Columnist Susan Snyder: Addressing some minor developments

Friday, May 16, 2003 | 8:47 a.m.

Susan Snyder's column appears Mondays, Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at snyder@lasvegassun.com or (702) 259-4082.

Let's start at the bottom and work our way down.

A representative for the local Social Security Administration office called Wednesday. She said the Web address taken from the agency's press release and printed in Tuesday's Valley Views column about the nation's most popular baby names didn't work anymore.

Well, it did until about 11 a.m. Monday, which is when I last logged onto it before putting the address in the column. (See, I have to check out these sites before passing them along to make sure they exist and to make sure readers won't see pictures of naked people doing weird stuff with vegetables.)

Anyway, the Social Security page was off-line by Wednesday. The rep says you still can see the names by logging onto socialsecurity.gov.

I don't know why they sent out a press release with a Web address they were going to take down. Maybe the agency is indeed slowly putting itself out of business. (At this rate, I'll be on that woman's speed dial.)

Honestly, is it National Hug a Buffoon Week?

The state Board of Examiners announced it will shell out more than $235,000 to people who fell victim to gaffes by state workers.

My favorite was the $50,000 awarded to Sierra Pacific Power Co. for a utility truck that was damaged (more likely decapitated) when it was driven under an Interstate 80 overpass with a clearance listed as 16 feet, 6 inches. Turns out the actual clearance under the bridge was 11 inches less than that.

Oops. Amazing image, ain't it? Kind of like an episode of "Jackass."

Maybe the overpass was measured by one of Nevada's recent high school dropouts. We had more to choose from, last year. State Department of Education figures released this week show the number of dropouts increased by a third during the 2001-02 school year. It says 13.5 percent of them were seniors, and 5 percent of them didn't finish ninth grade.

One state school official told the Associated Press that students who drop out are "those who need focus and attention." You can figure a fair number of them will need handcuffs before they're 25.

The upside is Nevada's prisons have room -- so much that we're actually taking boarders from other states.

Washington is shipping about 240 of their finest to Nevada this month to be housed in the prison near Indian Springs. We're going to get $68 a day for each one. I wouldn't give you 68 cents a day for 'em. But I'm fascist.

Still, maybe we have better eats than Washington. I tried, but couldn't find out for sure whether Washington is among the states cutting food prison budgets by putting less meat in the noodle casseroles or taking away dessert.

Obviously, we don't want incarcerated people to suffer the long-lasting effects of poor nutrition. But I figure if you've stabbed someone to death, the least we should do is take away your pudding. Again, call me fascist.

And last on the list of signs showing we are not progressing as a species: Metro Police said this week a Utah woman murdered here last month ended up in a rough neighborhood after telling a taxicab driver to take her where she could "get some crack."

Hey, this is a tourist town. Our cabbies know all the good places.