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Monday, March 31, 2008

ABC's report a bummer

Joel Campbell, a BYU journalism prof and the Mormon-guy-who-explains-the-media for the DNews, complains that a recent ABCNews story "framed" the Mormon culture as the cause of Utah's dismal statistics for depression, mental illness and medication. A handful of recent studies find Utahns are the most bummed-out people in the country—articles I'm sure the LDS Church and Chamber of Commerce clipped and posted on their bulletin boards.

ABC reports:

The postcard image of Utah is a state of gleaming cities, majestic mountains and persistently smiling people. But new research shows a very different picture of the state, a snapshot of suicide and widespread depression.

But ABC doesn't stop there, linking Utah's bummedness to the impossible quest for perfection demanded by the LDS Church.

Campbell says ABC fell for Utah and Mormon stereotypes:

Yes, Utah appears to have a depression problem, but there are no clear cause-and-effect relationships established between membership in the LDS church and depression. Nothing in the studies identified religious affiliation or gender, yet ABC news has no problem identifying the problem as an LDS problem and, particularly, a women or girl's issue. Could it be more prevalent among non-Mormons in Utah? Maybe, but we don’t know.

Campbell points to a quote that ABC buried from Ted Wander of the Utah Psychiatric Association on the cause of Utah blues: "The truth is, we don't know why."

Digging for blame at Crandall

The U.S. Labor Department's inspector general is blaming federal Mine Safety and Health Administration for negligence in approving a roof-control plan for the Crandall Canyon Mine. A collapse at the mine near Huntington killed six miners in August. A second cave-in killed three would-be rescuers.

Inspector General Gordon Heddell says MSHA, overly influenced by the mine's operator, Murray Energy Corp., erred when it approved risky retreat mining at Crandall Canyon.

How 'bout the '2 Maxims' ? *

Why didn't Pleasant Grove just stick to swings and teeter-totters in its city parks. No, they had to let a some Christians put up a Ten Commandments monument.

Of course some other religion was going to demand the same right. Summum, the other Salt Lake-based religion, wants to put a granite monolith in city parks engraved with its Seven Aphorisms — stuff like psychokinesis, vibration, opposition, rhythm and cause and effect. Summum followers believe the first draft stone tablet God gave to Moses was the Seven Aphorisms. But Moses realized most humans were too dumb to understand them and destroyed that tablet. So, God put together a simple, Dr. Seuss set of laws that we now call the Ten Commandments.

Sounds good to me.

Now, Pleasant Grove is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to step in before city parks everywhere start to look like so-many boneyards. Lawyers for Pleasant Grove argue:

Government bodies are now sitting targets for demands that they grant 'equal access' to whatever comparable monuments a given group wishes to have installed, be it Summum's Seven Aphorisms, an atheist group's Monument to Freethought or Rev. Fred Phelps's denunciations of homosexual persons.

But Brian Barnard, who represents Summum, has an arguement that even Moses' humans can follow:

It's a matter of simple fairness. If you let one private group put up a monument in a public park, you have to let another private group put up a monument. You can't pick and choose.

*"You can't cheat an honest man—so never give a sucker an even break or wise up a chump."— W.C. Fields.

SUPER words

Blogger Greg Vandagriff offers a selection of gubernatorial candidate SUPERDELL Schanze quotes suitable for needlepoint or really long bumper stickers:

One thing is for sure, if I am elected, Utah will be one seriously fun place to live.

Wikipedia is run by terrorists.

These are my personal favorites:

It’s too bad that all of the media in Utah are liars and murderers, you just destroyed the greatest computer company of all time. ... All this hatred was created by you. You’re basically angels of Satan. All I can say to the people in Utah is, please pray for all the news people.

If I was a really bad guy do you think any of these news reporters would still be alive? Ask yourself that question. You know you all have the ability to repent because of the grace of God, but you are still alive to do it because of the grace of SUPERDELL.

A Tribune letter writer fondly remembers the Totally Awesome billboard campaign that announced SUPERDELL was "lost," but, unfortunately, he was found again.

Cannon's bookkeeping questioned

The Tribune reveals that Congressman Chris Cannon has devised an unique way of smooshing together the payrolls of his congressional staff and his campaign workers that has his opponents crying foul.

