Lightning rounds, bitches. I have two stories to file.

First off, there's bedlam and mutiny going on over at God's Country West Times. Warrants mentioning, I guess. Where's Otis when you need him?

Lightning round thoughts: God bless the newspaper business - in what other industry is a frickin 20 percent profit margin unacceptable?

So you've got your classic corporate greed here, with local civic leaders trying to come to the rescue. But the people at the SB News-Press will be the first to tell you: Be careful what you wish for. They thought they found salvation when a local divorce' philanthropist bought the paper a few years ago. Fast forward to this summer, when about 10 employees walked in protest, rather than continue arranging deckchairs on the Titanic.

My conclusion? Either way newspaper reporters are fucked. Is it happy hour yet?


Second: Chavez went agro at the UN yesterday. Warrants mentioning, I guess.

Lightning round thoughts: Honestly, I got a kick out of listening to NPR lead with this story, and seeing it posted on CNN, as if this came out of left field.

Is the fact he called Bush "the devil" at a U.N. general assembly significant? Absolutely. Should we be shocked? Absolutely not. I guess what people fail to grasp is that Chavez is no politician. For better or worse, he seriously does not have that switch in his brain that censors certain thoughts before they hit his tongue. Anyways, I got a rush of nostalgia on the way to work yesterday. Hearing his comments, it took me back to my first couple of weeks in Caracas.

Homeless. Jetlagged. Pursued by armed gunmen. Doing double-takes in the AP bureau as Chavez spoke on background TV monitors, the words "Wait, did he just say that?" leaving my lips more than once. Raul, the Dow Jones reporter who sat next to me, chuckling in knowing amusement. Man, those were the days.

I guess that's where the rest of the country was yesterday, minus the whole homeless- and pursued-by-armed-gunmen parts. It's tough doing the legwork sometimes, sabes?