Members of the national media, most notably the on-camera people at the TODAY show on NBC, are all ga-ga over this film that the Discovery Channel is showing Sunday night called The Lost Tomb of Jesus. It’s called a documentary—but after Al Gore’s movie I guess you can call anything a documentary—and it claims that film director James Cameron has discovered the tomb of Jesus along with his wife and family.

Cameron, stealing a page from The Da Vinci Code claims that Jesus and Mary Magdalene were married and had a son named Judah. And it claims that Jesus was NOT resurrected from the dead as the Bible says. Cameron is basing this latest attack on the Christian faith on bone boxes discovered 27 years ago in a suburb of Jerusalem. And the TODAY Show announced the showing of the film almost with a sense of glee. Meredith Viera said, “There are so few ‘wow’ stories out there but this is one of them. ” Matt Lauer said “This could rock Christianity to its core. ” These two are promoting this film like it’s gospel, if you’ll pardon the expression.

But the media seem to be about the only people giving it any credibility. Even the Israeli scientist who discovered the bone boxes disputes Cameron’s claim. He says it’s not based on any proof and is only an attempt to sell the movie. ” He goes on to say, “These people are not archaeologists. ” So what you’ve got here is the claim of a Hollywood movie director obviously trying to undermine the Christian faith, not a scientist.

But there’s a lot of that going around, especially in the media. A few years ago, Peter Jennings, on an ABC special, proclaimed “there is not one bit of evidence to even suggest Jesus existed. ” And in Hollywood, if you even mention the name of God, you’re an outcast in most circles. Folks, I wouldn’t let this get you upset. It’s just another attempt by Hollywood, who thinks they’re God, to try and destroy something that’s survived the test of time for two thousand years. It’ll be forgotten soon and Christianity will still be here.

And James Cameron, whose arrogance and ego are legendary in show business, and who hasn’t had a success since Titanic and that’s been ten years, will be denying any knowledge of this film in another ten years. Hollywood is the modern day version of Sodom and Gomorrah and it’s doing everything it can to spread its non-belief. And the harder they try, the more unbelievable they become.

Amen.

In the legislature, Senate File 118, passed by the Wyoming Senate, was passed by the House on a vote of 35-24 with a few changes. Now it goes back to the Senate to see if they approve of the changes and, if they do, then Governor Freudenthal will see it on his desk for signing. Basically, Senate File 118 says that anybody who murders a pregnant woman can be charged with two counts of murder, one for the expectant mother, the other for her unborn child.

Well, as you might suspect, this has the abortion hags in a fit. They say it’ll open the door to outlaw abortion in Wyoming. They say “it will open up some very real possibilities for court litigation in the state of Wyoming. ” And the proponents of the bill say it won’t do any such thing. And it won’t. The abortion hags go into apoplexy anytime anybody dares to bring up the possibility that a fetus might be a living being. I don’t know what they think it is if it isn’t a living being. It’s growing and developing into what will be a human being. But the abortion hags don’t see it that way. However, they have yet to produce any non-living thing that’s growing.

But where the abortion crowd misses the point is that this bill doesn’t outlaw abortion. Nowhere does it say you still don’t have the choice of murdering your unborn child. All it says is that, if somebody murders a pregnant woman, they’ve committed two murders. Look, if the abortion hags are so afraid that their blood thirsty choice might be taken away, 34 other states have similar laws and it hasn’t affected abortion one bit.

So what’s the big deal? The big deal is that most people realize that abortion is the termination of a life. It’s just that you have a few monsters who want to play God and determine who lives and who dies. And somehow, 34 years ago, a weak minded Supreme Court agreed they could do that, determine who lives and who dies. And it’s their worst nightmare come to life when somebody even suggests that a fetus is a living thing. In fact, they didn’t want the term “fetus” even used in the wording of this bill. Maybe they would have preferred “human being in development” used instead?

