Apparently, not at a Starbucks this past Tuesday evening.

Nearly 7,100 company-operated Starbucks stores across the U.S. -- all except the licensed shops in supermarkets, airports, malls, hotels and the like -- closed at 5:30 p.m. local time so some 135,000 employees could go through about three hours of training.

Part back-to-basics tutorial, part pep rally, the teach-in aimed to reacquaint baristas with the art of pulling the perfect shot of espresso and steaming milk to add a subtle hint of sweetness to a latte and give the velvety foam on top just the right thickness. (Rivals Cash in on Starbucks' Teach-In)

Starbucks said that when its shops open Wednesday, customers will be greeted with a promise posted in each store: "Your drink should be perfect, every time. If not, let us know and we'll make it right."

Being open would be a good start at being perfect. If they closed early for training--and if I actually cared about designer coffee--and I wanted a cup of coffee, I would never go back. All my friends know that no one better get between me and my coffee. Must have been an "efficiency" expert who planned the shutdown during normal business hours to improve quality and image.

Scientists plan to launch 60 tiny fish on a zero gravity rocket ride from above the Arctic Circle today to try to plumb the secrets of motion sickness.

What are the fish going to do?...tell the scientists how they felt? With all the research still needed for cancer, diabetes, ALS, etc.--not to mention alternative energy and world peace--it's soooo reasuring to know there is still funding available to let fish fly.

From the Salt Lake Tribune: Protesters and proponents from two states filled a city hall auditorium in the Nevada border city of Mesquite to air concerns about a company's proposal to build a coal-fired power plant nearby.
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The state is considering whether to issue an air quality permit for Sithe Global Power, a subsidiary of private equity giant Blackstone Group of New York, to build the 750-megawatt, coal-fired Toquop Energy Project.
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The company, which plans to burn coal from the Powder River Basin of Wyoming, also needs environmental approval from the Bureau of Land Management. It hopes to begin construction by March 2009 and power generation by 2013.
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Assemblyman Joe Hardy, a Republican doctor who represents the area, Clark County commissioners Bruce Woodbury and Tom Collins, and Mesquite Mayor Susan Holecheck were applauded when they took turns criticizing the project.

As China and southern Nevada suffer the coldest weather in years, every politician and easily confused citizen still clings to global warming as the apocalypse that evangelicals have embraced for centuries. Granted that environmental issues always need to be addressed but is it reasonable to oppose every project to provide energy to the valley while approving every casino and development, especially in the face of no water. It is easy for politicians to support NIMBYprotests (Not In My Back Yard) but I am waiting to hear what the alternative proposals are. Perhaps no more building? No, they haven't paved the whole valley--yet--so I doubt that is an alternative. The other question I have is how many of the politicians we have today will be living here tomorrow when southern Nevada is living with the consequences.

From Market Watch:
A group of African-American investors has teamed up with a firm that specializes in urban redevelopment to place a big bet that together they can resurrect a fabled piece of Las Vegas history: the Moulin Rouge.

While our federal legislative branch ponders the evils of steroids in baseball, which seems somewhere in left field even for our Congressional clowns, it appears that three Mississippi legislators are vying for recognition for most government interference in people's lives, probably hoping to move up to the big leagues in Washington D,C.

Mississippi House of Representatives legislators, Republicans W. T. Mayhall, Jr. and John Read, and Democrat Bobby Shows, this week introduced Bill No. 282 that would make it illegal for state-licensed restaurants to serve obese patrons. A copy can be found at thesmokinggun.com

Likely to be served already dead, a bill like this, if passed, would mean the end of "All You Can Eat Buffets" although if we had such a law here, I might actually be able to find a buffet in town without a 300 foot line.

Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton spoke Sunday on ABC's "This Week" on how to achieve health insurance coverage for all Americans.

"I think there are a number of mechanisms" that are possible, including "going after people's wages, automatic enrollment."

Ah, Big Sister...Don't Do Me Like That!

Jerome Kerviel, the rogue trader blamed by Société Générale for massive fraud, was taken into custody in France.

If he had really been a supercriminal, I would have thought he would have a couple new identities and left for some fun in St. Kitts.

From Cox.net: The "Heavy Hitter" is facing the wrath of a judge for missing the first day of his client's murder trial. The "Review-Journal" says Glen Lerner left a message for Clark County prosecutor Roy Nelson over the weekend, saying he was in Pennsylvania "on sabbatical," and told him, quote, "if the judge wants to sanction me, she can sanction me." Nelson provided District Judge Michelle Leavitt with a copy of Lerner's recording. Lerner was to have defended Mario Lino on charges he killed a man whom he thought was having an affair with his wife. Leavitt re assigned Lino's case to a public defender and warned she would report Lerner to the State Bar. Lerner told the newspaper he expects to be back in Las Vegas by March or possibly May. He says he's reexamining his priorities, saying he has been, quote, "living the life of a rock star for so long."

