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Microsoft scored a major victory Wednesday while a judge ruled a lawsuit challenging the corporation’sitting “Windows Vista Capable” marketing program cannot go forward as a class action.

That could bring to a close a case that has made public a flood of inner Microsoft e-mails, providing a rare and many times unflattering look at the company’s internal debate as it set hardware requirements for Vista and planned how to market the operating system.

The company was in a bind for the cause that as Vista approached launch in 2006, many computers on the market could not pressure the premium version of the operating system.

In a bid to maintain interrogation for this soon-to-be obsolete hardware and the Windows XP operating system that it used, Microsoft allowed PC makers to label these machines “Vista Capable,” even granting they could only run Vista Home Basic, which lacks features such as the Aero user interface.

The plaintiffs allege this was deceptive and violated the Washington Consumer Protection Act, among other claims.

In certifying the case as a rank action nearly a year gone, U.S. District Court Judge Marsha Pechman said the plaintiffs had to show the marketing program caused them to pay more for PCs only able of running Vista Home Basic than they would have absent the Vista Capable campaign.

Pechman ruled that evidence submitted in support of the “price-inflation system” was based on assumptions and anecdotes and that plaintiffs failed to distinct any impact the marketing program had on PC prices from other factors such as holiday sales.

“Absent testimony of class-wide price conceitedness, plaintiffs cannot demonstrate that common questions predominate over individual considerations,” she wrote.

But she declined to issue a summary judgment in Microsoft’s favor. The plaintiffs do not have to show their price-inflation theory if they pursue their claims being of the class who individuals, she ruled.

“We’re pleased that the court granted our passage to decertify the class, leaving singly the claims of six individuals,” Microsoft prolocutor David Bowermaster said in an e-mail.”We look forward to presenting our case to the jury, should the plaintiffs elect to pursue their unconventional claims.”

Attorney Jeffery Thomas said the plaintiffs are still reviewing the ruling and their options.

Microsoft at this time has its sights regulate on Vista’s follower, Windows 7, which is fit out not more than 11 months though many expect it sooner.

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PORT ANGELES — I could start with the wineries, the sculptures and the brothel museum — yes, you heard right — and the great backyard that is Hurricane Ridge. But the law of screaming teens dictates that I get this duty out of the way first: Port Angeles is home to three storefronts, a corporation and a theater mentioned in the teen vampire series “Twilight.” (Insert firm of screaming girls.)

Two days subsequent my visit, my ears were still ringing from every part of the “Oh My Gods” and screeching.

“Where are the ‘Twilight’ sites?” or a variation of this question has become the most-asked at the town visitors center. Gas-station attendants and store owners are used to hearing it, too.

“Twilight” fans, I plant an choice solution so that you be able to leave these poor townspeople alone. But more on that later.

Where was I? Ah, ay: Port Angeles, a lazy but underrated town, with wine and art. This town pairs nicely with Hurricane Ridge for a weekend getaway, especially for the period of the winter when crowds are sparse.

Go for hibernate sports

On a true day when the road is clear, Port Angeles is a 40-minute drive from Hurricane Ridge, the highest point you be able to impel to in Olympic National Park during winter. When snow conditions are right at the ridge, you can snowboard or ski — downhill, backcountry or cross-country. There is even a tubing area.

At the tiny, family-oriented Hurricane Ridge Ski Area, run by a arrange of local winter sports enthusiasts, there are two rope tows for a modest bunny and initiator run, and a Poma lift that leads to challenging terrain with an 800-foot vertical small quantity.

Still, it’sitting a cozy community ski area, a PTA gathering on snow.

But what a view. The snow-covered valley of Douglas fir and Western red cedar south of Hurricane Ridge. The Bailey Range with Mount Olympus as backdrop.

And because you are already up at 5,242 feet, you don’privately even have to break a sweat if you add a conduct on one of the park’s every-weekend snowshoe hikes to a unqualified view of Port Angeles below, with glimpses of Victoria, Vancouver Island and the British Columbia coastal range in the distance.