They get paranoid if somebody even suggests that a doctor tell a woman who comes in for an abortion about the risks involved. Abortion seems to be their one and only thought in life. To them, unborn babies are like Jews were to Hitler. But this bill won’t change their goal of continuing the American Holocaust. The right to abortion? Where is that in the Constitution?

Oh, it comes right after the clause that separates church and state.

A bill that made it through the Wyoming Senate died yesterday in the House Rules committee. The bill proposed that the state not recognize any same sex marriages performed in other states—and right now Massachusetts is the only state that performs marriages although a few recognize “civil unions,” whatever that means. 

And the vote was close. House Speaker Roy Cohee cast the tie breaking vote which went against the bill. Both sides said the bill was extremely important. And I suppose in a symbolic way it was. And while I was for the bill—if nothing else but for its symbolism—it was treading dangerously on the full faith and credit clause in the U S Constitution that says that each state must recognize the laws of another state. 

Yes, I do think that gay is destructive to a society and it goes against the entire natural purpose of marriage which is the production of children in order to propagate the human race. Plus, nature did not intend people of one gender to be sexually attracted to people of the same gender. No, I’m not going to get into a discussion here on whether you’re born gay or if it’s some kind of malfunction in your mental makeup. We could do a whole hour on that and still not have a definite answer when it was over. 

But to the people who were against the bill—the people who by their outspoken stance were obviously FOR gay marriage—I think you may have gotten a little melodramatic on its importance. Representative Dan Zwonitzer of Cheyenne said, “This is the civil rights struggle of my generation.”

Now, that’s a really tired, invalid argument. Civil rights was about being allowed into restaurants based on race. It was about sitting in the back of the bus. It was about things that gays have never encountered. If a gay walked into a restaurant and was told, “We don’t serve your kind”, then that argument might apply. I don’t think that’s ever happened, at least not to my knowledge. Has a gay ever been told he or she couldn’t vote because they were gay? If so, then you’ve got a civil rights argument. 

So it’s not a civil rights issue at all. The whole point of the gay political posture is to get homosexuality accepted as normal, something it isn’t. The same people who want gay marriage want being gay taught to children as normal, something it isn’t. They want the society changed for three to five percent of the population. And it’s all based on their sex drive. That’s all. So did the House do the right thing? 

Legally, you could say so. Morally? It just took us one step closer to the gutter.

Okay, okay, enough with the Anna Nicole Smith business already! Is it just me or does it seem to you as if the media are on a feeding frenzy over this, dipping into the dumpster for every little morsel they can find that’s left over from the seamy side of life?

Folks, let’s be honest about it. That’s what we’re being exposed to on all the TV talk shows, the dark side of human nature. Examine the facts. Here’s a woman, Anna Nicole Smith, who was a Playboy Magazine playmate of the year. That means she got famous for taking off her clothes and posing for pictures. Not a whole lot of talent in that, is there? All you have to do is be good looking.

Then she started living life in the fast lane with men drooling around her and that caused her to actually believe she was something besides a woman who posed naked for a camera. Then, she marries a guy old enough to be her grandfather who’s got one foot in the grave and the other on a banana peel. But he’s got LOTS OF MONEY, LOTS OF MONEY. That’s a classic gold digger scenario, isn’t it?

Then the old guy bites the big one and then the fighting over his money begins. The dead zillionaire leaves her close to half a billion dollars and that’s fought by his natural children in court. Then her son dies mysteriously in her hospital room where she’s gone to have another child. Then, five months later, she dies, just as mysteriously. Now, the fun begins.

Men are lined up around the corner to admit to being the baby’s father. Normally, it’s the other way around. When there’s doubt as to who the father is, you get denials all the way around. But, of course, money on this grand a scale isn’t usually involved. This is just a picture of hungry cats hanging around a fish market, that’s all. It’s the sleazy side of life being glorified as if the fate of the human race hinged on finding out all the lurid details.

