Yes, we know we’re late to the party on state Treasurer Kate Marshall’s wonderfully wicked news release on finding unclaimed property owned by the state of Nevada, but we just could not let it pass by without saying something.

Apparently, there’s about $118,000 in unclaimed property that belongs to various government agencies just sitting around. A total of 28 state agencies have unclaimed funds, Marshall found, which they can now reclaim.

What’s funny about this? This quote: "I am excited to be able to give back to the citizens of Nevada what rightfully belongs to them. It is amazing what little effort it takes to find this money. I’m sure that once the word gets out, citizens from around the state will start staking their claim to what is rightfully theirs."

Now, if you’re reading this blog, we know you’re smart enough to translate that. But would you be so kind as to indulge us? Here’s what we read, between those lines:

"I have no idea what former state Treasurer Brian Krolicki was doing in this office, but it sure as hell wasn’t working. We practically tripped over this unclaimed property that belongs to taxpayers, although it could have been dislodged when he tried to steal all the office furniture once his bid to keep this suite of offices was rejected. Don’t worry, Nevada: Just as we got the office furniture back from Krolicki, so we’ll get you your unclaimed property. Why? Well, it’s my job, and it’s time somebody did it."

Oh, how we love translating! And, to answer the question we raised in our translation, the man we’ve come to call Nevada’s Weasel-in-Chief was very busy working to get various firms managing programs like the state’s pre-paid tuition program to put his mug on fliers as a free way to campaign, or pimping his family for a chance to get into the newspaper.

Beautifully done, even without our translation and snarky, mean-spirited comments. We think this Kate Marshall person might have a future in politics! Oh, and by the way, if you think you have unclaimed property (whether you’re a state agency or not) click here to find out more.

Ponder this quote, if you will, from an Associated Press story on the recent meeting of the Nevada Governor’s Association: "The governors of Arizona, California, New Mexico, Oregon and Washington state agreed to develop a regional target to lower greenhouse gases and create a market-based program aimed at helping businesses reach the still-undecided goals."

OK, let’s do that list again:

Arizona (Democratic Gov. Janet Napolitano)

California (Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger)

New Mexico (Democratic Gov. Bill Richardson)

Oregon (Democratic Gov. Ted Kulongoski)

Washington state (Democratic Gov. Christine Gregorie)

Hmmmm. Notice anybody missing? How about our very own Gov. Jim Gibbons? He’s not on the list of governors who signed this pact, is he?

Instead, according to a story in the Las Vegas Sun today, Gibbons announced Nevada would conduct its own study "…to determine whether global warming is harming this state." Gibbons’ energy advisor, Hatice Gecol, said the state will form a task force to look into the issue.

Now, we can understand that Gibbons has high standards of proof for things. Those high standards have helped him get out of certain scrapes in the past. So that’s why we can understand why Gibbons would reject the collective scientific wisdom of 110 other nations, who this year concluded that global warming is real and almost certainly caused by human activity. (Check out the website of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change for more.)

And, by that same token, we can understand Gibbons’ skepticism about the disproportionate effects of global warming on states like Nevada, which were helpfully collected in one place by our colleague Hugh Jackson at the Las Vegas Gleaner today.

This is, after all, the guy who thought long and hard before releasing a report that concluded volcanoes are responsible for most of the mercury that’s around, and, hey, it’s not that bad for you after all. (Certainly mines can’t be held responsible, even if higher-than-normal mercury releases have been well and truly documented at mining sites.) And just because former Vice President Al Gore’s movie about global warming — An Inconvenient Truth — won an Academy Award on Sunday, well, that’s not going to change Gibbons’ mind about anything. We know how he feels about Hollywood types. (Well, we know at least how the Alabama state auditor feels about Hollywood types; that’s who Gibbons plagiarized those remarks from.)

But the state is going to look into global warming on its own? With a task force? We were very interested to hear that, so we fired off an e-mail to Gibbons press secretary Melissa Subbotin to get the details. So far, we haven’t heard anything back, but something tells us this whole global warming task force thing was a surprise in the state capital, so we’ll cut her some slack. 

What’s not new, however, is this tactic. Gibbons has used it before. In fact, he uses it a lot when he doesn’t want to do something.

For example, there’s lots of evidence that full-day kindergarten helps kids, at least in the first few years of school. But Gibbons refused in his State of the State speech to expand the program to more schools in Nevada, saying it needs — you guessed it — more study.

After former Gov. Kenny Guinn’s blue ribbon panel on transportation submitted its report on the $3.8 billion shortfall in the state’s road-building budget, Gibbons first denied the group had suggested any way to fund the gap. Once somebody read the report and told the governor that wasn’t true, he then said he wanted another group to study the issue and come up with "creative" ways to raise money.

And another group did: His very own transition team on transportation, which came up with some ideas that dovetailed with the blue-ribbon panel. Gibbons’ response? He wants yet another task force to do yet another study.

Are we wrong to think that perhaps the governor isn’t really interested in the results of an objective study, but rather in getting a study that comes back with the right conclusion (i.e. the one he prefers)? Are we the only ones who think that even if a sterling, peer-reviewed trio of reports commissioned by Gibbons himself concluded that global warming is real and must be addressed, full-day kindergarten definitely helps kids and indexing the gas tax to inflation was the best way to build roads, the governor would still resist those ideas?

Are we alone in thinking that studying a problem is a dandy way to avoid dealing with it, even though it doesn’t actually solve a damn thing?

We hope we’re not.

We got a news release Tuesday from the Nevada Republican Assembly Caucus, announcing the group would start a podcast. We decided to check it out, since podcasting is all the rage among the young people these days.

