The Deseret News will survive because the church wants it to.

DNews editor Joe Cannon, a former lobbyist and state GOP chairman, took the paper back to its Mormon roots (something that triggered a small revolt in the newsroom) and its Web site rakes in 17 million page views a month, but still not much ad revenue, says the AP story.

Visitors tend to linger, and half of them are from outside Utah, affirming Cannon's strategy even as online advertising revenues remain marginal.

His aim is to reach out to "a very large Mormon diaspora across the country" that "puts us into a much larger pond."

Why would you pay him so much money for something he's already economically motivated to do?

The Motley Fool jumps on senior, comparing him to the bonus weasels at AIG.

the only thing more galling to shareholders than paying bonuses to executives for their spectacular failures is giving them a bonus for just doing their job.

Maybe Huntsman senior should change the title of his book "Winners Never Cheat" to "Winners Try Not to Get Caught."

I'll keep this with the family Bible.

Mark [V. Olsen, co-creator] wants to explore Mormon church's very specific idea as to how women and men should operate in marriage. We already visited going further into the idea of the subjugation of women.

The general response, the non-Mormon, non-conservative religious response, was very, very positive, because we did what we said in our statement: We were trying to create a moment of great beauty and great art. It could be debated whether or not the Mormons are always going to feel that we crossed a boundary by showing a secret ceremony. And that’s always going to feel like it’s a tremendous disrespect to them.

… The real thing was that the furor died down almost immediately, and I only have to assume that was because we handled it with so much respect and dignity, in context of it being a very sacred, very holy ceremony.

That said, Scheffer adds that it is unlikely Big Love will again violate the Mormon temple's sanctity.

Not to say that we’re not going to go to other places within the Mormon world and within the fundamentalist world. And within the world of family and America that are equally challenging, in some way, for certain people.

The Miss Pole Dance Utah, a.k.a. "Fetish: Battle of the Pole Dancers," competition apparently does not showcase Eastern European folk dancing.

Commissioner Bret Millburn is disturbed by the website for the athletic meet.

I have an issue with how it is portrayed on its Web site. It doesn't show me any sort of athletic component to it. It doesn't speak fitness. This speaks something else.

Church President Gordon Monson
and other speakers offer advice.

Utah's Most Trusted News and Information Source

Tapping into fear about the future, Mr. Beck also lingers over doomsday situations; in a series called “The War Room” last month he talked to experts about the possibility of global financial panic and widespread outbreaks of violence. He challenged viewers to “think the unthinkable” so that they would be prepared in case of emergency.

Says Beck:

The truth is — that you are the defender of liberty. It’s not the government. It’s not an army or anybody else. It’s you. This is your country.

Beck provocatively tells listeners that he can't discover whether rumors that FEMA is setting up concentration camps are true. But tells the NYTimes:

I’m a rodeo clown. It takes great skill.

But even the NYTimes couldn't unlock much about the playwright's Brigham Young University years and eventual split from the Mormon church.

. . . He converted to the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, although he wouldn’t tell me why, except to say that his conversion was about “faith.” But he added, “Americans have so many misconceptions about the church.” All those wives! People “barely survive one wife,” LaBute said. “How could I survive six?”

It may seem an odd fit, the creator of so many misanthropic characters and a religion of “fellowship,” but the relationship survived for a few years. LaBute even won an award from the Association for Mormon Letters for his play “In the Company of Men,” which is about two businessmen who seduce a deaf woman as a cruel joke, then dump her. But when LaBute wrote a devastating series of three one-act monologues, “Bash: Latter-Day Plays,” in which Mormon characters are portrayed as murderers, the church “disfellowshiped” him, essentially putting him into a state of limbo from which he never quite returned. Today, he told me, he is no longer a Mormon.

America's new sweetheart.

Viewers will get an unprecedented look at what life is like behind the gates of the ranch, including extraordinary access to the inner workings of the ranch, which until now has been completely off-limits to outsiders. Members of the Yearning for Zion community share a homemade dinner with Oprah and speak openly about their polygamist lifestyle and their imprisoned prophet, Warren Jeffs.

• Surveillance video and storage of tapes.
• No hotel bars within public view.
• Records of everyone who enters a bar.
• No bars in restaurants.
• Booze in state liquor stores can only be sold at room temperature.

Evidence of Utah MADD president Art Brown's unauthorized positions can be found in the state's new liquor and bar policies that Gov. Jon Huntsman will sign into law today.

