In the news this evening, Ferris High boys' basketball coach Don Van Lierop has been cleared of sex abuse charges by Spokane police here. Congress has extended jobless benefits to laid-off workers here. The Dow shed another 445 points today here. And I'm going to re-play this Wild Card and head out on my birthday night ...

Paul A. Smith/Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, AP
Keena, a dog trained to wear a hat, facemask, and sit in a camouflaged bag, is seen recently while hunting with her owner, Jon Freis in Bonduel, Wis. on Tuesday. Turkey hunting in general is just developing a tradition in Wisconsin. Despite the experimental season, now in its second year, turkey hunting with dogs remains virtually unknown in the state.

SR Photo Dept. world snapshots

"If the current HBO crowd is the "Laugh In" cast, who is who?" asks JoeB. "Is Cindy or Kendra Goldie? Who's the 'very interesting' Nazi observer? I can't even remember all of their names, and I bet some of our younger fans can't even remember the show ..."

Question: Who would play whom, if we Hucksters were cast for the old "Laugh In" show?

The down side of this is that I find myself wasting incredible amounts of time that I know I would put to better use if it were not for the Internet. I would get more papers graded (and sooner), get materials gathered for class earlier, and have more time to attend to the myriad chores I have around the house. But ... first I need to check Accuweather to see what I should wear or whether I will be able to jog or the chances of rain if I leave the dogs in their pen. Then I should respond to that one last e-mail that just came in, or see if that check cleared at my bank, or pay my bills for the month, or look up the symptoms of one of my pets to see if I should schedule a vet appointment. I'm not 100 percent sure of the meaning of a word, so I'll look it up with Google's "define" function. And, while I'm at it, what station will be carrying the Purdue game?/Ginny McConnell, M-P Daily News. More here.

Question: Are you an Internet junkie?

re: introducing Shawn Vestal's terrific new blog, Everyday Economy:

This is no time to be skipping the fine print on any agreement you have with a bank. Credit card terms are changing. Checking account fees are going up. And the changes are very hard to detect in the “notifications” institutions send out. For example, credit-card companies are lowering people’s credit limits, changing minimum monthly payments and raising interest rates – but the notifications typically don’t provide clear, easy-to-understand explanation of the changes. They bury the new rate or fee under a mountain of language that must have some contractual or legal purpose, but which seems not to have a communicative one.

Jerome A. Pollos, CDA Press
Kootenai's Ben Shannon charges over the top of Garden Valley's J.T. Wagner, during the State 1A Division II Semi-Finals last Saturday in Harrison. No. 3-ranked Kootenai whipped Garden Valley 54-26 and now will face No. 1-ranked Carey for the state 1A Division II 8-man championship at 3 p.m. Friday in the Kibbie Dome. Greg Lee's SR story here.

*Judge sets hearing on Duncan appeal/Betsy Russell, Eye On Boise
*CDA tribe gives NIC $250,000 in furniture/AP
*Washington GOP lawmakers pick leaders/Rich Roesler, Eye On Olympia
*Kempthorne pushes last-minute ESA changes/Ysabel Balbao, KTVB
*Man who killed fiance in crash back on probation/Keith Kinnaird, Bonner County Bee
*More on 'remaking ballots'/Jim Camden, Spin Control 2.0

4:27 p.m. CDA woman wants to see an officer re: her teen son testing positive for drugs.
4:16 p.m. Officer reports that there's still hunters in the forest, and it's starting to snow on Fernan Saddle. However, the road into Fernan Saddle is still passable.
3:15 p.m. Disturbed man has left house in CDA with intent to walk to Spokane.
3:14 p.m. CPD Blue reports that an accident that reportedly occurred on Lakeside was actually in Coeur d'Alene rather than Bayview.

Richard Sennott/Star Tribune, AP
Barb Cox, a Plymouth city hall worker, holds a rejected ballot that was challenged by the Franken Campaign today in Plymouth, Minn. Disputed ballots in Minnesota's U.S. Senate race are growing at a pace likely to dwarf the 215-vote margin prior to the recount. And that makes it tough to tell whether Coleman or Franken is gaining an edge as the recount progresses.

