Step away from the lemonade stand: It looks more and more as if Gov. Kenny Guinn's massive tax hike is not an integrated, well-thought-out plan but a slapped-together proposal he's making up as he goes along. One component is an immediate tripling of the state's annual "business activity tax" from $100 to $300 per employee with no exemptions. (Currently, businesses with only one employee don't pay the tax.) Friday, State Taxation Director Chuck Chinnock was unable to give a straight answer to Las Vegas Assemblyman Bob Beers, who asked whether his teenage daughter, who makes a couple hundred bucks a year babysitting, would be subject to the $300 tax. Better drop that paper route.

Apocalypse now: Guinn, responding to editorials from my paper that have criticized his tax-and-spend plan:

"Who's going to read their editorial page if we don't have children who can read?"