A band of University of California, Irvine, Calif., college journalists look for excitement in Provo in an article in the New University and learn that fun requires understanding the culture around you.If you thought Irvine was boring, try setting foot in Provo. Don’t get [...]
Freshman Congressman Jason Chaffetz takes on President Barack Obama's cap-and-trade pollution-control measure in a Washington Times op-ed. Chaffetz is sponsoring legislation to require utility companies to itemize any cap-and-trade costs passed on to their customers.To counter the administration's attempt to bury this tax increase [...]
Finally, the heavy intellects have arrived to help us sort out our feelings about gay marriage and California's Proposition 8. The latest sage to weigh in is aged actress, model and former Miss Teenage Memphis Cybill Shepherd, who uncovered that the Mormons and Catholics were' [...]
We've already heard about the problems the news media has had in keeping Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman's name straight.
Now we hear that some people can't even keep his face straight.
New York Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand saw Huntsman in a hotel lobby and called out' [...]
The drum beat continues for punishment of the Bush Administration legal eagles who made torture acceptable in the Land of the Brave.
Hundreds of off-road vehicle' [...]
The much anticipated Chad Hardy pin-up calendar of Mormon moms is in production for Fall release.
The Plague of Jack Thompson, video-violence crusader, has re-emerged in Louisiana, where the Legislature will take up his video game bill that was dropped kicked by Utah's governor. The disbarred Florida lawyer wrote a video-game bill that was overwhelmingly approved by Utah's Legislature, but [...]
A highly anticipated U.S. Justice Department investigative report is expected to turn over the authors of the infamous "torture memos," including BYU grad Jay Bybee (now a federal judge), to their state bar associations for possible disciplinary action this summer.The many citizens who would like to [...]
Huntsman gets national love.
Gossip monger Perez Hilton gives Marie major props.
Washington Post political blogger Chris Cillizza, finds great significance in Gov. Jon Huntsman's huddle this week with John Weaver, "long known as the political consigliere to Sen.John McCain." Huntsman is the one to watch. Earlier David Plouffe, Obama's campaign manager, said that of all the [...] 
It's one thing going door to door to proselytize the living, but leave defenseless dead people alone. Reportedly, the LDS Church has baptized President Barack Obama's late mother into the Mormon faith. Genealogical researcher Helen Radkey discovered records indicating that during the presidential campaign Obama's' [...]
The Trib's Kurt Kragthorpe laments that retiring Utah Jazz announcer Hot Rod Hundley got a classier send-off from the Lakers than he did from the team for whom he broadcast 35 years. Hudley, who played six seasons with Lakers in the olden days, was given a' [...] 
Salt Lake public radio station KCPW has been forced to lay off two employees, including news reporter Faroe Robinson, and cut salaries due to disappointing fund-raising drives.
US News Weekly reports that while former Barack Obama campaign manager David Plouffe fears no Republican candidate, Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman, who has caught flak for openly criticizing GOP leadership and supporting gay civil unions, makes him a "wee bit queasy." I think he's' [...] 
Salt Lake County Councilman Randy Horiuchi has backed off a proposal to give himself and the rest of the council a 130 percent raise — $35,000 to $85,000 — following the howling objections of voters. It makes you wonder how close the "Got Game" Democrat [...] 
Some Utah lawmakers are looking into an end run around federal gun laws pioneered recently by Montana's Legislature. Montana passed a law that would exempt from federal regulations, including registration, background checks and dealer-licensing, any guns:
If you're looking for news on the Utah Democratic Party, be careful typing its URL address. Otherwise, you'll get a rightwingnut peddling a film revealing that the news media were "in the tank" for Obama. [Not much of a shocker as exposés go.]
A few Republican governors are pre-campaigning for their party's president nomination, including Louisiana's Bobby Jindal, Massachusett's former Gov. Mitt Romney and our own Jon Huntsman.
As Congressman Jason Chaffetz prepares his first legislative proposal for release next week that would shield air travelers from the Transportation Security Administration's leering electronic eyes, the people he would protect are not impressed.Chaffetz wants to restrict airport full-body scans that see through [...]