I've seen many beautiful people, and beautiful . I've stood at the edge of the Rift Valley in East Africa, and taken in the vastness of the plane below. I've stood on Kilimanjaro and watched the sun rise in the east over the Indian Ocean. I've seen the grandeur of man made beauty in the form of Itaipu dam in South America. I marveled as massive building sized amounts of water flowed through it providing power to so much of Paraguay and Brazil. I've seen the terrifying beauty of an erupting volcano on the big island of Hawaii and walked on frozen lava flows. ... Nothing, however, compares with the beauty of a love that is true/Toadman, Synaptic Disunion. More here.

Question: What is the most beautiful thing in your life?

At approximately 12:15 pm today, the Timberlake Fire Protection District responded to a reported deer that had broken a window and was possibly in an occupied home off Howard Road in Athol. We arrived to find the homeowner unharmed and a mountain goat on the back porch. The goat had ripped off the screen and was charging the glass door, breaking the outer pane of glass, possibly angry from seeing its own reflection in the glass/CDA Press. More here.

Courtesy: Orangefrog76
At Orangefrog76, Granati provides this photograph and another of the graffiti vandalism that has hit the 40 BNSF railroad cars, parked between the old DeArmond Mill site and Riverstone.

*Golden Goose/Tumblewords
*Beauty/Synaptic Disunion
*'Boston Legal' episode made me think/Silver Valley Girl
*Bless your heart, Betty/Slight Detour
*An interesting Monday/Still A Newspaperman
*My neurostorm is rainbow/TUBOB
*Things that bump, hiss in the night/Mrs. Mac Energetic

HBO Numbers (for Wednesday): 8981 PVs/5067 UVs

*Bruce Reed/Slate on Sali/Red State Rebels
*Rolling Stone mentions Sali/Unequivocal Notion
*You WILL be tested on this/Free In Idaho
*Founders' vision of presidential elections/IVA
*Student fee increases -- the last, worst option/Kevin Richert
*It's a joke/Randy Stapilus
*Sales tax map/Right Mind
*Liberals urge Obama to defend 10th amendment/Rocky Barker

Item: Idaho soldier claims duct tape title/AP

More Info: An Idaho soldier stationed in Iraq has won $5,000 and a year's supply of duct tape after using the adhesive to fix the brake system on a military vehicle. Joshua Roach entered a contest the Henkel Corp. sponsors each year to find the most unique use of its Duck brand tape.

Question: What unique use have you found for duct tape?

Mike Carlton breathed a sigh of relief when he heard Tina R. Loesch and Skye M. Hanson were dead. The former Pullman police officer knows his reaction may be startling, but he insists it's true when it comes to Loesch and Hanson. The two who have long been sought for questioning in connection to the 1996 murder of 89-year-old Pullman resident Dorothy Martin. "'Relief' is the most proper way to put it. Now they won't be out committing any more crimes," he said. "I think they were still up to their ears in criminal activity"/Hillary Hamm, M-P Daily News. More here.

Composite photo of Kristofer Charles Loesch, the missing son of Tina Loesch. Courtesy of National Center for Missing and Exploited Children

Item: Richland teen scratches off 'graduation' from 'bucket list'/Laura Katy Zaichlin, Tri-City Herald

More Info: Liz Evett was met by nearly 650 cheering peers, relatives and teachers as she was wheeled into the auditorium wearing a purple cap and gown. "When we came in the auditorium and we saw all the people -- whoa," said Evett, who was diagnosed with leukemia three years ago and relapsed in April. "I am so thankful." The West Richland 18-year-old stopped responding to chemotherapy in June and was given weeks to months to live. She immediately began checking things off her "bucket list" of things she wants to do before she dies.

Question: What would be on your 'bucket list'?

Do you plan to donate more money or food to charitable organizations this year in light of the economic downturn?/Moscow-Pullman Daily News

*Yes, I'll do everything I can.
*No, I've got my own problems to worry about.
*I'll give the same as I have in previous years.

"Sure," I replied. I mean, how hard could it be? You take the iron thingie and hit the white ball into a tiny hole. Not exactly like running a 40-yard touchdown while being chased by 300-pound linebacker. "Have you ever played before?" Gardner asked. He didn't seem impressed by my Wii Golf statistics. Apparently, Nintendo has failed to lure true golf-lovers indoors. After a few pointers I felt ready to start. "Okay," I said. "Where's the hole?" "Watch out for the first hole," a fellow in the pro shop had warned. "Just don't look over the cliff"/Cindy Hval, SR Voices. More here.

