I'll be away from this blog for much of next week. In the meantime, please check out my colleague Jim Camden's political blog Spin Control.

Reporters pray for press releases like the one yesterday from Washington's Department of Licensing.

"State rules fish pedicures illegal in licensed salons," it reads.

Huh? And it got even better:

"State officials have determined state law does not permit the use of fish to perform pedicure-like services," it began.

At issue: Doctor fish, toothless, minnow-sized fish that gently nibble away dead skin from the feet of patients sitting poolside. A King County salon, it turns out, has been offering such a service.

(A friend who did this at a resort in Japan reported that it's not an objectionable feeling at all. A little ticklish, he said.)

State licensing officials ordered a halt to the fish-pool soaking, saying that state law "requires all tools and implements used in a pedicure to be sanitized, disinfected or disposed of after each service" to protect against infections.

"We are greatly concerned about the safety of salon customers who choose to put their feet in a tank of live fish to eat away dead skin," said DOL director Liz Luce, bringing to mind James Bond and a pool of piranas.

"These fish are being used as tools, and we do not believe you can properly sanitize a live fish" against germs and infections, she said.

Despite what a USA Today headline said earlier this week, state environmental officials say, the state has not banned you from washing your car in the driveway.

The Department of Ecology says it "provided guidance" to cities and counties last week, warning about the problems caused by polluted runoff from streets.

USA Today did a story about the situation, headlined "No driveway carwashes, Wash. state says", saying that washing one's car in the driveway would soon be as endangered as some wild salmon. It quoted an irate Vancouver SUV owner vowing to wash his Highlander that very weekend in protest.

Responds the state: "Ecology said it would take a public education approach to proper car washing and it urged local governments to do the same and not issue tickets, fines or other penalties."

The agency says it's primarily worried about soapy water pouring into storm drains, which generally empty, untreated, into creeks and streams. It suggests washing the car over grass or any other surface where the water soaks into the ground. Or laying something on the ground to divert the soapy water from pouring into a storm drain.

Washington Attorney General Rob McKenna, who's led a high-tech campaign against spammers and other computer scammers and pests, is now taking on "scareware" designed to make you think you have a computer problem -- and offer to sell you a fix.

"We won't tolerate the use of alarmist warnings or deceptive `free scans' to trick consumers into buying software to fix a problem that doesn't even exist," he said.

McKenna has filed seven suits this week under the state's spyware statute. Among them: a case against the Texas-based marketers of a program called Registry Cleaner XP. The AG's office says the program "sent incessant pop-ups resembling system warnings to consumers personal computers. The messages read `CRITICAL ERROR MESSAGE! - REGISTRY DAMAGED AND CORRUPTED,' and instructed users to visit a Web site to download Registry Cleaner XP."

"Consumers who visited the Web site were offered a free scan to check their computer - but the program found `critical' errors every time," said attorney Paula Selis, head of McKenna's high-tech unit. The site then offered to repair these "dubious" problems, she said, with software for $39.95.

The state has so far filed 17 spyware cases since the law was enacted in 2005.

Catching up...

-U.S. Rep. Adam Smith, a Democrat who represents the Tacoma area, has introduced a bill to ban customs agents from summarily seizing the laptops or other devices of U.S. residents returning from overseas trips. There have been numerous reports of customs agents ordering people to turn over their computers, which are then kept, sometimes for weeks, and in some cases the agency copies data from the drives. With no explanation.

The bill is in response to a Department of Homeland Security policy, released in July, allowing customs agents to "review and analyze" your computer, cell phone, etc. for as long as it sees fit, without any particular "individualized suspicion."

Smith's "Travelers Privacy Protection Act" would require reasonable suspicion of illegal activity before such searches. It also requires a warrant or court order to seize the information.
A similar bill has been introduced in the U.S. Senate.

This isn't state political news, but I know I'm going to get asked about this, so:

Spokesman-Review editor Steve Smith this afternoon announced that the newspaper will lay off -- or accept voluntary resignations from -- a quarter of the news staff, including sports reporters, features writers, photographers and others in the newsroom.

That's 21 line workers -- reporters, copy editors, etc. -- and 4 to 6 managers. Out of an editorial staff of 104 or so.

I'm not among those on the list, but some of our best and brightest staffers -- a lot of them friends -- are.

