Now that we’re back blogging, it’s time to play a little catch up, with our brand new feature, Super Quick Hits. They’re like regular Quick Hits, only tastier and made in half the time. Fasten your seat belts by putting the metal fitting into the buckle, and pull the strap tight over your hips, because there could be some turbulence!

• Bad! That’s a bad Assemblywoman Francis Allen! Assembly District 4 residents are getting a letter signed by Republican Party Chairman Paul Adams, which warns them against believing that Allen is endorsed by the party.

It turns out, Adams wrote Allen a letter of support before a rival Republican — Cliff Fields — filed to run against her. After that, Adams writes, “I informed Assemblywoman Allen that while I could still support her as an incumbent, I could not endorse her over another Republican candidate.”

But apparently, Allen is still using that statement of support as an endorsement, which irks Adams. “I now realize my trust in her was misplaced. Her knowing misuse of my statement in a matter intended to mislead voters raises a serious question regarding her integrity.”

Allen’s re-election slogan: “Integrity. Trust. Leadership.” Isn’t that ironic? Yeah, we really do think.

Anyway, Adams adds that Fields has accepted the entire Republican Party platform as his own, and has signed a pledge not to raise taxes, while Allen “refuses to sign the pledge to vote against any new taxes .

“Voters in Assembly District 4 should carefully evaluate the positions of the two Republican candidates and choose the candidate who best represents their values,” the letter concludes.

Adams couldn’t immediately be reached for comment on the letter. Nor, for that matter, could Allen.

• My colleague Jon Ralston does a good job of responding to Des Moines Register columnist David Yspen, who’s bitching about Nevada being selected for an early caucus right after Iowa but before New Hampshire.

In a July 30 column, Yespen highlighted every gambling and prostitution stereotype that we heartily embrace here in the Silver State, including using the what happens here, stays here line. (Mr. Yespen, you owe Billy Vassiliadis a dollar. Pay up, bitch, because you know how we treat welchers out here!)

• We’re gamblers here at Various Things & Stuff, and if we’d had to bet, we would have bet that Republic Services of Southern Nevada would have persuaded the Clark County Commission to approve its one-year pilot program of picking up trash only once per week in exchange for weekly recycling pickups. It’s always been a good general assumption that the politically generous trash giant gets whatever it wants, including long, long franchise agreements that lock out competition.

So, how about double-or-nothing odds on this: A new proposal to do essentially the same thing will eventually emerge, perhaps a year or more from now, when the attention of customers is diverted, maybe by a new season of American Idol. Any takers?

• So some news media types were among the first to get citations for violating that please-don’t-feed-the-homeless ordinance in downtown Las Vegas. And a television station was cited for parking in a city park before its posted hours. We’d love to see how either of these citations turns out when they go to court.

Mayor Oscar Goodman denounced the citations — irony alert! — as a “publicity stunt” and said the media should be using its trucks to take homeless people to shelters. Ah, if only there were enough media, and enough shelters. But hey, isn’t that the city’s job?

All of Goodman’s fulminations make us wonder if perhaps he shouldn’t hand power over to his brother, Raul Goodman, who is chief of the city’s army. That way the rest us can get to work on planning Las Vegas’ ultimate transition back to democracy.

• The Review-Journal’s always-lame Living section has officially run out of ideas and is now using Hallmark calendars to generate story topics.

• Meanwhile, it seem s at least one other R-J writer isn’t just taking inspiration from news releases; he’s taking actual text. Ken White’s July 17 story about the winner of an art competition contained several paragraphs that appear as if they were lifted directly from a news release published three weeks earlier by Clark County.

To wit:

June 29 county news release: “[Damien] Gilley received the ‘best in show’ designation along with a $1,000 prize.”

July 17 White story: “Gilley received the ‘best in show’ award and a $1,000 prize.”

County news release: “Gilley earned his bachelor of fine arts degree from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in May and also holds a degree in psychology and religious studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara. The California native moved to Las Vegas three years ago to attend UNLV.”

White story: “Gilley earned his bachelor of fine arts degree from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in May and also holds a degree in psychology and religious studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara. The California native moved to Las Vegas three years ago to attend UNLV.”

County news release: “The Winchester Cultural Center gallery is open from 8 a.m. to 7:30 p.m. Monday through Friday and 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. Most of the work in the exhibit is available for purchase directly from the artists.”

White story: “Gilley earned his bachelor of fine arts degree from the University of Nevada, Las Vegas in May and also holds a degree in psychology and religious studies from the University of California, Santa Barbara. The California native moved to Las Vegas three years ago to attend UNLV.”

County news release: “Approximately 85 artists entered the competition….”

White story: “Approximately 85 artists entered the competition….”

The rest of the story also contains a canned quote from Gilley and other facts, in slightly different phrasing from the county’s release.

Now, technically, re-writing a news release isn’t plagiarism; that stuff is meant for reporters to use as they will. But most reporters at least re-write it.

• And finally today, the Las Vegas Sun announced its choice for governor of Nevada on Sunday, and that choice is (drumroll, please) Henderson Mayor Jim Gibson! Cue surprise gasps from those of us in the audience.

Now, we’re not going to suggest that the Sun is biased because it, and the family that owns it, the Greenspuns, are residents in Henderson and do lots of business in the city. Business for which they occasionally have to go before the City Council. Not at all.

Instead, we’re going to suggest the paper and its owners are biased because Gibson blessed a highly profitable land deal among the Greenspuns, golf course mogul Bill Walters and the city.

Who will the R-J pick for governor? We’re all waiting breathlessly for that one, too. But something tells us it will be state Sen. Bob Beers, to whom the paper has given roughly $7.2 million worth of in-kind contributions in the form of free publicity over the last two years.

And the battle is joined! In the media world, at least, it’s Gibson vs. Beers. Will the results be different in the real world? There’s less than two weeks to find out!

• Oh, and one more thing. We’ve learned (when someone e-mailed us) that Congressional District 3 candidate Tessa Hafen will appear on “The Minority Report” tonight on Air America. You remember Air America, right? The liberal radio network? Yes, it’s still around. And yes, you can only hear it on the web in Nevada. But check it out here at 6:30 p.m. if you’re interested.

Apologies, readers. For technological reasons we don’t fully understand, Various Things & Stuff has been down for the last two days at least. Our heartfelt appreciation to the four people who wrote in, wondering what went wrong. (And that evil Molly Ball said on Nevada Week in Review that we only had three readers. Wrong again!)

Anyway, the blogs had to change servers, and ultimately that fell to the crack Information Technology department at Stephens Media Group World Headquarters on Bonanza Road. (Insert your favorite “I.T. smoking crack joke here.) They care for us and our mission (”providing the best in saracstic sarcastic comments about the news and newsmakers, since 2005!”™) in the same way that Mayor Oscar Goodman cares for the homeless. But, ultimately, they came through for us, and we are back online.

So, no we have not been censored, and no, our corporate overlords are still letting us say whatever we want, to the chagrin of many. We’ll play some catch up later this morning to cover the things we’ve missed. Again, our apologies, and thanks to our faithful followers for following us so faithfully.