After a full day on the ridge, drive back along the course of to Highway 101, a road that can portray you completely right and left this vast park if you want to experience its split personalities: snowcapped mountains, rain forest and wilderness coastline.

Or stop and exist lost some era in Port Angeles.

Wine and art

When you’re surrounded by the Hoh rain forest to the west, Hurricane Ridge to the south and Victoria, B.C., to the north, it’s hard to top those attractions.

But Port Angeles, in an opposite direction 2-½ hours through car and ferry from Seattle, works nicely in a supporting role to Hurricane Ridge.

Seven wineries dot the North Peninsula, including Harbinger Winery, a maker of good Bordeaux blends, located roughly halfway between downtown and the national park gateway in a charmingly transformed former truck-repair shop.

Come spring, this boutique winery will require a brewery for a neighbor and after that, a Cajun crab shack to transfer favorable opportunity of the bounty of Dungeness crab nearby.

The knowledge how to do scene, too, has transformed this former logging community: Forty-one abstract and natural-habitat inspired sculptures perch around the historic downtown, and east of place, an additional 124 metal and stone artworks spread across the 5-acre Webster’s Woods Art Park.

This city’s outdoor sculpture park, more like Westcott Bay Sculpture Park in the San Juans than Seattle’s Olympic Sculpture Park, is not grandiose but contains plenty of impressive artwork through regional talents such of the same kind with Micajah Bienvenu and Alan Lande. It’s next to the city’s lunate Fine Arts Center, perched on Beaver Hill, overlooking the harbor and the strait, enjoying one of the best panoramic views on every side town.

About that brothel

And how sundry towns have power to boast of having a brothel museum, on the take the top off floor of a “Family Shoe Store” in downtown? Store holder Kevin Thompson, whose house has owned the building for generations, has a sense of humor. He’sitting refurbishing the brothel when he’s not retrieving Tevas and Hush Puppies for mothers and children in the high sea showroom.

His ancestors didn’t run the whorehouse, further rather another, ahem, entrepreneur saw the boarding chamber extension for rent and got creative.

The furniture has been replaced, moreover the structure of the 18-room brothel remains. Back in the betimes 1920s, customers selected their girls through the window by means of the upstairs entrance and paid $2 through a slot to gain entry.

The madam’sitting room features a peephole to watch for police raids. The backroom features a trap entrance to the roof for the ladies to make their getaway via a spirit escape.

The brothel is part of an underground tour. Like Seattle, Port Angeles’ historic downtown had to be raised during the time that much as 15 feet so as to be safe from encroaching water. The place wants to save many original structures, partly to use those basements to expand the underground tour.

Tourism with bite

Port Angeles has also designated a Chamber of Commerce staffer to deal with all things “Twilight.”

(”Twilight” fans, don’t think I don’t know you skipped over to get to this point.)

The town will soon print self-guided tours of “Twilight” sites. And it’session working with other towns to legion “Twilight” tours and events through the Olympic Peninsula, though any tours would benefit the town of Forks more since most local settings for Stephenie Meyer’s parasite series are there.

But “Twilight” fans render impassable to this place along the way to snap pictures of Port Book and News, the local Gottschalks department store, Peninsula College and Lincoln Theater, which all figure in the story, and to eat at Bella Italia, where “Twilight” characters Bella and Edward had their primeval date over mushroom ravioli.

The downtown restaurant served added than 1,700 orders of mushroom ravioli last year, mostly to “Twilight” fans from all over the world.

Come in this place at darkness, any night, and it’s easy to see why the restaurant power of determination batter last year’sitting ravioli remembrance, being of the class who the economist predicts. Twilighters are everywhere; dining, waiting by the fit with a front door to dine, snapping pictures of a “Twilight” sacred object while tarrying to dine.

And they’re not just teenagers. Outside Bella Italia, 54-year-old Mickey Means and her sum of two units daughters, 29 and 25, from Valentine, Texas, were mugging in front of the restaurant, part of their three-day “Twilight”-theme vacation on the Olympic Peninsula.