I watched the meeting live on streaming video from my bureau. Staffers wiped away tears as Smith read the names of those on the potential layoff list.

In a press release sent out during the meeting, publisher Stacey "Cowles noted that there is nothing unusual in workforce reductions and stressed that the newspaper `remains committed to being the Number 1 provider of news and advertising in the Inland Northwest for many years to come.'"

"Nothing unusual in workforce reductions." That's all too true in the newspaper industry today. But it doesn't make it any easier, particularly on those who had to call their families and break the news.

Among those leaving: Smith, who said he's resigning because he could not countenance such a devastating staff cut.

His last day is Friday.

After a contentious hearing, the state's campaign-finance watchdog has fined a statehouse candidate $300 for failing to file any reports after months of campaigning.

Republican Chris Bowen, who's challenging state Rep. Alex Wood, D-Spokane, told investigators that he put the reports in the mail and that's all he's required to do. It's not his problem, he said, if the state Public Disclosure Commission didn't get them or lost them.

Wrong, PDC Chairman Ken Schellberg said during a telephone hearing Thursday.

"We need the reports. I'm sorry, this is not a utopia," he told Bowen. "At some time in our life, I think most of us have to learn to keep copies of something we've sent in the mail."

In an email to a reporter before the hearing, Bowen said he'd done everything needed to: fill out the forms and mail them.

"This mishandling of my information is not new," he wrote. "So I have a great policy that allows me to do everything I am required to do, and at the same time not concern myself with others' mistakes."

He said at the time that he had spoken with the PDC and that "it is understood that the matter is laughable."

Not sharing in the laughter: Schellberg. In cases like this, he told Bowen, a candidate simply provides copies of the reports.

"You're just making laws up to cut me down on certain fines," responded Bowen. "You're the lawman. You read it to me where it says it doesn't matter what the reason is."

Schellberg said Bowen could appeal the ruling if he wants to. Then he hung up on Bowen.

On Saturday, Bowen – still not saying what he does for a living – said he plans to appeal.

"I won the case, but they were focused on fining me no matter what," he wrote. "It was not a shock. This is a regular thing for me."

Click here to listen to an excerpt of the discussion between Bowen and Schellberg.

...with the departure of Tri-City Herald's Chris Mulick, who's leaving to work as a PR person for the Senate Democratic caucus.

Mulick has a heart-rending farewell post on his Olympia Dispatch blog, in which he explains what was obviously a gut-wrenching decision to leave a profession he loves.

"This is about putting family before all else," he writes. "...Certainly, the financial troubles plaguing this industry have created considerable uncertainty. And while the Herald has given me every assurance my job is safe in this bureau, it's unsettling how quickly the unthinkable has become reality in this business. With a young family, I've no choice but to risk jumping too soon. I simply can't risk jumping too late."

His departure follows the recent decision of two Seattle Times' reporters, David Postman and Ralph Thomas, to leave for private-sector PR gigs.

Mulick has been the lone other reporter for an Eastern Washington paper here, and on a shoestring budget, he pioneered online news video out of the legislature and built a well-regarded statehouse blog. He, too, will be missed.

Think the tussle over tonight's presidential debate has been strange? Look at what's happening here.

Gov. Chris Gregoire and challenger Dino Rossi have for weeks been planning a debate in Vancouver, hosted by The Columbian newspaper.

Apparently, the paper and the two campaigns agreed on noon on a date reportedly picked by Rossi's side: Oct. 13. Then the time was changed to 11 a.m., again reportedly at the request of Rossi's campaign.

"Yet again, we compromised, rearranged the Governor's schedule and agreed to adjust the governor's schedule to accommodate the 11 a.m. start," Gregoire spokeswoman Debra Carnes wrote in a memo to reporters.

Then last week, Carnes said, Rossi wanted to change the time again, this time to 10:30 a.m.

Gregoire's side refused, saying it wasn't going to juggle her schedule yet a third time.

Rossi's side, citing an 11:30 a.m. lunchtime fundraiser for which the invitations had already been mailed out, held firm. Afton Swift, Rossi's campaign manager, called the memo "petulant."

"Last I heard, the two campaigns were only half an hour apart," he wrote in a memo of his own.

The plan now: Gregoire plans to appear at 11 a.m., as planned, and instead hold a town-hall-style forum.

