In case you haven’t heard, we live in a desert. So, enough with that whole orgiastic ritual of eco-dissing excess in which you use a firehose to wash your fleet of 17 Humvees in your front yard positively spilling with luxuriant fescue.

If common sense hasn’t stopped such bad habits, the Las Vegas Valley Water District’s new pricing structure should. On Feb. 19, the district raised water rates by an average of 23 percent, targeting the biggest aqua-hogs with a 32 percent hike. But even those who use less than 5,000 gallons a month will see a substantial rise on their bill — 17 percent — starting in April.

Good! A hike in water rates is long overdue, and the willingness for the water district to pursue a more punitive pricing philosophy signals a more enlightened view of a precious resource that’s too often wasted on lawns, car washes, swimming pools and golf courses.

Now for the next step: Controlling growth in this wildly inappropriate metropolis in a drought-stricken Southwest …

Let’s see. The Jan. 19 Democratic caucuses in Nevada draw out almost 117,000 people. Historic turnout! Unprecedented enthusiasm! Clark County party officials expected a similar situation for the Feb. 23 county convention — say, about 7,000 delegates and a healthy number of alternates — so they book a room at Bally’s that holds … only 5,000 people?

It was a stunning miscalculation that led to a lot of wailing and shouting and ultimately calling the whole damn thing off. Now, we won’t read the Feb. 23 fiasco as some Rorschach blot that betrays some deep-seated incompetence resident in the very genes of Democrats; that’s just as retarded as the war of finger-pointing that’s broken out on the Internet between party loyalists.

But we will slap the county’s party leadership for a flagrant lack of foresight — a failing that not only embarrassed the party, but squandered a crucial moment of Democratic ardor. We sentence party leadership to 666 — where the mauling machines of doom and agony are always well-oiled!

We took a little time off last week, although we ended up working most of those days anyway. But we did want to mention a couple things that went down when we were away from the keyboard, in the form of our world-famous Quick Hits. Here we go!

• John McCain got the endorsement of former President George H.W. Bush. Well, that should put to rest any doubts that McCain’s not a true conservative! All you have to do is read Bush’s lips!
• What do McCain and the senior Bush have in common? The love and support of a man named Sig Rogich. Oh, and being on the wrong side of history. That, too.
• Yes, U.S. Sen. Harry Reid did compare the clean coal people to Nazis. But that’s nothing to the time he said that God Almighty hates coal-fired power plants, and will strike them down with his furious anger. Well, almost.
• Hey, you know who also fought the Nazis on the side of God, just like Reid? Indiana Jones, that’s who! We think Harrison Ford would be a nice choice to play Reid in a new adventure, Indiana Jones and the Telecom Immunity Copout.
• The Nevada Development Authority launches a new appeal: Does your business want to operate in a place where other people absorb most of the costs, where it doesn’t have to give hardly anything back to the community and where political influence comes real cheap? Nevada is the place for you!
• And yes, the same reporter who wrote that story once wrote a piece about how nobody would ever move here because of high taxes. So how is the state advertising Nevada? By saying you don’t have to pay taxes. And still no Review-Journal correction!
• Those bastards at NBC canceled Las Vegas. And after a cliffhanger ending. And despite the fact that Tom Selleck was just whipping the place into shape. Ignoring the fact that the show put Molly Sims, Camille Guaty and Vanessa Marcil on TV on a weekly basis. God, we hate NBC.
• Quotable: “If we don’t get the money, we will have to postpone [road] projects. Congestion will increase, and congestion will cost you time and money. There are already huge issues in Las Vegas regarding congestion.” — Nevada Transportation Director Susan Martinovich, in a copyrighted R-J story.
• More quotable: “I am going to be optimistic. These projects may be delayed, but we are going to design them and be ready to build them when money is available. Transportation projects help the economy. They get people to work and they put people to work.” — Martinovich, in the same story.
• Our question: Why is she telling the public and state lawmakers that? Trust us, we know traffic is fucked up, and we know building infrastructure is good business. You need to share those thoughts with Gov. Notax Never Ever, Susan. You know, your boss.
• MGM Mirage dealers are getting a raise. MGM Mirage President Jim Murren says it has nothing to do with dealers voting for unions at Wynn Las Vegas and Caesars Palace, the same union targeting MGM Mirage properties such as Mandalay Bay and The Mirage. Murren also says MGM Mirage will never, ever steal dealers tips, like Steve Wynn does, a theft which sparked the push for unionization at his casino. But again, it has nothing to do with the union, says Murren. We think the business term for that is “horseshit,” but we’re glad to see that, once again, unions lift the standard of living for everybody, even people who are not in unions. Yay, unions!

