Animal rights protestors are dragging the state into court again claiming state troopers violated their First Amendment rights. Utah Animal Rights Coalition was barred from holding signs outside the House chambers in support of an anti-animal cruelty bill.

Their attorney, Brian Barnard, says capitol security is violating its own recently re-written rules to allow free speech at the Capitol —

The green-coated security folks, the Capitol Preservation Board and the UHP in dress uniforms at the Capitol are enamored with their own power. Legislators will talk to lobbyists in expensive three piece suits, but do not want to see nor hear 'the great unwashed' nor the plebeians who use posters and protests to communicate.

Barnard is asking a federal judge for a temporary restraining order to allow protests during the last few days of the legislative session.

Beer drinkers around the country are stunned by the Utah Legislature's openess to allowing 200 gallons of beer to be home brewed without a license or tax. BeerBlog says:

This is getting out of hand. You know there is an anti-Pigovian tidal wave out there when the state of Utah is considering dropping an important fee related to beer.

Bonneville, a movie filmed in Utah, opens this weekend offering something extraordinary — Mormon characters who are not creepy, sanctimounious, polygamous or, even, overly earnest.

Matt Zoller Seitz of the NYTimes give Bonneville a positive review as "Thelma and Louise in first gear." Widow Arvilla Holden (Jessica Lange) and her two best friends take to the road in a '66 convertible with an urn of ashes.

As it happens, Carol, Margene, Arvilla and many other major characters are devout members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The film’s screenwriter, Daniel D. Davis, and its director, Christopher N. Rowley, treat their characters’ faith as a given — as merely one characteristic among many. It’s the Mormon flip side of a typical Hollywood movie set in a world in which no one ever mentions God, prays or enters a house of worship. The movie’s no-fuss treatment of religion is as deft as it is unexpected.

When a hunky hitchhiker and the women separate, one offers him her Book of Mormon. He refuses it. He already has two.

For the local take, read the Trib's Sean Means' review here, or the DNews' Jeff Vice's here.

Pondering England's bad-boy Prince Harry's tour of duty in Afghanistan, Allison Kilkenny at the Huffington Post reminds us that despite their dad's vocal support of the Iraq War, Mitt Romney's kids haven't enlisted.

Romney says his kids were serving the nation by helping him get elected president. If you remember, Mitt got walloped and "suspended" that campaign, so the kids must be at loose ends. (Josh, of course, may be running for Congress.)

Says Kilkenny: He showed himself to be a racially insensitive, wildly out-of-touch corporatist, who thinks so little of the serfs crammed into Iraqi desert bunkers that he compared his sons campaigning for his pathetic presidential run to soldiers serving in the armed forces. Mitt Romney compared his sons riding in his air-conditioned bus with the service and sacrifice of soldiers. He did so with a straight face, despite almost 4,000 bodies having arrived back home (an increasing number of them suicides), plus anywhere from 23,000 to 100,000 wounded, and approximately 80,000 Iraqi civilian deaths from violence, which is a conservative estimate.

Wow. If you would like to read more of Kilkenny's screed, go here. If you want to read the words of Prince Harry's famous bad-boy predecessor to his band of brothers, go here.

Finally, a Mormon blog that tackles the theological questions we really care about — such as, what happens to our pets when they die?

"This might seem like a silly topic but I have never heard about a position from the Church on what happens to animals when they pass on," asks JcDean78.

"Are animals,like dogs, simply organic machines that are here to be with us while on earth only or since they are alive do they too continue on in some way?"

From its perch at the top of the state, the Ogden Standard-Examiner offers a theory on "why the rest of the Beehive State tends to remark unflatteringly about so-called Happy Valley."

In a nutshell, Utah County's image problem is due to leaders like — Sen. Margaret Dayton, the Standard-Examiner says.

At issue is her ignorance and accompanying willingness to kill additional funding for the International Baccalaureate program in various Utah schools.

The Orem Republican crushed the unanimously supported House bill because she was handed an Eagle Forum tract that claims IB propagandizes for one-world government.

The temptation is to hoot over such paranoia. Except it isn't funny -- these people run state government. Dayton, as we noted, chairs the Senate Education Committee, yet apparently knows nothing about the International Baccalaureate program except the unfounded rumors she's been fed by other people and organizations that are equally clueless about it.

