Silver Dollars & Wooden Nickes: Elected officials get another freebie

WOODEN NICKEL: To the state officials who accepted thousands of dollars in gifts from interest groups, as reported in newly filed financial disclosure forms. Tickets to concerts and sporting events have nothing to do with good governance - and everything to do with feeding perceptions of influence-peddling.

SILVER DOLLAR: To Texas Gov. Rick Perry, for seeing the writing on the wall and pulling the plug on his presidential campaign. It's become apparent that the GOP nomination will go to either Newt Gingrich or Mitt Romney. If Rick Santorum and Ron Paul truly want a Republican to replace Barack Obama in the White House, they should follow Perry's lead.

SILVER DOLLAR: To the Nevada Board of Wildlife Commissioners, for agreeing to consider a shorter bear hunt season and for excluding lands west of the Tahoe Rim Trail. Chris Healy, spokesman for the Nevada Department of Wildlife, said the proposal, which also would shorten the hunt season, is seen as a compromise to bear hunters and those who are opposed to the hunt.

WOODEN NICKEL: To the person or people who shot scores of protected American coots, killing many and leaving some mortally wounded, at Harmon reservoir near Fallon between Thanksgiving and Christmas. Opportunities for legal hunting abound in this state; there's no reason for such indiscriminate gunplay.