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.”