It was not, as you know, a quiet week in California.

A week of devastating fires, heroic efforts, and questions of proper fire protection policy have left everyone… a little tired.

As frequent visitors have now surmised, there was no edition this week of the Capital Notes Podcast. We will, however, be back to gab and analyze next week.

In the meantime, I encourage you to check out our weekly newsmagazine edition of The California Report, which you can listen to below.

It’s a special edition of the program, examining everything from the real life horror of the southern California fires to the cost to the state to fight the fires (a story I reported; more than $96 million by week’s end) and beyond.

And finally, a little levity… and some good PR… for Governor Schwarzenegger on last night’s edition of HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher.

From Maher’s monologue: “They say the fires have forged a new bond between the President and Governor Schwarzenegger. You know, they didn’t like each other for a long time. And why would they get along? One is a blockhead who can barely speak English. And the other is Arnold Schwarzenegger.”

And later in the show, the eternally cranky Maher heaped some praise on California’s chief executive:

“I’ve made a lot of jokes about Arnold Schwarzenegger. But you know what? He’s not the worst. He’s done a lot of pretty good things. He’s suing the federal government for clean air… Watching him with the fires, he looked a million times better than George Bush. Isn’t it a shame this guy can’t run for president?”

Two of Maher’s guests — tennis legend Martina Navratilova and conservative author Andrew Sullivan — seemed to agree. The dissenter? Former Democratic presidential candidate and retired General Wesley Clark, who launched into some rambling discourse on a theoretical future where a foreign-born candidate (he used China as an example) could come run for president as some sort of Trojan horse strategy.

At least, that’s what I think he meant. The hour was late… and the week was long.