We’ve written so many memos over here in our office in a nondescript industrial building near McCarran International Airport, we could actually be in the sequel to that one movie Office Space. (Assuming they make one, that is, which they really should. That was a funny movie. And Jennifer Aniston is available, too!)

Anyway, we’re going to turn our writing skills to a less productive use, which is blogging up some Quick Hits for this Wednesday afternoon. Enjoy!

» First, we just read the most delightful piece by our friend and colleague Hugh Jackson over at Nevada Today, we couldn’t go a moment more without sharing it. Hugh basically argues that, because there’s gold under federal land, and because we as a people "own" federal land, any company that mines the gold (or other precious metals) should pay us owners, in the form of big royalties. As in, bigger royalties than they are now. And guess what? Under Hugh’s calculations, that revenue would make up for cuts recommended by Gov. Jim Gibbons, almost exactly.

» What’s gotten into state Sen. Bob Coffin? The guy is simply bucking to be placed on our Heroes of the Revolution List for the 2007 Legislature. First, he votes against a vicious official English bill in the upper house. And now, he votes to keep tax breaks for people who build environmentally friendly buildings.

The sad thing? He was on the losing end of 19-2 votes each time. Oh, the humanity. (On the official English bill, state Sen. Maggie Carlton joined Coffin; on the energy thing, it was state Sen. Terry Care.)

Apparently, lawmakers are thinking that tax breaks in a time of tightening budgets is a bad thing, and they’d be right, if said tax breaks were going to banks (which is a real proposal) or rich people. But for building things that won’t contribute — or at least not contribute as much — to global climate change? That’s worth "incentivizing," as the politicians say. Too bad so few in Carson City seem to see the merit.

» Well, that should do it. The Review-Journal reported earlier today that the owners of the doomed Neonopolis shopping center have decided to change the name of the place to Fremont Square. (That link is to the paper’s homepage, where the story is currently parked, so if you follow it on Thursday, it be gone. Surely, however, there will be a story on the subject.)

There’s a long and noble history of troubled businesses changing their names in order to avoid the negative publicity that has attended them over the years. But anybody who can see what the hell is going on can see it’s going to take a lot more than a name change to fix this troubled property. In fact, it may require a total remodeling.

What amazes us most, however, is that the most obvious name to apply to Neonopolis was missed. Has no one in our landlubbing culture ever heard of the Mary Celeste?

» So U.S. Reps. Jon Porter and Dean Heller voted to sustain President Bush’s veto of a war spending bill that sought to bring American troops home from Iraq. Did you really expect anything different?

We only wonder how a person can argue he supports the troops by voting to leave them stuck in a no-win civil war that was started on lies, continued with incompetence and ignorance, which we have no hope of "winning," since we’re not one of the combatants. But we’re sure Porter and Heller have good reasons. Totally sure.

» As far as we’re concerned, the fact that some regents are armed is dangerous enough. But one of those armed regents — Stavros Anthony, who also happens to be a Metro Police captain — wants to arm pretty much everybody at Nevada’s universities to prevent a repeat of Virginia Tech.

There are many questions, but we’ll start with this one: Suppose we were to make anybody who applies and passes the test a reserve UNLV cop. How, if an incident were to go down, would the real-life uniformed cops be able to tell armed evildoer from armed good guy? They’re both in soft clothes, and they’re both packing heat. Might the cop not shoot the good guy just as easily as the bad?

Oh, wait, we know: Just give the good guys some kind of identification so they can show the cops they’re cool, like a badge or an ID card or something. No, that might not work either. The real cops might not be able to tell whether the badge was real or fake. Bad guys can get badges, too, you know. The Internet is lousy with badges.

Oh, we’ve got it. Why don’t we give the reserve cops some distinctive clothing? Yeah, we could dress them all alike, maybe in the same color. Say, Navy blue. Right, and then we could make them wear their badges prominently, saying on the left side of their uniform blouse, over their heart, all symbolic-like. Yeah, that’s it. Why, we just bet their very presence on the campus will dissuade evildoers from trying anything.

One thing left. What should we call these guys? Oh, we know. How about, "cops"?