We were going to blog more today — really, we were. But events at CityLife just got in the way. It’s a lot more work to put out that paper than you might imagine. In any case, we’ll be back on Wednesday with all-new blogs (just as Law & Order returns with all new episodes — yay!). Until then, have a happy and safe New Year’s Eve, and, as always, thanks for reading.

Everybody knows the Review-Journal is a family newspaper. Ward Cleaver’s family, in fact. (After all, the newspaper in 1993 refused to publish For Better or For Worse when that comic strip featured a 17-year-old character coming to terms with the fact that he was gay.)

But we were still surprised to see R-J editors redact from a headline the word "damn," over a year-in-review package of Jim Day’s editorial cartoons. The story quoted legendary Boss Tweed lamenting how even illiterate constituents could understand those "damned pictures." But the headline replaced "damned" with this punctuation: "#%@*"

That’s curious: If "damned" can appear in a story (and even worse has appeared in direct quotes in the R-J over the years) why not a headline? Especially over a story in which plenty of "damned pictures" are published, sure to draw the attention of young and old alike.

And when did "damned" become a really bad word, anyway? It’s not like Boss Tweed was dropping the dreaded F-bomb. Or the M-F bomb. Or the A-bomb. Or the S-bomb. Or the MFCSSW-bomb. Seriously, people.

Anyway, our thought was that if it was cool in the copy, it’s acceptable for the headline, yet another difference between the R-J and our little blog.

You know that one bitchy girl at work who’s always telling you how to do your job, like you totally don’t already know how to do your job? Well, imagine if everybody at work was like that! And then imagine they totally gabbed to the entire world about how you suck at your job! Picturing that? OK, you’re imaging what it’s like to be Nevada Supreme Court Justice Nancy Saitta.

Poor Saitta had a bad year. It was revealed by the Review-Journal that she’d lied on her resume, claiming to be a political science professor at UNLV when she was really just a part-time instructor. As a result, she ended up on R-J columnist Jane Ann Morrison’s shit list, not just once, not just twice, but three times!

But now, Saitta’s colleagues on the state’s high court are nailing her for trying to keep a court case involving a would-be judge secret. It seems she erred when she totally sealed a case involving former Family Court Judge Robert Lueck, who was running once again for the Family Court bench.

The shocking revelation Saitta didn’t want the public to see in a negative campaign commercial? Lueck apparently didn’t pay his child-support! And he was running for an office where he would order (and enforce orders) for people to pay child support! Oh, sweet irony!

Saitta, who not only sealed the case, but also issued a gag order preventing people from talking about it, was guilty of a "manifest abuse of discretion," according to the unanimous Supreme Court ruling. That’s lawyer talk for "girl, you sure you went to law school?" Oh, and although the law requires a written request to seal a case, and certain findings to be made, Saitta instead followed the Nike motto, and just did it.

Final irony: In the end, Lueck lost his race.

Now, we can all agree it’s wrong to seal cases willy-nilly. (The Review-Journal, by the way, printed an excellent series this year about that practice and how it’s been abused.) We can also agree that sealing a case for political reasons and putting a gag order on people so they can’t use the information in a political campaign is a violation of the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. And we can further agree that a judge — of all people — should understand what that means.

You know, Saitta is actually lucky that being publicly upbraided by her colleagues and embarrassed before her constituents is probably going to be the worst thing that happens to her in this incident. Or will it? After all, there’s no sealing this decision, and no gag order to prevent a future opponent from suggesting that Saitta might not be the best person to be sitting on Nevada’s highest court.

Something tells us we will be seeing this material again.

Look, we’re not saying we support an increase in the casino tax. But if we were making a list of the reasons it might pass, well, we’d naturally turn to the In Business Las Vegas Book of Business Lists. Wouldn’t you? It’s full of listy-type information.

If you’re like us at Various Things & Stuff, you’ve still got some last-minute Christmas shopping to do, last-minute DVR programs to watch and last-minute cigars to smoke. So we’ll dispense with the blogging today to pause and wish everybody a merry Christmas and happy new year.

Have a great holiday, and we’ll see you later in the week.

Some journalists might use the term "parsing," here, but not us. We’re bold that way. We came across a little item today that further reinforces our view that former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney is a lying sack who will say anything to get elected president of the United States.

