I thought I heard on the radio as I was vainly trying to escape my bed this morning that a a spokeswoman for the city of North Las Vegas stated that North Las Vegas Police Chief Paresi is, "on paid leave while we resolve a personnel matter."

In neighboring California, the L.A. Times is reporting on the indictment of Orange County Sheriff, Mike Carona on federal corruption charges stemming from a lengthy investigation into allegations that he had misused his office for financial gain,

As Steve Miller has reported, Carona appears to be well known by Vegas notorieties who have homes in Laguna Beach and Newport Beach, including former Las Vegas Mayor Jan Jones, current Mayor Oscar Goodman, Federal pennitentiary resident Rick Rizzolo, MGM CEO Terry Lanni, Stations Casino owner Frank Fertitta, Jr. to name a few.

Posted by Zounds Off at 6:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The guest list appears to be:

Senate Majority Leader Bill Raggio, Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley, Senate Minority Leader Dina Titus, Assembly Minority Leader Heidi Gansert, Clark County Commission Chair Rory Reid, Washoe County Commission Chair Bob Larkin, Elko County Commission Chair John Ellison, Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, Reno Mayor Bob Cashell, North Las Vegas Mayor Mike Montandon, Henderson Mayor Jim Gibson, Sparks Mayor Geno Martini, and Chancellor Jim Rogers.

As to that southern Nevada mutiny over the Governor's budget plan, Governor tells Chancellor, local officials to "face reality"

Posted by Zounds Off at 6:17 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Steve Miller writes, "the following two documents were never meant for public view, but I believe the public needs to be familiar with their contents in order to protect the public's safety in regard to who will be allowed to reopen the Crazy Horse Too.

The first document dated August 13, 2007 indicates that U.S. Attorneys want Rick Rizzolo -- from his prison cell -- to SECRETLY be allowed to approve the buyer."

The Las Vegas promotional slogan should simply read, "Las Vegas, your corruption is showing."

For the rest of his article: My reasons for concern

Posted by Zounds Off at 5:31 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

http://www.inbusinesslasvegas.com/2007/10/26/lawutil.htmlIn Business is reporting that the new dean of the Boyd School of Law left a strong impression on local lawyers in his first public appearance Oct. 17 at a Clark County Bar Association luncheon.

Dean John V. White, who joined the Boyd Law School in June after years on the faculty of Louisiana State University and other law schools, spoke of the Boyd school's teaching philosophy, its standing on the national stage and its future plans.

White discussed what he deemed "optimistic" future goals for the school as well as why it has no plans to chase higher rankings for the school on the national stage.

He noted that the school has come a long way in a short time and has achieved things far beyond what even long-established schools can boast. The quality of applicants (both from Nevada and out-of-state) has improved and the bar passage rate of graduates this year reached more than 85 percent -- significantly higher than the national average of 70 percent.

.... Their high rate of bar exam passage indicates significant success in establishing a quality program.

I have to write that I have often wondered about our legal system which seems so very broken--probably everyone except an attorney would admit that the more money someone has the more "justice" they receive--and especially amazed in the '90's when the media talked about the two lawyers in office when Bill Clinton was President and Al Gore the V.P. I never could find that Bill Clinton took the bar exam in Arkansas, even when he was Attorney General and Al Gore failed the Tennessee bar exam twice before giving up and entering politics (and this in a state where the passing rate had always been 85 percent; even "dumb as hell" Fred Thompson appears to have been able to pass it).

So, no matter what spin is put on the issue by Dean "I need you to believe this" White and no matter that Chancellor "I quit; I don't quit" Rogers of the Nevada System of Higher Education wants to blame Governor " I only touched that waitress once" Gibbons for the sorry state of education Nevada has wallowed in for decades, the truth is that education in Nevada is in worse shape than a third world country, Nevada businessess and agencies only pay lip service to wanting well-educated workers, and no amount of re-writing tests can really hide Nevada's plummet to the bottom. But at least now we have lots of attorneys who couldn't have been licensed just a couple of years ago, which is exactly what the people of Nevada deserve for passively condoning our state of corruption.

