Our hometown airline versus the new guy

Game on.

Virgin America airlines touched down at Sea-Tac with its fleet of shiny, new Airbus A320s last week, setting the stage for a catfight with hometown Alaska Airlines for California travel business.

You've gotta hand it to Alaska: They might not be able to get you your bags within an hour, but they've met the Virgin America assault at every turn:

Virgin: Premium leather seats, mood lighting. Alaska: Premium leather mood pretzels.

Virgin: 9-inch video touch screens with on-demand movies, live TV, food menus, video games, seat-to-seat chatting. Alaska: On-demand cabin pressure; seat-to-seat chatting on back of 9-inch barf bag (BYO stubby pencil).

Virgin: High-tech remotes, power plugs at every seat in coach. Alaska: One hot cotton towel, shared among first-class passengers.

Coming soon from Virgin: Wi-Fi. Coming soon from Alaska: Bitter pilots' strike.

Other stacked flight decks:

We Kid Alaska: But truthfully, the home-team airline has had its own cabin mood lighting for the past half-dozen years. It just happens to be a dim shade of perturbed.

Primary Judgment: In a surprise ruling in a case regarding Washington's electoral system, the U.S. Supreme Court has mandated that from now on, the two candidates of either party least capable of getting the Alaskan Way Viaduct replaced will automatically advance to the general election.

Equal Opportunity Espionage: State Department officials concede that passport files for all three presidential candidates have been illegally rummaged through by nosy government employees. A White House spokesman said it was simply part of President Bush's new effort to treat Washington insiders just like ordinary Americans.

Speaking of the Election: Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton have announced yet another series of debates. Please, for the love of God, someone make it stop.

March Misogyny: Offering even more evidence that all opposition to their client is rooted in sexism, aides for Clinton leaked a copy of Obama's NCAA Men's Tournament bracket, and sure enough, every team picked by the Illinois senator was composed entirely of men.

This Week's Lame, Euro-Chic, Big-Coffee-Cup Synonym: At the eBar at Nordstrom, a large coffee drink is called an "énorme."

Speaking of Lame: In a surprise announcement at the company's annual meeting, Starbucks CEO Howard Schultz announced an ingenious plan to steer the struggling company back on course by selling it to a group of Dunkin' Donuts aficionados from Oklahoma City.

Lazy-B Line: It's official. Further delays in the production of Boeing's alleged 787 no longer qualify as news. We'll get back to you when it's done, if we're not at the 2010 Winter Olympics.

Twisted Logic Award: As momentum gathered for some sort of formal Beijing Olympics protest over China's human-rights violations, Darryl Seibel, a spokesman for the U.S. Olympic Committee, responded thusly: "Put together a ranking of the worst ideas ever conceived and 'Olympic boycott' would be at the top of that list."

Really? Even ahead of the idea of running down peaceful protesters with tanks?

And Finally: A judge has ruled that Starbucks must pay back more than $100 million in barista tips shared by California store supervisors.

It raises all sorts of questions, not the least of which: Who in the world are you people who can afford to shell out millions in tips to baristas, and where and when can we fix you a creamy latte?

A section and Thursday's Northwest Weekend section. Email: rjudd@seattletimes.com