Waiting for dinner?

Puh-leese. They beat the crowd an hour ago. Three orders of mushroom ravioli.

Tan Vinh: 206-515-5656 or tvinh@seattletimes.com

The new evasion solves some—but not all—of the problems that have plagued mini-laptops

By Stephen H. Wildstrom

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Netbooks—those pint-size, inexpensive laptops by displays measuring about 10 inches—have succeeded in putting the "It" factor back into info tech. But they all suffer from a big problem: They run software designed for use on much bigger displays, leaving you with a desktop that’sitting cramped and unaesthetic. While Hewlett-Packard’s (HPQ) latest entry in this fast-growing sector solves more of the problems, in that place is more to be done.

Most of the issues I’ve had with existing products involve software. Netbooks generally default the oomph to lie Windows Vista, so in the greatest degree manufacturers own opted for Windows XP. That program feels hopelessly scrunched on netbook screens. Some netbook makers have experimented by Linux, what one. is better. But that foliage non�techies struggling with an unfamiliar and sometimes ornery environment.

The HP Mini 1000 Mi (from $435 with 10.1-inch spread and 60-gigabyte hard drive) takes a new approach. Its software is a version of Linux called Ubuntu that remains hidden from the user—much as the Linux software in TiVos (TIVO) and other digital videorecorders does its job and corsets out of the way. Running on top of that, there’s a user interface designed by HP that addresses the problem of the small screen and won’t be intimidating to new users.

The Mi doesn’t try to replace a rule PC. It is not aimed at people who conversion to an act Microsoft (MSFT) Outlook for corporate e-mail, create documents in Word, emit spreadsheets, edit photos or video, or prepare presentations steady their computers. Like all netbooks, it is designed for Web browsing and consuming information, not creating it. When you fire it up, the initial screen gives you a summary of your e-mail in-box, favorite Web links, and access to photos and music stored on the computer. A button at the bottom of the screen lets you use other installed programs, which are displayed as big icons sorted into tabs such as "Internet" and "media." The designers were careful not to cram lots of unnecessary information onto the home shelter. They also kept navigation simple and made assured the choices are presented clearly.

Programs customized during the small defend, such as the preloaded music and video players, also work fine. And the Firefox browser, though designed for a abundant bigger flourish, is made in great part more usable by a button that causes menus and hireling bars to vanish, clearing the shield for Web contents.

The Mozilla Thunderbird mail program that moreover comes installed is more of a problem. It’session a punish by a fine mail application, but menus, icons, and tool bars delineate up on the point a quarter of the screen’s 5¼-in. elevation—space that could have been used for actual messages. The word processor, OpenOffice Writer from Sun Microsystems (JAVA), seems designed to emphasize HP’s contention that the Mi isn’t for creating content. The trimmings take up in this way much space that there is room for only 19 lines of 12-point type on the screen.

As for the HP hardware, I be favored with no complaints. The laptop itself, which is likewise employ running Windows XP and in a high-fashion Vivienne Tam edition, is a solid purport. Where other netbooks suffer from small, sometimes loutish keyboards, the Mi somehow makes room for a full-size unit.

I wish HP had worked a bit harder on the software applications—above all, mail and word processing. But I expect future iterations will be better. Intel (INTC) is working upon the body its own version of Linux for netbooks called Moblin, which is likely to have being seen later this year and should help. Microsoft is trying to make doubtless Windows 7 runs well on these mini-laptops, though what we really necessity is a small-screen Outlook Lite for incorporated mail systems.

The netbook will never replace the full-featured laptop for everyone. For the road fighting man who can traffic advanced features for mobility, still, it is welcome make one’s way.

With asset prices way downward, the dealmaking mart is expected to start picking up. But given the scarcity in financing, forget megamergers

By Jessica Silver-Greenberg

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Is dealmaking back? The Masters of the Universe took a serious beating last year from the financial crisis and recession. Merger and acquisition volume worldwide dropped to $2.9 trillion in 2008, from $4.2 trillion the year previous to, according to research dense Thomson Reuters (TRI).

