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.

So all they have to do is disincorporate and then they're relieved of all their obligations and liabilities?

"The bicentennial Playmate of the Year celebration was the first time the award reception was not held at the Playboy Mansion."

Bicentennial? I don't think Playboy has been around for two centuries.

There's a saying that the fight for progress is not a battle between good and evil, but between differing views of good. One of the interesting things about many of these postings is the assertion that the ONLY way to serve the public interest and achieve justice is through punitive action and prosecution. In South Africa, the establishment of an independent Truth and Reconciliation Commission allowed the truth about the apartheid years to come out without creating greater divisions within an already divided society. Victims of state action were allowed to tell their stories. Perpetrators were allowed to tell their stories and by so doing escaped prosecution. The torture issue has created divisions in the United States, undercutting our own image of ourselves. I frankly would prefer to see prosecution of some of the Bush people, but I'm not self centered enough to think that mine is the only view that matters. I can easily understand a decision by Obama to follow a different policy.

It's nonsense to believe that a chief executive's policy pronouncements do not affect the administration of departmental actions. That's a nice civics book notion but ignores the way governance actually happens. The Justice Department's investigation of Watergate headed by Henry Peterson moved slowly. Under Jimmy Carter, the "war on drugs" was deemphasized in favor of treatment. The Interior Department under James Watt frequently failed to enforce the law. The Nevada Climate Change Advisory Committee was instructed by state energy advisor Hatice Gecol not to assume that global warming exists, in line with Gov. Gibbons' "sound science" view. The tone is always set at the top and Attorney General Holder is surely going to listen to the man who appointed him.

Powerpoint wrote that "these [this] country was started up by people who could care less about the rest of the world and what they though [thought] of us."

In fact, those who started this country cared a great deal about what the rest of the world thought because they were looking for allies, and they found one in France, which won the revolution for us by providing most of the troops and all of the navy at Yorktown.

In addition, for those making political use of the Boston tea party, it would be useful to them to know that the party was not a protest against government "raising taxes." It was a protest against government REDUCING taxes. Parliament removed taxes from British tea to make it more competitive with tea smuggled (by John Hancock, among others) into the colonies. The "red Indians" who held the Boston tea party were demanding HIGHER taxes. And, as many this year have observed, it was an anti-corporate revolt against the British East India Company and its sweetheart relationship with the British government.

Regarding Jfnanc's posting that Loux is a Democrat and a "life long friend of Reid", nothing could be further from the truth. For many years Reid was unhappy with Loux's handling of his job and in March 2000 the breach between them became so serious that Reid tried to get Governor Guinn to fire Loux. Guinn stood by Loux. All of this is public record. Why do so many readers who comment on these sites go straight to the most sinister interpretation of events instead of doing a little research? These newspaper dialogues could serve a useful purpose if we were interested in something more than just finding people to blame.

Regarding Future's posting, criminal justice in Nevada is highly decentralized. It is normally handled at the county level. The attorney general's job is principally offering legal advice to state agencies. One of the few exceptions is investigations of state employees. In this case, the AG's office had a decades-long working relationship with Loux and arranged for the county to handle the investigation and for an independent counsel to represent Loux. How could you possibly interpret that as "the crime is being buried"? If anything, Loux will now face a more rigorous investigation by more experienced investigators.

As for the Worstnightmare posting, Gibbons' legal bills in the federal investigation were NOT paid by taxpayers.

"I think the former governor was from a past generation when some people could not get to college. He didn't realize that for the past 20 years with grants and student loans, college was not beyond the reach of anyone."

The former governor was president of UNLV in 1994-95. I think he understands how campuses work now. That's not the issue.