing them as "warriors for our children."

Fourth graders vs. ranchers

Who do you think the smart money is on?

A bill to change Utah's official tree from the Colorado blue spruce to the Utah juniper seemed like a slam dunk and a darn good way to give some kids a lesson in how government works.

The Cache County students are getting an education, all right. Utah ranchers have mistaken the earnest fourth graders for tree huggers.

The ranchers point is simple: Cows need grass. And to get lots of grass ranchers sometimes "chain" rangeland — a hideous-looking process in which a pair of bulldozers drag a chain between them over acres of grassland, tearing bushes out by their roots. A common victim of the procedure is — you guessed it — junipers.

Ranchers fear the kids' bill would give the pesky shrub protected status, like a bald eagle or some damn thing!

Sponsor Rep. Jack Draxler hasn't been able to convince the stockmen the juniper won't have any legal protection and is warning the kids that approval will be "a tough row to hoe."

Now is the time for the gin manufacturing lobby to throw in with the fourth graders and make this a fair fight.

Osmond warning!

Just when you thought daytime television couldn't reach any higher, doll maker/hoofer Marie Osmond springs a talk show on you.

As long as she doesn't hyperventilate, it should last longer than her ill-fated 2004 radio show, "Marie and Friends."

"Marie" will focus on topics of interest to women, Osmond says. "It will be a real feel-good show. ... Women need a safe place where they can laugh, feel good and relate to (other women)."

Osmond told television execs in Vegas that she's willing to share her own heartbreak — losing her house in a fire, succumbing to postpartum depression, divorcing and being a single, working mom to eight kids — to get a TV gig.

Maybe she'll tell Utah County wives how in the heck she gets out of those eternal marriages.

Trooper's 15 minutes stretch on

Utah's most famous Highway Patrol trooper could face charges for Tasering a motorist during a September traffic stop in Unitah County.

State investigators will give the results of their probe on Trooper Jon Gardner to Tooele County prosecutors, who will decide whether to go forward.

Gardner stopped Jared Massey on suspicion of speeding and the rest is history — or at least a YouTube video seen around the world.

Massey has filed suit, saying that when he screamed after being shocked, the Gardner taunted him by saying, "Hurts, doesn't it?"

Dropping a dime on Granny

I see old people.

The Senate gallery this morning is filled with representatives of Utah's vintage citizens, many sporting AARP buttons. They are here to watch Sen. Allen Christensen argue for a law to allow folks to anonymously rat out their eldely loved ones.

Christensen, who got ha

mmered by the bluehairs last year on this bill, wants a process to get incompetent elderly drivers off the road.

"Everyone I talk to has an example of this — someone they know who shouldn't be driving," a nervous Christensen said, recounting recent accidents in which aged drivers ran down people because they "simply didn't see them in the crosswalk before they hit them."

Unfortunately, Christensen says, family members don't have the guts to stand up to Grandma and take her keys away.

"Sen. [Scott] Jenkins says we ought to be brave enough to look that person in the eye and say you are lousy driver," Christensen said. "There are some of us who aren't that brave."

Jenkins, got up to argue, "We have a basic right to face our accusers."

Gordon's house

On my way to the Capitol this morning, I took a stroll around the LDS Conference Center to see how the funeral arrangements for President Gordon B. Hinckley were shaping up. Mormon families, many with very small children and infants, are converging in the frigid temperatures to honor the LDS prophet.

With a major storm on the way, Hinckley's viewing could have reconnected the faithful with their pioneer roots. Unfortunately, instead of recreating the church's infamous 1856 handcart fiasco, the crowds are permitted to sit in the humongous conference center, where, as church PR has bragged: you could park a 747).

So far, the crazies haven't shown up. The Kansas-based Westboro Baptist Church has a permit for a demonstration on the corner a block east of the conference center. The Westboro blot on Christianity doesn't much like Mormons and thinks Hinckley has been too accepting of homosexuals. (I can hear the chortling at the Salt Lake Gay-Lesbian Center's Marmalade coffee shop from here.)