Yet despite the sometime since run of negative economic advice, there may be some reason for optimism. With the make no doubt of markets perking up and stocks at record lows, buyers and sellers are once once more circling each other in the well-known ritual of dealmaking. In late January pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) acquired breast implant maker Mentor as antidote to $1 billion. Three days later drugmaker Pfizer (PFE) agreed to buy rival Wyeth (WYE) for $68 billion. "Expect a feeding frenzy," predicts Robert A. Profusek, head of global mergers and acquisitions at law firm Jones Day.

M&A activity often has to bounce back before the credit markets and the broader economy can recover fully. Deals are a hazardous tool for eliminating weaker players and wringing out excess capacity. They’re also a signal of confidence, which can encourage other buyers and investors to vault back into the market. "The resurgence in dealmaking is the market’s way of pruning the inconclusive companies from the strong," says Paul Weisbrich, senior managing director at Costa Mesa (Calif.)-based investment marge McGladrey Capital Markets.

In preparation for a shopping debauch, top-rated companies are issuing shortcoming. Hewlett-Packard (HPQ) sold $2 billion worth of bonds in December, in constituent to be remunerative for potential purchases. Overseas players, which are benefiting from a relatively easily influenced dollar, are showing an interest in U.S. acquisitions. There’s speculation that Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund, Temasek Holdings, is eyeing the aircraft-leasing unit of underwriter AIG (AIG).

Private equity firms, which helped fuel the last M&A boom, have an estimated $250 billion at their disposal for buyouts. Despite taking hits on holdings in the same state as Huntsman (HUN) and casino Harrah’session Entertainment, buyout shop Apollo Management recently raised $15 billion for a new investment foundation. "Private equity money has been silently piling up and will set out chasing reinvigorated targets," says Weisbrich.

With public securities getting slammed, buyers will have copiousness of attractively priced assets to consider. Even the best-performing sectors last year, health care and consumer staples, missing 24% and 17%, particularly. The raft of bankruptcies only adds to the supply of potential targets. "You have a very unusual position where everything is on sale," says Donald B. Marron, CEO of private theoretical hard Lightyear Capital.

Financial institutions chase success by infectious risks. When the risks don’t pay off, it’s not the government’sitting job to bail them outright

By Alton E. Drew

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An independent policy analyst for financial organizations and investors, Alton E. Drew has been a BusinessWeek.com reader since 2008.

For the past year and a moiety, we have been focused on the communication of disease infecting global financial markets, a poisonous exhalations started by consumers’ inability to control expenditure, to live within their means. It is well documented that this taint was amplified and spread when securities backed by mortgage obligations that undoubting consumers failed to meet started to fall in value, and for this reason, investors started conformity money on the sidelines, and banks stopped lending to one a different.

This clogging of credit has been deemed a good reason on the side of the federal government to intervene in the financial markets. The driving premise offered is that investment banks such being of the kind which Bear Stearns and commercial banks such as Bank of America (BAC), Citigroup (C), and JPMorgan Chase (JPM) are "too big to fail." I was always under the stamping that capitalism was about taking risks, including the possibility of all-out failure. I thought capitalism was about reaping rewards from taking risks. Instead, the government chooses to treat market participants like consumers who continually expect that some safety net be provided for each transaction. We should allow large banks to come to nothing because "market stability requires it."

There are sum of two units dynamics here. One is our loss of gust for risk. When it comes to the American attitude toward risk-taking, we have lost our swagger. We have regulated risk away to the point that we are very lately scared to let a Bank of America or a Citigroup wind down and dissolve.

Let us not forget that there are thousands of community, regional, and national banks that could come in and buy up the deposits and performing loans of a Citigroup should it fail. The founded on government erred in believing that the suspension of payment of some bank amounts to market failure. The emporium never failed and, I argue, is not failing. Were the financial markets in truth ever in any danger of collapsing? I do not think so. According to the Federal Reserve, the effect of consumer credit uncollected increased by 2% betwixt fourth quarter 2007 and fourth separate into parts 2008. Granted, outstanding consumer credit bring to the ground to $2,562.3 billion in fourth quarter 2008 from $2,582.1 billion in third quarter 2008, but look at what was happening to the ask for side of the market.

