• Gov. Nikki Haley visited Hartsville yesterday to survey the damage caused by this week’s fire at a local fertilizer plant.  I was shocked to learn that she arrived via plane.  Hartsville is barely over an hour’s drive from Columbia.  Is this really a wise use of taxpayer dollars?  Also, why isn’t the Transparency Governor’s calendar available via the office’s website?  I can’t find it, and I’d like to know what was going on yesterday that was of such earth-shattering importance that it warranted chartering a plane to fly 71 miles.

• Spartanburg Republican Sen. Lee Bright owes over $67,000 in back taxes and penalties. What is with all of these self-professed fiscal conservatives in this state who can’t be bothered to pay their taxes?

• I was disappointed to learn that my state representative, Jay Lucas, was busy carrying Speaker Bobby Harrell’s water on the silly federal Repeal Amendment — a Tea Party agenda item — yesterday.  I explained what the so-called Repeal Amendment is and why it’s a colossal waste of time and taxpayer dollars in this post a few weeks ago.

• There’s something sketchy going on at MUSC.  Dr. Vladimir Mironov, the Charleston scientist leading a project to grow in-vitro meat from animal stem cells has been suspended, and his lab at MUSC has been shut down.  The suspension also calls into question the future of a separate project with which Mironov is heavily involved — a $20 million effort to create human organs from a person’s own stem cells.  The project was funded by a 2009 grant from the National Science Foundation and is the largest sum the federal agency has ever awarded to South Carolina.

Several of my pals in the South Carolina Bar Young Lawyers Division are working with the Upsilon Omega Chapter of Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority to host the tenth annual Cinderella Project “Boutique” in Columbia.  The group is collecting gently used formal gowns, handbags, and accessories for high school students who are financially unable to purchase these items for the prom.

Donated dresses should be clean and on hangers.  The 2011 dress donation drop-off locations in the Midlands are Richardson Plowden Law Firm, Revente, M Boutique, Lexington Chamber of Commerce, Greater Irmo Chamber of Commerce, Chapin Chamber of Commerce, and the West Metro Chamber of Commerce. These locations are accepting donations during business hours Monday through Friday until Friday, February 25.  For more information about donation drop-off locations and shopping day details in other areas of the state, visit www.scbar.org.

The official “shopping” day for high school students of the Midlands will be Saturday, March 5 at the USC School of Law Auditorium from 9:00 a.m. until noon.

The group is also seeking donations from local businesses for a raffle to be held at the Cinderella Project Boutique, which will take place on March 5.  Suggested donations include items or gift certificates to restaurants, department stores, and specialty shops that will help ensure these students have a memorable prom night.

• Former fluke U.S. Senate hopeful Alvin Greene racked up a whopping 28 votes yesterday in the Democratic primary to fill the seat vacated when Rep. Cathy Harvin of Clarendon County passed away in December.

• Is Mad Men ever going to return, or are we going to be stuck in 1965 forever?

• A rather strange domestic dispute errupted in Spartanburg County on Sunday when a Landrum woman alleges that a man threw fish sticks in her hair, prompting her to pull a gun on him.

• Both the proposed Arizona-style-we-hate-brown-people immigration bill and the proposed Voter ID bill bouncing around the legislature right now are going to be expensive to implement.  (And nevermind that South Carolina has seen a 21% decline in illegal immigration since 2007.)  We are facing a projected budget shortfall of nearly $1 billion.  Republicans are supposed to care about deficits and fiscal responsibility, right?

• Cindi Ross Scoppe digs up the dirt on these raffles that the South Carolina Senate wasted an absurd amount of time debating.  (Something about it never did pass the smell test.  Follow the money?)

• A Georgetown economics professors slaps down a report by the shadowy, Howard Rich-fueled South Carolina Policy Council on how implementing public school choice will decrease the unemployment problem of five poor, rural South Carolina counties.  The report “wins this year’s prize for the most fatuous cause-and-effect claim.”

