Two years and six days ago, U.S. Rep. Jim Gibbons told the Review-Journal’s Tony Batt that he wouldn’t run for U.S. Senate against incumbent Harry Reid. The long-awaited news, later repeated at a Gibbons news conference at the Thomas & Mack, gave Reid an untroubled re-election and even gave rise to conspiracy theories that Reid and Gibbons had struck a deal: Gibbons, surely a strong Republican challenger, would bow out, and Reid would help him in some unspecified ways in the future. (Later, when Reid endorsed Gibbons’ “Education First” initiative, those theories resurfaced.)

But that was then, and this is now, and Gibbons is poised to make another announcement. Starting at the East Las Vegas Community Center at 10 a.m. today, and then later in rural parts of Nevada, Gibbons will announce he’s running for governor. And, to the dismay of many, he’s the automatic front-runner.

On paper, Gibbons makes a fine Republican candidate: He’s a decorated Air Force veteran of Vietnam and the first Persian Gulf War. He’s educated, holding degrees in science and law. He’s a former airline pilot, a former assemblyman and currently the state’s senior congressman. And he’s already run for governor once, against Bob Miller in 1994, so he knows about the pitfalls of campaigning and can avoid them in the future. And he’s the father of the popular tax-restraint initiative that requires a two-thirds vote in both houses of the Legislature in order to raise taxes.

But there’s a downside. Gibbons is conservative, undoubtedly more conservative than the growing population base in Democrat-dominated Clark County. He’s given to rash statements that play well at Young Americans for Freedom meetings, but poorly on national television. He can be assaulted as a crackpot, a master of the one-minute speech, delivered to an empty House chamber with only the C-SPAN cameras running. And he’s disliked by even fellow Republicans, who failed to give him several key committee assignments on Capitol Hill. (He clearly wanted to be chairman of the House Intelligence Committee rather than run for Nevada governor.) One fellow Republican, Gov. Kenny Guinn, has been trying to recruit somebody else to run for the spot, despite the fact that Guinn is chairman of the Republican Governor’s Association. (One big exception to the hate: Republican consultant Sig Rogich, who is supporting Gibbons and can be very helpful and persuasive, both with strategic advice and fund-raising.)

But his primary victory seems all but certain. Consider: His opponents, thus far, are Lt. Gov. Lorraine Hunt and state Sen. Bob Beers. Neither has Gibbons name recognition, and Gibbons’ stellar performance in the northern part of the state. (Gibbons beat out even President George W. Bush in 2004 balloting in all but two Nevada counties, Eureka and Esmeralda. He scored almost 80 percent in Elko County, 78 percent in Humboldt, 80 in Lander, 76 in Pershing, 77 in Churchill and … well, you get the idea.) He even racked up 56 percent in the portion of Clark County that falls within his 2nd Congressional District.

Bear in mind, of course, that those numbers reflect two important things. One, Bush was running against U.S. Sen. John Kerry for president in 2004, which brought a record number of people to the polls (1.07 million in Nevada, or 77.59 percent of all registered voters). In 2006, Gibbons’ race will be at the top of the ticket, and he’s simply not the draw that Bush v. Kerry was. Second, Gibbons’ opponent, one Angie Cochran, was the most low-profile candidate to challenge the congressman in years. The numbers could change with smart and charismatic candidates in a primary.

But Gibbons is better known, polls show, than either Hunt or Beers. (Hunt, in fact, has been mostly forgotten by pundits.) And Gibbons and Beers are seemingly of one mind when it comes to fiscal policy, which makes us wonder why Beers even decided to enter the race. Although it’s a long way until Aug. 15, 2006 (primary election day), Gibbons is the smart money here.

That is, if he can avoid the gaffes that have plagued him in this race so far, gaffes that will only be made worse with the big, bright spotlight of the media focused on him. Giving a plagiarized speech in which he calls for war protesters to be used as human shields in Iraq, for example, might be unwise. Denouncing liberals as tree-hugging, Birkenstock-wearing, tie-died musicians might not play well, either, since Gibbons has one of the lowest ratings from the League of Conservation Voters (0 percent for 2004, baby). And suggesting that members of a luncheon audience might drift off into sexual fantasies about him during a long speech, well, that’s just creepy.

