We’re back from a week in wine country, and we’ve got to say: It’s nice being someplace where you can tell the seasons are changing by the leaves on the trees rather than a shift in daytime temperatures from 110 degrees down to 40 degrees. But hey, that’s life in our inhospitable desert, right?

So, did we miss anything? It looks like we did. Here’s a short list. Tell us if we skipped anything:

• Dan Burns, Gov. Jim Gibbons’s new spokesman, actually spoke these words: “I admire Jim Gibbons.” We think he forgot the No. 1 rule of spin doctors: Keep it believable!
• Bret Whipple, the most obsequious regent and second in overall lifetime weaselosity only to Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki, wants to be appointed to the board that voters just kicked him off, but says he doesn’t really want to move into a new district. “It would be up to my wife,” he said.
• (Gibbons, who will make the appointment, has made some really bad choices in the past, but even he is smart enough not to appoint Whipple. We hope.)
• Hey, speaking of Krolicki, he’s apparently planning to challenge U.S. Sen. Harry Reid in 2010? That should be good: A self-serving, under investigation Republican going after the most powerful Democrat in the U.S. Senate. This could be Reid’s best year ever, even better than when he trounced that one creepy dude who was always obsessing over gay marriage.
• And get this: Krolicki says Reid is “too liberal and too partisan for Nevada.” Too liberal? Too liberal? Harry Reid? Please! If we’ve learned nothing else, we’ve learned this: The ass-kicking of 2008 has not taught the Republicans a damn thing.
• State Sen. Bill Raggio thinks his party is too right wing, which upset some right wingers, who still hope their antediluvian philosophy will make a comeback. But seriously, Raggio has felt the same way for years. Remember back in 2003? He called those Republican obstructionists in the Assembly “John Birchers.”
• Speaking of Republican obstructions, state Sen. Bob Beers is also seeking a regent seat. Now we can see that appointment: Beers isn’t stupid, and it would be the perfect way for Gibbons to say “fuck you” to Chancellor Jim Rogers. For his part, Rogers says Beers is “a menace,” which is probably also true. A good-looking menace! Huh, ladies?
• Terry Lanni totally lied about his academic credentials, claiming he had an MBA in finance from USC. When the Wall Street Journal caught him red-handed, he (actually) said he got an honorary degree from the university, which it turns out is also not true. An honorary degree, Mr. Lanni? Seriously? It makes us question our assumtion that you have to be smart to head a big company.
• Doug Selby, after a tenure as Las Vegas city manager that can charitably be described as “the council’s bitch,” decides to retire and do something else. If he starts continuously showering now, the stench of the attempted Bill Walters/Royal Links giveaway might start to dissipate sometime in mid-2011.
• In an effort to make Nevada Development Authority President Somer Hollingsworth look like slightly less of a right-wing, rhetoric-spewing buffon, the group invites economist and science fiction writer Arthur Laffer to speak at a luncheon. In a final irony, the Las Vegas Sun finds that everybody thinks Laffer is an idiot. So by extension, then, Hollingsworth must be…
• Once again, we see the sad truth: Politicians can only do what they know in their hearts is the right thing when they can’t be punished for doing so at the polls.