Elizabeth Smart told a conference of 200 crime victims that when religious fanatic Brian David Mitchell kidnapped her to be his plural wife in 2002, she tried to reason with him. She told him that if he released her, she would speak on his behalf. Smart [...] 
Utah wildlife officials have discovered a tiny population of endangered trout that could be the mascot for the endangered housing industry – the greenback cuttthroat. The DWR immediately designated Beaver Creek in the LaSal mountains east of Moab fly-only fishing, with the requirement that cutthroats [...]
Got a bone to pick with Tom Hanks over Big Love? Want to audition as polygamist for Katherine Heigl's vanity project on the life of FLDS polygamy refuge Carolyn Jessop?
Utah Sen. Orrin Hatch says Sen. Arlen Specter is always have his hand in friendship, but the defector to the Democrats has got to give back Hatch's $10,000 donation.I know it has been a torturous decision for him, but he is going to have [...] 
Salt Lake attorney and retired brigadier general David Irvine, a former Utah legislator who served in the Army Reserve as a intelligence officer, has an op-ed article in The Salt Lake Tribune that should set off soul searching among the LDS faithful. Irvine frankly denounces [...] 
Utah's state welfare program for the housing industry is going gangbusters with $3.2 million in $6,000 grants toward buying a new house having been doled out.
You knew it wouldn't take long.
Excommunicated calendar publisher Chad Hardy is the subject of a lengthy Los Angeles Times profile. Hardy earned the wrath of LDS authorities with a beefcake calendar featuring returned missionaries. The latest edition will go to market this month along with a pinup calendar of sexy [...] 
The Tribune's Sheena McFarland offers a rare glimpse into the problems faced by a worldwide church that apparently sends undocumented immigrants on missions. Last week, an LDS missionary was stopped at the Cincinnati airport for "lacking necessary documentation to board his flight home." An unnamed [...] 
This could become Satan's playground.
The SLTribune's Patty Henetz points out that celebrated/hated monkey wrencher Tim DeChristopher is not the first Utahn to be civilly disobedient on the environment. But he may be the first to suffer the consequences.
In his weekly column in the Deseret News/Mormon Times, Mormon Media Observer Joel Campbell lists the many heartwarming stories about LDS members in recent news worldwide.Whether it be champion snowboarder Torah Bright, a master circus man, a Canadian politician, a standout high school senior, LDS [...] Schanze has been prosecuted in the past for gun-brandishing and flying his ultra-light aircraft too close to an interstate highway (separate incidnets). The [...]
The list of torture links to Utah or LDS people keeps growing:
Wall Street Journal columnist Kimberley Strassel muses that Utah Democratic Congressman Jim Matheson could be the man who kills Barack Obama's global warming legislation.
Mitt Romney was once again asked The Question: Will you run for president in 2012?
One of the great mysteries of the southwest is the disappearance of Everett Ruess, a poetic wanderer who vanished near Escalante in 1934. An article in National Geographic's Adventure magazine claims, 75 years later, to have solved the mystery that involves Utes, Navajos, high-tech [...] 
The editorial board at the Ogden Standard-Examiner says Utahns should chill out and stop buying ridiculous amounts of guns and ammo just because Democrats are in power.
Why does life insist on imitating the Simpsons?A radioactive waste tanker repaired with duct-tape dribbled an unspeakable ooze cocktail (benzene, thorium, tritium, technetium and uranium isotopes) on Utah highways from Tooele County to Carbon County where the leak was discovered near Price. The truck [...]
Gov. Jon Huntsman, who has won approval nationwide for supporting civil unions for same sex couples, explained to reporters today that it is unclear whether Utah's constitutional ban on gay marriage also bans civil unions between gay couples.Gov. Jon Huntsman explained to reporters the political realities behind his decision to halt a citizen's commission's study of legislative ethics and redistricting reform. You've got to involve the Legislature. They've got to be invested in the process as well. I think we have to [...] 