Jason Chaffetz, the former chief of staff to Gov. Huntsman and a Republican challenging Cannon for the nomination, told the Trib's Tommy Burr:

Every taxpayer ought to be outraged that they have so many congressional staff also working on the campaign. It blurs the distinction between roles. It's highly unethical* and crosses the line of good public policy.

A Trib analysis of federal records found that several of Cannon's federally paid staffers also have collected pay checks from his campaign.

*But not illegal, of course.

Long March for Burma

Two Burmese activists, Athein and Zaw Min, who are walking across the country to bring attention to the repression of a military dictatorship in their home country, reached Salt Lake City this weekend.

After 690 miles of walking they were welcomed by 70 families from Salt Lake's Burmese community.

In the afternoon Zaw Min Htwe and Athein arranged to protest in Salt Lake and [in the] afternoon around 2 PM, Athein [gave a] speech to the Burmese community to help Burma and not to forget our leader Aung San Suu Kyi to get freedom from [the] terrorist military government.

The pair hopes to walk 3,000 miles from Portland to New York, meeting with Burmese-American communities along the way.

Aung San Suu Kyi, won a 1990 election but the military would not allow her to take power and placed her under house arrest. Kyi won the Nobel Peace Prize in 1991. For more information on the situation in Burma, which now calls itself Myanmar, go here.

Buenos dias! SLC

The Minutemen are going to love this.

U.S. Census Bureau figures show that people who moved to the Salt Lake metro area during the last year overwhelmingly came from outside the U.S.: 5,294 of 6,750 migrants were not from other parts of the country. In Provo-Orem, only one in nine were from outside the U.S., (even though many Utah County residents appear to be extraterrestrials).

Most came to SLC from Latin America to take low-paying jobs shunned by Americans.

Tony Yapias, director of Proyecto Latino de Utah, says Salt Lake's established immigrant community and services that help immigrants provide a "welcome mat."

No business like small business

And you thought Republicans liked small businesses.

Though the GOP-controlled Legislature refused to fund it, a program that provides seed money to rural small businesses is hanging on with volunteers and contributions.

The Southeastern Utah Small Business Development Fund helped disabled and low-income people in southeastern Utah start small businesses.

Karl Kraync, former program chairman, explained to the Tribune's Dawn House:

You get the biggest bang for the buck in helping small businesses. And in rural counties that face additional challenges, helping get a small business started makes even more sense.

A legislative audit showed that in 2006 that economic benefits from the fund were twice its cost and created 59 jobs. Still the Legislature apparently was unimpressed.

The group has recreated itself as the Business Expansion and Retention projects (BEAR), with $14,000 in donations.

"We're still here, we're just in a different form," Kraync says. "We didn't get funded - but we didn't die."

A dream slams to earth

Start-up business stories get big play, but dismal endings usually get a small kiss off.

It was a sunny day in 2005 when Utah, beat out competitors nationwide to lure Adam Aircraft to Ogden with a sweet $10 million economic development tax rebate package. The company, which had played Utah like a Stradavarius, promised to pioneer a new era in commercial aviation that would make the old railroad hub the throbbing center of an aerospace economy.

Colorado-based Adams opened a plant at Ogden's tiny airport that would assemble small business jets. These seven-seat jets, according to a group of far-sighted entrepreneurs, soon would be "as ubiquitous as cell phones," and the backbone of an 'air-taxi" industry.

Gov. Jon Huntsman, Jake Garn and Ogden Mayor Matt Godfrey showed up with stars in their eyes for the christening the aircraft plant that was to hire 300 to 500 skilled workers — just to start.

Adam Aircraft recently has filed for bankruptcy and Ogden's aerospace dream—including the few assembled airplanes, equipment, furniture and patents—will be auctioned off. The closure put more than 700 employees out of work, including just 50 in Utah.

Big Bro' Cannon

The Wall Street Journal is scratching its head over why free-market conservative Congressman Chris Cannon is trying to implement a "price-control regime." Over the rates (interchange fees) stores pay to credit card companies.

(Note: These are not the usury rates you, the consumer, pay to the credit card card companies. Chris would never try to control that.)

WSJ asks:

So why is Congress trying to fix a $2.5 trillion industry that isn't broken? Apparent answer: Because it's there.

The editorial is full of the wonky kind of numbers that Cannon loves to wallow in and that give me a headache. But you free-market righties might ought to read it, here, before Cannon comes up with a five-year plan for the economy.

