Says the private law firm investigating the city of Las Vegas’ sweetheart deal with golf course developer Bill Walters: You’re dragging your feet in getting us documents!

Says the city, in reply: Are not! Why we just handed you more than 18,000 pages of documents on … um, Monday. Yeah, it was Monday, because on Wednesday, we demanded you show up and tell us what you’ve been doing for the last three months, since you were assigned the case.

What, two days isn’t enough time to read 18,000 pages? It’s called Evelyn Wood, baby!

Yes, we made that dialogue up, but only to spare you gentle readers from having to slog through the stupid real-life remarks made by some members of the City Council on Wednesday, when, to nobody’s surprise, members of the law firm investigating the council didn’t show up to tell the subjects of their investigation how the investigation was going.

(Can you picture it? O.J. shows up at Marcia Clark’s office in downtown L.A., storms in on a meeting with her and Mark Fuhrman and demands to know if they found that bloody glove he’s been missing? Yeah, that happens.)

Too harsh? Well, OK, the only thing the City Council’s been accused of killing is the public trust, but still.

Don’t believe us? Check out this gem, from City Councilman Larry Brown: “I do know this firm has been borderline abusive as far as a lack of respect for the official communications process.”

Oh, sorry, we should translate, since Brown rarely speaks in English words and phrases. What he’s saying his — prepare to be shocked — investigators are showing up to interview people without telling them or City Manager Doug Selby beforehand!. We told you it was shocking.

Why, it sounds like those lawyers are actually using commonly accepted investigative techniques as they pursue this investigation of the Walters deal. Damn, what’s next? Subpoenas? Comparison of one witness’ testimony to another’s? When will these people stop?!

What, we wonder, would be the time interval between Selby getting a call about lawyers wanting to sit down with City Employee A and him calling his dark master, Mayor Oscar Goodman? Could that be measured without using the U.S. Navy’s atomic clock, we wonder? And what are the odds that nobody who was interviewed would be gently talked to by the city, either before or after the investigative interview, so officials could find out what investigators were curious about?

Hmmm.

Anyway, even though the city says it won’t release letters from the law firm investigating the Walters mess, my friend and colleague Jon Ralston has acquired them, and posted them on his blog for your reading pleasure. Seriously, Ralston’s blog is like the Christian Science Reading Room for All Material They Don’t Want You To See.

Oh, and this just in! The R-J’s new e-mail newsletter, dubbed eR-J, has flashed word that investigators have discovered the city spent even more money than previously disclosed to benefit Walters. That could be key to the investigation, since Metro Police and District Attorney David Roger have concluded that any crimes that may have been committed are too old to prosecute.

But, if new information has been unearthed, the situation could change. According to the eR-J flash, which you can sign up for if you’re an R-J subscriber, the previous investigation was “very limited” and that investigators have found some transactions that police investigators didn’t examine. (The letter apparently goes out of its way not to criticize the Metro investigation, however.)

UPDATE: The city of Las Vegas didn’t say it wouldn’t release the letters between it and the law firm investigating the Walters deal; in fact, the city did release those letters, today, in response to media requests made Wednesday. It’s also releasing the 18,000 pages of documents sought by the firm, for the low, low price of $25 ($5 per CD for the whole five CD set).

Oh, sure, we could do another round on Vice President Dick Cheney’s negligent shooting of a friend while hunting quail, but why? It’s like shooting fish in … um, it’s like hitting the side of a barn … no, that’s not right … it’s like … oh, hell it’s too easy, OK? Plus, Cheney said it was one of the worst days of his life (to say nothing of it being one of the worst days of his victims’ life!) and we just don’t want to add to their misery.

Instead, let’s go to the kitchen of sarcasm for a plate full of quick hits. Ranch dressing, anyone?

• There’s apparently a bunch more photos showing U.S. soldiers abusing prisoners at Iraq’s notorious (then and now) Abu Ghraib prison. And the Pentagon apparently thinks it’s terrible … that the photos were published on Australian television.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told Knight Ridder Newspapers that the photos “could only further inflame and possibly incite unnecessary violence in the world.” As opposed to necessary violence, Bryan? Are we invading another country today?

