Man, there’s going to be a lot of speeches today. At 5 p.m., Mayor Oscar Goodman will give his annual State of the City speech (symbolically, at the World Market Center that he brought to downtown). And immediately thereafter, at 6 p.m., President George W. Bush will give a speech from the library of the White House (curiously, the least-used room in the White House since Jan. 20, 2001) about the need to send even more troops to Iraq.

Isn’t that just like president? So rude! Anyway, we’ll still be able to catch both, thanks to the wonders of 88.9-FM KNPR, which we know will go live and carry the president’s speech. (Please carry the speech, KNPR!) If you see our green Honda careening wildly through the streets of downtown, that’s why. Just stay clear, and nobody gets hurt.

Anyway, there are a few other things on the agenda before Goodman gets going. Let’s do the list:

» We at Various Things & Stuff have learned — after we read it in our colleague Jon Ralston’s Flashpoint feature in the Las Vegas Sun — that a grand total of 13 lawmakers have signed the Americans for Tax Reform’s anti-tax pledge. That means that, no matter what, they’ll "…oppose and vote against any and all efforts to increase taxes," according to the ATR’s website.

Who are these people, with vision sufficient to see into the future, to know that no tax increases will ever be necessary, come underperforming schools, gridlocked roads, short-staffed hospitals and cop-starved streets? We’re glad you asked! Because we downloaded the list from ATR to find out. They are:

Gov. Jim Gibbons (color us shocked)
Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki (if you’re an interest group, and Herr Weasel hasn’t told you what you want to hear yet, it’s only because he’s still working his way down the list after getting behind while trying to hold on to his old office space)

 

State Sen. Bob Beers (no surprise there)
State Sen. Barbara Cegavske (vision personified, if you ask us)
State Sen. Warren Hardy (oh, Warren, why?)
State Sen. Maurice Washington (with a disclaimer: taxes are OK if they go to pay for his health insurance; that shit is expensive, people!)

Assemblyman John Carpenter (ATR refers to Nevada Assembly members as "House" members, but then again, they’re wrong about so many things…)
Assemblyman Chad Christensen (financial wizard, from what we hear)
Assemblyman Tyrus O. Cobb (dude, you’re not supposed to put your porn name on a taxpayer pledge! Seriously…)
Assemblyman Ed Goedhart (nobody knows the process better than somebody who’s never served in the Assembly before)
Assemblyman Dr. Garn Mabey (he’s the minority leader, after all, and he’s planning to run against U.S. Sen. Harry Reid; how would it look if he didn’t sign?)
Assemblyman John Marvel (Hey! Didn’t Marvel cast the tie-breaking vote for the largest tax increase in state history? Man, when you’re born again, you really go off the deep end!)
Assemblyman J. Harry Mortensen (dude, what? Which of these is not like the others?)
Assemblyman James Settelmeyer (he’s new, too)
Assemblywoman Valerie Weber (nothing like a solid 51 percent majority to put you on solid footing)

Anyway, we’d suggest that that ATR pledge is a ridiculous thing that no truly sentient lawmaker could ever sign in good conscience, since it requires either excellent knowledge of future events or a crazed willingness to boost ideology over reality, but why? What’s done is done, and ATR President (and political money launderer) Grover Norquist will put any pledge breaker in "The Hall of Shame." And who could live with themselves after that?

» The computer that produces Various Things & Stuff is an IBM P.C. We like it OK. But our hearts are truly with Apple Computer products. (Whoops, make that Apple Inc.!) And the new iPhone is so righteously cool, we’re willing to forgive company CEO Steve Jobs all those backdated stock options that he may, or may not, have been aware of at the time.

Doubt us? Check it for yourself here. If we’re really to have a converged future, Jobs will be the one to blaze the trail. Go Apple!

» We hear that Keith Munro, Gov. Kenny Guinn’s former chief of staff and last-minute appointee to the Gaming Control Board, will leave that job to take a position as chief of staff to Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto. (Credit once again to Ralston, in his FLASH newsletter.) The move averts a constitutional crisis when incoming Gov. Jim Gibbons appointed his own pick, control board investigations chief Randall Sayre, to the seat occupied by Munro, claiming Guinn didn’t have the authority to fill the seat before his term expired.

It’s a classy move by Munro, who, in our legal opinion, had the better claim to the seat. And that, after all, is what this issue was about: Did Guinn have the legal ability to appoint Munro? Our view is yes, which means Gibbons’ pick was illegitimate. And while a strong argument could be made — as it was today by the Review-Journal’s John L. Smith — that Sayre was a more experienced pick, that’s simply not the point.

Alas, it’s doubtful anybody will be interested in exploring the legal issue now that it’s moot. Too bad, too. We’d have loved to read what Cortez Masto’s opinion was on the issue.