We ran a Your Voice last week by University Place resident Lee Schriver that was critical of the Chambers Bay Golf Course.

We've already run one letter to the editor rebutting Schriver, and we're running a Viewpoint today by Toby Davis, senior vice president of KemperSports, the company that manages Chambers Bay for Pierce County. So I'm not inclined to run another defense in the print edition.

However, I thought online readers might find this letter interesting. It's from the president of The Home Course in DuPont (I'm guessing that's Chamber Bay's competition in the South Sound) and the executive director of the Washington State Golf Association.

Here's their letter:

=> Read more!

Gov. Chris Gregoire has been on the defensive for months about the deal she cut with state Indian tribes that will allow them to expand their casino operations considerably.

Regardless of the merits of the deal itself, the governor has to play defense because the tribes have dumped a whole lot of money in her campaign chest.

I mention this because the Los Angeles Times has this story about California legislators dashing to protect tribal casinos from – gasp – competition from non-Indian bingo parlors.

The horror – bingo operators have come up a version of bingo that's played on a device much like a slot machine, without actually being one.

The lovely irony of this is that the slots that tribes in both Washington and California operate are technically not slot machines, which are illegal in both states. The devices are legally considered lotteries because of the way the machines operate when the customer plays the machine.

Some difference. But the courts have thus decreed. Unlike Washington, the state of California gets a share of the tribal gambling take. Which is why California lawmakers don't want bingo parlors cutting in on the action.

From the Times:

=> Read more!

Here's the entire Anchorage Daily News editorial on the selection of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as John McCain's running mate. We excerpted it today as a companion piece to our own editorial.

Palin picked
A great day for Alaska; but for the country . . . ?

Alaskans were stunned and delighted that John McCain chose Gov. Sarah Palin as his running mate.

Delighted because one of our own has burst into the national spotlight. You go, girl!

Stunned because a woman from such ordinary circumstances – a self-professed hockey mom from a small Alaska town – is running for vice-president.

Alaskans are delighted because the eyes of the world will be on Alaska as Sarah Palin campaigns for the vice-presidency.

And it's stunning that someone with so little national and international experience might be heartbeat away from the presidency.

=> Read more!

Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin – teacher's daughter, oil worker's wife – in the supermarket aisle (with baby, right).

Whatever else Palin adds to the GOP ticket, it's a good bet she knows how many houses she owns.

Saturday: Sen. John McCain's choice of the almost unknown Sarah Palin as his running mate is an audacious dice throw in an unpredictable presidential election.

Sunday: Beyond telling readers where its stories come from, The News Tribune pushes to keep itself open in many other ways. Our goal is to make our operations as transparent as possible. This has long been an important value at The News Tribune; we emphasize it as part of our year-long commemoration of the newspaper's 125th anniversary.

Monday: Someone like Joseph Edward Duncan presents the toughest of all cases for opponents of capital punishment and for those who'd like to oppose it – if it weren't for killers like him.

Tuesday: Initiative 297 is finally dead, and with it, any delusions that this state can veto federal plans to dump nuclear waste. Thank goodness for that. Washington’s got far nastier stuff headed out than the government was originally planning to send in.

About our editorials:
If you have comments or questions about these topics, please email them to patrick.ocallahan@thenewstribune.com. Editorials represent the consensus view of The News Tribune's editorial board.
Want to sit in on a daily ed board meeting? Email cheryl.tucker@thenewstribune.com to make an appointment.

Based merely on conversations happening around the water cooler here and what I'm reading in comments sections around the Web, I'm wondering if there isn't a gender gap on the Sarah Palin pick.

Many men seem to think her pick by McCain was a masterful move while many women say they are insulted that McCain believes he can get their vote by picking anyone in a skirt, no matter how inexperienced.

Pollsters undoubtedly will tell us soon whether I'm right.

Nothing has moved yet from our regular opinionators regarding John McCain's choice of Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin for his running mate. But I spotted this, in which former White House counsel Nanette Everson makes the case for why picking Palin was a good move for McCain.

By Nanette Everson

Let’s face it. John McCain’s a loner with a stern, “it’s-a-dangerous-world” message and fairly cold eyes. He isn’t charismatic. And no one can accuse him of being a sunny guy. In fact, he’s better known for his short, hot temper.

So how’s McCain going to overcome America’s infatuation with Barack Obama — a man who has bewitched voters with his smile, enchanted youth with the novelty of his candidacy, and lured war-weary Americans with his message of “change” and promises of free, universal everything?

The answer is clear. McCain needs Alaska’s Gov. Sarah Palin, who will connect with voters as an authentic American folk hero. First, as a governor she passes the competence test. American voters have shown again and again they will vote governors into the White House. There’s Clinton. Carter. Bush the Younger. Reagan.

So why not Palin, a heartbeat away from the aged McCain?

=> Read more!

We got a letter this week from Bill Mitchell of Anacortes plugging efforts to save the Enchantress, a shipwrecked tugboat in Fidalgo Bay just east of Anacortes. Since it's from out of our circulation area – and much longer than our 250-word limit – it won't run in our printed edition. But given the number of boaters around here who go up to the San Juan Islands, I thought I'd post some of it on our blog.

Mitchell, chairman of the Save Our Shipwreck organization, will be at Olympia Harbor Days Saturday and Sunday selling "tug mugs" for $10 to support SOS efforts. Look for him at Percival Landing in a three-wheel cart with a big blue Enchantress banner.

Mitchell writes:

The Enchantress sits in 7 to 14 feet of water, covered in a crust of barnacles and marine life, home to a family of otters and perch for a pair of nesting bald eagles. (Look closely and you can see them in the photo.)