"The facts are the facts," Carnes e-mailed Swift. "We both agreed to an 11 a.m. debate and your campaign pulled the plug. We're still planning on being in Vancouver at 11 a.m. on Oct. 13. Our commitment has never changed."

This morning in Seattle, a King County Superior Court judge rejected Democrats' request to list gubernatorial challenger Dino Rossi's preferred party as "Republican" instead of what it is now: "GOP."

Democrats say -- and polls affirm this -- that more than 1 in 10 voters doesn't understand that the two terms are synonymous. And with all indications pointing to another close election between Rossi and Gov. Chris Gregoire, Democrats maintain that that ballot confusion amounts to an unfair advantage for Rossi.

Among those pleased by Judge Richard Eadie's ruling from the bench this morning: Secretary of State Sam Reed, who said the complaint came too late. Ballots have already been printed in some counties, he said. Some votes have already been cast.

"It's full steam ahead to November," said Reed, who said the ruling underscores that the new "Top Two" primary "is driven by and for the voters, not the political parties."

The state Democratic Party pointed out that Eadie acknowledged it's main point: that the different term may confuse voters and skew the election. But chairman Dwight Pelz said he wouldn't appeal the ruling.

Taxes, spending, and leadership in tough times -- click here to see a series of excerpts from Thursday night's gubernatorial debate at the Association of Washington Business' conference in Blaine, Wash.

"It's not as cavernous as it looks."

That's what pollster Stuart Elway said about the famous "Cascade Curtain," the political gulf between Eastern and Western Washington.

Some 20 percent of Washington voters live east of the Cascades, he said, but of those, one third are in Spokane County.

"And last I checked, there are some Democrats getting elected in Spokane County," he noted.

He also repeated the famous line about how you can see all the votes you need from the top of the Space Needle in Seattle, and attributed it to Scoop Jackson. Although, Elway noted, "he never said that in Spokane."

For those with doubts about whether the state Democratic Party's lawsuit over "GOP" versus "Republican" on the ballot matters, pollster Stuart Elway offers some interesting results from his recent polling. (Elway's appearing on a panel here in Blaine this morning.)

Elway's work has shown a strong lead -- more than most polls -- by Gov. Chris Gregoire over challenger Dino Rossi. (Elway attributes that to his "softer" questioning, which he said allows for more nuance in the answers.) But there's a marked difference, he said, between how the governor does when matched against a "GOP" opponent or a "Republican" candidate.

Rossi and the state Republican Party say the lawsuit's pointless, and that just about everybody knows that the GOP and the Republican Party are the same thing. Rossi points out that he's long identified himself in ads as a member of the GOP.

But here's that interesting result from Elway's poll: "When it is GOP Rossi, she (Gregoire) leads by 4 points. When it is Republican Rossi, she leads by 9 points."

Hundreds of folks have gathered today on a spit of land north of Bellingham for the Association of Washington Business' policy summit.

Today features four debates between the candidates for state public lands commissioner, attorney general, school superintendent and governor.

One major glitch so far: incumbent Public Lands Commissioner Doug Sutherland's staff apparently confused the start time for his debate with Democratic challenger Peter Goldmark. He's more than 45 minutes late so far, as Goldmark has responded to moderator's questions and occasionally criticized Sutherland on campaign contributions, firefighting response, etc.

And it looks like Sutherland won't make it in time. The moderators just wrapped things up and broke for lunch.

King County Superior Court Judge Richard Eadie will hear arguments Friday at 9 a.m. over halting printing of ballots describing Republican Dino Rossi's party preference as "GOP Party."

Saying that a significant number of voters don't realize that GOP and Republican are synonymous, the state Democratic Party is suing to try to force Secretary of State Sam Reed to have the ballot say "Republican" next to Rossi's name. In a close race, Democrats maintain, the confusion could add tens of thousands of votes to Rossi.

Reed's position: "It was the candidates' call, not for the government to mandate." He noted that one candidate described himself as a member of the "Salmon Yoga" party. Some candidates listed no party preference at all.

State Elections Director Nick Handy says some counties have already printed their ballots, even mailing some already to military voters.

"The proverbial train has left the station," Handy says.

A new poll by SurveyUSA shows Gov. Chris Gregoire at 50 percent to Republican challenger Dino Rossi's 48.

