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PORTLAND

Adams reveled in the idea of making history as the first elected, openly gay mayor of a major American city.

But less than three weeks later, Adams’ job is in jeopard in the manner that the result of an old-fashioned scandal involving his repeated lies about a sexual relationship in 2005 with an 18-year-old legislative intern. Adams confessed to his deception Monday as a local newspaper, the Willamette Week, prepared to publish a story about the relationship and cover-up.

While most of the nation has been fixated forward the inauguration of President Obama, Portland has been plunged into a sandy debate about the deontology of its new leader.

In recent days, numerous organizations have called for Adams to resign, ranging from the police union to Just Out, a publication that writes with respect to the gay community. The Oregon Attorney General’s office is investigating the offence.

And Adams himself has conceded that he efficiency retire from if he’s no longer effective as mayor.

“I am very ashamed and humbled and humiliated, and I consider that is appropriate,” Adams said in a advice conference Tuesday, behind hastily returning to Portland from Washington, D.C., to what he had planned to guard the Obama inauguration.

Fall from kindness

It is a dizzying sinking from grace for a man who seemed a smooth fit to lead a city often hailed as a hub of innovation and one of the nation’s coolest places to live. Adams rides a bike to work, posts quirky videos on his Web site, and has been a longtime upholder of expanding candle rail and other initiatives to make Portland greener.

Adams, 45, also focused without interruption the poor; in part, a thinking of his own difficult upbringing.

Born in Montana, he moved to Oregon with his family when he was young. There, his mother tried to raise four children after divorcing Adams’ father, a sometimes-commercial fisherman. According to a profile in Just Out, Adams was living alone in a Eugene hall through age 16. He worked as a bus boy and then a cook at a Mr. Steak restaurant to keep in afloat during high school.

During 11 years as an aide to former Portland Mayor Vera Katz and four years as a incorporated town member of the commission, he gained a esteem as a creative, emulous workaholic

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Just person day after the death of her father, George H. Bartell Jr., Jean Bartell Barber stood at the stylobate at a Bellevue Chamber of Commerce luncheon, extolling the family-run Bartell Drug chain’sitting 118-year history in the Puget Sound region and her father’s influence without ceasing the company’s success.

Because of him, the company is the oldest family-owned drugstore chain in the nation, through 55 Bartell stores in three counties

Mr. Bartell, chairman emeritus of the Bartell Drug Co., and the only son of the party’sitting founder, George Bartell Sr., died Wednesday (Jan. 21) in Mesa, Ariz., near his Scottsdale retirement residence, back a summary curve through pneumonia.

He was 92.

Her father’s employment science of causes, said Barber, the company’s third-generation vice chair and treasurer, “was that you had to always treat your employees really well, so they could turn encompassing and treat customers well.”

Barber characterized her dad as a man of few words. “An unassuming gentleman who believed in treating everyone respectfully,” added his son, George D. Bartell, of Bellevue, the company’session current chairman and CEO.

After word of her father’s death, Barber, of Edmonds, said she contemplated canceling her Thursday address to the group of Bellevue business leaders. “But I felt I could do it, and in a lot of respects I think it was a tribute to my father to go in advance,” she said subsequently.

A Seattle resident greatest part of his life and 1934 Queen Anne High School laureate, Mr. Bartell got his start in the company at a young age, moving boxes and filling warehouse orders as he learned the concern his father established in 1890 with the purchase of the Lake Washington Pharmacy at 27th Avenue and South Jackson Street.

Mr. Bartell was a store clerk, then an aider store manager in the presence of taking inform against of purchasing and merchandising with a view to the growing chain’s candy and tobacco departments. He was named company president in 1939.

In 1942, he was drafted into the Army. He served four years and was discharged as a captain at the end of World War II.

When a greatness law in the early 1950s required drugstore owners to be licensed pharmacists, Mr. Bartell enrolled at the University of Washington and earned a pharmacy degree in three years, graduating with honors.

In 1990, the junior Bartell became company president, and then chairman and chief executive officer in the late 1990s when the elder Mr. Bartell relinquished the chairmanship.

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Lucy traveled across 3.2 million years and thousands of miles to get to Seattle, limit officials at the Pacific Science Center say few persons have turned confused to see the world’s most famous fossil.

Facing up to a half-million-dollar privation on the exhibit, the center laid off 8 percent of its staff and froze wages, President and CEO Bryce Seidl said Friday. Workers are taking unpaid days off, and the nonprofit organization suspended matching funds instead of individual retirement accounts.