Hinckley, of course, built the conference center, and reportedly caught flack from some leadership for p

ouring money into a building that would only be used twice a year. Few events, other than monster-truck rallies and papal visits (unlikely), can take advantage of the monstrous venue.

Also, the name, "Conference Center," caused some speculation that it was simply a place holder until Hinckley died. Then, it would soon become the "Gordon B. Hinckley Center."

HWJV?

How Would Jesus Vote? is taken up by the editor of the British New Statesman Andrew Stephen.

The Brits have always been intrigued by their colonial cousins' wacky religious fervor. But I ask you, w

hose recipe for rascals was it? Who pushed the Pilgrims and Quakers across the pond? Then set up a penal colony in Georgia?

As Bill Murray put it in Stripes: "Our forefathers were thrown out of every decent country in the world."

Stir it together and you've got the makings of a lively political culture. So make up your mind, J.C.

"Senator Barack Obama, perhaps, a biracial yuppie who is a member of a self-described "unashamedly black" and "unashamedly Christian" church? Even if the house magazine of that church voted last year to give an award to a man it said "truly epitomised greatness": Louis Farrakhan,... a veteran anti-Semite who describes white people as "blue-eyed devils" and Jews as "bloodsuckers." (Obama has disassociated himself from the award.)

"Mitt Romney - a devout believer in a religion which supposedly holds that the Garden of Eden where Adam and Eve first got together was actually in, er, Missouri?"
"Maybe Jesus would prefer the former Arkansas governor Mike Huckabee, also an ordained Southern Baptist minister, who jokes that the 16 people he had executed while governor 'would hardly say I'm soft on crime' ?"
"Or Senator John McCain, a self-confessed adulterer shot down over Saigon while bombing a city in which he knew that men, women and children were living?"

Then Stephen makes a bold statement: "I have always held that America is an infinitely more complex country than most Britons realise."

Amen.

What's up with Mormon women?

The Associated Press broached a subject on the minds of many Mormon women: What will the changing of the LDS guard mean to their status in the church?

Unless you've been living under a rock for the last century and a half, you know that Mormon women are not permitted to be priests —whereas every Mormon man is a priest. And the concept of "working mother" is a LDS cultural oxymoron.

The article says that while the LDS Church "is years removed from open hostilities over feminism, passions still run high over the role of women in a patriarchal church. ...But women could still emerge as stronger voices of the church."

"My feeling is that things are not going to change much, that the church is going to keep its very conservative positions on women's roles," said Margaret Toscano, a self-described feminist activist who was excommunicated in 2000 and teaches at the University of Utah.

Hard landing

The Tribune's military affairs reporter Matt LaPlante offers a very human glimpse into the life of a man who can only be described as a Utah anti-hero.

Helicopter pilot Curtis Whiteford retired from the Utah National Guard in 2002 after an investigation revealed he had claimed "an extraordinary number of days with

additional pay." Some guardsmen, at the time, were disturbed with unequal military justice that vigorously prosecutes enlisted men, while giving officers an out of resigning.

But Whiteford held onto his Army commission and transfered to a California-based Reserve division.

He also moved on to a criminal indictment.

Whiteford allegedly ignored his wife's warnings to refuse dirty cash from a contractor in Iraq. Prosecutors last year charged the former Riverton resident with taking thousands of dollars in gifts and conspiring to divert government funds into a private security firm.

His trial in a New Jersey federal court begins in March.

If the military is your job, or you just want to give LaPlante hell, here's his blog.

Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Oda learns his DABCs

Rep. Curt Oda is taking a high-profile stand for Bogey's bar in Clearfield. The private club and oil-wrestling venue has run afoul of officials at the local and state level. In closed-door meetings, city fathers plotted to close Bogey's because it is harming redevelopment — they allege businesses don't want to be next to the private club not matter how cool, left, it is. It has al

so been targeted by state undercover officers.