My question is, Do you really care? This whole thing is just a lavish gossip feast for the bon bons and Oprah crowd. But the media think America is hanging on to their every word. Look, I’m not totally insensitive to this. I’m sorry the woman died. And I’m even sorrier that the American media has to turn the death of someone whose only claim to fame was that they were a stripper into one of the events of the century. And why? Do you think maybe the media have more time to fill than there are worthwhile events to fill it with?

This is starting to make the O. J. Simpson trial look interesting.

[MUSIC: “Witchy Woman” by The Eagles]

Well, I guess we know from that theme music that we’re not talking about Elizabeth Montgomery or The Wizard of Oz or The Witches of Eastwick. No, we’re talking about Hillary, you know the bloodless, ambitious, ruthless woman who stayed married to Slick Willie just for the political advantage, namely her turn at disgracing the White House? Hillary’s flitted around the political spectrum like a balloon with the air coming out of it, But this time, I think she’s really stepped in it.

There’s this black, powerful politician in South Carolina named Darrell Jackson. By the way, I have yet to see this story on the liberal national news and I’m not going to hold my breath until do. But this guy Jackson not only is the black godfather of South Carolina politics, he just happens to run a political consulting company and for a fee, of course, he says he can deliver the black votes in South Carolina. Well, Hillary just signed him on for ten grand a month. Oh, she outbid Osama Obama for his services.

Now, Hillary actually thinks we’re stupid enough to believe it when she says she’s not buying the black vote. Anybody who believes she’s not, get in touch with me at the station and we can talk about that deed I have to Devils Tower. But to make matters even worse, IN SOUTH CAROLINA, the first state to secede from the Union in 1860, and where they have a Confederate flag flying on the state capitol grounds, she said she thought the flag ought to come down.

Folks, I grew up in that part of the country and I can tell you first hand that that flag is sacred. There are people down there who don’t believe the Civil War’s over, that there’s just been a 142 year lull in the fighting.

Now, contrast this to Slick Willie when he was governor of Arkansas. Hillary didn’t say a word when he proclaimed holidays for Jefferson Davis or Robert E. Lee or any other confederate icon. And he did a lot of it. Not a word out of her. Of course, we all know that Hillary Rodham Klingon and Slick Willie are cut from the same cloth. They’d swear to anything if they thought it would get them two votes. You’ve heard of flip flop? Well, meet flip and flop. But this time I think it’ll backfire on her. KABOOM!!!

I don’t think this is a shot across the bough of liberals. I think this a shot to the heart. And I want you to listen carefully because these words I’m about to quote from someone are as true today as they were when they were first spoken by an American. And listen carefully, liberals, and tell me, if you CAN, just where these words are wrong.

When Senator Enzi was in the studio yesterday, he left me a copy of an article by Tom Jones in the Casper Star-Tribune. And I’d like for you to hear some of the quotes.

You cannot further brotherhood by inciting class hatred. Did I just hear a liberal fall over?

You cannot help small men by tearing down big men. Did I hear an amen from Bill Gates on that after what Slick Willie tried to do to him?

You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. Did I hear an amen from the army?

You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer. Are you listening, Ted Kennedy?

You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich. Liberals, didn’t we see that tried in Russia?

You cannot help people permanently by doing for them what they could and should be doing for themselves. Shouldn’t that be embossed on every welfare check?

You cannot build character and courage by taking away man’s initiative and independence. Are you listening, Jesse Jackson?

You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income. This session of Congress will now come to order.

You cannot establish security by using borrowed money. Not at today’s prices you can’t.

You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. Did anybody at the Pentagon read this?

Well, there you have it, folks. It sounds like the antitheses of the liberal mindset, doesn’t it? According to the crowd we’ve got leading us now, these must be the deranged rantings of a madman. Now, for you liberals who haven’t gone into an attack of apoplexy over what I just quoted, who do you think said that?

I think we can rule out most of the limousine hypocrites we’ve got running around without adult supervision in Washington. No, the person who said that DID live in Washington at one time. And he’s a man revered in history as one of the nation’s greats. His name, the man who said all those things I just quoted you?

