Nevada’s largest newspaper is endorsing Mitt Romney for president, saying he has the principles and experience to lead the U.S. to prosperity again. The Las Vegas Review-Journal, in its Sunday editions, wrote that Romney was a Republican governor in heavily Democratic Massachusetts who had to work with Democrats to get things done.

The newspaper states his business management skills turned failing companies into profitable ones, and he has pledged to create a Cabinet of private-sector leaders focused on strengthening the nation’s business climate. The Review-Journal faulted President Barack Obama, saying his administration lacks in business experience and is openly hostile to free-market capitalism.

The newspaper endorsed Republican U.S. Sen. John McCain for president four years ago.

Two members of Nevada’s congressional delegation have joined the list of those who want to know why federal prosecutors in Reno stopped pursuing cases from local agents with the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. Aides to Senator Dean Heller and Congressman Mark Amodei they have requested an explanation from both ATF and the U.S. Attorney’s office in Nevada.

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley is investigating the yearlong rift, which all but emptied the Reno ATF office and ended their undercover investigations into illegal firearms trafficking operations in Nevada. An assistant U.S. attorney in Reno reportedly told ATF agents in a September 2011 letter that her office won’t prosecute any ATF cases until certain unnamed “issues” are resolved.

Democratic congressional candidate John Oceguera is out with a new ad criticizing Congressman Joe Heck for his votes on a rape crisis center and abortion. The commercial points to Heck’s 2007 vote on a bill funding a crisis center, and says the Republican tried to restrict abortion for victims of rape.

It features a victim advocate saying she can’t understand someone voting that way unless he hadn’t looked in victims’ eyes. Heck’s campaign says Heck denied the bill including the rape crisis center money because it contained several unrelated provisions and was being pushed through in the final hours of the Nevada legislative session.

Heck officials say that while the congressman supported a bill against taxpayer-funded abortions, it included an exception for victims of rape and incest.

Faced with rising costs, Governor Brian Sandoval is backing off his promise to undo pay cuts imposed on state employees last year. Gerald Gardner, his chief of staff, says the governor has issued orders to agency heads to continue the reductions in the proposed 2014-15 budget.

Faced with rising costs, Sandoval is backing off his promise to undo pay cuts imposed on state employees last year. Gerald Gardner, his chief of staff, says the governor has issued orders to agency heads to continue the reductions in the proposed 2014-15 budget.

Gardner adds Sandoval hasn’t given up on efforts to undo the work furloughs, pay cuts, and suspension of merit and longevity pay imposed on state workers. But he says the governor doesn’t know if he’ll get the money to do so as rising costs are more than eating up revenue gains amid a weak economic recovery.

State employees complain the cuts amount to a tax increase on them so that businesses don’t have to pay more taxes.

Nevada has launched a new website to help  the state’s youth in their job searches. The site is available at NevadaYouth.org and includes tips on resumes, cover letters and interviews.

The site links to state-approved programs and organizations that help young people in assessing their career interests and planning for their future. It also highlights job openings throughout the state. Governor Sandoval says Nevada’s future depends on preparing youth, and is encouraging parents and teens to explore the site’s resources.

The site is a project of Nevada JobConnect and comes with the help of the Governor’s Workforce Investment Board.

Bumper stickers are generally an entire thesis in one sentence. In the last couple of months I’ve written down a few:

“All men are animals and some make nice pets.”

“Grow your own dope – plant a man.”

“Never judge a girl by her bumper sticker.”

“Have you ever experienced déjà vu? Have you ever experienced déjà vu?”

“I’ve lowered my expectations to the point where they’ve already been met.”

“I’m not a complete idiot. Some parts are missing.”

“Jack Kevorkian for White House Physician.”

“You know you are getting older when Happy Hour is a nap.”

“Getting second place means you won first place as a loser.”

“I’ve upped my standards, now up yours.”

“When all the chips are down, the buffalo is empty.”

