Huckleberries Best of the Northwest — 9/15/05

Above: Another of Doug Fredericks’ /Hayden terrific photographs of North Idaho’s Palouse country. Doug calls this one: “Broken Down.” You can find Doug’s Web site here .

1. Supreme Court chief justice nominee John Roberts is making U.S. Senator Ted Kennedy look bad, according to David Horsey /PI, here .

2. A Battle Ground, Wash., bookkeeper wonders if state education officials are capable of computing answers for the controversial Washington Assessment of Student Learning tests after spotting an error in a sample question and answer that they handed out here .

3. The 5 WSU coeds who posed for Playboy’s “Women of the PAC-10” issue drew a crowd at an autography signing in Pullman Thursday here .

4. An underemployed border collie who’d like a city job chasing geese from a Boise park has been turned down by City Hall here .

5. Killer writes about killing two pedophiles here .

*IMHO-NW: Floyd J. McKay /Seattle Times ( North Dakota town’s land giveaway ), G.George Ostrom /Bigfork Eagle ( Another grizzly tale ), Chris Peterson /Hungry Horse News ( Penguin power ), Susan Paynter /PI ( Girl motivated by dad’s evil past ), and Jim Moore /PI ( Classless Grambling coach ).

*Don’t look now, but Mother Nature dropped up to 24 inches of snow in the Glacier Park high country over the weekend (with terrific photo by Chris Peterson/Hungry Horse News) here .

*Washington Lottery officials are looking for the person who bought a $1.8M ticket from a North Spokane supermarket here .

*For every US troop killed in Iraq, seven are wounded, many severely; The Idaho Statesman looks at three of the wounded who face a long recovery here .

Orbusmax provides the rest of the Northwest here .