Oda is spons oring a bill to take enforcement powers away from the Alcoholic Beverage Control Department and and turn them over to the Attorney General. Oda says conflicts of interest in DABC makes it incapable of carrying out investigations objectively — apparently because the liquor commission is historically dominated by non-drinkers.

Good luck, Curt. Gov. Jon Huntsman, who appoints liquor commissioners, and AG Mark Shurtleff both think the idea stinks.

The liquor commission has vast power. A bar or club that gets in the commissioners' sights can have its license revoked or suspended — a financial stake in the heart.

Oda said he would discuss his bill after meeting with certain state officials.

He didn't mention any confabs at the LDS Church office building where Bogey's motto: "Doing everything in our power to separate you and your inhibitions..." won't play well.

Ouch!

A Salt Lake Tribune reader ripped the newspaper today for it's coverage of Mormon Prophet Gordon B. Hinckley's death. "Your nonstop barrage of sycophantic hyperbole makes it feel like you are the Deseret Morning News," wrote Terri Jo Lorz of South Jordan.

Boy, that hurts. In a measured letter to the editor, Lorz argues:

"A vast audience knows, for example, that Hinckley was deeply involved in the Mark Hofmann (right) debacle that resulted in the murder of two innocent people. That he erected a monument to honor those killed by Mormons during the Mountain Meadows Massacre but made it clear that The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints accepted no responsibility."

The DNews has not printed a similar letter, so apparently, they've got the Hinckley coverage balanced correctly.

A real gent

Barack Obama, with his hope spiel, has been accused of naivete and even, by Bill Clinton, of spouting a "fairy tale." But he proved a cunning politician in canceling his Saturday visit to Utah.

The Beehive State obviously is a low priority for Obama, who has another 23 Super Tuesday states to stump in. He's likely already won the hearts of Utah Democrats — his roadside stop at Kimball Junction last summer (right) electrified them.

Thus, cancelling his visit in deference to President Gordon B. Hinckley's funeral is an astute decision.

It wins the hearts of Utahns — whatta thoughtful guy, and it allows him to campaign in a more crucial state.

Besides, if he gets the Democratic nomination, even with newly kindled warm feelings from Mormons, fire-engine red Utah remains beyond his grasp.

Cut their ears off

An obnoxious video clip making the rounds on the Web brings home just what an uphill struggle Robert Redford has in keeping the Sundance Film Festival from devolving into a Hollywood celebrity cluster hump.

Quentin Tarantino, who did yeoman's work as a Sundance juror, got jumped by p aparazzi after a long night of screenings. Unfortunately, he didn't have a straight razor in his boot.

A few days earlier, the writer-director, who never forgot his indie roots (Reservoir Dogs premiered at Sundance in '92), nearly missed a party thrown in his honor at the fest after his car broke down.

A fan drove Tarantino into Park City in time to receive a "Visionary" award.

Give these guys something to do

Utah's Legislature has 45 days to get some pretty important stuff done — deal with healthcare, improve education, keep adults from smoking in cars with kids, bar hard lemonade from 7-Elevens and maybe put a whopping $1 billion surplus to good use in the face of an economic downturn.

So why do we see idiotic time wasters like this:

HJR3, Rep. Kerry Gibson, that "reaffirms" the phrase "under God" in the Pledge of Allegiance.

HCR2, Rep. Mike Morley, that would designate a Ronald Reagan Day.

Both measures passed unanimously in committee and will go on to waste the full House's time and, with any luck, the Senate's.

Maybe Morley figures if the lawmakers are misty eyed about The Gipper, they won't look into questionable practices in charter school construction.

How about an "HJR13" that would designate April 1 as Legislator Day?

No answers

Sometimes you want to know why? in the worst way.