It’s a disappointing outcome for some exhibit that was intended to be a blockbuster for the Seattle museum and a public-relations coup towards Lucy’s homeland of Ethiopia, Seidl said.

“It’s a over-powering story of marching and culture and history … but we’re not acquirement the attendance we need for an exhibit of this scale.”

Lucy had never before been on public display outside of Ethiopia. The partial skeleton of one of mankind’s earliest ancestors was unearthed in 1974 in a remote corner of the African race. The discovery of a species with chimplike features that walked upright overturned previous notions of humanity’sitting evolutionary tree.

The exhibit cost about $2.25 million to mount, Seidl estimated. That includes a $500,000 fee to the restraint of Ethiopia, that plans to application the money raised during Lucy’s U.S. tour for cultural and scientific programs.

The science center had hoped 250,000 people would visit for the time of the exhibit’s five-month run, which ends March 8. But presence, so far, is no other than 60,000.

Seidl blamed the economic downturn, what one. has divide into arts programs and museum budgets over the country. December’s pure get the better of also robbed the system of knowledge center of a traditionally busy month of parties and family visits.

Other museums around the U.S. have been tracking Lucy’sitting not rich showing in Seattle, and not the least portion has yet agreed to be the next stop on what was meant to be a six-year, 10-city tour. Chicago’s Field Museum backed out of plans to host the exhibit because of the cost. Controversy over whether the irreplaceable fossil should be transported around the globe led the Denver Museum of Nature & Science not to follow end on early discussions.

“Lucy may not be anywhere other than Ethiopia after Seattle,” Seidl said.

But an official at the Houston Museum of Natural Science, which worked with the Ethiopian government to constitute the tour, said she’s confident other museums exercise volition step up.

Donald Johanson, the American anthropologist who discovered Lucy, said fascination by the skeleton hasn’t faded. “As I journey around the country lecturing, people appear to be to have a intricate interest in their origins, in their roots,” he uttered.

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It’s a puppy tsunami.

After authorities seized nearly 600 dogs in raids in two counties over the past week, the number is only expected to climb higher since most of the animals are pregnant and the puppies just keep to come.

“We’ve judgment that time had two litters born,” uttered Bud Wessman, director of Everett Animal Services, which is caring for 155 dogs seized from a Snohomish County property on Jan. 16. “We have six that will give birth over the weekend and probably another 10 litters arrival up in the nearest week.”

The Snohomish County property has been linked to another property in Skagit County, where officials seized some other 135 dogs on Wednesday and returned Friday to gripe the remaining 308. The owner of the Skagit County property, ready Mount Vernon, is the mother of the woman who owns the Snohomish County property near Gold Bar.

The dog seizures in both counties have animal-control officials struggling to care for the crush of animals. Officials estimate about 80 percent of the 598 dogs are pregnant.

Most of the dogs are miniature Chihuahuas, shih tzus, poodles, Yorkshire terriers and so-called “designer” dogs, deputies said.

According to Chief Criminal Deputy Will Reichardt of the Skagit County Sheriff’s Office, investigators believe a puppy mill was being run originally out of the five-acre Skagit County property in the 16000 block of Mountain View Road under the name Mountain View Kennel.

The first crowd of approximately 135 dogs was seized from Mountain View Kennel during the Wednesday raid. Those dogs

The second quantity of 308 dogs was taken from the property on Friday after authorities determined they might exist infected with a potentially deadly of the intestines parasite, Reichardt said.

Most of the dogs taken from that property are being sheltered at the Skagit County Fairgrounds although more have been placed in foster homes, Reichardt said.

In the related raid in Snohomish County last week, deputies and animal-control officers rescued 155 dogs that were distempered, filthy and covered with fleas, according to Snohomish County license manager Vicki Lubrin. Those animals are at the Everett Animal Shelter, she aforesaid.

According to Lubrin, the dogs were typically bred at the Gold Bar and Skagit County properties.

The dogs were sold from a third family property in the city of Snohomish, which was described to the degree that a “nice country house,” according to Paula Helinski, who lives left the family’s Skagit County property and has wearied years collecting documents to expose the alleged puppy mill. Dogs moreover were sold through an Internet site called Wags & Wiggles Teacups, she uttered.

Authorities raided the Snohomish property on Jan. 16 and found 44 dogs. Although the number was in violation of the kennel permit, the dogs were left astern because they appeared to be in good shape, Lubrin said.

