U.S. Sen. Joe Biden, D-Del., dropped by Las Vegas on Thursday to sign copies of his new book and meet the press in the form of Face to Face with Jon Ralston. Let’s just say that Biden did a lot better than Republican Mitt Romney on Ralston’s show. (Romney is once again trying to make political history by holding every possible position on the abortion issue simultaneously.)

Anyway, the damn conservative media is at it again. Of all the photos the Review-Journal could possibly have run of Biden, they chose this one. In it, Biden looks angry, like he’s about to kick somebody’s ass at Border’s, where his book signing was held. (We’d have guessed that Biden was reacting to a question from political reporter/gossip columnist Molly Ball, who is known to ask about who politicians are dating, but the story was written by Paul Harasim.)

Clearly, the R-J is threatened by Biden’s common-sense approach to problems, like his idea of dividing Iraq into three regions for the crazy people who believe Muhammad’s cousin-in-law should have been the first Caliph, the crazy people who believe that it was right to appoint Muhammad’s good buddy Abu Bakr as the first Caliph and the Kurds. After all, if they can’t play nice, they should be sent to their rooms, or regions of the country, as the case may be.

So, they find a photo of the one moment that Biden was looking angry, and publish that. Typical conservative media, always giving us a skewed picture of reality according to their own political beliefs. Unlike us here at Various Things & Stuff. We’re all about the truth. And stuff.

» Having said that, the R-J editorial page has joined with us in demanding that, if Republic Services wants to change its twice-weekly trash pickup, it should have to renegotiate its unusually long franchise agreement. (The R-J also followed us in predicting that, of a trio of options being studied in a "pilot program," the one that lets Republic reduce trash pickups to once weekly will be the one that’s recommended.) C’mon, Clark County. Everybody agrees you shouldn’t give away the store again!

» Now do you people see why we wanted to punch Jerry Lewis in the face? It’s because he’s an asshole!

» So a bunch of politicians get together to talk about Yucca Mountain (boooooring!) and they don’t invite Gov. Jim Gibbons? Was it a political slight? Do they not think the governor is an important player on the issue?

Oh, no, says U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, who criticized Gibbons over a decision to let the Energy Department use state water in order to drill holes to prove that Yucca isn’t going to be America’s next big environmental disaster. (The state later said the federal government couldn’t use the water, sparking a lawsuit.)

According to the Review-Journal, "Gov. Jim Gibbons spokeswoman, Melissa Subbotin, said to her knowledge the governor wasn’t invited although Reid said Gibbons was represented on the panel by Nuclear Projects Agency chief Bob Loux and the attorney general."

Oh, but that’s the rub! Gibbons isn’t represented by Loux or Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto! They correctly told the governor he should turn off the water long before he actually did. And it took us two weeks of repeated e-mails to get the governor’s staff to admit that he was doing his own thing, legally speaking.

No wonder they didn’t invite Gibbons. He’d have probably ended up giving himself more legal advice and personally digging some test wells at Yucca Mountain. And burying cash and casino chips in them. You know, for safekeeping while the nosy feds are poking around.

» "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it," — Proverbs 22:6. Somehow, we don’t think this is what the author had in mind. Damn capitalists.

» Now that’s a new one. Actually reading the e-mails and comments people send in? We never thought of that. Frankly, it seems like a lot of work to us. That’s why we have our most malevolent, misanthropic, Tourette’s-afflicted intern answer all of our e-mails.