Last night’s Academy Awards was — surprise! — one overlong self-fellatio scene without the money shot. (And yet, just like real porn, I couldn’t tear my eyes from it. Joke’s on me!) I’ll have to wait for a second viewing of No Country For Old Men, the big winner last night, before I can attempt to validate its four-trophy haul last night (I’m a There Will Be Blood man anyway) — though kudos for the handful of camera acknowledgments to in-attendance literary behemoth Cormac McCarthy, who wrote the novel from which the film was adapted.

But the biggest applause goes to the Best Original Song winners: Glen Hansard and Marketa Irglova, for “Falling Slowly,” the main ballad from Once. “Falling Slowly” beat three songs by Alan Menken, a frequent Disney collaborator who has won several Oscars in the past. Furthermore, Enchanted, the film that featured the three Menken songs, was a huge blockbuster and Once was far from box-office gold (though it was a hit in the arthouses). This was a huge win for the underdogs, and for non-mainstream pop music.

Not only was the song’s performance far and away one of the best this critic has ever seen on the Oscars (see video below), but the singers’ acceptance speeches were two of last night’s most charming moments. Hansard — leadman of Irish band The Frames — ended his breathless thank-you with “Make art! Make art!” And during the night’s only true moment of spontaneity, Irglova, initially silenced by the ever-impatient orchestra and show director before she could speak, was actually brought back out after the commercial break by host Jon Stewart and offered this bit of humble sweetness:

“This is such a big deal, not only for us, but for all other independent musicians and artists that spend most of their time struggling, and this, the fact that we’re standing here tonight, the fact that we’re able to hold this, it’s just to prove no matter how far out your dreams are, it’s possible. And, you know, fair play to those who dare to dream and don’t give up. And this song was written from a perspective of hope, and hope at the end of the day connects us all, no matter how different we are. And so thank you so much, who helped us along the way. Thank you.”

Here’s the video of the Oscar performance:

Our quick note on Saturday pretty much tells you all you need to know about the Clark County Democratic Party’s convention clusterfuck. (If you’d like some more, check out our colleague Hugh Jackson’s blog, including the comments.)

But there was more to the convention than just people angry at the incompetence of county party Chairman (for now) John Hunt. Oh, so much more. Like the crazy lady who approached us to say that we weren’t press, because … she thought we were Bob Beers! If there ever was a case for disenfranchisement…

So let’s take a quick tour of some highlights from the Various Things & Stuff convention notebook, shall we?

The chanting. Oh, how charming the chanting was! “OH-BAM-A” from the one side, “HILL-A-RIE” from the other! We honestly felt we’d been thrown back in time to the Lincoln-Douglas debates, only with more fanny packs, it was that intellectually stimulating.

Our favorite congresswoman, Shelley Berkley, couldn’t fail to mention her support for Hillary Clinton, sparking a bunch of boos and a lot of the aforementioned chanting for Barack Obama. But every Clark County Democrat loves Berkley, so nobody could stay mad at her, especially when she pledged to back the eventual nominee.

Later, Berkley told us that Clinton had campaigned for her way back in 1998, which is the only time we can recall her ever having a competitive election. And personal loyalty is important to Berkley, who said she could not refuse to return the favor now. “I think that what goes around comes around,” Berkley said. (We did not bring up — since we are not that rude — the fact that personal loyalty has cost Berkley before, especially when she backed her friend Steny Hoyer over a little-known congresswoman by the name of Nancy Pelosi, who some people now call “speaker.”)

The boos. There were plenty of boos when Hunt and his convention chairman, Bill Stanley, announced they’d have to have an0ther convention since Saturday’s was FUBAR. (Look it up; it’s German. Or ask our correspondent Jonathan Johnathan Abbinett.) But the only other Democrat who was booed when he rose to speak was one Ruben Kihuen. Isn’t that guy supposed to be, you know, popular or something? We hear that’s what he tells people. Anyway, it seems there’s more than a couple Democrats who are not impressed.

Reid’s a rock star! Nevada’s senior U.S. Sen. Harry Reid may be fodder for Republican attacks and tarnished in the view of liberal true believers, but the man is a rock star among Clark County Democrats. “I appreciate each of you protecting my back against the right-wing,” Reid said at the tail end of his convention address. (He was probably talking to all the people who dutifully write letters to the Review-Journal to protest its bi-weekly anti-Reid screed.) But the guy spent 20 minutes or so signing autographs under the watchful eye of Capitol Police officers after his speech. They love him, we tell you!

Billy Vassiliadis and Helen Foley are also rock stars. (For disclosure purposes, we must report that Foley is a partner in the public relations firm that employs our lovely wife, Faiss Foley Warren.) She and Vassiliadis masterfully handled an outraged crowd of passionate Obama supporters who did not want to ditch the clusterfuck convention and start over. Vassiliadis wooed the crowd by explaining how thousands of Obama supporters had to leave or couldn’t get in to the convention, and that the process was open to challenge.