Law-enforcement and animal-control officers in the two counties say they are working together to investigate the box and that they expect animal-cruelty charges to be filed against the owners.

The Seattle Times is not naming the property owners because charges have not been filed.

At the Skagit County Fairgrounds on Friday, some army of animal-control officers, sheriff’s deputies, rescue activists and volunteers worked to transport, sort, clean, bathe and medicate the animals.

It will take some time before the animals’ fate is known, said Wessman, the counsellor of Everett Animal Services.

According to Wessman, the dogs’ owners have 15 days to either surrender the animals to the counties or post a bond that would cover the medical and boarding costs for the animals because the duration of their stay in the shelter, that, whether or not culprit charges are filed, could subsist lengthy.

If they are turned over to the counties, Wessman said, the animals power of choosing have to give birth and then be spayed.

Wessman said he has spoken with officials from the Washington State University College of Veterinary Medicine in an opposite direction having the animals spayed and neutered en masse by dint of. students. He said this could exist a great solution for the animals and a ready learning experience in opposition to the students.

After that, a assemblage adopt-a-thon could be scheduled. He said the Academy of Canine Behavior in Bothell has offered to entertainer any when the proper time is perpendicular, he said.

He and officials in Skagit County warn that it could take some hour of travail to restore the animals to health and prepare them to be fostered or adopted to the end.

Animal-control officers are additionally asking that anyone who purchased a dog from the Mountain View Kennel license a message for animal-control officer JoHannah Deterding at 360-336-9450 or e-mail her at johannad@co.skagit.wa.us.

President Obama’s goals for health-care reform are similar to Massachusetts’. The Administration should take a good apply the mind at what is and isn’familiarily working

By Clayton M. Christensen and Jason Hwang

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Posted on On Innovation: January 22, 2009 5:23 PM

One of the primary features of President Obama’s health perplexity plan is the institution of a National Health Insurance Exchange.

It has three primary goals:

1. To serve as an unbiased cause of information for consumers

2. To make stable minimum standards and monitor consummation of participating soundness plans

3. To form a marketplace and increase competition among insurers

The creation of this Exchange is every important step forward in the reform case, on the contrary other elements in the value network need to be fixed in order for the Exchange to succeed. In fact, a similar scheme known to the degree that the Commonwealth Health Connector has existed in Massachusetts since July 2007, and this decidedly founded on fact prototype has uncovered some important shortcomings. We ought to address these before applying a uniform model on a national scale.

First, Massachusetts citizens have had slender incentive to seek out and use information about their freedom from disease care services. Why? A lack of steady knowledge of facts transparency. Information transparency is necessary to life to an optimally-functioning market, because it allows for rational decision-making by all stakeholders. These circumstances almost never continue in freedom from disease care, ago insurers, hospitals, and doctors have historically been highly resistant to releasing data that could suggest pricing or quality disparities. In this value, the Exchange can only help, as long as the information being disseminated is accurate, relevant, and suitable for practice through a layperson—none small task.

More important, however, is the fact that patients mouldiness consider a reason to use this information and make agreeable to reason purchasing decisions. Employer-based insurance in the U.S. and single-payer systems worldwide have disenfranchised patients for so tardy that true shopping behavior is rarely observed, even for discretionary services like LASIK eye surgery. We need corresponding changes in the system, such taken in the character of a proliferation in hale condition savings accounts and personal electronic health records that simpleton more direct of the dollars, data, and decision-making into the hands of patients who default it.

Next, we need to ensure each abundant range of services in the marketplace so that motivated consumers armed with information will regard viable options that meet their needs—in other altercation, give them choice. This raises another moot point with the proposed Exchange. The constraint of least part standards is typically meant for the good of the patient, but these regulations often end up excepting that protecting the providers. Even after certain standards have change to outdated or unnecessary, incumbents will continue to argue for their existence under the pretext of public safety. That’s because these regulations serve as an effective barrier to entry, particularly against disruptive businesses that focus on ignored or smaller quantity profitable markets like the uninsured.

However, these disruptions are essential to bringing more affordable care to more the bulk of mankind by creating options where in that place were previously none. In Massachusetts, on account of instance, the decision to affix prescript plans as a minimum requirement for participation in the Connector shut down what could have been an important foothold for generic drugs and the low-cost pharmacy pricing models introduced by Wal-Mart and other retailers. While we would not advocate a completely unregulated health care body of caveat emptor, we urge regulators to account for the hidden cost of delayed innovation as a common unintended consequence of establishing minimum standards and to ensure that such regulations are repealed nimbly once they become obsolete.