Question: Are you a very good golfer?

Steve Hanks/Lewiston Tribune
Bighorn sheep are in their mating season in this mid-November photo near the confluence of the Snake and Grande Ronde Rivers in Washington.

*Boise soldier repairs vehicle in Iraq w/duct tape/Idaho Statesman
*Fugitives deaths in Arizona brings closure to some/Hillary Hamm, M-P Daily News
*Dying Richland teen checks off graduation from 'bucket list'/Laura Kate Zaichkin, Tri-City Herald
*Montana's Tester proposes $1 salary for auto CEOs/Missoulian
*For New Yorker, first day on the job was his last/Billings Gazette
*3-vehicle crash kills 16 cows/Katy Moeller, Idaho Statesman
*Walla Walla VA to get $71M renovation/Kevin Graman, SR
*Boisean charged w/trying to cash in stolen lottery ticket/Idaho Statesman
*Another supposed mammoth bone found near Kennewick/Sara Schilling, Tri-City Herald
*Inmate who gave birth on concrete ramp sues for $23M/AP
*Couple allegedly embezzles $814,000 from 2 Spokane ad agencies/AP
*Idaho teen charged w/felony for bomb threat/AP

Orbusmax Special: Oregon's first transgender mayor gets international attention here.

As heavy equipment moves into Sandpoint to build a highway bypass that will separate the resort community from its waterfront, here is a prediction whose value is probably limited to a point of future interest: Sandpoint will live to regret this move. This prediction does not stem from invention of a better alternative; this page doesn't have one. And amid all the arguing and court battling over construction of the Sand Creek bypass that is now scheduled to begin, it hasn't seen one/Jim Fisher. Lewiston Tribune. More here.

Question: Do you think Sandpoint will live to regret this project, as Seattle has? Or will the project be similar to the long-overdue I90 construction that now whisks traffic above Wallace than through it?

My brother is in the hospital and on life support. He had surgery yesterday for a badly damaged pancreas and when they opened him up they found he pretty much didn't even have one anymore. Just infection and a burning soup of digestive enzymes and God knows what else. They are trying to get him breathing again and cleaned out so he doesn't go septic. I've been estranged from him for around 5 years. I taught him to play football when he was a kid. He was a big kid. I taught him to block and tackle in the front yard and used to be the only one to go to his football games. He didn't stick with football, it really wasn't his sport/TUBOB. More here. Update: doing much better here.

DFO: I'm sure many of you will join me in wishes a speedy recovery for Bob's brother.

Question: Are you worried about the health of any of your siblings?

The Great American Smokeout traditionally takes place on the third Thursday in November. The concept dates from the early '70s when Lynn Smith, publisher of the Monticello Times of Minnesota, announced the first observance and called it "D Day." The idea caught on in state after state until in 1977, it went nationwide under the sponsorship of the American Cancer Society. If past Smokeouts are any indication, as many as one-third of the nation's 46 million smokers could be taking the day off from smoking. More here.

Question: Are you a former smoker?

OK, Herb has outted me (and I'll deal w/him when he returns from California). Indeed, today is my birthday. And Mayor Sandi Bloem's. And Coroner Bob West's. I'm the junior of this trifecta. But Sandi seems to be the one holding up best. I'm 59. JeanieSpokane put that number into context this morning when she wrote: " You are now entering the last year where you can officially say you are middle-aged without people thinking you are in denial. Next year, you will be considered 'elderly.' (I see it all the time! In the headlines! "Elderly man lost in woods" and the guy will be 60). Enjoy this last year! Next year it's canes, arthritis, geriatric doctors, and a steady stream of body parts crinkling and wrinkling." For some reason, 59 sounds a lot older than 58. Mebbe, as JeanieSpokane points out, it's a giant step closer to the Big 6-0.

Question: How do you know when you're finally "over the hill"?

Amy Sancetta/AP
Two dogs, happy to be wearing their own fur coats, wait for their owner while tied outside a fur store which is going out of business in Chagrin Falls, Ohio on Wednesday. You write the cutline.

