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.