Many people are aware of the role of former Justice Department Legal Counsel Jay Bybee in writing the infamous torture memos that opened the door to the horrors of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay prisons. Groups are pushing for the impeachment of Bybee who is [...] 
The Jazz will return to Utah Thursday for Game 3, when they will, of course, turn it around.
Despite his best damage-control efforts, Mitt Romney has been dragged into messy wrongful-firing trial back in Massachusetts. Former civil service commissioner William Monahan has sued Romney for forcing him out of his job when Romney was governor.
A comprehensive report in The Salt Lake Tribune predicts that local communities will blow off the Legislature's latest immigration enforcement measure. It seems cops aren't excited about being cross-deputized as federal Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) agents. Most, like Draper Police Chief Mac Connole, argue' [...] 
UPDATE . . . (How could it be over?)
Gay-rights bloggers around the nation are trying to trace the connection between the Mormon church and the National Organization for Marriage, producer of the much-mocked "Gathering Storm" anti-gay marriage video. Some groups, such as Californians Against Hate, believe NOM—which circulated an online petition thanking the [...] 
In the race of daily newspapers to the intellectual bottom in a misguided attempt to save themselves from extinction, the Deseret News plunges so low Editor Joe Cannon will get the bends if it ever comes up again.
New York's Tribeca Film Festival that opens Wednesday is increasingly getting buzz that it may soon displace Utah's Sundance Film Festival as the world's top showcase for independent films. Director Ian Olds, who has a documentary at Tribeca, says:More and more, it has this [...] 
Utah political activist Janalee Tobias, founder of Women Against Gun Control, has an opinion column in U.S. News and World Report pondering the legacy of the Columbine High School shootings a decade ago.
Remember how the Legislature was going to pass ethics reforms after they got that big scare in the last election for their chronic slimy behavior?
Finally, non-pornography videos worth risking a computer crash to watch. OK, Lock and Load Show is pornography — but it's perfectly legal gun porno.
Speaking to St. George TV station KCSG, Sen. Orrin Hatch praised Utah teabaggers for their recent noisy protest of the Obama administration's stimulus plan. I just though it was great to have those tea parties and have the American people excited about something and saying, [...] 
Utah Gov. Jon Huntsman is an inspiration to those who want to the GOP to be a bigger-tent party. National Log Cabin Republican spokesman Charles Moran says the gay branch of the Republican Party appreciates Huntsman's open support of civil unions: These are the types [...] 
Volunteers have tracked down a Neo, a Siberian husky, that was missing for two weeks after a rollover on I-84 killed his owner Joyce Moore of eastern Washington state. A rancher found the dog in a shed near Snowville, Utah.Lt. Lee Perry of [...]
Democratic activist and blogger Jeff Bell wants to unseat his party's leaders at its June convention, saying the Democrats' on-going philosophy of trying to get along with the state's GOP overwhelming majority is defeatist:The constant call of “Democrats don’t win in Utah,” has been transformed' [...] 
Julia Duin, religion writer for the The Washington Times, tells the broader world about Sunstone magazine, "bad boy of the Mormon world."
Charlie Weis is counting heavily on Notre Dame's first Mormon player to save his job. CBS Sports Dennis Dodd says ND's coach was near being fired last season and has to achieve a major turnaround to survive the 2009.
Mormon Tabernacle Choir's new CD, Come, Thou Fount of Every Blessing: American Folk Hymns and Spirituals, has hit No. 1 on Billboard's classic overall music chart.Thou Fount also earned the No. 1 [...]
An in-depth story in The New York Observer chronicles the strange adventures of Salt Lake-native Kari Ferrell who left a cross-country trail of lies, scams and sexual intrigue.On Friday Sen. A.G. Crowe will introduce [...]
The Best Friends Animal Society in Kanab has proven the power of love — or at least behavior modification. Last year, 20 of former NFL quarterback/dog-fighting promoter Michael Vick's abused pit bulls began a new life in Kanab — many of their kennel mates had been [...] 
