• Darryl at Hominid Views interviews Darcy Burner about her time with the Civil Air Patrol. Burner was apparently a successful young cadet, but maybe she, Darryl and Goldy infuse that experience with a bit too much meaning?

  It was the place where she learned how to run an efficient operation, how to get along with people of disparate political stripes and learned the meaning of leadership. From Darryl's interview:

  Darcy: For example, it was from the Civil Air Patrol that I internalized the principle that a true leader will not ask somebody under their command to do something they are not willing to do. You have to be willing to do anything that you ask of those working for you. Darryl: ...something that we aren't getting from our national political leaders these days. Darcy: Right, exactly, there seems to be a tremendous lack of basic principled leadership right now. And being principled is something I learned in the Civil Air Patrol.

• In the Tri-City Herald, Chris Mulick fact-checks a TV ad running against Rep. Bill Grant and says Republican Kevin Young's spots "bend the truth."

  Young said he wasn't directly involved in the ad's production and added he'd look into any discrepancies.

  Shouldn't candidates know enough about their ads before they run to know if they are truthful?

• The state Senate has decamped to Spokane for committee meetings. They're at the luxurious Davenport Hotel, though The Spokesman-Review's Rich Roesler says the senate is paying $99 a night for a room rather than the usual rate that runs from $165 to $195.

  The hotel gives the lawmakers, staff and lobbyists a chance to spread out in a way that's tougher in the capitol — on Monday, Sen. Bob McCaslin was holding court at one table with business lobbyists while other lawmakers were sprawled out on nearby couches. Up in the mezzanine — a balcony encircling the vast lobby — Sen. Brad Benson chatted with lawmakers, while election rival Chris Marr talked with other folks at a table below.

• Also in the Spokesman was this AP story about the Idaho governor's race and the debate raging over "canned elk hunts." That is not hunting for elk meat in cans, but hunting on fenced-in hunting grounds.

  Democratic candidate Jerry Brady called a news conference Tuesday at the Boise Zoo, calling for a ban on the hunts of big game animals on fenced-in grounds.

  "Canned hunts are ruining the American heritage of public access to wildlife," Brady said in a statement. "They signal a return to an elitist, European system of land ownership where people have to pay to hunt. This is not a trend Idaho should follow."

• A long-running dispute between the Evergreen Freedom Foundation and the Washington Education Association will be heard by the U.S. Supreme Court. The Olympian's Brad Shannon says:

  The case pits the conservative, Olympia-based Evergreen Freedom Foundation and allied interests against the Washington Education Association over the question: Should the WEA teachers union ask its nonmembers for written permission before spending a portion of agency fees on political purposes? Or, as WEA argued, should the employee have to opt out, as its practice had been?

  Here's the Times story on this from D.C.

• And be sure to read this Times story by Jonathan Martin on Dave Reichert's environmental record.

  Could it really have been that Reichert was close to getting the Sierra Club endorsement until he told them his view on global warming?

  "The problem is, you have some scientists who say it's happening, and some who say it's not happening. The problem is the Sierra Club says that every scientist says it is," said Reichert, a member of the House Science Committee.

  "I'm going to wait until all the facts are in. There were many scientists who used to say the world was flat."

UPDATE: Eli Sanders points out that Reichert's position makes him even more a skeptic of global warming than President Bush is.