» You know, we just bet Henderson Mayor Jim Gibson is still steamed by that mean old state Sen. Dina Titus and her reckless "pay to play" lies about how he often took campaign contributions from people who regularly come before the City Council for business. Oh, wait.

» Quotable: "A lot of good ideas will come out of this. Some we won’t be able to implement. But you want to hear them. There may be a nugget that will save democracy. Democracy is not going to be saved in Washington, but in the Carson Cities of this country." — Gov.-elect Jim Gibbons, in a Review-Journal story on his 180-plus-person transition teams.

God. Help. Us.

But it’s also fun to note that, according to gubernatorial spokesman Brent Boynton, none of the 10 (count ‘em!) teams will either make policy or recommend a course of action to the governor. In fact, reports the Las Vegas Sun, the governor is not even aware of whether his teams are meeting. But everybody seems to agree that it’s a great public relations coup for Gibbons!

"From my vantage point it was a timely idea and a good idea. Whether it adds to the process or is workable, who’s going to know or care?" asked Republican consultant Pete Ernaut.

And with a philosophy like that, we can’t help but wonder how Ernaut could possibly have been passed over for a job as, say, secretary of defense?

» Speaking of the SecDef, we must agree with New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman, who appeared on NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday. After hearing that Vice President Dick Cheney had called Donald Rumsfeld "the finest secretary of defense this nation has ever had," Friedman said one of two things is true: Either President George W. Bush is a fool (for firing the nation’s finest defense secretary, in the middle of a war no less) or Cheney is lying.

Based on habit, we’re going to go with Cheney is lying. But that doesn’t mean that both options couldn’t simultaneously be true. We’re just saying.

» The Las Vegas Sun’s Jeff German, who carefully tracks these things, says the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority has spent $803,426 on legal fees surrounding the questionable 2004 sale of its "what happens here, stays here" slogan to ad agency R&R Partners for just $1. (Ooops! By using it, we think we owe the convention authority $1!)

Anyway, beyond proving that elected and appointed officials don’t really care what they do with room tax money, this story is proof that state Sen. Dina Titus and freshman Assemblyman Richard "Tick" Segerblom have a point when they say there’s definitely some convention authority cash available for other projects.

» Speaking of pissing away taxpayer dollars on questionable projects, both the city and the county get into the act.

» Quotable: "It’s a reasonable thing for people to start asking their doctor. Say: ‘I want you to be really careful and slow in examining my colon.’" — Dr. Douglas Rex, on a study that shows doctors who take their time during colonoscopies are more apt to find pre-cancerous polyps than those who hurry.

» Neonopolis, still failing. Go figure.

» We certainly hope all those right-wingers who bitched about the Marijuana Policy Project coming to Nevada to try to legalize an ounce of pot simply because our initiative process is relatively easy will issue similar statements denouncing the American Civil Rights Coalition. That group is considering Nevada for an initiative that would ban racial preferences in government hiring, contracting and university admissions. Damn out-of-state special interests!

» Since everybody has weighed in on the idea from state Sen. Bob Beers to arm schoolteachers in Nevada, we figured we would, too. By way of full disclosure, let us just say that we are what you’d generally classify as a "gun nut," owning a trio of pistols and a nifty rifle, too. We believe that you can never have too much ammo (or pizza, but that’s another post).

But we’re not exactly down with Beers’ idea, for the very simple reason that teachers are teachers, not special forces soldiers. They go to work every day with the mission of imparting knowledge, not defending themselves and their students against armed aggressors. That’s the job of the school police, and Metro.

Have you ever noticed that in police shootings, the suspect is often wounded in the hand, or foot, or that cops require multiple magazines to subdue an armed suspect? There’s a simple reason for that: stress. Even a highly trained police officer is not going to put every round in the 10-ring (sorry, that’s gun nut talk for "center of the target") in an actual, real-life shooting situation. We’d venture a guess that only special forces soldiers are able to do that (think Navy SEALs, Army Delta Force commandos or Marine force recon team members).

So if highly trained cops, who train and qualify with their weapons regularly, and come to work every day knowing they may be called upon to use deadly force, can still miss their targets, why would we expect teachers to do better?

Beers points up a legitimate problem (beyond the legitimate problem that Beers wasn’t getting his recommended daily allowance of media attention). The solution, we think, is to hire more people whose job it is to keep schools safe. And that’s school police officers, not teachers. Leave the three Rs to the pros, and leave the cop stuff to the pros, too.

At least that’s what this gun nut thinks.

» And finally today, any viewer of Fox News knows what conservatives mean when they say "fair." And that is this: A person or news organization that can be spun to the right-wing point of view, or at least one that ignores the faults and failures of the right.

That’s why the Review-Journal’s Ed Vogel shouldn’t be proud of landing on the "hot" list in Liberty Watch: The Magazine, known mostly around these parts for its willingness to publish KKK-worthy screeds from Las Vegas expatriate Ken Ward.

"Unlike most political links to journalism in Nevada, Vogel is one of the few remaining voices received as unbiased and fair," the clumsily phrased listing reads. "He sits and watches to interpret and deliver the meaningful inches of news that matter most to the Silver State."

Let’s translate that into human language, shall we? Vogel is one of the few (we count two, actually) journalists in town who doesn’t recognize Liberty Watch Publisher George Harris for what he really is: a total failure in the realm of politics. Harris, a colleague reminds is, is the most consistently wrong person in Nevada when it comes to backing political causes or accurately handicapping races. And the fact that the cover of Liberty Watch may be available for sale doesn’t add to his credibility.