Update: Dayton has apol0gized to IB students and their parents "for not being more appropriate in my comments in committee," after Gov. Jon Huntsman (a son in IB) and others came out in support of the program. Sponsor Rep. Carol Spackman Moss said the bill was salvaged after she talked to "wiser, more reasonable people . . . who realized it would be an embarrassment to our state if that story went national."

The program is set to receive $100,000, but it's too late to stop the story from going national.

Tallahassee.com reports that Geoffrey Gilmore, the director of the Sundance Film Fest for the past 18 years, has accepted a position on the faculty of Florida State University's film school as filmmaker in residence.

FSU's film school dean Frank Patterson made the surprise announcement yesterday at the Seven Days of Opening Nights art festival. He said Gilmore will return to FSU several times a year to discuss the business of film.

Gilmore discussed the challenges independent directors face in getting their films distributed. He told the festival audience:

Getting the films to you guys is the hard part. Finding visibility for a film is crucial. ... Word of mouth doesn't exist any more. The films can't stay in the theaters long enough for you to catch them. They're there one week and gone the next. So trailers have become very important. You have to have a good trailer.

Former Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt has gone on to greater depths as Bush's health secretary.

Lawmakers (even Republicans) say they will bring a contempt citation against Mikey if he doesn't cough up information in an investigation into the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Leavitt promised to resolve the issue. "I feel confident."

The House Energy and Commerce Committee wants documents and interviews with certain FDA employees into whether officials gave bogus testimony on a dangerous antibiotic, Ketek.

Sen. Bob Bennett, an early supporter of ex-presidential candidate Mitt Romney, says John McCain "won the Republican nomination fair and square," and has embraced his fellow senator.

Apparently Mitt doesn't hold out hope that McCain will be tripped up by news media allegations of cavorting with lobbyists, and has released Bennett.

In any case, Utah's junior senator says it's time Mike Huckabee to toss in the towel:

John McCain deserves the time to unite the party and prepare for the battle in November rather than being distracted by a candidate that hopes lightning will strike even though the thunderstorm has since moved on.

A bolt out of the blue may be exactly what is keeping Huckabee in the race. Although it's "mathematically impossible" for Mike to overtake McCain in convention delegates, the former Baptist minister likes to say he's "a miracle kind of guy."

In a blog item, titled "John McCain May Be Screwed: And it has nothing to do with a lobbyist named Vicki..." The New Republic says that miracle may be coming, in the form of some botched campaign financing.

Or how about this bolt of lighting in The New York Times.

Mr. McCain’s likely nomination as the Republican candidate for president and the happenstance of his birth in the Panama Canal Zone in 1936 are reviving a musty debate that has surfaced periodically since the founders first set quill to parchment and declared that only a “natural-born citizen” can hold the nation’s highest office.

At a hearing on a proposal to ban domestic-partner registries this morning, Sen. Curt Bramble cut off SLC Mayor Ralph Becker at the two-minute limit. Bramble graciously let Becker finish his sentence, then joked that the mayor's pile of documents had given him a scare. He thought Becker "was going to be filibuster on the bill."

Everyone chuckled, except Sen. Scott McCoy, standing in a far corner of the room. The Senate's only openly gay member had his own one-liner response to Bramble's filibustering joke:

"Not yet."

Soon after, Eagle Forum President Gayle Ruzicka gave her predictable speech about the city's domestic partner registry being a threat to America. For the occasion, Gayle wore a gun-metal blue patriotic-themed sweater, complete with a colonial American flag across the back. On closer examination, it appears the quilter was no Betsy Ross — Ol' Glory only has eight stars.

The United States had 13 original colonies, as any International Baccalaureate student can tell you. So why eight stars? It's all too clear.
The stars, I suggest, represent the Chicago Eight, who were charged with conspiracy, inciting to riot in connection with the 1968 Democratic National Convention that brought about the end of Democratic control of the White House.

Or maybe Gayle had run out of white gingham.

Updated with new photo.

If you haven't gotten a gutful of polygamy from the Tribune, DNews and "Big Love," then here's guaranteed satiation: a tome about Warren Jeffs' clan.