But this does raise a key question, speaking of faith and values: Don’t Mormons oppose lying? And even if Mormons don’t (we happen to know they do, by the way), don’t Republicans hate parsing, equivocating, weasels? Anybody thinking of voting for Romney needs to remember one thing: You have no idea who in the hell this guy really is, and that’s a pretty damn big gamble.

It’s no "don’t tase me, bro!" but U.S. Sen. Harry Reid made the most memorable quote list of 2007, according to a Reuters piece on Yahoo! News.

So it turns out — in a development as unsurprising as the news that another Spears daughter is pregnant — the AFL-CIO is going to challenge ex-Assemblywoman Sharron Angle’s Petition to Wage War on Hardworking Public Employees. (That’s the short title, right?)

Well, why wouldn’t they? The petition, although re-written from an earlier version filed and then withdrawn in October, still has what the AFL-CIO considers a fatal constitutional flaw. Under the Proposition 13-style measure, property taxes would be capped at 2 percent per year until property is sold, at which time it would be reassessed.

Thus, contend union opponents, owners of identical houses next door to each other could be paying radically different property tax rates, which runs afoul of Article 10, Section 1(1) of the Nevada Constitution. ("The Legislature shall provide by law for a uniform and equal rate of assessment and taxation….")

Anyway, yet another has-been Reno Assembly member, one Don Gustavson, complains in the Review-Journal today that the big, bad union is standing in the way of Angle’s Petition to Enshrine Misanthropy in the State Constitution (what the hell is the name of that thing, anyway?). From the story:

"Don Gustavson, another former Reno assemblyman, complained that the constant legal challenges filed by ‘unions and groups with unlimited resources’ obstruct the right of people to petition for changes in taxation."

Yeah, it’s a bitch, this due process stuff.

But it seems to us that Gustavson probably doesn’t mind a challenge if it serves to thwart taxation. Like the gambling industry (and it’s unlimited resources) suing the Nevada State Education Association over its petition to raise the casino tax, for example. We didn’t hear Gustavson bitching and whining about that.

Unlike him, the teachers union knows that a lawsuit is just part of the process, something that has to be overcome on the road to making law by petition. Sure, anybody can write an initiative and try to change state law; but if there’s a serious constitutional problem with that proposed law, opponents have every right to go to court and block it. After all, if it’s legally flawed, it’s never going to become law anyway, right?

Besides, the AFL-CIO is right: On its face, the Angle Petition to Gut Schools, Police Stations, Firehouses, City Halls and Public Hospitals runs counter to Nevada’s founding document. She should peddle her anti-government snake oil somewhere else.

My colleague Anjeanette Damon is reporting at this hour that her newspaper’s lawsuit to force Gov. Jim Gibbons to release the budget-cutting recommendations proffered by state department heads has been rejected.

Newsy nuggets, wrapped in a delicious flaky crust, lovingly prepared in the ovens of truth! Here we go!

• The Judicial Discipline Commission was right to dismiss charges that District Court Judge Lee Gates improperly endorsed two other judge candidates when he gave them money. You see, Gates has a First Amendment right to free speech, and that includes endorsing anybody he wants.
  
• Next up, the commission should dismiss the charge that Gates improperly spent campaign funds when he gave $5,000 each to Justice of the Peace Karen Bennett-Haron and Nevada Supreme Court Justice Michael Douglas. We don’t necessarily agree, but the U.S. Supreme Court has said money is the same as political speech, and that means Gates can give to whomever he wants.
  
• The only charge remaining: Whether he failed to properly report the donations. (He did; an amended report was only filed after a commission investigation began.) So what? Have him pay a fine, gently slap his wrist and then move on to investigating the other interesting things he’s allegedly been doing with campaign funds.
  
• Quotable: "The governor said he was going to have one bold stroke for education. I didn’t know that his one bold stroke was going to be to bludgeon education." — Mary Jo Parise-Malloy, vice president of Nevadans for Quality Education. (How man people are in that group, we wonder? Because if there were a lot of Nevadans for quality education, we’re guessing Gov. Jim Gibbons would never have been elected in the first place.)
  
