The first thing we noticed recently was that the part of the Las Vegas Beltway in the northwest that’s divided only by two small, yellow, painted lines is totally unsafe! On our way to a festive party this weekend, we nearly died when some asshole in a tan- or gold-colored SUV swerved across those painted lines into oncoming traffic. Only our quick reflexes saved us from certain doom.

Hey, Clark County. It’s called K-rail, and it’s relatively cheap. Get some, will you?

Oh, and we can’t help but think how much those Beltway traffic cameras that our corporate overlord Sherm Frederick loves so much would have helped us. You know, not in preventing the accident or anything. But at least documenting it so that we’d live on in  The World’s Most Outrageous Car Crashes, Vol. 2.

Yeah, that’s the ticket. Now, on with the news…

» We issued a call for a discussion on the prostitution issue in the blog last week, and a few people weighed in over the weekend. Our colleague Jon Ralston penned this column midweek, and this one on Sunday. Basically, Ralston questions whether Las Vegas as a community wants to embrace legalized prostitution. It’s a good question, and the start of many more, like whether Las Vegas wants to embrace bad schools, horrible traffic and an insular, powerful few running the entire place. We’re just saying.

Our immediate boss in the hellish bureaucracy of the Stephens Media LLC, Geoff Schumacher, used his Sunday Review-Journal column to touch on the issue, giving it his usual fairminded treatment before saying the status quo is probably here to stay.

And Las Vegas Sun business editor Jeff Simpson joined the dialog as well, urging the state to decriminalize the prostitution that happens behind closed doors in hotels, but ban legal brothels elsewhere in Nevada as an embarrassment to the state.

We’re sure the debate will continue. But we couldn’t let this one go without addressing a couple comments made at that Grant Sawyer building news conference last week called to announce a new anti-prostitution campaign.

First, said former Nye County Commissioner Candice Trummell, "It is way past time for Nevada to become the last state in the United States of America to finally stand against all forms of slavery. It is time for Nevada to start adhering to the U.S. government’s own official and very strong stance against legal prostitution."

Perhaps somebody could tell Trummell that "slavery" was outlawed in 1865, when the 13th Amendment was approved following the civil war. Currently, federal agents pursue modern-day human traffickers because … oh, that’s right, slavery is against the law.

However, a person who voluntarily chooses to work as a prostitute, whether in a high-class hotel bar, a legal Nevada brothel or on a street corner, cannot credibly be said to be a "slave." Yes, you may argue that, because of drugs or diminished mental capacity, dire financial need or psychological abuse, the choice is not a fully free and voluntary one. But it’s not slavery. And to claim otherwise is to trivialize yourself.

Good thing nobody got that on tape, huh? Oh, wait! Trummell wasn’t wearing a wire at the news conference, was she?!

As if to confirm that Trummell was wrong, state Assemblyman Bob Beers continued his earnest efforts to trash the good name he shares with the incredibly good-looking state senator. A (legal) brothel owner, said Assemblyman Beers, is "somebody, who, when it gets down to the very essence, is nothing more than a slaveowner."

Sure, that’s true, if "slaves" are "people who can walk out at any time and suffer no consequences whatsoever." Ass.

» Oh, just an aside: It turns out Gov. Jim Gibbons is against legal brothels, and would sign a bill outlawing prostitution if it got to his desk. Now if only somebody could get a bill to his desk that outlaws trying to make time with drunken cocktail waitresses in the rain. Because Gibbons, paragon of virtue that he is, would not doubt sign that, too.

» The George W. Bush Department of Justice, while under the command of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, decides against net neutrality? Why are we not surprised? Because the Bushies worship at the very groin of big corporations, that’s why!

» Whoops. Gov. Jim Gibbons apparently forgot to include the cost of security for his out-of-state trips in his budget request. Color him embarrassed. Unlike former Gov. Kenny Guinn, Gibbons travels with two Nevada Highway Patrol troopers for security. (Guinn only used one.)

We’re not going to begrudge the governor his security detail. We think our leaders should be protected from harm when they’re in office. (In fact, we’re surprised that more leaders don’t have bodyguards.) So $37,000 is money well spent. If Gibbons is to be taken out, it will be done at the ballot box.

And you can even justify the security mathematically: See, Guinn was well liked by most people in Nevada, and remains so. Gibbons’ approval ratings are in the tank. So while Guinn needed just one bodyguard, based on the number of things he’s screwed up and the number of people who really dislike him … whoa, that works out to 721 bodyguards! How did that happen?!

» Speaking of Gibbons and his screwups, the newly appointed head of Nevada’s Mortgage Lending Division — Joe Waltuch, former lawyer for a big lender that went bankrupt and screwed tons of people over — is not really trying all that hard to dispel the notion that he’s a lackey for the very industry he’s supposed to be overseeing.

"You’re missing the positive side of all this," he told the Las Vegas Sun’s Patrick Coolican.

Yes, we sure are: When you’re homeless, you can see all the stars at night that would otherwise have been blocked by a roof and four walls! Of course! Why, Waltuch is just a glass-is-half-full (of fortified wine, the only thing you can afford after losing your home) kind of guy.

Man, the person who appointed Waltuch must be a super-genius. That’s Mendy Elliott, director of the state Department of Business and Industry. She probably solves Sudoku puzzles while doing the New York Times crossword and trying to finish off her soon-to-be-released Unified Field Theory paper, all at the same time!

» Hey, State Bar of Nevada! Leave attorney Glen Lerner and his TV ads alone! There’s this little thing called the First Amendment. You may have heard of it in law school?

» Hey, Review-Journal! What have we been telling you. Make this guy your full-time religion writer, and take him off the lamest features desk in America. He obviously cares about the subject, he’s good at writing about it and God stuff is back in vogue these days. C’mon! Do your readers a favor before it becomes time to write about new fall yard ornaments!