Print edition for March 19, 2007

Editorial: Sweet home, Chicago: Before the season started most basketball analysts - and even diehard UNLV fans - thought it unlikely that UNLV would have been invited to the 65-team tournament.

Is union/hotel honeymoon over?: The small cracks that surfaced in recent years in the famously friendly relationship between the Las Vegas casino industry and the Culinary Union are becoming more serious under a new round of labor negotiations.

Letter: Gas tax would solve many problems: OK, here's the solution: the Legislature puts the fight about free all-day daycare for 6-year-olds on hold and enacts a 50-cent-a-gallon charge on fuel and makes sure that current gas taxes are used solely for roads, and lets market forces cure the problems.

Letter: Consider purpose of right to bear arms: A study of history will show that at the time of ratification of the Constitution, Anti-Federalists believed individuals were citizens of their respective states before they were citizens of the United States. The Anti-Federalists were promised that the individual states would be permitted to maintain their militias. In 1791 the first 10 amendments to the Constitution were ratified and became known as the Bill of Rights.

Editorial: Keep Plame case alive: No administration official other than Libby, who was Vice President Dick Cheney's chief of staff, was ever even charged.

Valley hospitals skip accountability conference: A national risk management company has failed to attract any major Southern Nevada hospitals to its national conference on disclosure and accountability that begins today at the Bellagio.

Ron Kantowski on a rise into the Sweet 16 that only UNLV's fans, players, coaches and parents could have possibly seen coming: Ron Kantowski on a rise into the Sweet 16 that only UNLV's fans, players, coaches and parents could have possibly seen coming

John Katsilometes on why someone needs to pick up the spare even after winning this grand prize: As proof we detail the prize Beacher is offering the championship team in the new Beacher's Unprofessional Bowling Association (BUBA) at the Rio's Lucky Strike.

Editorial: Politics at heart of firings: While the White House denied that politics played a role, e-mails released late last week show that Karl Rove, President Bush's political mastermind, and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales were involved in the plan from the start.

FLASHPOINT for Mar 19, 2007: If you thought Tax and Spending Control was dead, you were wrong. Not only is TASC Padre Bob Beers going to bring it up in Carson City, even though he knows it is doomed to fail, his friends in the Nevada Policy Research Institute released a study last week promoting the concept. (I love that Andy Matthews, who ran Beers' gubernatorial campaign, is now the face of NPRI. This Beers guy influences every conservative-oriented organization, doesn't he?) The NPRI document, makes a strong argument for TASC. What will be especially fun to watch is how Gov. Jim Gibbons reacts to ...

Letter: Gore was America's real choice in 2000: Didn't Al Gore win in 2000? I thought he won the popular vote, as well as the electoral vote in the 49 decided states, i.e., the states where there were opportunities for adequate recounts and no significant voting irregularities. In fact, I'm convinced that Gore would also have carried Florida - won the popular vote there, too - if the Florida Supreme Court's decision for a fair and complete recount of the votes in question had not been overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court.

Ron Kantowski on a rise into the Sweet 16 that only UNLV's fans, players, coaches and parents could have possibly seen coming: By Ron Kantowski; One of these days, logic and Billy Packer, not often used in the same sentence, dictate that UNLV's charge through the Midwest bracket and back into the college basketball limelight has to end.