The state Department of Ecology deems her a hazard to the bay on trumped-up and unsubstantiated charges, while turning a blind eye to more pressing problems.

=> Read more!

Russell Investments didn't "lose" $4 billion in hedge funds, and the company is still doing relatively well despite the troubles in the financial markets.

That's what I was told today by an acquaintance who asked not to be identified but is familiar with the workings of Russell Investments. He took issue with both a Wall Street Journal article the TNT published today and my blog post yesterday based on the same article.

The headline on the blog post was "Russell's $4 billion loss." Russell didn't incur a financial loss of $4 billion, the source said.

True, the two funds Russell is closing down saw their assets go from $6 billion to less than $2 billion. But that total was assets withdrawn from the funds by investors who had lost confidence in them. The investors who withdrew from the funds did not lose their principal.

The hit to Russell, aside from the blow to its reputation, is a drop in management fees as a result of the withdrawals, according to this account.

Lots and lots of salmon in Columbia Basin. Not so much in Willamette Basin.

Translation: Why do those greenies go on about tearing down the Snake River dams?

NOAA Fisheries: Columbia River salmon numbers continue to grow; sockeye "best in decades"

PORTLAND, Ore. -- Most of the Pacific Northwest's Columbia River Basin continues to see good returns of adult salmon as they head back to their native streams or their hatcheries to spawn. This week brings news that total 2008 chinook returns counted at Bonneville Dam so far stand at over 265,000, surpassing for the first time this year the 10-year average.

=> Read more!

1. Today’s list of Washington schools failing to meet federal guidelines for adequate yearly progress is disturbingly long. Some of the blame can be pinned on a rigid federal law that unfairly stigmatizes certain schools, but as the state’s WASL results showed earlier this week, this state still has far to go to improve classroom instruction.

2. Whatever he says in his acceptance speech tonight, Barack Obama has already secured his place in history as America’s first black major party presidential nominee. And Hillary Clinton came close to being the first woman.

About our editorials:
If you have comments or questions about these topics, please email them to patrick.ocallahan@thenewstribune.com. Editorials represent the consensus view of The News Tribune's editorial board.
Want to sit in on a daily ed board meeting? Email cheryl.tucker@thenewstribune.com to make an appointment.

Whenever I hear of a truly awful crime, something so depraved the news will reach the dark side of the moon, I cringe and hope that no Tacoma connection will surface. Sadly, a string of past atrocities have conditioned me to fear otherwise.

Joseph Edward Duncan (left), the torture-children-to-death murderer who just got the federal death penalty is from Tacoma.

David Brame, who may be the only big-city police chief ever to kill his wife and himself in this country, was – naturally – Tacoma's police chief.

John Allen Muhammed, AKA the Beltway Sniper, practiced his marksmanship in his house in you-know-where.

Earl Kenneth Shriner, the deviant whose mutilation of a 7-year-old boy in 1989 led to national community notification laws, committed the act in ... yes, Tacoma.

Serial killer Robert Lee Yates Jr.: Trolled for victims in Tacoma. (That connection's pretty tenuous, thank heaven. He also got his death penalty in Tacoma.)

Ted Bundy (right). Need I say more?

Other cities undoubtedly produce or harbor more monsters per capita than Tacoma. It's just that Tacoma's breed of monsters seem to have such bizarre MOs, such a flair for depravity, that they get the kind of notoriety money can't buy.

I'm a Tacoman. I hate this. I just wish the city's fabulous neighborhoods and culture could be marketed as successfully as the serial killers who've crossed its path.

Readers of our print edition could hardly miss that the lead editorial cartoon was repeated on the op-ed page, where it ran with the Leonard Pitts Jr. column.

The cartoon above is the one that should have appeared with the column. We'll run it in the lead position Friday on B6; it will work well to illustrate the editorial on Barack Obama's acceptance speech.

So how did the mistake happen? As the page designer, I plead guilty. Due to the intricacies of how we "name" items that we place on pages, both cartoons inadvertently got the same name – so the same cartoon showed up twice. Although we saw two different cartoons on the computer screen and on page proofs, the computer system goes by the items' names.

Remember the devastation caused at Mount Rainier National Park by the storms of 2006? The entire park was closed for weeks due to road damage, and the park's trail system has yet to fully recover.

Was this just a hint of things to come as the effects of climate change take hold?

That's a serious question for those of us who recreate in the Northwest's great national parks It's the subject of a timely public panel discussion set for 6 p.m. Sept. 3 at the University of Washington's Kane Hall. And you can read a Viewpoint on the subject on the op-ed page Thursday by Sean Smith, Northwest regional director of the National Parks Conservation Association.

From the Washington Parks and Forest Coalition:

The Washington Parks and Forest Coalition is hosting this panel discussion on global climate change and how it will affect our national parks, especially Olympic, Mount Rainier and North Cascades national parks . . .

=> Read more!

Would you, like me, rather be waterboarded than fall victim to endless speechifying?

Below is the lineup for today's Democratic National Convention. You'd have to be one yellow-, yellow- yellow-dog Democrat to want to sit through all of this.

3:00 PM - 5:00 PM (LOCAL)
Call to Order
The Honorable Leticia Van de Putte
State Senator from Texas
Co-Chair, Democratic National Convention
Invocation
Archbishop Demetrios
Primate of the Greek Orthodox Church in America
Presentation of Colors
Colorado Chapter of the Veterans of Foreign Wars
Franz Wedeman, Thomas Chesner, David Shuker, John Harrington
Pledge of Allegiance
Paul Bucha
Ridgefield, Connecticut recipient of the Medal of Honor for distinguished
service as a commanding officer in Vietnam
National Anthem
Robert Moore
Distinguished singer from South Dakota and elected council member of the
Rosebud Sioux Tribe
Presidential Nomination Process

=> Read more!

