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The effort to breach the Snake River dams is once again gaining momentum. This issue, although a very serious one, is like a whack-a-mole game. Hit one and another pops up elsewhere. The idea apparently has a life of its own. The revival of the idea cannot be because of the fish runs. The fish runs are healthier than they have been in years. Millions of dollars have been spent on protecting the fish, and the effort is working. It cannot be because all the wind farms are generating so much electricity. The power from these does not compare with...
Editor’s Note: The following column was originally published in 2010. My neighbor Tom is going on the “caveman diet,” which he believes will improve his athletic performance if he ever does anything athletic. “See, we’re surrounded by all these chemicals and processed foods,” Tom told me, so excited he momentarily stopped coating his hotdog with aerosol cheese. “But on the caveman diet, you go back to eating the way we did when there were dinosaurs roaming the land.” “I think if we had been around when dinosaurs roamed the land, they would...
Ever since the $15 wage proposal was narrowly approved by City of SeaTac voters, municipal leaders in neighboring Seattle have pushed to impose the same edict. Washington already has the nation’s highest starting wage of $9.47 an hour and the state legislature is considering hiking it to $12, but Seattle Mayor Ed Murray and some city leaders want to peg it at $15. Starting April 1, large businesses in Seattle — defined as those with more than 500 employees — will be required to raise the minimum wage they pay their employees to $15 an hour...
Trail potential Last week Publisher Gordon Forgey wrote an editorial cheering on the small towns of Palouse and LaCrosse to aspire to stem the tide of shrinking commercial activity and renew their communities. Grow on an existing base, establish a common commitment and belief in what is possible, support what the community already has to grow new ventures and projects. All good advice. I would add, if the shoe fits, wear it. Colfax should consider trying this advice on for size. The rail line between Colfax and Pullman offers a unique asset to...
The socialist government in France usually doesn’t have much in common with congressional Republicans, for whom both France and socialism tend to be anathema. But the French, according to a Wall Street Journal report, are taking the toughest line among the powers negotiating with Iran over its nuclear program and are alarmed by the Obama administration’s accommodating approach. “Some U.S. officials,” the Journal writes, “privately believe France is seeking in part to maintain strong ties to Israel and to Arab countries deeply skeptical...
Now that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has raised his thumbs up — which also is an elevated other finger to U.S. President Barack Obama — by coming out ahead in Israel’s Byzantine election, the obvious question is what does it mean for Mideast peace? That’s an easy one: It’s not going to happen, certainly not now. Perhaps it’s more appropriate to ask what it means for Mideast war. And that one is a lot dicier. Bibi’s explicit declaration that there will not be a Palestinian state on his watch definitely knocks the legs out from...
The Germanwings flight that was intentionally flown into the Alps by its co-pilot adds a new wrinkle to flying. And, it is not a good one. The co-pilot took control of the plane after the pilot left the cockpit. He locked the pilot out and proceeded to dive the plane into the Alps. All 150 people aboard were instantly killed when the plane crashed into a mountainside. This airline co-pilot reportedly had a long history of mental illness. At one point he was reportedly diagnosed as suicidal. He kept his treatment secret from the airline, even th...
Editor’s Note: The following column was originally published in 2010. Most parents of teenage daughters, hearing that Los Angeles parents Laurence and Marianne Sunderland stuck their 16-year-old daughter on a boat to sail around the world on a year-long voyage, thought to themselves: “A whole year without having my teenager screaming at me? Where can I get a boat?!” Typical parents are unable to afford the kind of yacht the Sunderlands used — you can’t just stick your kid on a rowboat and shove her out into the bay, as tempting as it may sound...
Folks in the Pacific Northwest may not like what Matt Ridley has to say, but we should consider his points about energy. Ridley, a British journalist and author of several popular books on science, the environment and the economy, is a businessman and member of the House of Lords. He is often shunned because he owns land where coal is mined. Recently, Ridley wrote in The Wall Street Journal that while oil, gas and coal have problems, their benefits are beyond dispute. He advances three reasons for not giving up on fossil fuels. First,...
Republican Sen. Tom Cotton hasn’t been frog-marched from the Russell Senate Office Building — yet. To believe the Arkansan’s harshest critics, that’s only because felonious traitors don’t get the punishment they deserve. Cotton wrote an open letter to the leaders of Iran pointing out true and obvious things about our constitutional system, and the world came crashing down on his head. Disgracing the Senate, per a hyperventilating Vice President Joe Biden, was the least of his supposed offenses. He was aiding Iranian hard-liners, violating...
Finally, I’ve figured out what “American exceptionalism” is all about. We are exceptionally dysfunctional — at least our federal government is. A recent Gallup Poll revealed that when asked what America’s biggest problem is, the answer was the government. And no wonder. Imagine you’re the leader of a country trying to deal with the United States right now. Any country, like, say Iran, or the Europeans, or Russia, or Israel. Then, right at the most slippery point in negotiations with an elected U.S. president and his secretary of state haggl...
Rural county communites are trying to stem the tide of shrinking populations and shrinking commercial activity. LaCrosse and Palouse are classic examples of successes that can come from a commitment and the desire to save a community. Palouse continues to build on past successes. LaCrosse, too, has had successes. They are more recent and, in some cases, it has been two steps forward and one back, but the commitment remains. Both have accomplished what many thought impossible. In both cases, the communities relied upon private and public...