Finally, the Exchange promotes a misplaced faith in the notion that simply promoting direct competition amidst existing health plans will suddenly intend from a thin to a dense state costs and deliver increased value in favor of our enormous soundness care spending. But history tells us in other respects. Direct competition among U.S. automakers did not bestow us more affordable, standing cars—disruption by Japanese (and now Korean) companies did. Breaking up AT&T to induce competition amidst the Baby Bells did not bring greater quantity affordable telephone service—disruptive technologies like Voice Over IP (VOIP) did. Likewise, the hope in Massachusetts of pitting Blue Cross Blue Shield, Harvard Pilgrim, Tufts, and others against each other to drive downward costs has not been realized. The reason is that the state (at the encouragement of powerful incumbent organizations like the Massachusetts Medical Society) did little to encourage the entrance of disruptive business models, and in many cases, hindered it. For example, CVS’s MinuteClinic has been around since 2000, but its sell in small quantities clinics were not permitted in Massachusetts until January 2008 (and the in the first place one did not open until September). Even if insurers wanted to, they could not express patients to more convenient and affordable options. In a system with a severe shortage of primary care practitioners, patients were forced instead to turn to costly and crowded conjuncture departments for practice care.

Creating a marketplace that propagates information and promotes appropriate tradeoffs is the right start, mete the Exchange will not reach its towering goals without the answering. changes to our knowledge of facts technology, paying, delivery, and regulatory systems described above. We should learn from Massachusetts’s experience by the exchange model and recognize that there’s a specific type of contest that drives value—disruptive competition. And if we can use the Exchange to harness the best of what disruption has to offer, then we can begin to create a much-needed health care system that is capable of delivering higher property and performance at a lower cost.

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KENT — Jeff Budinich, Kentlake’s 6-foot-9 senior, scored 23 points as the Falcons tripped eighth-ranked Auburn 67-64 in a South Puget Sound League 4A North Division boys basketball game Friday night.

Kentlake improved to 6-8 overall, 4-7 in league. Jeff Gouveia scored 20 and Jay Payne 17 on this account that Auburn (11-3, 9-3).

Other boys games

At Garfield 64, Skyline 51

The top-ranked Bulldogs (10-2, 9-0) led through only a point going into the fourth quarter, then finished the KingCo 4A game on a 22-10 put with force. Glen Brooks led Garfield with 15 points. Skyline sophomore Kasen Williams scored 17. Garfield played without injured Tony Wroten Jr.

At Curtis 54, Bethel 44

Curtis (14-3, 10-2 SPSL South), ranked ninth in 4A, led only 20-18 at halftime ahead of pulling away. Chad Rasmussen scored 12 of his 18 points in the third part quarter for the Vikings.

At Bellevue 66, Interlake 33

Colton Christian, a 6-7 senior, had a season-high 25 points and 15 rebounds to power the Wolverines (14-1, 7-0 KingCo 3A/2A), ranked third in Class 3A.

Renton 39, at Kennedy 36

A Kennedy three-point shot rimmed at a loss at the buzzer as the fifth-ranked Indians (10-1, 0-0) escaped. Achoki Moikobu’s 14 points for Renton led every one of scorers.

At Enumclaw 63, Sumner 21

Taylor Myers had 12 points and five steals and Enumclaw (13-1, 9-1 SPSL 3A), ranked No. 7 in 3A, turned in another smothering defensive effort.

Mount Rainier 70, at Hazen 58

No. 8 Mount Rainier (11-1, 8-0) got 24 points from Jarell Banks and 17 from Bryce McPhee in a Seamount win. Caleb Frary scored 22 for Hazen.

At Clover Park 49, White River 45

The No. 9 Warriors (10-2, 9-2 SPSL 3A) hung on despite missing 12 free throws in the fourth quarter. Ken Thomas had 18 points and 10 rebounds for the Hornets.

At Seattle Prep 65, Lakeside 34

Jon Humphrie’session season-high 26 points helped the No. 10 Panthers (12-3, 9-1) to a Metro triumph.

At Mountlake Terrace 51, Shorewood 48

Karsten Strieby, Terrace’session 6-7 center, had 19 points and seven rebounds and the WesCo South-leading Hawks (11-3, 11-1) held off a wild last-minute rally by the Thunderbirds.

West Seattle 51, at Cleveland 48

Joebell Austin hit 10 of 11 free throws, going 6 for the sake of 6 in the final two minutes, and scored 26 points as the Wildcats (1-11, 1-8 Metro) got their primitive gain this season.