Inside the World of Warren Jeffs, by author Dr. Carole A. Western, takes the reader inside Short Creek, two nearby communities in Hildale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz., where the Fundamentalist Latter-Day Saints (FLDS) leader ruled until his arrest and conviction in the fall of 2007 as an accomplice in the rape of a 14-year-old girl.

Western follows the lives of young women "enslaved in Short Creek," says the publicity release, and exposes with lots of exclamation points how they were "coerced into virtual servitude and forced into unwanted pregnancies by the "husbands" they were ordered to marry."

The few men and women who manage against great odds to escape, tell tales of deprivation, starvation and beatings, but does anyone really listen?

No penny dreadful exploitation here, no siree.

Western, above, is an English teacher who moved to Southern Utah, according to the book's publicity. "It took seven years, death threats and undercover visits to Short Creek to glean information for her book."

The Salt Lake City Weekly is profiling Utah Minuteman Project commander Eli Cawley this week. If you think the group doesn't like illegal immigrants, you are missing the point, Cawley tells City Weekly:

Our trouble isn’t with the people, it’s with the elites in our state. Those [companies] who just think about their economic advantage or the churches that are just trying to put more butts in their pews—I don’t have any desire to come together with them, as far as I’m concerned they’re the enemy.

Cawley, who is married to an Asia woman who legally immigrated, says his epiphany came when his son was attending a diversity assembly and was given a North Vietnamese flag to wave. "That’s when I decided there was something wrong in Zion.”

Cawley says that the dozen proposals on immigration working their way through the Legislature is proof the movement's goals have been widely embraced in Utah. “We’ve just had an amazing outpouring of support on this issue. It warms my heart.”
Update: A colleague points out that the flag of North Vietnam is now the flag of modern Vietnam (a U.S. trading partner), which includes the former U.S. ally South Vietnam.

Mormon hybrids are in the news.

The Palestinian-Mormon hybrid Aron Kader, part of a comedy entourage called "Axis of Evil," does standup on the challenges growing up with Mormons and Arabs in the family. He says at the age of 19, he was asked by his Mormon relatives to go on a mission.

"To an Arab, a mission's a whole different thing. We don't come back from those."

Connecticut's Fairfield University Mirror reports the audience there "roared with laughter at Kader's predicament." For more Axis of Evil humor go here.

On a tragic note, California Rep. Tom Lantos, former chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, died earlier this month. The only Holocaust survivor elected to Congress, Lantos was fiercely pro-Israel.

He was also married to a Mormon.

Lantos' wife, Annette, also a survivor, had converted to Mormonism and his daughters Katrina and Annette were reared Mormon.

The Jewish Ledger in Connecticut addresses the Lantos families' faiths:

In Jewish Washington, it was the fraught and thorny question that inevitably came up in discussions about Tom Lantos: What about the Mormon thing?

The Ledger reports Lantos' secular Jewish ethos was unswayed by his wife's embrace of the LDS Church.

"Tom didn't believe in God in the way that most of us do," she said at the service in the U.S. Capitol building.

His daughter, Annette, explained that Lantos was a man of "profound faith," then listed his beliefs: in the U.S. Constitution, in education, in friendship, in the responsibility to change the world for the better. But, she said, he didn't believe in God. Lantos admired his wife's beliefs, but would not embrace them: "He had faith in the sustaining power of her faith in spirituality."

For the week's whackiest story, the Tribune reports that a sales manager is accused of waterboarding an employee to motivate the sales team. Really.

Not even the British version of "The Office" would attempt this plot line — it's too far fetched.
In the words of the Trib's Erin Alberty:

A supervisor at a motivational coaching business in Provo is accused of waterboarding an employee in front of his sales team to demonstrate that they should work as hard on sales as the employee had worked to breathe. In a lawsuit filed last month, former Prosper, Inc. salesman Chad Hudgens alleges his managers also allowed the supervisor to draw mustaches on employees' faces, take away their chairs and beat on their desks with a wooden paddle "because it resulted in increased revenues for the company."

Company president Dave Ellis responded that the allegation "sensationalized" his methods, which would appear to also include humiliation and fear.