The final police report on the Trolley Square shootings a year ago will tell you in detail how Sulejman Talovic walked through the mall with a shotgun and a handgun, killing five people and wounding four before police killed him.

Why? No one knows.

If you've been on this planet for more than a few years, you know the human heart can be a dark place.

Eighteen-year-old Talovic saw his share of darkness. He told a friend how he had hidden as a child in a Bosnian wood, face down in the dirt as Serbs decapitated Muslims. He watched people executed with a shot to the head.

He also anticipated the Trolley Square massacre would be the "happiest day" of his life.

Read all you can on the tragedy. Try to figure it out. You can get more stories at the Trib. The DNews also has the full report and schematics.

You can't do any worse in explaining it than the criminologists. A University of South Florida expert in kids who murder, for example, offers this: "In a lot of these cases, you do see . . . that this is a troubled individual. Happy, healthy individuals don't go out and do this."

Florida fade

Mitt Romney's hopes have dimmed.

The New York Times, Washington Post, and Los Angeles Times, are calling John McCain's victory in Florida the real thing because he proved he could pull the GOP base. Romney did best among anti-immigration conservatives.

McCain received 36 percent of the vote to Romney's 31 percent in what had become an increasingly nasty contest.

Mitt, Utah's Olympic savior, will need to dig deeply into his millions to stop McCain's momentum going into so-called Tsunami Tuesday next week when 24 states, inclu

ding Utah, will hold primaries.

Meanwhile, America's Mayor Rudy Giuliani has crashed and burned with a distant third in Florida. He is expected to drop out and throw his support to McCain.

Among Democrats, former North Carolina Sen. John Edwards, right, the scrappy underdog who visited Utah last summer for a fund raiser, is expected to drop out today.

Utah Classic Swindle*

You're never too old to be a player.

Think about it. If an older-than-dirt geezer offered you shares in a gold mine, what would you do? Being a Utahn, you'd jump right in, of course. Hook, line, sinker.

An 84-year-old duffer (for some reason the Tribune doesn't name him — so check that "Paw-Paw" is still in his basement room) is accused of ripping off three "investors," otherwise known as chumps, marks or fish, to the tune of $150,000.

He promised the mugs bullion from his mines in Nevada and Californee. Gold, I tell ye!

To be precise, besides exorbitant interest on their money, the suckers were promised 600 ounces of gold. Gold!

The elderly flim-flam man is looking at several fraud counts, and, presumably, paid his bail in pieces of eight.

*Note: Because of the dizzying number of swindles in the Utah: the Fraud Capitol, it's impossible to report them all. Instead, I will review selected scams as performance art, like theater or dance.

Tuesday, January 29, 2008

Huddling the masses

This doesn't sound like a good idea. Legislative leaders want to buy an empty county jail and turn it into a gulag, er — detention center for illegal immigrants until the feds gather them for deportation.

House Speaker Greg Curtis has discussed the idea of buying Salt Lake's Oxbow jail with the governor and Senate President John Valentine.

Says Curtis:

"I don't want to go out there and start arresting illegal immigrants. If we have illegal immigrants who are breaking the law, we have a duty to the citizens of the state to arrest them and detain them."

So far, Salt Lake County's sheriff has blown off the idea, but the Speaker, a soccer fan, is not the kind of guy who takes no for an answer.

Florida squeeze

Tonight's tally in the Florida primary may be pivotal for the campaigns of Mitt Romney and John McCain as they roll into Super-duper Tuesday next week. An average of recent polling puts McCain less than one point ahead of Romney.

Here's all a Utahn needs to know:

Romney, the millionaire investor, says he's the most qualified to keep the nation's shuddering economy from stalling out. He attacks McCain's ideas as simplistic and economically dangerous.
McCain, a Navy squadron commander, zings back: "I did not manage, I led.... And I didn't manage for profit, I led for patriotism."
One thing seems sure, a poor third or worse finish in Florida is likely to snuff Rudy Giuliani's presidential aspirations.