Democrats are already on the warpath, having field billboards with an awful, German-tourist style photo of Gibbons and the human shields remark in both north and south. They followed up his scheduling of today’s announcement with a news release announcing Gibbons’ “second chance” tour, repeating his quote about wanting to be Intelligence chairman. And they’ve helpfully provided reporters with the “Top five questions that Jim Gibbons won’t answer” just in time for today’s news conference. Among them: Why did Gibbons get an “F” grade from the National Education Association? (Answer: Because teacher’s unions hate him because he doesn’t want to raise teacher pay to the levels the unions want!)

At least we know there won’t be any bored reporters for the next 15 months. On to the announcement!

Don’t call them second string, because the lawyers that former Clark County Commissioner Dario Herrera hired to defend himself from federal political corruption charges are top notch. New York’s Jerry Bernstein is a former federal strike force prosecutor, and knows all the tricks, while local Tony Sgro has seen the inside of more than his share of courtrooms.

But Herrera really wanted Mayor Oscar Goodman on his side, because Herrera believes the mayor when Goodman boasts that because of his popularity, he simply could not lose a jury trial in Clark County. (Who told us that? Why, Goodman himself, several years ago. Sadly, we think he might be right.)

Instead of hire Goodman directly, Herrera initially hired relative newbie Eric Goodman, apparently hoping the old man would come along. (Mayor Goodman is well known for helping his sons whenever he can, even if the circumstances are ethically murky.) My friend and colleague Jon Ralston reported in his FLASH newsletter Monday that the elder Goodman went so far as to review papers before deciding not to defend Herrera. (Too bad; we would have loved to see how that would have affected the legendary Goodman popularity. And what legal strategy would he use? “There’s no such thing as a commissioner-bribing person called Michael Galardi, jurors!”

Once he saw he wasn’t going to get the legendary Oscar Goodman at the defense table, Herrera dumped Eric Goodman for more experienced. (Hey, the government contends the guy is corrupt, not stupid.) And one does not hire lawyers of this sort to negotiate a plea bargain. Herrera — unlike former (and alleged) co-conspirator Erin Kenny — is going to fight until a jury verdict.

We’re glad. This case has been dramatic from the start, and we’d hate for it to end with a whimper and not a bang. So, federal prosecutors, when can we schedule the final season of “Law & Order: Vegas Corruption”?

Omigod! We’ve got celebrities. We’ve got a hotel/casino project. We’ve got Las Vegas. It’s critical mass, baby! A nuclear media meltdown!

Of course, we’re referring to Las Ramblas, the high-rise hotel/casino/restaurant/nightclub/spa project fronted by Clooney, star of such hits as Oceans 11 as well as such bombs as Oceans 12 and personal nightmares like Oceans 13: This Time They’re Serious. He’s joined by Rande Gerber, star of such hits as Whiskey Beach, as well as Centra Properties and The Related Cos.

It’s going to be a $3 billion project, with 11 buildings spread over 25 acres and 8 million square feet. Yowza! Let’s roll the presses!

And roll they did, as the Los Angeles Times, New York Times and Las Vegas Sun proceeded to write the heck out of that story, to say nothing of PR Newswire and my colleague Dave Berns’ blog, found on the homepage of the Las Vegas Business Press.

Hmmmm. No orgy of celebrity-connected Vegas building publicity can truly be complete without … what’s the name of that newspaper again? It’s the local rag.

Oh, that’s right! The Review-Journal! Where were they on this thing?

Ah, here we go. A day late, the R-J weighed in with a story titled “Puttin’ on the glitz.” And when the R-J headline writers drop letters, you know something’s big. Or lame. One of the two.

Anyway, we’d like everybody to keep things in perspective. It’s not like the Second Coming, or the season finale of American Idol, or anything like that. Besides, this has all happened before. Does anybody else remember that other celebrity themed casino, the one that was supposed to ride on the name of its founder?

If you guessed “Debbie Reynolds hotel-casino,” you’re a big winner. Unlike, say, Debbie, whose marquee is no more.

Review-Journal political reporter Erin Neff reports today that professional loser (that’s our term, not hers) Tony Dane has purchased a bunch of Internet domain names using the name of Nevada Supreme Court Justice Nancy Becker. Dane says he’s unsure if he’s going to use them in a sure-to-fail campaign against Becker. On the one hand, he was very upset about the Guinn v. Legislature decision of 2003, in which the high court ignored the voter-approved two-thirds requirement to raise taxes. On the other, he once came out on top in a lawsuit in Becker’s courtroom long ago. So he’s torn.

