Apparently the proposed immigration bill in the Senate had even less support than Ted Kennedy (D-MA), Harry Reid (D-NV) and President George Bush had hoped. The bill failed to receive even a simple Senate majority. Only 46 senators, including 33 Democrats, 12 Republicans and 1 independent, voted to advance the bill. It appears that even 15 Democrats, who joined with 37 Republicans and 1 independent to block the legislation, didn't believe in the bill despite Ted's and Harry's behind the scenes manuevering.

Posted by Zounds Off at 2:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) announced a broader import control of all farm-raised catfish, basa, shrimp, dace (related to carp), and eel from China. FDA will start to detain these products at the border until the shipments are proven to be free of residues from drugs that are not approved in the United States for use in farm-raised aquatic animals.

This action by FDA, a part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, will protect American consumers from unsafe residues that have been detected in these products. There have been no reports of illnesses to date.

"We're taking this strong step because of current and continuing evidence that certain Chinese aquaculture products imported into the United States contain illegal substances that are not permitted in seafood sold in the United States," said Dr. David Acheson, FDA's assistant commissioner for food protection. "We will accept entries of these products from Chinese firms that demonstrate compliance with our requirements and safety standards."

During targeted sampling from October 2006 through May 2007, FDA repeatedly found that farm-raised seafood imported from China were contaminated with antimicrobial agents that are not approved for this use in the United States.

Do you think the Chinese are simply going to keep sending us poisoned and defective products as long as we shop at Wal-Mart until they have made enough money to change global economics and politics forever?

Posted by Zounds Off at 1:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Today the Senate resurrected the immigration bill designed to eventually legalize millions of illegal immigrants, but it still has the same problems.

Conservatives succeeded in delaying until Wednesday consideration of a package of amendments designed to pave the way for a final vote on the bill by using Senate rules to insist that the entire 373-page package be read aloud.,

Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., agreed to postpone action on the amendments.
Probably no one has read the whole thing and it might take weeks for the rambling bill to be read in its entirety.

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy, D-MA, called the vote "a major step forward for our national security, for our economy and for our humanity."

National security? Add a couple more miles of fences and what...expect the illegals to turn themselves in? We keep losing the ones we catch.

President Hugo Chavez urged soldiers this weekend to prepare for a guerrilla-style war against the United States, claiming the U.S. government is using psychological and economic warfare as part of a campaign against his government. Note that some of that immense oil money has been spent to purchase $3 billion (U.S.) worth of arms from Russia, including 53 military helicopters, 100,000 Kalashnikov rifles, 24 SU-30 Sukhoi fighter jets.

Heck, they can just fly up to Mexico, cross the border, and fight us here--and probably win. Then maybe we can make them pay for school and road improvements in the Southwest.

Posted by Zounds Off at 6:49 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A report is out that U.S. officials have told a small New Jersey importer to recall 450,000 radial tires for pickup trucks, sport utility vehicles and vans after the company disclosed that its Chinese manufacturer had stopped including a safety feature that prevented the tires from separating.

Tread separation is the same defect that led to the recall of millions of Firestone tires in 2000.
At the time, tire failure was linked to an increased risk of rollover of light trucks and SUV's.

The company, Foreign Tire Sales of Union, New Jersey, had originally sought the U.S. government's help with a recall, saying it did not have enough money to recall all the tires itself.

The defective tires join a growing list of problematic products with origins in China. A huge recall of potentially tainted pet food in March was followed by widespread reports of toothpaste manufactured with a toxic chemical and toys coated with lead paint.

In October 2005, the company said it became concerned because of a sharp increase in customer complaints about the Hangzhou Zhongce radial tires. In investigating the complaints, Foreign Tire Sales' officials became suspicious that Hangzhou Zhongce was manufacturing the tires without the gum strips or with inadequate gum strips, but the Chinese company denied it.

Hangzhou Zhongce admitted in September 2006 that it had "unilaterally decided to omit the gum strips" in the tires, the report says. The Chinese company was "generally unresponsive" when asked how many tires were involved and what they were going to do to resolve the problem.