Top Cutlines

1. When asked how the economy projections were looking, Fido simply replied, "Ruff" -- Cabbage Boy.
2. Chagrin falls over the dogs as they ponder the store's closure. "What for?" said the little one, to which the big dog said "Of course I got wet fur - look where they left us all tied up. We're lucky we're not 'all dead in OHIO'" -- John Austin.
*Fifi said to Fido with great chagrin, "This is soooo embarassing! Putting us up as collateral when our only crime is that we have original fur coats" -- JeanieSpokane.

HM: Joan E. Harman

Idaho ranked a dismal 44th in the nation in an "integrity index" released by the Chicago-based Better Government Association. Idaho's score was a mixed bag — its whistleblower law tied for ninth in the nation, while its open meeting law ranked 44th. But Idaho's low ranking can be attributed in large part to lawmakers who have been unwilling to police themselves. Idaho was one of one three states to score a "perfect" zero on conflict-of-interest issues, a well-earned mark. Idaho legislators — citizen lawmakers who spend nine months of the year working their day jobs — are not required to file reports saying who they work for, who their clients are, or where they invest their money/Kevin Richert, Idaho Statesman. More here.

Question: Why don't Idahoans demand that their legislators adopt conflict-of-interest laws and other open-government steps?

Well, it looks like ol' Jack Frost will soon be nipping at us like a pack of aggressive panhandlers in the downtown Spokane business core. Yes, winter is on the way. And just like each and every year, the entire region is likely to experience the occasional flurry, perhaps a blizzard or two, a run of pipe-bursting low temperatures and highways icy enough to host a Chiefs game. But before any of this happens, I'd like to once again make a heartfelt appeal to our TV weathercasters: Please -- for the sake of our sanity -- try to STAY ON YOUR MEDS! When the flakes starts falling, could you at least not foam at the mouth and act like the region has just experienced an end-of-the world cataclysm/Doug Clark, SR. More here.

Question: Do you think Spokane TV weathermen get carried away whenever it snows in the Inland Northwest? Or is Clark exaggerating?

SR File Photo
The company that owns three of four malls in the Spokane / Coeur d'Alene corridor is reportedly in financial trouble. Chicago-based General Growth Properties owns NorthTown Mall, Spokane Valley Mall and the Silver Lake Mall in addition to malls in Seattle, Lynnwood, Bellingham, Kelso and Aberdeen. KXLY story here

*Idaho Records/Sherry Adkins, SR
*Crews use fire boats to fight Lake CDA blaze/KXLY
*Deer Park hunter killed by member of his party/Meghann Cuniff, SR
*LCDC pledges $450K to upgrade Sorensen/Tom Hasslinger, CDA Press
*Ed corridor site nearly ready for sale/Maureen Dolan, CDA Press
*Craig, Sali prepare to vacate offices/Rick Thomas, CDA Press
*Draft Kootenai County comp plan raises concerns/Alecia Warren, CDA Press

Question: How often do you shop at the three local malls owned by General Growth Properties: Silver Lake, NorthTown, Spokane Valley?

Lee McKenzie Wood’s son, Mark McKenzie, was murdered in the house at Wolf Lodge Bay in a 2005 attack that also killed his fiancée, Brenda Matthews Groene, and her 13-year-old son Slade. “I want the house torn down,” Wood said. “It’s just eating me alive that it’s still standing, and it’s going on four years.” She’s likely to get her wish. Attorneys say they no longer need the house for potential evidence in the case against convicted killer Joseph Duncan. It could come down “in the very near future,” a spokeswoman for the Idaho Transportation Department, which now owns the house, said Wednesday/Betsy Russell, SR. More here.

Question: Are you surprised the Groene-McKenzie murder house is still standing in Wolf Lodge Bay?

Four people now face drug trafficking charges in connection with a large marijuana grow operation raided by the Idaho State Police. Karrie A. Hatridge was arrested Friday, along with Charlie R. Hatridge, 47, of Post Falls; Ryan C. Jackson, 33, of Hayden; and Kelly J. Polatis, 38, of Las Vegas. Polatis is a partner in Kirk-Hughes Development Co., a Las Vegas company fighting Kootenai County’s rejection of a proposed lakeside golf resort called Chateau de Loire.

Item: Witnesses describe 2006 Kathleen Avenue crash scene: Defendants face 15 years in prison if convicted/Tom Greene, CDA Press

More Info: Eric Harris, a wastewater management truck driver, was westbound on Kathleen Avenue at the time of the accident. Harris said he has been a truck driver for 26 years and has been taking the exact route Norris was driving from Howard Street to Kathleen Avenue twice a week for the last 11 years. He is also an avid stock car fan, he said, and has participated in out-of-state racing events. Harris said Salois and Cutting were "pretty close, side by side, at the same rate of speed." Harris estimated the two cars were traveling between 60 to 65 mph.