Chuck Hurley, MADD's national executive director, told Vergakis the organization allows flexibility for local chapters, but the Utah group went too far:

. . . on matters of key issues, obviously, anything that would portray MADD inaccurately as a prohibitionist organization we have to be pretty clear on and we have to speak with one voice.

• One child remains in state custody.
• 12 men face criminal charges related to underage marriages.
• The endangered teenage girl the raid was meant to save still does not exist.
  
• A Texas legislative committee will explore "lessons learned" from the $15 million raid.
• The FLDS are even more solid in their beliefs.
• Ratings for HBO's Big Love are way up.
  

When the decision was made to let the news media come out on the ranch and start interacting with people, all of a sudden there was a voice on the other side; there were human faces, and it was not just about what the state was doing.

Honestly, our search for sexy lesbian politicians mainly taught us that the most electable lesbians seem to prefer grandma glasses and perms, but Johnson's a refreshing exception — still pleasantly dykey (short hair), while also electably ladylike (matching jewelry!).

You got suckered [by the video game industry]. Further, there is no constitutional, First Amendment problem... If your veto is not overridden, then we will be back with a bill to ban the sale of these products altogether, in light of the recent massacres in Germany and in this country directly caused by these murder simulation products that are being copycatted by teens who are being fraudulently sold them.

While we must make difficult cuts in some areas, I believe that slashing funding for our troops is not where we should be cutting corners.

His right-winged critics back in Utah will be comforted to hear Bennett joined a dozen Republicans who are concerned that while Obama intends to increase troops in Afghanistan, he will undermine the military's "ability to defend our country."

This still leaves an even-righter opening for Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff, who lusts for Bennett's seat, to demand those Afghanistan reinforcements be used to seal the Mexican border, hunt down pornographers and root out politicians who would support civil unions for gay abortionists.

Senator Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), a man I greatly respect, obviously doesn’t have enough to do. His constituents in Utah are upset that the Utes, at 12-0, didn’t get into the BCS championship game ahead of Florida or Oklahoma.

So Senator Hatch does what a good politician does when his constituents are mad—he pushes for Congressional hearings. So we are going to get another dog and pony show where some members of Congress, who don’t know if a football is inflated or stuffed, ask questions and fawn for the cameras back home

• Liquor bottles can be displayed until they're opened, then they must be hidden.
• A restaurant's opening date can affect the liquor rules it follows and even its architecture.

As crazy as it sounds, putting bottles out where all the world can see them is a freedom of speech issue. Lawyer Brian Barnard, who has developed a cottage industry based on Utah legislative bunkum, is bemused:

The foolishness continues. This may well be open to a judicial challenge.

To save taxpayer money and restaurateur migraines, why doesn't the Legislature just hire Barnard to vet their liquor bills?

Espresso
Mocha
Chia
Vanilla (of course)
White (of course) chocolate
Pistachio flavoring (presumably symbolic of green people, the only group Buttars has yet to offend.)
Butterscotch flavoring

The third-season finale of HBO's Big Love drew its biggest audience of the season, averaging 2.7 million viewers. It was helped, of course, by the controversy of the penultimate episode that infamously includes a re-enactment of a secret Mormon temple ceremony.

The finale's audience was up 135% compared to the 1.2 million the show garnered in its February season premiere. Not including the finale, the third season of Big Love, which stars Bill Paxton, averaged over 6 million viewers per episode in gross audience, according to Nielsen Media Research.

We’ve been selling this phony crap to the church for years.

The Republican Party is in search of grown-ups. With the economy in crisis and a new president reaching out for bipartisan support, only three Republicans could bring themselves to support Obama. Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, was not one of them but in looking at the current Congress he is among those who have earned their spurs in joining with the opposition for the betterment of the country.

He has crossed the aisle many times and is one of Sen. Ted Kennedy's, D-Mass., closest friends. . . . He supported lifting federal restrictions on stem cell research.

Party loyalty is important but a party is bigger than any one wing, and Hatch, a Mormon from Utah, knows that lesson better than anyone.

Byrne, an apparent fan of the series due to its moralistic investigations into religion and polygamy, felt compelled to immerse himself in Mormon history and their sacred music, and eventually came to write a number of hymns of his own. . . .

With a folksy, almost feudal character, the soundtrack presents a melodic tableau of free-flowing string work ("A Conduit to Heaven," The Pearl of Great Price), starkly struck pianos ("The Breastplace of Righteousness), brass pieces that are usually easing ("Language Confounded"), random bits of mallet percussion and Byrne's own juxtapositional entries on six-string.

Many expect Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff to make an announcement to take on Bennett this week.