The New York Times took yet another in-depth look at how Mormons feel about Mitt — this time it was a couple of NYC's 42,000 LDS members.

It wasn't surprising that Jeff Magee, like most Mormons, takes great pride in Mitt's candidacy.

Joseph Doria, on the other hand, is critical of how Mitt represents his church.

“My gut sense about Mitt Romney is he’ll say anything to any group to curry favor, and that’s disappointing to me — that’s not what we teach as a church. Mitt Romney representing our faith in the public arena does make me uncomfortable, and I’m sad to say that.”

Whoa. I'll bet the home teachers will be converging on Brother Doria's house tonight.

Who pulls Mitt's strings?

One of my colleagues tipped me off to comedian Stephen Colbert's intriguing theory explaining Mormon President Gordon B. Hinckley's death

.

I won't spoil the suspense, beyond the link to Comedy Central and this photo.

Kicking back in Kanab

Michael Vick's pit bulls have got it pretty cushy in Kanab. It wouldn't take much to improve their lot, of course, when you consider many of their kennel mates got electrocuted, drowned or hanged for a poor win-loss record.

Even a loser NFL quarterback/dog-fight promoter doesn't face that — Vick got 23 months in a federal prison.

Best Friends Animal Society is determined to turn 20 of Vick's canine gladiators into "loving couch potatoes." Vet Frank McMillan said the dogs offer a unique chance to study trauma issues and develop therapies to prepare them for adoption.

"Look at the series with Spanky and his gang," McMillan says. "They had a pit bull."

Utah's roadies party on

Gov. Jon Huntsman is staking claim to roads across federal lands to make sure those annoying lovers of pristine wilderness don't bar them to four-wheelers and energy exploration.

The Trib's Patty Henetz points out that Huntsman's tactic, rooted in a bill sponsored by Kanab Rep. Mike Noel, could be "a tidy way to skirt federal law" that limits how many cow paths counties can ID as autobahns.

Or the guv's smooth move could drag the state and counties into more expensive courtroom brawls with those who think Utah's wildlands should be protected — and damn local economic development. One thing for sure — it will provide work for the green lawyer SUWA is trying to hire.

The state's Public Lands Policy coordinator John Harja says: "We are putting the BLM and the rest of the world on notice."

Sundance's dumb money

An indie film insider offers a theory for why so few films sold at this year's Sundance Film Festival. Jonathan Dana, who has run indie companies and produced movies, calls it the "dumb money" glut.

In a nutshell, Dana says that in the last couple years, a deluge of money has been poured into too many middle level, but still risky indie films, that sport a Hollywood star or two — "with a bias towards 'getting the deal done' with fewer check and balances than the traditional route."

The poor judgment and glut that resulted led to several of last year's Sundance films tanking, and investors have become wary.

"But what the hell," Dana says, "we all love it anyway, and every time someone pulls the trigger something wonderful might happen. That's the great mystery, and I think the great aspiration. I just hope the hangover won't be too severe this time."

For a list of Sundance awards and reviews go here.

Prophet, seer and enigma

The Tribune today looks into what to expect from the likely new Mormon Church leader who is often described as "an enigma."

The headline says it all: "Monson has what it takes to lead church, say friends."

Say friends? What I want to know is what enemies say about the guy who will be the most powerful force in Utah. Otherwise, turn the page.

But as usual in Utah, the story does hold some clues if you're willing to read between the lines. Besides a lame fishing joke remembered by Jon Huntsman Sr., Thomas Monson is known for "homey parables about helping widows during the Depression or being a bishop in the 1950s."

Boy, the firesides at BYU are going to be electrifing.

The Trib's former publisher John Gallivan gives non-Mormons some hope, saying Monson, "abides by the golden rule of 'Live and let live.' " It seems that when Monson got a freebee pint of whiskey, he gave it to Gallivan. "He said he was sure I would get more use of it than he would."