Why do we even buy Chinese products when they are poorly made or defective? By the time you factor in how quickly the product fails, the initial low cost doesn't seem to be much of a bargain. But luckily, by giving China its huge trade surplus we can support slave labor, several new Chinese millionaires who will gamble in Macau at Steve Wynn's casino, and China's ability to now fire missiles into space and knock out satellites as shown when China did just that on January 11, 2007, blasting an old weather satellite to bits.

Posted by Zounds Off at 6:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Teamsters Local 14 wants to take over the Clark County Education Association.

They would need 50-percent of the vote to be able to overthrow the CCEA, yet some union members say they aren't worried.

They should be...with low pay, lousy administrators, and a weak union teachers in Clark County probably are ready for anyone but who they have, especially as teachers see unskilled workers making as much as they are--and more--in the hotel and casino industry. I noted earlier this month that the county's garbage collection provider, Republic Services, met with officials from the Teamsters Local 631, whose members now earn $24.34 per hour (approximately $20,000 a year more than a starting teacher), to reject an $8.39 wage and benefit increase over five years--prompting me to suggest the teachers needed a better union.

Posted by Zounds Off at 6:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

PMI has published its economic and real estate trends for high risk, hHigh volatility, and low affordability MSAs (metropolitan statistical areas).

Riverside, CA, Phoenix, AZ, Las Vegas, NV, and West Palm Beach, FL rank highest on the index, with a 60 percent or greater chance that home prices will be lower in two years.

Phoenix has seen the biggest drop in the rate of appreciation of all 50 MSAs, from 37.33 percent in Q1'06 to 4.52 percent in Q1'07, and its volatility is the highest in the country. While
in-migration from California has slowed, reducing upward pressure on home prices, affordability continues to drop.

Las Vegas has seen a less dramatic, yet still significant, slowing of appreciation, from
16.06 percent in Q1'06 to 1.69 in Q1'07, coupled with a decline in affordability and low unemployment. Its volatility is the second highest in the nation.

But wait!

For the first time in five years, Nevada's unemployment rate exceeds the national average according to a Las Vegas Business Press article.

The seasonally adjusted rate jumped half a percentage point in May to 4.6 percent, topping the U.S. average of 4.5 percent.

In the Las Vegas area, unemployment was 4.2 percent, down from 4.3 percent in April but still significantly higher than the 3.8 percent rate of May 2006.

Terry Johnson, director of the state Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation, blamed the higher unemployment figure on a number of factors.

"People are continuing to move to Nevada at a tremendous pace, but unfortunately the labor market has not been able to absorb that growth as quickly as in the past," he said. "Nevada is near the low point of its business cycle."

A decline in home sales has cooled off the construction boom, Johnson noted. And casino jobs are off slightly due to the pending closure of the New Frontier and the implosion of the Stardust on the Strip. No new hotel-casinos have opened in Las Vegas in more than a year.

But not to worry.

The Las Vegas City Council has approved plans for an 85-acre development along the west side of Main Street. The project would include more than 9,000 hotel, timeshare and condo units, 3.5 million sf of permanent exhibition space, 1.2 million sf of commercial/retail space, a 22,000-seat sports arena and 300,000 sf of gaming area. (See more at lvoffice.com.)

So it is just a matter of time before those unemployed people are back to work. But I wonder at the end result of this cycle of building more casinos and hotel--going vertical--which brings more people to work on them, which means more projects have to be approved to be built (or we have too much unemployment), while we don't have the infrastructure of roads and schools etc. to handle the influx of new residents and we certainly will not have the water. But when Las Vegas really takes a hit, I imagine all our "far sighted" politicians and developers, as I have said before, will have retired to a quiet place far from the "madding crowd." Read that as leaving us with the traffic jams, violent crime, incredibly high cost of living--to "fix" some of the problems--and extreme thirst.

Posted by Zounds Off at 5:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

NV Governor Gibbons, who dodged some of the scandal fallout from his garage escapade--enough to win the election--when the reported video tape didn't show him where Chrissy Mazzeo claimed, is once again having to rely on what the technology evidence does or does not show as one computer expert claims that the e-mail submitted in a civil law suit by Dennis Montgomery against his former company eTreppid has been altered.

In a Las Vegas Sun article, "Expert claims e-mail in Nev. governor corruption case altered," an expert has disputed the authenticity of an e-mail submitted to a Reno court as evidence that Gov. Jim Gibbons was bribed by eTreppid Technologies.