While Bennett has won reelection by landslide margins since first winning the seat in 1992, he’s also managed to alienate some conservatives back home on a handful of high-profile issues. In 2005, he opposed a constitutional amendment banning flag burning — an effort spearheaded by his home-state GOP colleague Sen. Orrin G. Hatch. A year later, he was a vocal supporter of then-President George W. Bush’s push for comprehensive immigration reform.

But it was Bennett’s Wall Street bailout vote last fall that served as the final straw for conservatives who argue that he’s become another big-spending Washington insider.

Utahns are very pleased with their governor and legislators, who softened the impact of budget shortfalls and liberalized liquor laws.

A Deseret News/KSL News poll gives Huntsman an 84 percent job approval rating. And the Legislature pulled a 64 percent approval rating.

Huntsman, who even saw his popularity withstand his support of civil unions in the midst of an unsuccessful gay rights drive, says:

If you do what you think is right, even if some people disagree with you, they will give you credit.

A less useful DNews numbers analysis found that the Republicans out performed Democrats 10 to one in getting bills passed. The Legislature, of course, is overwhelmingly Republican. The Democrat with the worst "batting average," Rep. Neil Hansen, says:

This was the most oppressive session I've seen as far as Republicans killing Democrats' bills.

By recording the stories of our lives with the people we care about, we experience our history, hopes, and humanity. Since 2003, tens of thousands of everyday people have interviewed family and friends through StoryCorps.

Each conversation is recorded on a free CD to take home and share, and is archived for generations to come at the Library of Congress. Millions listen to our award-winning broadcasts on public radio and the Internet.

The BLM, in any case, has pulled the most sensitive back-country leases and also has let bidders know in no uncertain terms that if they win a parcel they better have the cash to buy it.

UPDATE . . .
The bidding came off without incident.

The Alliance Defense Fund says it will defend three new Utah laws:

• Requiring physicians to tell women seeking abortions they can have a pain-killer for the fetus.

• Defining viability and redefining the health of a mother.

• Establishing a fund for private donations to defend Utah anti-abortion laws.

Lawmakers ignored Shurtleff's advice to observe similar laws' effectiveness in other states before passing them here. He figures the state will be dragged into court over at least one of the bills.

Twenty year ago, two chemists put Utah on the map when they produce fusion energy from deuterium molecules in an apparatus that appears to be a large bong. (Maybe that explains what came next.)

The UofU's Stanley Pons and Britain's Martin Fleischmann's mind-blowing announcement turned from a scientific breakthrough into another only-in-Utah joke, when other scientists around the globe couldn't reproduce their findings.

Once again, Utah was that close to saving the earth from global warming.

Californians Against Hate spokesman Fred Karger says the amounts the Mormon church has disclosed "seems just to be the tip of the iceberg as far as what they spent in support of Prop 8.''

A church spokesman denies it established the National Organization for Marriage and says the church has disclosed its entire contribution to the Prop 8 effort.

When Ralph says "entertainment district" this is what the church sees.

I would like to do some normalizing. I'm confident we'll be able to work out some comprehensive changes to our liquor policies.

Becker wants to relieve restrictions on neighborhood pubs and creat a party-friendly downtown entertainment district.

When Mayor Ralph approaches the LDS church on this — as he certainly will, I'd advise he be careful about vocabulary. Hughes likes the term "modernize" for liquor law changes because he can link it to high-tech license scanning equipment to catch underage drinkers. Others, like the Guv, lean toward "normalize." And what better goal for Utah to aspire to than normal?

No one uses "liberalize" because, well, it sounds liberal. Even worse, calling for "progressive" liquor laws is out — what are we, Wobblies?

David James Farnham also will get a mental-health tune up (Let's hope it's not at Gotham Asylum where Batman always sends the Joker). Any future dad-son outings must be supervised, with the car window rolled down a crack.

The boy's mother has custody and, to her credit, was never actually married to Farnham.

It all comes down to us moving material.

On Obama's Tonight Show appearance: He's out doing a rally in California. He's posing for the cover of magazines and doing a number of things. He's putting together a health care plan, putting together a cap and trade program, a lot of things on the agenda.

If you're doing too many things, a couple of important things can slip by. And one of them that slipped by was the AIG legislation that allowed AIG executives to get these bonuses.

He hasn't had the experience of leading a nation or a business or a state in trouble. And the first rule I can tell him is focus, focus, focus. . . .

On AIG bonuses: This is really the fault of two parties. One, the members of our government that weren't paying attention, at best. That's the most favorable way to characterize it. ... The other, of course, is the folks at AIG.