TNT biz columnist Dan Voelpel has previously noted that a huge loss in hedge funds probably cost Russell Investments CEO Craig Ueland his job this summer.

But the Wall Street Journal Monday carried the most complete story I've yet seen on the magnitude of the company's hedge fund fiasco. Russell, known for stability, lost $4 billion when its hedge fund investments blew up.

Russell's parent company, Northwestern Mutual, didn't much like that. Bye-bye, Mr. Ueland.

Find it here on the public part of the Journal's Web site. (Oops. That's a paid site, so you'll only get the first three paragraphs of the WSJ story. Check out tomorrow's business page for the whole story.)

Here's part:

Russell traditionally has stuck to more prosaic areas such as running mutual funds or advising pensions and endowments on where to place investments. The firm's woes point to the perils of expanding beyond a core business into the more-lucrative but treacherous field of alternative investments, such as hedge funds.

The funds Russell is closing, which focused on institutional investors, are gradually returning principal to clients, although when all the money will be reimbursed is unclear. The funds of funds' assets shrank to less than $2 billion from $6 billion since last year.

The company is gradually reimbursing clients, mostly institutional investors, but when all will be repaid isn't clear.

A Russell employee told me Saturday that top brass is saying a decision on whether and where to relocate Russell's Tacoma headquarters will be made by the end of the year – regardless of whether a permanent new CEO has been named by then.

Before the Tacoma City Council moves ahead toward an $80 million renovation of the Murray Morgan, questions must be answered: Where does the additional money needed come from and what would it otherwise have been used for? Would a renovated bridge really last 75 years? And would any additional costs of maintaining an old bridge divert money from a public works budget that is already grossly inadequate for the city’s street repairs?

The performance of Clover Park School District’s schools is disappointing. What’s not disappointing is the passion of parents demanding change and the interest of the Lakewood City Council.

About our editorials:
If you have comments or questions about these topics, please email them to patrick.ocallahan@thenewstribune.com. Editorials represent the consensus view of The News Tribune's editorial board.
Want to sit in on a daily ed board meeting? Email cheryl.tucker@thenewstribune.com to make an appointment.

Stop to think about the majestic catalpa tree that towers near the legendary Frisko Freeze drive-in on Tacoma's Division Avenue near Wright Park.

Wouldn't there be a hole in the world if it were gone?

That's why I commend Todd Matthews' piece on Exit 133. He reports that local tree lovers are promoting the idea of officially designating particularly notable and significant trees as "heritage trees," subject to public review before they may be cut down.

Check it out.

As November approaches, you can see the gleam in the eyes of the ranked-choice-voting crowd. Pierce County – the largest jurisdiction in the country to adopt this quirky style of election – is about to use it for the first time.

Two RCV ringleaders, Kelly Haughton and Richard Anderson-Connolly, were in today to talk up the system.

Under RCV, voters rank their favorite candidates. A candidate who gets a majority of first-place rankings on the first count wins. If there's no clear majority, the second-place rankings come into play. If that count doesn't produce a winner ... well the thing can keep on going, depending on the number of candidates.

County Auditor Pat McCarthy, who happens to be one of four candidates in the executive race, won't do an initial RCV count in the affected races until the Friday after the election, they said.

In the meantime, though, the auditor's office will release the raw voting data from election day. "You'll have the data for every single vote," Haughton said.

Political junkies will be able to run the numbers through free software they can download from the Internet (there seem to be various versions of this on the Web, so I'm not going to provide a link lest it prove treacherous to your computer.)

Only two county elections are effectively subject to the system this year: The race for executive between Shawn Bunney, Calvin Goings, McCarthy and Mike Lonergan, and the assessor-treasurer race, which has no fewer than six candidates.

Four candidates in one race, six in the other and no top two primary. No any kind of primary. If nothing else, this is going to be one spectacular political science experiment.

1. There are two bottom lines for Tall Ships Tacoma: its $500,000 deficit and the immense value the festival provided the South Sound. The former shouldn’t make us lose sight of the latter.

2. Washington stands to get $200 million from bankrupt Asarco for cleaning up toxic wastes (especially in the Ruston area). That's 200 million dollars better than nothing.

About our editorials:
If you have comments or questions about these topics, please email them to patrick.ocallahan@thenewstribune.com. Editorials represent the consensus view of The News Tribune's editorial board.
Want to sit in on a daily ed board meeting? Email cheryl.tucker@thenewstribune.com to make an appointment.

We're scheduling candidates for endorsement interviews in September and early October – and that includes Gov. Chris Gregoire and challenger Dino Rossi.

Instead of the editorial board asking all the questions, we'd like to ask readers to come up with one for each of the gubernatorial candidates. We'll run the "winning" questions on this blog with the candidates' answers. Keep 'em short. You get style points for originality.

You can either post your question here in the Comments or e-mail me at cheryl.tucker@thenewstribune.com.

Sunday: China has won a stunning string of golds in the Beijing Olympics – for breaking its pledges of openness to the Olympic Committee and for dealing ruthlessly with even the most innocuous would-be protesters. Shame.

Monday: Tacoma Community College has good reason to fear the City of Tacoma’s rezoning plans, which would severely restrict its future development.