Abraham Lincoln.

[MUSIC: Pachelbel’s “Canon in D Major”]

“Welcome to All Things Leftist, from National Panhandling Radio. For the next two and a half minutes, we will not be begging you to pledge money, buy a tote bag, or even one of those doo-wop era CD box sets. ” Wouldn’t you love to hear them say that? At least it’d be honest.

But today, folks, let’s go over to the hoity-toity side of the dial for today’s story. And it shouldn’t surprise anybody because it’s another example the tax-supported left wing bias of PBS. And, although nobody elected them to run the country, that doesn’t stop them from thinking they do.

This week, the PBS Series Frontline ran a four hour special called “News Wars”. It theoretically documented how George W. Bush has waged war on the press. Of course, there’s no mention of the war they’ve waged on him but that’s a minor technicality. For the first two hours of the show, it featured a man named Arun Rath, an NPR producer who joking says he has a degree in Atheism, Communism, and Free Love. He’s perfect for the job! He meets all the qualifications of an NPR producer.

Well, on his website, he explains how he wanted to be fair and give those awful capitalists equal time to comment on his radical left thesis but he just couldn’t find one. It’s his thesis that the liberal press is the only thing standing between Americans and those freedom-crushing Republicans. He said he looked for a year and he couldn’t find a conservative voice to come on and rebut his arguments.

I think there a couple of reasons for that, if it’s true. The first one is you have to look at who a guy with an education in atheism, communism, and free love hangs out with. I’m sure it’s not exactly the Rush Limbaugh or Sean Hannity crowd. And I’m sure that of anyone he thought was a conservative, which is anybody to the right of Joseph Stalin, and he approached them and presented them with his ideas, they couldn’t stop laughing long enough to say “are you putting me on on? ”

Then he says he was going to do a section on the rise of conservative media but it just wouldn’t fit. But wait, I thought it was the liberal media who were protecting us. I don’t think it’s too hard to see why nobody in their right mind would give this guy the time of day. But NPR did. What does that tell you about them?

(Twilight Zone Music)

What was it Rod Serling always said at the beginning of the show…You’re traveling in another dimension…there’s a signpost up ahead…you’re entering the Twilight Zone. Or something like that.

Folks, do you ever get the idea that’s where America is headed, into that other dimension? Let me give you a couple of examples I got from the news over the last two days.

First off—and this has to be a headline only a comedy writer could have thought up—the headline reads HOUSE HEARING ON GLOBAL WARMING CANCELED BY ICE STORM. The timing on this couldn’t be better. The House Subcommittee on Energy and Air Quality had planned to hold these hearings on global warming. Were these the hearings where Al Gore was going to contribute to global warming by giving his hot air testimony? It may have been, I’m not sure.

Oh, Al’s a real piece of work, isn’t he? Remember a couple of years ago when he was going to make this impassioned global warming speech at the New York opening of that tabloid movie “Day After Tomorrow” and it was the coldest day on record for that day in New York. Well, it may have happened again. At any rate, somebody was alarmed enough to call for these pompous hearings and give them the official title “Climate Change: Are Greenhouse Gas Emissions From Human Activities Contributing To A Warming Of The Planet? ”

Well, the answer was obvious, global warming in the form of freezing rain, ice, and snow blanketed Washington, and the whole northeast for that matter with wind chills well below zero. Can you say credibility?

And if that’s not enough of a trip into the Twilight Zone, Bank of America is going to start offering credit cards to criminal aliens. And you don’t even have to have a Social Security number so the bank can check your credit. Can’t you just hear the commercials for that now? “Attention, illegals, welcome to America. Right after your first stop at the welfare office, come see your amigos at Bank of America and get a VISA or Master Card, or both.

No, you won’t need a Social Security card like we require of those gringos. And you don’t need a credit history. Just claim yours at any of our drive through windows. ” (Twilight Zone Music) Submitted for your approval. America, a once-great nation brought to its knees by political correctness and liberalism. And freezing to death in global warming while they wait to surrender their country to aliens.