Now, we’ve got to say up front, this podcast is a new thing for the Assembly Republicans, who apparently have time on their hands since they are in no danger of passing any bills, blocking the passage of any bills or doing anything else that resembles lawmaking during the 2007 Legislature. Except Assemblyman Ty Cobb, who made headlines for being a dick.

And while we think the very first podcast — an "interview" by the caucus’ executive director of Minority Leader Garn Mabey — was informative (Assemblywoman Francis Allen likes to fish? Who knew?!) it seemed to us to be a bit stilted. You know, as if every word spoken on the podcast had been written down in advance and carefully recited so as to avoid sounding … human.

We’re no experts — we’re looking at the big 4-0 this year, after all — but we think the young people prefer a looser and more free-flowing discussion in their podcasts. More of what our colleague Steve Friess does over on The Strip podcast, and less Iranian hostage tape. We’re just saying.

In a way, the Republicans in the lower house have an advantage. They don’t have enough members to really matter, but they also have nothing to lose. Ideas like podcasting are what they should be doing, in their role as the loyal opposition to majority Democrats. They have ideas — we’ve heard some! — so they should be aggressive about getting them out there. What’s the worst that could happen?

So, loosen up, Republicans! You’ve nothing to lose but your rep, and that might not be such a bad thing!

» Quotable:"When somebody asks us for a record, our analysis is simple. We look to see if it’s been declared to be confidential, and our answer in that instance is we have no such public record. If there is a public record, because there is no declaration of confidentiality that has come over from you [the Legislature] we hand it over." — Deputy City Attorney John Redlein, testifying on a bill that would give government agencies two days to produce public records sought under the state’s Open Records Law

We find this interesting, for two reasons: One, the city’s careful parsing of the word "public." Oh, there may be a record that meets the criteria sought in an Open Records Law request, all right. But if the city isn’t going to tell you that the record exists. Why? It’s not "public," and therefore, it doesn’t exist as far as you’re concerned. Never mind that a person discovering that the city has a record it thinks is confidential might want to go to court and challenge the bureaucracy on that point.

It’s not like that couldn’t happen. The Open Records Law (at NRS 239.011) outlines a procedure for going to court after a government agency has denied you the right to look at a record. But in Las Vegas, people aren’t necessarily denied, they’re told there’s no such record. Nice.

And while Redlein makes it sound like they’re distributing documents at City Hall like booze at a Paris Hilton party, the fact is, the city improperly charges $1 per page for records! Now the Open Records Law specifically says (at NRS 239.052(1) that any fees charged can’t be more than the "actual cost" to provide the record. And if we can get copies at Kinko’s for pennies a page, $1 per page is clearly outrageous. We can testify that we’ve been charged the $1 per page fee for years when we request documents at City Hall. And we work for a giant national media company! Imagine the poor private citizen who doesn’t have the cash. Do you think the $1-per-page fee helps or hinders getting public records?

Our point is, governments will generally do anything and everything possible to put up barriers to getting public records. That’s why bills like SB123 by state Sen. Terry Care are so important. Go, Terry Care, go!

» The Review-Journal uncovered a minor scandal today, one that we’ve been wondering about for a long time. See, Mayor Oscar Goodman’s favorite libation — the martini — is supposed to be made by mixing different kinds of liquor (typically gin and vermouth) together and shaking or stirring it with ice. In Goodman’s universe, you just pour the gin (Bombay Sapphire, the best there is!) into a glass with a little ice and some garlic removed from green olives.

According to an expert at Southern Wine and Spirits, Armando Rosario, that’s not really a martini. It’s a glass of gin.

We hate to take sides against the mayor, but indeed, we think that is just a glass of gin. (Then again, what’s wrong with a glass of ice-cold gin, especially when it’s Bombay Sapphire?) Others may tell a different story, but we at Various Things & Stuff take credit for long ago introducing Goodman to the English libation when we asked him about his penchant for drinking the undrinkable Beefeater at a news conference. Later, Larry Ruvo of Southern Wine and Spirits convinced hizzoner to give Sapphire a try, and the relationship was sealed when Bombay agreed to pay Goodman to be the Las Vegas frontman for their product. But it was us who first suggested to Goodman that he drink a better class of gin.

Anyway, the best line in the R-J’s story came from Community College of Southern Nevada President Richard Carpenter, who said Goodman teaching a non-credit class on martinis didn’t diminish the mission of the college. "Part of a community college’s mission, he said, is to engage the community and get people to classes who might not otherwise."

We agree Tuesday’s fun little class didn’t diminish the community college’s mission, but we kind of wonder if classes should have a general educational value? Plenty of people were interested in hearing Goodman talk about drinking, but it’s somewhat harder to, say, get people into seats to talk about Shakespeare.

Hey, that’s it! Why not have the community college hire Goodman to teach a class about Shakespeare while drinking his version of a martini! It totally fits! Shakespeare is British. So is Bombay Sapphire! Goodman is popular. So is Shakespeare and drinking! We are on to something here people! Sign us up for that bad boy right now!

» Who says Republicans are anti-environment? Here’s state Sen. Bob Beers recycling an old idea from last year. Or is that called composting?

» Gov. Jim Gibbons says he’s asked his "friend and attorney" Don Campbell to take over answering questions about the FBI’s ongoing investigation into whether he used his office to help his "friend and big campaign contributor" Warren Trepp get federal contracts, in exchange for gifts and travel. We think that’s the smartest thing Gibbons has ever done. Like, ever.