Jan 25 - 31,  2003 edition

- O P I N I O N -

Vin Suprynowicz

Can't they
shut these
people up?

London's daily newspaper The Independent on Jan. 2 reported an interesting British radio stunt gone wrong ... or right, perhaps.
   In what was promoted as a "unique chance to rewrite the law of the land," listeners to the government-controlled British Broadcasting Company's Radio 4 "Today" program were asked to suggest a piece of legislation to improve life in Great Britain, with the promise that a Member of Parliament would then actually attempt to get the proposed change onto the statute books.
   "But yesterday, 26,000 votes later, the winning proposal was denounced as a `ludicrous, brutal, unworkable blood-stained piece of legislation' -- by Stephen Pound, the very MP whose job it is to try to push it through Parliament," reports Independent Media Editor Vincent Graff.
   Mr. Pound's reaction was provoked by the news that the winner of Today's "Listeners' Law" poll was a plan to allow homeowners " 'to use any means to defend their home from intruders' -- a prospect that could see householders free to kill burglars, without question," Graff reports in a story The Independent headlined "MP calls Radio 4 listeners `bastards' over vigilante vote."
   "The people have spoken," the Labour MP replied when advised of the vote, "... the bastards."   more

Nevada State Carnage ... 
er, College

The first edition of the Black & Gold: A Publication For Friends of Nevada State College has been mailed out (at taxpayer expense) and is now in the hands of movers and shakers throughout the Las Vegas valley. 
   It seems incredible but evidently students will actually be graduating from the college next spring. A front-page article of the Black & Gold entitled "Gearing Up for Graduation" features Q and A's with three of the five students who are graduating next spring.
   Milissa Avila, a Teacher Preparation Program student said "[my husband] jokes with me that if I head up the Nevada State College Alumni Association, I will only have to call four other people for our reunions, at least for now." 
   I doubt taxpayers think it's a joke to spend millions of dollars to graduate five students-three in the Teacher Preparation Program and two in psychology . . .     more

LV R-J

'It means just what I choose it to mean'

From the first broadsheet, to the copy of the Review-Journal you are holding now, one of the chief roles of the newspaper has been to distill volumes of information into digestible bits, to make sense from a jumble of facts, to decipher and explain for busy readers on the run.
   Newspaper reporters attend the meetings, pore over the reams of documents, interview the experts so you won't have to. We translate jargon and obfuscated legalese into plain language, using common sense.
   In modern-day Nevada, plain language and common sense are for naught.
   First, there was that bizarre ruling this past summer by the state Supreme Court, basically suspending the constitutional amendment requiring tax hikes to be passed by a two-thirds majority of the Legislature. The court "reasoned" that the only way to get around a supposed impasse and give public education a huge hike in funding was to give greater weight to an old constitutional requirement to fund a single school in each county, and thereby ignore the more recent Gibbons Tax Restraint Initiative approved by 70 percent of the voters. Precedent would usually give greater weight to the more recent enactment.
   Then the court compounded the felony in a follow-up ruling, saying essentially the public was just not smart enough to know what it was doing when it approved the Gibbons initiative -- twice -- because the government-sanctioned ballot arguments were not sufficiently frightening to shoo the voters away from this inconvenience for those at the public trough.
   Now comes a legal opinion from Legislative Counsel Brenda Erdoes that further confounds common sense, though it seems to accurately parse the language of the law.
   We'd thought that if a petition to repeal most of those aforementioned taxes makes it on the ballot and gets approved by the voters, the vote would tie the hands of lawmakers . . .   more

More News:

Associated Press
Luddites hope
to suppress
'GloFish'

SACRAMENTO — Two public interest groups sued the federal government Wednesday, seeking to block sales of the nation’s first biotech household pet.

Elko Daily Free Press
20 years of
cowboy poetry

ELKO - Twenty years in the making, the National Cowboy Poetry Gathering has grown in ways never envisioned by its founders.

Reno News & Review
Now hiring

Latino inmates operate an extensive hidden illicit economy in Nevada's prison system, and they're looking for new recruits.

Las Vegas Review-Journal
Another union
lobbying scam

Questions lead to change in leave policy

Mayor Oscar Goodman has a hard time understanding why Las Vegas taxpayers pick up the tab when representatives of the city's firefighters union lobby lawmakers.

Reno News & Review
Nye comes calling

Rural Nevadans are saying, "Send us your poor, tired nuclear waste--as long as we get some economic benefit, too." It's the latest chapter in the state's troubled relationship with small rural counties that want economic development.

Reno Gazette-Journal
Fastest-growing
state still Nevada

Nevada’s population grew by an estimated 4.1 percent last year, with Lyon County growing the fastest and six rural counties shrinking, according to state statistics released Tuesday.