Friday, March 28, 2008

Knight of the road

Bountiful-based truck driver Richard Filiczkowski has been honored with the North American Highway Hero award for saving a young girl from drowning after a highway accident in South Dakota.

His wife and co-driver Janet Filiczkowski was piloting their C.R. England rig along I-90 west of Sioux Falls when she saw a car carrying Jeff Bern and his daughter Abby cross four lanes of traffic and plunge into a pond. She called her husband out of the sleeper compartment. Filiczkowski dressed and ran a quarter-mile to the scene.

I dove right in because I saw Abby pounding on the car’s back window. My only instinct was to get her out of the car as soon as possible. In situations such as that, seconds count.”

Filiczkowski was able to get Abby to safety, but could not save her father.

Comic relief

It may have been a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award, but Utah porno fighters want the novel "Fun Home" banned from the English curriculum at the University of Utah.

Thomas Alvord, with the group No More Pornography, told a shocked KSL News: "The issue is exposing people to pornography."

The English Department assigns* the graphic novel in an attempt to expose students to different literary genres. And, "Fun Home" has lots of pictures, so most UofU undergrads can handle it.

"Fun Home," chronicles Alison Bechdel's growing up as a lesbian with a gay father. If that weren't enough to flip out the bluenoses, the novel addresses gender roles and suicide.

English Department chairman Vincent Pecora argues literature should be eye opening:

It's really an obligation to teach this kind of literature. It's new, it's interesting, it's inventive.

Apparently it's inventive in the wrong way for porno fighter Alvord:

They're turning their back and pretending graphics, depiction of oral sex, are not an issue.

No More Pornography last month forced a Gold's Gym near BYU to pull music videos that the group judged to be excessively sweaty.

*Note: Students do not have to read the book, they can do an alternate assignment.

Echoes from Canada

The Vancouver (Canada) Sun reports that a 14-year-old nephew of polygamist leader Winston Blackmore was killed in an accident at a lumber mill.

Blackmore, right, is the founder of a polygamist community in Bountiful, British Columbia, that is a spin off of Warren Jeff's Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (FLDS).

Mounties say Steven Clancy Blackmore was apparently trying to manipulate some heavy equipment at a lumber mill with a pole when the weight of the equipment "must have been too heavy and fell back on the victim. When found by his father, the pole was pinned across the victim's neck."

The mill is owned owned by Duane Palmer. Palmer is a bishop in Bountiful and superintendent of the government-funded Mormon Hills School.

The boy's father, Karl Blackmore, denied his son was employed at the site, saying his son had tagged along to the mill to unload some wood. Canadian authorities are investigating whether children are working at the mill.

Wiseacre Mitt

The National Review's Jay Nordlinger says he is taken aback by news stories comparing America's two recent speeches on religion. Particularly the emphasis that “Unlike Romney, who mentioned ‘Mormon’ just once, Obama says ‘race’ over 10x’s and even discusses slavery.”

Nordlinger:

I loved what [Mitt] said to some reporter who interviewed him after that speech. This lady — the reporter — said, "What were you doing, mentioning “Mormon” only once? Were you ducking or something?" And Romney responded coolly — again, I am paraphrasing — "Actually, we don’t call ourselves Mormons. I just threw that one reference in there for the likes of you."

Mitt's momentum

Mitt Romney says it's still early for John McCain to be getting specific about his choice for a running mate. Mitt has, of course, been salivating for weeks over the possibility that the "honor" might be bestowed on him. Still he coyly told reporters:

There are probably 20, maybe even more—I can think of probably 20 names of people who I think would be excellent vice presidential nominees for our party.

One of those names is Jon Huntsman.

But MSNBC's FirstRead notes:

It is remarkable how much Mitt Romney is helping McCain. If you didn't believe it before, then believe it now, this guy wants the second slot... badly.

Wonkette takes a more cynical view:

Mitt Romney joined his "successful" nemesis John McCain on the campaign trail yesterday, and they raised some cash from Mormon Fat Cats and other mountain men in Denver and Salt Lake City. They even rode together on John McCain's stupid little plane. But Mitt wants to be McCain's vice president, and McCain wants to woo the "Romney Wing" of the Republican party — Space Elves — so they had to play it nice for the cameramen.

