I wrote last week that Hatch is second in seniority among Republican senators and the senior senator of the majority party is automatically the Senate president pro tem, which is third in line to succeed the president after the vice president and speaker of the House.

Actually, Hatch is the fourth in seniority of the Republican majority. Besides Sen. Ted Stevens of Alaska, Hatch trails Sens. Pete Domenici of New Mexico and Richard Lugar of Indiana.

So to get to that No. 3 spot in the line of succession, Hatch, 71, will need to stick around awhile. He might even have to go for Strom Thurmond's record.

Balance of power? On the Utah State Senate's new Web site, www.senatesite.com/contact_us.php, an advisory at the bottom of the page says: "If you are extremely angry and want to yell at someone, call 538-1924."

When you call that number to yell at somebody about what the Legislature did, you get the governor's office. In fact, you get an innocent guy who was unaware he had been set up to take complaints about the Senate. It's Mike Mower, constituent services director in Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr.'s office.

It's all relative: I wrote last week about an exchange with Sen. Mike Waddoups, R-Taylorsville, and officials of Intermountain Health Care during a meeting of the Privately Owned Health Care Organization Task Force, which Waddoups co-chairs.

Waddoups expressed concern about the compensation packages made by some of IHC's top officials, with CEO Bill Nelson making $900,000 in salary and benefits for example.

It has since been pointed out that Waddoups is a volunteer board member of Pioneer Valley Hospital, owned by the hospital chain Iasis Healthcare Corp. and a competitor of IHC.

It was also pointed out that the total compensation package for Iasis' CEO, David White, is more than $10.5 million.

So if anybody wants to complain that the co-chair of a legislative task force looking at issues affecting IHC is a board member of an IHC competitor, they can call Mike Mower at the governor's office and yell at him about it.

Mixed messages: Ken Salvesen walks to work from the Salt Lake City Avenues area each morning and passes many businesses and residences that he has noticed watering their lawns too frequently and at inopportune times, like during rain storms.

During the summer, he got into the habit of posting notices on their doors, educating them regarding proper irrigation. Most people, he says, have been good about stopping the wastage.

There is one block of businesses between F and G Streets and South Temple and 1st Avenue, that ignore the notices, particularly 551 and 555 E. South Temple. Despite numerous notices from Salvesen, they water every day, even when it is raining.

One of those offices is the Nature Conservancy, dedicated to conservation of natural resources.

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Paul Rolly welcomes e-mail at prolly@sltrib.com.