A partial list, for today…

• That the city of Las Vegas, already under fire for laying off employees while planning to build a new City Hall, would even consider blowing $228,238 on sidewalk medallions and benches.
• That no matter how many new people start to ride the monorail, the damn thing still can’t make money.
• That Clark County will spend on one single retainer ($15 million) the entire amount the Regional Justice Center went over budget.
• That KVBC Channel 3 actually settled with weatherman John Fredericks and his dog, L.J. Enablers.
• That political consultant Sig Rogich has his own personal bitch, and it’s a United States senator!
•  That Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki is a whiny, jealous person who’s record of job performance has been outshined to the tune of millions of dollars.

OK, we take it back. We can believe that last one.

We’ve been a little behind here in our messy office in a nondescript industrial building near McCarran International Airport, so we missed Monday’s installment of the Review-Journal’s in-kind donation to the re-election of state Sen. Joe Heck.

For those who don’t know, Heck is a physician, an Army reservist and a full-bird colonel who commands a medical battalion currently stationed in Iraq.

(Kudos to him, by the way, for deploying with his unit when he could have taken the commander’s deferment and stayed home. We continue to hope for a swift end to the U.S. occupation of Iraq and the return of Heck and all U.S. service members deployed there.)

But that’s not the point of this story. The point of this story is the R-J’s latent bias in promoting the candidacy of a candidate who will appear on November’s ballot, without ever disclosing he’ll appear on November’s ballot.

The paper didn’t disclose that fact when it covered his deployment.

It didn’t disclose that fact when it commissioned Heck to write a series of articles from the war zone.

It didn’t disclose that fact on Monday, when the second installment ran.

Why not? Could it be because Heck is a Republican and generally in line with the philosophy of the R-J? Or because the newspaper supports the war on terror and the occupation of Iraq, as does Heck?

Why is it that only Heck was asked to write for the R-J, instead of, say, a soldier or military physician or private contractor who had no political career back home?

It doesn’t look like we’re going to get the answers — or the ethically required full disclosure from the R-J — any time soon.

We still remember time that we attended a former colleague’s birthday party, right before we were about to embark on our job as political columnist for the Review-Journal. One of the attendees, we forget who exactly, asked where we were from.

“California,” we replied.

“Oh, another Californian telling us how to do things in Nevada?” was the snide reply.

Well, yeah, exactly. Oh, and fuck you, by the way.

We California ex-pats get a lot of shit just because we come from a better state. And we at Various Things & Stuff think it’s high time that we stopped taking it and simply declared our superiority, once and for all.

We started to think about this recently after we read the Review-Journal’s “Road Warrior” remark about California drivers recently. He couldn’t resist doing it again today.

Hey, Beardy, what’s your problem?!

Now, until 1993, we lived our entire life in California. We learned to drive on the crowded freeways and surface streets of Orange County and Los Angeles. We’ve seen traffic that would make the average Nevada driver wet his/her/its pants and cry. And we can definitively say that California drivers, on average, are far superior to their Nevada counterparts.

Why? Well, let’s just consider some of the things the Road Warrior complained about today:

• Rolling stops. That totally makes traffic more efficient.

• Road rage and drive-by shootings. Yeah, have you ever tried to aim and fire a weapon while also driving, and hit your target? That shit takes skill! And don’t get us started about the training necessary to shoot at another vehicle while driving. That’s PhD-level stuff.

• Smog. Seen downtown Las Vegas from a distance lately?

• Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Right. And who’s governor of Nevada again? Oh, yeah, right.

Anyway,our point is this: The average California driver — on his worst day, blindfolded and high on blow — is better than the average Nevada driver on his best day. (We should know: Many driving studies have been conducted in California with subjects who are blindfolded and high on blow.) So take your snarky anti-California remarks, fold them in thirds neatly and insert them forcefully into your ass!

Oh, and for all the California haters out there about to type a comment about how if we love California so much we should move back there, don’t tempt us. We think that every time a minivan with a Jesus fish and a soccer mom on the phone pulls out of the grocery store parking lot going 10 mph right in front of our car, which is doing 60 mph. Yes, on a surface street. What, is that too much for you, Nevada drivers? Oh, why don’t you write a whiny letter to the Road Warrior?

Bob Stoldal, the Vice President of News at KLAS Channel 8 and one of the pioneers of news in Las Vegas, announced today that he’s retiring.  Stoldal, also known as an avid history buff with a library that includes almost every book ever written about Las Vegas, will officially step down on June 30, after one more wild ride through May sweeps.

Stoldal will be succeeded by Channel 8’s news director, Ron Comings.

In addition to serving as vice president of news at Channel 8, Stoldal served as general manager of Las Vegas ONE, the cable television channel that is a partnership between the Las Vegas Sun, Cox Communications and Channel 8. It’s the home of In Business TV, News One at 9 and Face to Face with Jon Ralston.

Stoldal won’t be rocking on the porch, however: He says he’ll continue to  work on projects over at Channel 8, widely regarded as the best newscast in the city.

“At this point in my career it is time to make a change,” he said in a statement.

Stoldal’s retirement announce comes as reports are circulating that Channel 8 is up for sale. One potential bidder: Stephens Media LLC, the owners of the Review-Journal, CityLife and this very blog. Stephens could only be a minority partner, however, since federal ownership rules prohibit majority ownership of a newspaper and a television station in the same market.

Emily Neilson, president and general manager of KLAS, spoke fondly of Stoldal: “No one person has had more impact on broadcast journalism in Las Vegas and on KLAS. His work developing the industry and shining light on issues in our community will be felt for many years to come. His passion, his ethics, and his competitive spirit have shaped hundreds of journalists. You’ll find graduates of the ‘University of Stoldal’ spread throughout the state and around the country — including yours truly.  His fierce pride of Southern Nevada and drive to preserve our history have shaped our city and is unparalleled.”

Stoldal got accolades from as far as Washington, D.C., as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid paused to issue this statement: “For more than four decades, Bob Stoldal has been a true pioneer of broadcast journalism in Las Vegas. He is a tireless leader in our community and maintains a firm commitment to preserving Nevada’s rich history. Bob’s impact will be felt for years to come and I wish him nothing but the best in retirement.”

(That’s a lot different from the statement Reid’s going to release when we at Various Things & Stuff finally retire, we can tell you that. We’re pretty sure we can finally get the good senator to publicly utter a profanity. You know, to honor us.)

Our favorite Stoldal story is the time that he disagreed with us over the true date of the city of Las Vegas’s centennial. He said it was 2005, since the auction of downtown land pegged as the “founding” of modern Las Vegas took place in May 1905. We said it was 2011, since the city didn’t incorporate until 1911. The city decided to celebrate in 2005, mostly because Oscar Goodman was mayor and dude loves to party. Somewhere in the fray, in deference to his historical arguments, we dubbed him “Captain History.”

Stoldal immediately reserved that title on the Internet. After that, we turned to him whenever a historical issue needed to be settled. We’ll probably still do that. Happy retirement, Bob. You’ve definitely earned it.