On running for president: No, I don't think [so].

Never discount the creative people in our state. Who knows?

It's the same person. I'm paid to make things happen (at the Legislature).

That doesn't mean you can't speak out on a party you've been affiliated with all your life.

Utah's economy: "You are going to see an economy that is more buoyant going into 2010." Even if the downturn continues, Utah still has options that are "open and available," including $420 million in the Rainy Day fund.

A state stimulus effort: A "Home Run" program will offer $6,000 grants to homebuyers.

Post-recession Utah: "We are going to be looking pretty good when all is said and done."

Taking federal money: The Legislature should not have turned down more than $60 million in unemployment money that would have helped the "under-employed."

The Department of Justice is investigating allegations of discrimination and unconstitutional searches and seizures by Sheriff Joe Arpaio's office. Arpaio says the probe is a political reaction to his immigration sweeps of Latino areas in Phoenix.

In his successful campaign in Utah's conservative Third District, Chaffetz proposed that suspected illegal immigrants be put in tent cities surrounded by barbed wire — an concept he said he got from Arpaio's example. The idea was denounced by civil liberties supporters who compared Chaffetz "tent cities" to the Japanese internment camps used during World War II.

The congressmen wrote U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder:

It is important that state and local law enforcement officers and the public are reassured that the investigation is proceeding in a judicious and fair manner, and not for the purpose of politicizing or chilling immigration efforts

Released by the Center for Immigration Studies, the study found that although almost a quarter of the six plants' workforces were undocumented immigrants, enough legal workers were available to bring the plants back to full production in six months. The meatpacking industry found illegal workers simply better fed its bottom line.

The availability of a large work force that was willing to be exploited and afraid to complain sort of facilitated the transformation of the industry.

Because of the huge turnover there is real turbulence in the communities, real turmoil in schools and at social service agencies because those costs end up being passed on to the taxpayers.

Mitt Romney will run for president again.
Carville: "Running for president is like having sex. You don't do it once and forget about it."

Jon Huntsman has growing stature in the GOP.
Carville: "It’s kind of remarkable. The sort of moderate wing of the Republican party is now in Utah."

Matalin: "My advice to him is not be so praised on the front page of the New York Times as often as he is. It’s not a good flag to wave for conservatives who he will need."

Their Mormon background will not be an issue in running for higher office.
Matalin: “I always thought it was a canard."

I am incredibly disappointed in what appears to be political posturing by the Department of the Interior. The department has not only failed to address my concerns, but also included information in their response that is simply not true.

How can the BLM issue a press release on Nov. 25, 2008, applauding its collaboration and consultation with the National Park Service and then, less than four months later, the department denies there was any such coordination?

Christian Harrison, president of Salt Lake City's Downtown Community Council, told Tribune reporter Jason Bergreen that the cameras in Pioneer Park that have eliminated much of the drug traffic there will not increase danger in adjoining neighborhoods.

I'm a short, fat, bald guy with 'victim' written on my head and I've never had a problem downtown.

I've heard none [LDS protest] about what's been a more central—and, it would seem, more damaging—focus of the season: the subplot involving the letter revealing that the church did not initially intend to renounce polygamy.

Besides the letter itself, the way its discovery has played out (Barb being excommunicated apparently as punishment for it, and the statement "Some things that are true are not very useful") has not exactly been flattering to the church.

I'm turning into a frickin' televangelist.

I worship him.

Need a stalker, Billy?

It's a serious job that demands serious people for serious times, and he's undermining himself by doing this sort of TMZ-ing, celebrity watching and celebrity fixation. Your job isn't to know celebrities, it isn't to be technologically hip, it is to represent your state.

Of course, Stewart ("Mormon crickets? I believe they prefer to be called Osmonds.") has never skidded on brown waves of the voracious insects as they cross a desert highway. Or watched as they eat their dead. As a Tribune writer once said: "If God hadn't created Mormon Crickets, Steven King would have."

Jay Tanner of Grouse Creek, who has too often seen the crickets swarm off federal land to devour his alfalfa, tries to explain the horror to the Washington Post.

Everything that's green is just gone. When the crickets come and devastate the area, then I'm done. There's really nothing I can do. It's just like coming in and stealing money out of my wallet.

If I can't get a credit line on a business that is doing well, how are all these small businesses going to access credit just to get by?

Our recovery in the present and our prosperity in the future depend upon the success of America's small businesses and entrepreneurs.