Question: Are you following this trial?

For those keeping score at home, Dave Boling, author of "Guernica" and one of a dozen 2008 Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers picks, cut his teeth in journalism as a CDA Press sports writer. Doug Clark, then the Press editor and now the S-R's zany columnist, hired Boling 25 or so years ago because he was intrigued how an ex-college footballer could write so well without journalistic training. Boling walked into the Press office sick from drinking bad water while logging and desperate for a job, as my buddy Clark tells the story. He'd worked the steel mills in Chicago and then the forests in the Northwest after starting as center for the University of Louisville. Clark liked him right away – and he had an opening for Boling assisting then sports editor Dale Grummert. At the Press, Boling strutted his stuff as a writer and joined Clark in bedeviling former publisher Roy Wellman by, among other things, turning off the light when Wellman was in the men's room and turning up the newsroom thermostat when he was on a energy conservation kick/DFO, SR Prairie Voice Huckleberries. More here.

(Where are they now) Question: Do you know former Coeur d'Alene Press reporters who went on to bigger and better things?

Nick Anderson/Houston Chronicle

In the news this evening, the California Supreme Court has decided to hear a challenge to vote-approved Proposition 8 here. The Demo Senate rejects a $25M bailout for the nation's auto industry here. Barack Obama gave Joe Biden a cupcake for his 66th birthday here. And Betsy Russell has a very interesting story that I was hoping to post before I headed home but it isn't editted yet. Now, I'll re-play this Wild Card and let the denizens of HBO After Hours take over ...

Jerome A. Pollos/CDA Press
Kayakers paddle their way across the reflection of a shimmering sunset Tuesday on Lake Coeur d'Alene in Coeur d'Alene.

SR Photo Department World Snapshots

Item: Dow falls below 8,000, S&P at 5-year low/AP

More Info: Wall Street hit levels not seen since 2003 on Wednesday, with the Dow Jones industrial average plunging below the 8,000 mark amid a dour economic outlook from the Federal Reserve and worries over the fate of Detroit's three automakers.

Question: How low do you think the market will finally go? And how are you coping with the financial crisis?

For years, for as long as I can remember, my family has had at least one night a week where we all have dinner together. It started out as just the four of us. Mom, dad, my sister, and I. Then it turned into a once a week event. Over the years it has grown to be the ten, soon to be eleven, of us. But it is much more than just a meal. We tell stories and share our lives and laugh at and with each other. We watch our kids play and grow together. We talk about memories and make new ones. So, yes, it is family dinner because we do eat delicious food every week. But it's really so much more/A Butterfly Moment. More here.

Question: Does your family gather together regularly for a family dinner?

Jerome A. Pollos/CDA Press, AP
Ed Moreen, a environmental protection specialist with the EPA, shows an image of a flooded area that is affected by contaminated sediment during an update on the Superfund clean-up Tuesday in Coeur d'Alene. Story here.

*Idaho employers to pay 70% more for unemployment insurance in 2009/Idaho Statesman
*Spokane career criminal wanted by cops 83rd time/KREM2
*Order seeks end to Sandpoint Bypass dock dispute/Bonner County Bee
*Teen accuser not cooperating in Ferris coach case/KHQ
*CDA high girls are No. 1/SR Sportslink
*Heytvelt lame from UI game/SR Sportslink
*Man who lured woman w/free iPod sent to prison/Idaho Statesman
*Woman who passed out on train tracks sent to jail/Bonner County Bee

Report: NCAA student-athletes 'beating the system,' former Bronco calls system 'a joke'/USA Today, Idaho Statesman

More Info: Forty-eight percent of players on the 2007 Boise State football team majored in communications, according to a USA Today investigation on how toughening academic requirements for athletes has helped create an environment in which they are more likely to graduate than other students — but also more likely to be clustered in programs without the academic demands most students face.

Related: BSU players, AD dispute USA Today report; and: Ex-Bronco responds to article/Kevin Richert

Question: Would you be surprised if a significant number of football players at major universities, like Boise State, took "basket-weaving classes" to muster good grades so they could play on Saturdays?

