The winners and the losers

• Winner: In contrast to the cruelty of throwing a dog from a car, the Davis County sheriff's deputy who retrieved the dog and tenderly carried it to a veterinarian, paying out-of-pocket for its care, deserves praise. Police eventually were able to return the dog to its owner, who is the mother of the suspect in the car chase.

• Winner: While much of the nation is trying to cope with real estate deflation, home prices in Utah keep going up. This week, the U.S. Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight reported that Utah saw a 12.9 percent increase in prices from the third quarter in 2006 to the third quarter this year. In Provo-Orem, the hike was 14.3 percent. No one knows if this will continue, but Utah's economy clearly remains one of the strongest in the nation.