The Small Business and Entrepreneurship Council released its ranking of states' business tax systems today.

Good news: Washington is the fourth best in their eyes. See for yourself here.

I bet this fact will work its way into Gov. Chris Gregoire's speeches, somewhere between "Forbes and Fortune ranked Washington the fifth best state to do business" and "The Pew Center recently ranked the great state of Washington the third best-managed state in the country."

Your move, Rossi.

You might have heard a rumor that the Freedom Bridge -- the bridge over I-5 south of Tacoma festooned with yellow ribbons -- is going to lose a bit of flair. Specifically, that the Washington State Patrol plans on taking the ribbons down.

True? Not exactly.

The rumor started a few weeks ago. The state patrol, in preparation for the anti-war protests, wondered: What do we do if anti-war protesters want to festoon the bridge with their own ribbons?

"It was a fleeting discussion: For the sake of consistency, do we need to take the yellow ribbons down? The answer was very quickly no," said Bob Calkins, a spokesman for WSP. "We take no position. What we are interested in is consistency."

From there, word got out about the meeting. As often happens, the whole story didn't make the rounds in tact, Calkins said.

"There are no plans ot take the ribbons down. There never really were," he said.

Then ... why is there a public meeting about it tomorrow morning?

=> Read more!

On Saturday, Pierce County Republicans and Democrats will meet (separately, of course) for county conventions.

Delegates and alternate delegates chosen during the Feb. 9 caucuses are invited to show up, discuss candidates and platform issues, and vote. The events are open to the public (but non-delegates can't vote).

The Democrats have a PDF of the various resolutions they'll discuss and vote on. I've asked for the same from Republicans, so look for that soon. (Right, Deryl?)

I'm not making fun of the list of resolutions, because I would never joke about the serious business of democracy. But it is kinda fun to read. My favorite part of the list of resolutions is here:

Urge Candidates Seeking Democratic Endorsement to Know and Support Platform
Create Apollo-Style Program to Confront Global Warming Oil Dependency and Energy Crises

That's what Tacoma City Councilwoman Julie Anderson told the City Council during Tuesday's study session.

Anderson, a Sound Transit board member, said the transit agency still is working on an initial plan for what a new regional transportation system might look like. It had hoped to finish by this week, but has postponed its target date from Thursday to April 24.

No decision has been made whether to put something to voters this year, in 2010 or later, Anderson added.

Anderson also referenced a "tug-of-war" between proponents of a north-south rail connector and local streetcar backers. She said it doesn't need to be an either-or proposition.

Sound Transit may be able to buy right-of-way and begin preliminary engineering work for a light rail connection between Sea-Tac and Tacoma, and also extend the Tacoma Link light rail, she said.

Anderson said it's not Sound Transit's job to build local streetcar systems. But it could create a springboard for the City of Tacoma and Pierce Transit.

One thing officials learned from exit polls is that voters said the roads and transit package was too big and would have taken too long to deliver service, Anderson said.

As a result, Sound Transit officials now are looking at what could be done in 12 years instead of 20, and for a 0.4 cent sales tax increase versus a 0.5 cent increase.

No matter what Sound Transit settles on as its new plan, it won't include a central Link to Sea Tac. The cost has gone up too much since the failure of last fall's roads and transit proposition. "It's going to be a while until people see cranes in the air," Anderson said.

So, are these encouraging words to the folks at Tacoma Streetcar? Or is it disheartening?

Yesterday I posted about Gov. Chris Gregoire and challenger Dino Rossi's differing version of how the last 3 1/2 years have played out. Today, I'm moving on to greener pastures: Jokes. If you've listened to any candidate give a speech more than once, you will hear the same jokes. Over. And over.

So... here are some jokes and anecdotes you'll hear 200 more times over the next seven months. Don't say I never did anything for you.

Think about these and tell me what I, Regular Josephine Voter, am supposed to take from them.

Gregoire: Some men prefer "first gentlemen," but not Mike. He likes to be called "First Mike."
Gregoire's daughters are not (here, wherever here is) today because they're living up to every parent's wildest dream: They're employed, at work.
Her older daughter is getting married. There are variations of this one, but it usually starts out a little something like, "You know, I've been to so many bridal shows and shops, and I've gotta tell you... " and then she says 1) she's come to believe the idea of eloping came from parents (Auburn) or 2) she's offered her daughter money to elope but it didn't work (Tacoma). It should be noted that I've never actually heard her say elope.

Rossi: He asked his family at dinner one night if Daddy should run for governor again. Everyone said yes ... except his youngest daughter. She said she heard the governor's mansion was haunted, so she didn't want to live there.
Last time around, people thought he was some kind of wine... And "probably something with a screw top."
Gov. Gregoire's been in office 3 1/2 years and what do we get: Our roads float and our ferries sink. (Two notes: This joke originated with Cheryl Pflug. And I caution you against thinking too hard about this joke.)

Know any more? Post here. We'll call it JokeWatch08.

If you picked up today's paper, you might have been a bit confused.

"My, Adam Smith looks ... different."

That's because the mug shot on the front page isn't our U.S. Rep. It's Randy Tate, who ran against Adam Smith like 12 years ago.

People make mistakes.

But, just for fun, I've created a lineup. See if you can pick Smith out of the crowd. If you guess correctly, you get to keep your voter registration.

Update: I've added another photo. And downsized my Morrison photo, for all of you who don't have 10 minutes for a 4 mb mug shot to load. :)