The sentence, "We need to take care of him like we discussed," supposedly about Gibbons, was cited by Montgomery in the suit, but Jonathan Karcher, a forensic computer expert, believes the sentence was added.

I have nothing to say, just in case someone tries to add words to show that I have been bribed--which according to my bank statement hasn't happened, but sure would be appreciated.

Posted by Zounds Off at 8:48 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Bloomberg reports the U.S. Senate passed legislation that would overhaul car fuel economy standards for the first time in more than two decades and quadruple use of alternative fuels.

The energy bill, approved 65 to 27 last night, would force automakers to build cars that average 35 miles a gallon by model year 2020, a 40 percent increase in fuel efficiency. The measure also responds to President George W. Bush's call to boost the use of alternative fuels by requiring 36 billion gallons of ethanol and other so-called biofuels by 2022.

Automakers, including General Motors Corp. and Toyota Motor Corp., have tried to block the mileage requirements, sparring with environmental groups that favor them. Tom LaSorda, head of the U.S. operations of DaimlerChrysler AG, has said a standard of 35 miles per gallon will ``cripple our business.''
WHY?

The record gasoline prices and concerns about national security and global warming have led to increasing calls to reduce U.S. petroleum consumption. Still, Democrats failed yesterday on key pieces of their legislative effort, including the package that would have subsidized renewable energy with increased taxes on the oil industry.
Which would be passed on to the consumers so it certainly won't hurt oil companies. Might as well tax us directly instead of making us believe Congress is taking on big oil.

Posted by Zounds Off at 1:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

it's the weekend and I thought that I would post something in the area of stupid entertainment news that would require no brainpower, so here goes:

George Clooney has joined a protest to stop construction of parking lots and a promenade in the northern Italian town of Laglio, where he owns a home on the shore of Lake Como.
Welcome to the real world, George. Most of us are dismayed by uncontrolled development, but our complaints don't make entertainment news, but being an overpaid actor does have its advantages.

NBC has denied reports that it agreed to shell out up to $1 million for the first after-jail sit-down with Paris Hilton, claiming it has no "agreement in place" with the jailed heiress.
Please, please, please, no more stories about Paris. NBC should pay all of us $1 million each to listen to one more word about one of the most pointless people on this entire planet.

Posted by Zounds Off at 1:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Scores of illegal immigrants, including a man wanted for murder and a convicted child molester, were arrested in Southern California raids this week, U.S. authorities said on Friday.

The sweeps in Orange County, south of Los Angeles, were part of an operation by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement targeting "criminal aliens" -- defined as people in the country illegally who have also committed other crimes.

Of the 175 people arrested, 27 are criminal aliens and another 26 are "immigration fugitives" who had ignored deportation orders by a judge.

The raids were part of larger crackdown on immigration fugitives, which this year has resulted in the first ever decline in their number, to 632,189, according to an agency spokeswoman.

26 as against 632,189 immigration fugitives--we must be winning the war on immigration problems. No wonder some of our politicians want to sign them up as citizens; we can't stop them from coming across the border and we can't find the ones we have already caught. I have looked at a few of the immigration bill proponents and here's my take on their positions:

President George W. Bush: George Bush is actually working for the Democratic party as he has single handedly castrated the Republican party and pushing for citizenship for illegals is definitely a plus for Democrats, for as registered voters they would overwhelmingly vote Democrat. The ones who are illegally registered already are voting Democrat.

Posted by Zounds Off at 2:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Two Canadian billionaires, David and Eskander Ghermezian, and one of the biggest developers in the Las Vegas area could be among the witnesses called to testify in the federal corruption trial of real estate consultant, Donald Davidson, accused of paying $200,000 for a favorable vote from former Clark County Commissioner Erin Kenny and of trying to buy votes from other elected officials including former Las Vegas City Councilman Michael McDonald, who just got his own sweetheart land deal from the Las Vegas City Council this week.

Among the Ghermezian clan, they are managers and officers of over 300 corporations listed on the secretary of state website for corporate entities

Posted by Zounds Off at 2:20 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Las Vegas Review Journal reported that Michael McDonald addressed the Las Vegas City Council on Wednesday and left with the council agreeing to sell him land for millions of dollars less than it's worth.