Girls games

Snohomish 53, at Oak Harbor 39

The fourth-ranked Panthers (12-2, 10-0 WesCo North) needed a 22-3 third-quarter push to take control after leading by only three at halftime.

At Auburn Riverside 64,

Kent-Meridian 31

Eighth-ranked Riverside led 23-4 after one quarter in the SPSL North game. Mercedes Whitmore’session 18 points led the Ravens (11-5, 9-3).

At Federal Way 76, Kentridge 35

The No. 9 Eagles (11-4, 8-3 SPSL North) buried the Chargers with a 28-4 first-quarter run.

At Eastlake 54, Newport 47

The Wolves (9-3, 7-2) kept pace by Crest Division-leading Issaquah with their fifth continuous KingCo 4A win. Ellie Martinez scored 15 for Eastlake, which held Newport’s Betsy Kingma to nine.

At Garfield 52, Skyline 40

The Bulldogs (9-4, 5-3), who won only six games last imbue, got a KingCo 4A victory behind double-doubles from Cora McManus (10 points, 10 rebounds) and DeAndreney Dillard-Brown (13 points, 13 rebounds).

Kennedy 80, at Renton 44

Kennedy (12-0, 9-0 Seamount), ranked No. 1 in Class 3A, stayed perfect viewed like Yazmine Fuller scored 19.

At White River 67, Clover Park 43

Fourth-ranked White River (13-0, 10-0) got off to a fast start and remained unbeaten like Megan McKune scored 21 points.

At Bainbridge 65, Kingston 40

No. 5 Bainbridge, arrival off a Metro League loss to Lakeside on Wednesday, bounced back with a nonleague win counter to the 2A Buccaneers.

Meadowdale 45, at Glacier Peak 42

Eighth-ranked Meadowdale (11-3, 10-2 WesCo South) survived a huge double-double by Marjorie Heard (17 points, 18 rebounds) of the Grizzlies.

Notes

• Junior guard Tanner Riley scored a season-best 35 points, lifting his average to 26.4, in Mount Si’s 72-51 KingCo 3A/2A boys win into the bargain Liberty.

• Kale Schmidt led five Stanwood scorers in double figures with 19 points in a 77-64 WesCo North boys victory over Arlington.

• Coupeville got 15 points and 17 rebounds from Hunter Hammer, a 6-5 sophomore, in a 49-39 boys win over Cedarcrest.

• Jamie Meyer scored 30 for Bear Creek of Redmond, ranked fifth in Class 2B, in a boys win over Christian Faith.

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As sales began slumping in August 2007, Seattle Boat CEO Alan Bohling sensed the economic tide was going out.

Bohling, whose company has been selling boats in Seattle since 1984, sees the boating industry considered in the state of an “early indicator” of the state of the general dispensation. In 2008, as banks failed and Wall Street tanked, Seattle Boat’s sales declined not remotely 40 percent.

The troop was bracing for any other 25 percent decrease in 2009. But in December, somewhat to Bohling’sitting surprise, people started buying again.

“We obtain had to a greater degree action for the period of that last three-week period of time than we have had in the past time two years,” Bohling said during a preview party for the Seattle Boat Show, which opened Friday at Qwest Field Event Center and South Lake Union.

To Bohling, it’s another early indicator — this time, of an economic upswing.

“The worst is behind us,” he declared, bias against a 21-foot Cobalt 210 gayety boat priced at $54,161, about $5,000 less than usual deal out in small portions.

The preview Thursday night was the first in the boat show’s 62-year history. Dealers invited clients and prospective boat owners for a special sneak peek at the merchandise, hoping to construct connections and jump-start sales.

More than 1,000 guests were expected to RSVP. Almost 3,000 showed up, according to the Northwest Marine Trade Association, which has more than 850 members. It was a welcome sight for dealers, some of whom scored handshake deals at the result.

“They’re just delighted to see a few thousand people walking and talking and breathing oxygen,” said association President Michael Campbell being of the class who he watched people slip off their shoes and climb onto boats put on display. “We’re so very much down, anything looks likely an amending.”

With about 1,000 exhibitors, the 2009 Seattle Boat Show is about 20 percent smaller than last year, reflecting the contraction of the market. Some former exhibitors, including Seattle’s Olympic Boat Center, closed for kind in 2008, while others teetered on the edge of bankruptcy.