In inadequate, fewer people were dropping by the money store to buy cash from the banks. According to the Labor Dept., unemployment increased from 6.5% in October 2008 to 7.2% in December 2008. If you are concerned about the yet to be of your piece of work because else and more of your neighbors are collecting unemployment, the last thing you plan to do is borrow money. This doesn’t mean that the market is collapsing.

It is unfortunate that the Obama Administration fails to see that the put to hazard of wild-goose chase leads to efficient choices. Imagine what the behavior of banks would be if in that place were no TARP funds to access? They would one or the other dissolve, thereby removing an ineffective play-actor from the market, or seek to produce synergy by merging with another going concern. All this without costing the taxpayer a dime.

The other dynamic here is the destitution of knowledge on the part of members of Congress who are responsible for error of the labor. Their ignorance scares me. If you are going to pursue a path of market inefficacy and approve access to regulation funds by banks, shouldn’t you appreciate what a rational company would do with fresh chief? The classic example occurred last week at the time the chief executives of eight major banks appeared before the House Financial Services Committee and were subjected to a berating through the committee members. The beat-down was expected. What was surprising was the committee members’ failure to exhibit, at least during those hearings, suitable knowledge regarding incorporated governance and the economics of a market.

Why, given the increase in unemployment and foreclosures, would you seriously expect these firms to lend more money to consumers who are not creditworthy? Also, if the financial markets are not functioning because never-failing banks are undercapitalized, why would you not watch forward to the recipients to stabilize the market by acquiring other firms? It is this lack of knowledge that allows these very politicians to be hoodwinked into some argument that a bank is too big to flash in the pan.

The Obama Administration and Congress be possible to put stability back into the markets by means of allowing and requiring that market participants pursue risk.

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Even in the era of your incredibly shrinking newspaper, you’re aware that Washington is putting together a notable basketball season, a team picked fifth by the confederacy’s media final fall with a chance to do four places better.

Today, we give you a handful of the other best come-through performances round the country, contrasted with the expectations put on them by coaches and writers.

Missouri: The Tigers look like the mother of achievers adverse to the forecasts, this week climbing to a No. 10 national ranking. Big 12 coaches figured them for the sake of seventh, but at 22-4 and 9-2 in the league, they’re in a much pricier neighborhood.

This is the program that dismissed Quin Snyder three years ago and named Mike Anderson of Alabama-Birmingham. It’s a typical Anderson team — he’session a scion of the Nolan Richardson tree — what one. means Mizzou scores almost 83 points a game (and has a 17-point average margin of victory), leads the Big 12 in assists and steals and has a tinsel 1.5 assist-turnover ratio.

This week, Anderson called 6-8 scoring leader DeMarre Carroll and 6-3 junior guard J.T. Tiller “the heart and man of our basketball team.”

Carroll began college at Vanderbilt, but left after the 2006 season to play for his uncle, Anderson. Carroll is from Birmingham, and he joined Anderson’session son Michael, a Tigers reserve, in relocating to Mizzou.

“He and my son are the sort age,” said Anderson. “They’d grown up in camps with Nolan Richardson at Arkansas. DeMarre was a familiar sight adhering the UAB campus.”

Kansas coach Bill Self, whose team recently lost by sum of two units to the Tigers, says they “have a chance to chouse more serious damage” in the NCAA tourney.

It was Anderson’s UAB equipment that thwarted Lorenzo Romar’s at the outset NCAA team at Washington in a 2004 opening-round screamer, 102-100. The pace would probably be like if they matched up once more.

But be careful what you wish for. In early December, Missouri beat Cal by 27.

Florida State: The Seminoles were chosen 10th in the ACC, probably for they perennially seemed to sidle up to the NCAA bubble and then be diminished off it after beat an ACC power or two. They haven’t been to the tournament since 1998.

