Get ready for the Biden Express, people! U.S. Sen. Joe Biden, who is running for president of the United States, is heading to Las Vegas. And you have a chance to meet the man who could (read – totally should) be in the White House come Jan. 20, 2009.

Biden will appear from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. Thursday at the Borders Book Shop on Rainbow Boulevard (in the Best of the West shopping center) to sign copies of his new book, Promises To Keep: On Life and Politics. We have personally checked this book out during a recent bookstore tour, and it looks pretty good. We opted on that outing for a copy of the New Yorker instead, but on Thursday, we may have to buy a Biden book at Borders, baby! (And that’s all the alliteration allowed by law!)

As regular readers know, we are totally behind Biden for president, although we were rudely left off the senator’s "celebrity endorsements" list in a recent issue of the Las Vegas Weekly. We know: Our fame is just too bright to bear. But given Biden’s recent surge in the polls, this could be the Las Vegas event that puts him over the top. (And it’s way better than running into the creepy Rudy Giuliani in the bookstore aisle at Target.)

» Mitt Romney was in town, and completely flubbed the standard (and easily foreseeable) Yucca Mountain question? And we missed it? We feel … totally OK with that, actually. But we’re sad to see that former Gov. Kenny Guinn is actually making public appearances with the guy. Didn’t Guinn used to be against Yucca?

» Current Gov. Jim Gibbons will be meeting with Arizona Gov. Janet Napolitano on Thursday to discuss a partnership regarding border security issues. (Do you think that Gibbons understands that’s supposed to mean "Mexican border" security issues? Or are we going to see National Guardsmen on Nevada’s southern border with Arizona? Hey, don’t laugh: Gibbons publicly praised a program in which the Mexican government pays for health care for Mexican nationals in the United States. The only problem? That program … doesn’t exist!)

Anyway, Gibbons will meet with Napolitano Thursday morning at her office in Phoenix, apparently to discuss the methamphetamine epidemic. Apparently, almost 90 percent of the meth seized in Nevada was made in Mexico and smuggled across the border and into the Silver State. Man, even American drug dealers are getting lazy!

We doubt that Gibbons will have time to visit the Indicted Arizona Governor’s Memorial and Museum while in Phoenix, but Arizona does have a (in this context, ironic) tradition of jailing its governors. We hope Napolitano is too polite to mention that. Awkward!

» Guess what the Review-Journal finally got around to doing? That’s right: The big daily has launched a job search for a new transportation writer to replace "Road Warrior" Omar Sofradzija, who left in mid-July for a job as editorial adviser to The State News in Lansing, Mich.

Not that any readers would know about that, however: Sofradzija’s been writing regular columns from his faraway perch, which makes it seem he’s working right here in Sin City. And that’s odd, given that the R-J has repeatedly editorialized and columnized on the need for state transportation officials to live in town so they can see our traffic firsthand.

Never fear, however: The R-J has begun the sometimes-painful process of aligning the rules it puts down for other people with the rules it applies to itself, a process some scientists call "having integrity." This ad was posted on journalismjobs.com today. And although the ad doesn’t specifically say so, we’re pretty sure the paper will want the successful candidate to move to Las Vegas. Then again, you never really know, do you?

OK, we’re confused. On Monday, our colleague Norm Clarke reported that "entertainer" Jerry Lewis was charging $20,000 for media interviews. (Podcaster Steve Friess, who is also a prolific freelancer for various publications, provided the scoop for the item.)

But today, Norm reports that the $20,000 thing was a big misunderstanding, and that Lewis fired the publicist, Rick Saphire, who made the insistent demand for the money before he’d let Lewis be interviewed by Friess. (Still unexplained is why Friess would want to interview Lewis. Somebody should get to the bottom of that.)

It turns out, according to Norm, the $20,000 fee was imposed on international media, in order to cut down on the interview requests that Lewis was receiving. Yeah, we can see that being a big problem. Poor Lewis was probably spending all of his time talking to foreign reporters, who all were on assignment trying to figure how how in the hell this guy is even famous. 

Anyway, we wondered on Monday if the $20,000 fee entitled us to punch Lewis in the face. Does this mean we can’t do that? Because our interview would pretty much go like this:

US: Thanks for sitting down with us today, Mr. Lewis.