About our editorials:
If you have comments or questions about these topics, please email them to patrick.ocallahan@thenewstribune.com. Editorials represent the consensus view of The News Tribune's editorial board.
Want to sit in on a daily ed board meeting? Email cheryl.tucker@thenewstribune.com to make an appointment.

For me, the single most curious result of Tuesday's primary was the elimination of ChangMook Sohn as a candidate for state treasurer.

It wasn't so much the loss, but the magnitude of the loss. He got 15 percent of the vote; his opponents, Allan Martin and Jim McIntire, got 45 and 40 percent respectively.

Martin and McIntire are both good candidates – but hardly three times better than Sohn. He's an exceptionally astute economist; for many years, he's projected trends in state revenue with uncanny accuracy.

I'm forced to the conclusion that most voters just didn't know much about him and shied away from his unusual name.

The Washington Policy Center, a conservative Seattle-based think tank, advocates a reduction in the number of elected state executives.

We do have quite a slew of them in Washington: governor, lieutenant governor, secretary of state, treasurer, state auditor, attorney general, superintendent of public instruction, commissioner of public lands and insurance commissioner.

The WPC's argument: Elections aren't really working for these state offices, because there are too many for the voters keep track of. It proposes to elect the governor and lieutenant governor on a single ticket, and make all the rest appointees except for the attorney general, treasurer and auditor.

Accountability for policy decisions would then be concentrated in the governor's office.

It's worth thinking about. Are voters really paying attention to all nine of these executive races? Sohn's fate on Tuesday is evidence to the contrary.

Events in from Iraq have been trending positive for months now. Finally the news we’ve been waiting for: The Iraqi government and Bush administration are looking at U.S. combat withdrawals in the near future.

If four members of the Puyallup City Council took open government seriously, they wouldn’t delay televising their meetings.

About our editorials:
If you have comments or questions about these topics, please email them to patrick.ocallahan@thenewstribune.com. Editorials represent the consensus view of The News Tribune's editorial board.
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Former ace AP reporter David Ammons, now turned media master for Secretary of State Sam Reed, offers the following observations about Tuesday's top two primary:

• Eight out of 124 legislative races on the ballot will feature a November run-off between two Republicans or two Democrats. In a few cases, that's because no one filed from the other party. For the most part, partisan choice survived the primary.

• Some candidates claiming affiliation with no parties, nonstandard parties or pseudoparties did break through to the general election.

• In the 3rd District state Senate race, Majority Leader Lisa Brown faces a no-party challenger. In the 37th, Democratic Rep. Eric Pettigrew faces a Libertarian.

• In the 38th, Democratic Rep. John McCoy faces a no-party guy. In the 40th, Democratic Speaker Pro Tem Jeff Morris faces a Green. In the 49th, Democratic Rep. Jim Moeller faces an "Independent."

(I'm not sure what the difference is between "independent" and "prefers no party.")

Also:

Most candidates claiming such oddball affiliations as the Salmon Yoga Party, America's Third Party and the Party of the Commons didn't make it the primary. (Don't weep for them.) But the Cut Taxes GOP Party and the Progressive Democratic Party now have candidates in the final.

Those of us who thought the minor parties would be absolutely shut out of the final under top two will have to admit that the world didn't quite come to an end.

Still, the strongest third party out there is the Libertarian, and it looks as if it will have only a single legislative candidate on the November ballot. That grossly underrepresents Libertarian strength in the state.

I was driving up the hill on South 25th Street in Tacoma and spotted three fellows working on an enormous bronze sculpture at Bronze Works, 2506 Fawcett Ave.

I recognized it immediately as the future public art for the Lakewood Sound Transit station. I'd blogged earlier about the controversy over the original sculpture by Seattle artist Mark Calderon and the fact that Lakewood asked him to redo it so it wasn't quite so "provocative."

Click here to see what the sculpture should look like in front of the station. You'll also be able to see what the original sculpture looked like.

One of the fabricators working on the piece noted that it involves 15 separate cast bronze pieces. He said he thinks it's supposed to be installed in November.

Top Two may have been
Tuesday's big winner

The returns left some Democrats hoping for help from on high from Barack Obama.

All the surviving candidates are happy with their percentages. All of them did better than expected, and all of their opponents did worse than expected. All of them have the momentum going into the fall.

Tuesday's primary is being spun every which way by partisans using it to project victories in November and keep the campaign cash rolling in.

The returns may or may not say something about the general election – depending on the offices involved, the candidates on the ballot and other factors. But let's take this primary at its face value: a snapshot of how politically engaged Washingtonians voted a few months before the final event.

Start with the governor's race.

=> Read more!

What lessons to take from the top two election? Rossi and Gregoire will probably be close again, despite all her advantages as incumbent. No great anti-WASL groundswell evident in the SPI race. The primary seems not to have produced an undue number of D vs. D or R vs. R races, but the smaller parties – especially Libertarians – are going to be shut out of the electoral process like never before in this state. But voters seem happier now that they can dance all around the ballot again.

The mug-tossing Peninsula fire commissioner appears to be it again. But instead of bashing opponents with tableware, Allen Yanity is using verbal harassment to intimidate the daughter-in-law of fellow commissioner and nemesis Jim Bosch, according to an independent investigator. This guy needs to be recalled; a harassment victim could sue the district (i.e., the taxpayers) for damages. Without a recall, this could go until 2012.

About our editorials:
If you have comments or questions about these topics, please email them to patrick.ocallahan@thenewstribune.com. Editorials represent the consensus view of The News Tribune's editorial board.
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Good news: We're skinnier than Minnesotans, Great Plainsians and Alaskans. Bad news: The whole country's getting fatter.

