According to researchers a study by biologists at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tennessee found dramatic variations in a cockroach's learning ability throughout the day. In the morning, the insects couldn't learn a new task, but in the evening, something kicked in.

Sounds just like American students.

Posted by Zounds Off at 3:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Agents for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement made at least 56 arrests in Reno, Sparks and Fernley after raids at the restaurants and a franchise corporate headquarters in Reno, agency spokesman Richard Rocha said.

The raids drew immediate criticism from Reno Mayor Bob Cashell and activists, who estimated the number of arrests to be closer to 100.

The mayor joined a news conference area Hispanic leaders and members of the American Civil Liberties Union called in front of the federal courthouse late Thursday.

"We don't approve of the Gestapo methods ICE is using," said Gilbert Cortez, a Latino leader who urged Hispanic workers to stay home from work in protest Friday.

Funny, when you give them a date to appear for a hearing, they disappear and reappear under a new identity. But if they get picked up in a raid Latino leaders get upset and white politicians are afraid to state the truth; these people have broken the law by entering the country, are forging documents, and often commit other crimes, and they certainly aren't going to come in to officials and say, "A propósito, tengo tres sistemas de las licencias de conductor y de los números de Seguridad Social." (By the way, I have three sets of driver's licenses and social security numbers.)

Posted by Zounds Off at 6:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid's longtime relationship with a powerful Nevada real estate developer has given rise to a lawsuit by a public interest group.
Judicial Watch wants to know if the Nevada Democrat and other state politicians exerted undue pressure on the federal government on behalf of his friend.

Mr. Reid was at the head of the Democrats' campaign against the "culture of corruption" in Washington. But for years, the Los Angeles Times reported, Reid was active in clearing hurdles to the development.

Judicial Watch is suing the Bureau of Land Management for documents related to the 43,000-acre Coyote Springs housing and recreational development northeast of Las Vegas, now in its early stages. The lawsuit alleges the bureau failed to respond to a Freedom of Information Act request of March 8.

Lawyer and lobbyist Harvey Whittemore, a shareholder in the law firm of Lionel Sawyer & Collins, is the driving force behind the project and a political contributor to Mr. Reid. Mr. Whittemore has employed Leif Reid, a son of the senator, as an attorney.

I wonder just how many politicians and atttorneys are going to get rich from this, especially after the glowing support by Senator Reid, Senator Ensign, former Governor Kenny Guinn, President and CEO of the Nevada Development Authority Somer Hollingsworth, Joe Pantuso of the Southern Nevada Homebuilders Association, and Pat Mulroy of the Southern Nevada Water Authority to name a few.

For more on Coyote Springs see
Water for new town flows to lobbyist: Whittemore gains water rights for development without contention seen in other parts of Nevada
Huge development under way in Nevada desert

Posted by Zounds Off at 5:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From Fined group tied to Hillary
Officials of a defunct pro-Democratic group that was hit with a near-record campaign-finance fine last month hold strong ties to Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's presidential campaign, documents show.

At least four persons who worked for the America Coming Together (ACT) fundraising group, which the Federal Election Commission recently fined $775,000, work directly for the Clinton campaign or hold top positions with consulting firms hired by it.

Fundraiser for Mrs. Clinton and other Democrats, Norman Hsu remains in jail without bond on charges he bilked investors in a multimillion-dollar Ponzi scheme.

Posted by Zounds Off at 4:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

According to the Commerce Department sales of new homes dropped by 8.3 percent in August from July to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 795,000 homes, the lowest level since June 2000.

With the credit problems, the sub-prime lending fiasco, loss of jobs in the construction market, plummeting value of the dollar fueled by a bailout of the largest financial institutions coupled with a seemingly reckless half point drop by the Federal Reserve which seems designed only to bolster the stock market, record crude oil prices, and a plethora of presidential candidates already bought by special interests, 2008 looks like a good year for a recession. It also looks like a good year for Democrats to win the White House. They don't fix recessions; they ride them out and then take credit, but that's just good politics.

Posted by Zounds Off at 5:07 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

LAS VEGAS, Sept. 24 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Senator Barbara
Cegavske, Commissioner Rory Reid and Mayor Oscar Goodman, joined Ed in '08
Campaign Chairman Roy Romer and other leaders at the Clark County
Government Center, during the campaign's state-wide kick-off in Las Vegas
today, to challenge the presidential candidates to lay out their plans to
fix America's public schools.

"The presidential candidates recognize that Nevada is a key primary
battle ground state," said Romer, as he was flanked by parents, teachers
and school reform advocates. "I urge all voters to send a message to the
candidates: Tell them they must stand up to the special interests that
oppose fundamental reforms because America's failing schools are a national
crisis that can only be solved with strong leadership."