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

[Former MA Governor Mitt] Romney recently suggested that he believes the GOP primary is going to come down to Giuliani and a more conservative candidate. (MSN.com)

I didn't know Mitt had even noticed Mike Huckabee. This just might be a possible Republican ticket--Giuliani and Huckabee. And on the Democrat side Obama was a bit premature considering Gore as V.P, possibility when Senator Clinton has locked down the nomination. Do you suppose Al Gore would like to spend another eight years as a Clinton machine lapdog, I mean V.P.?

Posted by Zounds Off at 10:19 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The L.A. Times is reporting film and TV writers, actors and crew members are canceling vacations, working overtime and squirreling away savings while they still can.

Talent agencies, postproduction houses and equipment rental shops have drawn up plans to cut costs and payrolls while caterers and special-effects houses scramble to find jobs that reduce their dependence on the entertainment industry.

The reason why:

Writers could walk out as early as Thursday if their union can't hammer out a new three-year employment contract with the studios to replace one that expires at midnight on Wednesday.

I didn't know that chimpanzees with typewriters could get contracts. My best guess is if writers in Hollywood go on strike, I won't notice. After all, how much writing will actually go into Saw V? Judging by this past season's lacklustre movies, most writing has been done by Dumb and Dumber. My suggestion to Hollywood is to go out and get some Replacements; better yet, movie goers should go out and read a book by a real writer and stop supporting garbage, but then after years of public education, most people don't actually read.

Posted by Zounds Off at 10:01 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From a Newsreview.com article:
For years local government workers, including school teachers, have opted to join in a state retirement program because the state retirement system subsidized post-retirement health care and local governments provided a smaller subsidy.

Unfortunately, the locals didn't pay into the system the revenues needed to cover the costs; thus Senate Bill 544 was designed to end the problem.

Senate Finance Committee chair William Raggio of Washoe County said, "What's happened is the local governments that don't participate and don't pay in [to the state system] have been shuffling off their retirees to the state, and then of course that throws it out of whack.

[Washoe County School District spokesperson Steve ] Mulvenon describes the bill as telling school district employees this: "If you don't retire effective Nov. 30, '08--anything after that you're not going to get this state subsidy. ... So you've got to make a decision to jump ship effective November 30, '08 in order to get this existing subsidy. They will not let you come into that group after that date."

The school district's employee newsletter is more formal in its language: "One provision of SB544 states that effective November 30, 2008, employees of local governmental agencies will no longer be eligible to enroll and participate in PEBP [Public Employees Benefits Program, the state system]. ... To meet the November 30, 2008, deadline, employees must actually retire and join PEBP by September 1, 2008, as PEBP has a 60-day waiting period and coverage only begins on the first of the month. Employees who retire after this date will still have the option to continue health insurance coverage through the district."

The Assembly's budget committee held a short hearing on June 2 at which PEBP director Leslie Johnstone, Douglas County teacher Janice Florey, university faculty lobbyist James Richardson, and retired state workers lobbyist Martin Bibb all supported the bill. One assemblymember, Ellen Koivisto of Clark County, questioned whether the measure allowed enough time for the transition.

A threatened loss of post-employment health benefits would be all I would need to bail. With the lowered standards of education, poor performance of students, discipline problems, weak administrators, and a plethora of other ills, I don't see why anyone remains in teaching when casino service people make so much more money. It seems pretty clear which professions or occupations are most respected in Nevada by the money spent. If Jim Rogers (Nevada System of Higher Learning Chancellor) really thinks that Nevada businesses are seeking better educated workers, he must have his head in the sand--and there is a lot of it out here--otherwise the businesses would pay more and attract these people from elsewhere, but what we get is more service people, because that is what the businesses require. Basic economics, 101.