But why are folks in that other Washington skinnier than us?

Washington, D.C. August 19, 2008 – Washington was named the 32nd most obese state in America according to the fifth annual F as in Fat: How Obesity Policies Are Failing in America, 2008 report from the Trust for America’s Health (TFAH) and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF). The state’s adult obesity rate is 24.5 percent, an increase for the third year in a row.

Nationally, adult obesity rates rose in 37 states in the past year. Rates rose for a second consecutive year in 24 states and for a third consecutive year in 19 states. No state saw a decrease. Though many promising policies have emerged to promote physical activity and good nutrition in communities, the report concludes that they are not being adopted or implemented at levels needed to turn around this health crisis. ...

=> Read more!

College presidents are fooling themselves if they think lowering the drinking age will end binge drinking on campuses. The big problem with with 18-year-old drinking is the combination of inexperienced drivers and alcohol.

Georgia on our mind: Russia’s pretext for attacking Georgia – including the “destruction” of Ossetia’s capital – looks like the “Polish aggression” Hitler cited as justification for invading Poland. And when is Russia going to actually, as opposed to verbally, withdraw?

About our editorials:
If you have comments or questions about these topics, please email them to patrick.ocallahan@thenewstribune.com. Editorials represent the consensus view of The News Tribune's editorial board.
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Here's an interesting perspective on the Olympics and why so many Chinese fans seem to be rooting for the Americans.

By Francesco Sisci
Special to The Washington Post

BEIJING — The Olympic Games aren’t just a show for me; they’re a family affair, and one that’s turning out quite differently from what I’d expected. I’m Italian, but I’ve lived in China for about 20 years. My wife is Chinese — and very patriotic — and my two daughters grew up here. When they were small they knew that they were half-Italian, but when a Beijing taxi driver recently asked Maria, the younger one, “How do you say Italian in Italian?,” she whispered to me in Chinese: “Dad, how do I say it in Italian?”

So you can imagine my state of mind before these games. I thought we all had to be very patriotic — that is, pro-China.

But when my mother announced before the games that she hoped that China would win the most medals, my wife, Luoyan, looked at me as if my mother had said something inappropriate. “Well,” she replied, “I hope that China comes in second and America will be first.”

She’s not alone. There’s a sizable undercurrent of hope here that the United States will top the medal rankings.

=> Read more!

Is a 14-year-old too young to hunt without adult supervision? The kid in Skagit County who shot a woman instead of a bear two weeks ago clearly was. I imagine I was, too. I gave up my own hunting career when I was 9.

When I was a kid, I spent my summers with my grandparents and great-aunts on their isolated former farm in rural Wisconsin. They were all devoted gardeners, and my grandmother had developed a grudge against the small tribe of local chipmunks that devoured the blossoms of her beloved begonias. She offered me a 50-cent bounty – real money in those days – for each ground squirrel I killed with my grandfather's .22.

I took her up on it. Before long, I was getting up at 5 a.m. to send lead projectiles ripping through the bodies of small, furry, baby-cheeked animals.

Sounds cold. But here's something people who've never hunted don't know about hunting.

=> Read more!

As the Pacific Ocean never stops reminding us – with gales and near-hurricanes – there's a lot of wind blowing out there on the deep blue sea. The Pacific Northwest looks like an ideal spot for offshore wind-farming, should it prove feasible.

Thank goodness for the phenomenon that is Michael Phelps. His haul of eight gold medals is all that is saving the United States’ performance at the Beijing Olympics from being completely lackluster.

About our editorials:
If you have comments or questions about these topics, please email them to patrick.ocallahan@thenewstribune.com. Editorials represent the consensus view of The News Tribune's editorial board.
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This Kathleen Parker column moved too late Friday to get into the weekend opinion pages. And I think it will seem dated if it runs next week. But it's a good read, so I'm posting it for our online readers.

By KATHLEEN PARKER

Even as China’s opening ceremonies for the Olympics inspired awe, there was something repellent in the exactitude of such mass perfection.

The military precision of 2,008 drummers moving in perfect synchronicity (pictured), pounding out the sound of a billion hearts beating, was both mesmerizing and slightly creepy. If they can do that ... What else can this giant power do with a limitless supply of human resources and dedicated discipline?

=> Read more!

The state's new "top two" primary will dominate the news in the coming week, but here in Pierce County, the hottest races are still ahead.

The advent of instant runoff voting has pushed most county contests to the general election. Top of the ballot is the race for Pierce County executive. I asked one of the candidates, Calvin Goings, for a list of public forums and below is what his campaign provided.

There really is no substitute for sizing up the candidates in person, but check before you show up. Some of these events require advance reservations.

(If anyone knows of other forums, send them my way.)

Sept. 3rd, City Club, UPS Rotunda, 6-8 PM

Sept. 8th, Parkland Community Association, Central Pierce Fire & Rescue Station 6-1, 100 - 114th St S, 7-9 PM

Sept. 10th, Affordable Housing Consortium, Korean Womens Association, 123 E. 96th St, 4-6 PM

Oct. 1, Tacoma Pierce County Chamber of Commerce, Hotel Murano Ballroom or Pavillion, 5 or 5:30 PM - 6 or 6:30 PM (details still to be determined by the Chamber)

Oct. 14th, Asian Forum, Korean Womens Association, 123 E. 96th St, 7-8 PM

Voters are in for a wild ride this year, especially here in Pierce County where we have to not only navigate a new primary but also figure out instant runoff voting. The first run of the state’s top two primary Tuesday should be illustrative; voters will find out if this is indeed what they signed up for, and the parties will be on watch for signs of voter confusion that could help lead to the top two’s undoing.