State Department attorney John Bellinger III agreed: “It is unfortunate … that the photographs are continuing to come out because I think it simply fans the flames at a time that sentiments on these issues are raw around the world. But the photographs show conduct that’s absolutely disgusting.”

Let’s get something straight here, gentlemen. What’s really unfortunate is that prisoners in military custody were abused at all. It was either an utter failure of training (bad) or an organized campaign of abuse designed to get cooperation (worse).

And here’s some shocking news: The inflammation, violence, and flame-fanning is as a result of the abuse, not a result of the proof of the abuse. If our troops hadn’t misbehaved, there would be no scandal, no pictures and no need to deplore the free flow of information.

One more bit of shocking news: The residents of the Muslim world have every right to be shocked, appalled and outraged by the conduct of soldiers at Abu Ghraib, especially when the United States claimed it came to Iraq to stop just such acts.

• Clark County Sheriff Bill Young apparently had a little chat with President George W. Bush in Washington recently, according to the Review-Journal.

Young asked Bush why Las Vegas had been stricken from the list of cities that are potential terrorist targets, a designation that brings lots of terror-fighting money. And … well, let’s just quote directly from the story for this next part:

“Young said he was surprised that Bush didn’t know Las Vegas was among the cities considered by the Homeland Security Department as a high-risk target for a terrorist attack,” the story says.

Shocking! Outrageous! Hella-Lame! Not the fact that Bush didn’t know Las Vegas had been taken off the list; they probably don’t tell the guy that much these days. No, we’re talking about Young being surprised that Bush didn’t know. C’mon, sheriff! Get with the program!

Anyway, Bush promised to take the matter up with Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, just as soon as Chertoff’s ass recovers from the reaming he received because of his hands-off (way, way off) response to Hurricane Katrina. (And those were just the Republicans doing the reaming. Imagine if the Democrats had joined in. Well, it probably wouldn’t have been much worse, we suppose.)

“I hope the president gets back to us with some logical explanation” for why Las Vegas is off the list, Young told the R-J. Yeah, we wouldn’t be waiting by the phone on that one.

• American Gaming Association President Frank Fahrenkopf apparently makes a lot of money, according to documents unearthed by the R-J’s Tony Batt. And Fahrenkopf apparently doesn’t like talking about it.

After Batt asked Fahrenkopf about his more than $1 million annual base salary (16th highest of all the lobbying corps!) and his $1.25 million total compensation package (23rd highest!) Fahrenkopf got a little testy: How much does your publisher (Sherm Frederick, who is also our corporate overlord-in-chief) make? How about your editor (Tom Mitchell, our former overlord)? How about Batt himself?

Hey, we at Various Things & Stuff have been with the Stephens Media Group for a long time now, and we’re betting that all three of those salaries don’t add up to $1.25 million.

Then again, neither Frederick, nor Mitchell, nor Batt, nor us at Various Things & Stuff have Fahrenkopf’s responsibilities. We don’t have to sell an often-unpopular product — gambling — on Capitol Hill. We don’t have to be friends with total a-holes, like former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay. We don’t have to ensure that casinos devastated by hurricanes are eligible for the same tax breaks as other businesses.

Oh, wait. They didn’t get those tax breaks, did they? Well, anyway, we don’t have to be friends with Tom DeLay at least.

Fahrenkopf, a former Republican Party bigwig, also told Batt he wished the media would stop focusing on disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, who by total coincidence is also a Republican. “Someone in the media should focus on the 99.9 percent of lobbyists who follow the law, are very hardworking and educate legislators on the Hill,” Fahrenkopf suggested.

Hey, the guy does media consulting, too. All for the same $1.25 million the American Gaming Association pays him. Why, it’s totally worth the 17.4 percent of total AGA revenues ($7.2 million) he pulls down! Back off, media! Go check if the vice president has shot anybody else, why don’t you?

Whoops! We said we we’re going to do that. Our bad!