As our reviewer explains, the claims in the report are based overwhelmingly on the “tuitioning” programs established in Vermont and Maine back in the 19^th century, whereby very small towns that do not operate schools pay tuition to schools in other towns. Milwaukee’s choice adventures are also cited, as children there are said to be more entrepreneurial. But none of the source documents were peer-reviewed and the data are simply cross-sectional; no causal inferences are (sensibly) possible. Moreover, while ascribing New England small town characteristics to South Carolina counties may seem fanciful, it is not too far a reach for Mr. Larson. Unencumbered with traditional citations, the author announces that the benefits of vouchers are “widely documented.”

• This afternoon, at the request of Sen. Shane Martin (R-Spartanburg), the South Carolina Senate excused home-schooled children from snow days.  Seriously.

• Ummm, so I’m a week late on this story. After the Super Bowl, Gov. Nikki Haley lashed out at WACH Fox 57 via her Facebook page, posting the following message at 12:33 AM: “WACH FOX 57 is a tabloid news station and has no concept of journalism.”  Wow.  Stay classy.  WACH Fox responds here.  Charleston City Paper columnist Chris Haire sounds off about the lack of mainstream media coverage of the latenight gaffe.

• My hometown of Hartsville suffered a devastating fire last night at a local fertilizer plant.  Thankfully no one has been reported hurt.

• Capital City Complainer-in-Chief Kevin Fisher has it out for Michael Wukela, aide to Columbia Mayor Steve Benjamin.  Geez.  Kevin Fisher is annoying.  I don’t really understand why the Free Times gives him a perch.  Benjamin should be free to hire whoever he wants to in his office, and Michael is a smart, hard-working guy.

• The Post & Courier has a neat feature piece on President Bill Clinton’s love for Dick Riley; WJC asked Riley to serve as a Supreme Court Justice and as White House Chief of Staff — both posts that Riley declined.

• Hospital execs aren’t happy with Gov. Haley’s Medicaid bailout plan.

• Mississippi Gov. and Republican Presidential Hopeful Haley Barbour takes a page out of the Sanford/Palin manual on how to use an official state aircraft for lots of fun things not at all related to serving as governor.

• Senators Vincent Sheheen and Shane Massey team up to write a bipartisan op-ed condemning the Budget & Control Board’s quick-fix decision to disregard the state’s constitutional obligation to maintain a balanced budget and instead run hundreds of millions in deficits for the remainder of this fiscal year.  <Insert rant about the Greenville News‘ annoying online pay wall.>

• Still haven’t made Valentine’s Day plans? Head over to 701 Whaley Street in downtown Columbia for the annual “What’s Love?” event featuring stunning and provocative visual and performance art.  Lee Ann Kornegay, the event’s chief organizer, describes the occasion as “a sensual sensory feast unlike any other art show in Columbia and an alternative to a Hallmark Valentine’s Day.”  Advanced tickets, which can be purchased at www.nickelodeon.org, are $15. Tickets at the door will be $20. A cash bar will be on hand for wine, beer, non-alcoholic drinks and food. Sponsors include Revente, Sid Nancy, Penelope Design, Bombshell, City Art, Tic Toc Candy Shoppe, Shop Tart, WXRY and Free Times.

• A little bird … actually kind of a big bird … informed me today that yesterday Gov. Nikki Haley held a private meeting with a number of the most conservative members of the legislature — not them “RINOs” (who in less crazy places would be identified as “Republicans”) — to allay their concerns and tamp down their frustrations over her $100M bailout vote on Tuesday.  She is said to have pledged to them that she would “find the money.”  (Where?  Are y’all hiding money?  Maybe all that cigarette tax cache piled away somewhere?  And what happened to cutting government?)

• Wal-Mart bras make you turn black apparently.  Is Gretchen Wilson going to turn black?  Because that would be awesome.  It’s like that movie The Watermelon Man from the ’70s except racier. (Pun!)  The undergarment in question was purchased by a woman in Goose Creek, SC three years ago.  She is suing Wal-Mart and Hanes in what has to be one of the weirdest products liability cases of all time.  To make matters, well, weirder… Her lawyer?  Jarrel Wigger.  (Shakes head.)  I don’t condone the use of that term, but that’s the dude’s name!  Holy moly.

• At this point it’s unclear to me why we even go through the motions of having three “equal” branches of government.  Chief Justice Jean Toal testified before a Senate panel this week to ask legislators — who elect judges with no check from the executive branch in this constitutionally-bonkers state — to allow the judiciary to … function?