Alpha Omega Strategies, of which McDonald is president, plans to build 600 apartments for low-income senior citizens on the 13 acres at Decatur Boulevard and Vegas Drive.

The mayor and the rest of the council voted to sell the land to the former Las Vegas councilman because of a desperate need for affordable housing for the elderly, they said.

The city acquired the acreage -- including some parcels that were purchased during the years McDonald held his office -- for $8.5 million and two recent appraisals for the city valued the land at $9.2 million and $9.6 million, but the council is letting it go for $6.5 million.

Mayor Oscar Goodman acknowledged that flak might be coming the city's way.
"Only an idiot would say this transaction would not be looked at closely," he said.

Only an idiot would believe that our "good ole boy" network of developers and politicians, making sweetheart land deals from Senator Harry Reid down to McDonald, would care whether any transactions would be looked at closely. It is time for Las Vegas voters to finally care and vote out the city council (too late for Oscar who is in his last term). After all, anyone who buys property for $8.5 million and sells for $6.5 million, even in the current market, is simply cheating the citizens. Don't let the sound bite "affordable housing" fool you.

Posted by Zounds Off at 1:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

U.S. Senators Harry Reid and John Ensign of Nevada today introduced legislation that establishes a conservation program that helps ranchers prevent the occurrence, spread of, and damages caused by wildfire to rangeland.

"Nevada, along with other Western states, is facing unprecedented threats to the rangeland," said Reid. "In the past, Nevada wildfires have devastated our rural families and ranches. This legislation will help prevent wildfires and mitigate damages from ones that occur. This is a good step forward in addressing the conservation and environmental concerns of Nevada and the Great Basin."

Meanwhile in Carson City, Nevada Governor Jim Gibbons joined with Senator Maurice Washington (R-Washoe), Senator Barbara Cegavske (R-Clark), Clark County Superintendent Walt Rulffes, Clark County Assistant Superintendent Dr. Karlene Lee, and others to sign a bill providing for the establishment of 29 empowerment schools across Nevada and provides an additional $400 in per pupil spending at those schools.

"By signing this bill, we are taking that next big step toward providing our children with an education that will better prepare them for the future," said Governor Gibbons. "Who better to assess and meet the needs of students than the principals, teachers, and parents who spend time with these children each day?"

Maybe juvenile corrections officers? And who paid for two Clark County Superintendents to make the trip to Carson City?

Posted by Zounds Off at 11:41 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In the Las Vegas Sun:
Trial for a developer, Donald Davidson, accused of bribing southern Nevada officials has been delayed until Wednesday while prosecutors and defense attorneys argue over whether too much time has elapsed to pursue one of the charges.

Jury selection was to have begun Monday but was postponed so U.S. District Judge Roger Hunt in Las Vegas could decide whether a conspiracy charge against the real estate consultant exceeded a five-year statute of limitations.

Davidson, 72, and his son, Lawrence Davidson, 40, were indicted in 2005 on charges of conspiracy, mail fraud and money laundering that could result in decades in prison and millions of dollars in fines on conviction.

Both men pleaded not guilty to accusations that they paid former Clark County Commissioner Erin Kenny $200,000 in exchange for her help in 2001 to allow a chain pharmacy to be built in northwest Las Vegas.

Lawrence Davidson, a former Las Vegas attorney, became a fugitive and a warrant was issued last October for his arrest after he failed to appear for a trial in a separate federal case.

Lawyers were arguing Monday whether a conspiracy charge contained in a second superseding indictment filed against Donald Davidson in 2006 exceeded the five-year time limit.

The revised indictment alleged Davidson conspired with Kenny on a proposal for a neighborhood casino in the Spring Valley area of Clark County outside Las Vegas.

Davidson's lawyer, Dominic Gentile, has argued that there was no evidence that Kenny received money for the casino vote. Even if Davidson and Kenny had an agreement before the vote, Gentile said, the act of conspiracy would have been completed once the vote took place.

Of course, the counter argument most likely is that it was part of an ongoing conspiracy of money for influence that included the later events also. Heck, maybe there was some tax evasion which should have been considered, bringing down the wrath of the IRS and a six year limitation, I believe.

Posted by Zounds Off at 11:10 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg left the Republican Party on Tuesday and switched to unaffiliated, a move in line with speculation he might consider an independent presidential bid for the 2008 race.

