The Asheville Citizen-Times continues to rile citizens about junkets taken on the taxpayer’s dime. Advantage West was today’s victim. Those of the fiscal conservative persuasion would be surprised if anything done in the name of economic development – besides hard work and private-sector investment – created prosperity for anything but government appointees. So, tax-paid per diems for extravaganzas in Austin, Copenhagen, Venice, and other happening places; raise no more eyebrows than promising a huge corporation a break on taxes, bragging about jobs created and economic indicators plussed, and watching it go under. (Most of us gave up trying to raise the third eyebrow, anyway.)