As the 81st Brigade Combat Team prepares to ship out this week, we acknowledge the sacrifice that these citizen-soldiers and families are making for their second deployment.

About our editorials:
If you have comments or questions about these topics, please email them to kim.bradford@thenewstribune.com. Editorials represent the consensus view of The News Tribune's editorial board.
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Dave's latest dispatch:

Yep, still biking in the Sierras. Beautiful, but man, it's hot! Got my news fix in a small-town cafe in Walker, Calif., in the Antelope Valley near the Nevada line.

Noticed story in Reno paper reporting that gaming revenues (that's what they call casino gambling in Nevada) in Washoe County on the California border fell 19 percent in June, compared to the same month last year. Biggest monthly drop in 10 years, and the 12th consecutive month of falling "gaming" revenue.

Much moaning and groaning about what this will mean for Nevada economy and state budget. Officials don't think it's the limping economy; they blame the spectacular growth in Indian casinos operating in California. Californians who might have gone to Vegas or Reno are losing their money at Indian casinos closer to home.

We like the idea behind the Washington Committee for Ethical Judicial Campaigns, but are troubled by the way it’s handled complaints in the Court of Appeals race between Judge Robin Hunt and open government ombudsman Tim Ford. Specifically, the committee says a campaign fund-raising letter does not fall under its purview while campaign mailers do. It’s a distinction without a difference.

The Bush administration, under the guise of clarifying federal policy on climate change, is proposing to rewrite the Endangered Species Act to release federal agencies from having to consult with wildlife scientists. Worse yet, it wants to accomplish the rewrite by rule, a clear end-run around Congress.

About our editorials:
If you have comments or questions about these topics, please email them to kim.bradford@thenewstribune.com. Editorials represent the consensus view of The News Tribune's editorial board.
Want to sit in on a daily ed board meeting? Email cheryl.tucker@thenewstribune.com to make an appointment.

Lakewood officials should fight fair against the anti-casino initiative. The explanatory statement that accompanies a ballot measure is supposed to an impartial description, not campaign propaganda.

The pending settlement that would finally put thousands of Western Washington residents on the fast track to citizenship is a win – not just for the political interests that want to pack the polls come November, but also for anyone concerned about enforcement of immigration laws.

About our editorials:
If you have comments or questions about these topics, please email them to kim.bradford@thenewstribune.com. Editorials represent the consensus view of The News Tribune's editorial board.
Want to sit in on a daily ed board meeting? Email cheryl.tucker@thenewstribune.com to make an appointment.

Here's a headline you don't see every day: "Giant inflatable turd wreaks havoc at Swiss art show"

Here's the story, according to the RIA Novosti news service. The first link leads to a page with a photo of the "artwork" in question.

GENEVA — A giant inflatable dog turd created by an American artist blew away from an exhibition in the garden of a Swiss museum, wreaking havoc on nearby streets, local media reported on Tuesday.

The sculpture by U.S. artist Paul McCarthy, part of an exhibition called “East of Eden: A Garden Show,” was caught in a strong gust of wind and broke away from its moorings. Before landing, it brought down a power line and broke a window of a nearby children’s home, said Juri Steiner, director of the Paul Klee centre in Berne.
The director said that the incident occurred on the night of July 31.

The museum has not yet contacted McCarthy over the incident, and it remains uncertain whether the sculpture will remain on display, Steiner said.

I'm tempted to think that if this happened in Tacoma, someone would get a ticket for not scooping.

1. Terry Bergeson says a labor union is making illegal campaign donations on behalf of her rival Randy Dorn. Dorn’s campaign says the allegations are bogus. Meanwhile, the Public Disclosure Commission tells voters to check back after the election. There ought to be some way to fast-track such charges.

2. An editorial from the Kansas City Star: The foreign policy of the new Russia looks a lot like the old Russia: expansionist and aggressive.

About our editorials:
If you have comments or questions about these topics, please email them to kim.bradford@thenewstribune.com. Editorials represent the consensus view of The News Tribune's editorial board.
Want to sit in on a daily ed board meeting? Email cheryl.tucker@thenewstribune.com to make an appointment.

Adam Wilson of our sister paper, The Olympian, spotted something in figures on registered voters distributed yesterday by the Secretary of State's office.

Specifically, the 29th District that takes in South Tacoma, Parkland and part of Lakewood, has the fewest voters of any legislative district in the state.

Legislative districts are drawn to include approximately the same number of people. But given all the vagaries that drive voter registration, not every district will end up with the same number of voters.

Wilson's theory is that the district, whose lawmakers are given free rides to re-election year after year, suffers neglect from get-out-the-vote drives. Whatever the reason, it's not a distinction the 29th should wear with pride.

A new study by the Bush administration shows that the Housing First strategy works. Tacoma has been working out the kinks in its program, but results like these show it's on the right track.

Melanie Roach didn't win a medal at the Beijing Olympics Sunday, but her triumph was complete nonetheless.

About our editorials:
If you have comments or questions about these topics, please email them to kim.bradford@thenewstribune.com. Editorials represent the consensus view of The News Tribune's editorial board.
Want to sit in on a daily ed board meeting? Email cheryl.tucker@thenewstribune.com to make an appointment.

From Dave, still biking in California. (I think he misses you all):

The Nina, the replica of Christopher Columbus' favorite ship that starred in Tacoma's Tall Ships festival last month, has had a mutiny of sorts. The vessel lost four of its seven crew members when it docked in Sacramento a couple weeks ago after sailing down the West Coast from Tacoma.