Formerly. he was a general partner at Salomon Brothers and is also the founder of Bloomberg L.P., a software company.

With an estimated worth of approximately $5.5 billion, he is seen as capable of financing an independent presidential run reminiscent of billionaireRoss Perot in 1992, who received 18.9% of the popular vote (but no electoral votes), making him the most successful Independent presidential candidate since Theodore Roosevelt in the 1912 election. Perot is apparently also considering another independent run for 2008.

The Beachwood Reporter is posting a three part series on Joey "the Clown" Lombardo as he and other alleged "mobsters" who go on trial this week in what may be the last housecleaning of the oldtime Chicago mob. Joey "the Clown" is the brother of Rocco Lombardo, former employee and associate of Rick Rizzolo whose ownership of the Crazy Horse Too and subsequent felony conviction are covered by Steve Miller at AmericanMafia.com. Steve is reported to writing a true crime book focusing on the events surrounding the ownership, running, and possible sale, sales? Check Steve's site soon for a possible new 'straw man" article update.

Posted by Zounds Off at 12:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From FBI tries to fight zombie hordes

The FBI has been trying to tackle networks of zombies for some time as part of an initiative it has dubbed Operation Bot Roast.

The FBI is contacting more than one million PC owners who have had their computers hijacked by cyber criminals.

The initiative is part of an ongoing project to thwart the use of hijacked home computers, or zombies, as launch platforms for hi-tech crimes.

The FBI has found networks of zombie computers being used to spread spam, steal IDs and attack websites.

With the oil companies gouging, utility companies gouging, insurance companies gouging, pharmaceutical companies gouging, banking institutions gouging, politicians wanting to raise my taxes and fees on everything but breathing, and now this, I feel so used.

PRNewswire
The Department of Justice and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) today announced a
$60.7 million Clean Air Act settlement with Nevada Power Company that will improve air quality in the Clark County/Las Vegas, Nev. area by requiring the company to reduce emissions of nitrogen oxides (NOx), a harmful air pollutant, from its Clark Generating Station by about 2,300 tons annually.

The settlement resolves the federal government's claims that Nevada Power violated the New Source Review (NSR) provisions of the Clean Air Act at its Clark Generating Station by undertaking modifications of combustion turbines and increasing emissions of NOx without installing the required air pollution controls.

This is the first NSR settlement with an electric utility concerning alleged violations at a gas-fired power plant. It is also the second NSR settlement in the past year in the Western United States.

Just nice to know that the utility companies have legal staffs which apparently don't know much about environmental regulations. I don't think it has been any secret for some years that modifications without adding new pollution controls has been a tricky area, but I suppose someone thought if we don't ask, the EPA won't know. Or maybe one of those "well-trained" or at least highly paid (over-paid) attorneys could have typed "new source review plant modifications" into Google and looked at New Source Review (NSR) at epa.gov where said highly trained attorney could have read, "All new major sources of air pollution will need to comply with the best control technology and existing sources which make major modifications and have a significant increase in actual emissions also will have to meet these requirements." I know it is extremely difficult to find this info and needs a highly educated individual paid extreme amounts of money because it took me exactly two minutes and eleven seconds to find and copy the above quote, and I know I should be paid obscene amounts of money for every two minutes I work--just like a corporate CEO.

From KLAS:
The Clark County School District made a public plea for teachers Friday. The school district needs 1,163 teachers to fill vacancies before August. That is almost twice the number the district needed last year.

There are not many options if the vacancies are not filled.

The school district will have to increase class size, meaning fewer teachers, or some teachers would have to teach second classes in addition to their normal work load taking away from lesson planning.

Missy Nettleingham teaches first grade at Tate Elementary School. She moved from Washington State to teach at the year-round school.

She said, "The first year is tough. I was lucky to have a co-teacher, but your first year you feel lost. You don't think you are giving your kids the best education you can give them. You think you are doing everything wrong."

That's part of the reason 30-percent of first year teachers resign every year.