Posted by Zounds Off at 4:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I was reading Chancellor Rogers letter in response to Governor Gibbons' plan to explore where five percent budget cuts could be made by state agencies if there were a future revenue shortfall. For the most part the plan sounds like an exercise of "just in case." For the most part Rogers letter is a long winded "no."

For the readers' information, the letter contains several statements which make no grammatical sense, which for a person in Rogers' position is laughable, especially as computers have grammar check.

If you want to know why Nevada education stinks, one reason may be the people in charge aren't the best, even if they are some of the wealthiest.

Here are some of Jim Rogers' grammatically confusing points:

A budget reduction plan of this magnitude would require new policies, the Board of Regents would have to declare a financial emergency, which requires consultation among the Regents, institutions, and faculty. (a run-on sentence, at the very least)

The concept of utilizing the rainy day fund, which has the effect of spreading the pain of any budget reduction among all of the citizens and agencies of the State, would eliminate the reduction your request. (This sentence just doesn't make any sense; dipping into the rainy day fund is supposed to cause pain? I thought using it was to avoid pain and budget reduction. Faulty logic here, Jim.)

Reducing the funding of education will make our ability to keep our best high school graduates from going out of Nevada to college. (Simply, huh?)

I indicated that I thought we were headed for a TRAIN WRECK if we did nothing to reverse that trend to provide the quality graduates and trained workers that Nevada needs to sustain growth. (I believe he meant reverse the trend and begin to provide quality graduates and not reverse the trend to provide them. But I guess I shouldn't try to guess what Rogers means when he so obviously makes more money than I do and so more people listen to him.)

The State has extensive sources of new revenue. (Name one, Jim, other than hoping businesses want to donate, or do you mean...RAISE TAXES!)

It just figures that the man who wrote this is himself a product of Las Vegas High School, although circa 1956. I'm still trying to figure out how he got all his other degrees or did someone confuse confusion with brilliance and B.S.

Posted by Zounds Off at 9:53 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Several days ago I began hearing the buzz about the Senator Reid letter signed by forty other Democrats in the Senate attacking Rush Limbaugh over a comment Rush made on his show. Always eager to find out how Harry might have put a foot in his mouth without laying a glove on his opponent, I finally listened in on a Rush show to hear that he was placing the letter he received up for auction on E-Bay and that he would match the winning bid and give all the money to a military charity. He also challenged the Senators to match his donation. While Harry has tried to take credit for getting this money donated to the charity, neither he nor the other Senators have stepped up to donate a penny. Since the major media has chosen to ignore the throwdown, I was surprised to find an article on-line in the Tahoe Bonanza which isn't very flattering to Harry.

I can't resist posting the excerpt that follows:

The events prompting the dust-up began with a left wing TV ad featuring Jesse Mcbeth, an "Iraq veteran" who claimed to have participated in war crimes in Iraq, earned the Purple Heart and then turned anti-war activist. It turned out that in actuality he served only 44 days in the Army because he failed his training, never set foot in Iraq and went to prison for defrauding the Department of Veterans' Affairs out of more than $10,000 in benefits.

Limbaugh reported this news on his talk show and cited it as an example of left wing organizations running anti-war TV ads featuring "phony soldiers." Sen. Reid chose to interpret Limbaugh's comment as a condemnation of all members of the military who opposed the Iraq War and proceeded to excoriate Limbaugh on the floor of the Senate. Limbaugh responded by excoriating Reid on his talk show. The barbs and counter barbs continued to fly until Sen. Reid got an idea.

Reid sent a letter, which bore the signatures of 41 Democratic senators, to the chief executive officer of Clear Channel (the broadcasting company that carries the Limbaugh show) urging him to "repudiate comments made by Limbaugh that call into question the service and sacrifice of troops who oppose the war in Iraq." The response was an unqualified refusal.