What principles.

It sounds to us like Dane is trying to extort Becker to buy the domain names back from him and head off a negative campaign that would highlight her role in Guinn v. Legislature. After all, Dane and his equally failure-prone pal, George Harris, claimed they were going to recall some justices in the wake of the decision (not to mention Gov. Kenny Guinn). No recall ever materialized.

Don’t get us wrong: There are plenty of good campaign issues to deploy against Becker. Don’t forget she was one of the three people who undersold Las Vegas on the concept of a Regional Justice Center (with ex-Sheriff Jerry Keller and ex-D.A. Stewart Bell). The center is over budget, years behind schedule and still not open. And picking through the court’s decisions would no doubt yield more fodder that could be used against the justice.

But if Dane is the one doing the digging, Becker may as well order those new bookcases for her office, because she’s guaranteed to win again. In politics, having Dane as an opponent is a talisman of success.

“You are giving hope and encouragement to the enemies of America.” — Howard Kaloogian, a former California assemblyman who co-organized a pro-Bush rally against Cindy Sheehan.

Kaloogian, by contrast, discourages the enemies of America by showing them that fascism isn’t dead. Oh, wait…

So the Regional Transportation Commission, which has fallen hopelessly in love with the idea of a “regional fixed guideway” that’s proposed to run from the Nevada State College in Henderson to a planned UNLV campus in North Las Vegas, is fielding $300,000 in ads for the concept. We say “concept” because a citizen’s task force looking at the plan hasn’t even decided if all-new light-rail trains or special buses will carry passengers to and fro.

The ads, according to Voice of the RTC, Ingrid Reisman, speaking in the Review-Journal are simply to educate the public that there is such a thing as the regional fixed guideway “so they can make up their own mind on what they want to do.” We’re pretty sure that they have made up their own minds on what they want to do, and that’s drive their own cars to work and back, but we’ve been accused of being cynical and lacking vision.

Critics — including some who serve on the citizen’s task force — suggest that the RTC is using government money for pro-guideway propaganda. We think that’s a little harsh, since the slogans reported by the R-J are simply too lame to persuade anybody to do anything but laugh. Here’s a couple samples:

“Transit breakthrough? It’s up to you.”

“Transportation for all? It’s your call.”

In the spirit of speaking the language of the people, we at Various Things and Stuff will try to pen a few rhyming slogans of our own that give the other side of the argument.

“Traffic a pain? Take the train! (At a cost of millions of dollars, that is.)”

“Hate to drive? The fixed guideway ain’t jive! (It will cost a lot, however.)”

“What’s the fuss? Catch a smelly bus! (And with just six transfers, get to where you’re going, eventually, after having to get up at 5 a.m.)”

OK, we admit that last one might be a little long for a billboard. But what do you want? They’re free!

Sorry, blog fans, but we at Various Things & Stuff got caught up in endless meeting hell on Friday and were unable to post our thoughts. We thought we could sense a palatable disappointment in the Las Vegas community as a result, a disappointment that could only be drowned in sangria. (That’s how we drowned ours, anyway, at the delightful Firefly restaurant. Mmmmm, tapas.)

But never fear! You won’t miss anything with this catch-up edition of Various Things and Stuff!

• Assembly Speaker Richard Perkins defended himself against allegations he’d broken the federal Hatch Act by both serving as a government employee (deputy chief of police in Henderson) and running for partisan office (as a Democratic candidate for Assembly.) The Hatch Act says you can’t engage in partisan political activity and hold a federal job, or any job with an agency that gets federal funds.

“It is somewhat disturbing to me that dedicating my life to public service has come under any negative scrutiny of this sort,” Perkins reportedly said in a January deposition in the case, brought by the U.S. Office of Special Counsel. “It also caused me some concern that Nevada’s tradition of having a citizen Legislature — [meeting] every other year, so that everybody has to have a real life, a day job, a return to the community to interact with my citizens — is under siege in some fashion by this proceeding.”

But the Office of Special Counsel isn’t attacking the concept of a citizen legislature. It’s attacking the fact that Perkins may have violated the Hatch Act, despite a program in Henderson that sought to minimize the federal funds overseen by Deputy Chief/Speaker Perkins.

