Up: The panel empowered to police Kennecott Copper by investigating the safety of the company's old tailings pond near Magna has made a wise choice for a consulting engineer. The Magna Tailings Committee, appointed by the Salt Lake County Council to oversee a study to determine the stability of the impoundment in event of an earthquake, selected Tetra Tech Inc. of Pasadena, Calif. last week. We can't speak to the engineering company's cre­dentials, but, unlike the other firm the committee consid­ered, Tetra Tech has never done business with Kennecott.

That's important. It helps assure that the study will be fair and impartial. And it makes it more likely that, should the engineers determine the dam is safe, Magna residents will accept the results. After all, Kennecott officials fooled them before, hiding the danger from the public for more than a decade while they worked to shore up the dam.

Up: The blackout - and we're not referring to the television broadcast on an ob­scure television network that forced many Ute fans to listen on the radio - worked. Trying their new black uniforms on for size, playing before a boisterous, black-clad capacity crowd at Rice-Eccles Stadium and solidifying their reputation as the come­back kids, the undefeated University of Utah football players positioned themselves for a berth in a BCS Bowl with a last­minute win over Texas Christian Thursday. It was a game for the ages. You should have seen it. And we mean that. In the future, the conference should make sure that its premier games appear on networks available to the masses.

Down: President George W. Bush has never been fond of the press. It turns out his dog, a Scottish terrier named Barney, thinks even less of the Fourth Estate. Barn­ey nipped a Reuters reporter outside the White House on Thursday. While Bush has been known to bark at the news media, at least he doesn't bite.

Down: Despite his pro­testations to the contrary, Sen. Orrin Hatch is among the most partisan members of Congress. And that leads him, at times, to say some very silly things. Case in point: On the eve of Tuesday's election, the Utah Republi­can warned that if Barack Obama were elected, the Unit­ed States would "lose a lot of stature throughout the world because we have somebody who ... doesn't know what he's talking about." An apt description, perhaps, but not of Obama. Hatch, if he weren't so blinded by partisanship, would see that his words apply perfectly to the current pres­ident. The joyous reaction around the world to Obama's election sure didn't seem to us like a setback to U.S. prestige. We can only imagine how our friends abroad would have re­acted had John McCain pulled it out.