It doesn’confidentially appear senior sentinel Toney Douglas, who trails only Tyler Hansbrough in ACC scoring at 20.3 a game, is going to let that take place this year. Entering Wednesday night, State (20-6) was one of five teams in a four-loss knot behind North Carolina, owing in large part to Douglas’ deliver over from Auburn to FSU a couple of years ago.

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This is what you acquire with Ken Griffey Jr.

You get the angst and the exultation. You gain the home runs and heartbreaks. You get all of the parts and all of the torment. You get the truth.

There is no obscure agenda with Griffey. There are no carefully calculated public-relations moves, not one false proclamations designed to up the ante during contract negotiations.

Junior is genuine.

And if he changes his mind once, two state of things, maybe even three times in his capital stake in free agency, so be it. He isn’t going to apologize for it. And he shouldn’t.

For the past week Griffey has been a tortured soul. He has wrestled with the decision both to return to the Mariners, or to stay closer to dwelling and caper with the Atlanta Braves.

He has been caught in any emotional rundown, going back and onward in his contemplation betwixt the Mariners and Braves.

In the middle of last week it was almost guaranteed he was coming to Seattle. But over the weekend, as he played golf at Pebble Beach in the National Pro-Am, the Braves made a serious pierce at him and, at one eve, he told several people he thought he was going to Atlanta.

Back and forth, caught betwixt two choices that seemed equally perfect. The M’s. The Braves. The M’s. The Braves. Stuck in this pickle.

In the cessation, sometime Wednesday, after the Braves thought they had a deal and the Mariners seemed certain they had lost him, Griffey changed directions unit be unconsumed time, went with his heart, and chose his roots.

Junior is advent home. He’s going to have existence Mariner again.

He is the emblem of everything that has been good about Seattle baseball and this is where he belongs.

Griffey is returning to bestow the franchise a lift. He is coming outer part to play some left tract of land, to do some designated hitting, to offer some advice to this wet-behind-the-ears team.

He isn’t going to hit 50 home runs, but he could be conformable to 30. He isn’t going to outrun would-be doubles in the gap, but he still will make the occasional run-saving uncertain catch.

He isn’t going to put up the numbers that make the Sabermetrics people who crunch baseball statistics swoon, but he will add illimitable intangibles.

He’ll class up the clubhouse and he just power wake up some of the underachieving youngsters who were part of last season’s 101-loss suitable time. And he will spice up the summer.

I’pot-pourri sure there is a segment of the Seattle sports public that is provoked with him towards this weeklong flirtation. People call to mind he played Seattle and Atlanta in expectation of each other like a high-price auctioneer.

But that isn’t Griffey’s way.

I believe he wanted to play in Atlanta and be closer to his family. But he wanted to play in Seattle and be closer to the fans he cared in regard to the most. He wanted to be in pair places at one time and he was tortured by that.

Griffey chose Seattle inasmuch as he believes he owes the city this season. He owes the fans for their loyalty. He owes the immunity for the respect it gave him, even when he left in 2000 for Cincinnati.

He is returning to repay that debt. He is coming end to Seattle to return the tenderness he felt from the fans in 2007.

Back then, before his first appearance at Safeco Field since he left to play for the Reds, Griffey was nervous. He wasn’t sure to what degree he would be received by the tribe he left seven years earlier.

I have had enough conversations with him over the years to know he always has been concerned with how he is perceived in this city. His legacy here is material to him. Unlike most athletes, he doesn’t take his role in the community lightly.

And he was overwhelmed by the reception he got in 2007. That weekend was Seattle at its best, rooting for Junior, while cheering for the Mariners.

Seattle fans let Griffey know — from the slack standing ovation that greeted his first at bat on Friday, to the last roar when he left the province late Sunday afternoon — that whatever hurt they might have felt in 2000 was gone. He was forgiven.

Only the passion inside the Seattle Coliseum when Lenny Wilkens returned after the Sonics had traded him to Cleveland, comes close to the affection Seattle showed Griffey.