Because the crew members aren't paid, it's not unusual for the volunteers to decide they've had enough, the Sacramento Bee reports. Crewing on the Nina involves working the lines and sails by hand and doing other chores during 10-hour days. Accommodations are spartan bunks. The ship can be at sea for long periods.

The Nina, owned by a foundation, heads for San Raphael, Calif., on Tuesday. If sailing the bounding main the way Columbus did – well, except for the electronic navigation and having a modern galley – appeals to you, apply online at www.thenina.com.

I enjoy the Olympics as much as the next person, but I think I'll be tuning into Comedy Central this week for what promises to be some of the most entertaining reporting out of China.

Rob Riggle, a former U.S. Marine who is now a "correspondent" for "The Daily Show," somehow got a journalist visa to film in China. He and his crew even got permission to film in Tiananmen Square as well as on the Great Wall (AP photo).

According to the Associated Press:

"Riggle and his crew were followed almost everywhere by Chinese police, although only once was a hand placed over a camera lens cap and they were told to go away. It was a moment the comedy writers probably couldn’t have made up: They were filming the outside of a 7-Eleven convenience store."

Here's the entire AP story:

=> Read more!

Now this is interesting... Jason Mercier over at the Washington Policy Center is out with a comparison of state budget increases – or, as he puts it, "the closest thing possible to an apples to apples comparison of each states' total budget growth." (Turns out, comparing the states' budgets isn't an easy feat.)

Mercier found that Washington ranks near the bottom of big-spender states. His figures show that from 2003 to 2007 total primary government expenses in this state rose 13 percent from $30.9 billion to $34.9 billion. That puts it 39th among states in budget growth.

The Washington Policy Center in general and Mercier in particular haven't been shy about criticizing the Democrats in charge in Olympia for spending too much. But this comparison makes them seem like the penny-pinchers among their statehouse colleagues.

Much ado about (possibly) nothing. That was the message from Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt on Thursday about a growing furor over draft federal rules that appear to make dispensing birth control tantamount to abortion.

"An early draft of the regulation found its way into public circulation before it had reached my review. It contained words that lead some to conclude my intent is to deal with the subject of contraceptives, somehow defining them as abortion. Not true."

The draft regulations purport to underscore federal law that prohibits employment discrimination against individuals who refuse to perform or provide referrals for abortions. But the way the proposal defines abortion – as the performance of any procedure or the dispensing of any drug that "results in the termination of the life of a human being in utero between conception and natural birth, whether before or after implantation" – would undeniably be an escalation in the war on abortion.

The medically accepted definition of abortion is the termination of a pregnancy that begins with uterine implantation of a fertilized egg. But under the proposed rule, contraceptives such as birth-control pills and IUDs that work by interfering with implantation would have been on par with terminating a pregnancy.

=> Read more!

For Sunday: Fewer addicts are cooking their own meth, which is good news for the children, families and property owners who became unwitting victims of the drug’s toxic and explosive alchemy. But the shift to more potent, Mexican-made meth brings its own challenges.

For Monday: Following the accidental shooting of a hiker earlier this month, the state Department of Fish and Wildlife is taking a welcome look at state laws with an eye to preventing a similar tragedy from happening again. One suggestion: Set a minimum age for unsupervised hunting. The hunter who shot the hiker was 14 and unaccompanied by an adult.

About our editorials:
If you have comments or questions about these topics, please email them to kim.bradford@thenewstribune.com. Editorials represent the consensus view of The News Tribune's editorial board.
Want to sit in on a daily ed board meeting? Email cheryl.tucker@thenewstribune.com to make an appointment.

Here's what we're planning for tomorrow:

Ruston is a town in need of professional help. A proposed change of government on the August ballot looks like a promising answer. We have criticized the divisions in Ruston that gave birth to ballot measure, but we’re not blind to the benefits it could bestow.

Graham Fire and Rescue’s $12 million bond measure is a bargain. It would build three new stations and retire the debt on the new fire district headquarters, freeing up $300,000 to hire more firefighters and EMTs.

About our editorials:
If you have comments or questions about these topics, please email them to kim.bradford@thenewstribune.com. Editorials represent the consensus view of The News Tribune's editorial board.
Want to sit in on a daily ed board meeting? Email cheryl.tucker@thenewstribune.com to make an appointment.

A note from Dave who is biking in the Sierras. As someone remarked to me yesterday, isn't retirement supposed to be for taking it easy?

I promise not to subject our readers to post-retirement travel stories here in the blog, but today I came across a Northern California environmental dispute unlike anything we've seen in Washington.

Ever heard of thermal curtains?

Our cycling tour took us past Lake Almanor, a popular boating and fishing spot in the high and dry eastern Sierras northeast of Lake Tahoe. We spotted several banners reading, "Save Lake Almanor. Stop the Thermal Curtains."

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If you haven't seen it, check out Paris Hilton's rebuttal to John McCain's ad equating Barack Obama's celebrity to hers. Click here to view it.

In her new video for Will Ferrell's Funny or Die Web site, she outlines her own energy policy, which she describes as a "hybrid" of McCain's and Obama's. But will it work? Check this article in the Christian Science Monitor.

According to the Web site's content director, Hilton didn't even need cue cards because she memorized the entire monologue.

UPDATE: Here's columnist Kathleen Parker's take on Hilton's video. The column is titled, "Who let the kitten in?"

WASHINGTON — A year ago, it was impossible to get through a day without some mention of Paris Hilton — the ingenue famous mostly for being famous.

