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.
...
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.
...
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.
...
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.
...
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.

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.

(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.

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

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.

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.

Reuters reported on a study comparing the abilities of human toddlers to chimpanzees and orangutans found that 2-year-old children have social learning skills superior to the apes, researchers said on Thursday.

In one social learning test, a researcher showed the children and apes how to pop open a plastic tube to get food or a toy contained inside. The children observed and imitated the solution. Chimpanzees and orangutans, however, tried to smash open the tube or yank out the contents with their teeth.

European scientists gave a battery of cognitive tests lasting three to five hours separately to 105 2-year-old children, 106 chimpanzees and 32 orangutans over two weeks.

The researchers found that the children were far more advanced than the chimps and orangutans in understanding nonverbal communications, copying another person's solution to a problem and understanding the intentions of others.

The only problem is that those same children go to school, become teenagers, and somehow seem to get dumber instead of brighter...and they used to be cute. If you doubt that our students are getting dumber check out the following excerpt from "Students Arrested After Announcing Drug Sales Out Dorm Room Window."

A pair of former Northeastern University freshmen are facing drug and other charges after prosecutors said one of them leaned out his dorm window on Sunday and loudly told a woman in the dorm opposite his that he and his roommate were selling pot.

Two plain clothes Boston officers in the building overheard the conversation, made their way up to a second floor dorm room where they arrested Michael Emery, 18, of Haverhill and Matthew Ferrante, 18, of North Andover after finding about four ounces of marijuana, drug paraphernalia, including a scale, and several bottles of alcohol in the room.

Dubai World, a holding company for the Persian Gulf state of Dubai, has invested $5 billion which gives it a piece of MGM Mirage and 50 percent of the 76-acre CityCenter complex under construction in the heart of the Strip. Dubai World's subsidiary, Dubai Ports World, was forced to sell its U.S. port operations after an uproar in Congress last year.

Dubai...isn't that where Haliburton has moved to?

The U.S. Defense Department said on Thursday that a flawed system designed to rush supplies to troops in Iraq and Afghanistan let a small-parts supplier improperly collect $998,798.38 to ship two 19-cent washers.

The lock-washer incident was the last in a series of abuses by twin sisters running a South Carolina company that bilked the Pentagon out of about $20.5 million in fraudulent shipping costs, federal prosecutors said after obtaining guilty pleas earlier in the day.
The owners of C&D Distributors of Lexington, South Carolina, submitted online bids to the Defense Department to supply hardware components, plumbing fixtures, electronic equipment and other items, according to court papers.

Can I have a contract with the Defense Department? Please!

From Las Vegas Business News:
Carrying placards that stated, "Never have so many owed so much to so few," more than two dozen members of a national community action organization protested what one member termed "unbelievably high" power bills during a demonstration at the West Sahara Avenue headquarters of Nevada Power Co. recently.

"I live in an apartment, and I'm paying $300 a month for power," said Diane Graves, a member of ACORN, which stands for Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now. And as the acronym suggests, the national organization intends to bring about changes in the utility scene of Southern Nevada, where scorching summer temperatures drive up usage and power bills to levels that are among the highest in the nation.

In June -- just before the start of summer -- residential power rates increased 11.5 percent, which was the amount granted by the Public Utilities Commission, following the company's general rate case earlier this year.

One of the little secrets of southern Nevada is the higher cost of living here than almost everywhere else in the country. Although, Nevada doesn't have the state income tax that other states have, there is a fairly high sales tax, all kinds of fees, and high food, housing, utility costs, gasoline, etc.

Plus, there is another culprit here but consumers don't seem to be all that interested in this little scam. Here's a little test for all residents in southern Nevada. Go outside your door and rap on the outside wall and listen. If it sounds like a drum, you probably have the bare minimum of insulation for your walls; most likely the builder put up a thin insulation board and stuccoed over it. Common sense would suggest that the more insulation added would lower heating and cooling bills and have the added benefit of reducing the noise from your neighbors. But somehow (?) builders have managed to use the barest minimum and still get their homes rated as energy efficient in Nevada. Interestingly enough, I have lived in some apartments in the past where there was no insulation at all between apartments, yet in several other states, builders are required to build a fire resistant and sound deadening wall between apartments. Another case of making it easier for the developer? You be the judge.

