The Friday Slashback, brought to you by clean energy!

Tesla: The greatest single thing to ever happen to the state of Nevada, and I’m not excluding legalized gambling, the Hoover Dam, the invention of air conditioning, quickie divorces and the progressive slot system!

That seemed to be the consensus on Thursday, as Nevada’s lawmakers gathered in Carson City to watch Gov. Brian Sandoval and Tesla CEO Elon Musk outline in the deal in which Nevada gives away the store, the land under the store, the store’s sign, the contents of the store and the store’s restroom, which is for customer use only!

Oh, wait, I meant to say, what a great day for Nevada! We got to give away our state’s future tax revenues and Texas, Arizona, California and New Mexico didn’t! Suck it, loser states that will retain future their tax revenues! Don’t blow all that money on schools, mental health hospitals and roads!

Now, some may consider me a cynic, suspicious of elected officials and private business executives simply because they meeting behind closed doors in confidential meetings and refuse to tell anybody what they’re doing until it’s all hammered out and tied up with a bright red bow. But I am not a cynic! In fact, I am a dreamer. I have a dream that someday, Nevada’s lawmakers will drop everything and rush to Carson City to embrace an outrageously expensive plan to better our schools, take care of our mentally ill and ensure we have the best roads in the country, so people can drive their nifty $35,000 electric cars to their hearts content, or to the end of battery life, whichever comes first.

Can you picture that, too? Of course you can’t. Because the reality is, when it comes to giving schoolteachers money, the Legislature has been as tightfisted as Ebeneezer Scrooge before he met the ghosts. But when Tesla comes calling? Well, then the gov is all, “you there, boy, what day is it? Christmas Day! Well, it sure as hell is for Tesla!”

Anyway, I could be wrong. This could be the day Nevada gets to be a real, grown-up state instead of a banana republic controlled by private industry through carefully chosen minions that some people call lawmakers. But, unlike his excellency the governor, I’m not super-optimistic.

Who knows? Maybe they’ll change my mind next week, when I will wing north to Carson City to watch the bowing and scraping. I mean, careful deliberations. Yes, careful deliberations. That’s the ticket.

But wait, there’s more, as the Friday Slashback continues!

• Capitalism: A love story. I don’t know how the rest of you are saving for retirement, but I’m going to start a company that makes electric-car batteries, manages sports franchises and builds renewable-energy plants. Because apparently there is no shortage of state and local officials who are lining up to throw taxpayer incentives your way in those businesses. It’s a safer play than Megabucks.

• Problem solved! The Nevada System of Higher Education this week banned medical marijuana from the list of substances banned on Nevada’s higher-education campuses. So, that should totally fix the problem of college kids experimenting with marijuana.

But my question is, with regents raising tuition all the time, how are the kids even going to have money to buy regular or medical pot? Bazinga! And proposing an open-air stadium for Las Vegas’s 100-plus degree summer days? You’ve got to be high to think that’s a good idea. Bam! I kid, I kid the regents.

• Pop quiz: OK, which of the following things is most likely to happen in our lifetime? A high-speed train running between Las Vegas and Victorville? A magnetic levitation train running between Anaheim, Calif. and Las Vegas? A regular-speed party-train running between Fullerton, Calif., and Las Vegas? The Las Vegas Monorail becoming a useful part of Southern Nevada’s transportation infrastructure? A stable of magical unicorns that whisk riders up and down the Strip for a reasonable fee?

That’s right: It’s the unicorns.

• To coin a phrase. So, how many of the state’s four commemorative sesquicentennial medallions feature the wonderful area of the state we Southern Nevadans call home? Exactly one-third of one of them.

That’s right: Nevada’s four medallions feature the Great Basin National Park, a Northern Nevada miner and the state’s seal. Only one features anything even remotely to do with Southern Nevada: The “Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas” sign, which shares space with the Reno arch and Wendover Will. (You can see all the coins at the Legislative Counsel Bureau’s gift shop.)

As a Southern Nevada resident, just one person among the 72 percent of people in the state who live south of Horse Road, I’m officially offended. But I’m still totally going to score all the coins when I visit Carson City next week! It’s history!

• Henderson is showing some intelligent design in its governance all of a sudden. And that’s a good thing.

First, obviously realizing that allowing adult businesses on only a -super-tiny fraction of city land is like sending a hand-lettered calligraphy invitation to be sued, the city approved an expansion of areas approved for adult uses that now embraces a slightly less tiny fraction of city territory. It’s a good start, assuming the goal is to comply with the U.S. Constitution and repel litigation.

Second, the city has decided to table a plan to ask voters to raise property taxes, a vote it most certainly would have lost. The city’s property tax rates are low, they’ve been unchanged for years and the city is suffering under a state property tax cap that may be adjusted in the 2015 Legislature. Better to wait and see what happens in Carson City than to fight what’s sure to be a losing battle at the ballot in the present political climate.

Keep up the good moves, Henderson.

• Concerns about over-militarized cops are totally legitimate, but let’s not forget that program that put assault weapons and mine-resistant armored vehicles in the hands of police in Ferguson, Mo., also put some vitally needed rescue equipment in the hands of Metro Police. There is plenty of surplus military equipment that local police get for just the cost of shipping that can save lives (search-and-rescue helicopters, medical equipment), protect officers (body armor) and help in a disaster (first-responder chemical suits and hazmat masks).

And let’s not forget that 1997 North Hollywood shooting, in which well-armed, well-protected bank robbers engaged in a shootout with outgunned LAPD officers, which injured 11 cops and seven civilians. That led directly to departments nationwide feeling the need to at least have ready access to more lethal, military-style weapons.

There’s probably no need for your local police agency to have a mine-resistant armored personnel carrier, since criminals are rarely known to plant IEDs here in the States. But M4 carbine rifles? M40A1 sniper rifles? There’s definitely legitimate law-enforcement uses for those kinds of weapons, although they are quite thankfully rare.

Just no tactical nukes, OK? That’s where we’ll draw the line.

See you next week, live from Carson City!