Happy New Year

It seems like only yesterday that we were recapping the follies of 2008. Who could have predicted that as we say goodbye to 2009, we would have even more fertile ground to till? With apologies to humor writer Dave Barry, we are not making any of this stuff up:

Jim Rogers, chancellor of the state university system, expressed his displeasure with Gov. Jim Gibbons' budget by calling his boss a "greedy, uninterested, unengaged human being," and adding, "What strange set of facts could possibly have come together to elect this man ... ? Rather than a governor, Nevadans elected an executioner." ... As the Clark County School District cried poverty, it was revealed that the secretary to Superintendent Walt Rulffes earned more than $90,000 in 2007-08, including overtime. ... Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the California Democrat who professes to be a champion of alternative energy, pushed to make wide swaths of the Mojave Desert near the Nevada border off-limits to wind or solar energy development. ...

Some supporters of Mayor Oscar Goodman's downtown mob museum argued the city should seek federal stimulus funds to get the project moving. ... A Las Vegas pawnshop owner was charged with murder for shooting and killing a man who was fleeing his store after stealing expensive jewelry. ... State Department of Transportation officials told lawmakers that the agency is looking into a program -- designed for tax purposes to let the government know what roads a driver is using and when -- which would require tracking devices to be placed in all vehicles. ... A poll of 70 Southern Nevada business owners and managers revealed that 0 percent found the Clark County School District "very effective" at preparing students for the workplace. ...

It was considered controversial in some corners when Las Vegas police began attempting to identify illegal immigrants among those detained in the Clark County Detention Center. ... The National Education Association took out radio ads in Nevada designed to boost Harry Reid's sagging poll numbers, but the narrator of the spot mispronounced the state's name throughout the voiceover. ... Sen. Reid said people turning up at town hall meetings to protest the Democratic plan to impose government-run health care were sabotaging the democratic process. ... During negotiations over salary concessions in this time of budgetary distress, the Clark County firefighter's union proposed salary changes that would have actually cost taxpayers more money during the run of the contract. ...

As Nevada struggled with one of the highest unemployment rates in the nation, the Las Vegas City Council debated whether to jack up taxes on business license fees and renewals. ... Later on in the year, with layoffs and pay cuts looming for city workers, the City Council voted to move ahead with plans to build a new $185 million City Hall. ... Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., who has long championed family values, revealed he had fooled around with his best friend's wife and that his rich parents gave his mistress's family $96,000 when the affair was revealed "out of concern for the well-being of longtime family friends during a difficult time." ...

The Department of Motor Vehicles tried to confiscate the personalized license plate of a Las Vegas man who for seven years had driven around with a plate that read "HOE" in homage to Lake Tahoe. ... When critics charged that a proposed increase in the state payroll tax might not be a good idea with private-sector companies struggling, Assemblyman Tick Segerblom, D-Las Vegas, scoffed, "We are talking about a couple hundred (dollars) more for each employee a year. Any business that doesn't want to pay that, I don't want in the state." ... A Nevada brothel owner floated the idea of adding men to the menu in order to attract more customers. ...

Until the scheme was publicized, the state was set to hire Clark County Commissioner Lawrence Weekly as "green initiative" outreach director for Southern Nevada, a "part-time" post that would have paid $48,000 a year. Mr. Weekly said he planned to devote about 12 hours a week to the position, which works out to $77 an hour. ...

As sales and gaming tax collections continued to plummet, and foreclosure rates remained sky high, Sen. Reid -- claiming the Democratic stimulus package was a success -- argued in October that, "Everything is going well in Nevada. We're doing just fine." ... Undercover Transportation Authority agents arrested a local unemployed woman for agreeing to pick up an out-of-town businessman at the airport and give him a ride to Rhodes Ranch for $30. ... A UNLV administrator who championed a new campus speech code was forced out of her position as vice president of diversity and inclusion but handed a new title with the same salary. ... After bribing enough Democrats to get his health care plan through the Senate, Sen. Reid responded to criticism of his methods with this statesman-like remark: "I don't know if there is a senator that doesn't have something in this bill that was important to them. And if they don't have something in it important to them, it doesn't speak well of them." To which The Wall Street Journal replied, "James Madison, phone home."

Happy New Year.