Wow, Monson must be a stand-up guy, it usually takes at least a quart of Bushmills to win the esteem of a Trib publisher.

The DNews article offers even less skinny: "Known among church members for his large stature, broad shoulders and personal stories, President Monson seems relatively young at age 80..."

Let's all get rich!

It's the kind of story that ensures Utah will remain the bankruptcy and sucker capital of the nation.

Forbes, "Gambling for Great Wealth," examines how the Forbes 400 made their piles. In it, Jon Huntsman Sr. shares his secret — taking risks, humongous ones, and remaining fearless of the consequences. (Huntsman, left, enjoying the perks of wealth.)

Want to buy a $42 million plastic plant? Use other people's money. But you've got to gamble big, Jon Sr. says:

"They want to see some type of equity, and if you don't have a rich uncle, the only equity you can put up is whatever you own--your house and any other assets you may have. They may not amount to much, but at least it's everything you've got. Then they can believe you."

"Within a few years I broke even, and then the gold hit," Huntsman says, sounding uncomfortably like a con man, "and I made hundreds of millions of dollars from a very modest investment."

The moral of the story, according to Forbes? If you're going to take massive risks, you simply can't perceive huge personal debt as the catastrophe that it would be to most people.

Before you Utah County schmucks run out and second-mortgage your homes and empty the kids' missionary banks, wait for the Forbes' sequel: "Losing It All: How Utah Earned the Third-Highest Bankruptcy Rate."

Somehow I don't think that will sell a lot of copies.

Monday, January 28, 2008

Opening for a masochist

The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance, is looking for a staff attorney on the employment site Green Dream Jobs. (Note to readers in southern Utah: You're probably more familiar with SUWA through the popular bumper sticker that depicts Calvin whizzing on "SUWA.")

SUWA sees its mission as the management of public lands in their natural state, i.e. not dotted with oil derricks and coal mines or criss-crossed with tire tracks.

It's a great job. You'll get to meet state Rep. Mike Noel, R-Kanab, and the Utah Association of Counties, who delight in leftie litigators who "focus on energy development, off-road vehicles, and BLM land use planning." You'll be based in Salt Lake City — about as far as possible from the wilderness you'll protect and, more to the point, Mike Noel.

All you have to do is pass the Utah bar, demonstrate your love of wilderness and commit for two years of being dispised by every off-road vehicle driver and enduring the evil thoughts of Kane County Commissioner Mark Habbeshaw.

SUWA offers competitive salary and a health plan (you may need it).

Testing Mitt's limits

The Onion, the satirical publication that bills itself "America's Finest News Source," reported that Mitt Romney has launched an attack ad on himself.
The ad ... features an unshaven and visibly crestfallen Romney taking himself to task on a number of key campaign issues, including health-care reform, illegal immigration, and "what's the use of even trying anymore?"

In the ad, Romney blasts "himself for a wide range of political shortcomings, from cutting back on education spending to being unable to remember the last time he took a shower."

The satire also quotes Romney using a blasphemous phrase, which seems unlikely, though we know that Mitt is fluent in the F-word. A March 6, 2002 story reported Mitt became enraged with an 18-

year-old volunteer officer whose Snowbasin traffic direction fell short of Mitt's Olympic standards.

The officer told the Trib Romney asked the him who the "f---" he was and what the "f---" he was doing. Romney added, "We got the Olympics going on and we don't need this s--- going on."
Romney admitted losing his temper, but denied using the F-bomb, saying the last time he said the word was in high school.

So-so for Mitt!

Romney loyalists must be high fiving each other black and blue. The Tribune Sunday unleashed a tepid endorsement of Mitt as "Executive Material," which would be high praise, indeed, if Mitt were a Starbucks barista trying to make manager.