"Compared to an identical poll release 09/09/09, immediately after the Republican National Convention, Gregoire is up 3 points; Rossi is flat," the firm reports. Rossi (and John McCain) benefitted from "a post-convention Palin-related bounce" in Washington, the pollsters conclude.

Interestingly, Gregoire is now getting her strongest showing yet among men, tying Rossi's 48 percent. She also now has a 4 point advantage among female voters.

Gregoire does better among college graduates and those earning more than $50,000 a year; Rossi does better with churchgoers.

And the Cascade Curtain still exists, apparently. Eastern Washington voters favor Rossi 58 percent to 39 percent. In the Seattle metro area, Gregoire's ahead, 54 percent to 43.

Click here for more on this poll.

And here it is: "Tax increases will be necessary in order to avoid the negative economic effects of deep budget cuts."

Those are words that very few politicians in Olympia, and definitely not those in close races, like Gov. Chris Gregoire, are willing to utter a few weeks before the election.

But the liberal-leaning Washington State Budget and Policy Center -- a private think tank -- say that tax increases are likely to do less damage to the economy than cuts to state spending.

With Washington's state government facing a projected $3.2 billion budget shortfall in the next two-year budget cycle, the center's budget analysts offer up some ideas. Among them:

-Tapping the state's new $700 million Rainy Day fund to help pay some of the bills,
-Careful state budget-trimming, rather than across-the-board cuts,
-Revisiting the state's hundreds of tax breaks to see if they're really justified. From 1995 to 2007, the group says, state lawmakers approved more than 100 tax breaks that total a combined $1.6 billion in the next two-year state budget cycle.
-Boosting the state's sales tax. Each increase of half a cent per dollar spent would yield another $1.1 billion in new money.
-Offsetting that boost for some low-income families by offering them a state match for the federal Earned Income Tax Credit.

Households with two or more kids can earn nearly $40,000 a year and qualify for the EITC. In Washington, that's 350,000 families that would get an average of $250 a year back from the state. That, the center says, is about twice what the same family would pay in additional sales tax.

"An increase in the sales tax should not be seen as a permanent solution to our fiscal problems," write study authors Jeff Chapman and Stacey Schultz. "A sunset clause would ensure that we can address our current revenue needs while planning a longer term solution that would include broadening the tax base, taxing income, reforming business taxation, and a robust Working Families Rebate."

The state Democratic Party this afternoon filed a lawsuit in King County Superior Court, asking a judge to force Secretary of State Sam Reed to list gubernatorial challenger Dino Rossi as preferring the "Republican Party," rather than Rossi's currently-listed "GOP Party."

Yes, yes, Republicans and the GOP (Grand Old Party) are the same thing. But it turns out that a lot of people apparently don't know that. A June poll by Washington pollster Stuart Elway found that 25 percent of likely voters didn't know that GOP meant Republican. (Of that number, Elway found, 7 percent thought it meant Democratic, and 3 percent thought it was a third party.)

Private polling by the Democrats, the party says, also suggests that Rossi does better against Democratic Gov. Chris Gregoire when he's described to voters as being a member of the GOP, rather than of the Republican Party. This is why Democrats are working 24/7 to make sure voters know that Rossi = Republican. They -- and Gregoire -- are also trying hard to paint Rossi as a policy clone of George W. Bush.

In the brief to court today, they maintain that Rossi's breaking the law and "would mislead a substantial portion of the voting public."

"According to the cold hard data, Sam Reed is spotting Republican Dino Rossi as many as 100,000 votes for the rematch of a contest that was decided by 133 four years ago," state Democratic Party Chairman Dwight Pelz said in a press release this afternoon. "Sam Reed's job is to run a fair election, not to give his party's candidate for governor the type of head start that would allow my daughter to beat Michael Phelps in the freestyle."

Rossi's campaign has said for months that he's always put "GOP" on his signs and TV ads, and didn't intend to change that now.

And it's clear that Rossi's trying hard to appeal to Democrats. Driving home from Seattle on Saturday, I saw this message on an electronic highway reader board near Tacoma:
"Voting for Obama?
Olympia needs change, too.
Vote Dino Rossi."