Rocky Mountain News' blog says it could happen:

The McCain and Romney camps loathed each other during the Republican primary season but vice-presidential amnesia for prior slights is well documented in each party. McCain tagged Romney as a flip-flopper but George H.W. Bush called Ronald Reagan's fiscal policies "voodoo economics" yet still wound up as his running mate in 1980.

One big difference, however — the Gipper represented California's more than 50 electoral votes. Mitt's Utah would bring five.

A new MoTab sound?

Composer Mack Wilberg has been named new director of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir.

Wilberg will replace long-time director Craig Jessop, who mysteriously resigned earlier this month.

U.S. music editor for Oxford University Press, called Wilberg "one of our most important composers":

It's not just churches with Utah and Mormon affiliations buying his music.

Wilberg's works have been performed by Renée Fleming, Frederica von Stade, Judas Priest, Bryn Terfel, Justin Tubb, the King's Singers, 50 Cent, and Walter Cronkite (on mouth harp).

Ex-"Nightside" host in N.O.

The DNews reports that Michael Castner, the sacked legend of KSL's "Nightside Project," who last worked as an apparatchik for Utah Senate Republicans, has turned up in New Orleans at WRNO doing a morning political talk show "Castner and Walensky." Walensky, left, is a FoxNews radio commentator.

Castner says: "I am pleased to say I have heard from, and taken calls from, many of my Utah listeners who listen to the live stream."

"Classic KRCL" on the Web

Lynn Arave at the Deseret News reports that refugees from KRCL community radio are finding refuge at Utah Free Media, an Internet-based station.

UFM, the brainchild of former KRCL volunteers and listeners, is still exploring format and funding direction, but organizers expect to begin broadcasting on the Web in mid-April.
Co-founder Troy Mumm says:

Utah Free Media was founded by, and will rely, on a talented bunch of folks who know community radio inside and out and are dedicated to quality on-air programming.

In a desperate effort to stem listenership loss, KRCL is in the process of revamping its programming and replaced most of its daytime volunteers with paid DJs and play lists. The move has outraged many of the stations most stalwart supporters.

Kennecott's pile of crap

UPDATE:
Kennecott officials, stung by news stories revealing that the copper giant had covered up dangers to the community posed by an unstable mine waste dump, met with Magna residents last night.

The company now promises to fund an independent engineering review of the ridge of mining waste west of Salt Lake City.

Kennecott engineers have known for years the impoundment could collapse in an earthquake. When Kennecott officials, including former company president and Olympic booster Frank Joklik, learned of the danger, they convinced state regulators to help keep the engineering warnings secret.

Kennecott told residents the modernized waste pile is safe, but acknowledged the old site must be drained further.

Says resident Roni Nielsen:

The wool has been pulled over our eyes big time," "It is a huge concern.

Above: William Lawrence speaks on environmental dangers of the tailings impoundment in Magna.

KCPW dodges the bullet

A local non-profit group will buy community radio station KCPW and keep it an National Public Radio affiliate. A Christian broadcasting group also had made an offer on the station. Here are the nuts and bolts:

Wasatch Public Media’s Letter of Intent to purchase KCPW’s 88.3 and 105.3 FM frequencies and other assets necessary to operate KCPW in Salt Lake City was accepted by Community Wireless of Park City on Tuesday, March 25, 2008. The $2,400,000 offer does not include 1010 AM, which is being purchased under a separate Letter of Intent by IHR Educational Broadcasting [a Catholic broadcaster] for $1,300,000.

Under manager Blair Feulner, KCPW borrowed $2.5 million to buy an AM license to allow the station to compete with the UofU's KUER statewide. But the bold gambit flopped and KCPW was being pulled under by the loan payments. Worse, Feulner's extravagant pay package, reported by the Trib, angered many contributors, KCPW's on-air fundraisers began falling short. For details on the station's troubles, go here.

One good sign for the station's future is that Stephen Denkers, Executive Director of the Willard L. Eccles Foundation and board member of the Stephen G. & Susan Denkers Family Foundation, has been deeply involved — he even joined in a recent rally for KCPW, above — in preserving the station as a community news and public affairs outlet.

Nuke waste? No problemo.