Did you, like me, get the feeling the entire editorial board was in a headlock while they wrote it? Tortured Vietnam pilots have confessed to being "capitalist running dogs" with more conviction than some of the Trib's candidate endorsements over the years. (Who can forget the leaden endorsement of Bush four years ago.)

What I like best about the Trib's official endorsement is the "oh, by the way" damning shot:

We concede that Romney has deeply wounded his own credibility by flip-flopping on an array of issues, most notably abortion. But there is evidence that he is at heart a moderate Republican, a fiscal conservative and technocrat with nuanced social views, who concluded that he must pander to the party's evangelical right to earn the GOP nomination. That pandering has been a mistake.

Flip-flopping? Pandering? Did the Trib just call Mitt a cowardly opportunist? I'm just guessing here, but those aren't the qualities voters look for in a president — or a dog catcher.

With only slightly more sizzle, the paper backed Hillary Clinton.

When you face that touch screen on the Feb. 5 primary — you're on your own again.

Family friendly nukes

In his weekly column, Deseret Morning News editor Joe Cannon comes out for nuclear energy and against coal. (No, I'm not goofing on you.)

Exploring energy conservation and alternatives is OK, the DNews editor opines, but that won't meet the nation's needs. (Especially, if we want to continue spawning the large DNews-sized families Cannon has supported in earlier editorials.)

We must not, and should not, opt for more coal-fired generation. ... it is clear that nuclear power is much more benign to our health and the planet's health.
We are running out of time. And by not choosing to aggressively build nuclear power plants, we are deciding either to embrace a high-cost, economy-debilitating and less-reliable energy future or we will default to what we know best, coal-fired power plants.

To give credibility to his opinions, Joe recounts his long background in the energy field as an EPA administrator, CEO of the failed and obliterated Geneva Steel and a lawyer. I guess because he's modest, Joe doesn't include his experience as a lobbyist, Republican Party hack, and brother to Congressman Chris Cannon, who regularly scoffs at the global warming threat.

Schools for scandal

An investigation by the Tribune's Julia Lyon uncovered how some former and current Utah lawmakers profited from the charter school trend and their positions of power.

Organizers of at least three charter schools find themselves paying building companies — formed by Rep. Mike Morley, right, and former legislators Jim Ferrin and Glenn Way — hundreds of thousands of dollars over the appraised value for their schools.

If you remember, charter schools were sold as an innovative educational alternative that would cost the taxpayer less than traditional public schools. Ferrin pushed charter school legislation. His fellow lawmakers in Utah's free-market Legislature, of course, never considered it a conflict of interest. (Robert Gehrke has more today on the Legislature's laissez-faire conflict of interest rules.)

From Lyon's story:

"The private companies developing and financing charter schools in Utah stand to make enormous profit in a booming industry with little oversight and minimal competition. Without legal representation or construction expertise, some starry-eyed school founders may not be in the best position to protect their schools' interests, parents say. They make mistakes that could cost the schools and taxpayers money. "

Stephanie Colson, a founder of The Ranches Academy, an Eagle Mountain charter school, says, "I wish the state could find a way to not put us at the mercy of the charter developers."

Hey, maybe she can talk Morley into carrying a bill to regulate charter school sharks. You think?

Gordon B. bounce?

Am I the only one thinking it?

Will Mormon Church President Gordon B. Hinckley's death give Mitt Romney, who will attend the funeral, a bounce in the Florida primary?

As eulogies pour out around the world for the next couple days, good manners will require only the best be said about Hinckley and his church. Mormon bashing, one would hope, will be squelched by good manners.

It's the Christian thing to do, even in evangelicalland. And it could only be good for Romney in Florida.

Playing chicken

Mike Huckabee's got the smoking skin, if not gun, on Romney.

Mitt, this weekend, showed off his "man-of-the-people" side to the media by eating at a Kentucky Fried Chicken. Then, he appalled Floridians, Homer Simpson and trailer trash everywhere by pulling off the greasy skin.