“Business has been a challenge over 2008, but we’ve made some moves to put on advantage of some of the white space in the market,” said Mark Helgen, sales vice president at Lake Union Sea Ray. His business expanded last year, opening three of recent origin service locations and a depot on Lake Union.

“It’s encouraging,” Helgen said, as he watched people mingle among the stock Thursday. “The comments are positive.”

The slowdown left dealers with greater degree of inventory than they’re comfortable with, which meant copious sticker discounts. But dealers furthermore wait for boat manufacturers to curtail fruit this year. They object of trust the result will be a return to equilibrium.

At the momentum, however, dealers are pointing to a tried-and-true slogan.

“It’s a great time to buy,” Campbell said, smiling as he acknowledged the cliché. “But it is. There are deals to be had in boats that won’privately be had another time.”

Along with remarkably low prices, through a down payment of 15 to 20 percent, financing is “very, very available,” Bohling said, noting that interest rates are running between 7 and 8 percent. “I see some opportunity for the consumer.”

All this is well adapted news for those with the means and inclination to purchase, said Bill Baker, president of Bakes Marine Center, which is celebrating its 20th anniversary this week. It’s not bad for the dealers, either.

“I actually deem this year’session going to be pretty decent,” Baker said, standing near a blue and white Malibu boat, priced at $57,633, down from $64,915. Nearby, a $101,822 Malibu was on sale for $86,048. “Is it going to be as self-sufficient as the banner years? Probably not. But I think the industrial art is going to start climbing.”

Consumers, for their element, are all about the bargains.

“Instead of a swallow ticket, be possible to I have that?” joked one preview-goer as she checked in at the Lake Union Sea Ray desk, pointing to a $1.9 million 55-foot Sundancer yacht, on sale for $1.34 the great body of the people.

“I apprehend we’unravelling of the plot all like to buy a boat,” said John Dombroski, a Sammamish resident invited to the event by Baker. Dombroski’s question to dealers: “What kind of deals are you cutting?”

Others wish they had waited longer to buy. Kirkland resident Gary Webb, who keeps his 2007 Sierra Bayliner on Lake Washington, said he would love to upgrade from a 30-foot model to a 34-foot model. If he had bought a boat this year, Webb could have gotten the bigger one for the sort worth he paid for his 30-footer.

As it is, trading the boat in would ensue in a $30,000 to $40,000 loss.

“If I hadn’t bought that boat last year, I’undress be so light-hearted right at once,” Webb said, looking wistfully at the Malibu models. “With the established order the way it is, you can’t flip your boat or do anything you’d usually practise.”

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It’s a fop tsunami.

After authorities seized nearly 600 dogs in raids in two counties over the past week, the number is only expected to climb higher since greatest in quantity of the animals are pregnant and the puppies just keep coming.

“We’ve already had couple litters born,” said Bud Wessman, director of Everett Animal Services, which is caring for 155 dogs seized from a Snohomish County possessions on Jan. 16. “We have six that will give birth over the weekend and probably another 10 litters coming up in the next week.”

The Snohomish County property has been linked to another property in Skagit County, where authorities seized another 135 dogs on Wednesday and returned Friday to apprehend the remaining 308. The owner of the Skagit County property, near Mount Vernon, is the mother of the woman who owns the Snohomish County property near Gold Bar.

The dog seizures in one as well as the other counties have animal-control officials struggling to care for the crush of animals. Officials estimate about 80 percent of the 598 dogs are pregnant.

Most of the dogs are miniature Chihuahuas, shih tzus, poodles, Yorkshire terriers and so-called “designer” dogs, deputies said.

According to Chief Criminal Deputy Will Reichardt of the Skagit County Sheriff’s Office, investigators believe a puppy mill was being run primarily at a loss of the five-acre Skagit County property in the 16000 block up of Mountain View Road under the designation Mountain View Kennel.

The first batch of nearly 135 dogs was seized from Mountain View Kennel for the time of the Wednesday raid. Those dogs — sick, matted, duration in their own feces and left exclusively of food and give water to — were deemed to have being in require of immediate medical care, he said.

The second batch of 308 dogs was taken from the property on Friday after authorities determined they might be infected through a potentially murderous intestinal flunky, Reichardt said.

Most of the dogs taken from that property are existence sheltered at the Skagit County Fairgrounds although more own been placed in feed homes, Reichardt said.

In the related raid in Snohomish County last week, deputies and animal-control officers rescued 155 dogs that were sick, filthy and covered with fleas, according to Snohomish County license director Vicki Lubrin. Those animals are at the Everett Animal Shelter, she said.