The sad fact is, under Nevada’s constitution, getting a public paycheck and serving in the Legislature is outright illegal. If we had a Supreme Court with a spine, that law would be enforced. We happen to agree with Perkins that cops, firefighters, teachers and nurses on the public payroll should be able to serve as lawmakers, but until we change the constitution, such service is manifestly illegal. So if a Hatch Act proceeding is the worst that Perkins is facing, he’s actually lucky.

Besides, the way we read things, it seems like the decision is going to go his way anyway. That ruling should come down just as the speaker is getting ready to retire from his day job to concentrate on running for governor.

• McCarran International Airport had its best month ever in July, seeing 3.9 million passengers visit. The record is four million, and if the airport only counted the 123,000 people driving aimlessly around the airport, lost because they tried to follow those stupid colored triangles, they’d have broken the record! (And that doesn’t even count the 12,323 people waiting in early-morning hours for a shuttle from the remote “economy” lot!)

• The Associated Press reports the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency may approve a plan to allow up to 230 new private piers to be built along the lake, at the glacial pace of 10 per year. The fee to build a pier is $100,000, so you can see why some are saying this plan is a sop to the rich. On the upside, Lake Tahoe property owner and consummate legislative juicemeister Harvey Whittemore might finally get the private pier that he once tried to jam through the Nevada Legislature. We think he might have an extra $100,000 lying around.

• And finally, an new AP/Ipsos poll shows that a whopping 90 percent believe it’s OK to share your anti-war feelings in public. It’s good news for folks like Cindy Sheehan, who has been savagely brutalized by the Republican smear machine. (And if they’ll smear a Gold Star mother, they’ll smear anybody.)

Speaking of Sheehan, she had a pretty good retort to President George W. Bush, who said Sheehan’s views don’t jibe with those he’s heard from other military families. Here it is: “I never claimed that I spoke for all the military families, but I know I speak for a lot of military families and Gold Star families. And the president doesn’t ever talk to someone who disagrees with him, so of course he hears his side of the story.”

We know that to give any attention to lunatic fringe dweller the Rev. Pat Robertson only encourages him, but we can’t resist. Because now in addition to advocating murder, we can add lying (and lying badly) to his resume of transgressions.

It seems Robertson has finally apologized for advocating that the elected president of Venezuela, Hugo Chavez, be assassinated. But it took what Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld calls “a long, hard slog” to get there. Let’s go on a slightly abbreviated journey with Pat, shall we? Various Things & Stuff’s comments follow each quote, in italics.

“I don’t know about this doctrine of assassination but if he [Chavez] thinks we’re trying to assassinate him, I think we really ought to go ahead and do it. We have the ability to take him out and I think the time has come that we exercise that option.” — Robertson on The 700 Club on Monday.

Clearly, Robertson is advocating the United States assassinate Chavez, in violation of U.S. law and the Sixth Commandment. We only say this because “go ahead and do it” so closely follows “assassinate him.” But watch what the good reverend does with that here:

“I didn’t say assassination. I said our special forces should take him out. Take him out could be a number of things, including kidnapping.” — Robertson, The 700 Club on Wednesday.

First, Robertson did say assassinate, so he’s a liar. Second, he’s a bad liar. (“Take him out” could mean many things? Yeah, we thought he meant “take him out for a nice ice cream sundae, the kind with cherries and chopped-up peanuts on top. Mmmm, good!) Third, he’s an idiot: So we don’t kill a foreign head of state, we kidnap him? And then what? Put him on trial in Miami for drug running? What kind of a complete and utter moron would do that? … Oh, wait.

“Is it right to call for assassination? No, and I apologize for that statement. I spoke in frustration that we should accommodate the man who thinks the U.S. is out to kill him.” — Robertson on a website posting Wednesday.

It’s also not right to lie about having called for assassination, Pat. And it’s downright stupid to argue that just because Chavez has some (not so illegitimate) concerns about a coup, we should oblige him. Should we oblige every crazy person’s paranoid fantasy? We only ask because, as a crazy person, Robertson no doubt has plenty of paranoid fantasies.

