OUR BLOGGERS ARE SAYING

If you're not checking out the local blogs on reviewjournal.com, here's just a sample of what you've been missing:

Plato and the cousin of invention

You'll notice if you pick up a copy of Plato's "Republic," it's filled with wise observations. I've sometimes wondered what the first draft of "Republic" looked like. Did it include a few really dumb observations? I'd like to think so. It makes me feel better about my own writing.

But I digress.

Let's be honest: There were times Plato was full of substantial amounts of hot air. While necessity is indeed invention's mother, at times it takes a back seat to curiosity, the wild-haired, wise-cracking cousin of invention.

While the mother of invention is essential to a proper upbringing, the cousin of invention drops by the house uninvited and occasionally gives us a smile -- and maybe a gadget or two that we don't actually need, but instead find ourselves wanting.

For more, go to www.lvrj.com/blogs/smith

'Green' me up, Scotty!

Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley and Senate Majority Leader Steven Horsford have their hearts in the right place. They want to do good. They truly want to leave the world a better place for their having been here and for their deeds. The location of their heads is another matter altogether.

When I spread the papers out on the table this morning, there was the report in the Review-Journal in which these Democratic lawmakers are touting the creation of "green-collar" jobs. A few minutes later I folded Investor's Business Daily to the editorial page and read the editorial under the headline: "Green Stimu-less." ...

"We will be able to make renewable energy a priority that it has not been in the past," Horsford boasted, saying Nevada could create 15,000 "green-collar jobs" weatherizing homes and making buildings more efficient.

This was quickly endorsed by the Nevada Conservation League, which said the plan would put Nevadans to work and allow consumers to save on energy costs.

We'll have to conserve because "green" energy requires more green cash, because it is far more expensive to produce than cheap coal and natural gas, which most greenies oppose.

IBD's editorial noted the latest Pew Research poll found Americans rank the "economy" and "jobs" as the nation's top two priorities. The "environment" stood 16th out of 20, and "global warming" finished dead last.

"Does government really know better?" the editorialist asks. "Or is this whole 'green economy' push just one more big boondoggle -- like ethanol?

"Recall the ethanol bandwagon that government got industry to hop on in 2007. It ... (required) the consumption of 36 billion gallons of ethanol by 2020 -- a fivefold increase over current levels.

"Not only did it not lower energy prices as promised, it has sent food prices through the roof."

And five of Iowa's 32 ethanol plants are bankrupt.

For more, go to www.lvrj.com/blogs/mitchell

Early test results: an 'F' in convictions

Former Sen. Tom Daschle pulled out his name from consideration as head of the Health and Human Services this morning (Tuesday). Don't give any credit to President Obama. He didn't ask for it. He was weak on this early test of his convictions -- and that bodes poorly on what we can expect from the Obama administration in the future.

Had Obama really meant all those things he talked about during the campaign, he would never have appointed Daschle. Daschle was a perfect example of a revolving-door politician who traded in his public service into a lobbying job. Daschle was exactly the kind of guy Obama said he'd never appoint to his administration. Yet he did ...

If Obama can't find the backbone to do the right thing on Daschle, why should Americans believe in anything else he had to say in the campaign or in his lofty inauguration speech? ...

The Daschle deal was bad, bad, bad. Yet, even as bad as it was, Obama couldn't find his way clear to do the right thing.

Bad instincts are bad instincts. It's not something you turn on and turn off. If Obama's judgment on this is so bad, we can only shudder how that bad judgment will hurt us when it comes to the economy and national defense.

For more, go to www.lvrj.com/blogs/sherm