At the top of Capt. Ben Wolfinger's missing felons "honor roll" this week are (from left): Chuck Eugene Tollefson, 46, of Rathdrum, who's wanted for failure to register as a sex offender (bond: $50,000); Bonnie Rae Droh, 24, of Coeur d'Alene, grand theft (bond: $10,000); and Justin Brent Odekirk, 23, Hayden, probation violation for possession of controlled substance and failure to appear for driving with suspended license (bond: $40,000). Full felony warrant list here

Killer Joseph Duncan has filed a letter with the federal District Court in Boise addressed to Judge Edward Lodge, regarding the notice of appeal filed for him Monday by his standby attorneys. “Dear Sir,” Duncan wrote. “This is to inform the court that if any appeal is initiated on my behalf it is done contrary to my wishes. Thank you, Joseph E. Duncan III.” You can click here to see the signed letter/Betsy Russell, Eye On Boise. More here.

*'Didn't want that misinterpreted'
*Duncan: 'I didn't want to appeal'

Elaine Thompson/AP
New Seattle Mariners manager Don Wakamatsu, right, holds up a note to him written by his 10-year-old daughter, Jadyn, at a news conference announcing his hiring as general manager Jack Zduriencik looks on Wednesday in Seattle. Wakamatsu became the first Asian-American manager in major league baseball history when he was hired Wednesday by the Seattle Mariners. The Mariners' 14th manager, Wakamatsu was bench coach for the Oakland Athletics last season. Before that he spent five years with the Texas.

Item: On a mission for 'true chocolate': Scientist says most of what we eat is far from real thing/Tom Paulson, Seattle PI

More Info: Andy McShea (pictured) is a Harvard-trained molecular biologist using his scientific talent in Seattle to promote "true chocolate" and steer consumers away from inadvertently ingesting all that other brown sweet stuff he says is often unhealthy, morally questionable and not the real thing.

Question: How much do you enjoy chocolate, whether it's chemically altered or the real stuff?

Courtesy: OnLocation North Idaho
Kerri Thoreson/OnLocation North Idaho posts: "The simplicity of a single leaf suspended underwater on a mild North Idaho November day."

Wanted: Older Hunks: I have noticed lately some bloggirlfriends commenting on this guy or that guy. Or the guy in uniform, such as Firemen. I have to admit: I don't get it. But I think I also need to accept that maybe I'm weird. I don't get Hugh Jackman. I don't get Brad Pitt. I never got pre-gray George Clooney. I've seen women swoon, much like what Nicole Kidman states above, but I when I look at the same pictures of moviestars (or firemen), I always have the same reaction. "Hmph. Nice looking but ... doesn't really do it for me." I've always liked my movie hunks older/MamaJD. More here.

*Neigh saver/Dogwalk Musings
*Love & death in the desert/Community Comment
*Family dinner/A Butterfly Moment
*Al Qaeda hates Obama/Arch Druid
*They're people first (slide show)/Brand X Ranch
*Counting My Blessings #18: 4 seasons in INorthwest/Gathering Around the Table
*Yes, I'm redecorating again/JeanC's Cat House
*3BT: Grateful Dead, worship, writing grows/Kellogg Bloggin'
*Words of wisdom/Live, Love, Laugh, Hope
*Another rule I never knew I needed/Notes On A Napkin
*Weird things your kids do/Nuts & Nonsense

Question: Which actor, actress, athlete, etc., makes you swoon?

Here’s this little guy, seven-year-old Charlie Beckett, perched on the verge of national recognition for his Holy-Peno hamburger that just might be featured across the nation in all Red Robin restaurants. It seems Charlie’s culinary delight was selected from 14,000 offerings as one of 10 finalists in the nationwide competition, staged by the hamburger chain, in its third annual “The Next Gourmet Burger Kids” recipe contest. Red Robin as it has in the past, again asked children, six to 12 to share their culinary creativity against a horde of entries/Tom Burnett, The Star. More here (scroll down).

Question: Who barbecues the burgers at your house?