I bet that other reasons include a lack of supportive administrators in the buildings, such as principals; a regional administration system that does not support teachers when their building administrators won't address questions or issues; mentor teachers who are more interested in checking their e-mail than mentoring a first year teacher; computer and technology failures (all grades and attendance are supposed to be on computers, but what if no one put one in the classroom); harassment for not using enough technology in the classroom (see computer and technology failures above); not even a teacher's manual for the subject and the first year teacher may have to scrounge the closets even to have enough books in the classroom for each student, though not to issue a copy to each student; no access to students achievement scores on standardized test to determine skill level activities and no information on Individualized Education Plans (IEP's) for special needs students being mainstreamed in the "regular" classroom, which is a violation of state and federal regulations; watching a large number of other teachers who are apathetic, incompetent, or thoroughly P.O'ed, while basically feeling that the prevailing coping strategy in the schools is "Don't ask, because we won't tell you--or can't--and if you persist in trying to be a teacher or have standards, you are an enemy to education; just give the students A's and B's or go home."

Oh, and by the way...if they can't find 3,000 teachers, why are legislators and school administrators continually pushing all day kindergarten? How many more teachers will that demand? Simpler to make the school day longer, but I bet the apathetic, incompetent, and underpaid teachers would fight that one to the death--who wants to spend even more time on a job you can't stand?

Posted by Zounds Off at 8:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In the Nevada Observer the following:

In a move seldom seen in recent memory, criminal charges have been filed against a politician involved in allegedly breaking Nevada's porous election law regarding campaign finance and residence. Former Clark County Commissioner Lynette Boggs has been charged with four felonies, two of which deal with campaign finance and two with filing forged or otherwise illegal documents. There are also reports that a state investigation is underway dealing with a high-end automobile purchase.

Boggs was arraigned June 7 and released without bail. The charges carried a recommendation from the prosecution that bond be set at $120,000. A preliminary hearing has been set for August 14. The arraignment came as Boggs returned to Las Vegas from a jaunt out of the county.

Questions of financial improprieties were raised when Boggs was running for reelection, but then Attorney General George Chanos and then Secretary of State Dean Heller recused themselves from the investigation because both of them used the same campaign treasurer as Boggs. Clark County District Attorney David Roger filed the charges on June 4.

According to Roger's charges, Boggs used campaign funds to pay a baby sitter and charged the cost to her campaign expenses. The amount listed was $1,230. There is also an alleged campaign donation of $5,000 that is not listed in her campaign and expense reports.

Boggs has also been charged with lying on her election forms about where she lived. Clark County commissioners must live in the district they represent and Boggs was found to be living in a home outside the district and listing a home in the district in which she did not live. Union representatives in a private investigation video taped Boggs over a several week period coming from the home outside the district dressed only in a bathrobe.

One of the unions involved was the police protective association of Clark County, which may have led to the decision by Roger to file the charges. Nevada's election law is generally looked at as a joke by politicians who often barely squeak by on their obligations to report contributions and expenses. In the past many years the secretary of state, the state's elections officer, and the attorney general have neglected their responsibilities to enforce the law.

Remember that the police union was angry with Boggs for voting against the pay raise the union asked for. Just think of the drug deals, strip club beatings, and other crimes they might have missed by making sure they got even with her. Certainly shows they deserve a pay raise or they might neglect some other criminal activity, like officers accepting gifts from suspects and consorting with persons of ill repute. (See a 2003 story Top Cop calls Rizzolo person of "ill repute," and "suspect" by Steve Miller.) Of course, I am not excusing what Boggs did, just questioning the resources expended for such a desperado while Las Vegas has seen one of the largest increases in violent crime in the past couple of years.

Posted by Zounds Off at 1:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Carson City has received a number of grants in recent days aimed at combating street gangs according to the Nevada Appeal.

District Attorney Neil Rombardo announced Wednesday that Carson City has been selected as one of six jurisdictions nationwide that will participate in an initiative known as the Gang Response Model created by the National District Attorneys Association.

"The Carson City Sheriff's Office has identified at least nine gangs in Carson City, and various factors are drawing more gang members to the Carson City area," Rombardo said. In the application for the assistance, Rombardo noted that the city's location geographically makes it an ideal rest stop for Mexican drug traffickers and the estimated 400 gang members in Carson City are easy prey for large drug cartels looking for people to move their merchandise.