LEWIS: You’re wel… (BAM! Punch in the face. End of interview.)

US: Our work here is done.

So, who’s Lewis’ new publicist? Because we were just about ready to cash in our 401(k) on Monday for this opportunity.

» OK, we’re still confused. There are still people alive in High Point, N.C.? Because we distinctly recall Mayor Oscar Goodman saying all the residents of that furniture-selling town would probably kill themselves once the World Market Center opened in Las Vegas.

But recently, the High Point (N.C.) Enterprise reported that not only are residents alive and well, they apparently have a mayor, too. And that mayor — Becky Smothers — is tossing a few disses our way.

Why? Apparently, she’s reacting to news that Harvey Dondero, formerly the CEO of the Las Vegas World Market Center, is leaving his job after less than a year. And what’s bad news for Las Vegas’ mammoth furniture market is apparently good news for High Point’s furniture market.

"Very few positions that last less than a year are deemed to be satisfactory on either party’s part," said Smothers, who is also a member of the High Point Market Authority board of directors.

And a member of the High Point City Council weighed in, too. "It appears that the real story here is not the departure of Mr. Dondero from the World Market Center," said Councilman Bill Bencini, whose part-time job is in the furniture industry. "The bigger story is the apparent loss of momentum in the Las Vegas furniture market."

Well, those sound like fighting words to us! Well, kind of like fighting words. As much as fighting words can come from people who apparently live and work in giant pieces of furniture and whose newspapers feature a Bible quiz. (We were going to try it, but you have to register for the newspaper’s website. Still, we would have totally kicked ass! Or butt. Butt would probably be more appropriate, since we’re talking about a Bible quiz.)

Still, the "Enterprise" is a great name for a newspaper. If we were going to start a newspaper, we’d call it the "Enterprise." Also, if we were going to buy a yacht we’d call her "Enterprise." You know, from Star Trek. We’re geeky that way.

» John Edwards, who apparently was running for president or something, promises he’ll still visit Nevada, even though he’s entirely abandoned his campaign here, or something. We tried to get through this story, but even with the aid of the surprisingly good McDonald’s coffee, we just couldn’t do it. The only thing we were able to read went like this: "John Edwards … campaign … Nevada … Iowa … caucus … blah, blah, blah, oh, hey, look you can get high speed Internet for the whole family for just $9.95 a month! That’s a great deal!"

» Speaking of the Review-Journal, we’d like to congratulate the newspaper for a step or two in the right direction. On Sunday, my colleague and friend Erin Neff wrote her Sunday column about U.S. Sen. Harry Reid’s sudden and adamant opposition to new coal-fired power plants in Nevada, and therein referred to Face to Face with Jon Ralston. The paper actually published the name of its onetime political columnist turned archenemy, which is somewhat rare.

And then reporter David McGrath Schwartz, writing about Steve Wynn’s move to downtown Las Vegas, a move that was denied by his uninformed and/or dissembling spokeswoman Jennifer Dunne, noted that the story was confirmed by In Business Las Vegas, a publication of the rival Greenspun Media Group. (Then again, we learned on Monday that Schwartz was leaving the R-J to join the Greenspun-owned Las Vegas Sun.)

Still, giving credit where credit is due is something that often doesn’t happen in the ultra-low-stakes pettiness that mars local media circles. For example, after agents of the attorney general’s office raided offices at the Community College of Southern Nevada in June, following a series of hard-hitting investigative reports in the Sun, the R-J merely said it was "local media reports" that prompted the action.

So, we’re glad to see a change. And we’d be even gladder if the Sun would join the party, too. As regular readers know, the Sun wrote a nice, big story about Gustavo Arellano — author of the popular "Ask a Mexican" column — back in July, without ever mentioning that the column appears in the pages of CityLife, which is owned by Stephens Media LLC, the same company that owns the R-J.

We wrote a very nice letter to the editor to note the omission, but as of today, Day 50, the Sun has failed to acknowledge its mistake or publish our letter. (Although, to be fair, the newspaper did mention CityLife in a piece about a court decision that allows newspapers to accept advertising from brothels. Thanks, Sun!)