Strong American Schools' Ed in '08 campaign, an up to $60 million
nonpartisan effort supported by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and The
Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, urges the candidates to put forth a plan
of action to implement stronger American standards, ensure that there is an
effective teacher in every classroom and increase time and support for
student learning.

In our society today we will NEVER have an effective teacher in every classroom.

5. If Nevada wanted to raise education standards, it could simply raise taxes on the "corporation" that controls all of Nevada: Gaming! Nevada taxes casinos at the lowest rate of any state or country in the world. But we know that won't happen, because that would take "strong" leadership, something sorely lacking in Nevada.

6. There is just something basically wrong with expecting "fixes" to come from the federal level; it was the failing state of education which led to the "No Child Left Behind Act" which has caused school administrators to creatively find ways to skew numbers so they can remain in hiding, and done little to change education at its most fundamental levels--raise the damn bar back to where it was forty years ago when our county put men on the moon using slide rules.

And it is really time that we seek out talented people and pay them what they are worth to be teachers and truly forget about the obscenely overpaid celebrity monkeys making the news on ESPN or ET. The next news story on TV about O.J. Simpson, Brittney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, try turning off the TV; instead, read a book to or with a child; I guarantee you will survive.

Posted by Zounds Off at 1:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Posted on the Glenn Beck website is this transcript of a show from a week ago where Glenn plays part of an interview that was held at WPLR in New Haven, Connecticut. They had James Brolin (Mr. Barbra Streisand) on for an interview on a movie that he was doing, and it's on September 11th.

VOICE: Yeah, and so, you know, this is based on a true story and I don't know if the kid was there at the time. And, of course, they never really caught the guy and brought him into town in reality, but they sure as heck found him in one day where the CIA couldn't find him in several years, supposedly. So, you know, it's kind of a parody on how much we can't catch war criminals with all of our sophisticated stuff, you know.

VOICE: That's something we've been talking about a lot today on the show for obvious reasons, the sixth anniversary of the September 11th attacks.

VOICE: Right. Oh, yeah. Oh, happy 9/11.

VOICE: Well, that's kind of a weird thing to say.

VOICE: Silence.

VOICE: Yeah. Well, we're right outside of New York. I mean, I know people who lost family members. So I don't know. We don't say "Happy 9/11" around here.

VOICE: You celebrate the day, right?

VOICE: Well, we kind of commemorate the day by remembering the people who were lost and the families that they left behind.

And Americans seem to hang on the words of celebrities as if they had a special "truth." For the most part, I view celebrities as empty people looking for a script writer to give them a personality, a voice, and a statement. Also, judging by the number of "bombs" many celebrities embrace--I mean movies--a large number of Hollywood celebrities don't even have the brains to recognize a bad script.

And now a large number of people are pinning their hopes on Fred Thompson, as if his character on TV somehow translates to who he really is. Who he is should be judged by what he has done, not what his TV character says. Thompson has lobbied for special interests, such as Equitas--a British insurance company which tried to avoid paying for asbestos/cancer claims--a Tennessee savings and loan, Toyota, Perrier, and he and his past law firm even advised the lawyer working for the terrorists who brought down the Pan Am flight 103 over Lockerbie. See "Fred Thompson: Going Nowhere Fast" by Dick Morris and Eileen McGann.

Posted by Zounds Off at 4:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Clark County School District lost $2 million in funding because a federal survey underestimated the number of Nevada students whose primary language isn't English.

Local and state education officials say the Las Vegas district will receive slightly more than $4.4 million from the federal government this school year, down from $6.4 million last school year.

Is it the fault of the Feds that the estimate is low or did our state and local education officials forget something? When students are enrolled, officials know the ethnic background of the students and the language spoken at home, so that information would be available if local officials passed it on to the appropriate Federal level. My guess...the mistake was at the local level.

Posted by Zounds Off at 4:02 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Of course we have been hearing for weeks about the escapades of valued Democratic fund raiser and friend, Norman Hsu, who managed to raise some 850,000 dollars for Sen. Hillary Clinton's campaign only to have it come out that Norman has been running Ponzi schemes for years and has apparently bilked investors out of several millions of dollars.

Now comes Ray Hunt, friend of the Bush family, advisor to the President, contributor to the George W. Bush Library, and owner of Hunt Oil to poison relations within Iraq.