According to Lubrin, the dogs were typically bred at the Gold Bar and Skagit County properties.

The dogs were sold from a third subdivision of an order property in the city of Snohomish, which was described as a “fine country race,” according to Paula Helinski, who lives near the family’session Skagit County property and has spent years collecting documents to expose the alleged puppy mill. Dogs also were sold through an Internet site called Wags & Wiggles Teacups, she said.

Authorities raided the Snohomish property on Jan. 16 and found 44 dogs. Although the enumerate was in breaking of the kennel permit, the dogs were left abaft because they appeared to be in good adjust, Lubrin related.

Law-enforcement and animal-control officers in the two counties say they are working together to investigate the suit and that they expect animal-cruelty charges to be filed against the owners.

The Seattle Times is not naming the property owners because charges have not been filed.

At the Skagit County Fairgrounds on Friday, an vast assemblage of animal-control officers, sheriff’s deputies, rescue activists and volunteers worked to transport, sort, clean, lave and medicate the animals.

It will take some time before the animals’ fate is known, said Wessman, the director of Everett Animal Services.

According to Wessman, the dogs’ owners get 15 days to either surrender the animals to the counties or post a compact that would cover the medical and boarding costs for the animals for the duration of their prop in the shelter, which, if convict charges are filed, could be lengthy.

If they are turned over to the counties, Wessman said, the animals will have to give birth and then be spayed.

Wessman said he has oral with officials from the Washington State University College of Veterinary Medicine through regard to having the animals spayed and neutered en masse by the agency of students. He said this could be a generous disintegration for the animals and a good scholarship experience for the students.

After that, a mass adopt-a-thon could be scheduled. He said the Academy of Canine Behavior in Bothell has offered to host one when the time is right, he said.

He and officials in Skagit County warn that it could take some time to restore the animals to health and provide them to be fostered or adopted not at home.

Animal-control officers are additionally asking that anyone who purchased a dog from the Mountain View Kennel leave a message for animal-control officer JoHannah Deterding at 360-336-9450 or e-mail her at johannad@co.skagit.wa.us.

Christine Clarridge: 206-464-8983 or cclarridge@seattletimes.com

Buying Wyeth would boost Pfizer’sitting revenues, but it won’t repress with the litany of marketing challenges and other problems plaguing Big Pharma

By Catherine Arnst

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Pfizer (PFE) has been hinting for months that it was in the market conducive to a major acquisition to bolster its sagging fortunes, and it may be the subject of found its target. The Wall Street Journal (NWS) reported on Jan. 23 that New York-based Pfizer, the terraqueous globe’s largest drugmaker, is in talks to buy Wyeth (WYE), the ninth largest, for as much in the manner that $60 billion in stock and cash. Neither company will comment on the report, moreover that hasn’t stopped analysts, investors, and industry bloggers from mulling over the potential of a combined "Pfyeth."

The general reaction: Acquiring Wyeth might boost Pfizer’s fortunes in the short term, but it won’t disentangle the long-term problems that are roiling the major pharmaceutical makers. As many observers have noted, Pfizer and the stillness of the drug industry undergo from a lack of promising new products to replace older ones going off patent. What is inferior widely understood is that Pfizer also will stand over against an increasingly constrained marketing environment, even if it succeeds in bulking up with Wyeth.

The fact is, it’s getting a lot harder to place of traffic the products both companies wish right now. Congress is widely expected to restrict direct-to-consumer advertising by unsalable article companies this year, and much stricter limits were put in place highest year on how the industry markets to doctors. Universities and hospitals also are toughening up existing constraints on in what condition much money their researchers can take . from companies despite promotional activities.

"The industry needs to dramatically refocus its promotional activities, which means really tightening up and shrinking what they have now," says Jim Hall, member of a partnership in the health-care practice of the management consultancy Oliver Wyman. "I think one of the drivers of this merger is the opportunity to reduce the sales force." Pfizer currently has any of the largest sales forces in the industry, some 7,000 strong. Hall notes that Wyeth’s antibiotics and specialty drugs don’t require a lot of marketing to consumers, as statins do, and Pfizer may regard that taken in the character of a big plus.

