The Church has made it easy for you:

Twelve decades after the completion and dedication of its Salt Lake Temple, the LDS Church is opening up the iconic Mormon landmark to the public for tours -- in a virtual, visual and small-scale way.

And the hope is the replica -- replete with cut-away walls and views of detailed depictions of the building's layout and rooms -- will help visitors better understand the temples of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints

The Obama administration Friday extended for another year the moratorium on most logging and mining in millions of acres of remote and rugged backcountry sections of national forests.

The idea of preserving roadless areas for wildlife habitat and clean water came out of the Clinton administration. The Bush administration tried to open them up to more logging and mining by giving states control.

Me Either.

Today will be a rather busy day even though it's 50 and raining... After almost 10 years with Earthlink, we are going to be making the tranisition to Comcast because this DSL just doesn't have fast enough upload speeds for Lisa's work VPN. We will likely be changing our email address but will make sure that we notify everybody.

We also have the Safelite people coming by to put in a new sliding window in the pick-up. It should be the final peice of the trucks minor restoration. New radio, new mirrors, new front windsheild, shocks and tires and most recently new seats and seatbelts. SInce I already had the interior panels pulled out, I thought it would be easier on the window guy so it's all going to happen today.

I hope to be back to a somewhat regular schedule, but as always, there are no promises.

There is however, one unintended consequence that I believe will result of this: Salt Lake City has just lost the GOP convention.

The delegates just booted an establishment Republican and there is no way that the RNC will reward the city after giving the boot to one of it's stalwarts.

Look for Chairman Steele to annouce that Tampa has been chosen as the site for the 2012 Convention and then a not so quiet press release about how Salt Lake City has become, with it's ousting of Bennett, a "not Republican Friendly" or "Not in the mainstream" site that doesn't fit with the values of the RNC, or something like that.

I hope I'm wrong about this but I doubt it. That's how inside the beltway politics works, unfortunately.

"The answer simply needs to be: How do you engage more people in politics? And if that's through a direct primary, that needs to be a very serious consideration," Huntsman, who is now U.S. Ambassador to China, said in an interview Thursday.

The good Governor goes on to refuse to pick a side in the Senate race but his endorsement of an open primary is almost an endorsement in and of itself. It's fairly common knowledge that Senator Bennett is well liked by the public, just not by the delegates. An open Primary would almost certainly benefit Bennett and would eliminate his delegate problem all but ensuring reelection. It's moot, I know, as nothing can be done about it now, but it's an interesting observation.

To campaign in Utah for his political life, embattled Sen. Bob Bennett missed more roll call votes this year than all but two other senators -- and they endured long hospital stays.

Also, 31 of those missed votes have come since the week before the March 23 GOP caucuses that elected state delegates. He has a 62 percent voting rate since then as he campaigned especially hard against the seven Republicans challenging him.

Cue this mornings editorial in support of Bob Bennett:

Like the song says, "You don't know what you've got till it's gone." We hope that's not the case with Utah and Bob Bennett, who could be swept away by an anti-incumbent tide at Saturday's Republican state convention.

But a recent Tribune poll reveals that Bennett, while leading the race among the Republican rank and file, is running a distant third among delegates and could be shut out of a primary election.

Color me shocked that someone on the editorial staff is a fan of the 80's hair metal band Cinderella.

The irony of using that song is it is likely more appropriate if sung from Senator Bennetts perspective. The song is, after all, a plea from the singer to, in this case, a love he doesn't want to lose. At least the singer realizes that there is a problem, hence the second verse of the chorus:

If we take some time, think it over baby
Take some time, let me know
If you really wanna go
Don't know what you got til it's gone
Don't know what it is I did so wrong
Now I know what I got
It's just this song
And it ain't easy to get back takes so long

The problem that Senator Bennett has, and its one shared by the writer, is that neither think that the Senator did anything wrong, while the lover in the song, and Senator Bennetts constituents, would tend to disagree.

The editorial lists all the reasons why they think conservatives dislike the Senator and the first and second reasons, especially the first, are indeed true.

He's been vilified for his support of the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the Bush administration's Wall Street-bailout bill. But leading economists agree that without hasty federal intervention the economy could have collapsed, and the Great Recession would have turned into a deep depression.