As the CIA's "motivational consultants" would advise: As long as you don't cause organ failure, it's probably OK.

The Deseret News reports — superficially — on the trials of 158 blacks among the 30,000 students enrolled at Brigham Young University.

Niiboi Amertev from Ghana, told the DNews that he feels white people in Utah obviously don't feel comfortable around him. "Actions speak louder than words."

Barima Kwarteng a computer engineering major from Ghana, says most people at BYU "think I'm here to play sports."

The students also said they don't appreciate the folklore spread by seminary teachers regarding blacks in the church, such as blacks were punished with the color of their skin because they "sat on the fence," or weren't fully committed to Christ in the pre-mortal life.

Such folklore is not supposed to be taught in the seminary program, says Thomas R. Valletta, director of the Church Education System curriculum.

Says Catherine Spruill, a black Cougar, says:
"People make ignorant remarks. They're not worth remembering. We've been commanded to forgive. The easiest way to forgive something is to forget about it."

Blogging from the Utah Legislature...

A fundamental battle between Salt Lake City and the Legislature reopened today with Sen. Greg Bell presenting a revised bill in committee that would bar SLC from creating a domestic partner registry.

Bell, of course, replaced the controversy dogged Sen. Chris Buttars as sponsor of the sensitive bill that would have impact on gay families.

Bell's changes makes the crux of the issue semantic. Mayor Ralph Becker wants the city to be consistent with governments nationwide in using the term "domestic partnership."

But those two words give the heebie-jeebies to conservative Utahns, who fear SLC's registry is a step toward sanctifying gay unions.

" 'Domestic partnership' in Utah, with some people, has become a loaded term," Becker explained later. "For Utah to be scared of that term, when it is the common term across the country, is a bit odd."

Odd or not, Bell's bill was approved by the the committee along party lines — the Democrats voted against it. Sen. Gene Davis and others want the bill to include a provision guaranteeing hospital visitation rights for financially interdependent adults (i.e. domestic partners). "This bill still needs a lot of work," Davis says.

Meanwhile, Salt Lake County Councilwoman Jenny Wilson says she'll push for healthcare benefits for unmarried employees, including gays, as soon as the session ends.

(In photo, failed congressional candidate LaVar Christensen speaks against the bill. Behind LaVar is ventriloquist Ruzicka. If you look closely you can almost see her lips move.)

Gov. Jon Huntsman's brinkmanship with the Legislature apparently paid off today. Sen. Curt Bramble blinked and the Senate passed a compromise liquor bill that would require alcopops be sold in state liquor stores — but adds a provision increasing the size of a shot in drinks served in bars and restaurants.

It's some sort of Utah lawmaker calculus. Huntsman had made it clear he would veto Brambo's bill to remove hard lemonade, etc. from grocery shelves if the state's liquor laws weren't "normalized"— in this case Huntsman meant increasing a regulation "shot" from 1 ounce to 1.5 ounce.

Meanwhile, a another bill making its way through the Legislature would repeal the licensing requirement for small-time home brewers. As it stands, it costs hundreds of dollars in license and application fees to legally homebrew beer.

Whoa, before you start barricading the windows — just like you, virtually no one has bothered to buy the state license. Nevertheless, the House approved a measure that would allow amateurs to brew up to 100 gallons of beer annually without a license. Wait a minute (...100 x 128... carry the 1...≠ 24...) — that's only 44 cases of brewski, barely enough to get an average family through a U. tailgate season! Consider boarding up the windows.

With any luck, we'll be subjected to the most boring stretch of highway outside of Nebraska for a shorter period of time.

A proposal in the Senate would allow UDOT to increase the speed limit on I-15 between Nephi and Cedar City from 75 mph to 80 mph... and beyond. (Why dawdle? If it weren't for that three-legged cow near Scipio, there'd be nothing to see.)

The proposal, which would require UDOT study some minutiae like fatalities, environmental impact and "roadway geometry," would give Utah one of the highest speed limits in the country.

I say, let's go for the highest speed limit. How about "SPEED LIMIT: Same as Bonneville Salt Flats"? Or visualize a sign that says, "MACH 1, Daddy-O."