“Never eat more than you can lift.”

“Watch out for the idiot behind me.”

“The fastest way to a fisherman’s heart is through his fly.”

And my favorite: “Very funny Scotty; now beam down my clothes!”

“The nation that reveres the First Amendment cannot revere it so much as to regard it without the First Commandment,” I told a group of church-goers once.

That is to say, the First Commandment should be more important to ‘how’ I use my words than the First Amendment, which gives me the right to say ‘what’ I do. And although I enjoy my free speech, being a Christ-follower entails exercising my rights in a way that shows ‘love’ towards others.

This nuance is often missed entirely by those who claim the First Commandment and First Amendment do not go together.  The reason it’s missed is simple: application of intellect and not heart.

Admittedly, I miss the mark on this more times than not — but I’m trying to do better.

Former pro basketball player Greg Anthony is backing Mitt Romney for president in a new Nevada TV commercial.  Romney’s campaign says the commercial launched statewide Friday.

The University of Nevada, Las Vegas alum says in the ad that he voted for President Barack Obama in 2008 because he thought Obama was a centrist. Anthony says he lost faith in Obama and is now supporting Romney, who he calls “a no-excuse kind of guy.”

Anthony is a native Nevadan who played for NBA teams in New York, Vancouver, Seattle, Portland, Milwaukee and Chicago. He’s a sports analyst for CBS.

Tens of thousands of the Mormon faithful are descending on Utah’s largest city for the semi-annual general conference of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. The general conference in Salt Lake City allows Mormons to hear gospel-centered talks about faith, family and mission work from senior church leaders.

Senator Harry Reid’s office says the Senate Majority Leader will not be attending.

The conference also could be particularly festive given the upcoming presidential election, with Republican candidate Mitt Romney the first Mormon to gain the nomination from a major party. A church spokesman says it’s unlikely that Romney’s name will come up during the five church sessions this weekend.

And it was a testy first debate for two candidates running for Nevada’s newest congressional seat. Democrat Steven Horsford and Republican Danny Tarkanian faced off Thursday night.

Tarkanian slammed Horsford for proposing a tax increase while Horsford served as state senate majority leader. Horsford invoked his latest attack ad tying Tarkanian to the tea party by calling his opponent a “self-proclaimed crazy radical.” Both candidates however sidestepped direct questions on their policy plans.

The debate is the first of three scheduled in the race for Congressional District 4, which stretches across Clark, Esmeralda, Lincoln, Lyon, Mineral, Nye and White Pine counties.

In 2004, Tarkanian was the Republican nominee for Nevada Senate and lost in the general election. In 2006, he was the Republican nominee for Nevada Secretary of State and lost in the general election. In 2010 he was a candidate in the Republican primary for the U.S. Senate, finishing third behind Sharron Angle and Sue Lowden.

Third-party candidates Gary Johnson and Virgil Goode are simply blips in the presidential race, but that makes them a big deal. Johnson is a former New Mexico governor running as the Libertarian Party nominee, while Goode is a conservative ex-congressman from Virginia competing as the Constitution Party candidate.

Democratic President Barack Obama’s campaign quietly has been keeping track of the two former Republican officeholders who could prove pivotal in Nevada where he and Republican challenger Mitt Romney are in a tight race. In 2008, more than 2 million voters chose someone other than the major party nominee.

The unemployment rate nationwide decreased to 7.8 percent in September as employment rose by 114,000. The Bureau of Labor Statistic shows among what it calls the “major worker groups,” the unemployment rates for adult men is 7.3 percent; adult women, 7.0 percent; whites, 7.0 percent; teenagers, 23.7 percent; blacks,13.4 percent; Hispanics, 9.9 percent; and Asians, 4.8 percent.

If you add all seven groups together, it works out to a rounded total of 77.9 percent. Then by dividing 77.9 percent by seven the rate increases to jus’ over 11-percent.