Hunt Oil announced this month that, after secret negotiations, it had struck a deal with leaders in the country's Kurdish-controlled north to explore for oil in the Dahuk region near the Turkish border. News of the deal angered Iraqi Arab leaders, who saw it as a Kurdish power play for the country's oil resources, one that appeared to disrupt already fragile talks over a critical benchmark for peace: an agreement among the Sunni, Shiites and Kurds to share profits.

Posted by Zounds Off at 3:13 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

(Reuters) - People who do not get enough sleep are more than twice as likely to die of heart disease, according to a study released on Monday.

Although the reasons are unclear, researchers said lack of sleep appeared to be linked to increased blood pressure, which is known to raise the risk of heart attacks and stroke.

A 17-year analysis of 10,000 government workers showed those who cut their sleep from seven hours a night to five or less faced a 1.7-fold increased risk of death from all causes and more than double the risk of cardiovascular death.

I'm going back to bed. Goodbye.

Posted by Zounds Off at 2:52 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Eric Perkins, an attorney in Corpus Christi, Texas, said Friday he filed a response to the lawsuit from Nebraska State Sen. Ernie Chambers.

Chambers, a self-proclaimed agnostic, said he's trying to makes the point that anybody can sue anybody. He said his filing was triggered by a federal lawsuit he considers frivolous.

But no one knows where a second response from "God" came from. There was no contact information on the filing, which turned up on the counter at the Douglas County Court office, although St. Michael the Archangel is listed as a witness.

If I was the judge I would schedule a trial on the chance that God makes an appearance.
'God' gets an attorney in lawsuit

Posted by Zounds Off at 3:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Three months before his departure as chief of the Clark County School District Police, Hector Garcia sent $11,750 in business to a longtime associate to evaluate the feasibility of metal detectors at a North Las Vegas High School.

Within weeks of his Aug. 10 resignation Garcia had new employment - as vice president of his associate's company, the School Safety Advocacy Council, which offers training and security assessments for school police and resource officers. (Las Vegas Sun)

Former school superintendent Carlos Garcia did the same. After fiddling for five years until his pension vested Garcia then took a position as vice president of urban markets with the book publisher, McGraw-Hill, with whom he had committed the district to for textbooks throughout its schools and had also hired the company to provide a variety of educational services

Cronyism, bribes, kickbacks, campaign contributions, Lacy Thomas, Erin Kenny, Dario Herrera, Senator Harry Reid, attorney Jay Brown, Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, Rick Rizzolo...the more the Vegas area changes, the more it stays the same. Is there a seminar at UNLV on "How Business Really Works In The Valley?"

And while Clark County District Attorney Dave Roger still can't find his way to the District Court House for a corruption case (He is still "reviewing" cases, such as the UMC scandal.), he certainly made sure to find it so he could participate in the farce called O.J. Simpson. Dave must be thinking about a run for political office and hoping to capitalize on the national media attention. It normally would be a good ploy; at least one other former prosecutor who never found reason to prosecute corruption was eventually rewarded with the governorship of the state--Bob Miller. Hopefully, this time Roger has attached himself to a media circus that only the media is interested in.

Posted by Zounds Off at 4:38 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From WTOP.com; Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson told Congress on Wednesday that the federal government will hit the current debt ceiling on Oct. 1.

The current debt limit is $8.965 trillion. Unless Congress votes to raise that ceiling, the country would be unable to borrow more money to keep the government operating and to pay debt obligations coming due.

The Senate Finance Committee earlier this month approved increasing the limit on the national debt to $9.82 trillion.

That is about $30,000 per person already, so what is another $850,000,000,000 or $2,900 per person?

Posted by Zounds Off at 4:21 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts compared attorneys to firefighters last week, telling a University of Montana law school gathering that both have to jump into tough situations to contain problems.
....
Roberts noted that both firefighters and lawyers are viewed as "a little bit nuts" and have a strong sense of camaraderie.

"If you are in the law simply to make a living, you are not likely to find it rewarding," he told the audience.

Can we impeach Roberts for being really nuts? I don't think that very many firefighters are pouring gasoline on fires so that they increase their billable hours. I also doubt that they are told at firefighter school that they have to be prepared to be firefighters one day and arsonists the next and perform both roles equally, but attorneys are expected to argue both sides of an issue equally depending on which client comes through the door. Plus, firefighters know who their enemy is, the fire. An attorney has to deal with other attorneys who file delaying motions, judges who are incompetent at the law, who don't know the case, who are political or bribable (In Las Vegas, They're Playing With a Stacked Judicial Deck--L.A. Times), even (Gasp!) clients who are criminals--not just in criminal cases but in civil matters, also. The legal system is corrupt; those with money "buy" the best justice, but Roberts claims that those who only want to make a living don't find it rewarding ( I have never met an attorney who said, "Forget the retainer, ignore the bill, I don't need or want the money. I'm just glad justice was served.") ...I wonder if it is more likely those who like money stay in the profession and that those who leave the profession are like many who leave teaching--they have the passion for the profession but not the stomach for navigating a failing system where the marginal and incompetent seem to be a protected species.