Congressman Rob Bishop says that if a state, take Utah for instance, wants to store foreign nuclear waste, say from Italy, the federal government has no right to stop them. Bishop told the AP's Brock Vergakis:

I don't see it as a federal issue. If the state of Tennessee wants to take it, and if the state of Utah wants to take it, I'm going to punt it back to them. It is within their purview.

EnergySolutions, with whom Bishop has a history of playing footsie, wants to dump about 1,600 tons of Italian nuke waste in the congressman's district.

Congressman Jim Matheson is co-sponsoring a bill that would ban such nuclear-waste imports.

Hot enough for you?

It's nice for Utah to be on the cutting edge of a trend for once, but I could have passed on this one.

Five years of government data shows that Utah and Arizona are heating up faster than anywhere else in the world. For two years, the average temperature in the Colorado River Basin has been more than two degrees hotter than the historical average for the 20th century. The temperature increase was double the global average and it's accelerating.

Says one of the report's authors:

Many people don't think global warming is actually upon us. They think it is something that will happen sometime down the road. It's changing life in the West as we know it today.

Relax. Most of the Utah Legislature, led by Reps. Becky Lockhart and John Dougall, will tell you this study and similar findings from the governor's climate change panel is bologna. Stupid scientists.

UPDATE: Needs proof that no one is listening to the eggheads? At an economic summit on downtown redevelopment this week, the far-sighted president of the LDS's holding company, Mark Gibbons, announced the underground parking is designed to handle "an Expedition with a ski rack, for which, I'm sure, you'll be very grateful."

Ah, but by the 2011 completion date, will Utah have snow?

Thursday, March 27, 2008

Downward spiral

Bon Jovi guitarist and Cirque Lodge alum Richie Sambora was arrested on a DUI charge in Laguna Beach. The 48-year-old New Jersey native was pulled after police said they spotted the rocker "weaving on the road.”

Sambora was driving a Hummer with another adult and two children, including his daughter, and could be charged with child endangerment.

The Bon Jovi axman has been a rehab regular — the last stint was in September at the Cirque treatment center in Sundance. Lindsay Lohan, who was drying at the Cirque at the same time, recently said her stay "changed everything" and now she avoids “putting myself in the wrong situations.”

Situations such as driving blotto with kids in the car?

Aggies make national news, sort of

The Onion, an unerringly accurate send-up of the news media, offers today a story out of Utah.

LOGAN, UT—According to an alarming new study published Monday in the American Journal Of Sociology, the vast majority of Americans are critically discussed after leaving a room occupied by two or more additional people.

The study, according to The Onion, contradicts decades of previous research in which respondents "adamantly denied ever having talked behind others' backs."

A Dr. Edward Phillips, professor of sociology at Utah State University, is quoted:

Our findings will come as a great shock to the millions of Americans who have assumed people do not speak derisively about them as soon as they are out of earshot. ...If you have ever feared that people whom you considered to be good friends were mercilessly mocking and insulting you shortly after you left their presence, your fears are almost certainly 100 percent correct.

To read the rest of the "groundbreaking" USU research go here.

McCain: Older than transistors

The Carpetbagger Report wonders why Mitt had to answer for being Mormon, Barack for being black, Richardson for being brown and Hillary for being penis-free, but the GOP candidate John McCain has yet to open the dialog on being a geezer.

At 72, McCain would be the oldest person ever elected president—older than Ronnie Reagan. I'm not saying that's bad. After all, with age comes wisdom, judgment and restricted blood flow to the brain.

In his crucial foreign policy speech in Los Angeles, McCain told a revealing personal anecdote:

When I was five years old, a car pulled up in front of our house in New London, Connecticut, and a Navy officer rolled down the window, and shouted at my father that the Japanese had bombed Pearl Harbor. My father immediately left for the submarine base where he was stationed. I rarely saw him again for four years.
Carpetbagger points out:
Now, I suspect the story was intended to remind the audience about the proud military history in McCain’s family, but there were probably more than a few people who heard the anecdote and thought, “Wait, McCain was already five in 1941?"

Libs to Dell: NO thanks.

You'd think that Utah Libertarians would be delighted to get a high profile candidate for governor, but when it comes to SUPERDELL Schanze—the thrill is gone.