Plus, Bennett has been called on the carpet for proposing an innovative market-driven, bipartisan health care plan that would have abandoned the failed employer-based insurance system and reduced health care costs.

The TARP bailout was an egregious expansion of Government and despite the Tribune's attempt to justify it, there is no part of it that conservatives like and Bennett's support is indeed reason for us to toss him out.

Further, the bipartisan health care plan is pretty much what we got with ObamaCare and the Senator doesn't realize that we don't want either one. Senator Bennett has fallen into the inside the beltway trap that almost all Republicans fall into. That being the one where Republicans buy into the notion that expanded government is a good and necessary (and let's be realistic, unstoppable thing. We might as well just accept it) thing and that good Republicans just need to come up with plans that minimize the damage, make it somehow more conservative.

The lesson that inside the beltway politicians are, in most cases, not learning from the Tea Party Movement, is that no, this is not okay. We need to not minimize the damage done by an expanding federal government, but stop the damage altogether and then start reversing the process. That is what Senator Bennett isn't getting and it's why he will likely be tossed out on his rear end on Saturday.

SALT LAKE CITY -- The current bashing of Sen. Bob Bennett, R-Utah, by some GOP state delegates apparently will be part of the official Republican state convention agenda Saturday.

In addition, there is a tough anti-illegal immigration platform amendment co-sponsored by three of his challengers.

Something tells me Bennett will be a casualty of the anti-incumbant fervor that is swelling this year. Frankly, I don't think that is a bad thing. A complete turnover of Congress would be refreshing.

Mitt Romney enjoys nearly lock-step support of Mormons in Utah and would wallop President Barack Obama in the state in two years if the former Massachusetts governor is the GOP nominee, a new Salt Lake Tribune poll shows.

"I don't think anybody would argue with me if I said Utah is Mitt Romney's strongest state. Period," says J. Brad Coker, managing director of Mason-Dixon Polling & Research, which conducted the poll for The Tribune . "That's his political base: Utah."

Indeed. However, Romney needs more than this to compete nationally.

Much more.

Down in the polls with less than a week before Saturday's convention, Bennett started his new campaign with an e-mail and mailing to GOP activists that ended with this slogan: "Before you vote, know what the consequences are."

"They will not lose a conservative vote because, frankly, on the big conservative issues, my voting record and my opponents' voting records would be identical," he said. "But what they will lose is the Utah voice on Utah issues."

Well, there is that whole health care thing that Bennett co-sponsored with Democratic Senator Wyden, which shakes out to be pretty close to what we got rammed down our throats. That is a fairly big conservative issue with which the good Senator doesn't have an identical record with his opponents.

It continues:

He argues his replacement would not be in position to stop the impending shutdown of NASA's Ares rocket program, which could result in 2,000 Utahns losing their jobs. He said his replacement wouldn't have his clout to be an effective advocate for Utah's water needs or a sustainable energy plan as the top Republican on the energy and water appropriations subcommittee.

Ah yes... The Hatch Defense. He's been there so long that he has the experience and the contacts to actually get things done... Meh.

Being a fan of term limits, I think they have both been there too long, especially Senator Hatch. Changing things up is the way to go. Just look at the exposure that Scott Brown has gotten. Removing an incumbant can be a good thing, so I don't by this.

It continues:

Patterson said Bennett may sway some by touting his power in D.C., but his strategy also comes with an inherent risk. With a general anti-incumbent mood in the nation, Bennett may turn people off by reminding them he's part of the Washington establishment.

"People are frightened that our government leaders are asleep at the wheel," said Tim Bridgewater, one of the leading candidates to unseat Bennett. "A new generation of leaders is, in effect, what the country is clamoring for from coast to coast."

Yep and Yep.

An internal audit at the Utah Department of Transportation revealed that an employee gave a helping hand to family members at taxpayers' expense, the agency confirmed Friday.

"We did an internal audit of the right-of-way division in October and several problems surfaced," UDOT spokesman Nile Easton said Friday, noting that management talked to Langford immediately and placed her on paid leave while the agency conducted a full investigation.

I'm shocked, shocked I tell you.