I guess he should have been living the life of an attorney. Does this mean no more commercials and will he be subjected to any kind of state bar investigation and further sanctions?

Apparently, an amendment submitted by Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, R-Texas, for the Department of Homeland Security 2008 budget passed by Senators with little fanfare and will gut the already-approved Secure Fence Act.

For more go to "Where's the fence?"

"The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities." Theodore Roosevelt

The Census Bureau is released new figures Thursday saying the state increased in population by 2.9 percent in the year ending July 1 -for a total of 2.6 million people.

Other lists where Nevada seems to be at the top include:
violent crimes, judicial malfeasence, bribery, corruption, traffic jams, rudeness.

A lot of those new residents are going to go thirsty as Nevada creates an environmental disaster with its water policies. I think I'm taking my toboggan to Montana.

In the Las Vegas Sun:
Two years ago, after learning that each of 23 tennis courts at the new Washington Buffalo Park was cracked even before it opened, city staff did not want the city to work again with Asphalt Paving Corp., the courts' general contractor.

The City Council ignored that recommendation, however, and allowed APCO to bid for $19.1 million worth of work on the Centennial Hills Community Center. APCO did not win that contract. But shortly after, APCO filed a $7 million claim against the city over the $29.7 million Washington Buffalo Park job.

During the past year, APCO has bid twice on city projects and both times the City Council awarded the contracts - worth a total of $13.2 million - to the company, unanimously and without question.
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Mayor Oscar Goodman holds a 4 percent stake in Apex Business Park, which is partly owned by APCO employees.

'm sure readers can do the math.

Arena deal:
The Las Vegas City Council is expected to extend the city's deadline for a signed deal with Real Estate Interests Group for a Downtown sports arena. The Bloomfield Hills, MI-based company's proposal calls for the arena to be developed in the first phase of a $10-billion, 85-acre mixed-use development on the West side of Main Street.

Harrah's problems:
Misdemeanor criminal charges are imminent for problematic remodeling done at the Rio, Harrah's Las Vegas and Flamingo Las Vegas hotels, according to a statement Thursday from the county manager's office.

Wynn/Adelson spat:
The issue surfaced during last week's county zoning meeting. Adelson's company, Las Vegas Sands Corp., wants to build a new convention center behind its existing Sands Expo and Convention Center. The company pitched the 1.7 ¯million-square-foot project as being in conjunction with its other developments, which would allow Adelson to provide fewer parking spaces.

However, Wynn argued the proposed convention center was not in conjunction with Adelson's resorts, and thus required a parking ratio of two spots for every 1,000 square feet. That's almost double what Adelson had planned and could make the project much more expensive.

What did Wynn use to back up his argument? He owns a parking garage between the proposed convention center and Adelson's other projects, a physical contradiction of Adelson's contention that the new center is "in conjunction" with his other properties.

From a recent Las Vegas Review Journal column;
Nevada Supreme Court Justice Nancy Saitta is about to get a scathing critique, as a law review article for the prestigious Northwestern Law School in Chicago examines her election in 2006 and calls her unqualified for the job.

While on the District Court, Saitta "was the most reversed District Court Judge in Nevada and was an extremely inefficient lower court judge who had not published a single opinion or academic article," wrote Bronson Bills, a law clerk for a federal judge in Utah.

"Moreover, not only was Saitta unqualified for the Supreme Court, she was tied to several wealthy special interest groups who sought to oust Justice (Nancy) Becker."

Bills was a law clerk for Saitta during the last seven months of 2006 and a former law clerk for Senior District Court Judge James Brennan. His article "A Penny for the Court's Thoughts? The High Price of Judicial Elections" is scheduled to appear in the Northwestern Journal of Law & Social Policy in January.

Nancy Saitta has been the subject of several Steve Miller articles which have pointed out her ties to such Las Vegas notables as current Federal prisoner, Rick Rizzolo, among others. I imagine that what the law review article doesn't mention is that the lower certain people in town score on the Dante's Inferno Test (the test scores the participant as to which circle of Hell he or she belongs), the higher they rise in politics and power.

High point in the global warming terror campaign is Al Gore receiving the Nobel Peace Prize for his loosely based on fact film, An Inconvenient Truth.