Jim Dexter, a former Libertarian Party chairman, tells Katharine Biele at the Salt Lake Weekly that he's gotten reinvolved in the party to block the high-flying super salesman's nomination:

We may be small and ineffective but, by God, we have our pride. ... If anything, SUPERDELL is an anti-libertarian. He’s a bully, a bigot and a homophobe who has fired employees because they were gay or non-LDS and who brandishes a gun at people.

Schanze, first asked Biele what a homophobe is—then denied it:

I’m Christian and I love all people equally; that’s what a Christian is. It’s ridiculous … I disagree with [homosexuals’] practices, but that doesn’t mean I hate them. I disagree with adultery, and there’s no difference. I’m a libertarian because I believe in lower taxes, smaller government and less infringements on rights.

SUPERDELL will get to make his pitch to two dozen totally awesome delegates at the April 19 Libertarian convention.

Good luck, Israel

State Attorney General Mark Shurtleff has an excuse for a fact-finding junket to the Holy Land. Israel is trying to eradicate polygamy, which is rampant among Bedouins. Social Affairs Minister Isaac Herzog says:

The phenomenon has become an epidemic whose emotional, economic and social implications on women and their children are unbearable.

Farouk Amrur, chairman of the Beit Berl Jewish-Arab Institute, adds a comment that has a familiar ring in Utah:

Unfortunately the State of Israel is not dealing with the issue because it fears confrontation with Bedouin society, even though polygamy is illegal.

The goal of an Israeli pilot program is to make Bedouins, about one in four men have more than one wife, aware of the negative implications of polygamy. It will also provide Bedouin women with educational and professional tools and reach young Bedouins through the schools.

But Sheikh Sami Abu Farakh says Islam allows polygamy as long as the women are treated with equality. If Bedouin society had an equal number of men and women, polygamy would not be necessary, he says. State intervention is "a way of saying that the Bedouin need to be educated," which angers him.

Whirl of controversy

The New York Times offers an extensive story on the threat to Utah's "Spiral Jetty" from an oil drilling operation on the Great Salt Lake. Interestingly, art historians say the Jetty's creator Robert Smithson, who died in a 1972 plane crash, might have appreciated the drilling rig's encroachment:

What Mr. Smithson might have thought about the drilling plan is among the issues in dispute. State officials and some art historians, pointing to Mr. Smithson’s own writing about the “Spiral Jetty,” and the film he made about its construction, said he reveled in the juxtaposition of industrialism and beauty, decay and rebirth, rot and permanence.
“The sense of ruined and abandoned hopes interested him,” said Lynne Cooke, the curator at Dia. “He didn’t look for beautiful places, but rather despoiled landscapes where industry and the wild overlap.”

The owner of “Spiral Jetty,” the Dia Art Foundation in New York and the Friends of Great Salt Lake have sent more than 3,000 e-mail messages to the state. A decision on whether to allow the drilling is expected in April.

Above: Photo by Tom Smart for the NYTimes.

Bring it on

Tribune reader Mike Ballou makes a succinct argument on the letters page for Utah taking nuke waste:

Fact one: Most of us have contributed to the N-waste some way in our lives, by being X-rayed or something.
Fact two: There is N-waste stored all over the world, in places Utahns travel to, like Italy. It's there.
Fact three: We have a mostly empty, barren, dry, perfect place to put N-waste - in our west Utah desert.
Fact four (the best fact): We all benefit by safely storing the N-waste in regulated, government controlled and inspected facilities, just like the ones in Utah.

I'd like to add to Mike's list:

Fact five: Putting waste in the Utah wilderness will keep it wilderness. Not even Ellis Ivory would put a subdivision near a nuclear waste dump. Migration into the state will dry up and a little radiation might even cut down the natural population growth.

Before it's over, Mike Noel—who's got an interest in building nuke plants—and Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance might find themselves on the same side.

Cannon's world

Even the most stalwart Republicans — I might go as far as to say everyone with the sense God gave geese — has put lightyears between themselves and Bush and his Iraq fiasco. Which might explain why Congressman Chris Cannon makes a belated argument for invading Iraq on his blog:

It seems that the accepted media talking point that “Saddam had no link to Al Qaeda” has become an axiom akin to “tax cuts for the rich.” What both have in common, however, is the falsity of their underlying premise. As much as saying across the board tax cuts are “for the rich,” saying “Saddam had no link to Al Qaeda” is equally false and disingenuous.

Did Chris bump his head and wake up thinking it's 2003?