A scenario that could only happen…in the Twilight Zone.

Well, we’ve had three days to reflect on and let the dust settle around last Sunday night’s Grammy awards. Normally, those pop culture shows don’t mean doodley squat to me except it’s always been a good indicator of the entertainment industry’s blind devotion to all things leftist. Yes, I’m speaking of course of the Ditzy Chicks and the number of Grammy awards they won.

Now, if you’ll remember back four years ago when they were in EUROPE on tour, Natalie Maines, the lead ditz told an audience in London between songs, “we’re ashamed the President of the United States is from Texas” where they’re from. That set off a firestorm of protest from the country music establishment. Most country radio stations quit playing their music and haven’t started back. Suddenly, we went from “Goodbye Earl” to “Goodbye Bimbos."

Now mind you, country music was their main audience. So how did they react? They started looking down their noses at country music listeners. They were on “60 Minutes” and told a senile Mike Wallace they didn’t want them as fans. And Mike just sat there, looking addled. They said they wanted fans who were going to grow with them musically. Okay, it’s time for a reality check here. Because they put down country music fans, how many times was suicide prevention called because country music fans were so distraught?

And then, in typical leftist fashion, they played the conspiracy card. They said their music was being censored by the government because nobody was playing it. This shows their complete arrogance and egotism. Quick, go to the constitution and find me the amendment that says radio stations will be fined for playing the Ditzy Chicks. Government is the only thing that can censor and make it law. Well, they’ve still got this big cow chip on their shoulders for country music and they don’t mind whining to anybody who’ll listen about it.

But why all the Grammy awards? It’s more political than musical, that’s obvious. The entertainment industry hates George W. Bush. And they’re so eaten up with this hatred that it colors everything they do. And their inflated opinions of themselves causes them to think if you don’t agree with them you’re just some kind of knuckle dragger.

But I’ve got an idea how I can get rich off the Ditzy Chicks and they won’t even know it. If I can work it, I’ll cook up this deal where I’ll buy them for what they’re worth and sell them for what they think they’re worth.

President Bush has proposed his 2008 budget for the Department of Energy and guess what? Wyoming gets the shaft again over coal. But wait, Steve, you might say, isn’t coal that horrible polluting black rock that you find in the ground all over Campbell County, you know, the stuff California says is the reason they won’t buy electricity from us because we use that to fire power plants?

No, for once, I don’t see any environmental cases at work in this situation. What President Bush is doing is turning his back on Wyoming in favor of funding biofuel plants such as the Future Gen plant. We earlier got shafted on that because of some vague explanation about the state’s altitude being too high. So they made two locations in Texas, President Bush’s home state, coincidentally, (yeah, right) as finalists for the site.

Now, back to the subject of coal for a minute. We’re not talking about normal coal, we’re talking about gasified coal, a coal that’s turned into gas and is virtually pollution free. Well, Senator Thomas isn’t too happy about the situation even though he’s been a staunch Bush supporter since the get-go of the administration. He recently grilled Energy Secretary Bodman for not following the guidelines laid down in the Energy Policy Act of 2005. Did that help? Not a bit. Thomas might as well have been trying to knock the moon out of its orbit.

As I said, this has nothing to do with the environmentalists and everything to do with that other great source of global warming, the politicians. The Bush administration looks on Wyoming as in its back pocket, much the same way the Democrats look on the black vote. And here’s the heart of the matter. Wyoming has three electoral votes. Texas has thirty-four, better than eleven times as many.

So, in the pursuit of votes in an upcoming election which has no Republican rising above the crowd yet who might beat Hillary or Obama, you go running off throwing money at a project which has yet to even be assigned instead of funding something that could give us clean technology until we can work out alternative energy sources. This is not only a slap in Wyoming’s face and an insult to it because of the political values, it’s an extremely short-sighted answer to a problem that will only continue to haunt us with America continuing to rely on oil from countries who hate us.

