Bored? Looking for something to do? We at Various Things & Stuff have a couple action-packed events over the next couple of nights, just for you.

At 7 p.m. tonight, the Black Mountain Institute will be putting on the first of two events titled "The Vietnam War in Light of Iraq." A panel consisting of authors Robert Stone and Tim O’Brien, historian George Herring, author and professor John Irsfeld, Iraq war vet Jimmy Castellanos and writer Vu Tran will speak on a panel moderated by UNLV Distinguished Professor of History Joseph "Andy" Fry.

The panel will meet in the Beam Music Center recital hall on the UNLV campus at 4505 S. Maryland Parkway.

Then at 7 p.m. Thursday, Stone and O’Brien will read from and sign copies of their books about Vietnam. That event will take place in the Marjorie Barrick Museum auditorium.

Finally, and also at 7 p.m. Thursday, you can hear yours truly — along with Stephens Media LLC General Counsel Mark Hinueber and a special guest to be announced later — talk about the shield law. (That’s the one that says reporters and editors don’t have to tell the authorities who their sources are, no matter how badly those authorities want to know. It’s also the one that’s been under assault these days by state and federal authorities.)

That delightful exchange will take place in the theater of the Clark County Library, 1401 E. Flamingo Road. Feel free to pepper us with questions!

If you ask us, the mock funeral should be held for the career and administration of current Gov. Jim Gibbons, not former Lt. Gov. Lonnie Hammargren. After all, Hammargren seems to have a political future, while 29-percent-approval-rating Gibbons is treading water.

But Gibbons caught a little bit of driftwood on Tuesday, as Secretary of State Ross Miller closed his nascent investigation into the Gibbons Legal Defense Fund. Why? Well, it turns out that checks were made out to the "Gibbons Legal Defense Fund." Seriously.

"As per my request, we are in receipt of copies of the checks made payable to the Gibbons Legal Defense Fund, verifying that the gifts were contributed to the Gibbons Legal Defense Fund, and, therefore, are separate and distinct from contributions made to your campaign fund," Miller wrote in a nice letter to Gibbons. "Based upon your responses to our inquiries and the checks you provided, we find no apparent violations of the campaign finance laws outlined in NRS Chapter 294A."

Of course, this ignores the fact that Gibbons didn’t disclose even the existence of the fund, much less the contributors and amounts contributed, until my colleague Jon Ralston started poking around. (Gibbons had to amend his financial disclosure form filed with Miller’s office to declare the legal defense fund donations as gifts.) And Miller is apparently buying the argument that, by calling it the "Gibbons Legal Defense Fund," it’s not simply a thinly disguised political slush fund. Which of course it is.

So let’s review: According to the Miller Doctrine, it’s perfectly OK to create a bank account separate from your political account, accept huge donations well in excess of existing campaign finance limits, and, so long as checks are made out to the "Big-Ass Loophole Slush Fund" and not a political account, it’s cool.

How do we know? Well, he said as much when he wrote his last paragraph: "Therefore, I will be proposing legislation requiring additional disclosures of any funds, including legal defense funds, established for the direct or indirect benefit of a public official." And if we need a new law to outlaw something, it’s a tacit admission that the current laws don’t apply. Right?

Hogwash. But what do we know? Glad you asked. We know this: Gibbons is a serial dissembler, which is a nice journalistic way of saying he fibs. Don’t believe us? Well, let us show you an example, in the form of a bit of dialogue from today’s Review-Journal. We were hard on poor political reporter Molly Ball in Tuesday’s blog, so let’s throw her some props today for giving us this little delight:

"Although the FBI continues to investigate his involvement in the latter matter [allegations he used his congressional office to help longtime friend Warren Trepp get federal contracts], Gibbons said Tuesday that he would no longer use the legal defense fund and would pay for his further counsel out of his own pocket.

"’Those are my personal funds,’ he said when asked who was paying his high-profile Washington, D.C., attorney, Abbe Lowell. ‘We’re closing down this legal defense fund because its purpose was these two [the alleged assault of Chrissy Mazzeo and the keeping of an illegal immigrant nanny] issues.’

"As for the fact that the fund’s establishing documents mentioned the third [Trepp] issue, Gibbons said, ‘Whatever. We plan to close it down.’"

"Whatever"? He actually said "whatever," like a teenaged girl confronted with some uncomfortable bit of contrary information before homeroom? It would be funny if not for the fact that this is yet another in a skein of Gibbons half-truths, excuses and lies.

Oh, and by the way, why didn’t Gibbons pay for his legal defense out of his own pocket from the start? Or perhaps use his campaign fund? (An attorney general’s opinion holds that it’s legal to use campaign donations to hire a lawyer to appear before the ethics committee, so why not before the FBI? After all, nobody could say the Trepp allegations are unconnected to Gibbons’ official duties.)

At the very, very least, we think Gibbons may be guilty of filing a false instrument under NRS 239.030, which is a category C felony. First, he knew there was a legal defense fund. Second, he knew there were contributors to the fund. Third, he knew there we payments made from the fund. Fourth, he knew all of those things prior to filing a financial disclosure report in January with the secretary of state’s office, which report contained not a single reference to the fund. Fifth, he filed an amended disclosure form this month, which is tantamount to an admission that the donations to his legal defense fund are subject to disclosure. Therefore, the instrument filed in January was false.