Oh, how we complained. Can’t we please have just one day when we don’t talk about Paris?! And then one day, America’s prayers were answered. Not only did Hilton disappear, she vanished into a jail cell where she spent 22 days for violating parole.

When finally she did emerge, a repentant and humble Hilton claimed she had found God. “I’m not the same person I was,” she averred. “God has given me this new chance.”

Who knew God’s messenger would be John McCain.

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There is no way to put a good spin on the Weyerhaeuser company’s 40 percent downsizing at its Federal Way headquarters. UPDATE: Here's our finished editorial.

Voters in Pierce County Fire District 15 near Eatonville should vote to make permanent the merger with the neighboring fire district in Roy.

About our editorials:
If you have comments or questions about these topics, please email them to kim.bradford@thenewstribune.com. Editorials represent the consensus view of The News Tribune's editorial board.
Want to sit in on a daily ed board meeting? Email cheryl.tucker@thenewstribune.com to make an appointment.

Remember the hullabaloo when former Attorney General John Ashcroft's underlings covered the Spirit of Justice's bare breast with drapes? Americans cringed, Europeans laughed and Cher went on a tear.

Let me now direct your attention to Italy, birthplace of The Renaissance in all its naked glory. A few years back, Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi spotted a painting, The Truth Unveiled by Time, and ordered a digital copy blown up for his official residence.

But Berlusconi apparently has decided that Time is a bit too revealing and Truth too exposed. The painting was retouched recently to cover a bare breast.

Just goes to show you that that it doesn't take a prude to censor art, only a politician bent on keeping all eyes on him.

Seago made mention last week of Tacoma City Councilman Rick Talbert and Pierce County Councilman Shawn Bunney teaming up to lose weight and get fit. Now we hear that Evening Magazine will feature Bunney, also a candidate for Pierce County executive, tonight at 7 p.m. on KING.

Bunney participated in a MultiCare program that encourages Pierce County residents to lose a combined 1 million pounds through exercise and good nutrition. Evening Magazine will also profile other program participants Dawn Bohl, Danyiel Garcia and Lindsay White.

Gov. Chris Gregoire’s call to freeze hiring and curtail state spending is better late than never. But the state has a lot further to go to cover the $2.7 billion budget shortfall.

We continue our election endorsements and recommendations with a look at several fire district levies and the Edgewood park bond measure.

About our editorials:
If you have comments or questions about these topics, please email them to kim.bradford@thenewstribune.com. Editorials represent the consensus view of The News Tribune's editorial board.
Want to sit in on a daily ed board meeting? Email cheryl.tucker@thenewstribune.com to make an appointment.

These endorsements will appear in Tuesday's News Tribune.

Challengers are giving sitting lawmakers a run in East Pierce County, where an open seat has also attracted a strong field.

One irony of elections is that the prospect of running an uphill campaign against an incumbent lawmaker usually scares away the very candidates who actually might have a shot.

Not so this year in East Pierce County legislative districts, where enough candidates filed to prompt primary runoffs for nearly every seat.

A couple of open seats didn't hurt matters, but those positions can usually be expected to draw strong interest. It's the entry of several strong challengers that is most heartening.

Below are our endorsements in two east Pierce County districts, the 25th and 31st. (We published our endorsements in the 2nd Legislative District last week; check the Friday paper or our Web site at www.thenewstribune.com/opinion/endorsements.)

Also included in this list is Tacoma's 27th Legislative District, which has just one primary runoff.

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We're wrapping up the rest of the races for state Legislature with endorsements in the 25th, 27th and 31st districts. We'll post this editorial early, so check back later today.

A new study by the Bush administration shows that the Housing First strategy works. Tacoma has been working out the kinks in its program, but results like these show it's on the right track.

UPDATE: Our endorsements ended up running longer than we expected, so we're subbing a short item about National Night Out. Look for the Housing First editorial later this week.

About our editorials:
If you have comments or questions about these topics, please email them to kim.bradford@thenewstribune.com. Editorials represent the consensus view of The News Tribune's editorial board.
Want to sit in on a daily ed board meeting? Email cheryl.tucker@thenewstribune.com to make an appointment.

Gov. Chris Gregoire found a way earlier this year to save the state's toxic toys law from burying itself under unintended consequences. She must be doubly happy this week that she did.

The passage of federal product-safety legislation now makes Washington look like a leader, rather than a renegade. And it gives the campaigning governor bragging rights anew: "I am glad that our work in Washington state is helping move the country forward," Gregoire said in a statement this week.

But the federal bill, passed Thursday by the Senate and now headed to the White House where President Bush is expected to sign it, raises new questions for Washington state.

State-by-state rules are not the ideal way to regulate consumer products (as we said when we endorsed the state legislation). Washington's toxic toys bill was sold largely on the basis of Congress' inaction. But now that the federal government has acted, does the state really need its own toy safety rules?

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The business magazine Forbes Inc. handed Gov. Chris Gregoire a gift-wrapped campaign coup Thursday when it ranked Washington third in its latest annual ranking of “Best States for Business.”

The gov’s campaign cheekily took advantage by issuing a “correction” apologizing for a TV campaign ad, based on Forbes’ 2007 rankings, that only claims a fifth-best rating for Washington. The TV ad will be amended, her minions assured us.

But some folks always see the glass as half-empty. The free-market Washington Policy Center countered today with a blog post by Carl Gipson trying to take some of the luster off the new Forbes ranking.

“Here we go again,” Gipson complains. He acknowledges that Forbes is “a relatively reliable periodical of everything business and finance.” But, Gipson insists, “There's enough information out there among other reputable sources that should temper the celebratory champagne popping.” He continues:

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