If this were Christmas, I’d say what George W. Bush should find in his stocking is a lump of coal.

Well, here we go again. How many times have I warned you that political correctness would be the death of us all? Frankly, I’ve lost count of the number of times but it’s something that can’t be said enough. Here’s the latest example of what I’ve been talking about.

Some internal memos have come to light recently from, of all people, the Department of Homeland SECURITY. And when you hear what they say, you’ll have to wonder just how concerned about our security they are. Homeland Security Director Casper Milquetoast, uh, Michael Chertoff issued memos telling department officials below him on the food chain not to call Islamic terrorists “terrorists” and called for them to respect Islam as a “religion of peace. ” That would be great…if that were true…but it’s not.

Who flew those planes into the World Trade Center, the Kiwanis Club? Who beheaded American prisoners in Iraq, The Girl Scouts? And which religion calls on its followers to kill the infidels after you’ve lied to them, the Billy Graham Crusade? And what religion counts among its followers Osama bin Laden, Saddam Hussein, The Ayatollah Cockamamie, Mahmoud Achmadinejead, and other homicidal psychopaths, the Presbyterians?

Michael Chertoff is just plain dumb if he thinks these satanic demons will be nice to us if we don’t offend them. Whether we offend them or not is completely beside the point. They want to kill us! And the odd part of it is that we, as the potential victims, deny it when THEY DON’T. And George W. Bush isn’t much better. He fell right over when the Council on American-Islamic Relations complained when he used the word terrorist once describing the foiled attack on jet liners last summer crossing the Atlantic.

The solution? Fire Michael Chertoff right now. Give him thirty minutes to clean out his office and get somebody in that job who loves America more than political correctness. Get somebody in there who’ll defend America and not try to kiss rancid butts of these killers with spiritual rabies. Let them know in no uncertain terms what we think of them, that we know who they are and who they’re representing and if they want a jihad, a religious war, tell them our God can and will beat up their god.

With Chertoff’s head where it is right now, how long do you think it’s been since he’s seen the sun shine?

Okay, class, get out your pencils and papers and let’s see how many answers you can come up with by Monday. The questions can be found reprinted on the KIML web page in our printed version of these commentaries called “The Write Stuff”—and right is spelled w-r-i-t-e—in case you forget some of them. Your answers will need to be in essay form because that’s the kind of response it calls for.

Now, for you kids in the No Child Left Behind Program, you might want to just sit this one out because it requires thinking and not just the regurgitation of answers you’ve been previously given and told to memorize. Okay, pencils ready? Here’s the first question.

1. Why is it that, in Wyoming, paper bingo isn’t considered gambling but electronic bingo is and therefore electronic bingo is illegal?

Aren’t they the same game and the only difference is one is played electronically? And as long as we’re talking about things legal and illegal, next, I want you to answer what the economic advantages are of voting down the lottery and serious proposing a bill that would allow you to play poker in bars and restaurants if no money changes hands. Okay, on to our next question. And I think you’ll have fun trying to answer this one.

2. What does an environmentalist kook do for fun?

I’d say you could probably leave that one blank and be closer to the right answer. Okay, let’s move to the next one.

3. If Social Security, Medicare, and the Department of Education, to name just a few programs, are illegal because they’re not provided for in the constitution, then why do we still have them? And how come nobody’s gone to jail for breaking the basic law of the land?

Now, let’s move on to global warming and ask, “We had an ice age on earth but the ice melted and receded some for 40, 000 years ago. The atmosphere had to warm up for that to happen. We had absolutely zero for any kind of pollution.”

4. So what caused all that ice to melt?

Okay, I think that may be all the time I’ve got for right now. You can e-mail your answers to steve@basinsradio.com. And I’d love to see what your answers are. And I do have one other bonus question, something for you to ponder. And it’s this.

If a liberal says something in a forest, and there’s no one around to hear it, is it still wrong?