Meanwhile 12.1 million people in the U.S. remain unemployed.

It’s more than clear to me that President Obama ran guns through Libya into Syria, by-passing Congress once again. This comes as its been learned that between 300 to 400 national security officials received emails detailing the Benghazi terrorist attack as it was happening on 9/11, raising fresh questions about the truth behind the attack.

The emails show that the Libyan radical Islamic group Ansar al-Sharia claimed responsibility for the attack jus’ two hours after it began via social media. Furthermore, White House officials said an unmanned Predator drone was sent over the U.S. mission in Libya, providing Washington with a live feed to the chaos that unfolded.

Ambassador J. Christopher Stevens was officially on a diplomatic mission in Benghazi, though it’s clear the U.S. “Special Mission Compound” building had more to do with the CIA than diplomacy. The idea that Stevens could have been involved in redirecting arms from Libya to Syria is hardly a stretch.

He had the perfect résumé for gun-running, as he had helped manage gun-running to the Libyan rebels during the insurgency against former dictator Moammar Gadhafi. The White House named Stevens liaison to the Libyan rebels in March 2011, months before Gadhafi’s August 2011 ouster.

A distress message left by U.S. diplomat Sean Smith, who died in the attack, on a gaming website, a strange place to post a message like this: “Assuming we don’t die tonight, we saw one of our ‘police’ that guard the compound taking pictures.”

Thirty four minutes later, when the Americans in the CIA safe house already knew something was wrong, U.S. Ambassador Stevens took a meeting with the Turkish ambassador. That ambassador leaves with no incident, unharmed.

Hours later, the attack began. The fight lasted for seven hours, until the break of dawn, again — with the live feed streamed to the White House Situation Room.

Benghazi isn’t the first time unauthorized gun-running schemes initiated by the Obama administration have cost American lives. The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATFE) gave some 2,000 high-powered weapons to Mexican-based drug cartels in 2009 and then lost track of the guns.

The death toll from weapons used in the ATFE program — dubbed “Fast and Furious” – stands at more than 200 people 200 deaths and it continues to rise. Among the dead is U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, shot and killed in December 2010 near Rio Rico, Arizona, while attempting to apprehend a group of armed subjects.

Obama allowed the attack to happen and four Americans die so the evidence would be obliterated and the trail back to the White House would go cold. This is also why it took the FBI such a long time to get into the compound where the attack happened, even though a CNN reporter was able to walk in and recover Stevens’ personal diary.

You can live days without water and weeks without food. People who don’t survive in the outdoors most often die from losing their body heat, not necessarily from starvation or dehydration.

You need to be able to start a fire. And perhaps most importantly, you need to be able to build a shelter to stave off wind, rain and snow, and to keep your body heat trapped where it belongs: near your body.

Here are the keys to taking shelter in the wilderness:

Choosing the best place to build a survival shelter is important. It should be in the driest spot you can find. Nothing sucks out body heat faster than wetness.

If it isn’t too cold, build a shelter on high ground. Breezes will help keep the bugs away, and you’ll be easier to see if a search party passes nearby.

If a cold wind is blowing, choose a spot sheltered by trees. But don’t build in the bottom of deep valleys or ravines where cold air settles at night.

Other bad places to build a shelter includes anywhere the ground is damp or on mountaintops and open ridges where exposed to the wind. Again in the bottom of narrow valleys where cold collects at night.or washes where water runs when it rains.

If it’s almost dark and you can hurriedly collect dry debris (leaves, pine needles, bark) from the forest floor, make a pile two or three feet high and longer than you are tall. When you burrow into the pile, you are in a natural sleeping bag that protects against heat loss.

The simplest shelter is a fallen tree that has enough room under it for you to crawl in. Lean the branches against the windward side of the tree (so the wind is blowing into it and not against it) to make a wall.

Make the wall thick enough to keep out wind. If you can build a fire on the open side of your shelter, the heat will help keep you warm.