Reported in Yahoo News: Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf pulled out Wednesday from a council of hundreds of Pakistani and Afghan tribal leaders aimed at reining in militant violence.

The most popular reason for the pull out is the recent rhetoric by U. S. Presidential candidates proclaiming their tough foreign policy stances by threatening to bomb al-Qaida targets inside Pakistan.

But it's nice to know that Obama's remarks on bombing a "soft" ally and Clinton's desire to up the "toughness" by bringing nuclear weapons into the argument, so that they can win political points at home, are partly responsible for undermining attempts by Afganistan and Pakistan to gain peace in their region. Add the Republicans' denounciation of Obama--the easier target to condemn--in their un-watched debate and I think the message might be that none of the candidates on both sides actually has a good foreign policy plan, a strong grasp of political and strategy nuance, and the experience to implement foreign policy beyond their own narrow political ambitions.

Dan Lyons, a senior editor at Forbes, has admitted to writing as Fake Steve, parodying Apple Inc. (AAPL.O) chief executive, Steve Jobs, after a New York Times reporter found resemblances between the blog and Lyons' published work and asked him whether he was behind the long-running satire.

Lyons told the Times he had started the fake blog last year to poke fun at the lack of candidness he saw in the growing number of CEO blogs that were attracting media attention.
Lyons used his adopted persona to poke fun at Real Steve Jobs' reputation for being a highly demanding, even arrogant, manager, offering gems such as this one:

"The MBAs say you should set high standards, let people know what's expected of them, and hold them to that. I do a little twist on that and say, hold people to an impossibly high standard, but here's the twist -- don't tell them what that standard is. And fire them if they fall short."

It's time I also come forward; I am the fake Zounds Off; the real Zounds Off is currently vacationing on a tropical island drinking rum concoctions and listening to heavy metal played on steel drums.

Travel expert Marybeth Bond has written a book geared to women who want "gals only" trips. The National Geographic guide 50 best Girlfriends Getaways in North America is now in its second printing.

I suspect a lot of men might browse the book in bookstores and libraries--if men can read--just so they know where all the women are. I am trying to refrain from going to Amazon.com as I write, but then, I don't think I can afford to go to San Fran or New York, anyway.

In a study to be presented at a conference on management this weekend, almost two-thirds of the 240 participants in an online survey said the local workplace tyrant was either never censured or was promoted for domineering ways according to a Reuters report.

The study will be presented at the annual meeting of the Academy of Management, a research and teaching organization with nearly 17,000 members, from Sunday to Wednesday in Philadelphia.

The next study I would like to see done might confirm a suspicion I have had for a long time; in most companies and unions and workplaces with more than a few workers, if there is someone who is bright and efficient, that person will be driven out by the co-workers who don't want someone around who shows up how lazy or unproductive they are. But I guess those co-workers are getting their just rewards--they end up with the bad bosses.

It is time for me to give the possible consequences of the Iraq war another thought after reading in Yahoo News the following:
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has praised Sean Penn for his critical stance against the war in Iraq, saying the two chatted by phone and soon plan to meet in person.
....
Chavez read aloud from a recent open letter by Penn to President Bush in which the actor condemned the Iraq war and called for Bush to be impeached, saying the president along with Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice are "villainously and criminally obscene people."
....
He called the actor "well-informed about what is happening in the United States and the world, in spite of being in Hollywood."

What's more, Chavez said, "he's made great films."

Just when I am almost convinced that the Iraq war is a disaster, these two come together to criticize--the criminally insane and the criminally inane. I will not try to sway anyone's view of the Iraq war; it is probably as polarizing as the issue of abortion--neither side will budge. But I have to admit that when Chavez and Penn get together and agree on this topic, two people who don't seem to have the U.S. interest in mind, ever, then I have to wonder what they are afraid of. Is it possible that a democracy might arise in Iraq; is it possible that Iran is being checked because U.S. troops are just over the border, despite the wild threats of Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad; is it possible that the Saudi position of funding terrorism is getting weaker; is it possible that the current "destabilization" of the Middle East has hindered OPEC's desire to see $100 dollar a barrel oil prices? No, better scratch that as the oil companies and world banks want that also, so Poor George is for it. Is it possible that in 20 or 30 years Bush might not be viewed as the "worst president ever" according to Democrats--who will still be in the war if they take the White House, and check out Obama's posturing on launching strikes into Pakistan; then try to figure out which is a good invasion and which is bad under Democratic logic?