The low point would be for those alarmists who keep hoping for major catastrophes with high loss of life as the 2007 hurricane season ended quietly on Friday without a tropical storm, disturbance, or hurricane in sight.

Harrah's Entertainment has announced third quarter income from operations was $577.2 million, compared with $441.9 million in the year-ago quarter. Net income was $244.4 million, up 37.9 percent from $177.2 million in the 2006 third quarter.

Harrah's has also announced a $1 billion expansion and renovation of Caesars Palace in Las Vegas that will include construction of a 665-room hotel tower and a 263,000-square-foot meeting and convention center, to be completed in 2009.

Plus they and AEG, developer of entertainment venues such as Staples Center in Los Angeles, unveiled plans for a privately financed, 20,000-seat, state-of-the-art sports and entertainment arena.

In comparison, Las Vegas Sands Corp. had an operating loss of $48.5 million and a net loss of 14 cents a share in the third quarter that ended Sept. 30. The losses are attributed to preopening expenses related to the $2.4 billion resort, along with development costs at other properties.

At the same time MGM Mirage announced Wednesday it would build a $3 billion non-gaming hotel and entertainment complex on Abu Dhabi Island in the Persian Gulf in conjunction with the Mubadala Development Co., the investment arm of the Abu Dhabi government, expected to open in 2012.

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.

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.

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.

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

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?

Gov. Jim Gibbons spent the last week of September on vacation in Cabo San Lucas.

Now he is attending a Republican Governor's Association forum in Oahu, Hawaii and will return Sunday morning.

Well...did he at least party with Sammy Hagar while in Cabo? Ah, TEQUILLA! So, did Warren Trepp pay for this vacation or was Gibbons interviewing future undocumented housekeepers?

The Sun has reported that the strip club, Olympic Garden, was applying for Commercial Visual Improvement Funds that the city awards to qualified businesses in the downtown redevelopment area.

The council is likely to take up the issue at its next meeting, on Oct. 17.

From a Las Vegas press release:

"Mark your calendars, investors, home owners and anxious home sellers: The Las Vegas real estate market will rebound on March 31, 2008," predicts, Don Foster Scoggins, Nevada Certified General Real Estate Appraiser with AppraisersofLasVegas.com, Las Vegas' number one appraisal firm as rated by: 'In Business Las Vegas'.

And the next day Don can say, "April Fool's!"

From a Las Vegas Sun article noting that the big casino companies and developers are still waging a backroom battle to make it easier to qualify for the "green" tax breaks that will enable giants like MGM Mirage's $7.5 billion CityCenter to realize a $3 tax break for every dollar spent on green construction.

After gleefully voting "green" state legislators eventually learned that their actions would eventually mean a probable $1 billion in revenue loss which will affect schools, plus local government services and agencies including flood control, the Regional Transportation Commission, and Metro Police would be affected.

Lynn Warne, president of the Nevada State Educators Association, bemoaned that the gaming industry's interests seemed to be put ahead of the state's needs.

"When you see record (casino) profits reported in newspaper headlines, and we remain 49th in per-pupil expenditure, something doesn't add up," she said. "I know that the interests of our schools and our kids are not at the top of the list for legislators."

Why do educators always seem to be the last to realize the obvious--that casinos have had prriority in Nevada has been the case since Bugsy had a dream? Probably because they are the graduates of a Nevada public education which ranks 49th in the U.S.

From the Las Vegas Review Journal:
A Clark County grand jury has indicted former Clark County Commissioner Yvonne Atkinson Gates' son, Brian Atkinson Turner, on child neglect and drug related charges. Turner's wife was also indicted in the case.

Former Clark County Commissioner Lynette Boggs today pleaded not guilty to all four felony charges against her, including perjury and filing false documents in her failed 2006 re-election campaign.

More than 800 people a month have filed complaints about scams coming as e-mails from foreign countries offering to share money if the person helps the writer get money out of the country.

In response to the growing number of victims of this scam, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service announced an international crackdown Wednesday where more than 540,000 fake checks with a face value of $2.1 billion have been seized.

There have been sixty arrests in the Netherlands, sixteen in Nigeria, and one in Canada.

I can't help it--there are just too many people who aren't bright enough to even own a pet or a driver's license or so greedy they deserve to be taken. Why would anyone need the help of a stranger in this couontry to get money out of anothere country? I imagine anyone who participated probably thought that there was something wrong with the money but figures to make money, only to learn that what is wrong is there is no money coming in, only theirs going out.

My favorite scam of all time has to be the one in the classified ads of magazines which read, "Send your dollar now!" with a post office box. The owner of the ad was making thousands of dollars a month and had never offered anything for the dollar. Some people will always do what they are told.