With a twinkle in his eye Limbaugh took the letter and had Halliburton Company (of which Vice President Dick Cheney was once president) fabricate a titanium case to house it. He then announced that he was going to auction the package off on EBay on Friday, Oct. 19 to the highest bidder. "Proceeds of the sale," Limbaugh said, "will be donated to the Marine Corps Law Enforcement Foundation and will be matched dollar for dollar by me."

The Marine Corps Law Enforcement Foundation is a charity which awards scholarships to children of Marines and federal law enforcement officers killed in the line of duty. To date the foundation has disbursed over $29 million in scholarships.

The letter sold for $2.1 million. Nothing but stony silence has emanated from Sen. Reid's office since the announcement. So Limbaugh raised the stakes.

On his national radio show he told everyone who would listen: "I would like to issue this challenge to Sen. Reid and the 40 senators who signed his letter. You say you support the military. Well I would like each of you, Sen. Reid and the 40 other senators who signed, to match whatever the winning bid is. Show us your support for the U.S. military by all 41 of you pro-military people, Democrats in the senate, match whatever the winning bid is and send that amount to the Marine Corps Law Enforcement Foundation."

Maybe Harry will finally shut up and go back to doing what he does best--making profitable land deals for himself, his family, and his friends.

Posted by Zounds Off at 6:15 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Sun is reporting that Governor Gibbons has been contacted by two medical groups concerned over a story also by the Sun which reported on September 30 that multiple employers in Las Vegas -- immigrant physicians themselves -- have systematically abused the so-called J-1 program, which is designed to place foreign doctors in medically underserved areas -- usually, clinics in rural or poor urban neighborhoods.

Instead, the bosses divert physicians to more affluent areas, where they can bring more money to the practice. In some cases, the employers violate contracts and federal law by failing to pay the foreign doctors their wages. Many of the foreign doctors also complain of being overworked to the point of exhaustion, jeopardizing patient care.

Nevada was built on corruption, bribes, and short cuts and is unjustly proud of its history of abuse. It's no wonder that in a state dedicated to taking away someone else's money, that our professional class of lawyers, politicians, physicians, developers, etc. are some of our most talented crooks. It is also egregious that most corruption stories seem to be broken by the L.A. Times first and not the Review Journal, and most cases investigated by the F.B.I. and not Metro.

Posted by Zounds Off at 5:59 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The L.A. Times reported last week that, "[D]ishwashers, waiters and others whose jobs and dilapidated home addresses seem to make them unpromising targets for political fundraisers are pouring $1,000 and $2,000 contributions into Clinton's campaign treasury. In April, a single fundraiser in an area long known for its gritty urban poverty yielded a whopping $380,000.

Along with the problems with Norman Hsu and the long recognized Chinese money connections associated with Bill Clinton's presidential runs, it seems that Hillary Clinton is seriously compromised by Chinese influence in the form of illegal contributions through phoney donations. When will people stop being mesmerized by the Clinton machine and ask why another Clinton presidency is so important to China? It's time to stop listening to what she says and simply look at what she does--collect money the old fashion way, i.e. as quid pro quo.

Posted by Zounds Off at 3:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Zac Moyle, executive director of the Nevada Republican Party, was arrested last weekend, apparently over unpaid speeding tickets.

Posted by Zounds Off at 6:30 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Oil moved past $90 per barrel for the first time overnight, while results from Dow Jones industrial average components showed lacklustre performance and guess what? People sold! And then they bought Google! And the housing market still stinks no matter how many advertisements realty companies air saying it's great. And Bush wants to bomb Iran's nuclear facilities, but Israel will probably do it first. And education is still failing. And sports figures still get paid too much. And I still can't afford a happy pill so I can be like Green Valley people.

Have a happy weekend! Zounds Out for the day.

Posted by Zounds Off at 6:14 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Is it just me or has anyone else noticed that everytime Sen. Hillary Clinton is asked about an issue she begins with, "[Insert Name of Interviewer Here], I am deeply concerned over this issue." and usually followed with, "As you know, I have worked tirelessly on the issue of [Insert Name of Issue Here] as Senator and when my husband, [Insert Bill here], was in the White House." ???