Some might at this point call for Robertson to step aside from his broadcasting empire, having forfeited all rights and claims to leadership with crazy talk and subsequent lying about the aforementioned crazy talk. Not us. We want the guy to go right on talking, as much as possible. See, we think it’s a good idea for the Christian right to support people like Robertson, so nobody will ever take them seriously again, which is good for all of us.

So preach on, Brother Pat! We hear gay day is coming up at Disney World. How about calling down some meteors?

University Chancellor (and broadcasting mogul) Jim Rogers told a news conference at the Stirling Club this morning that he won’t be a candidate for governor in 2006. Although Rogers said he would have had to spend $8 million of his own money and had serious doubts about his chances, the real X-factor in his decision was remaining in charge of the university system at a time he says is filled with potential.

“This is where I should be. This is what I should be doing,” Rogers said of his job as chancellor. And you know, we think he means it. Rogers choked up just a little and paused to take a sip of water before speaking the decisive words: “I have no intention of running for governor. I don’t care who asks at this point, it won’t make any difference to me.”

But don’t think Rogers’ decision means he won’t be involved in the governor’s race. He promised to use a political action committee he’s formed to educate voters about education, especially which of the candidates would be good for state schools and which would be bad. “If I find … that there are candidates who are not supportive of education, I will say so,” he said. And he definitely means that.

Although he declined to endorse or criticize anybody, Rogers did say positive things about state Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus, who returned a Rogers questionnaire about education with the most thoughtful answers. And he did say one negative thing about U.S. Rep. Jim Gibbons, who Rogers had previously said is “not that bright.” Here’s that gem:

Adam Goldman, Associated Press, asking about Rogers donating money to candidates: “…like giving Jim Gibbons $5 million?”

Rogers: “I doubt that.” (Laughter.) “Maybe if you move the decimal point five or six places.” (More laughter.)

But Rogers did confide Gibbons’ campaign chief Robert Uithoven promised that Gibbons would return Rogers’ questionnaire on education, although Uithoven didn’t say when. Since Rogers says he’ll release those documents to the media, we’re looking forward to seeing that.

Of the candidates, Rogers says he has no problems with those who stake out positions, even if they depart from his ideas, since they can at least be persuaded. But stealth candidates who refuse to take a stand “those people scare me,” he said. Us, too, Mr. Chancellor.

The rest of the news conference centered on Rogers goals for education, including moving UNLV and UNR up at least one tier in the U.S. News & World Report annual rankings over the next decade, and the sorry state of education up to now in Nevada. “Education has never been a necessity here to make a living,” Rogers said. “Las Vegas is a world-class economy and a third-class culture. I mean, that’s gospel. Or a fourth-class culture.”

But Rogers says there’s reason for hope, as the university system is working well, and education lobbyists from kindergarten through universities are planning to advance a common front during the 2007 Legislature. “We should take advantage of the bad news, because we have the ability to escape,” he said.

Religious broadcaster and lunatic Pat Robertson is at it again, conclusively proving America did the right thing by not electing him president in 1988. Capping a career of insane public statements, many of which he actually stands by, Robertson declared on “The 700 Club” that Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez should be assassinated.

Here’s Robertson, on his plan: “We don’t need another $200 billion war to get rid of one, you know, strong-arm dictator. It’s a whole lot easier to have some of the covert operatives do the job and then get it over with.”

Here’s God, disapproving of Robertson’s plan: “Thou shalt not kill.” (Exodus 20:13)

Now, it’s curious that Robertson would disapprove of a man he describes as a “strong-arm dictator,” seeing as how Robertson himself had such close ties to some. Robertson and the former strong-arm dictator president of Zaire, Mobutu Sese Seko. became fast friends over an ultimately unsuccessful diamond mining venture in Zaire, dubbed the African Development Co.

Or how about Robertson’s Cayman Islands-incorporated Freedom Gold Limited, which had a very cozy arrangement with former Liberian strong-arm dictator Charles Taylor? (Taylor was once imprisoned in the United States on charges of allegedly looting the Liberian treasury, but escaped and returned to Liberia by way of Libya, where he received terrorist training in the days before Moammar Gadhafi decided to play nice.)

So why should Robertson object to strong-arm dictators now? Oh, that’s right: Seko and Taylor, while homicidal thugs, were capitalists at heart. Chavez is a socialist. And that’s a bad thing.

