When did it become the job of journalists to promote the state's tourism efforts? Why would the UN school of journalism permit such assignments?

To MikeyG: You ask, "Where is Hispania?" It is the Iberian peninsula, essentially Spain and Portugal. Hispania was the ancient Roman name for that territory.

Hookershaky wrote, "The war during his prime was the Vietnam war and he didn't serve there. He's just another chicken hawk like Cheney."

That's nonsense. He certainly did serve in Vietnam.

The governor cites Nevada Revised Statute 228.170(1) as his authority. But attorneys general in common law jurisdictions (and Nevada is one) get their authority from constitutions AND common law, and a mere statute cannot rob the attorney general of her independence under the separation of powers. Only a constitutional amendment can do that.

The version of this ad I saw contained a factual inaccuracy. It said something about who paid for a gambling licensing investigation and then said, "You did"-- referring to the watching audience members. In fact, license applicants pay for the investigations of themselves.

The letter says, "Nevada was, in fact, awarded tens of millions of dollars in 1999 for the purpose of treating low-income sick smokers and implementing anti-smoking programs." This is false. Nevada was awarded tens of millions of dollars to reimburse the use of public funds paid out for tobacco-related Medicaid costs, and those funds go back into the state general fund for allocation by the legislature. The letter says, "Instead of using that money for its intended purpose, then-Gov. Kenny Guinn took the lion's share to create a new 'Millennium Scholarship' for Nevada college students, awarding up to $10,000 to those with modest grades and without the benefit of means testing family incomes." There is no "intended purpose" for the tobacco settlement funds. Although some state attorneys general, health care lobbyists, and the Centers for Disease Control tried to create the impression that a condition of the settlement was that the money be used for health-related expenditures, in fact the settlement language contained only a recommendation to that effect, which has no more force of law than any other opinion. It is up to state legislators to decide how to use the money, and Nevada's legislature at Governor Guinn's recommendation chose to use part of it for scholarhips and most of the rest of it for health care. That was entirely proper. And "the lion's share" of the tobacco settlement funds did not go for the scholarships, it went for health care. Gov. Guinn recommended that half the tobacco money be used for the scholarships and the legislature cut that to 40 percent.

Regarding Frank Marino's wish that "the economy would turn around and be as good as it was when he [Reagan] was in office" and Gemsofnirvana's reminder "that ALL tax rates went down under Reagan", it is useful to remember how Reagan did it-- through deficit spending and leaving the bill for later taxpayers to pay off. As Lloyd Bentsen so memorably put it, "You know, if you let me write $200 billion worth of hot checks every year, I could give you an illusion of prosperity too."

GYPC Dave asked DWMS for any policies that caused child murders. All DWMS provided was statistics that there have BEEN child murders. Such a repellant claim deserves a better answer. Where is the linkage between the murders and policy?

Sunlizard tells us: "Obama is a KILLER and a COWARD who has no intention of stopping his blood for oil war mongering."

OBAMA is a coward?! Okay, Sunlizard, if you're so big and brave, stop hiding behind a pseudonym and do all your posts under your real name. Show us who's the coward.

Gerry Eberwein is absolutely correct-- this story does not give anyone the information to reach a conclusion. I've been taught in many classrooms large enough that a teacher at one end of it would not have known what surreptitious business was going on at the other. Was this one of those classrooms? Does this teacher have a history of overlooking things? Apparently not, since the previous evaluations were favorable. The bottom line is that we don't know enough to reach the sweeping conclusions posted here.