Mitt cozies up to McCain

Mitt Romney's relationship with GOP presidential candidate John McCain is getting tighter all the time. Mitt will use his considerable luster in Utah to help McCain shake down local donors today in SLC. Utah is virtually a wholly owned subsidiary of Romney Political Enterprises.

And the Lancaster County Republican Committee in Pennsylvania confirmed that Mitt will serve as McCain's doppleganger at a fundraiser there. Says Dave Dumeyer, chairman of the Lancaster Republican Committee:

The fact we have gotten Mitt Romney indicates the importance the McCain campaign attaches to Lancaster County. If you can't get McCain, (Romney's) one of the better persons to come in and speak.

Gotta wonder if Mitt and McCain will take time to talk veep in SLC? Some pundits say the best Mitt can hope for is a cabinet position. Anthony Palmer of The 7-10, in fact, says Romney pretty much screwed, even in 2012:

Should McCain lose this year's election, there will be a new wave of conservative presidential aspirants looking to lead the party out of the wilderness. At least one of these aspirants will be the consensus candidate that unites fiscal, social, and foreign policy conservatives — and probably do so more effectively than Romney ever could.

Oh well, there's always U.S. senator from Utah.

Meanwhile, the college paper at University of Pennsylvania reports that senior Abby Huntsman says her dad "laughs off" questions about becoming McCain's VP pick.

"I think they have a very unique connection and are really there for support no matter what. It's a genuine friendship."

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

D.B. Cooper lives! ... yet again

A couple of kids who found a tattered parachute buried about 30 miles north of Portland have triggered another round of D.B.Cooper-mania.

Cooper skyjacked at jet liner in 1971. He took $200,000 in ransom and parachuted out of the plane somewhere near the Washington-Oregon state line. Most authorities say the jump probably killed him.

But one version of the ageless legend is that Cooper was really Brigham Young University student Richard McC

oy, a 'Nam veteran and experienced sky diver. McCoy pulled off a similar skyjacking a few months later. (Does that violate BYU's honor code?) He was killed in a shoot-out before the FBI could question him.

The parachute, right, recently found near Amboy, Wash. would add a sliver of support to the BYU boy-does-bad theory. The chute having been buried would indicate McCoy survived the jump and tried to cover his trail.

In January, the FBI announced it is still hunting Cooper. "Would we still like to get our man? Absolutely. And we have reignited the case."

Putting friends in low places

Wendell Gibby is back in court, challenging the Mapleton Board of Adjustment's rulings that block him from developing a environmentally sensitive area on Maple Mountain in Utah County. This time around, Gibby claims that two board members are biased against his development plan.

Wendell, a rich Republican, has to be running low on powerful friends. The war of attrition with Mapleton cost him quite a few in the last legislative session after Gibby talked his pal Sen. Chris Buttars to write a scathing letter to a state judge who had had the audacity to rule against Gibby. Buttars, who was chairman of the judicial confirmation committee, ripped the judge a new one — on Senate stationery.

That smooth move brought the Utah Bar Association down on Buttars' neck. Gibby then helpfully told news media that Senate President John Valentine, a lawyer, had vetted and approved of the ethically challenged letter.

While no one was particularly shocked that Buttars had written the letter, Gibby made Valentine, who wants to be governor someday, also look like a jackass. In large part* because of the letter, Buttars lost his chairmanship, ended the session in disgrace and now has a tough fight ahead to hold his Senate seat.

Wendell, at the very least, owes Buttars a big campaign contribution.

*It didn't help that while speechifying, Buttars ad-libbed an unfortunate metaphor linking "babies" and "ugly" and "black."

Attack of the tater people

Idaho—you know, our pork chop-shaped neighbor to the north—is trying to steal Utah's film industry.

Idaho lawmakers passed a spending rebate bill that they hope will bring film crews to the land of Famous Potatoes. The crews, so the theory goes, then would then spend bezillions of dollars at Idaho businesses for crews, equipment rentals and Tater Tots.

The money will start rolling in when Idaho Gov. "Butch" Otter makes his "mark" on the bill — as soon as someone finds the crayon.

The Idahoans lust after Utah's film industry, which under similar breaks has landed production of the Disney Channel's popular High School Musical and its ghastly sequels.