• White House visitor logs are public records, so George W. Bush can’t seize and burn them to cover up visits from people like James Dobson, Jerry Falwell and Jack Abramoff, judge rules. Nice to see justice prevail every now and again. Now let’s see who came a’calling, shall we?
• Good God, man! Democrats took money from Sheldon Adelson? A liberal Democrat (Chris Giunchigliani) took money from a guy who is funding a series of pro-war ads on TV, and hosted a presidential fundraiser for Nosferatu (whose human name is Rudy Giuliani)? What gives? She says it’s all about establishing relationships and communication, but we like fellow recipient Tom Collins‘ explanation best: Better I get the money than some other asshole.
  

U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman, who lost his Democratic primary in 2006 but managed to hang on to his seat with a hearty whine, has "crossed party lines" to support Republican U.S. Sen. John McCain for president.

Anyway, enough about Lieberman, who has given aid and comfort to the War Party on their favorite subject, war. It’s time his key to the Democratic cloak room was revoked.

A Reno woman, possibly embittered by a failed run for Congress and two failures to qualify a misanthropic ballot initiative in 2004 and 2006, is once again renewing her crusade against community heroes like teachers, cops and firefighters.

The only good news appears to be that Angle’s one-time mystery financier, who allegedly promised $200,000 in matching funds to circulate her petition, has pulled out, thus leaving her with only volunteers to spread her message of hatred and division. Further, if the AFL-CIO challenges the re-written petition, it will further delay the proceedings.

Just a few items for this cold, wintery Monday as we count down the shopping days until Christmas (there’s just eight left, people!).

• Congrats to former Assemblyman Greg Brower, who was confirmed by the Senate last week to become the new U.S. attorney for Nevada. And with Karl Rove out of the White House, it’s likely that Brower won’t be fired in an awful political clusterfuck, like his predecessor! Good luck, Greg!
  
• Another debate, another chance for Delaware U.S. Sen. Joe Biden to show why he’s obviously the best-qualified candidate of either party to be the next president of the United States.
  
• Review-Journal Editor Tom Mitchell, in what surely will be his final column before heading out of town, defends the newspaper industry’s exemption from the state’s sales tax. We’ve always thought that was a special favor unearned by the Fourth Estate ourselves.
  
• And what about the dollops of corporate welfare like required publishing of legal notices, the country property tax roll and the state’s list of unclaimed property, all of which could be done far more cheaply and usefully on state websites? Any defense for that, Mr. Anti-Government Editor?
  
• MGM Mirage Chairman Terry Lanni predicts a "very difficult ‘08 in our business." Other experts, curiously, disagree, predicting a good year for casinos. But we agree with Lanni. After all, when that teachers union initiative to raise the gambling tax passes…

No matter what else you can say about the people over at Las Vegas Sands Inc., you’ve got to admire their chutzpah: They really believe they should run the state.

So when Sands President Bill Weidner talks about the Nevada State Education Association’s initiative to raise the top tier of the gross gambling tax to 9.75 percent, he speaks like a man annoyed by his neighbor’s barking dog.

"It will ruin this state," Weidner flatly declared at the Governor’s Conference on Tourism, with His Excellency the Governor sitting in the front row and clapping like a trained seal about to get a hunk of mackerel. "We have to fight back, not pretend like we want to compromise."

Yes. Yes. We feel your hatred, Bill Weidner. Now, use your anger, and your journey to the dark side will be complete!

And politically, the teacher’s union couldn’t help for a better opponent. See, Las Vegas Sands Inc. is about to open a brand new tower, the Palazzo, right next to the Venetian. And its also got some nice casinos going in Macau. And its chairman, Sheldon Adelson, is the nation’s third-richest man.

But the company wants to fight back. Against teachers. Who teach our community’s children. You see where this is going, right?

Now, as to this business about ruining the state: What the hell is Weidner talking about? It will "ruin" the fact that we are almost last in the nation in per-pupil spending? It will "ruin" our abysmally high dropout rate? Or our low college graduation rate? It will "ruin" our highest-in-the-nation rate of teen pregnancy? It will "ruin" the fact that teachers in Nevada are almost criminally underpaid, given their responsibility in our society? It will "ruin" the youth of Nevada’s chances of getting better jobs, perhaps not in the gambling industry?