You can imagine a very ideologically interesting Republican primary in which a figure like Sanford came on strong as a more mainstream version of Ron Paul (small-government rigor plus foreign-policy noninterventionism, minus the nutty-uncle factor), while someone like, say, Jon Huntsman ended up representing the party's moderate wing. It could be a Goldwater-Rockefeller race for the new millenium - potentially disastrous for the party, sure, but potentially fruitful as well.

Uncovering secret moderation among Western conservative yokels in the age of Obama is becoming a specialty of the New York Times's Western-based reporter Kirk Johnson. . . .The antiquated alcohol laws of one uniquely religious, sparsely populated state is an awfully slender thread from which to spin a philosophical discussion of the Republican Party's identity, isn't it?

The debate was about scrapping the state’s one-of-a-kind system of regulating bars and restaurants in a bid to boost the economy. But bound up in it was a profound, ongoing dialog, led by Mr. Huntsman, about what the Republican Party should be about and who should lead it.

The governor has found his groove.

I do not think the base of the Republican Party of Utah has traveled with the governor — at least not yet. He’s clearly on a new frontier.”

Utah State benched its mascot for Saturday night's championship game between the Aggies and Nevada a day after "Big Blue" the bull and New Mexico State's "Pistol Pete" got physical with each other near the end of a semifinal matchup in the Western Athletic Conference basketball tourney.

It's sacred—not secret. It's the secrecy that's one of the things that makes the rest of the world think we're a cult.

I saw this opportunity to have a big impact, and saw the potential to protect this land, and the potential to keep the oil in the ground, and if I turned my back on that and did nothing, could I live with that? No, I couldn't live that.

• Drinking laws have been liberalized.

• A poll says Utah residents are the happiest in the nation. (Illinois #31.)

• UofU's football team went 13-0 last season. (University of Illinois 5-7.)

• Gov. Jon Huntsman has come out in favor of civil unions.

• Utah ranks No. 1 in subscriptions to online porn sites.

I'm going to hook up with like-minded people. I never thought I'd live to see the day this country went socialist.

The South Jordan event takes place at 3 p.m. Other Beckanalias will be held in Sandy, Pleasant Grove and Davis counties. For more info go here.

• Utah got more friendly to the outside world by eliminating of its odd club membership requirement to get a cocktail.

• Sen. Chris Buttars reinforced Utah's reputation to much of the rest of the country as a mean-spirited backwater with his widely reported diatribe on gay activism being "the greatest threat to America."

• Gov. Jon Huntsman proved that by using diplomacy, rather than confrontation, he could bend the Legislature to his will. As a bonus, he gets a national rep for "political savvy and maturity."

• Gayle Ruzicka, president of Utah's Eagle Forum, proved her phone/email tree continues her reign as tsarina of the legislature and the most powerful woman in Utah politics.

Lobbyist Stephenson with intern.

I'm probably not the legal mind to speak to this issue. . . . You have to understand that this kind of reform is an incremental process.

No matter how you draft anything you find a loophole.

Lobbyists are paid to influence lawmakers. If you're already a registered lobbyist, that's a choice you make. There's a conflict there, and it doesn't make sense that you would also serve in the body.

They have to bring snacks.

Utah just keeps on keeping on with the surprises.

I am not closing the vote until every Utah County person votes for this. There is no pass, no walk. We have built the entire budget around Utah County. You and your partner next to you, we can wait all day or we can call everyone in here and get a 'no' vote on this.

Voters of all political stripes reject Limbaugh’s assertion that the Republican Party must move back to the right in order to start winning. When that argument, with language taken directly from Limbaugh’s CPAC speech, is matched head-to-head against Utah Governor John Huntsman’s statement about moving the party to the middle, all voters — including independents and moderate Republicans — overwhelmingly opt for the governor’s statement by 20 points (57 to 37 percent).

This whole bill has to do with reconstruction of I-15 in Utah County and building the Mountain View Corridor in Salt Lake County. If they don't want the projects, I don't know why the rest of the state has to pay for them.

Police shoot Utah fugitive suspected of polluting
Wanted by the EPA

MARATHON, Fla.— A Utah fugitive, accused of dumping hazardous waste, was shot by law enforcement officers Tuesday morning at a trailer in Marathon after he pulled an assault rifle on officers, officials said.

Larkin Baggett, 53, was airlifted to Ryder Trauma Center at Jackson Memorial Hospital with gunshot wounds to his face and stomach. He underwent surgery and was in critical condition.

According to a federal indictment, Baggett's company, Chemical Consultants, illegally dumped chemicals like truck wash acid, aluminum brightener and soaps into sewer drains.

