On Monday, we told you about some top honors earned by the law firm of Kummer, Kaempfer, Bonner, Renshaw & Ferrario in the publication The Best Lawyers in America (2008 ed.). Little did we know that another firm in town had garnered a few honors of its own.

And while we’re at it, maybe it’s time to revise the way we choose judges in the first place. That will be the subject of a University Forum lecture slated for 7:30 p.m. Thursday in the Barrick Museum Auditorium on the UNLV campus. Professor Tuan Samahon of the William S. Boyd School of Law will deliver the lecture, titled What’s Wrong with the Way Nevada Selects Its Judges? A Legal and Policy Analysis. It’s open to the public.

Apparently, every journalist in the English-speaking world has descended on Las Vegas to report on the O.J. Simpson/armed robbery/sports memorabilia story. Not us. We couldn’t possibly care less. If he did it, we hope he gets convicted. If not, well, whatever. To us, it’s simply another crime story in a city where plenty of crime stories — many much more serious and life-altering than this one — happen every day.

So, we’ll leave the O.J. to the rest of the entire media world. As for us, well, it’s time for some blogging!

» Everybody loves a train! Except, perhaps, for U.S. Sen. John Ensign. According to a story in The Hill newspaper today, Ensign is expressing some skepticism about using federal funds to build a magnetic levitation train that may eventually run from Las Vegas to Anaheim, Calif.

"The privately financed is in general the way to go," Ensign told the Washington, D.C., newspaper. "There just isn’t enough money to do all the rail projects that we want to do around the country."

Yes, that’s true. That’s probably why projects go to states with the most aggressive representatives, who fight to bring those dollars home to their constituents instead of playing golf all the time while other lawmakers gather up the inevitable pork. We admit its not an attractive feature of the federal system, and that it does not encourage frugality with taxpayer dollars, but we also admit being part of the reality-based community.

The story was occasioned, as it happens, by the dedication of $45 million to do an environmental impact study for the maglev train, which will be financed at least in part by private dollars. (It’s supposed to whisk travelers along at high speeds while avoiding those nasty, miles-long traffic jams that tend to make a trip to Las Vegas akin to a visit to the proctologist with the world’s biggest hands.)

But lo! There is another privately financed option! It’s called Desert Xpress, and it aims to run a high-speed regular rail train between Las Vegas and Victorville, Calif. You may recall this as a totally private venture that, while not stretching all the way to Los Angeles, would still eliminate a good deal of the traffic in getting there.

The Desert Xpress people are natural competitors with the maglev people. Although the maglev would move much faster, it is also more expensive. And who knows which one — or either — will ever be built. (Propriety compels us to note that Bombardier Inc., the same people that brought you the problem-plagued Las Vegas Monorail, are big backers of the Desert Xpress train, according to The Hill.)

Anyway, most of Nevada’s delegation (the article also names U.S. Sen. Harry Reid and U.S. Reps. Shelley Berkley and Jon Porter, although we’re almost sure somebody else from our state is in Congress) is trying to stay neutral. But not Ensign. For him, philosophy trumps everything. And it’s good to stick to your principles, unless one of those principles is, apparently, "be as big of a dick as you possibly can."

» Speaking of sticking to your principles, we see that the American Civil Liberties Union is coming to the defense of alleged gay-sex seeker U.S. Sen. Larry Craig. While Craig has denied he was seeking sex in a Minneapolis airport men’s room, the ACLU is arguing that, even if he did, soliciting sex in public is perfectly OK, provided the sex itself doesn’t occur in public. That’s covered by a little thing called free speech.

OK, we see the point. But where does the ACLU think Craig was going to go after he’d (allegedly) solicited relations with a man who turned out to be an undercover police sergeant? The Hilton? Craig himself said he was waiting to catch a flight, so it’s not like there was a lot of time to go to a private place to have sex. To us, it seems clear that Craig intended to have some kind of freaky sex right there in the men’s room.

Still, props to the ACLU for coming to the aid of a guy who so rarely himself came to the aid of civil liberties. That shows the group really does have no client but the Bill of Rights.

» So, Vice President Dick Cheney doesn’t believe in mocking members of the military who’ve honorably served their country, eh? That’s what he said at a Republican fundraiser, reacting to an ad by the group MoveOn.org that cast the last name of Iraq war Gen. David Petraeus as "Gen. Betray Us?"

"It’s bad enough when politicians turn their backs on a war they voted for and supported when it was popular," Cheney said. "But no one in politics, regardless of party, should hesitate to object when an American solider at war is mocked and insulted."

(You know what’s coming right? Tell us you know. OK, here we go.)

In fact, Cheney didn’t object at all when U.S. Sen. John Kerry was "mocked and insulted" with Band-Aids emblazoned with images of the Purple Heart medal were handed out at the Republican National Convention in 2004. (Kerry received three Purple Hearts in Vietnam for combat wounds. Cheney received none, probably because he never went to Vietnam, citing "other priorities" for his multiple deferments from service.)

Cheney never said anything when former U.S. Sen. Bob Dole (a wounded-in-action World War II veteran) questioned whether Kerry really deserved the medals. (Dole later apologized for his remarks.) Nor did he speak up when former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said, "I think it’s funny." In fact, the only Republican seemingly on record against the Band-Aids was Vietnam veteran (and former POW) U.S. Sen. John McCain.

And let’s not forget the even worse outrage of Republican criticism of former U.S. Sen. Max Cleland, a disabled Vietnam vet who was pictured in an ad with Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden in 2002. Cheney didn’t have much to say about that, did he?

So once again, we see Republicans saying one thing, but doing another. It’s getting to the point where it’s not even fun pointing out their myriad hypocrisies anymore.

(Thanks to an alert reader for some of the links, and the idea, for this one.)

» The shooting, possibly of innocent bystanders, by private security contractors working for a company called Blackwater U.S.A. has pointed up something we’d first read about long ago: A law imposed early on by the Coalition Provisional Authority that exempted all private military contractors from Iraqi law.

This never-repealed 2004 law, in the view of some, was essentially a license to kill for military contractors, who have assumed plenty of duties that used to be performed by soldiers. Among the most dangerous: Protecting top American officials in Iraq.

The paper of record has more on Blackwater, but for an in-depth look at the company, check out Jeremy Scahill’s comprehensive book, Blackwater: The Rise of the World’s Most Powerful Mercenary Army.

» And finally today, those dedicated activists over at Planned Parenthood are throwing a gala luncheon to benefit the Planned Parenthood of Southern Nevada chapter. The lunch will run from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. Thursday at the ghostbar at The Palms hotel-casino. Guest speakers will be Cecile Richards, president of the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, and actress Wendie Malick of Just Shoot Me fame.

It’s $60 for an individual ticket, and $100 for a patron ticket, and you can RSVP to 878-3622.