In Pensacola, Fla., Huckabee, in good humor, flayed Mitt's fastidiousness.

"Going through the weight loss program I try to eat it more broiled and baked," Huck said. "But I can tell you this: any Southerner knows that if you're not gonna eat the skin, don't bother with calling it fried chicken."

Mitt's gaffe means the former Arkansas governor will win in Alabama, Georgia, Tennessee, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Huck says, "all these great Southern states that understand that the best part of fried chicken is the skin."

But Huck pushed it a little when he compared Romney's skinless fried chicken eating to Gerald Ford's catastrophic attempt to eat a tamale with a shuck on it.

"He lost Texas," Huck said of Ford. "And many believe he lost the presidency, and there are a lot of people who will believe forever that it was the shuck on the tamale — not Jimmy Carter — that beat Gerald Ford in 1976. So who knows?"

Saturday, January 26, 2008

Fade to black...

Nick Fraser, editor of the BBC's documentary series Storyville, offers a parting shot on the Sundance Film Festival in the UK's Observer It's not something the Park City chamber will likely include in a brochure.

"Sundance consists of a number of ski-lodge hotels, so

me of them less than glamorous, and a bijou high street packed with shops that sell ski wear and highly priced bad art. Parties take place in various bars stocked for the festival with a lavishness that is un-Mormon. Deals are done in the over-priced restaurants... ."

It could have been worse, the Guardian's Jeremy Kay found the Sundance lineup to be "the worst in recent memory."

Fraser witnesses a crass deal between a buyer and Francisco Bello for Salim Baba, left. But after seeing the Hunter S. Thompson, right, documentary, Gonzo, he ends the article feeling practically sentimental about Sundance.

"No one expects anything good in America right now. That's why people like Hunter matter so much. They tell us to piss on adversity, not to be stoical, but to enjoy ourselves."

Friday, January 25, 2008

Pushing buttons

This week, Americans United for Change delivered “I’m a Bush Republican” buttons to the Republicans in the U.S. House and Senate, challenging them to don them during the president's last State of the Uni0n address. An accompanying letter said:

Without your steadfast support of President Bush’s domestic, foreign and economic policies, there is no doubt America would not be in the position it is in today.

During the speech watch for Utah's Bush loyalists Orrin Hatch, Bob Bennett, Rob Bishop, Chris Cannon and — why not? — Jim Matheson.

Mitt's small still voice

Conspiratologists to your laptops! Mitt Romney hears dead people... or something.

During the debate last night, when Romney pauses to answer a question posed by Tim Russert, a ghostly voice hisses: "He raised taxes-s-s-s..."

Ghostbusters transcript:

Russert: Governor Romney, you are a big fan of Ronald Reagan.
Mitt pauses.
Russert: Will you do for Social Security what Ronald Reagan did in 1983?

He raised taxes-s-s...

Romney: I’m not going to raise taxes. What I’m going to do…

Russert: Ronald Reagan raised payroll tax and he also raised the retirement age and he saved Social Security…

Would someone please play it backwards?

A whole new level of swag

Just what we needed, another excuse for the Utah Legislature to put off tightening its ethics code.

It seems Alaska lawmakers who strengthened their state ethics laws last year following an FBI investigation have put themselves in a box — or at least they might put Rep. Richard Foster from Nome into one.

Foster desperately needs a kidney transplant. An aide to another lawmaker appears to be a match.

But under the new ethics rules, it's illegal for the aide to give Foster a kidney.

Blue in Utah County

If pornography is corrosive to morals, the owner of edited-movie store in Orem must have been watching his own outtakes. (Imagine, all those naughty clips of Kate Winslet in Titanic — over and over and over...)

Daniel Thompson, one of Utah's favorite censors, was arrested for paying two teen-aged girls for sex.

The cops say some of the alleged sexual acts took place inside the movie store, that also contained a huge stash of porno, KSL reports.

Better alcohol wipe those videos, folks, it could be contagious.