WARNING: Do not drink milk or pop while reading, and for best effect, put on "Dueling Banjos" by Eric Weissberg and Steve Mandel or the "The Theme from the Dukes of Hazzard" by Waylon Jennings.

If Washington State University professor Chris Lupke set the Olympic record for stupidity earlier this week by blaming plastic bags for high gas and food prices, serial liar and megalomaniac Chuck Pezeshki just set the world record.

Pezeshki unzipped his fly in a column in today's LewistonTribune and revealed to all just how the left-wing intelligentsia at WSU truly loathe the working class of the Palouse.

For those of you who are unfamiliar with the situation here, Pullman in addition to being in the heart of wheat country, is also home to Washington State University. As at every university, there is a clique of die-hard socialist professors here who think that they know what is best for everyone else by virtue of their advanced degrees and more cosmopolitan Weltanschauung. This "town-gown" divide is perhaps more exacerbated in Pullman because the town and surrounding area is deeply conservative.

Our local "progressives" are stinging from bitter defeat after bitter defeat, as their enlightened ideas such as "slam dunking" Wal-Mart and "bring your own bag" have been overwhelmingly rejected by the great unwashed in town.

So Pezeshki decided to lash out, much as Lupke did, by responding to Michael Costello's scathing and hilarious column in the Trib about the "Pest-o-crats" and their war on the poor plastic bag a few weeks back.

The patently false junk science about plastic bags being made of oil and killing marine animals that Pezeshki mentioned was bad enough for an engineering professor.  But his fiercest invective was reserved for the "rubes" that inhabit the Palouse.

But Whitman County needs to understand who actually butters their bread.

It's time to wake up, folks. It's not agriculture. Ag provides at best about 1.4 percent of total wages in our county, and 2.5 percent employment. The university pegs out at about 50 percent wages, and 40 percent people.

Of course, that doesn't consider at all the multiplier effects all that cash has on the impact the university has on the larger economy. Without question, WSU is the engine that drives the Palouse economy. Imagine retail on the Palouse without WSU. Hopefully, you're pulling up a picture of St. John.

Ouch.  Pezeshki, a former Democratic candidate for local office in Idaho, again proves he has no political aspirations in Whitman County.  This is not the first time Chuck has talked about "buttered bread."  As Alex McGregor, president of the McGregor Company, said a few years back in response to a similar rant:

Pezeshki claims only a small percentage of Whitman County jobs are agricultural. He ignores many whose livelihoods involve serving farm families -- those employed by grain companies, implement dealers, fertilizer firms, insurance agencies, trucking businesses, automotive dealers and so on.

Pezeshki also conveniently forgot to mention the impact of world-class electronics manufacturer Schweitzer Engineering Labs which is headquartered in Pullman and employs over 1,700 people.

And there's the rub.  We're not a one-horse town any longer.  As SEL has diversified Pullman and Whitman County's economy, the power of the university blowhards has been broken forever.  But that doesn't stop Pezeshki from demanding obeisance:

Which brings me back to the plastic bags. WSU faculty are the real economic clout in the area. They're the ones that are buttering your bread - something that the Pullman City Council seems to be clueless about. The council wants to direct city retail, as well as policies about plastic bags, toward attracting a prison or a call center as the next economic engine, instead of listening to faculty who bring home the bacon for this community.

And faculty members like things like clean communities. They like great schools. They like bike paths, and car-restricted zones. And those of us already here need to replace those of us who retire with equally or more productive, faculty.

And when those people come to interview on campus, they're pretty discerning about where they want to live. They drive around the community. They read the local newspapers. And when they see a community whose leadership is fighting for a Wal-Mart, or shooting down even the smallest concerns about plastic bags, they start asking questions. And when they open the newspaper, and see the broader community opinion pages engaged in constant attacks against professors, homosexuals, as well as any other progressive issue, they rightly ask why they should come here. And the really good ones have choices.

My point is this: If a group of faculty members wants a bag tax to reduce plastic bag waste, if you care about the economy, you'd be smart to give it to them. So next time you go to the grocery store, you'll be able to put an extra steak in your reusable bag.

Pezeshki, who has written a book glorifying eco-terrorists fighting the timber industry, described himself during that time:

We were just hauling ourselves out of bed every day, determined to fuck with the machine.

So why did this modern day Jack London cum Abbie Hoffman, along with fellow arrogant loudmouth Chris Lupke, sit mute in the council chambers two weeks ago when the plastic bag tax was being discussed?  I guess it's easier to sit with your steak and your reusable bag behind the coward's perch at a keyboard.