Need further proof that the Mainstream Media would rather you ignore all that business about how they knowingly used paid shills to bang the drums for Gulf War II? Just ask Miley Cyrus, the flowering 15-year-old star of Disney’s puerile, massively overrated super-smash Hannah Montana. Instead of learning more about hidden Pentagon hands manipulating public perception on Iraq, this “Tween television goddess” cans have exploded across our living rooms as the new weapons of mass destruction.

Nearly 10 days have passed since The New York Times revealed that the nation’s largest news networks have used retired generals and military analysts with hidden financial ties to major defense contractors to talk up the need for war with Iraq. But how often have you seen CNN’s Anderson Cooper wringing his lily-white hands over the news, or CBS’ Katie Couric delivering a long overdue “media mea culpa”?

Not once, according to today’s study from Media Matters for America, a nonprofit that analyzes the media. In fact, says the report, which has analyzed the nation’s news coverage since the Times story broke on April 20, the major networks have ignored revelations of the secret Pentagon program that used retired military brass to stir up support for further war in the Middle East.

Instead, TV execs have elected to spend an inordinate amount of time teasing Cyrus’ tits - soon to be at least partially revealed in the pages of Vanity Fair. We have just one question, though: If this future Z-Lister can cause such a commotion by flashing even a little skin, how quickly do you think her naked, writhing form could single-handedly dismantle a theocratic tribal society that’s still based on Bronze-Age superstitions? Now that’s a surge we can get behind.

Well, Vegoose, it was fun while it lasted. There are a few things I wanted to tell you before you go. I don’t know quite how to say this, Vegoose, so I wrote down a list of what I’ll miss most about you.

1. Being offered a joint by a frat gorilla who, simultaneously with offering said joint, also steps on my foot, creating this weird sadomasochistic moment of associating getting high with crushed phalanges, a troubling association that persists to this day.

2. That overpowering scent of hundreds of shirtless bodies baking in a tent, creating a smell I can only describe as chili cooked in an old wig.

3. Okay, last year’s closing set by Daft Punk was incredible. It was like an intergalactic wind-up jukebox had crash-landed in a field and was stuck on “play.”

4. A winged faerie eating a turkey drumstick the size of a whiffle ball bat.

5. However, five-dollar funnel cakes is a fucking vicious sacrilege I won’t stand for.

6. Buckethead is one of those rare artists who’s both great as an idea and as realized. It’s hard to explain.

6a. No, I’m not a “Buckethead person.”

7. One too many Maker’s rocks oh wait maybe that’s sunstroke why is there grass all over my face help

We at Various Things & Stuff have no problem giving poor Gov. Jim Gibbons his privacy as he tries to work out the future of his marriage to first lady Dawn Gibbons. As far as we’re concerned, there are plenty of other reasons Gibbons should be held up for public contempt, mockery and ridicule than the fact that he’s apparently been kicked out of the governor’s mansion in Carson City.

But props to blog readers, who were apparently the first to note that Gibbons may be breaking state law by not living somewhere within the confines of the capital city.

According to NRS 223.040, “The governor shall keep his office and reside at the seat of government.”

That word “reside” caught our eye, because it’s the same word that the NRS uses in describing candidates. Another law mandates candidates for public office must actually, and not just constructively, reside within the district, county, township, etc. to which the office they are seeking pertains.

And there have been plenty of cases in recent years that have turned on that phrase, not least of which is the ongoing saga involving former Clark County Commissioner Lynette Boggs, who was indicted after swearing she lived at a home inside her district but was videotaped residing elsewhere. That case is pending.

Other cases, however, have been decided. And you know what one of the deciding factors is? Wheresoever a candidate sleeps, there shall his residence be. That was the case when District Court Judge Lee Gates ruled in 2004 that would-be regent Mark DeStafano didn’t really live in the 13th District, to which he aspired. (He had two homes, one of which was in the district, at which he lived part-time.) It was a decisive factor when District Judge Valorie Vega threw would-be assemblywoman Anne DiMartini off the ballot, also in 2004, because she’d only spent a couple nights in a house she was purchasing in the 29th District. (The day before, then-District Judge Nancy Saitta concluded that would-be assemblyman Todd Allen couldn’t have been living in the 11th District because power to his apartment wasn’t turned on in time.) And who could forget “David Parks,” a loser candidate recruited to run against the real Assemblyman David Parks in 2002, who was disqualified after District Court Judge Mark Gibbons ruled the challenger couldn’t prove he really lived at a home in the 41st District.

So, what have we learned?

1. If a candidate doesn’t sleep in the district, he’s not a resident of that district. Ergo, if the governor doesn’t sleep “at the seat of government,” he does not reside there, and thus is in violation of state law.
2. If a candidate does not reside in the district to which his or her officer pertains for at least 30 days before filing for that office, he or she is ineligible to run for that office, and can be removed from the ballot as a result. It should be noted here that NRS 223.040 contains no specific penalties for violations.
3. A part-time resident (such as DeStefano) or a short-time resident (such as DiMartini) does not qualify as “residing” within the meaning of the NRS. And thus the governor’s explanation — offered via spokesman Ben Kieckhefer — that “This is a temporary situation. The governor has spent the majority of his nights since taking office in the Governor’s Mansion and plans to do so in the future,” simply does not fly. 

But does that mean the governor can continue to violate the law without consequences? Or could this matter form the basis of an article of impeachment? The state constitution specifies that “The Governor and other state and judicial officers, except justices of the peace shall be liable to impeachment for misdemeanor or malfeasance in office.” Does failing to follow NRS 223.040 qualify? Perhaps somebody could ask the fine folks at the Legislative Counsel Bureau or the attorney general’s office?

As we said before, there are plenty of other misdemeanors and malfeasances in office that should qualify Gibbons for impeachment before the question of where he’s really living. We don’t need video of him in a pink bathrobe picking up the newspaper or taking out the trash for that. But they got Al Capone on tax evasion, as we recall…

Now, as to the money in the Friends of the Nevada Mansion fund, started by Dawn Gibbons. Has anybody checked into a proper accounting of that?

“Rebate checks already spent” honks a headline on Page 1 of the Review-Journal. Along with offering the saddest words I expect to read today (”Tony and Gerri Roberto, a Guam couple who spent $600 Monday shopping at Wal-Mart in Las Vegas …”), the story details how locals plan to spend their stimulus checks (mostly: bills; also: some new threads). “That’s the purpose of it … spending,” one woman tells the paper.
As the owner of a house, two cars and three teenage sons, I’m pretty adept at deficit spending — I’d be a natural in Washington, D.C., if I could pass the dress code — but I’m not so sure about this check. The government giving us money it doesn’t really have to make up for money we don’t have so we can buy flat screens to improve the dividends for the shareholding suckfish of Big Biz? Sounds dicey.

“You know what we should do with that check?” I said to my wife. “What?” she asked. She was hoping I’d say flat screen, I think. “Bank it,” I said, “until the war is over. As, you know, a protest. In the spirit of sticking it to Bush and so forth.” Not a bad idea, she allowed.

Maybe we will. Maybe not — three kids, house, etc. It adds up, faster than simple addition can account for. Our household is like an early train: Someone’s gotta frantically shovel cash into the furnace to budge it even an inch. But it would be nice to hold on to the cash for at least a while before giving it back to Bush’s business pals.