On the run since April, Baggett made a list of fugitives published on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's website.

Now, Derek Hunter, executive director of the Media Freedom Project, has written Gov. Jon Huntsman:

In a state famous for hosting the Sundance Film Festival, amending the [law] to include [video game and movie] transactions would have a chilling effect on the film industry, as well as other retail businesses, and further damage an already ailing economy.

Specifically, the Media Freedom Project strongly opposes opening up businesses to lawsuits for underage video game or movie sales. This give away to trial lawyers won’t make kids safer, but will build in dramatically higher costs for small businesses who are already working on strategies to keep kids safe...

No crisis exists. Parents are not clamoring for government intervention into the lives of their children. . .

On its face such an amendment makes good sense; after all, if a retailer says they’re going to do something, they should do it, right? While the intent of this legislation would be to hold retailers accountable for compliance with their stated policies – presumably in that negligible 6% of instances where they fail to comply – the unfortunate reality is that it would introduce a liability that will likely force many retailers to seriously consider abandoning their voluntary policies and ratings education programs, undoing years of progress made on behalf of parents and their children.

NutriSystem Slims Down Their Budget

Marie Osmond isn’t the first actress to hawk a weight-loss system, but her commercial for NutriSystem has lean production values even for the genre. But hey—it’s a recession.

Obviously, it was not our intention to do anything disrespectful to the church. To those who may be offended, we offer our sincere apology. (But we're going ahead anyway.)

Hmmm. Except for being cheesy, it looks suspiciously similar to Utah's old "Ski Utah! Greatest Snow on Earth" (right) issued to all vehicles before our lives got all "elevated," and the state's message got mixed (lower right).

Utah recently has actively been trying to steal some of Colorado's 12 million skier days per season. We get about a third of that.

Ari Stiller-Shulman, public policy and communications manager for Colorado Ski Country USA says:

Utah’s plate is very prominent because we get a lot of Utahans traveling through Colorado and you see them a lot. Ours is way cooler.

The Field Poll found California voters almost evenly divided over same-sex marriage — but significantly more accepting of it than just three years ago. Mark DiCamillo of the Field Poll says:

It's a general progression toward accepting same-sex marriage over time.

And civil unions, an idea supported by radicals like Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman and Mayor Ralph Becker, may be even more widely accepted. The point of view of poll respondent Barbara Abel, a Mormon Republican, would shock the knickers off Utah Eagle Forum President Gayle Ruzicka. Abel says that while she opposes same-sex marriage, she OK with civil unions for gays with full legal rights as couples:

It's the word 'marriage,' I think. Of course, you're talking to a 70-year-old woman who has been married to the same man for 48 years.

That's a long-winded non-answer to your question.

I'm better informed.

How's this for a "non-secular" compromise?

Barnard argued that by appearing out of context to motorists along the highway, the humongous crosses broadcast that the trooper who died was a Christian.

Here these crosses stand alone. There isn't anything else nearby that says they're not religious in nature.

Internet references to Big Love indicate that more and more Mormon themes are now being woven into the show and that the characters are often unsympathetic figures who come across as narrow and self-righteous. And according to TV Guide, it now seems the show’s writers are to depict what they understand to be sacred temple ceremonies.

Last week some Church members began e-mail chains calling for cancellations of subscriptions to AOL, which, like HBO, is owned by Time Warner. Certainly such a boycott by hundreds of thousands of computer-savvy Latter-day Saints could have an economic impact on the company. Individual Latter-day Saints have the right to take such actions if they choose.

I can see [the Governor's Office] saying, "This is all we needed." You see these kinds of stretches made all the time. You give it an inch and they'll run a mile with this. And it scares me to death.

Some people say this is how the government plans to pay for all this money it's giving away. This is a step toward that very thing.

A large church (she seemed incapable of uttering the words "Roman Catholic") was selling indulgence in the dark ages. Even though [this bill] is in innocuous language, it endorses the selling of indulgences — it's an endorsement of cap and trade.

We must be on the slickest hill in the state—we have once again avoided the "slippery slope." . . . This bill has nothing to do with cap and trade and the national debate on climate change.

Maybe someday we'll look back and see that this little bill in Utah held back the tide of this horrible notion of accepting global warming. . . . We are so paranoid and so fearful, we wouldn't even allow a market-based proposal for landfills to get carbon credits. That's just incredible, but it is what it is.

It reminded them every day of all that they were not, and all they had stopped being. . . . If the past sits around speaking eloquently of what it was, especially if it is the past of your immediate ancestors, the differences between you and it can be discomforting.

