News

Not sure how it happened, but the caption on the photo in the Journal this week illustrating the piece on the Arcata City Council race had the names in the wrong order with Jason Grow incorrectly identified as Gernonimo Garcia. To alleviate any confusion, here's who's who:

farmers.Bono, NYT Columnist: The NYT unveils its newest addition to the Op-Ed page. "No, really," the Guardian assures. He'll average about a column a

Politico.Australia bans word 'drought': ... because it upsets

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A putrid-smelling smoke cloud befouled Arcata's western skies Wednesday afternoon after a fire erupted in the old Beaver Lumberyard near the corner of 7th and L streets, and it had nothing to do with marijuana. Gas masked firemen doused the flames, but not before they had melted a few old tires and charred some Mad Max-looking mobile conveyor belt thingy, sending who knows what-all into the pink, innocent lungs of onlookers. Here's Arcata Fire Chief John McFarland: "There was some sort of demolition project going on. They were cutting up an old piece of equipment and didn't realize it had a fuel tank on it." Oops.

"They," according to an onlooker, were Arcata Scrap and Salvage. Fortunately, nobody was hurt. "It put up a heck of a good column of smoke," McFarland said. Personally, I would have described it as a noxious doom vapor, but he's the professional.

MediaNews CEO Dean Singleton has been thinking big again. Times-Standard reporters should be very, very afraid.

The Associated Press and paidcontent.org are currently carrying accounts of Big Deaner's speech to the Southern Newspaper Publishers Association yesterday. Apparently Dean chose the occasion to hanky-drop his new scheme for "saving" the newspaper industry: Consolidation of the entire company's news operations into one massive call center, possibly to be located in India.

Picture the cost savings: Sweatshop "reporters" would "cover" the community by remote control, through telephone and Internet. Newsprint would be gone. It's a model currently being pioneered by the ghastly press release merchants at pasadenanow.com . Singleton apparently wants to take the thing to a whole new level.

"In today's world, whether your desk is down the hall or around the world, from a computer standpoint, it doesn't matter," Singleton said after his speech.

And when you think about it, that's true. From a computer standpoint.

McCain Giving Up on Colorado? - The Plank: Judy Hodgson Deals

DefeatExamining the Economics of Wave Energy: Lecture by HSU economics professor Steve Hackett. This Thursday, 5:30 p.m., Founders' Hall

118.Fox News Hires Disgraced Reporter Judith Miller: A great day for the

profession.Swimming with Tigers: A photo gallery of attractive women swimming with their tigers. That is