Scriptwriter please...we need a rewrite. Oh, well, it's working fine and I'm sure that Hillary will be the Democratic nominee for president; I just am not as sure of the VP--although Obama is popular I can't see the Clinton machine welcoming him into the inner circle and Edwards already blew his chances by spending $400 on a haircut as a hopeful where, as president in 1993, Bill Clinton's haircuts only cost $200.

Posted by Zounds Off at 5:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Houston Chronicle reports that a Richard C. McDuffee filed suit in a Montgomery County district court earlier this week claiming a violation of free speech. McDuffee was asking the college district not be allowed to deny access to the blog that criticizes Chancellor Richard Carpenter.

But Steve Lestarjette, associate vice chancellor for external affairs, issued a statement on Thursday saying, "The college has unblocked the site from the college's server. It was never the intent to deny anyone's First Amendment rights."

The blog, richardcarpenterwatch.blogspot.com reports on Carpenter's conduct while chancellor of the College of Southern Nevada in Las Vegas. The blog contains allegations of racism, corruption, purposeful intimidation and incompetence, according to McDuffee's lawsuit.

After a couple of blurry and anonymous conversations with employees of CSN listing website failures, phone line breakdowns, failure to order books for classes by administrators, and a multitude of other infrastructure and administrative problems, including possible corruption and theft by top officials, I have to give CSN a D-- -- ! You can change the name, but it seems to still be a bottom of the barrel school. Obviously, readers just might get the impression that Richard Carpenter left hoping to avoid the rising number of apparent problems with the school. At the very least, the community should be concerned that administrators, who dislike criticisms, can block free speech on a college campus. We should be teaching students to be critical thinkers and to examine all sides of an issue for complete understanding, but apparently only certain views are correct on college campuses.

In fact, looking at websites and books on college choice, not one Nevada college appears to make anyone's top 200 list for any discipline one might study. So, Chancellor Jim Rogers of the Nevada System of Higher Education might be right in condemning Nevada education, but Nevada seems to get further behind every year, even with Jim in charge.

Posted by Zounds Off at 4:37 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

From an article in PokerNews online gaming and entertainment empire Bodog headed back into court last week to appeal against the default judgement imposed on them by a Nevada court last month.

A company called 1st Technology caught Bodog by surprise last month by claiming the downloadable casino software used by Bodog Casino was in breach of a patent held by 1st Tech. Bodog claims they were not served with notice of the proceedings and didn't appear at the hearing, resulting in the judge handing down a default judgement ordering the US-based domain name registrar to remove all Bodog-related websites from their servers and fining Bodog $49 million.

Calvin Ayre (Bodog's CEO) stated, "In addition to the inevitable appeal we are also intending to open up new legal fronts to ensure that this important issue is given proper judicial review in the US. This is the first time in history that a non-US company, with zero operations or assets in the US, has had its domain names seized with no prior notice simply because it was using a US-based domain-name registrar. We do not believe that domain names should be allowed to be defined as assets to be seized for purposes of collecting on a judgment."

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

Business Press reports southern Nevada office vacancies reached 12.24 percent in the third quarter amid a housing market downturn, acording to Applied Analysis, a Las Vegas-based economic research firm. The Las Vegas valley had 44.1 million square feet of office space at the end of September, and despite two million square feet worth of absorption for the year-to-date, vacancies still increased by 2.2 percent in the third quarter over last year.

Oh well...we have gotten used to seeing buildings implode here in the valley; now we get to see a whole market give it a try. And while we have these big casino projects being built, the gambling money is now going to Macau, which is using sports stars like tennis' Roger Federer and basketball's LeBron James to outstrip the Vegas Strip. Once the fire starts, we won't even have the water to put it out, but nothing is "wrong" in the valley except prostitution isn't legal according to Oscar.