I wrote a song for him. He loved it!

Whether or not we should worry about sexting comes down to one question: Is sexting a social trend or a technological one? Social trends are persistent, while technological trends turn over quickly. Based on its close parallel to the amateur porn phenomenon, I'd argue that sexting is more technological than social. This isn't to say that we shouldn't worry about teens sexting, but it is to say that the phenomenon, thankfully, won't be durable.

Why couldn't Kennecott make a hole like this?

BEIJING, March 5 -- In man's search for mineral wealth, many enormous holes have been dug. In addition, nature occasionally produces some astounding holes. This list is a pick of the ten most spectacular natural or manmade holes in the face of the earth.

1. Darvaza Gas Crater-Turkmenistan
2. Kimberley Diamond Mine-South Africa
3. Monticello Dam-California
4. Bingham Canyon Mine-Utah
5. Great Blue Hole-Belize (above)
   
6. Mirny Diamond Mine-Siberia
7. Diavik Mine-Canada
8. Sinkhole-Guatemala
9. Udachnaya Pipe-Russia
10. Chuquicamata-Chile

The Church has not taken a position on any legislation currently being considered by the Illinois State Legislature. The Church did not send an e-mail to its members in regards to House Bill 2234, although a false report to the contrary has been circulated.

Bishop Chris Church of a Nauvoo ward sent out an email to members arguing that civil unions would “empower the public schools to begin teaching this lifestyle to our young children regardless of parental requests otherwise” and “it will also create grounds for rewriting all social mores.” Read the full text here.

Church's email brought a quick reply from Utahn Bruce Bastion of the Human Rights Campaign:

It is irrefutably clear that the LDS Church is fighting an anti-gay crusade throughout the nation, targeting any form of equality for the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community. Church leaders want nothing more than to do their hateful work in secrecy, but the time has come to shine a light on their insidious efforts. If the LDS Church won’t tell the truth, we will.

The bad guy: And you thought it was the bankers.

• The economy went into the toilet when Saturn entered Virgo on Sept. 2, 2007. "Saturn is the reality check planet in astrology — famous for bursting people's bubbles." (The ringed planet also brought down the 2000 dot.com market.)

• Beware the Sun in Pisces, Gemini, Virgo and Sagittarius. "It's a good idea to watch your back (financially speaking) during March, June, September and December."

• By November, we'll know the extent of the recession. (Saturn departs Virgo, duh.)

• But don't expect a turnaround for two more years, when Saturn is exhalted in Libra.

• Expect mini-economic spikes the last week of May, June 17th and after September 15.

It is going to happen anyway, let's put some regulation in place. Even though we outlawed it for two years now, it is still going on and it is highly unregulated, so you've got unscrupulous people rigging the system. People are getting ripped off,

Shurtleff joins forces with Rep. Barney Frank, of all people, in pushing the legislation that would provide guards against underage gambling, compulsive gambling, money laundering and cheating. In short, the new regs would offer all the protections found in Nevada, where money laundering, getting ripped off and other forms of human-weakness exploitation are, of course, unheard of.

A major sticking point is that a state that allows one form of gambling cannot prevent tribes from starting their own casinos. With any luck, Utah seniors will be catching the bus to the new Goshute Oasis! in Iosepa.

• I met some interesting, if perplexed, out-of-town visitors whom I "adopted" so they could get a hassle-free drink.
• Explaining our state's screwy laws made Utahns the center of attention at gatherings out-of-state with friends and family. "It's not really a club. . . ." (Oh well, Utah still has a few other idiosyncrasies for conversation fodder.)
• The law made us feel special and sophisticated because we belonged to exclusive social organizations, such as Jr.s, Club Faces, Jimax Club and the now-mythical D.B. Cooper's.
• That "speakeasy" camaraderie of telling the bouncer, "I know a member" and waving at some smiling face in the club.

Mitt vs. Harry Reid? If you’re looking to sell a palatial estate in Nevada, I think I might know somebody who’ll be looking to buy soon. … Hint: Mormonism is an asset in Nevada. . . .

The genius of running against Reid is that, win or lose, Romney becomes a hero to the GOP just for taking it on. I think he’s planning to do it.

It’s just a matter of enduring the early days of transformation – it’s never going to be pretty and it’s never going to be fun to watch it play out beyond a pure entertainment level. We haven’t had a healthy, rigorous discussion about our future in many years, and meanwhile the world has changed. Unless we want to be consigned to minority-party status for a long time, we need to recognize these tectonic shifts happening under our feet.