UPDATE: From Rossi's campaign spokeswoman, Jill Strait:

“This is the act of a desperate incumbent and lawyer seeking to win the election in court by invalidating votes cast for Dino Rossi. Ballots in Washington state have already been printed and military ballots are in process to soldiers and sailors overseas. If ‘GOP’ is ruled by the judge to be invalid, then the ballots from military personnel will be invalid. And given that it’s likely too late to reprint all of the rest of the ballots in our state, this would make any ballot cast for Dino Rossi invalid. It is very clever – but it’s very wrong.

"Christine Gregoire has had since June to raise this issue, but she chose to wait until now to spring her legal trick. This is one more desperate attempt by Governor Gregoire to distract voters from the real issues of this campaign – namely the $3.2 billion deficit she’s created and our rising unemployment.”

From today's paper:

Like a lot of moms with a family to feed, Spokane Valley's Lisa Sandefur shops carefully for groceries.

She goes to the Dollar Store frequently for canned goods. She buys big bags of store-brand cereals. And she forgoes things like juice in favor of Kool-Aid.

"Fruit kind of gets left by the wayside," she said Wednesday. "And I used to think that hamburger was cheap. It's not so cheap anymore."

Help may be on the way. Starting Oct. 1, Washington is easing its eligibility requirements for the state's food-stamp program. The change means tens of millions of dollars in food for an estimated 23,000 more families statewide.

The average benefit is $181 per month.

"It's really timely, with food costs as high as they are," said Linda Stone, who heads up the Eastern Washington efforts of the Children's Alliance. The advocacy group was one of several that pushed lawmakers this spring to approve the change.

As things stand now, it's only available to people living on less than 130 percent of the federal poverty level. That's about $27,000 for a family of four.

Now, however, families earning up to 200 percent may be eligible. The same family, in other words, may now qualify if they're earning as much as $42,400 a year.

The cost to the state budget is minimal: about $1.1 million a year to pay for 28 new staffers to process the thousands of expected new applications. The federal government will pick up the estimated $51 million cost of the food payments.

State officials stressed Wednesday that eligibility is based on more than just income. Housing costs, utilities, child support, childcare and other expenses are part of the calculation to see if a family qualifies, and for how much. But the same officials also said that even minimal benefits can qualify a family for other help, like reduced telephone rates and free school lunches.

------

Note: To get an idea of whether you may qualify under the new eligibility guidelines for food stamps in Washington, go to the state-run website www.foodhelp.wa.gov or call 1-877-514-3663. You can also apply for benefits online at www.parenthelp123.org, which is run by an advocacy group called Within Reach.

The gigantic Nerf gun still hangs over the mantle, but not for long. There's a bottle of Session beer, the "Best Belly Fat Blasters" DVD, and of course the painstakingly acquired collection of a dozen velvet paintings.

All this stuff will soon be gone, as the Seattle Times' David Postman packs it in -- literally -- and wraps up a longtime Olympia journalism career to become spokesman for investor Paul Allen and Vulcan corporation.

A week ago, Postman's colleague Ralph Thomas also hung up his Olympia press pass to go to work for a small PR firm that also has strong Microsoft ties. And earlier this summer, Associated Press icon David Ammons also left the business to become spokesman for Secretary of State Sam Reed.

Postman and Thomas were the best reporters in the steadily-shrinking Olympia press corps -- well-sourced, smart and with the time and savvy to advance the story beyond "XX happened Tuesday" coverage and write about what will happen next, and why.

The Times bureau here is now down to one reporter, Andrew Garber, and three ringing phones.

Postman, a garage-sale treasure-hunter and lover of pop-culture artifacts, still has a lot of packing to do: vintage toys, candy cigarettes, paparazzi action figures, a black book entitled the "Handbook of Poisoning." There's the old console stereo, some records ("The Kinks' Greatest Hits), a working toaster. His last day is tomorrow. He's already written his farewell on his Times' blog, Postman on Politics.

"It's strange to think that at the close of business tomorrow I won't be a journalist -- at least not for the next phase of my life," he wrote. "I want to keep writing because when I hit `Publish' on this I'm done. But I'll resist the urge to filibuster."

Both Thomas and Postman are enthusiastic about their new ventures, and seemingly only a little wistful.

They'll be missed.

In minutes, the state Economic and Revenue Forecast Council will predict that general fund revenue will be down $529 million for the remainder of this biennium and the next one.