Colfax See the reasons The City Council meeting on March 16 was very well attended, primarily due to discussion over the city’s plans to sell the Police Department’s Harley-Davidson motorcycle. I would hope that people will continue to come to City Council meetings, to see how such decisions are made, and the reasons council members have for making them. Frank White,...
Editor’s Note: The following column was originally published in 2010. I’ve read that the ancient Chinese art of feng shui can bring a sense of peace, well-being and positive energy to a home — same as beer. Curious, I arranged to have dinner with a feng shui master so I could interview him and write off the meal on my taxes. (He ordered a beer!) A serious, prepared-for-anything journalist, I took careful notes on a dinner napkin with the pen I borrowed from the waitress. Unfortunately, I left the napkin on the table, but I think I remem...
Washington has the nation’s highest minimum wage at $9.47 an hour and now the state legislature wants to hike it to $12. Seattle Mayor Ed Murray (D) wants to boost it to $15 to go in step with the SeaTac initiative, which voters barely approved last year. The state’s minimum wage has been adjusted annually since 2001, based on a Seattle-area cost of living index. From 2008 through 2013, Washington’s minimum wage increased more than 14%. Washington voters thought passing an initiative 14 years ago would make life better for the poor and low i...
Nuclear negotiations Back when some prominent Republicans were reasonable, they endorsed some measures now advocated by the Obama administration. Quickly comes to mind ObamaCare which essentially copied Massachusetts’ 2006 health care reform under then-Republican Governor Mitt Romney, who now effectively opposes his own plan. This Massachusetts reform included the individual mandate of ObamaCare, now opposed by Republicans, but also included in the Republican response to the Clinton administration’s unsuccessful 1993 health care reform pro...
The grim forced march to a Hillary Clinton coronation just got a little grimmer. The Hillary email scandal — on top of the revelation of continuing foreign donations to the Clinton Foundation while she was secretary of state — is a nice reminder for Democrats about what they are signing up for. The Clinton Restoration will require routinely defending the indefensible. It will require recalibrating all legal and ethical standards to suit the personal and financial interests of the Clintons. It will require a willingness to use these phrases with...
“The cover-up often is worse than the crime.” How many times have we heard variations of that quote? Usually, it’s trotted out in the context of a political scandal, one that wouldn’t really be a scandal if the principal had just gotten past an obsession with secrecy so severe that he or she acted suspiciously. In this case, it’s a “she” we’re talking about, Hillary Clinton, who repeatedly gets entangled in her fetish for privacy. It’s impossible when living such a high-profile life, with all the attendant perks, financed by the taxpayers. Sh...
The famously inactive Congress has decided to get things moving. Instead of trying to solve the immigration debate, the budget, growing racial tensions, our deteriorating infrastructure, our own national security and the many long-term problems facing the nation, it has decided to muck around independently in international politics. In an unprecedented move, the House of Representatives, specifically John Boehner, invited Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to speak. The invitation bypassed the president and may have long-lasting...
Editor’s Note: The following column was originally published in 2010. I always thought if you made something with a three-dimensional printer, you’d need to wear special glasses to look at it. I was wrong, though: A 3D printer can actually take something you designed on your computer and “print” the object out in hard plastic — such as, for example, a pair of 3D glasses. 3D printers give us what we’ve all been craving: another reason to talk to technical support. When you finally get the thing working, though, you’ll be able to print out you...
California is in the midst of a fierce water war, a conflict that holds lessons for us in Washington State. In many ways, we are alike. Both of our states’ populations are growing and we have some of the world’s most prolific agriculture regions which require lots of water. Washington is served by a vast network of storage reservoirs that make up the Columbia River drainage. It stretches from the northern Canadian Rockies to as far south as Wyoming. On the other hand, California with its 38 million people has a series of reservoirs in the Sie...
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker belongs to an embattled minority that happens to be most of the population. The root of this paradox is that Walker is an outlier among the political class in not having graduated from college, at the same time that a solid two-thirds of the country lacks a four-year degree. Such is the domination of not just college grads, but specifically Ivy League grads, at the upper echelons of our government that the nation’s political competition can be seen as one big intramural battle at the Harvard or Yale Club. And here c...
There are a few reasons Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker is flying high right now in the early Republican presidential sweepstakes, but none is mightier than his record of sticking it to organized labor. This is the man who, after all, staved off a recall election once he was successful in changing state law to severely restrict the negotiating power of public-employee unions even after thousands and thousands of protesters raised a ruckus at the Capitol in Madison. Nowadays, when he isn’t running for the White House prize, he’s back home again sup...
Every year since 2009, it’s been the Colton girls lifting the gold-ball trophy for the 1B state basketball championship. It’s a Washington record for all levels, both boys and girls. And like a great song that gets played over and over, it’s a testament to the song. Because the reasons for Colton’s constant presence at the top were particularly evident in their seventh consecutive title run. Even if 1B high school basketball games were seen only in black and white cardboard cutouts, the Colton girls would be identifiable. How they run to the...
Former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani instantly became the most notorious man in America when he said at a conservative dinner in Manhattan that President Barack Obama doesn’t love America. He gamely tried to defend the remark for a few days before issuing a semi-mea culpa in The Wall Street Journal regretting his “bluntness” and saying that he “didn’t intend to question President Obama’s motives or the content of his heart.” That was probably the inevitable end-point once the words came out of his mouth, since it is an unwritten rul...