Instead of shunning Harris, or at least treating him like the inconsequential gadfly that he is, Vogel actually seeks him out for quotes, as recently as Saturday. That’s all well and good; even people without anything meaningful to say should be allowed to jump into the conversation. But with Vogel’s disturbing tendency to give the right a little too much play, it would behoove him to ask why virtually nobody else in Nevada politics seems to regard Harris as interview-worthy. We can’t all be left-leaning socialists bent on the downfall of capitalism, can we?

Not that there’s anything wrong with that.

Nevada’s big casinos were notoriously absent from the debate over Question 5, the Nevada Clean Indoor Air Act, before the Nov. 7 election. And why not? A ban on smoking was very popular, polls showed, and it specifically exempted gaming floors. What was there to gain by fighting it?

(Still, it should be noted that two casinos did contribute to the effort. Las Vegas Sands Corp., parent of The Venetian, gave the most at $100,000. The Las Vegas Hilton gave $5,000. But the majority of contributors were taverns and slot route operators.)

But those casinos aren’t staying on the sidelines any longer. As first reported Sunday by our colleague Ian Mylchreest of the Las Vegas Business Press, and then by us at Various Things & Stuff, the Nevada Resort Association is trying today to intervene in the lawsuit against the Nevada Clean Indoor Air Act. And judging by a copy of initial court papers put up on the web by our colleague Jon Ralston, this is going to be a doozy.

The association argues, via Schreck Brignone attorney Todd Bice, that the Nevada Clean Indoor Air Act isn’t vague when it comes to banning smoking in hotel and motel rooms. (The act’s actual language bans smoking "in indoor places of employment.")

Now, that’s a bold assertion, given that Carson City District Court Judge Bill Maddox found that it did ban smoking in hotel and motel rooms, since maids, maintenance workers, security officers and others are required to enter hotel and motel rooms in the course of their jobs. Tellingly, the backers of the Nevada Clean Indoor Air Act, aka Nevadans for Tobacco-Free Kids, argued its initiative did not ban smoking in hotel and motel rooms. (Why? But of course: The smoke banners didn’t want big casinos throwing millions into an effort to defeat the initiative, which surely would have happened if casino bosses thought their business were being targeted by the initiative.)

Still, if the authors of the initiative say the document doesn’t do something, but a judge finds that it does do that thing, at the very least you have what folks in the legal business like to call a "justiciable controversy." Translated, it means the language of the initiative is unclear on its face, and therefore requires legal interpretation. That means, to coin a phrase, that it’s vague.

But the Nevada Resort Association also appears to be targeting a key argument that the bar, tavern and convenience store owners have raised: That the act creates an equal protection violation in that it treats similar establishments differently, based upon whether they have a nonrestricted (15 or more slot machines) or a restricted (15 or fewer machines) gambling license. (Under the act, bars with an unrestricted gambling license may be allowed to continue to offer smoking, whereas bars with restricted licenses most certainly cannot.) This, plaintiffs argue, is illegal under the 14th Amendment’s Equal Protection Clause (which applies to corporations inasmuch as courts have found they have the legal status of people; we at Various Things & Stuff don’t necessarily agree with that, but it’s another argument for another day).

"To the extent the court or plaintiffs deem otherwise, the Resort Association denies that the [Nevada Clean Indoor Air Act] creates any unconstitutional classifications with respect to the distinction between businesses with restricted gaming licenses and nonrestricted gaming licenses," Bice’s filing says.

So the question of the hour (at least until we read the brief, scheduled to be filed today, just one day before the Nevada Clean Indoor Air Act goes before District Court Judge Douglas Herndon for review) is why? Why would casinos not fight this initiative all the way, thus protecting their rights to continue to allow smoking as well as everybody else’s rights to allow it, too?

Welcome to Nevada, folks, where the casinos look out for their own interests, and nobody else’s. It’s not surprising, either. Casinos are not the protectors of civil liberties. They’re for-profit businesses that tend to their bottom lines out of a legal responsibility to their shareholders. (Speaking of, does anybody else think some in the casino industry expect to pick up business from smokers who still want to enjoy a cigarette while playing video poker? Bye bye P.T.’s Pub; hello Mirage and Mandalay Bay!)

Personally, we think it would be better had casinos jumped into this fight early, declared that this is Nevada, where the economy relies almost exclusively on tourism, and that such reliance demands we continue to let guests smoke or not smoke to their heart’s content. If a casino chose to attract nonsmokers, it could do so voluntarily (one actually tried, as we recall, but had to switch back due to the loss of business).

But casinos chose, mostly, to sit out the Question 5 fight, probably for fear of a voter/customer backlash against a popular measure, and possibly thinking they had nothing to fear even if it passed. And now, they’re fighting for the smoke-banning initiative, so long as Herndon declares that hotel and motel rooms are not covered by the act.

Silly casinos! Do we have to remind you of what you’re fighting? Do you not recall the words of Buffy Martin Tarbox, the government relations director for the American Cancer Society, who said right after the Nov. 7 election that a ban on smoking inside casinos was "absolutely" on the horizon and that "I do think Nevada will become 100 percent smoke free in the future"? Do you not see Those Who Know Better will simply not stop until they have imposed their will on every Nevada business?

Benjamin Franklin said of revolutionary fathers that "we must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately." It appears Nevada’s casinos have made the latter choice.