Utah is in last place for teacher pay, student spending and nightlife — hell, let's be in first place for something.

Rep. Roz McGee told her fellow Democrats today she will not seek re-election.

During three terms, Roz has made her North Carolina accent heard on tax reform, environmentalism, ethics and common sense at the Legislature. Unfortunately, she is in the minority and, as you may have noticed, little has improved in those areas — especially the last. As a reporter, I have seen McGee, unruffled, subjected to flat-out rude behavior by the majority party.

“Representing House District 28 here on Salt Lake City’s east bench has been a rare privilege because it is a neighborhood of folks heavily engaged in community and education leadership,” says McGee.

It's too soon to say who the Democrats will run to replace McGee, but a possible Republican contender will be Frank Mylar, a lawyer who has made his name crusading against gay-rights measures. Mylar, one of Eagle Forum president Gayle Ruzicka's many finger puppets, is basically the Anti-Roz. Putting the two in proximity could explode the time-space continuum.

For all you conspiratologists out there who have been warning that electronic voting machines, Utah's Diebold's touch screens in particular, are the end of democracy as we know it — check out this news item on The Onion, shout "I told you so" and high five your 35 cats.

The Onion reports that due to a "minor software glitch" thousands of Diebold voting machines have released the winner of the 2008 election months early to the consternation of "the group of military and corporate leaders who have chosen every American president since Eisenhower."

Best person-on-the-street quote:

"If you can't trust your shadowy overlords to keep a secret, what is the purpose, really?"

A KSL- Deseret News poll finds that three in four Utahns are ready for ethics reform in the Legislature.

But what the people think has never had much effect on the Utah Legislature. Still, after Sen. Chris Buttars' shenanigans, one would hope that GOP leaders might be open to a tweak or two in the ethics code.

Buttars has done the favoritism fandango all over the ethics rule stating: "Members of the Senate or House shall not exercise undue influence on any government entity." The senator, who was head of the judicial screening committee, scolded a state judge for not ruling in favor of a Buttars buddy.

It takes three senators, however, to sign a letter to trigger an ethics investigation. Because Buttars has yet to light fire to the Capitol, murder someone or designate a wilderness — that's not likely to happen.

Rep. Roz McGee, who sponsored legislation this session to create an independent ethics commission, told the Tribune the Buttars case makes her point.

"Part of the value of establishing an independent ethics commission is reminding elected officials and the public that where vigilance is needed, there would be a place to take problems and complaints."

Of course, McGee's a Democrat and a woman to boot, so her commission is DOA.

House Minority Leader Brad King laments to the DNews that Democrats have run reform bills for years. "But with the exception of a few innocuous and ineffective changes, nothing passed."

Meanwhile, somebody keeps electing these guys.

The Defamer gives Utah's Cirque Lodge a bad review: "Eva Mendes latest victim of Cirque Lodge's non-miraculous healing power."

The Defamer alleges that after spending several weeks at the Sundance-based treatment center for a "substance abuse" problem, Mendes checked out on February 7th (passing Kirsten Dunst in the turnstile). Eva was soon back on the party circuit.

But Eva's not the only Cirque alum who hasn't quite kicked whatever habit they went in there with; illustrious fellow Cirque-ers include David Hasselhoff, Mary-Kate Olsen, Richie Sambora and our favorite topless "art" model, Lindsay Lohan. So how well did each of these stellar examples of tip top health fare after leaving the Lodge, sober certificate in hand? From hamburgers to hoovering powder on the beach, the verdict is in.

Maybe Eva missed the most critical part of the cure: a shopping adventure in Orem. On the other hand, that could hurl the most determined twelve-stepper off the wagon.

The Pew Religious Landscape Survey is a religion researcher's dream — a mountain of statistics that theology wonks are just beginning to mine.

LatterdayMainStreet used it to discover that the replacement rate of the Mormon Church has dropped to 80% in the United States. For those who don't do math, it means that for every five Americans who leave Mormonism, four new converts join the Church.

If that number were correct, and that is what the evidence says, it would indicate a substantial demographic challenge for LDS leaders and the Mormon community.