For fun--or despair--check out Steve Miller's articles which include the efforts of former mob attorney, Oscar Goodman, the law firm of Patti & Sgro working for Rick Rizzolo, former strip club owner, the Reid family headed by Senator Harry and their land deals, former District Court Judge Nancy Saitta, now a Nevada Supreme Court Justice, who tried to file a document in favor of Rick Rizzolo when the case was being heard by Judge Elizabeth Gonzalez in September 2004 (A judge in their pocket), and then try to believe that attorneys have anything in common with firefighters. I doubt most people, except attorneys, can stomach the comparison.

Posted by Zounds Off at 3:55 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

O.J. Simpson was arrested Sunday, three days after police named him a suspect in an alleged armed robbery of collectors involving the former football great's sports memorabilia, authorities said.
Simpson was arrested shortly after 11 a.m., Capt. James Dillon said. Police were still determining charges.

No doubt after everyone gets an autograph, no charges will be filed.

Posted by Zounds Off at 8:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Six weeks after a fatal Minneapolis bridge collapse prompted criticism of federal spending priorities, the Senate approved a transportation and housing bill Wednesday containing at least $2 billion for pet projects that include a North Dakota peace garden, a Montana baseball stadium and a Las Vegas history museum reports USA Today.

Total spending on transportation "earmarks" next year is likely to be about $8 billion, when legislative projects from a previously approved, five-year highway bill are factored in. A newly released report by the Department of Transportation's inspector general identified 8,056 earmarks totaling $8.5 billion in the fiscal year that ended in October, or 13.5% of the Transportation Department's $63 billion spending plan.

The inspector general's report found that the vast majority of earmarks -- project-specific spending instructions written into bills, usually by lawmakers -- were not evaluated on their merits, and that many "low-priority" earmarks often squeezed out more important projects.

But what museum? We have a Las Vegas Museum, a Natural History Museum, a Neon Museum, a Las Vegas Art Museum, a Liberace Museum, an Elvis Museum, a Guggenheim Hermitage Museum at the Venetian or is this for the famed Mob Museum Oscar Goodman supports--although the mob doesn't exist!

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

The Association of Certified Anti-Money Laundering Specialists (ACAMS) is gearing up for the 6th Annual International Money Laundering Conference, September 24-26th in Las Vegas, NV.

According to an announcement yesterday from ACAMS, the conference will open with a "rare, inside look at a regulatory exam" with a walk-though by Lisa Arquette (FDIC), John H. Atkinson (Federal Reserve Bank), and Kimberly Hebb (OCC).

Isn't having a money laundering conference in Las Vegas like having an anti-terrorist conference in the middle of an Al-Qaeda camp or an anti-prostitution conference in certain Las Vegas massage parlors?

Posted by Zounds Off at 8:26 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The world's tallest building, still under construction in the Gulf emirate of Dubai, has become the world's tallest free-standing structure.

The Burj Dubai tower is now 555 metres (1,831.5 feet) tall and has surpassed the 553-metre- (1,824.9-feet) CN Tower in Toronto, Canada, which held the record for the world's tallest free-standing structure since 1976.

Dubai has also been in the news when it was learned that a company based in Dubai had received a contract to run port security in the U.S. It also appears to be the new home of Halliburton, as the company announced that it will establish a new headquarters there. The city now is home to numerous multinational companies such as AT&T, General Motors, Heinz, IBM, Shell, and Sony.

So, for all the Dubai bashing it has a diverse and booming economy and is a center of free trade, religious tolerance and pro-Western attitudes.

Posted by Zounds Off at 5:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

52-year-old Orlando Jones, godson and a former aid to John H. Stroger, Jr., a politician who in 1994 became the first African American president of the Cook County, Illinois Board of Commissioners, was found Wednesday on a beach in the town of Union Pier in southwestern Michigan, dead from an apparently self-inflicted gunshot wound.

Jones had been under criminal investigation by Las Vegas authorities, who last week recommended he be prosecuted along with fired Las Vegas hospital administrator Lacey Thomas and a Chicago businessman.

Posted by Zounds Off at 4:45 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Woman Drives Stolen Car to Courthouse
In South Carolina Amber Renee Helton, who went to court to pay a traffic ticket, drove there in a stolen car.