Uncertainty about the future, about change, can cause worry, but it’s important to look for opportunity in all things. It’s there if you put your mind to it. Every person has the ability to chart their daily life course to some degree and often, the course is determined by the outlook. Jimmy Dean put it this way: “I can't change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails to always reach my destination.” Whether it’s new neighbors, new job, new school or new policies, we should not allow someone else to adjust the sails on our course to accomplish our greater objective: the best life we can live for ourselves and our families, governed by principles we choose to live by/U.S. Sen. Mike Crapo, R-Idaho. More here.

Question: Barack Obama successfully used the notion of "change" to establish a powerful brand in the 2008 election. Do you adjust to change well?

1:26 p.m. Suicide threat reported at Sherman Avenue motel.
1:13 p.m. R/P reports smoke on Potlatch hill above The Terraces condos.
12:36 p.m. Someone is suffering a seizure at the Flying J restaurant.
9:25 a.m. R/P reports that young men throw a CD out the window of a 2003 gold Olds on Highway 95 in front of Best Buy.
9:07 a.m. A CPD Blue patrol officer responding to a Locust Avenue call reports that his computer has frozen up.

Dan Pelle/SR
The Kennel Club jeers Idaho's #11 Brandon Wiley on an inbounds play against Gonzaga at the McCarthey Athletic Center Tuesday night. Gonzaga easily handled Idaho, scoring the first 17 points en route to an 80-46 victory.

David Horsey/PI 'toon

*M's to introduce MLB's first Japanese-American manager/Seattle PI
*11th man-caused grizzly death recorded this year/Missoulian
*3 Montana female workers resign after prison sex claims/Daily Inter Lake
*Bellingham publisher to release Michelle Obama bio book/McClatchy Newspapers
*Chicago owner of Spokane malls faces bankruptcy/Seattle PI
*48% of '07 BSU footballers majored in communications/Idaho Statesman
*Judge rejects GOP request to see 'remade ballots' in Washington's 6th/SR
*Idahoan convicted in $2M jewelry heist/AP
*Idahoan warned for shooting cougar in self-defense/Twin Falls Times-News
*Lumber industry downturn hits Montana hard/Missoulian
*Spokane firefighter pleads innocent in bar stabbing case/KHQ

Orbusmax Special: 70% of WaMu workers reportedly will be cut here.

Item: Al-Qaida No. 2 insults Obama in new message: Zawahiri uses derogatory term to imply president-elect does bidding of whites/Associated Press

More Info: Al-Zawahri also called Obama—along with secretaries of state Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice—"house negroes." Speaking in Arabic, al-Zawahri uses the term "abeed al-beit," which literally translates as "house slaves." But al-Qaida supplied English subtitles of his speech that included the translation as "house negroes."

Question: Should the U.S. respond in some way to this insult?

Amanda Johnson/Havre (Mont.) Daily News, AP
Cari Meldrum's pre-school class at First Lutheran Pre-school in Havre, Mont., received a surprise visitor on Monday when a 6-month-old turkey named Tom arrived to visit with the class. Tom is owned by Steve and Mary Engelhardt of Havre. Their grandson Keanan Engelhardt brought Tom to school for show and tell. Mary said though the annual celebration of eating of turkey approaches, Tom will be spared. "He is a pet," she said.

Question: What size of turkey do you need to take care of the traditional Thanksgiving dinner at your house?

Non-tribal hunters on the Coeur d’Alene Reservation must purchase a tribal hunting license even if they hunt on private land. The Idaho Department of Fish and Game’s interpretation of a 1988 compact between the state and the tribe requires non-tribal hunters on the reservation to buy both a state hunting license and $10 tribal hunting permit, said Virgil Moore, deputy director of Idaho Fish and Game. “Our advice to hunters is they need to have a state license and they need to check Coeur d’Alene Tribe hunting and fishing rules,” said Moore. The rules mandate hunters carry the $10 permit/Ralph Bartholdt, St. Maries Gazette-Record. More here.

I used to have an excellent memory. Love a good joke and used to have quite a collection of them in my little brain. Now I just read them, forward the good ones and “delete”. I couldn’t tell you the joke I just read in my email 20 minutes ago if my life depended on it.
I used to be able to tell you the name, and probably the telephone number, of every client we had in our office and know exactly where we were on their case. Now I have to look their file up on my computer to carry on an intelligent conversation with them.
Statutes, codes and rules used to just pop into my head whenever I needed them. Now I either have them “bookmarked” or have to look them up on the internet/Angela. More here.

Question: How has the Internet and easy access to information that it provides harmed you?