Aside from his total disrespect for the Torah and American law (assassination of foreign heads of state has been illegal since the Ford administration), Robertson has no respect for … well, pretty much anything. The Review-Journal published an Associated Press list of Robertson’s greatest hits this morning, including the threat that God was going to pummel Orlando, Fla., with hurricanes, “…terrorist bombs, earthquakes, tornadoes and possibly a meteor” because of gay day at Disney World. (Orlando and Disney World, by the way, are still standing.)

Then, in the days after Sept. 11 (which Robertson agreed was caused by gays, the ACLU, People for the American Way, pagans and abortionists) Robertson said he’d like to nuke the U.S. State Department, allowing him to take his place among such notables as Timothy McVeigh and Mohammed Atta, who also favored committing terrorist acts on American soil.

But his latest call for outright, cold-blooded murder should leech the last of Robertson’s credibility, especially among faithful Christians who heretofore have supported him. In addition to being mentally unstable and a hypocrite, Robertson has lost the last vestige of entertainment value. Time to change the channel, people. Maybe Benny Hinn or Kenneth Copeland are having a fund-raiser?

U.S. Sen. Harry Reid will be up on his feet again this week, after suffering a so-called “mini-stroke” last Tuesday. (It’s not true, by the way, that the incident happened after he got a glimpse of Las Vegas gas prices.) Reid will attend a “faith-based services symposium,” part of his latest push to convince everybody that Democrats don’t hate God.

We wish Reid well. He’s got a stressful job, keeping together a party that’s so diverse and intransigent that its symbol is a donkey and members famously joke about their lack of party organization. Plus, he’s got his conservative constituents back home to think about. They’re not likely to make the same mistake twice, and nominate a candidate who can’t beat “none of these candidates” in the primary. So, he’s got to be on his toes.

What we don’t understand is this: Reid eats well, gets exercise, and doesn’t smoke or drink. We at Various Things & Stuff, on the other hand, eat very, very poorly, don’t get exercise, smoke cigars all the time and drink a lot. Yet Reid has health problems and we just go chugging along. (And by “chugging,” we mean beer. That’s how we drink it.)

Perhaps we should draw up our personal diet and health plan for the senator and e-mail it to him? Senator, if you get an e-mail titled “Better Living With Bacon,” don’t delete it. It’s from us! And feel better soon!

Well, it looks like revolution is breaking out all over. The state of Connecticut has sued the federal government, maintaining that President Bush’s No Child Left Behind Act is an unfunded mandate. Connecticut will spend $41.6 million beyond the $5.8 million that the federal government is paying to cover the testing of students that’s a key part of the act. Either give us the money, or do away with the rules, the state says. (That follows on the heels of Utah — surely no bastion of liberalism — criticizing the act as well.)

Then tiny Sparks, Nevada’s City Council joins municipal governments around the nation passing resolutions against the USA Patriot Act, especially the provisions that allow federal agents to peek into your book buying, library browsing and movie renting. (You remember that provision: It was the one that former Attorney General John Ashcroft claimed hadn’t been used, but insisted should be kept on the books, just in case. Osama bin Laden better watch what he rents at Blockbuster, that’s for sure.)

Down here in Las Vegas, local governments have had a long history of protests, from passing resolutions against Yucca Mountain to suing the federal government over everything from state’s rights to inadequate radiation standards. We at Various Things & Stuff wish the locals would get a little more vocal on things like the Patriot Act (our mayor was a former criminal defense lawyer, for God’s sake) and promise to never steal property the way they did in New London, Conn. (Actually, Goodman has promised not to do that, hasn’t he? Well, Clark County, then.)

What does it all mean? Federalism has largely been forgotten, thanks to the deification of the presidency and intense media focus on Washington, D.C., at the same time attention to state capitals is waning. But it’s good to see that there are still some folks who remember that states have a voice, too. It’s an important part of checks and balances, and comes in especially handy when the feds start ignoring the U.S. Constitution, as they’ve done with the Patriot Act and the New London ruling.

It was supposed to be the first of many Review-Journal in-kind contributions to the campaign to pass a Colorado-style TABOR law in the Silver State. But it ended up being a somewhat atypical demonstration that R-J demigod, state Sen. Bob Beers, occasionally makes things up.