Do you think either Miller or Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto — to whom Miller could easily have referred the inquiry — will move forward on that charge? No, neither do we. But at least we’ll get a new law out of the whole mess. Why don’t be call it Jimmy’s Law, in honor of the guy who’s apparently such a super-genius, he found an unexploited loophole in state statue that turned Carson City on its ear?!

Anybody need to cleanse their palate? Here’s a couple Quick Hits for that very purpose:

» We’d heard that things were hard in the retirement years, but damn, we had no idea that seniors were having to resort to things like this to make ends meet. Can’t we do something to fix Social Security?

» We think it’s so cute how the Assembly passes lottery legalization session after session, and how the state Senate plays with the bill like a kitty with a ball of yarn until boredom ensues and the bill is killed. Still, kudos to the 29 members — including three Republicans! — who stood up to the likes of the gambling industry and said that Nevadans should have the right to do even more gambling, but outside of the walls of casinos.

We do have to say, however, that we think Assembly Majority Leader Dr. Garn Mabey should have abstained on this one, due to a conflict of interest. (He voted no.) Mabey has said in the past that his views on gambling are controlled by his church, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. And since all members of the Assembly swear this oath, pledging loyalty to the state constitution, not to a particular religion, it’s pretty clear he should have sat this one out.

» And finally today, how much did the state spend to publish that nifty tabloid-size guide to unclaimed property in the Review-Journal? A tidy $54,720. Another $20,000 for a smaller version up north in the Reno Gazette-Journal. Don’t get us wrong; we like when our company makes money. But the question occurs: Why can’t they do that on the Internet? Well, they are! But there’s a state statute that also requires it to be published in the paper, a law that newspaper publishers have fought to keep on the books.

We at Various Things & Stuff watch a lot of TV, but because we’re super busy, we often make use of the Cox Communications digital video recorder. If you don’t have one, you should check it out. From what we hear, it’s even better than TiVo.

Anyway, we only last night got around to watching one of our favorite shows, Real Time with Bill Maher on HBO. He’s a great comedian who we’ve been following for years, and his latest show is among the best stuff he’s ever done. (Friday’s episode featured a hilarious interview with Chris Rock, as well as a panel that included Seinfeld’s Jason Alexander and former CBS Evening News anchorman Dan Rather.)

But it was at the end of the show when Maher does his usual editorial comments, dubbed "New Rules," that we wanted to stand up and cheer at the TV. His final commentary was both funny and poignant, and something that badly needs to be said.

So, as a public service, we reprint it here. Enjoy, and realize that — as Maher’s panel concluded — comedians with news shows today speak as much truth to power as journalists used to, and should again.

"And finally, New Rule: Liberals must stop saying President Bush hasn’t asked Americans to sacrifice for the war on terror. On the contrary, he’s asked us to sacrifice something enormous. Our civil rights.

"Now, when I heard George Bush was reading my e-mails, I probably had the same reaction you did: George Bush can read?! Yes, he can. And this administration has read your phone records, credit card statements, mail, Internet logs. I can’t tell if they’re fighting a war on terror or producing the next season of Cheaters. I mail myself a copy of the Constitution every morning just on the hope they’ll open it and see what it says.

"So when it comes to sacrifice, don’t kid yourself. You have given up a lot. You’ve given up faith in your government’s honesty, the goodwill of people overseas, and six-tenths of the Bill of Rights. Here’s what you’ve sacrificed: search and seizure, warrants, self-incrimination, trial by jury, cruel and unusual punishment. Here’s what you have left: handguns, religion, and they can’t make you quarter a British soldier. If Prince Harry invades the Inland Empire, he has to bring a tent.

"You know, in previous wars on the home front made a very different kind of sacrifice. During World War II, we endured rationing, paid higher taxes, bought war bonds, and in the interest of national unity, people even pretended Bob Hope was funny. Right, like you laughed at him.

"Okay, women, donated their silk undergarments so they could be sewn into parachutes. Can you imagine nowadays a Britney Spears or a Lindsay Lohan going without underwear? Bad example.

"But, look, George Bush has never been too bright about understanding ‘fereigners.’ But he does know Americans. He asked this generation to sacrifice the things he knew we would not miss: our privacy and our morality. He let us keep the money. But he made a cynical bet that we wouldn’t much care if we became a ‘Big Brother’ country that has now tortured a lot of random people.

"And yet no one asks the tough questions like, ‘Is torture necessary?’ ‘Who will watch the watchers?’ ‘And when does Jack Bauer go to the bathroom?’ I mean, it’s been five years. Is he wearing one of those astronaut diapers?

"In conclusion, after 9/11, President Bush told us Osama bin Laden could run but he couldn’t hide. But, then he ran and hid. So, Bush went to Plan B: pissing on the Constitution and torturing random people.

"Conservatives always say the great thing Reagan did was make us feel good about America again. Well, do you feel good about America now? I’ll give you my answer, and to get it out of me, you don’t even have to hold my head underwater and have a snarling guard dog rip my nuts off. No, I don’t feel very good about that.

"They say evil happens when good men do nothing. Well, the Democrats prove it also happens when mediocre people do nothing."