Sorry for the lack of posts, readers. We returned Monday from a weekend in beautiful San Diego, and there was a lot to do. But just because we weren’t here doesn’t mean things weren’t going on! Let’s take a quick (hits) look back:

» We can’t believe it, but we actually agree with a Review-Journal editorial. Our first thought when we read that Mayor Oscar Goodman was discussing an idea to issue permits to those who hire day laborers gathered outside nurseries and home improvement stores was the same as our former colleagues over at the R-J’s editorial page. And that’s this: If those day laborers are illegal immigrants, then isn’t hiring them a crime? And how can the city issue a permit to people to commit a crime?

(We love, by the way, the analogy to the city issuing a permit to possess marijuana. You know that actually happened in Oakland, and the federal government arrested a man who was legally permitted to grow the plant for sick people under a city program. The federal judge refused to let the jury hear his defense — he had a permit — and he was convicted! True story.)

Now, we are advocates of immigration reform, because we think there’s nothing wrong with people coming here from other countries who are willing to work and make a better life for themselves in America. And the guys who gather outside home improvement stores are definitely willing to work. So why shouldn’t private people be able to engage in private contracts with willing workers, sans city permit? At least that’s our view.

We understand the city’s view, too: Since many of the workers are illegal, job protections (like safety, minimum wage, benefits, etc.) are nonexistent. If the workers were legal, those rules would have to be followed.

But a permit? For an illegal act? That is, shall we say, a unique solution.

» We believe that it was us who said that, whole Gov. Jim Gibbons may have gotten a post-Legislature boost in the polls, he "…hasn’t gotten smarter and hasn’t suddenly decided to amend his ways."

How right we were! Last week, Gibbons showed the state that he’s still got the ability to screw up in a major way. First, he appointed a pro-Yucca Mountain representative to the Nuclear Projects Commission, Nye County Commissioner Joni Eastly.

"This position on the Nuclear Projects Commission requires a representative who shares the primary sentiment of Nevada residents and my administration’s views on the Yucca Mountain Project," Gibbons said in a statement accepting Eastly’s "resignation" from the commission.

Really? Well, then, why the hell did you appoint somebody who didn’t share the primary sentiment of Nevada’s residents and your administration in the first place, governor? Who the hell do you have handling appointments, Screwup O’Dumbshit? It’s not like this was some hidden thing.

Second, at the same time this is going on, Gibbons was allowing the state engineer to allow the federal government to continue to use state water to drill holes at Yucca Mountain in the hopes of proving it’s suitable to store nuclear waste. This shocked pretty much everybody, including Republican members of the state’s congressional delegation. (And they’ve been victims of Republican mendacity for years, so shocking them isn’t that easy.) The latest is that the feds refused to accept the state’s conditions on using the water, so the engineer turned off the faucet, and now everybody’s headed to court.

Third, and blissfully unrelated to Yucca Mountain, Gibbons apparently kicked Rosemary Vassiliadis off the state’s Homeland Security Commission. Vassiliadis, wife of R&R Partners adman Billy Vassiliadis, was the only representative of McCarran International Airport on the commission.

That would be, McCarran, as in the state’s largest airport, the sixth busiest airport in the country and the conduit for millions of Las Vegas visitors every year.

For a governor with a security fetish, it seems an odd thing to do. After all, this is the guy who wants his very own Jack Bauer Secret Undisclosed Location Command Headquarters up in Carson City so he can play commander-in-chief on weekends. Why eliminate input from an airport that anybody can see should be included in the state’s security planning?

Some have suggested it’s politics, since Billy Vassiliadis is a Democrat who fought against Gibbons in the recent Legislature when the governor tried to steal money from the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority to pay for his woefully inadequate road-building plan.

But if that’s true, then we’d have to conclude that Gibbons has no problem putting politics ahead of homeland security, public safety and even common sense. And if that’s true, it would mean that Gibbons is a clear and present danger to the security of the state of Nevada.  Why, it’s almost like he’s only concerned with the image of homeland security, not actual homeland security.

Oh, by the way, Gibbons had a junior aide to his chief of staff, Mike Dayton, make the call to inform Vassiliadis she was out. That means in addition to all of the above, he’s also churlish. (Hey, do you suppose that aide was the aforementioned O’Dumbshit?)

» We really love the lead on this story from the Review-Journal’s front-page Saturday: "A gambling problem rocked the NBA on Friday, and while such a scandalous scenario has long been one of league commissioner David Stern’s biggest fears, it seems clear the case has no link to Las Vegas."

Translated: Don’t blame Sin City, for which we are now serving as community booster, for this problem! It was somebody else that did it, and our fine legal gambling establishments are still wonderful places to spend your money. See ads to follow for details.

» U.S. Sen. Harry Reid said President George W. Bush will be remembered as the worst president in United States history, but couldn’t find his voice to endorse a measly censure plan advocated by fellow Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold. (It’s odd, too, because that’s just the kind of action Reid is known to favor when it comes to the war in Iraq: Ineffectual, meaningless and totally symbolic.)

We happen to agree with Reid, however: Bush will be remembered as the worst president the country has seen. But we would remind Reid that, at the very least, Bush will be remembered.

» On the other hand, U.S. Rep. John Conyers, the Michigan Democrat who heads the House Judiciary Committee, is moving forward to hold former White House aides in criminal contempt of Congress for refusing to testify about the firings of nine U.S. attorneys. (The aides refused to testify after President Bush invoked executive privilege.)

This may be a fruitless exercise, but it may also be aimed at a civil lawsuit that might force the president to disclose whether his administration selected U.S. attorneys for termination who wouldn’t play along politically. The truth about that is important to the American people, and thus Conyers is doing his constituents, and the country, a service.

Somebody tell Reid.