Gov. Chris Gregoire will tell her budget office to find an additional $200 million in savings "without affecting vital programs."

State revenue for the current 2007-2009 biennium is now expected to be $273 million lower than expected just a few months ago. For 2009-2011, the decrease is projected to be $256 million.

Spokane attorney and former city councilman Steve Eugster, after a lifetime in courtrooms, today gets his day in court.

Eugster is fighting the state bar association's attempt to disbar him for allegedly mishandling the case of an elderly widow who hired him to do estate planning, only to break with Eugster when he tried to reconcile her with her estranged son. The messy case eventually led to Eugster -- whom the woman had fired by that point -- disputing his dismissal and unsuccessfully asking a court to declare her incompetent of handling her own financial affairs.

Earlier this year, several of the court's nine justices seemed sympathetic to the case as Eugster's attorneys described it: what does a lawyer do when he's become convinced that a client is losing her grip and making bad decisions?

Case starts at 9 a.m. and will be carried live on TVW, Washington's public affairs network. It's on cable TV and also streamed live at www.tvw.org.

ER, FC.

The state's Economic and Revenue Forecast Council will meet later this morning to peer into the crystal ball and forecast the state of the state's treasury over the next two years.

Looking at the headlines over the past several days (Wamu? Hello?), it's hard to imagine anyone thinking the news might be good. And the state's already facing an estimated $2.7 billion shortfall over the next two years.

Gov. Chris Gregoire has spent much of the spring and summer disputing that number and stressing that Washington's fundamentals -- like foreclosure rates -- were way better than in other parts of the country. But this week, as major investment banks and other financial titans struggled to avoid becoming dominoes, Gregoire instead turned her focus on George Bush and on her Republican challenger, Dino Rossi.

"Americans cannot afford four more years of this in the White House and Washington state cannot afford a Bush Republican, like my opponent, bringing those policies to our state," Gregoire said in a statement sent out by her campaign. "...The failure to police Wall Street by Bush and the Republican leadership in Washington D.C. has put our country in this situation."

Republicans, meanwhile, continued to churn out press releases, the essence being something along the lines of "things here suck. Really."

"Our state is headed for a budget train wreck and Christine Gregiore is driving with her eyes closed because she can't bear to look at the mess she's created," said state GOP chairman Luke Esser. He pooh-poohs recent attempts by Gregoire to tighten spending now, such as a call for state agencies and colleges to freeze most hiring, conserve fuel and put off new purchases.

Meanwhile, groups like the private, liberal-leaning Washington State Budget and Policy Center are left to propose changes for how to address the budget shortfall. (Look for a white paper on the topic next week.) One recent idea that's been floated: a "high-incomes tax" -- which a large percentage of the state wouldn't have to pay -- that would allow the state to reduce some existing property or sales taxes.

Stay tuned.

Attorney General Rob McKenna and two dozen other AG's want MillerCoors to torpedo a planned new product called "Sparks Red," which McKenna says contains up to 8 percent alcohol -- that would make it 16 proof -- plus energy stimulants.

Says McKenna: "Drinks like Sparks Red offer a witch's brew of stimulants and alcohol, marketed in a way that is very appealing to young people." Such drinks, he says, lead to greater drunkenness among college students, for example, along with sexual assaults and injuries.

As attention from Wall Street's financial firefight turned to the federal bailout of American International Group Wednesday, Washington insurance commissioner Mike Kreidler said the companies insurance clients shouldn't be sweating things.

"Many policyholders have expressed concerns in light of the recent news surrounding AIG," Kreidler said in a press release. "This is a fluid situation, but I can assure you that the insurance companies owned by AIG are in good financial shape and capable of paying claims."

The multibillion-dollar bailout is likely to stabilize the company, he said.

"But regardless of what happens to the parent company, AIG, there is a firewall in place that guards the assets of the insurance companies and protects policyholders," he said. "The parent company cannot move assets upstream without the approval of state insurance regulators."

Kreidler said he and the other regulators can prevent AIG from "raiding" its insurance companies. Here's the critical part:

"If you have a policy through an AIG insurance company, whether it's an auto policy, homeowner policy or even an annuity, your coverage is safe," Kreidler said. "Do not cancel your policy or cash in your annuity...Even under the worst case scenario, policyholders' claims will be paid."