Folks, with the global warming situation as crucial as it is, with temperatures in the northern plains below zero even in the middle of the day, with global warming piling up not in inches but in feet in the northeast, and here in Wyoming we’re getting plenty of global warming showers that should be with us off and on for the next few days, I feel it only fair to warn you that you shouldn’t speak out and contradict the global warming types.

Why? Well, for one you’ll get snickered at by the likes of Al Gore and you’ll be considered some kind of heretic by the high priests of environmentalism. AND, if you’re in a position where your scientific knowledge of the weather doesn’t agree with some POLITICIAN’S agenda, then you’re standing in it up to your neck. A good case in point is a man named George Taylor. George has been the state climatologist—for you kids in the No Child Left Behind Program, a climatologist is a weather man.

George Taylor has been the state weatherman in Oregon for over 15 years. And now the governor wants him gotten rid of. And why? Well, George’s views on global warming aren’t exactly the same as Governor Ted Kulongoski’s. The governor thinks that George has this damn fool idea that if there is global warming on earth, it might not necessarily be caused by people but by natural warming and cooling cycles.

Folks, to a liberal, that’s not just irreverent, that’s just downright blasphemy. Yes sir, and the governor will go over tell George just that the very minute the snow plows get the roads cleared. He says George is going against official state policy by questioning whether or not people have caused global warming. How arrogant can you be? Of course, the governor didn’t bother to consult George before he came down from Mount Olympus but what does scientific fact have to do with anything?

We’re talking about a political agenda and as with most things in politics, you can’t find facts or truth inside the same area code. And things like this are happening everywhere. People are being sneered as unscientific if they don’t agree with the weak conclusions of people who aren’t scientific to begin with. Hang in there, George. The whole environmentalist movement I think was described very clearly by Shakespeare in Macbeth. There’s a line in that play which says, “It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, and signifying nothing. ”

By the way, whatever happened to that ice age we had forty thousand years ago?

Okay, folks, let’s get in the car and take a little drive. We’re going to head east, just across the state lane to Spearfish and guess what, we’re going to continue a great Wyoming tradition. We’re going out of state to South Dakota…to buy…lottery tickets. You know the drill. You’ve been doing it for years. And now it looks like you’re going to be doing it for a year longer.. at least.

Monday the state house of representatives voted no on a lottery bill. Oh, it was close this time, 31-27 was the vote count. That’s almost reaching a moment sanity there for a state that won’t allow electronic bingo games because they say it’s gambling yet you have some horse racing and OFF-TRACK BETTTTTING sites in the state.

Oh, speaking of off track betting, Eric Spector, the owner of the Wyoming Downs Race Track in Evanston, and played his violin for the legislators about how if a lottery gets established in Wyoming, then it’ll drive him out of business. Unfortunately, Mr. Spector didn’t produce any examples of this having happened in other states that have both a lottery and horse racing. And I don’t suppose anybody questioned him about it, especially the real anti-lottery zealots. They just wanted to get the session over with, keep Wyoming free from addictive gambling, and get to the liquor store before it closed or make hotel reservations in Deadwood.

Yesterday morning, I talked with state representative Erin Mercer about what happened. She said you had your usual contingent of anti-lottery types there with their tambourines going. But then she said she heard about this group that came in and supposedly pointed out that some states want to dump their lotteries because they weren’t producing the revenue needed for the state.

Again, no examples were given but I don’t know of a state that wants to get rid of its lottery. I will stand corrected if you can produce one with more evidence than just your word. Maybe they were talking about California. If they were, that state’s so far in the hole not even Bill Gates if he turned over his entire fortune could produce the revenue needed for the state.

So here we’ve got two statements taken as gospel without any questioning at all, a race track in Evanston and state drowning in red ink and its lottery isn’t helping any. Shall we worry about them on the way to Spearfish? Or maybe we should count the number of Wyoming license plates at convenience stores there?

Oh, I realize they’re not necessarily there to buy lottery tickets. They could be there for the cheaper gas.