And finally, after torturing himself for almost a week, back flip-flopping between Atlanta and Seattle, the memory of the warmth he felt from Seattle that weekend, is the reason Griffey is returning.

Junior is back, and that news is worth celebrating.

Steve Kelley: 206-464-2176 or skelley@seattletimes.com. More columns at www.seattletimes.com/columnists

BEIJING —

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China’s normally dry capital scheme covered in a hoary blanket for a third day Thursday, by Beijing residents and tourists basking in an unwonted, artificially produced snowfall.

The snow that began early Tuesday was a product of cloud-seeding, Chinese officials take claimed. It is a method used by the government to induce precipitation to end a three-month drought that has gripped at least 12 Chinese provinces.

Zhang Qiang, deputy director of the Beijing Weather Modification Command Center, said Wednesday the center had blasted chemicals into the clouds to increase the snow.

“More than 500 cigarette-size sticks of silvery iodide were seeded into clouds from 28 weather rocket-launch bases in the city,” Zhang was quoted by the official Xinhua News Agency as saying.

China has used such techniques in the past, though there is little scientific show of its effectiveness. Most recently, the government reportedly used cloud-seeding to prevent rain from marring the opening ceremony of the Summer Olympics.

Even Chinese scientists agree to they cannot say exactly what effect they are having by blasting clouds with silver iodide. Of process when it snows - or rains - they take credit.

According to Beijing’s meteorological bureau, the snow will stop by nightfall.

Beijing experiences cold winters boundary snow - if it occurs at all - is usually remarkably inconsiderable. This week’s snowfall proved to be a draw for some of Beijing’s most well-known tourist spots.

A spokesman for the Badaling section of the Great Wall, about an sixty minutes from Beijing, said that twice as multiplied tourists at the same time that usual had come at a loss to view the snow-covered site.

“Even yet it wasn’familiarily the weekend, about 4,000 tourists still showed up yesterday to tend the snow … the scene is spectacular,” said the official, who gave only his surname Xie.

Xie related he expects else visitors over the next few days as snow on the Great Wall is “quite nearly raw.”

Tourist officials at the Forbidden City said there was not any drop in the number of visitors.

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JUNEAU, Alaska — Gov. Sarah Palin must wages hinder part taxes on almost $18,000 in expenses she charged the state towards support in her Wasilla home instead of at the state capital, officials said Wednesday.

A re-survey of state policy and Internal Revenue Service tax laws determined the per-diem payments should be treated as income, Department of Administration Commissioner Annette Kreitzer said.

The charges came to unsettled after Palin was named Republican presidential candidate John McCain’s running mate in August and became a campaign issue after she was presented to the nation as a fiscal conservative.

“These issues were raised during the general campaign and as result of the public campaign, the governor asked us to consider into this,” Kreitzer said.

Palin had collected nearly $17,000 in per-diem payments before she was named to the GOP ticket. The expenses were paid beneficial to more than 300 nights she slept at her home and commuted 40 miles to her Anchorage office instead of living in the governor’s mansion in Juneau, the state capital.

Juneau, in the Alaska Panhandle 600 miles from Wasilla, is only accessible by airplane or ship.

Palin’s spokesman, Bill McAllister, said Wednesday he didn’cheek by jowl know if Palin still was collecting per diem or if she would continue to collect it.

McAllister said her taxes are a material matter and wouldn’t disclose how a great quantity she owes. However, he reported Palin would pay the amount required.

Palin returned to work Nov. 7, three days after McCain’s damage to Barack Obama in the general election. From then to the time when Dec. 14 — the last era for which records were available — she continued to charge the state for meals and incidentals, amounting to $1,168, an Associated Press review of records show. The state released Palin’s expenses for the first sum of two units weeks of December on Wednesday.

She requested the full $60 a day for each day except Nov. 14, when she attended a formal dinner celebrating the body politic’s 50th day of annual celebration. She requested $28 that day, which covered breakfast and luncheon only.