“We don’t want to have less voters for Barack Obama than we should,” Vassiliadis said, urging voters to agree to postpone the convention.

Foley, for her part, went right for the heart: “We need to start over,” she said. “Sen. Obama needs us to start over.” The dynamic duo didn’t satisfy everybody, but their influence was obvious in the room. The motion to recess the convention that had been noisily shouted down 90 minutes earlier was quickly approved thereafter.

The bully. Wethinks Hunt will regret crossing swords with D. Taylor, the secretary-treasurer of the Culinary Union Local 226, which endorsed Obama. Hunt was on the other side, praising a lawsuit challenging at-large precinct sites set up for shift workers on the Strip, and calling Taylor “a bully” on Jon Ralston’s Face to Face.

“I’m not surprised at the incompetence of the county Democratic party. They screwed it up before and they screwed it up again,” Taylor told the Obama crowd. Voters don’t want to be disenfranchised “by the incompetence of the county Democratic party.” And the funny thing was, of all the things we heard said about Hunt, that one qualified as nice.

If you’re ever driving south on U.S. 95 and gaze wistfully at the closed Martin Luther King Boulevard exit with its ominous orange “ROAD CLOSED” sign glaring back at you, and you muster the courage and the heart and dare to wonder when that damn exit is ever going to open, well, city traffic wonks say it’s going to be about a year.

Meanwhile, celebrate this yearlong wait with the mayor on Thursday!

A major road improvement project is coming to Martin L. King Boulevard extending from approximately Discovery Drive to Carey Avenue. The project to widen 2.5 miles of Martin L. King Boulevard is starting the week of March 3 and will take nearly two years to complete.

Mayor Oscar B. Goodman, Ward 5 Councilman Ricki Y. Barlow and other officials plan to celebrate the beginning of construction on the $45 million Martin L. King Boulevard Improvement Project at 1 p.m. on Thursday, February 28. The ceremonial groundbreaking event is taking place on the northwest corner of Martin L. King Boulevard at Mount Mariah Drive.

*Whimper.*

Normally, we don’t get too depressed watching Meet the Press on NBC Sunday mornings, unless we happen to see one of those stupid “We are WOFY” promos in which the intelligent, adult professionals at KVBC Channel 3 are made to say the stupidest news slogan ever devised, over and over, just to keep their jobs. Then we cry for the state of the media.

But this Sunday was different. Ralph Nader is running again people!

And here’s the saddest (or greatest) part about it: Nader is an incredibly intelligent, well-informed and morally courageous leader who’s right on a whole spate of issues. And in a race that’s come down to a traditional Democratic agenda as advanced by Barack Obama and a traditional Democratic agenda as advanced by Hillary Clinton, Nader offers a truly compelling choice for liberals.

(Don’t believe us? Check out his website.)

If you thought John Edwards was tough on corporations, Nader makes him look like a corporate crony. If you thought Obama and Clinton have good health care plans, check out Nader’s. If you were a Dennis Kucinich supporter, Nader is your next logical choice. If you thought the agendas on the field so far were “progressive,” Nader will blow your mind.

So, the dilemma: Nader clearly will draw more votes from Obama or Clinton, the way he did in 2000 and 2004. Meet the Press host Tim Russert was ready with the question Nader’s heard a million times since George W. Bush took the White House over Al Gore: Was Nader the spoiler?  (Nader’s long reply included a bit of the correct answer: Gore did win Florida, and thus the White House, before the Supreme Court intervened.)

But the fact remains, Nader did win votes that otherwise would have gone to Gore, or John Kerry, which helped Bush. And it’s likely he’ll win votes that would go to the Democrat this year, which will help Republican nominee John McCain.  (Ironically, at age 74, Nader is even older than McCain, but thanks to his years of good works, he doesn’t look it.)

Our view has always been this: Anybody has the right to run for president. Nader, after years of work for good public policy, has earned the right to not only run, but to be considered legitimate. We stand behind that. (In fact, we almost cast a vote for Nader in 2000.)

On the other hand, we are worried: McCain’s flip-flops (on taxes, on torture, on the “agents of intolerance”) and his warmongering (stay in Iraq for 100, 1,000 or 10,000 years) are truly and literally dangerous, especially for people of war-fighting age. This nation cannot afford four more years — hell, four more minutes — of Republican leadership. Against that backdrop, even the somewhat tepid progressivism of Obama and Clinton is like cold Fiji water to a thirsty man.

We’re just angry that once more we have to choose between pragmatism and principle. And we don’t think we’re alone.