Says Sen. Dean Cameron of Rupert:

Everyone that goes to see a movie that shows Idaho's beauty, mountains, ski resorts and way of life will think highly of our state and may come and visit us.

Unless, of course, a scene is shot in Cameron's hometown of Rupert, then not so much.

Idaho Falls Sen. Mel Richardson reminded his colleagues of the international attention that Idaho garnered after Sun Valley Serenade was shot in 1941: "That's advertising you can't buy."

You remember Sun Valley Serenade... starring Norwegian Olympic skater Sonja Henie and Milton Berle as "Nifty?"

Anybody?

From Utah, with love...

A munitions warehouse at Hill Air Force Base in Davis County was supposed to ship four replacement helicopter batteries to Taiwan. But — these things happen — Hill sent four nuclear missile nose-cone fuses instead.

The fuses trigger nuclear warheads on Minuteman intercontinental ballistic missiles. The government has yet to figure out how the two very different items were mixed up in August 2006 and then got out of the country.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has ordered a probe, the second such probe in a year to examine serious lapses in the care of nuclear weapons. (The Air Force lost track of six nuclear warheads for a day and a half when they were aboard a bomber flying between North Dakota and Louisiana. Has anybody heard from North Dakota recently?)

UPDATE: President Bush told Chinese President Hu Jintao today that the shipment of nuclear missile fuses to Taiwan was a mistake.

Ryan Henry, principal deputy undersecretary of defense for policy, who presumably can tell the difference between a 5-inch battery and a yard-long nose-cone fuse, says:

In an organization as large as DOD, the largest and most complex in the world, there will be mistakes. But they cannot be tolerated in the arena of strategic systems...

SLC's name game

OK, all you "domestic partners" out there, Mayor Ralph says you are now "mutual-commitment," er, folks. How about MCF's for short?

Some legislators, led by the irrepressible Sen. Chris Buttars (happy guy at right), forced the name change for the city's domestic partnership registry for siblings, long-term roommates, parents and gays because it might violate Utah's Amendment No. 3, banning same-sex marriage.

Alex Blaze of The Bilerico Project is baffled by the continuing name changes.

Wasn't "civil union" supposed to be the non-"marriage" long-term commitment of not-just-heterosexual-couples? Then wasn't "domestic partnership" supposed to be the watered down version of "civil union"? And now apparently that's too close to gay marriage, so there's another name being thrown out there?

It has even someone like me wondering when this ride will stop and people will find some kind of agreement on what these words all mean.

The name change should be accomplished, appropriately, on April 1, which is Buttars' birthday, and, of course, Fool's Day. And for perpetuity, MCF Pride Day.

Utah Polygamy: To Canada with love

Daphne Bramham, a respected columnist at the Vancouver Sun is promoting a new book on the Utah-Canada polygamist connection.

Bountiful, British Columbia, is the home of a Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints outpost. (As opposed to Bountiful, Utah, God's backyard.)

From a review of the book at BCDaily.com appears the Canadian media has an uncertain understanding of the FLDS, perhaps confusing it with the mainstream Mormons. In describing Bramham's "The Secret Lives of Saints: Child Brides and Lost Boys in a Polygamous Mormon Sect," the reviewer notes, "Daphne Bramham has been covering Mormonism and polygamy in both Utah and Bountiful for close to five years."

Bramham says of Winston Blackmore, leader of Bountiful group and a former follower of Warren Jeffs:

He’s quite charming and quite funny. And like some religious or political leaders, from the moment he meets you he’s looking for your weaknesses and looking at ways that he can expose them and exploit them.

And of his 22 wives:

The women really become the public face in a way because the men are so scared of being arrested. And these women, they’re so well-trained to tell you that they’re happy in this sort of sweet way.”

Her conclusion is that such polygamy should not be allowed to flourish amid the maple leaves: "It’s antithetical to Canadian society."

Big Oops! in D.C.

An oddball driving a pickup with Utah plates, who approached the U.S. Supreme Court Building with a shotgun, crossbow and sword, was more of a danger than originally thought.

Michael S. Gorbey, who was arrested near the U. S. Capitol, is now facing charges of planning to set off a bomb. U.S. Capitol Police are trying to figure out how their top-rated bomb squad overlooked an explosive device that was rolled up in some clothes behind the seat. Investigators stumbled over the gunpowder, shotgun shells and buckshot contraption