Posted by Zounds Off at 8:45 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A Nevada jury ordered Wyeth (WYE.N) to pay a total of $134.5 million in compensatory damages to three women who blamed their breast cancer on the drugmaker's hormone replacement medicines.

Damn! There goes the price on pharmaceuticals again just before I got to a doctor for a prescription so I can be like Green Valley Zoners, drifting around without a care in the world.

Posted by Zounds Off at 8:32 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A barrel of crude oil hit a new all-time high of $85.92, the energy sector now up 0.9 percent, while the Dow is sinking like an anchor.

What I wonder is how much the billions of dollars donated by the Federal Reserve to "poor" companies like Bear Stearns, Goldman Sachs, etc., which resulted in a devaluation of the dollar and saving the big boys while smaller mortgage companies folded and lost jobs, have contributed to the rise in oil prices.

We are under assault by a few corporations bent on world domination--there are only approximately eight oil companies really pumping and buying the oil, four or five pharmaceutical companies, four of five major financial institutions, four or five communication companies, the U.S. Supreme Court has recently struck down a long standing anti-trust ruling precedent, our politicians stuff their pockets with kickbacks and bribes, and the general population watches American Idol, Entertainment Tonight, and ESPN. Compare the fall of the Roman Empire concurrent with Colliseum events and the hiring of mercenaries to hold the empire together and the correlations with our own society are eerie and depressing.

Posted by Zounds Off at 7:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Bill Cosby was on Meet the Press this weekend along with Alvin Poussaint M.D.. promoting and discussing the book they co-wrote called, "Come On, People: On the Path from Victims to Victors." The book notes the highest cause of death for young black men is homicide. Seventy percent of black babies are born out of wedlock. Ninety-four percent of blacks who are murdered are murdered by another black. Blacks make up 12 percent of the population but are 44 percent of the prison population.

And so a book was written for a population which dropped out of school and can't read!

And on Face the Nation we had Senator John McCain trying to ressurect his "straight talk express." Unfortunately for John he couldn't seem to ever answer a yes or no question in less than seven rambling paragraphs, until Bob Schieffer became so frustrated he began interrupting John hoping John could get to the end of an answer.

Just for fun (???) here is an excerpt showing John's clarity and decisiveness:

Sen. McCAIN: First of all, I--and I emphasize again, that's not the time to call in the lawyers as
Governor Romney stated. I meant that there are many experts, as is well known, believe that Iran is within about two years of reaching a tipping point. In other words, they have achieved enough technical capability and enough material that inexorably they would acquire a nuclear weapon or weapons. That's a tipping point in the view of many experts and in the view of some that if we didn't take action before that time, then we would be placing--then Iran would be on the path that is...

SCHIEFFER: So...

Sen. McCAIN: ...would lead them to the acquisition of nuclear weapons.

SCHIEFFER: ...let me--let me just--let me just interrupt you here.
Sen. McCAIN: Yeah.

SCHIEFFER: So what you're saying is...

Sen. McCAIN: Yeah, sure.

SCHIEFFER: ...if we determine that they are pretty close to having a nuclear weapon, you would recommend going in and taking some sort of military action at that point?

Sen. McCAIN: No, I would not make that decision until that point. But I would say that the Iranians can't have a nuclear weapon, in my view. But I also believe that we've got a lot of things to do--that we could do, including getting other nations together to impose meaningful sanctions, painful sanctions on the Iranians, which I think could have a beneficial effect.

How did "wandering" John ever get associated with "straight" talk?

Posted by Zounds Off at 6:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Local TV stations are leading the way in preparing residents of the Reno area for the upcoming switch to digital television to ensure no residents lose their television signals when the transition occurs.

Yesterday, KRNV News Anchor Joe Hart educated members of the Reno Central Rotary Club about the digital television transition.

Under congressional mandate, all television stations must switch from traditional analog broadcasts to a digital signal by February 17, 2009. Nearly one million households in Nevada receive broadcasts exclusively through analog signals and stand to lose television reception when this switch is made.