No, the teachers’ initiative won’t "ruin" any of those things. In fact, it will help to fix a lot of them. The only thing that will be really be "ruined" is the dream of casinos such as the Venetian from continuing to profit from the lowest-in-the-nation tax rate, which helps keep Nevada low on so many other lists, too.

But by all means, keep fighting back. Don’t compromise. Cut some TV ads with precisely that message. Let the voters see that oh-so-sweet side of the casino industry. Talk about how the teachers are just greedy, unionized thugs holding the poor, oppressed casino industry hostage. We can’t think of a better campaign message.

In favor of the initiative, that is.

Leave it to the Review-Journal to give Gov. Jim Gibbons good marks for his first year in office. A story in today’s paper is headlined, "After early stumble, governor rebounded."

And that’s only a little off: With only slight editing, a more accurate headlined could be penned thusly: "After one hell of a lot of early stumbles, governor really got down to the business of screwing the pooch." Sure, it’s longer. But you could probably just reduce the size of the photo. After all, the governor in French cuffs looks, well, lame.

But seriously, folks, how can the state’s largest newspaper seriously conclude that "But a year later, the Sparks native has by most accounts recovered from those early troubles"? Because by any account outside the R-J’s editorial page and the Venetian’s in-house political newsletter (those are different publications, right?) Gibbons has turned in the worst performance of any governor in modern history.

And the R-J does cover many of those things, after a fashion. It mentions his midnight swearing-in, but fails to mention how Gibbons lied about why he did it. (He wanted to take office immediately to prevent outgoing Gov. Kenny Guinn from being able to appoint somebody to the Gaming Control Board, but said he did it for homeland security reasons.)

The story mentions the controversies over Gibbons’ appointments, but it fails to note that nixing deputy McCarran International Airport director Rosemary Vassiliadis from the state’s Homeland Security Commission was done for political reasons, a hypocritical and dangerous action coming from a governor who claims expertise in security. (By the way, no McCarran rep has ever been appointed to the commission, leaving a serious gap in its institutional knowledge.)

The story quotes Progressive Leadership Alliance of Nevada lobbyist Jan Gilbert saying "It’s a cloak-and-dagger administration," but fails to note how Gibbons is being sued by the Reno Gazette-Journal for documents pertaining to budget cuts, and how he invoked Richard Nixon in his defense.

The story notes how Gibbons "found" $1 billion for transportation, but fails to note the backlog in transportation projects was more than $5 billion, or that his solution was faxed to him from the Venetian’s executive offices in pursuit of owner Sheldon Adelson’s private crusade, eliminating the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority.

The story allows Gibbons to say this: "We came away with some great things for the state of Nevada. Whether it was holding the line on taxes, education or transportation — creative things that make Nevada a better place." Again, you’d be hard pressed to find many people who think Nevada is a better place because of Gibbons, and the "creative" projects on the education front will most likely be casualties of his upcoming budget cuts.

We hear a lot in the story about his "no tax" pledge, the one promise that Gibbons appears determined not to break. To conservatives, this knee-jerk old saw passes for leadership, no matter how bad things get for residents of Nevada.

But we do get a bit of insight when we learn that Gibbons hates "…life in a ‘fishbowl,’ where every move and decision, public or private, is questioned and commented on by anyone with an opinion and access to the Internet." Hey, do you think he’s talking about us? And whatever happened to that brave former fighter pilot who said he’s been shot at for real, so the criticism tossed his way from the peanut gallery don’t matter? Geez, those French cuffs have made the guy soft.

And what about the latest flip-flop? After weeks of saying K-12 education would be spared from budget cuts, Gibbons on Friday announced that it, along with most of the rest of state government, would have to get by on 4.5 percent less. Sure, the overall state budget (and the schools budget) will still increase. But for anybody who took the governor at his word, it was a rude awakening.

So Gibbons ended the year the same way he began it: By saying one thing, then doing another. That’s his rapidly coagulating legacy.

UPDATE: Here’s another story assessing Gibbons first year in office, in which the governor compares his tenure with a roller coaster. We’re not sure what he meant, but we’re picturing that one roller coaster in Final Destination 3, where it totally comes off the rails and kills all those kids.