If you find a fallen tree without enough room under it, or a rock or a small overhang, you can build a simple lean-to. Start by leaning fallen limbs against the object, such as the top edge of an overhang, to create a wall.

Lean the limbs at an angle to help shield rain. Cover the leaning limbs with leaves, boughs, pine needles, bark or whatever the forest offers.

When you have built a thick wall, you can crawl underneath into your shelter. Remember to make your shelter no bigger than you need to fit you and anybody else with you.

The bigger the space, the harder it is to keep warm.

You can also build a lean-to by placing one end of a long stick across a low limb of a tree and propping up the other end of the stick with two more sticks. Tie the ends of the sticks together with your boot laces or belt.

Lean more sticks against the horizontal stick. Then pile leaves and other forest debris against the leaning sticks until you have a wall.

Once again, a fire on the open side of the lean-to will add much heat to your “room.”

If you can’t make a lean-to, you can make an A-frame shelter. You’ll need two sticks four or five feet long and one stick 10 to 12 feet long.

Prop the two shorter sticks up in the shape of the letter A. Prop the longer stick up at the top of the A. Tie the three sticks together where they meet. The three sticks will be in the shape of an A-frame tent with one end collapsed against the ground.

Now prop up more sticks against the longer stick, and pile forest debris against the sticks until you have an insulated shelter open at the high-end.

When you have a tarp, sheet of plastic or Space Blanket with you, and some rope or cord, tie a line between two trees. Tie it low to the ground with just enough room for you to lie beneath.

Stretch the tarp over the line. Place large rocks or logs on the ends of the tarp to hold it in place with the edges close to the ground. If it’s snowing, tie the line off higher on the trees. Steeper walls will shed snow better.

Now you have an emergency tent.

Your shelter is not complete until you have made a bed to lie in. Dry leaves work well.

Make your bed a little bigger than the space your body covers and at least eight inches thick. When you snuggle into it, you are ready for the unexpected night out.

The Nevada Supreme Court in Carson City has upheld felony convictions stemming from the group ACORN’s voter registration practices. A high court decision says it’s OK for Nevada to bar payments based on how many people someone registers or how many people of a particular party one registers.

The ruling stems from a 2008 case in which the community group ACORN hired people to register voters in Las Vegas. A Secretary of State investigation found a program called “blackjack” in which the group offered a $5 bonus if a canvasser registered 21 or more voters.

ACORN supervisor Amy Busefink pleaded an equivalent of no contest to two counts of conspiracy and was ordered to informal probation and community service. She appealed, but the Nevada Supreme Court says state law is constitutional.

A Las Vegas-area teacher mentioned by President Barack Obama during his first presidential campaign debate with Republican rival Mitt Romney said she wished she had fewer students so she could give them more attention. Claritssa Sanchez was the teacher who Obama said had students sitting on the floor during the first two weeks of school, using 10-year-old textbooks.

Sanchez met with Obama and introduced him at an August 22nd campaign rally at Canyon Springs High School in North Las Vegas. White House officials said at the time that the average class size of Sanchez’s 10th-grade history and government class grew from 33 students when she began teaching in 2007 to 44 this year.

President Bill Clinton is heading to Las Vegas next week to campaign for Obama. The president’s campaign says that the former president will be in southern Nevada Tuesday for an unspecified event.

Clinton has appeared in TV commercials and made speeches on behalf of his fellow Democrat. Obama has been active trying to woo voters in the swing state of Nevada.

He spent three days at Lake Las Vegas preparing for Wednesday’s debate and has appeared eight other times throughout the state this year alone.

Obama’s campaign is also planning a get-out-the-vote event in Las Vegas featuring singer Jon Bon Jovi. The campaign says the Early Vote event is set for Saturday morning at the House of Blues inside the Mandalay Bay resort.

Jon Bon Jovi will perform a free acoustic show. Actors Aisha Tyler and Jesse Williams will also be at the event.