You had to read to the end of reporter Ed Vogel’s long Sunday piece to find the exchange between Beers and state budget director Perry Comeaux, but it was worth the slog. Let’s just reprint the relevant parts for you here, and we’ll pick up at the end with our commentary.

BEERS: “Items that used to be in the general fund were moved elsewhere. We no longer have to count them.”

COMEAUX: “He will have to show me where we have taken programs out of the general fund. It hasn’t happened.” (The story confirms that, in fact, Beers was unable to identify such a program.)

BEERS: “I am not trying to argue with Perry. The fundamental question is whether we increase government spending faster than population growth and inflation should be decided by the Legislature or the citizens. Putting the question before citizens seems fair.”

VARIOUS THINGS & STUFF: No, the question is whether Beers tried to slip a blatant falsehood by Ed Vogel, and got caught red-handed. It’s little wonder Beers doesn’t want to argue with Comeaux, since Comeaux (unlike most of us in the media) knows what he’s talking about.

So let’s do the score: Beers, 0; reality, 1. Let’s keep that in mind when the campaign for the Beers-backed Tax and Spending Control (TASC) initiative starts showing up outside grocery stores and Home Depots in the next few months, shall we?

And let’s give a little credit to Vogel and the R-J for being willing to show that their idol sometimes has feet of clay. It’s the first remotely negative thing we recall ever reading in the morning paper about Beers.

So rocker Courtney Love admitted in court Friday that she had used drugs, thus violating her probation, when just a few days earlier, she declared in the pre-taped “Comedy Central Roast of Pamela Anderson” that she’d been “clean and sober for a fucking year”?

You mean … she lied? To a TV audience, and to her good friend, Pam?

Color us disillusioned. Very disillusioned.

We were amused to read in the weekend Review-Journal that no one has yet come forth to challenge the “split-roll” property tax cap that limits tax increases to 3 percent for residential property and 8 percent for business and other types of land. Why would anyone challenge it, you ask? Well, only because it’s blatantly unconstitutional. (The always forgotten Nevada constitution says property in the Silver State must be taxed in a “uniform and equal” manner. Lawmakers sidestepped that little detail by doing what everybody in Nevada does when the law is inconvenient: ignoring it.)

In a shot across the bow of anybody even thinking of challenging the cap, Republican Assembly Minority Leader Lynn Hettrick says any businessman who challenges the cap might end up with property taxes far in excess of the 8 percent cap. Clark County Assessor Mark Schofield says he’s heard not one peep of complaint. And even the Las Vegas Chamber of Commerce says it won’t challenge the cap in court, but will lobby for equal taxation at the 2007 Legislature instead.

Isn’t that ironic? The only issue the chamber gets right in years, and they’re not going to challenge it in court.

Why? Because the chamber, like everybody else, fears the backlash if its successful. The law would be invalidated, property taxes would shoot up overnight and the peasants would break out the torches and pitchforks. Is that worth standing on principle?

In a word, yes.

The Legislature knew this property tax solution was unconstitutional when lawmakers voted for it. (Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus, who voted for the measure anyway, has admitted the same.) But lawmakers crossed their fingers and hoped against hope that bribing business owners with an 8 percent cap would buy them some peace.

If the Legislature wanted to cap property taxes, it should have done so equally, say a 6 percent cap for all property. That’s constitutional, and legal. Or, if the Legislature wanted to tax more valuable business property at a higher amount, it should have started the process to amend the constitution to allow for a split roll. (Titus, in fact, tried to do just that, but her resolution never made it out of the Senate’s tax committee.)

So instead, the Legislature did something it knew, or should have known, was unconstitutional, and thus every member who voted “aye” knowingly and willfully violated his or her oath to support the state constitution. That, we think, constitutes malfeasance in office, and is an impeachable offense.

But nobody is going to start impeachment proceedings, just like nobody is going to challenge a blatantly unconstitutional law. Instead, we march along with our heads in the sand, pretending that we still have a legitimate government. The masses are happy, since their taxes aren’t going up as much. And thus, our creaky system grinds on.

Then again, let’s be real. If this was challenged, the Nevada Supreme Court could pull another Guinn v. Legislature, where justices simply ignored the voter-approved constitutional provision that says you have to have a two-thirds vote in both houses of the Legislature to create or raise taxes. Yes, the justices — our constitution’s last line of defense — were ignoring the constitution long before it was cool.

What a joke.