There were a few things that happened in the rush of last week that we just didn’t get to, and a few things that happened over the weekend, too. So fasten your seat belts (by putting the metal end into the buckle, and pulling on the strap to tighten) and here we go!

» Poor Sheldon Adelson. He just can’t seem to catch a break while trampling all over the First Amendment. But when you’re the third richest man in America, what does a little thing like the Constitution matter?

Regular readers already know how Adelson tried to toss union protesters off his "private" sidewalk in 1999, and how a federal judge ruled the sidewalks — although built on Venetian property — functioned as public forums, and protesters thereon were entitled to full First Amendment protection. The case was appealed to the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, which upheld the local ruling, and the U.S. Supreme Court declined to hear an appeal from the Venetian.

What you might not have known was that the Venetian was later tagged by the National Labor Relations Board for a violations of the National Labor Relations Act over the same incident.

It seems when the Venetian played a trespass warning over loudspeakers at the hundreds of demonstrators on that day in 1999 and threatened then-Culinary official Glen Arnodo with a "citizen’s arrest," the hotel violated a portion of the act that says it’s an unfair labor practice to interfere with, restrain or coerce employees in the exercise of their rights guaranteed under the act. So sayth the NLRB. (And since we were out there covering that event for CityLife, we can tell you, the Venetian did everything but turn high-pressure water hoses on the hundreds of protesters gathered outside.)

Well, the Venetian disagreed, and sued to have the ruling overturned in the conservative U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. But even in that supposedly friendly forum, Adelson got no love.

Case law, wrote the court, "allows an employer the right to deny access to its premises only where it has a property right to do so, and as the Ninth Circuit held [in the private-sidewalks case] the Venetian has no property right to the sidewalk that permits it to prevent people, like the demonstrators here, from exercising their First Amendment rights by airing to the public and to prospective employees grievances about the Venetian’s employment practices."

Of course, the Venetian tried to re-argue the property rights case, but the D.C. justices weren’t having any of it: "Not surprisingly, the Venetian urges us to disregard the Ninth Circuit’s holding that the Venetian lacked a property right in the sidewalk sufficient to permit it to exclude the demonstrators," the court wrote. "The Ninth Circuit considered the very argument the Venetian urges us to reconsider here, and clearly and conclusively rejected it. … We can find no basis to conclude that there would be any unfairness to the Venetian in applying the determination of the Ninth Circuit. We can discern no difference between the incentives that the Venetian may have had in its Ninth Circuit litigation and its incentives here. The stakes in its attempt before that court were no less than they are now."

In other words, been there, done that, wrote the appellate order.

While Adelson doesn’t seem to get it, the federal courts, from San Francisco to Washington D.C. to the Supreme Court itself, sure do: Those sidewalks aren’t private. Not only that, by trying to make them private, Adelson broke the National Labor Relations Act. You’d think the guy we once referred to (semi-affectionately) as "the Saddam Hussein of the Strip" would eventually get it. You’d be wrong.

» If you thought this photo of our own Gov. Jim Gibbons was the funniest photo ever (note the headline), you clearly haven’t been to the Las Vegas Gleaner to see these photos. Wow. Our governor is a robot! No, wait, he’s a pirate! No, way, he’s a handsome, fun-loving ladies man, just like Tom Selleck or cruise partner Patrick Swayze.

Or, or….! Or he’s just your average, everyday governor, under investigation by the FBI for allegedly misusing his former congressional office to help people who allegedly gave him big cash bribes. Man, that’s just so boring.

By the way, when asked about putting on a pirate outfit and some bling to hang with the hot chicks of the Caribbean, Gibbons had this to say to the Review-Journal’s Molly Ball: "If we all couldn’t have a good time in life, it would be pretty darn boring."

Hell, yeah! Sometimes we at Various Things & Stuff just want to kick back, so we call our good buddy who we occasionally use our office to help, fly down to the Caribbean, hop on a cruise and totally get polluted! It’s hookers and blow the entire time, except for the brief excursion to the offshore bank during our Cayman Islands stop in which we deposit that briefcase full of cash. Man, without those trips, life would totally SUCK, you know?

» Speaking of Gibbons, we think we’ve found half a million bucks in one-shot funds that could be used better elsewhere … maybe expanding overcrowded jails where certain politicians (we’re not naming names!) could one day take up residence?

» Not that the health nazis care, but it turns out the ban on smoking actually does hurt some businesses. We’re still doing our part, puffing away on fine cigars in legal establishments at both ends of our fine state. Hey, health nazis: Why don’t you join us? We don’t know if secondhand smoke kills, but we’re willing to participate in the research if you are.

» Whoa. Brown & Partners gives out gifts to its clients, including video cameras and iPods? Sweet! Where can we sign up? We can’t afford to pay as much as the money-bleeding University Medical Center in fees (an initial contract worth up to $1.9 million a year for two years, which we’re sure could buy a shitload of Band-Aids) but we can pay something, so long as we score an iPod at Christmas. Hey, Brown & Partners: Can we pay you in Starbucks gift cards?

» We don’t know her at all, and despite the fact that she looks a little bit like Kristen Bell of Veronica Mars fame, we still think former Justice Department official Monica Goodling is a very bad person. Find out why here.

» The horror, the horror.