We step out of town for a few days, and the whole world goes crazy! Let’s see if we can play catch-up, with a heaping helping of Quick Hits. Here we go!

• We TOTALLY think Assemblywoman Sharron Angle should continue her brave fight against voter fraud by pursuing a lawsuit that seeks a new election in the 2nd Congressional District.

So what if Secretary of State Dean Heller appears to have won more votes in the Aug. 15 primary? So what if the chairman of the National Republican Campaign Committee wants her to drop the lawsuit? Or if U.S. Rep. Jon Porter, former U.S. Rep. Barbara Vucanovich, Assembly Minority Leader Lynn Hettrick and the Review-Journal editorial page want her to give up for the sake of the party? Who the hell are they anyway ?

Oh, and U.S. Sen. John Ensign? Just because he was in the exact same position in 1998, and just because he did the honorable thing and terminated a recount when he saw his chances of victory were hopeless doesn’t mean Angle has to follow suit! Hell, no! And just because Ensign has encouraged her to put the race behind her for the good of the party to allow Heller to pursue his general election race against Democrat Jill Derby doesn’t mean she has to follow his advice, does it? No!

We think Angle said it best when she said, “This is the greater good. We say we support the Constitution. This is our place to really put that to the test.” Yes! That’s the ticket, Angle!

Plus, it’s not like Angle doesn’t have any support. She’s got Nevada Republican Party Chairman Paul Adams behind her! And he’s never been known to throw an Allen wrench into a Republican primary contest, has he? Nope. And there’s former Assemblyman Ron Knecht, too. He thinks the lawsuit could be good for fixing problems with voting in Washoe County. Sure, Knecht lost his Assembly seat, but he was the top vote getter in a Northern Nevada race for the board of regents earlier this month. And you know how respected that body is!

We know there are cynics out there who will say Angle is simply being a selfish, whiney toad. We know they’ll say she only cares about herself, and that she’ll do anything to scratch and claw her way to Washington, D.C. now that she’s no longer able to befoul the Assembly chamber with her odious votes against civilization. They’ll imply, as Heller campaign manager Mike Slanker did, that Angle’s just not being “classy” about this. But they just don’t understand. As Angle said about poor, benighted Ensign, they just don’t have all the facts.

Look, we know people might raise questions about us at Various Things & Stuff vigorously supporting Angle, given that she’s a right-wing kook and we’re all liberal and whatnot. But we totally assure you it has absolutely nothing to do with us rooting for a long-shot Democratic victory in the 2nd Congressional District. No way! It’s all about the Constitution, baby!

So we say: Go, Angle, go! Prosecute your lawsuit! If you lose, appeal to the state Supreme Court! File in federal court after that, since this is a matter of voting rights! Take it all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court, if necessary! Do what U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman did in Connecticut: Form your own party, if needs be! But whatever you do, do not give up before Nov. 7! The voters are depending on you!

• Some people may see a wee bit of hypocrisy in state Sen. Dina Titus accepting $30,000 from one Jeffrey Guinn, son of Gov. Kenny Guinn, and, like his father, a Republican.

Why? Well, Guinn also donated $30,000 to Henderson Mayor Jim Gibson, who was soundly defeated in the Democratic primary by Titus. And when he did, Titus slammed. It was, Titus said, proof that Gibson was really a Republican in an ill-fitting Democratic disguise.

So, is Titus a Republican? Hell, no! She’s merely a candidate who can attract support from all segments of Nevada, even the GOP! At least that’s what Titus spokeswoman Hilarie Grey said once the donation became public.

“I would say that it’s evidence that we have support from a wide variety of Nevadans, including across the aisle,” she said. So, then, why didn’t Gibson simply have a wide variety of Nevadans on his side when he took Guinn’s money? Hmmmm.

Beyond that, however, we won’t read anything else into this little flap, save the fact that apparently nobody in the Guinn family wants U.S. Rep. Jim Gibbons to be governor.

• What the hell was that monorail story by Gaming Wire Editor Rod Smith doing on the front page of the Review-Journal on Tuesday? Not only did it contain hardly any new information, it took until the 28th paragraph to get to a key point: The monorail has no clue how it’s going to pay for a planned expansion to the airport and the west side of the Las Vegas Strip. And until that’s settled, “Monorail set to grow” is a premature headline for any story on the train.

Look, we give credit to people like Curtis Myles, the monorail’s CEO, who has a lot of ambitious plans for the Peoplemover that Juice Built. If dreams were dollars, he’d be a millionaire many times over. But the fact is, in a little place we call reality, the monorail is sinking rapidly. Only a generous over-borrowing (with state-issued, tax-exempt bonds) has kept the damn thing out of bankruptcy thus far. And no amount of breathless promotion by the monorail’s operatives — or business journalists — is going to change that.

Oh, hey, what’s that in today’s Review-Journal? Why, it’s another of the faithful dispatches from Road Warrior Omar Sofradzija, documenting the decline of the monorail. Let’s distill the hard facts:

July 2006 average daily ridership: 19,379

July 2005 average daily ridership: 32,929

(Difference: 13,550 fewer average daily riders)

July 2005 average farebox revenue: $95,035

July 2006 average farebox revenue: $85,718

(Difference: $9,317 less coming in every day, on average)

What analysts say the monorail needs to break even: 28,000 average daily riders and farebox revenue of $123,000

How far the monorail fell short last month: 8,621 riders and $37,282. Per day.

Yes, it sure seems like the monorail is set to grow, doesn’t it? Do you think the Gaming Wire people read the news section of the R-J?

• Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld apparently compared opponents of the war in Iraq to Nazi appeasers, in a speech. So, if we’re not allowed to compare President George W. Bush to Adolf Hitler, can somebody tell Rumsfeld he’s not allowed to compare war foes to Quislings?

Then again, Vice President Dick Cheney persists in linking Iraq and the Sept. 11 attacks in the public mind, even after President Bush (who tried slipping that one by reporters recently) was called on the carpet and forced to admit what we now know to be true: There was no Iraq-al-Qaida connection.

It’s tough to argue with people who have no personal honor and will say anything to win. But in the long run, truth will out. We predict truth’s return to Washington, D.C. will happen at noon precisely on Jan. 20, 2009.