It’s Friday, and there’s plenty going on. Let’s do some quick hits:

• UNLV President Carol Harter will be leaving the presidency soon, reports my friend and colleague Jon Ralston. Harter was never the favorite of university Chancellor Jim Rogers, so we’re not surprised. A little inside tidbit: When we last interviewed Harter one-on-one, we totally gave her an opportunity to criticize Rogers in confidence. She didn’t do it, speaking only positively about the man who would become, in some ways, her nemesis. Good luck, Madam President. You’ve got class.

• The anonymous blogger behind Monday Morning Politics is somebody with inside knowledge, that’s for sure. We recommend the item “Did anybody, anywhere, think “honest government” actually existed?” (Sure, Monday! It exists on The West Wing! Oh, wait, that show’s going off the air…)

Anyway, we think that there’s some validity to the criticism of the media leveled in this blog item; the true workings of government are hardly ever glimpsed in news pages or columns. We don’t know if the public would or could believe it if it were.

• Sacramento Bee columnist Marjie Lundstrom is striking back against the Nevada Development Authority’s new ad campaign, which is trying to recruit businesses from the Golden State with print ads and billboards in Sacramento, San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego. Her column takes umbrage at being dissed by the likes of Nevada, which we can understand, hailing from the Golden State ourselves. (The Bee requires registration, but it’s quick and painless. Plus, we gave them a funny fake name. We used to work for the rival, now-defunct Sacramento Union newspaper years ago, and old rivalries run deep.)

We try not to take sides in these silly which-state-is-better battles. After all, trying to get somebody to move from San Francisco, Los Angeles or San Diego to Las Vegas (or, even less likely, Reno) is like trying to convince a Ferrari driver to trade you for your used Fiat. But we think Lundstrom would be even more surprised to find the Nevada Development Authority takes credit for bringing 1.7 billion new businesses to Nevada in the last fiscal year alone. Must be those oh-so-clever ads!

• President George W. Bush is refusing to release photographs of himself with guilty-pleading lobbyist Jack Abramoff. Bush is citing his executive authority as a reason to keep the photos secret, even though they were taken with a taxpayer-purchased camera by a taxpayer-paid photographer in a taxpayer-owned building. It’s not like they’re secret plans for the invasion of the next Muslim country that Vice President Dick Cheney gets a (metaphorical, we hope) hard-on for, is it? They’re just pictures.

“Having my picture taken with someone doesn’t mean I’m a friend with him or know him very well,” Bush said, trying desperately to distance himself from one of his fund-raising “Pioneers,” who ponied up at least $100,000 for the president.

So, Mr. President, if it’s no big deal, why not release the photos? Bad hair day?

• Finally, a bit of self-promotion: We at Various Things & Stuff will be guest-hosting tonight’s Extremely Totally Very Extra Special edition of Nevada Week in Review. It airs at 7:30 p.m. on KLVX Channel 10. During the show, we will be giving away new cars to all audience members, and Tom Cruise will be dropping by to leap over the table in a promotional stunt for May’s Mission Impossible 3. Or maybe we’ll just talk about stuff with a panel of local journalists. Probably that.

• Speaking of Channel 10, don’t forget that Saturday is the “Splendor in the Glass” wine and beer tasting event at the Las Vegas Hilton. As a big fan of wine and beer, we at Various Things & Stuff will be in attendance. Get your tickets at KLVX’s offices (they’re on Channel 10 Drive, near Flamingo Road and Eastern Avenue) or at any Lee’s Discount Liquor. Mmmmmm, Lee’s Discount Liquor.

The reactions to the Clark County School District’s unanimous selection of in-house candidate Walt Rulffes continue to pour in, and the business community is up to its green eyeshades in anger. In fact, the comments of some members of the Coalition for a Better Nevada are so intemperate as to cross the boundary between mere lameness into stupidity.

But more on that in a second.

Trustees, for their part, said they went with Rulffes, the district’s co-interim superintendent and former top moneyman, because they needed some consistent leadership for the 2007 Legislature, and for an upcoming $3.5 billion bond issue needed to build more schools. To which we say: Bull.

There was, and is, plenty of time for the district to do what it should have done, which is start the entire search anew. While the business types may be hyperbolic and harbor secret delusions of running the district, they’re not wrong when they say the district needs change, and the kind of change that can only come from outside leadership.

Having said that, however, coalition chief Maureen Peckman continues to demonstrate how ill-suited she is to the task of leading the business group. She said, in the Review-Journal, that the short contract approved for Rulffes through August 2007 would give the district a chance to choose a new leader, and that in the meantime, the coalition will try to meet weekly with Rulffes to get him to consider smaller schools and more autonomy. Put another way, she wants Rulffes to embrace the ideas of the business-backed candidate, who withdrew, Eric Nadelstern.

If we were Rulffes, after all the coalition did to keep him from becoming superintendent, we’d have a short, direct and eminently clear message for Peckman and her group. (Can you guess what it is? First one to answer gets bragging rights!)

But Peckman’s remarks probably should not be surprising, given that coalition creator (and university Chancellor) Jim Rogers was even more over-the-top in the Las Vegas Sun. “I think what it does is it puts the public at risk for two years,” Rogers said.

What, did the school board suddenly decide to ship nuclear waste through city streets? Let prisoners out of jail early, with a free Glock 17 and two extra magazines? Build open pits of hot liquid magma in the places where sidewalks used to be?

No, it didn’t, and the public is only “at risk” from third-degree burns caused by overheated rhetoric.

But wait, there’s more. “They [the district's board of trustees] screwed this one up so bad I’m not sure anyone would feel comfortable applying,” Rogers added.

First, with a salary of almost $300,000, we’re sure there will be no shortage of applicants. Second, are we even sure the district screwed this one up? Nadelstern pulled his name out of the running after hearing some board members express a preference for his opponent. But it was Peckman who said in an e-mail that there were four votes in his favor.

How did she know, with three critical votes undecided, that Nadelstern would win, unless she or someone else had polled the members? And might that polling, leaked back to Nadelstern, have caused him to quit? Besides, a 4-3 vote is still a win, and Nadelstern is supposed to be a New Yorker: Deal with it, baby.

In any case, we’d argue the business community’s heavy-handed and downright outrageous behavior was at least as much a cause of the week’s events as was the school board members’ actions. (We still cannot determine what it is the board supposedly did wrong; some members simply preferred Rulffes, and had reasons to back up their views. The only “sin” was saying no to the handpicked candidate of the business crowd, which is no sin at all. Sure, we think Nadelstern would have made a great superintendent, but, in the end, it’s not our call, and it’s not the call of the business community. It’s the elected-by-the-people school board’s call.

So while we would have preferred to see the board look for a new candidate, we also have to acknowledge they acted within their authority and discretion in choosing Rulffes. We only hope his superintendency isn’t plagued by the spectacle created not by the board, but by Those Who Wish They Were The Board. Hey business: If you want to pick who the superintendent is, run for office. We’re sure Rogers has checks ready for you.