Super bank robber Forest Kelly Bissonnette, 27, apparently tried to cover his name on his own check, then handed the note to a teller Sept. 5 at the Bank of the West in Englewood, Colorado.

They must have both gone to public high schools to be so smart.

Posted by Zounds Off at 3:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Forbes is reporting on a quarterly report out of the University of California says the US economy, while not technically in a recession, is having a 'near recession experience.'

The UCLA study released today predicts real US economic growth will be just above 1 pct in the last quarter of this year and the first quarter of 2008, and says the deterioration of the housing market is to blame.
....
The forecast predicts the US economy will return to a 3 pct growth rate by 2009, and that the Fed will cut the federal funds rate to 4 pct by the end of this year, more than a full percentage point lower than the current 5.25 pct.

But in other news today the dollar fell to an all-time low against the euro today and oil prices surged to a record, suggesting that a weaker American economy will be accompanied by higher prices for energy and other imported goods.

Early this afternoon one euro was trading at $1.391, up from $1.384 on Tuesday evening; the euro is up 5.4 percent against the dollar so far this year and about 1 percent so far this week. Crude oil prices were up 2.2 percent, to $79.91 a barrel

Home market crash, credit crash, rising oil prices, rising product prices, and poisoned toys from China. If we don't see a recession, it's still going to be tough Christmas season.

Posted by Zounds Off at 3:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Republican Mitt Romney, a former one-term governor with a thin foreign-policy resume, argued Wednesday that the Senate tenures of his top Democratic presidential rivals don't automatically make them qualified to address world affairs.

"Sitting on committees in Washington does not guarantee that someone has the skills to solve the problems on the international stage," Romney told The Associated Press

And apparently Romney's foreign policy experience consists of spending 30 months in France as an LDS missionary in the 1960's. Along with the apparent gaffes committed by his staff in South Carolina, Mitt just may end up as more joke than serious candidate, except for the fact that the Mormons really wants to see him in the White House and will surely pay into his campaign coffers.

Posted by Zounds Off at 2:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A Web site ridiculing Republican presidential hopeful Fred Thompson - dubbed PhoneyFred.org - turned out to be real bad news yesterday for GOP rival Mitt Romney.

The salacious site, which labeled Thompson "Playboy Fred" and worse, was linked yesterday to Romney's campaign, forcing the former Massachusetts governor's red-faced aides to disavow the site.

The incident - sparking the first real mudslinging in the Republican primary - began when cybersleuths connected the anti-Thompson site to Romney's top consultant in South Carolina, Warren Tompkins.

For more on how each candidate will spin this go to "Anti-Fred Thompson Web site linked to Mitt Romney."

It's nice to see that the candidates are hiring intelligent, professional juveniles to run their campaigns. Don't they have enough sense to leave this sort of behavior to the the rabid bloggers on the net?

Posted by Zounds Off at 2:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A New Hampshire teenager's yearbook photo has been rejected, because she's holding a flower. Merrimack High School student Melissa Morin's senior photograph featured her and a small red flower. School officials, however, said the picture is not going to make it in the yearbook because props aren't allowed.

Wow! And this state gets to have the first primary! If you want to know what's wrong with education it's actions like this where common sense has been put to death and the foolish are in charge. And remember that this state ranks a lot higher than Nevada for education, which comes in at 49th, just a nudge ahead of Arizona. Think of all the crazy decisions Clark County schools will perform in the next couple of years before this state dies of thirst--I mean runs out of water.

Posted by Zounds Off at 4:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The recent articles on the Nevada sex scene have given bloggers plenty to post the last few days, so why not go with the flow; hopefully, the attention will keep Oscar saying stupid things, his stock in trade, giving bloggers continued blogisms...or is that blogasms.

New York Times, September 8, 2007
Escape From Las Vegas
By Bob Herbert

Amber is 19 years old and on Sunday she caught a flight out of Las Vegas's McCarran International Airport and went home to a small town in Minnesota, not far from the Iowa border.

I'm rooting for her. She's low on funds ("I've got my ticket, that's about all," she said), and she's at a crucial turning point in her life.

The question is whether she will go off to college in Florida, and stick with it, which she insists is what she wants to do, or whether she will slip back into her life as a stripper and lap dancer, which is so often the start of the descent into the hell of prostitution.

"I hate the dancing," she told me. "Sometimes I think I don't have a strong enough mind for it, because of the way people treat me."

I met Amber in Las Vegas last week. I was with Melissa Farley, a psychologist and researcher who was asked by the head of the U.S. State Department's anti-trafficking office to do a study of the sex trade and its consequences in Nevada. <