Some random thoughts for Thursday:

• FCC Chairman Kevin Martin said this week the government should consider imposing decency standards on cable and satellite television broadcasters if they don’t improve their record on racy content.

“You can always turn the television off and of course block the channels that you don’t want, but why should you have to?” Martin asked.

Hmmmm. Because we live in a free country?

• The White People’s Party — which is concerned about representing white people of European (but not Jewish) descent — is getting closer to being on the ballot. Party founder Michael O’Sullivan says he’s gathered 2,000 of the 7,941 signatures required for ballot access.)

The best places to get signatures? Sullivan told the Las Vegas Sun it’s gun shows, country western and rock concerts. People ask us at Various Things & Stuff why we have so many guns. Our answer: Because members of the White People’s Party do.

• A Metro SWAT team member punched elderly-hostage-taking fugitive Kenneth “Jody” Thompson in the head, after he was in custody and handcuffed. Apparently, Thompson was giving the officer some attitude about whether there was a second suspect lurking around.

Now, we at Various Things & Stuff don’t condone police abuse of suspects. It’s wrong, and the SWAT officer (who was highly trained, even more than a regular officer) was wrong to do it.

But we guess that if a poll were taken in Las Vegas, 85 to 90 percent of residents would say the worst thing that should happen to the officer is a stern warning from his lieutenant. And given the still-unnamed officer has a sterling record up to now, we think that’s fair.

• Normally, we’d expect the Las Vegas Sun would simply ignore the most recent scandal surrounding Bill Walters and his sweetheart deal with the city of Las Vegas, now under investigation by a special counsel hired by Attorney General George Chanos. After all, the Sun-owning Greenspun family (through its American Nevada corporation) is business partners with Walters in another venture in Henderson (which was also a sweetheart deal, but that’s another blog for another day).

But the Sun has actually been aggressive on the story — in defending Walters. The latest entry was reporter Steve Kanigher’s piece today questioning whether Chanos could even take the case.

(An earlier column by Jeff German attacked Chanos for announcing his investigation but then stepping aside to avoid a potential conflict of interest.)

At least one respected source in the story — Boyd Law School Dean Richard Morgan — says it’s fine for Chanos to look into the matter. But that didn’t stop the Sun from raising the issue of an old court ruling that seems to imply Chanos couldn’t look into the matter. (A subsequent law change obviates the old ruling, we learn deep in Kanigher’s story.)

We at Various Things & Stuff are always interested in the Sun, albeit more about what’s not in the paper than what is. And we would be remiss to note that our friend and colleague Jon Ralston has been all over the story from Day One, providing many of the breaking details. The sad fact is, he’s virtually the only one. It’s not that the Sun doesn’t have the reporters to compete with the Review-Journal. It’s that the Sun doesn’t have the will to investigate a business partner of its parent.