As US coast-to-coast crimewaves go, it is not in the league of Bonnie and Clyde. It lacks both violence and avarice and is further hindered by an overabundance of pre-publicity. Undeterred, a couple of students from Cornwall are intent on making American criminal history by spending their summer breaking as many US laws as possible. Starting in the liberal state of California, they hope to evade the attention of local police officers when they ride a bike in a swimming pool and curse on a crazy-golf course. In the far more conservative – and landlocked – state of Utah, they…

A Southern Utah bank failed because they put too much faith in their neighbors’ ability to pay back loans. Turns out their neighbors had no intention of making good on their financial committments, because they expected either the world to end, or to move lock, stock, and barrel to Texas. The Bank of Ephraim had profited for many years from higher-interest loans to the sect, whose members live in the twin cities of Hildale and Colorado City astride the Utah-Arizona state line. But eventually the bank “got in too deep,” investing heavily in increasingly risky ventures with sect members who…

Vandal Edits Swear Words in Library Books LAYTON, Utah – A self-appointed editor of library books has given new meaning to “purple prose.” The do-it-yourself censor is turning swear words into “darns” and “hecks” in purple ink. “They believe it’s within their right to deface public property and impose what they believe on others,” library director Pete Giacoma said. God FUCKING dammit. Emphasis bloody well added. I’ve been thinking about this for a while – not only do I believe in the separation of church and state, I think that overt PDPs should be outlawed. Yeah, I have a problem…

Thre Great Divide explained, a little bit, in a column from the Salt Lake Trib called “History Matters,” by Will Bagley.

SALT LAKE CITY – Two men planning to throw lighted fireworks from a car were burned when they forgot to roll down the window. Duh.

A Utah moment: Moviegoers at the Jordan Landing Cinemark movies in West Jordan received a unique greeting Monday from the ticket taker if they purchased tickets to “Fahrenheit 9/11.” To each patron, he called out: “Vote for Bush.” When queried, he said he was following instructions from management. Terrell Falk, marketing vice president for Cinemark, based in Plano, Texas, was surprised by the news and said lobbying customers for Bush was not a company policy. She was still trying to get through to the West Jordan complex as of late Tuesday to find out what they were thinking. What they…

BoingBoing notes: Earnest Miller savages savages Orrin Hatch’s grotesque new law. Such beliefs seem common among distributors of so-called peer-to-peer filesharing (“P2P”) software. [“So-called,” indeed. Hatch isn’t about define what P2P software is because it would end up including things like e-mail, IM, VoIP, HTTP and plenty of other internet protocols. P2P is how much of the internet works.] “So-called” indeed. That’s Orrin’s way of saying “I dont want to acknowledge an entity I find morally distasteful, so I’ll put it in quote marks so you know that it’s evullll and I disapprove.” Ugh, I hate that guy. Moralizing little…

Yahoo! News – Utah Fitness Charity Files for BankruptcySALT LAKE CITY – A charity accused of ripping off schools around the country on fitness equipment filed for bankruptcy protection Tuesday. Uh, huh. Funny how often the big-bucks scams that seem so squeaky clean and healthy because they’re based in Utah turn out to be elaborate financial scams, pyramid schemes, or plain old swindles. The principals will now commence to bleating their innocence and good intentions.

Osmond said he stopped and asked, “Why are you screaming?” One 16-year-old answered, “Because our moms told us to.” I went to school with a girl who claimed to be related to the Osmonds (these things are highly possible in Utah). She was quite a strange person. I wonder what happened to her.

…can a polygamist group run a mine and opress Latino coal miners with an almost comical disregard for labor laws:Salt Lake City Weekly – Coal-Miners’ Blues