Tickets for the concert are available at some Obama campaign offices on a first-come, first-served basis. It’ll focus on the issues of the presidential election and encourage Nevada residents to vote as early as possible.

Remember when during MSNBC’s live coverage of the 2008 presidential primary elections, after the speeches of Barack Obama and John McCain had aired, Chris Matthews expressed his admiration for Obama’s speaking skills saying, “It’s part of reporting this case, this election, the feeling most people get when they hear Barack Obama’s speech. My, I felt this thrill going up my leg. I mean, I don’t have that too often.”

It’s safe to say for Matthews, the thrill is gone after last nights first of three debates between Prsident Obama and Mitt Romney.

“Tonight wasn’t an MSNBC debate tonight, was it?” Chris Matthews said after the debate concluded.

“I don’t know what he was doing out there. He had his head down, he was enduring the debate rather than fighting it. Romney, on the other hand, came in with a campaign. He had a plan, he was going to dominate the time, he was going to be aggressive, he was going to push the moderator around, which he did effectively, he was going to relish the evening, enjoying it,” Matthews said.

“Here’s my question for Obama: I know he likes saying he doesn’t watch cable television but maybe he should start. Maybe he should start. I don’t know how he let Romney get away with the crap he throughout tonight about Social Security,” Matthews complained.

Matthews then demanded that President Obama start watching cable news, specifically his program.

“Where was Obama tonight? He should watch — well, not just Hardball, Rachel, he should watch you, he should watch the Reverend Al, he should watch Lawrence. He would learn something about this debate. There’s a hot debate going on in this country. You know where it’s been held? Here on this network is where we’re having the debate,” Matthews said.

“We have our knives out,” Matthews said, admitting his network is trying their best to defend Obama and his policies. “We go after the people and the facts. What was he doing tonight? He went in their disarmed.”

“He was like, ‘Oh an hour and half? I think I can get through this thing. And I don’t even look at this guy.’ Whereas Romney — I love the split-screen — staring at Obama, addressing him like prey. He did it just right. ‘I’m coming at an incumbent. I got to beat him. You‘ve got to beat the champ and I’m going to beat him tonight. And I don’t care what this guy, the moderator, whatever he thinks he is because I’m going to ignore him,” Matthews said.

“What was Romney doing?” Matthews asked. “He was winning.”

“If he does five more of these nights, forget it,” Matthews added. “Obama should watch MSNBC, my last point. He will learn something every night on this show and all these shows. This stuff we’re watching, it’s like first grade for most of us. We know all this stuff.”

The hand drill is one of the simplest friction methods available.

First cut a notch in a large piece of wood, about the thickness of your forearm, using a rock or knife tip.  Now select a dry, hardened stick, no thicker than your thumb and about a foot long.

Secure the wood with a knee or under foot, put one end of the stick in the notch, clasp the stick between your palms and quickly rub them back and forth. Press hard downward as you do this and until the spinning stick produces an ember.

Transfer the ember into your tinder.  Once transferred, lightly blow on the ember until is becomes a visible flame.

Good sources of tinder include dried grasses, lichens, shavings of wood, windblown seed or fluff, paper, pocket lint and even hair. The tinder bundle should be roughly the size of a chicken egg and loosely formed to allow air circulation.

The flame produced by the ember is now ready to be laid in your all-ready prepared fire pit.  First, you must clear an area about five-feet from the center where you intend to have your fire.

The easiest method the Tepee.

In the center of your clearing, arrange more tinder and a few sticks of kindling in the shape of a tepee or cone. Place your burning tinder in the middle of the formation.

As the tepee burns, the outside logs will fall in, feeding the fire. This type of fire burns well even with wet wood.

Don’t forget to tend the fire throughout the night and keep up the coals by banking it during the day. Banking simply means to place a thick layer of ash-dust on top of the coals to keep them ready for their next use.