The faux maverick's sidekick

Sen. John McCain's got a perception problem, and Gov. Sarah Palin is the solution.

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Seattle outpaces Portland in income growth

The current issue of Marple's Pacific Northwest Letter ($) tallies up personal income figures for Northwest metro areas. One shocker is how low the figure is for Portland, a booming area that is still shy on high-paying jobs. Or, conversely, how affluent Seattle is.

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Go eastward, young Americans

There's a reverse flow of population in the West, drifting from expensive coastal cities to interior boomtowns. It's definitely changing the politics of the Rockies, while also stirring resentments at "Aspenization."

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Travels with Charley and GPS

A Depression-era book series is the ultimate road-trip must-have, a way of comparing past and present as you tool around the country like a latter-day John Steinbeck. And in Washington, a new version even links travelers to the digital age.

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Walkability is nice, but it's not making us skinny

Current theory says that a city's walkability promotes health and will impact the fight against obesity. The claim is that America's weight problem can be helped by making cities more pedestrian-friendly. It should follow, then, that our most dense and walkable cities are where the skinny people are, right? Well, not really.

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My day with the ranchers

An urbanite spends two days with ranchers in Montana and comes to see that she has much in common with them: ground.

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Conservation groups buy pieces of Montana — a lot of pieces

The Nature Conservancy and the Trust for Public Land are buying 500 square miles of western Montana from Plum Creek, the timber real estate investment trust, for $510 million. It involves a federal financing mechanism, to the consternation of conservatives, and compromise, to the displeasure of some environmentalists. But it is preventing development of forest habitat.

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When animals attack, and also when they don't

It's the time of year when animal-human encounters are on the rise. Bears are picnicking on hikers, moose are invading trailer parks, and muskrats are blamed for destroying entire towns. You could be next.

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Polimedia lunch links

Ruby Chow remembered: Brad Wong outlines the contributions from the life of a local political icon. ...

Elite opinion on Obama: Jamieson, Sims and Locke, Horsey, Westneat. ...

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A Seattle software exec makes sure that the buffalo don't roam

In the 19th century, tourists used to slaughter bison herds from passing trains, blasting the big beasts into near extinction just for fun. That ugly tradition is echoed in the recent massacre of buffalo in Colorado, which has also touched off a classic confrontation over rights between two ranchers. The Northwest connection: The Seattle Post-Intelligencer's John Cook points out that the man behind the recent massacre is the chairman and CEO of one of Seattle's top software companies, Jeff Hawn of Attachmate. A warrant has been issued for his arrest.

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Annals of Northwest secession

A primer of regional separatist movements, real and imagined.

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A radical management plan for gray wolves: hunting

With healthy numbers, the gray wolf faces de-listing as an endangered species. Introducing trophy hunting into the management plan has arguably worked for other species, such as the mountain lion, and some think it will work for the gray wolf, but the idea is not without its staunch critics.

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Recession alert: Put Oregon on the danger list

Marple's Pacific Northwest Letter, a bible of the Northwest economy, is predicting that Oregon, "if not yet in recession, it likely soon will be." The reasons: sectors like lumber exposed to the homebuilding recession; continued manufacturing decline in computer chips and electronic instruments, which have not fully recovered since the dot.com meltdown; and overall manufacturing decline since mid-2006.

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Bellevue ranks at top for places to live and launch a company

Bellevue is the top city in a new ranking of best American cities to live and launch a new business by CNN Money.com. Seattle doesn't even make the list of the top 100 such places. The survey rates Bellevue high for its low crime rate, great schools, excellent health care, and diverse population (40 percent nonwhite or foreign-born). It describes the town as having "grown with unusual grace" into a place that is sophisticated and metropolitan but not yet crowded or expensive. Apparently the survey is not aware of the traffic problems on the Eastside, though some of the comments on the site point that out, along with the high cost of housing. One Seattleite protests: "Boring!"

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How we fare in the quest for academic pork

The respected Chronicle of Higher Education has just published a new report on the scramble for academic earmarks. A surprise, considering how well the University of Washington does in federally funded research and how well placed Sen. Patty Murray is: The UW is not among the leading porkers.

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Sharing a sense of place when change is fast-paced

A definition of the Western landscape varies according to individual economic, social, and recreational values. Here's a look at how our Western neighbors foster a shared sense of place across differing perspectives.

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High Tex: A new generation covers the campaign its own way

Sixteen journalism students from the University of Washington descended on Texas during the presidential campaign to see what they could do with few resources and little clout. In hindsight, one might ask, what could they not?

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Do we need guns at Paradise?

Some Northwest lawmakers have pushed the Bush administration to allow visitors to carry loaded guns in our national parks. It gives backpacking a whole new meaning.

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Our economy's secret sauce: the weak dollar

The Northwest economy continues to surge, while the rest of the country struggles, and it's tempting to think it's because of all the smart folks out here, cooking up new companies. Doubtless that's partly true. But a bigger factor is the weak dollar. Washington state, for instance, leads the nation in exports as a share of state output. Those exports are booming because of the weak dollar, which translates into bargain prices offshore. Michael Parks, editor of the invaluable Marple's Pacific Northwest Letter, tallies up the figures for Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and Alaska, and finds the export totals hitting new all-time highs for the fourth consecutive year. Total exports last year for the region ($92.5 billion) were up 20 percent over 2006, about twice the national increase.

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A housing slump hits the Mountain West

Utah, normally immune to slumps, is feeling the effects, and a survey story in The New York Times sheds some interesting light on the changing Mountain West. In the past, the Rocky Mountain West's economy has been driven by commodity prices for oil and copper and gold, notoriously cyclical, and military spending, also fickle. More recently the economy has been dominated by real estate and construction, as well as recreation.

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