Republican state delegates are reporting getting calls from pollsters asking candidate preferences in the race. Survey questions match prospective candidates against incumbent Sen. Bob Bennett.

Attorney General Mark Shurtleff will reportedly make a decision about challenging Bennett within the next several days, and some supporters say he is leaning toward running.

ARIZONA: Lynryd Skynyrd, "Sweet Home Alabama."

KANSAS: Kansas, "Kansas"

MINNESOTA: Prince, "I Would Pick The State Fruit, a Honeycrisp Apple, 4 U"

VIRGINIA: AC/DC, "I Wish I Was In Virginny, and I Hope The Subtle Innuendo Wasn't Lost On You"

UTAH: [Rock music, dancing banned since 1957].

A typical photo of Greg Curtis.

I'm calling today not as Speaker Greg Curtis, but as attorney Greg Curtis.

Go find another f ****** boogeyman.

We understand that Sen. Chris Buttars is somewhat of a curmudgeon who comes from a different generation of Americans less apt to use politically-correct nuances and obey the speech codes set up by hypocrites on the Homosexual Left. But for Waddoups and the Utah State Senate GOP leadership to buckle to a group like Human Rights Campaign is unconscionable and a good example of why so many cynical conservatives call the GOP the “stupid party.”

Ultimately, we printed the story and named Peterson because of WHERE the alleged crime took place, WHO he is and, if it's all true, the fact that there looks to be a trend going on in that steam room. . . .

About the gay thing: If a professor was accused of doing/participating in/whatever a sexual act with anybody — same or different gender — in a public place on campus, I think we'd cover it.

You'd be surprised. My fellow representatives are telling me, "It's the right message. It's the right thing. We just want the details worked out."

Along with monkey-wrenching, gas and oil lease bidder Tim DeChristopher and a couple dozen other Utah natives, Rocky joined a massive civil-disobedience protest at a coal-burning power plant to demand action against global warming.

Chad Hardy, if you remember, was excommunicated last fall between finishing his course work and getting his BYU diploma because he published a calendar featuring sexy Mormon missionaries. Being x'ed, not surprisingly, is a violation of BYU's honor code.

Hardy received a letter from BYU's dean of students explaining his appeal was being denied because the calendar depicts missionaries in an "inappropriate light."

That Hardy is planning a follow-up on the missionary calendar and another on Mormon housewives, Hot Mormon Muffins: A Taste of Motherhood, couldn't have helped his case.

Your continued involvement with these calendars as well as apparent plans for future calendars of similar content only demonstrate to me your ongoing disregard for those principles of the honor code.

Huntsman and Romney with an old friend.

Romney's victory will give some credence to growing sentiment that he has quietly put himself in strong position for the 2012 contest after losing to John McCain last year.

Largely under the radar of the national media and even out of sight of many in his own party, Huntsman, 48, is emerging as an articulate, unapologetic and unlikely spokesman for a new brand of Republicanism, one that seems out of vogue at a time when many in the GOP attribute their fall from power to a deviation from right-wing orthodoxy.

When I heard Senator Buttars' comments, I was disgusted and appalled. I thought [Milk's statue] would help restore the reputation of the state of Utah that has been dragged through the sewer by Senator Buttars.

Utah: The Greatest Horndogs on Earth!

Some of the people who are most outraged turn out to be consumers of the very things they claimed to be outraged by.

The beehive of porn averaged almost six pornography subscriptions per 1000 home broadband users; Montana bought the least with slightly less than two per 1000.

Think of the graphic possibilites for our license plate. We can do much better than the subliminal suggestions "Life Elevated" and the Delicate Arch.

You'll be relieved to know that red state porn hits slump, so to speak, on Sundays.

#6. $1 million for mormon cricket control in Utah - is that the species of cricket or a game played by the brits*?

#9. $475,000 to build a parking garage in Provo.

Maybe we shouldn't ask for things that shouldn't be funded.

The Washington Times reports that pharmaceutical companies secretly poured money into Hatch's Utah Families Foundation. According to the Washington Times:

Though Congress boasts that it is more transparent after passing new disclosure rules, Americans have had no way of knowing about the drugmakers' largesse to the charity, Utah Families Foundation. No way, that is, until a normally confidential tax filing was mistakenly released by the Internal Revenue Service to a nonprofit database last year.

The $173,000 in donations to Hatch's charity were made at the same time that the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America was paying Hatch's son Scott Hatch as its lobbyist.

Hatch's foundation also has failed to file its required annual reports with the state of Utah since its creation nearly a decade ago.