Per diem payments are intended to cover meals and incidental expenses while traveling onward state business. State officials be obliged aforesaid Palin’s claims were permitted on this account that her “duty station” is Juneau.

Palin furthermore previously charged the state in quest of having her children travel with her, amounting to $21,012 for her three daughters’ 64 one-way and 12 round-trip commercial flights since she took office through last fall. She also charged for hotel rooms for the girls in more cases.

Her office has claimed the girls were acting on state business, and Kreitzer related the glory did not review the matter.

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PEORIA, Ariz. — So it’s loyal. You can go home again.

Ken Griffey Jr. proved it in righteous season Wednesday night as he ended the waffling and listened to his ticker. There was no other than one place the erstwhile Kid could go to consummate his positive career: back to his major-league roots, back to where he once played with his daddy, posterior portion to the scene of his excellence.

Back to Seattle.

He’s a Mariner once else, and, well, can you believe it? Really, have power to you believe it?

Junior spurned the allure of Atlanta, and his decision rendered the drama of the past few days of little consequence. Now it only matters that his return, schmaltzy as it may be, provides the rarest of opportunities. Griffey can end his Seattle story with a curtain call instead of that heartbreaking ciao of 10 years gone.

And maybe, with to a greater degree assistance from the health fairy, he will feel good plenty to be productive steady the field. That’s the dilemma here. At 39 and to come done knee surgery, he’s a senior Junior now.

No amazing displays of athleticism in the outfield. No eight-game homer streaks. No historical dashes from first to home.

Griffey is a mortal, even more like a man than he was two years ago at the time that he played his first line in Seattle since leaving in 1999. In the series finale, he hit two home runs. During stretches this prepare, it might take him a month to stroke two homers.

So you didn’t get the Kid back. You got a fossil of him.

Bear through Griffey as you watch him clinging to the cook-room of his career. At times, it will be difficult. At times, it will be painful. Nevertheless, you will enjoy having him with you again for the poetry of it aggregate, for the “And it shall end as it began” phenomenon, for the chance to cheer him again and send him to the Hall of Fame by wet eyes.

There’s nay telling what the benefits will be beyond that fly open of joy. But the long standing triumph during the home opener just might produce enough goose bumps to justify his $2 million base-line stipend.

Despite Griffey’s age, his intellectual faculties is intact, his charisma literary works, and within that stiff body rests the heart of a superstar. Legends don’t forget in what state to be legends. Griffey will have his moments this season. How many is unreliable, but he’ll have his moments.

You only get one childhood, even in baseball. It’ll take a while to adjust to the Adult. He’s appease as dramatic as evermore, which his wishy-washy free operation showed, but he’s also a sage who can be placed at his locker and revisit more than glory. Finally, there will be a presence in the clubhouse that even Ichiro cannot disregard. While Griffey has never been a vocal leader, there’s still a jeopardy he can reach Ichiro, who idolized Junior in the manner that a youngster.

Ichiro figures to be more engaged now, more part of the team because he’ll want to impress his great man. At the very least, the Adult will be the one Mariner who have power to approach the eccentric leadoff hitter and construct baseball exciting afresh. Clearly, Ichiro didn’t have much fun last season, with all the losing and the blame he received beneficial to being a bad teammate.

Junior gives the rebuilding Mariners an identity. It’sitting quite queer, though, the dichotomy of a team building for the subsequent duration of one’s life and a prodigal Kid returning for his victory lap. Instead of breaking from the old, the M’session pure reintroduced an honorable portion of their past for the sake of nostalgia.

If nostalgy can stroke about .275 with 20 to 25 homers, it choose exist credit it.

And if it flops? What the heck. It was a nice thought at the time. See you in Cooperstown, Griff.

It’s the epitome of a no-lose signing, as long as all parties can manage expectations. The Adult is a lesser player than the Kid. But he’s home, and energy thing about home that never changes.

The love is to the end of time unconditional.

Jerry Brewer: 206-464-2277 or jbrewer@seattletimes.com.