Madsen has filed a federal lawsuit against the collection agency, EPN Inc., of Provo, its owner Jessica Devenish and attorney Ronald J. Noyes, alleging violations of the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act, libel, invasion of privacy and violation of the Utah Consumer Sales Practices Act.

Madsen wrote a $31 check to the Girl Scouts on Jan. 26, 2005, and it cleared his account at Zions Bank on March 28, 2005. But on May 27, 2005, Noyes, acting as the attorney for the collection agency, filed a civil action in 3rd District Court in West Jordan, claiming the check had been dishonored. EPN won a default judgment June 22 and on July 15 took $541 from Madsen's bank account through a writ of garnishment.

The lawsuit claims Mad- sen's check shows it was cleared and that there were sufficient funds in his bank account when it was submitted by the Girl Scouts, who got their money.

And not only did the collection agency take nearly 18 times the value of the check from his account, it reported the default judgment to the major credit reporting agencies, making it difficult for Madsen to get credit and hurting his reputation, the suit says.

See no evil: Utah is one of just six states from which no senator or representative has visited post-Katrina New Orleans, according to America's WETLAND Campaign and Women of the Storm, a group of New Orleans women who offered to pay the expenses of members of Congress to view in person the damage to the city and the efforts to repair it.

The other no-show states are Indiana, New Hampshire, North Dakota, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

And to put the apparently oblivious attitude in perspective, House Speaker Dennis Hastert had this quote upon his visit: "I saw some amazing things done here, things that I never thought I would see in my lifetime, the scope of this. I think you have to be here firsthand, on the ground, looking [to grasp the extent of the damage]."

Utah Sen. Bob Bennett, you might recall, publicly questioned the wisdom of rebuilding a city that sits so precariously against the seas, prompting a response from a Louisiana writer about the wisdom of building a city at the foot of a mountain on an earthquake fault.

Finders keepers?

Here's a memo to Bryson Garbett, Republican candidate for state Senate District 9 in Sandy: If you are looking for some of your campaign lawn signs, you can find them in the garage of Dale and Suzanne Asay, who didn't appreciate you leaving them at their house without their permission.

Suzanne Asay says she returned from a week-long trip to Oregon to find one Garbett sign pounded into her front yard and two others sitting on her front porch. No one asked for permission and the Asays never gave it. So now the signs are sitting comfortably in their garage.