Imagine the peace! After today, your mailbox won’t be stuffed with fliers, your phone won’t be ringing off the hook with robocalls and your television viewing won’t be interrupted with political ads. Why, it’s sweet freedom, and it’s just around the corner!

But before we relax, how about a few Election Day Quick Hits? We promise we’ll throw something non-election related in for your reading pleasure, too. Here we go!

· Quotable: "This election season has been unprecedented. I’m not sure anybody has ever seen the level of vitriol and the sensationalism of the stories that have come this election cycle. Anybody who would confidently predict the outcome of these closer races is full of baloney." — Pete Ernaut, partner at R&R Partners.

Let’s leave aside the fact that sensationalism of the stories comes more from the subject matter than the authors (how do you underplay a story about a gubernatorial candidate accused of assaulting a woman not his wife after a night of drinking a few weeks before Election Day)?

Instead, we’re curious about the part where "anybody who would confidently predict the outcome of these closer races is full of baloney." Because, as we recall, our friend Jon Ralston wrote an entire column on Sunday confidently predicting the outcome of these closer races. And Ernaut just said he was "full of baloney"!

We think Ralston should challenge Ernaut to eat a baloney sandwich if his picks turn out to be right.

· Now we know why Wayne Newton is a Republican! He doesn’t like the IRS and he lives "a fast-lane life … on private jets and Arabian horses, on personal yachts and helicopters, and behind the wheel of his fabulous cars." Or so says the Los Angeles Times in a recent West magazine profile of the singer known as "Mr. Las Vegas."

We were just wondering, after seeing Newton hanging with gubernatorial candidate and fellow fast-lane swinger U.S. Rep. Jim Gibbons on the cover of the Review-Journal today.

· Who says Nevada doesn’t get any love? The state got an entire two-part episode of the new, great show Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip dedicated to it, with guest star John Goodman as a surly Pahrump municipal judge! Part One aired Monday, and saw key members of the cast come to Pahrump to deal with a colleagues’ outstanding speeding ticket. Part Two, to air Nov. 13, will resolve the dilemma.

Now, we know that we’re hip-deep in the political season (at least for one more day) but consider our advice on this point to be totally non-partisan: Watch this show. It is a great show. Don’t believe us? What other show would depict an actor depicting Jesus Christ as head of a network’s standards and practices division? Enough said.

· And finally today, go vote! The president of the United States himself said that, whatever your party, or even if you don’t have one, do your duty, get to the polls and let your voice be heard. We couldn’t agree more, although that’s where our agreement with POTUS ends. Polls are open until 7 p.m. You can find out where your polling place is located by clicking here. Today is your chance to make democracy work.

So the guy who U.S. Rep. Jim Gibbons allegedly helped get millions in federal defense contracts has sued Nevada Democratic Party Chairman Tom Collins for defamation, because Collins told the Reno Gazette-Journal that records in a lawsuit that purportedly show bribes paid to Gibbons should be unsealed.

The five-page complaint filed by Warren Trepp, chief executive of eTreppid Technologies, says that Collins defamed him in an Associated Press story published in the Gazette-Journal Nov. 2. In that story, Collins referenced a Nov. 1 story published in the Wall Street Journal that first reported that Gibbons had used his office to help Trepp, and had taken a $12,000-plus Caribbean cruise paid for by Trepp without reporting it, as required by House ethics rules.

In that story, the Journal reports "Mr. Gibbons also got other, unreported gifts of cash and casino chips from Mr. Trepp, according to sworn testimony in a civil lawsuit brought by a former executive at eTreppid, Dennis Montgomery." And in the Associated Press story, Collins added that these gifts and chips "could have a value of up to $400,000." Where Collins got that figure, we don’t know.

We also don’t know why Trepp sued Collins. After all, Collins (mostly) repeated charges that were made by Montgomery, the reported by the Wall Street Journal, then re-reported by the Associated Press, then re-re-reported by the Reno Gazette-Journal.

Actually, we’re just kidding. We do know why Trepp sued Collins and not any of the other, deeper-pocked entities that reported his alleged bribe-making and, in his words, called his integrity and dedication to his country and state into question. And so do all of you.

What we were surprised by in Trepp’s lawsuit is the clear implication that a citizen, be it a political party official or not, cannot talk about things they read in the newspaper, even in the context of filing a lawsuit themselves to unseal records that might prove or disprove the allegations that appeared in a newspaper.

By his logic, we at Various Things & Stuff could not say that the Wall Street Journal reported than an ex-employee of eTreppid Technologies alleged that Warren Trepp offered bribes to Jim Gibbons. According to him, we are at risk of being sued, simply for saying that the Wall Street Journal reported an ex-employee of Warren Trepp alleged that Jim Gibbons took bribes from Warren Trepp. If we’re to read that lawsuit correctly, Trepp’s view is that we simply cannot say that according to the Wall Street Journal, an ex-employee said in a lawsuit that Warren Trepp offered, and Jim Gibbons accepted, gifts of cash and casino chips, which were totally unreported.

That’s right: Warren Trepp and his lawyers don’t want us at Various Things & Stuff to be able to say, legally speaking, that THE WALL STREET JOURNAL QUOTED THE LAWSUIT OF AN EX-EMPLOYEE TO SAY THAT TREPP GAVE GIBBONS "OTHER, UNREPORTED GIFTS OF CASH AND CASINO CHIPS" AND THAT THIS ALLEGATION WAS MADE IN SWORN TESTIMONY IN A SEALED FEDERAL LAWSUIT.

Gee, that seems kind of anti-freedom to us. Aren’t the Republicans supposed to be pro-freedom? Anyway, we don’t want any legal trouble with Trepp’s people, so we better not say anything more.