CARSON CITY — We’ve arrived in Cartoon City for a little legislative coverage, but thus far, things are quiet. Perfect for catching up on a little business from the tail end of last week, in the form of Quick Hits! Here we go:

» You might think Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley is being unnecessarily belligerent by proposing a tax increase, in part, to deal with the $3.8 billion backlog in road-building projects that’s vexing the state. After all, Gov. Jim Gibbons has said he’ll veto all tax increases, including the weight-distance tax on trucks in Nevada that’s a key part of the Democrats’ proposal. But we’d have to disagree, for a couple reasons.

First, Buckley wasn’t the one who took a stupid no-new-taxes pledge while she was running to lead the (now second-) fastest growing state in the nation. She’s under no obligation to live under Gibbons’ ill-advised promise.

Second, thanks once again to Gibbons, who in the 1990s qualified an initiative that requires a two-thirds majority in both houses of the Legislature to create or raise taxes, Buckley will have to get a super-majority in order to get a weight-distance tax passed anyway. And you know how many votes are needed to override a gubernatorial veto and render the governor totally irrelevant? That’s right: Two-thirds.

So the real question is, can Buckley and the Democrats get to two-thirds in the first place (a lock in the Assembly, an open question in the Senate) and, ultimately, can the forces of reason hold that two-thirds in the event of a veto? She’s already got Republican Minority Leader Garn Mabey saying that a roads solution might have to be something the governor might oppose. Can more votes from the other side of the aisle be far behind? (By the way, Mabey deserves credit for standing up with Buckley at a news conference on the traffic problems; he’s sure to be pilloried by the right for doing the right thing.)

Third, and perhaps most important, at least Buckley and her fellow Democrats have done something besides say that we need "innovative, creative" solutions to fix the roads. She’s presented a plan. It’s a lot more than Gibbons — whose big idea was to look under highways for water to sell — has done.

» Speaking of Gibbons, what’s up with him fibbing — again? He told the Associated Press’ Kathleen Hennessey that he released all the receipts for his 2000 Turkey vacation with a Reno defense contractor. But it turns out, Hennessey wasn’t born yesterday and checked. Whoops! Busted!

"We paid for it all, and we have the receipts. We’ve made those available to everybody, including the press, Gibbons said.

But Gibbons’ Washington, D.C. attorneys said they wouldn’t release the receipts, which detail a trip taken by the Gibbons family with Fatih and Eren Ozmen, owners of Sierra Nevada Corp., a company that Jim Gibbons later tried to help by trying to wrangle a fat defense contract while then Assemblywoman Dawn Gibbons worked on a $35,000 public-relations contract for the same company at the same time. And don’t forget that Hennessey was asking in the first place because Gibbons apparently didn’t pay the whole cost of a Caribbean cruise he took with another defense contractor that he also tried to help.

So, how did the governor explain himself? "I can’t control them [his lawyers]. … You’ll just have to go back and ask them. But we have all the receipts, we paid for everything, take it for granted we paid for it," Gibbons said.

What? You totally just got caught in a fib and you’re asking us to trust you? Um, to quote the man Gibbons has said is his political hero, "trust but verify." And we can verify, governor, since you’re lawyers work for you, and will do what you tell them to do. If you say release the receipts, they will. Until then, we have plenty of reason not to take you at your word, and reason more to wonder just why you won’t come clean.

» Still speaking of Gibbons, let’s give the governor some credit where it’s due: He’s trying to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in Nevada. Gibbons may have argued against the Kyoto Protocol while in Congress, and he may not be the world’s biggest believer in global climate change, but he is acting to do something in Nevada, and every little bit helps. And given that Nevada saw a 55 percent increase in carbon dioxide emissions (for a total of 47.2 million metric tons), the help couldn’t come at a better time.

» You mean, despite the governor’s no-new-taxes pledge, an unfunded $3.8 billion roads plan, an ignored $1 billion iNVest schools plan, and a projected shortfall in the state’s revenues that caused the governor to request a $112 million cut in new spending, there are still people who want to give tax breaks to banks?

Who are these people? (State Sens. Terry Care and Bob Coffin sensibly voted no.)

» That specter Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki sees in the rear-view mirror is the goddess Justice, and she’s pissed.

» Now there’s a big surprise. Assemblyman Ty Cobb didn’t get a single bill passed this session. And he only got hearings on three out of seven. Some blame the fact that he voted against Buckley for speaker, but that fails to consider the possibility that he just had stupid bills.

» We’re not prepared to say that Review-Journal columnist Jane Ann Morrison is unprincipled, because reserving sympathy for people based on their income is still, technically, a principle, albeit a morally suspect one. But her explanation for why the Assembly Judiciary Committee failed to take a vote on Assemblyman Bob Beers‘ proposal to ban corporate tip stealing — thus ensuring its death — is simply confused.

In our view, the committee, chaired by Assemblyman Bernie Anderson, simply failed to act out of cowardice, not because they thought dealers were still making a good income even after the Wynn Las Vegas began forcing them to share their tips with supervisors. If that’s wrong, and we think it is, then it’s wrong no matter how much dealers make. If it’s right, then it’s right regardless of income. (Besides, to even entertain the notion that a person’s value in society is measured by salary is to make a serious moral and intellectual error in the first place.)

And finally, even under the Morrison Sliding Scale Sympathy/Income Index, shouldn’t she still have taken the side of the dealers? After all, if you accept Morrison’s premise, casino owner Steve Wynn is far richer than the dealers, and thus deserves the least sympathy of all.

» And finally today, the Review-Journal endeavored to list seven modern wonders of Sin City on Sunday. Absent from the list — which included slot machines, buffets and showgirls — were actual wonders like the Hoover Dam or Red Rock Canyon. Since the story said it was designed to spark debate, our contribution is this: Any a-hole can round up white tigers and bring them to town. To build something like the Hoover Dam takes talent. We’re just saying.