I have only two thoughts on this piece:

1. Nevada has nearly one million households which only can receive analog signals? There are only about two and a half million people in the state; do that many people live alone in this state?

2. Oh Dems, won't you buy me a digital TV. My TV is analog; there's nothing to see. I work hard for my money, get taxed all the time. Oh Dems, without TV, it's talk radio for me. (Please sing out as if listening to Janis Joplin's Mercedes Benz tune.)

Posted by Zounds Off at 6:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This excerpt from a column by Tom Knott:

Harry Reid, the sniffling land speculator of Nevada, has vowed to resume his fight to award in-state tuition breaks to illegal aliens because of its rightness, fairness and sensibleness.

Mr. Reid reflects the thinking of many of the lawmakers in our region, where it has become the duty of taxpayers to help illegal aliens feel at home, whether it is building day-laborer centers in their honor, providing them with social services or encouraging them not to play by our bureaucratic rules.

Yours is a phony driver"s license? That is not a problem. We understand. America"s racist, bigoted ways forced you into taking this unlawful measure. We are so sorry. Have a nice day.

Mr. Reid is promising to resurrect the Dream Act in the weeks ahead. It is a wonderful piece of legislation if you are living illegally in Texas and always wanted to attend the University of Virginia. You would be allowed to pay the same tuition as the American student who grew up in Virginia. Now if it were Billy Bob applying to Thomas Jefferson"s school, his parents would have to pay out-of-state tuition, which is about three times higher than the in-state tab.

And in other attempts to give illegals more rights than U.S. citizens--Bush backs Mexico, rapist-murderer--the U.S. Supreme Court has heard a case in which the Bush administration seeks to overturn the death penalty of a convicted rapist-murderer at the behest of the International Court of Justice.

Jose Medellin confessed in 1993 to participating in the rape and murder of two Houston teenagers. Jennifer Ertman and Elizabeth Pena were sodomized and strangled with their shoe laces. Medellin bragged about keeping one girl's Mickey Mouse watch as a souvenir of the crime.

Medellin and four others were convicted of capital murder and sent to Texas' death row. A juvenile court sentenced Medellin's younger brother, who was 14 at the time, to 40 years in prison.

The intervention in the case by the Bush administration comes after the International Court of Justice found Medellin was not informed of his right to contact the Mexican Consulate for legal assistance.

That, according to the Hague, was a violation of a 1963 treaty known as the Vienna Convention.

"We find ourselves in an unusual position," Texas Solicitor General Ted Cruz told the Houston Chronicle. "Texas is not regularly litigating against the United States. But sadly enough, the United States will appear alongside Medellin at the argument."

Former Mexico President Vincente Fox on talk radio last week claimed that the waves of illegals that have come here--especially those given water and maps by his government--were not the problem but a security issue for the U.S., but he is also against the U.S building a wall. Of course! Mexico is being propped up by the billions of dollars sent back to Mexico; why would they fix their own problems to actually have a vibrant economy of their own?

It's all over; time to learn Mexican, since it's not even real Spanish.

Posted by Zounds Off at 4:46 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The Southern Nevada Water Authority has announced a more aggressive plan to conserve water in the Las Vegas Valley. (Water Authority Steps up Valley's Conservation Efforts in 2008)

Kay Brother, the deputy general manager of the water authority, identified four areas where the valley can save a significant amount of water. Brothers says the focus of conservation next year will rest with businesses, schools, technology, and upgrading water fixtures.

Brothers said, "We all need to realize that we are living in a desert."

And I thought it was a tropical paradise in the middle of a big brown spot. Actually, I think of it as more of a slice of Hell come to the surface and worshipped. We have a valley of rampamt corruption, uncontrolled growth, and all of it littered with handouts of nearly naked women. And after 20 years of Lake Mead turning into a pond, now something is to be done. Guess what! It's too late.

Posted by Zounds Off at 4:12 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)