Las Vegas Mercury
Guns 'n' Democrats 

Being a Democrat doesn't necessarily mean you're anti-gun

John J. Cahill sits inside a Starbucks in Henderson, sipping his coffee. He's a big man, and his old-fashioned cowboy gear--tooled, studded leather wrapped around his legs and wrists, and a vest, overcoat, hat and scarf--makes him seem even bigger, like some old-timey sheriff come to clean up the, er, strip mall. The badge on his left shoulder says "Devil John"--a moniker of his Single Action Shooting Society games. But his guns are outside in his pickup. Can't be packing those things around in public, scaring people.

Reno Gazette-Journal
Gibbons petitions
to fund school first

Six months after a legislative standoff over new taxes nearly shut down public schools, U.S. Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., launched a voter initiative petition Thursday that would require lawmakers to fund education before any other state service.

Las Vegas Sun
On the line: Exec
branch lawmakers

Before last year's bitter debate over state taxes, you'd have to go back to 1989 to find the last time a significant portion of the Nevada Legislature was under such public assault.

Elko Daily Free Press
Ranchers hear
mad cow update

ELKO - Nevada ranchers are feeling less impact from the mad cow disease discovery in eastern Washington than expected, and chances are very slim that any Nevada cattle are infected.

Las Vegas Sun
AG seeks to void
college firings

CARSON CITY -- Nevada Attorney General Brian Sandoval issued a stinging opinion and filed a lawsuit Thursday to void the demotions of former Community College of Southern Nevada President Ron Remington and his adviser, John Cummings, on grounds that the university regents repeatedly violated Nevada's open-meeting law.

Las Vegas Review-Journal
Regents' turmoil
far from over

Despite the filing of a lawsuit and a highly critical legal opinion against the Board of Regents, turmoil at the Community College of Southern Nevada is no closer to being resolved.

Elko Daily Free Press
Sage grouse 
petition rejected

RENO - The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has rejected a petition to list "eastern" sage grouse under the Endangered Species Act, saying there's no evidence they are a unique subspecies of other sage grouse found in the West. The federal agency is continuing a preliminary review of other pending petitions involving the sage grouse.

Las Vegas Sun
Building lease will
cost state millions

State Treasurer Krolicki 
chairs firm that gets contract

CARSON CITY -- With its first lease-purchase of a new building, Nevada will wind up paying $71.5 million, once the figures are adjusted for inflation, for the structure that is expected to cost nearly $24 million to build.

Elko Daily Free Press
Developers buy
historic ranch

ELKO - An investment group based in Las Vegas has purchased 42,000 acres in Elko County, including much of the Big Springs Ranch between West Wendover and Wells and property at West Wendover.

Las Vegas Sun
U.S. Supremes
get identity case

CARSON CITY -- On March 22 the Supreme Court is to hear oral arguments regarding a Nevada case that should establish whether it is a crime to refuse to identify oneself when stopped by a law enforcement officer.

Las Vegas Review-Journal
Hard numbers: Tax
hikes were unneeded

Critics of Guinn, , tax-and-spend politicians proven correct

CARSON CITY -- Spending by Nevada consumers and tourists greatly exceeded officials' expectations for the first four months of the fiscal year, with sales tax revenue growth more than doubling what was projected for the budget.

Las Vegas Sun
State backtracks
on private prisons

CARSON CITY -- The state's experiment of letting private businesses operate full-scale state prison programs is slowly coming to an end.

Las Vegas Review-Journal
Report: CCSN
run by corrupt Ds

Private investigator says CCSN 
hiring rife with partisan politics

The 1,026-page investigative report that prompted the Board of Regents to demote two Community College of Southern Nevada officials casts the institution as a place where Democratic legislators, associates of lawmakers and chums of those in charge were handed cushy jobs.

Las Vegas Review-Journal
Court tosses 
bogus charges

Corrupt Las Vegas Metro police, state gaming agents help casinos bully winning gamblers

A district judge threw out a conviction against an advantage gambler and professional personal trainer who was convicted earlier this year of disorderly conduct for allegedly resisting arrest while being detailed, handcuffed and roughed up at the El Cortez.

Associated Press
Supreme questions detaining gambler

Las Vegas Review-Journal
Execs knew of Mirage's lawbreaking

Nevada Appeal
Majority of Nevada school
districts now on 'watch list'

Thirteen of Nevada's 17 school districts have been placed on a federal "watch list," according to a report released Friday by the Nevada Department of Education.

Associated Press
EnEarl cited in
abuse of power

State judicial discipline panel names 
Douglas County JP for unfair court 
probation hearing that ended in suicide

CARSON CITY -- A Douglas County justice of the peace was reprimanded last week for improprieties during a hearing for a one-time football star and former Nevada Supreme Court justice's son who later hanged himself in jail.

Las Vegas Review-Journal
Nevada Gaming
Control: Crooked

Gaming control officers, Metro cops help Nevada casinos kidnap, intimidate players who win legally

Steve Bernier is terrified every time his doorbell rings and he has been ever since Gaming Control Board agents interrogated and threatened him in his own home.

Money laundry rules reviewed