Wow--400 gang members--must be nearly impossible to know what they are doing. One of the things Rudy Giuliani was noted for was putting police back on foot patrol in New York City--the result was the officers actually got to know the neighborhoods, both the good and the bad people, when they weren't looking at the world through a windshield. Obviously, in Clark County officers are not likely to leave their air conditioned cars except for emergencies or donuts but getting to know the neighborhoods face to face seems like a good "gang response model," without the fancy title.

Two other issues that strike me with this article are:
1. Calling the gang members easy prey for drug cartels to recruit to move drugs. Excuse me, but the gang members are predators, looking to make just these kind of connections, not victims.
2. While many seem to weep over the plight of the illegal Mexican who enters this country supposedly to work "jobs Americans don't want," which seems to include construction, hotel service, lawn care, etc., many of these illegals have been forging papers, creating several false identities to avoid arrest, committing sex crimes, drunk driving, robbery, theft, and surprise...trafficking in drugs with the Mexican cartels. Boo hoo for the poor Mexican illegal. Go back to Mexico and overthrow your own corrupt government and let us deal with ours. Why don't we arrest illegals and immediately take them to the border--so they can't change identities and go back to work the next day--and for everyone deported allow someone from another country who has been waiting legally to enter this country to come? That way the politicians could replace one potential voter, who is already a lawbreaker, with one who enters legally.

Posted by Zounds Off at 1:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Bloomberg reports that Wynn Resorts Ltd. increased the size of a loan for its casino in Macau, the world's biggest gambling market, by 24 percent to $1.55 billion.

The company, controlled by billionaire Steve Wynn, boosted borrowings from $1.25 billion after more than 50 banks and funds offered to lend more than it sought, according to sources, who declined to be identified because details aren't public. Bank of America Corp., Deutsche Bank AG and Societe Generale SA are arranging the financing, they said.

Wynn, 65, entered Macau in September after China in 2002 ended Stanley Ho's 40-year casino monopoly in the former Portuguese enclave. The loan will trim Wynn's interest costs and finance an expansion that will more than double the size of the 110,000 square-foot (10,200 square meter) Wynn Macau.

And I'm just trying to afford that dollar a gallon rise in milk prices at my local grocery store.

Posted by Zounds Off at 1:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From gaming news on Casino City Times:

The New York-based private-ownership group buying the New Frontier's 34.5-acre Strip location is expected to seek financing from Israel's largest investment company for up to $8 billion to redevelop the site.

Meanwhile, a spokeswoman for the New Frontier said Tuesday the 984-room Western-themed hotel-casino will close at midnight July 15.

Elad Group, which is controlled by Israeli billionaire Yitzhak Tshuva, said in May it would pay more than $1.2 billion for the New Frontier site and spend $5 billion more to construct a replica of New York's famous Plaza Hotel. The complex would include a casino and a hotel with 3,500 rooms and 300 private residences.

Posted by Zounds Off at 6:47 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Labor Department reported that the Consumer Price Index rose 0.7 percent increase last month.

The Federal Reserve reported that industrial production was flat in May.

The Commerce Department reported that the deficit increased to $192.6 billion in the first quarter of this year, compared to $187.9 billion in the fourth quarter of 2006.

Excluding food and energy, core inflation is reportedly up at an annual rate of 2.1 percent through May.

But adding in gasoline prices which are 95 cents higher than in January and that is a 40 percent rise so far this year for gasoline.

Supposedly food costs were only up 0.3 percent in May as beef, poultry, and fresh fruit prices went up, while clothing costs dropped by 0.3 percent.

I guess someone forgot to check milk and pork prices when adding up food prices. Hallelujah though, clothing prices are down. However, I can wait a few weeks or months before buying a new pair of socks, but I do like to eat everyday. In the long run though, no matter what statistics the different departments publish, costs are way up but people are putting more money in the stock market now that housing is a bust because the "published" statistics aren't as bad as the "analysts" predicted. I was never an economics major but buying a product which isn't as bad or losing as much money as expected doesn't make any sense to me. Half the businesses listed on the stock market don't appear to be doing very well but people are in a hurry to buy stocks thinking to get rich. Does anyone remember the tech stock crash of 2000?

Actually, I think I will buy those new socks and keep walking to the grocery store so those oil companies don't get rich at my expense. I just have to be especially careful in the crosswalks of being run over by tunnel vision, cell phone using, SUV driving women hellbent on getting to the grocery store and finding the closest parking space before someone else gets it s