Wyeth, based in Madison, N.J., also has a strong state-room in biologic drugs and vaccines, segments of the market where Pfizer has small in reach the number of products. But those drugs will not counterbalance for Pfizer’session loss of revenues when the patent expires on its cholesterol-lowering pill Lipitor, the globe’s best-selling drug, in 2011. Last year Lipitor generated $12.5 billion in sales, about 25% of Pfizer’s total revenues. Due to other patent expirations, Pfizer is facing a loss of more than 70% of its 2007 revenues by 2015, and there are no synonymous blockbusters in its development pipeline.

Wyeth’s future doesn’cheek by the agency of jowl appear to be much brighter. Its two biggest drugs, Effexor for degradation and Protonix in the place of heartburn, are scheduled to lose patent protection in 2010 and 2011, respectively. "In 2010 the combined Pfizer-Wyeth could have $73 billion in worldwide sales. That number may decline to $68 billion in 2012 to be paid to patent losses," Zacks Investment Research analyst Jason Napodano wrote in individual investors’ comment titled "Pfizer Eyes Wyeth. We Ask Why?"

Wyeth had a big setback last year when one of its more promising pipeline candidates, an Alzheimer’s vaccine it is developing with Elan (ELN), turned in disappointing clinical trial results. And, to top it off, the FDA rejected brace of its trumpeted new drug candidates in 2008.

Sophisticated politic microtargeting efforts are grouping us in surprising ways. For Obama, swing voters known as Barn Raisers proved pivotal

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Austin Cornelio

By Stephen Baker

About three minutes into his speech on Jan. 20, President Barack Obama spoke a word never before uttered in a Presidential inauguration oral communication: "data.". The word may hearty nerdy, and Obama used it in reference to indicators of economic and other crises. But it’s no exact overlapping the expression. rest its way into his remarks. The harnessing of data has been crucial to Obama’s rise to host.

Throughout the campaign, Obama and his team not only bested his Democratic and Republican rivals in social networking and fund-raising from one side the Internet, they in addition engaged in a data battle to locate possible wave voters. These efforts zeroed in on hotly contested states and congressional districts, where the shift of 1,000 or 2,000 voters could prove conclusive—meaning the focus was on only a tiny fraction of the voting public. But to find those swing voters, both sides hired tech wizards to sift through mountains of consumer and demographic details. They scrutinized nearly everyone they could find.

One Democratic consultancy, Spotlight Analysis, took this field-sport to extraordinary lengths. Working on behalf of Democratic candidates, though not directly for the Obama campaign, Spotlight crunched neighborhood details, family sizes, and purchasing behavior. It then grouped nearly every American of voting age—175 million of us—into 10 "values" tribes. Fellow nation of uncivilized people members may not share the same kindred or religion, or fall into the same income bracket, but they have common feelings about issues that transcend political affairs: God, community, responsibility, and opportunity. Spotlight believes that one of these tribes, a morally guided (but not necessarily religious) grouping of more 14 the public voters—dubbed "Barn Raisers"—held the key to the argue between Obama and his Republican challenger, Arizona Senator John McCain.

The definition of a Barn Raiser cuts straight to the heart of what distinguishes political microtargeting from traditional civic groupings. Barn Raisers have power to be of any race, religion, or ethnic group. About 40% of Barn Raisers are Democrats, or rely that track, and 27% favor Republicans—though the group strongly supported President Bush in his 2004 reelection campaign. Barn Raisers are little less likely to have a college education than Spotlight’sitting other swing groups. They’re active in community organizations but are ambivalent about government. And they care more deeply than most people about "playing by the rules" and "agreement promises," to application Spotlight’s definitions.

With especial appeals to Barn Raisers in swing states, Spotlight’s clients, including the Service Employees International Union and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, hoped to hinge battleground states such as Florida, North Carolina, Virginia, and Ohio. The data-based techniques they rustic to use, similar to those used to target supermarket shoppers and strange to say to hunt for terrorists, are turnery political affairs into the sophisticated calculations typically associated with Google (GOOG) and its ilk. In a fraction of a ensnare part with, computers sort us into segments and then calculate the in posse that each of us has to swing from red or purple to blue. For many, this signals the dehumanization of political affairs.

Others say political data mining helps better pinpoint individuals whose views and priorities may otherwise be overlooked. Consider a voter in, say, Richmond, Va. Republican and Democratic facts miners regard the number of children she has in school, they take note of her car, her Zip Code, her magazine subscriptions, and the balance on her mortgage. They might uniform find in her data that she has two cats and no dog. (Cat owners lean slightly for Democrats, dog owners tendency Republican.) In the end, they place her into a political tribe and draw conclusions with regard to the issues that matter to her. Is that so horrible?