J. Nelson-Seawright digs into the study to argue that in the U.S., Mormonism is "no longer a missionary religion."

U.S. Mormonism now has the demographic profile of an established intergenerational church more than a missionary one.

Lamentably, the Pew study didn't survey the number of angels dancing on the head of a pin.

Though it's a horrible headline cliche, "Buttargate" does sum up what's going on at the Legislature. (And it rolls smoothly off the tongue.)

Long before Sen. Chris Buttars was busily offending blacks, gays and anyone with post-Attila the Hun politics, he was bringing his trademark brand of arrogance to the judicial system.

The Tribune's Robert Gehrke reports that Senate leaders have known since last summer that Buttars wrote a letter on Senate letterhead castigating a state judge who had the temerity to rule against a pal. But Senate President Valentine, lest he breach decorum, let Buttars continue to run the committee that screens judges.

It wasn't until after the Tribune reported on the letter and the Bar Association rose up in rage that Valentine canned Buttars.

Buttars' pal, land developer Wendell Gibby, told the DNews that Valentine approved the letter. "It would seem odd to me that Valentine would sack him for something he approved."

Valentine, who has ambitions of someday being governor, is in hiding. He issued a statement late yesterday that Buttars' letter was an exercise of the senator's First Amendment rights. Earlier, he claimed he had no idea of the letter's contents.

A couple weeks ago, I was lamenting that it was an exceptionally boring Lege session. Then Buttars opened his mouth —bless his lilywhite heart.

Even though public school supporters last year stomped out the Legislature's attempt to set up an educational voucher program, the stompers apparently still want some payback.

Utahns for Public Schools is calling on its supporters to prepare for their neighborhood caucuses.

Thousands of volunteers reached out to their communities, educated their families, friends, and neighbors, and stood up to elected officials who had forgotten who they are supposed to represent. ... To encourage continued citizen involvement in state and local government, Utahns for Public Schools offers a new informational section on our website: Countdown to Caucus.

Being good educators, the anti-voucher web site has links to everything you ever wanted to know about caucusing, conventioneering and running for office. In fact, pro-voucher people might want to read it and they are more likely to show up at caucuses.

You can almost hear the voice of your first-grade teacher on the site:

Follow the links to learn how you can really make a difference in state government and influence education policy. Here's a hint: It takes more than voting, and it starts long before November!

How about a gold star for everyone who helps take out House Speaker Greg Curtis!

The Tribune's Paul Rolly blogs today on the ongoing tango of Chris Buttars with Utah Senate leaders.

Rolly has already written about Buttars' scathing letter (on Senate letterhead) to a state judge on behalf of a campaign contributer and erstwhile land developer. Senate President John Valentine took away Buttars control of the Judiciary Confirmation Committee. Just a coincidence, I'm sure.

But Buttars, he of the gaping pie hole, has been telling people that Valentine approved the letter.

With the Bar in an uproar about Buttars' judge squeezing, Valentine has been forced to explain through his mouthpiece that, yes, he did tell Buttars he could write to the judge. But Valentine claims he never knew the letter would contain ugly stuff.

Nice try, Val. But Chris Buttars asking you if it would be all right to mail a letter to a judge, is like Mark Hofmann asking you for permission to send a package to a friend. In either case, anyone with an IQ the size of their hat band knows there's something explosive inside.

Yet another Big Bro' measure is emerging from Utah's Legislature. It's no surprise that in HB407 common sense, business friendliness and privacy take the backseat to good ol' porno-fighting.

Sponsored by Utah County's Rep. Mike Morley the proposal would require the state's Consumer Protection agency to issue a "seal of approval" to Internet providers who promise to block access to nasty material. If the ISP accepts this smut-fighter seal, it could be fined up to $10,000 if porno slips through.

"It's a positive thing for those who are looking for a site that is dedicated to fighting pornography," says Morley.

Maybe, but it makes XMission's Pete Ashdown crazy. On his blog, he calls it "another sweet gem of ignorance" from the Lege.

Where it gets fun is how it asks the ISP to voluntarily give up the 4th Amendment protection of its customers. Line 85 reads, “cooperate with any law enforcement agency by providing records sufficient to identify a customer if the law enforcement agency requests the information and supplies reasonable proof that a crime has been committed using the Internet service provider’s service”. It says nothing of reasonable proof being determined by a judge and thusly issuing a court order. ...

