Yes, we know it’s Memorial Day, and that most of you loyal readers won’t be reading this until Tuesday in a post-barbecue haze, but that shall not keep us from our appointed rounds! It’s time for a Weber full of Quick Hits, with our extra-special Various Things & Stuff secret sauce! Here we go!

• President George W. Bush actually apologized for something, which qualifies not just as news, but the story of the year. Bush, in a joint news conference with British Prime Minister Tony Blair, said his “tough talk” — i.e. asking terror groups to “bring ‘em on” in Iraq — “sent the wrong signal to people.”

What signal was that: America elected an idiot as president? Actually, that’s the right signal. The wrong signal is inviting the enemy to come kill the soldiers of which you are commander-in-chief, which is precisely what Bush did. Even if he didn’t skip out on some of his National Guard service, that kind of “tough talk” is clearly the empty boasts of a man who’s never been under fire.

But Iraq has turned a corner now, and it’s still worth the sacrifice, Bush and Blair maintained. Is it possible to get these guys into some kind of therapy?

• If it wasn’t bad enough that television stations were airing Bush administration propaganda in the form of “video news releases,” now we learn that dozens of stations may have done the same thing for giant corporations like GM, Intel and Pfizer. The Federal Communications Commission is investigating allegations from the Center for Media and Democracy that stations aired the corporate video news releases without the required disclosure that they were generated by corporations, not real news reporters.

Then again, it’s getting harder and harder to tell the difference, even when the corporate propaganda is generated by real news reporters, isn’t it? Reminds us of a bumper sticker we own: “The media are only as liberal as the conservative corporations that own them.”

• Mayor Oscar Goodman wants to get “help” for homeless people who he says are “service resistant,” whether they want help or not, eh? “We want the ability to help those who don’t want to help themselves, without being sued for unlawful arrest,” he said in the Review-Journal.

Amen. We need that kind of program, especially for chronic inebriates who have steadfastly refused to give up drinking, and even joke about their consumption of huge amounts of booze at every turn. Mayor, would you come with us please? Don’t make us use the restraints!

• Speaking of the R-J, the newspaper raised a legitimate question on Sunday with reporter Adrienne Packer’s story about the myriad other people that strip club mogul Mike Galardi says he bribed. Why, the paper wonders, have no other prosecutions been initiated?

It’s more than just idle theory: If prosecutors believe Galardi, there are plenty of unindicted bribe-takers running around Las Vegas, and law enforcement officials are obligated to follow up. In some cases, federal authorities didn’t even bother to ask alleged bribe recipients about Galardi’s allegations.

If, however, they don’t believe Galardi, then why did they move forward with any prosecutions at all? Why just Dario Herrera and Mary Kincaid-Chauncey? Don’t get us wrong: We think those two were guilty. But this particular witness said a lot of other things on the stand, things that even a federal prosecutor cautioned jurors to regard with skepticism. That’s hardly a ringing endorsement for your case.

• And, still speaking of the R-J, the newspaper actually ran a long story on how to pack a suitcase. Nope, we’re not kidding.

Here’s a sample. Don’t worry; it’s not enough to hurt you:

“When it comes to packing for a trip, travelers are like barroom karaoke singers at 2 in the morning.

“Some turn out to be pretty good at it. Others, not so much.

“What separates travelers who can fit their supplies for a 14-day voyage to Europe in a gym bag from those of us who couldn’t do a weekend in Laughlin with anything less than three suitcases and a shopping bag?

“In a word, organization, a skill that’s important as summer travel season approaches, airlines continue their crackdown on overweight checked baggage and airports keep a close eye on security.”

Wow. Trees died for that. We have just a little more carbon dioxide and a little less oxygen because of that.

But just for kicks, we tried to adopt the style for a story we at Various Things & Stuff have been working on. Here goes:

“When it comes to terminating employees who churn out shoddy work day after day, bosses are like barroom karaoke singers at 2 a.m.

“Some turn out to be pretty good at it. Others, not so much.

“What defines bosses who can tell an employee has simply given up on ever doing a good, creative or interesting piece of work ever again, and are simply coasting on institutional inertia with the sure and certain knowledge that, if they don’t actually steal money from the company, they won’t get fired?

“In a word, balls.”

Not a bad template, eh? Maybe we’ll use it for all our stories!

• Far be it from us to criticize a writer who actually does turn out interesting copy on a regular basis, but we just couldn’t swallow a line in political reporter Molly Ball’s profile of Lt. Gov. Lorraine Hunt, who’s now running for governor.

Don’t get us wrong: Ball covered all the bases in her piece, and raised the most persistent question on the campaign trail: While Hunt says she was a key player in the administration of Gov. Kenny Guinn, what did she actually do? And if her cliche-ridden stump speech at a recent forum was any indication, she’s suffering from a woeful lack of specifics because there are a woeful lack of specifics.

But then Ball penned this: “Hunt might be well-liked, but it’s hard to find anyone influential who wants her to be governor.

“[U.S. Rep. Jim] Gibbons has the support of power brokers such as Sig Rogich, and [state Sen. Bob] Beers has the backing of conservatives such as activist George Harris. But not one of the state’s political movers and shakers is publicly onboard with Hunt.”

Um, isn’t that implying that Harris is somebody influential?

This is, after all, a guy with a record of losing so impressive, he serves primarily as a political Flying Dutchman: See him anywhere near a campaign, and you know it’s doomed. In fact, we credit the backing of Beers by Harris as a key indicator that Beers is going to lose, despite his obvious good looks.

So if by “influential,” she means “a terribly bad, and perhaps fatal influence,” then yes, he’s influential. But if by influential she means “having the ability to persuade others or alter the course of events,” then not only no, but hell no.

• And finally today, credit Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist with saying the right thing, finally. (No, it’s not “I resign.” What is this, a West Wing fantasy?)

Frist did take to Sunday TV to say that an FBI raid on the office of U.S. Rep. William Jefferson, D-La., was not a violation of the Constitution’s separation of powers or free speech and debate provisions. In fact, it was a legitimate law-enforcement exercise.

Since the FBI staged the raid, taking documents and a computer in a bribery investigation, Republican and Democratic leaders have been fulminating that the executive branch, in the form of the Justice Department and the FBI, crossed a constitutional line with the search. The more outrageous suggestions include one that says this is the administration intimidating Congress.

Bull. The agents in question conducted the raid only after getting a search warrant from a federal judge, which is the proper procedure in these matters, even if they were searching a sitting congressman’s Capitol Hill office for the first time in history. (When agents searched Jefferson’s apartment, they found $90,000 in cash in a freezer, allegedly part of a $100,000 bribe. That’s got to tell them that a little look-see in the big guy’s office is worth the time, no?)

If they hadn’t had a warrant, or tried to do a search using only the nefarious “national security letters,” or Jefferson wasn’t actually suspected of a crime, there would be a problem, but not a separation-of-powers problem. Credit Frist with seeing that, when partisan hacks from both sides of the aisle can’t.

Now, about that resignation, Sen. Frist…