XMission has always taken the stand that if you want customer information you’re going to need a court order. This act asks us to discard that stance in order to use a “seal” in our marketing. ... No thanks.

Candice Daly, representing the American Electronics Association, tried to dissuade the House committee from approving the bill, saying the companies she represents, including Google and Yahoo, "don't see themselves as signing up for this seal."

Rob Jarvik, the genius behind Utah's mechanical heart, won't be peddling Lipitor pills in the future.

Pfizer's Jarvik spots came under fire from Congress as misleading advertising, forcing the company to cancel the $258 million campaign. Although Jarvik, a researcher, has a medical degree, he is not a cardiologist and was never licensed to practice medicine.

One television ad depicted Jarvik as an ace in sculling and had him rowing across a lake. Unfortunately, the ad used a body double for the Rob, who does not row.

Another ad shows a younger man calling for "Dad," to join him in a run. Reportedly, the man is not Jarvik's son.

Pfizer’s president of worldwide drug operations, Ian Read, said:

"Going forward, we commit to ensuring there is greater clarity in our advertising regarding the presentation of spokespeople.”

Orrin Hatch and Chris Cannon can't last forever and Utah's supplement industry, which faces few advertising constraints, will be looking for a credible spokesman.

Hey Rob, it's time to start chugging XanGo.

The 142nd Military Intelligence Battalion has the questionable honor of being the first Utah Guard unit to leave families and jobs to do a second combat tour since 9/11. The 300 Utahns are going to Afghanistan after they finish additional training.

Few citizen-soldiers are delighted about going overseas, but Commander Derek Tolman says he saw his men's morale soar when they heard what they would be doing.

"The biggest thing was that our mission is predictable," Tolman told the Tribune's Matt LaPlante. "That's unlike Iraq, where we trained for a mission that we never ended up doing."

In their deployment to Iraq in 2003, the 142nd's morale sagged under boredom. "There is no need for us to be here...," a veteran e-mailed LaPlante.

In Afghanistan, the unit will do what it has trained for — collect intelligence and help hunt insurgents. They will do final training along side the unit they are replacing, before taking over.

Gov. Jon Huntsman says continuing speculation that he will be Sen. John McCain's running mate is "parlor games."

"If it is mentioned, it is only in the sense of people using it in a humorous way," the guv says.

But, as any Utahn knows, parlor games are fun! And I want my turn.

Reasons for Huntsman to accept a VP offer:

• Higher national profile. (Foundation for a future senate or presidential run.)
• Though he's been immensely popular as Utah's governor, the guv's had historic budget surpluses with which to frolic. But Utah's economy is going down the crapper and ugly decisions lay ahead. Might be a good time for Jon to leave 'em laughin'.

Reasons against a McCain-Huntsman ticket jelling:

• After eight years of Bush, any Republican is going to lose. With McCain, who brings advanced age, tired policies and a potential lobbyist-scandal into the mix, it could be real bad. Jon's not stupid.
  
• Mitt Romney has proven a Mormon (even a non-robotic, personable one like the Guv) doesn't bring anything to a ticket. McCain's not stupid.
• If McCain should win, he might offer Jon the ambassadorship to China during a historic period.

Put me down for: It won't happen. See, the Veep game is easy and fun!

Here's a non-surprise to anyone who has waded through the toddler-tide at Salt Lake Airport — Mormons have the biggest families in the United States.

Yes, indeed, an expensive Pew survey found that LDS folk have the largest families in America. Second place goes to Muslims.

Here are more no-really? results of the survey:

• Members of the LDS Church have the most children living at home.
• Mormons also lead in households with three children — 12 percent — double the national average.
• The national average of families with no children is 68 percent. But among the LDS members surveyed, it's only 51 percent, the smallest proportion of any group surveyed.
• More LDS members, 76 percent, live in the West than in the rest of the country combined.
• Utah has the highest proportion Mormons, but it's dropped to 58 percent of the state's population. (Less than 60 percent? That is surprising.)
• LDS represent 2 percent of all Americans to 51 percent protestant faiths.