That's a scary thought!

A Chinese wildlife research centre has come up with a novel idea to profit from panda poo -- make Olympic souvenirs out of it.

Researchers at the centre in Chengdu, capital of mountainous Sichuan province, had sculpted photo frames, bookmarks, fans and panda statues out of the 300 tons of the stuff produced by 60 giant pandas each year.

Sometimes I just sit amazed at the useless stuff I can find on Yahoo News, but in this case I just have to make the obvious pun; this sounds like a crappy idea to me...unless of course it sells.

AT&T reported fewer activations of Apple Inc.'s iPhone than analysts expected when the device debuted before the quarter's end.

Then there is stodgy old me...I do have a cell phone and if I remember to bring it I don't usually answer anyhow since if I wanted people to talk to me while driving, shopping, occasionally working, I would just bring them along. And let me listen to some accoustic jazz rather than synthesizer. Is it possible for people to be over-teched? I know the world is starting to sound and look like a giant electronic billboard--oh, right, I must be on Las Vegas Blvd.

And if I wasn't bored enough with obsessions over technology, oops, the Democrats pop up on YouTube.com with their latest debate, hoping to snatch young voters--those that are home videogaming on elections day

MSNBC reports that young, Internet-savvy voters challenged Democratic presidential hopefuls on Iraq, the military draft and the candidates' own place in a broken political system, playing starring roles in a provocative, video-driven debate Monday night.

"Wassup?" came the first question, from a voter named Zach.

Yeah, savvy on the Internet, but do they research who the campaign contributors are, past voting records, whom the candidates have business ties with, and how much practice the candidates do in front of the mirror and pretend audiences to hone their "sincerity" skills? Do they understand minimum wage, medicaid, education issues, financial institutions, trade practices, foreign relations, environmental issues not attached to grant money, microeconomics or macroeconomics and global economies, and, as products mainly of public education, can they even read a newspaper or a book; or do they simply know how to click a mouse and react to the same old sound bites?

In the news, dietary supplement maker Nature's Sunshine Products Inc. is coming under increasing scrutiny by federal regulators for auditing omissions, missing income tax returns, and problems with its foreign operations.

The company has received a U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission subpoena for internal documents relating to operations in 32 other countries, while the U.S. Department of Justice has requested the same documents.

Nature's Sunshine has failed to file quarterly or annual financial reports since 2005 and blames the resignation of auditor KPMG for the omission. KPMG has said it resigned because company executives failed to take its advice.

I just want to know if any of their products come from China which has been the source of several tainted products including pet food, toothpaste, seafood, etc. At the same time, there is finally a chance that the government might finally start enforcing a five-year-old law requiring meat and other products to carry labels with their country of origin.

"The political dynamic is such that there's just no getting around it," said Colin Woodall, director of legislative affairs for the National Cattlemen's Beef Association. The livestock group has opposed a mandatory labeling program.

The Agriculture Department never put in place the labeling requirement because then-majority Republicans repeatedly delayed it, most recently to 2008.

The law's leading opponents are grocery stores and large meatpacking companies, many of whom mix U.S. and Mexican beef, along with other businesses involved in getting products to supermarket shelves. They say the tracking and the paperwork needed to comply with the law is too burdensome and would cause them to raise prices.

Venezuela students protest for free speech:
Hundreds of students set up a sprawling, 450-m blackboard in Caracas on Saturday for people to write what they feel, as part of a protest over the government shutdown of a popular TV station. One thing that no one better write is "Bong 4 Jesus."

Former Virginia Gov. Jim Gilmore ended his long-shot campaign for presidency on Saturday, acknowledging he couldn't raise enough money. Who? Oh, yeah...that's why he quit.
John Edwards and Hillary Rodham Clinton were overheard discussing among themselves their hope of limiting the number of Democrats in presidential debates. It's nice to know that Democrats are so protective of the democratic process and are as supportive of free and fair debate as Poor George is about the Iraq war.

Keith Olbermann offerd his take this week on Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff's scare tactics: "We are risking all of our rights and protections and risking the anger and hatred of the rest of the world for the sake of Michael Chertoff's gut."

For the rest of Olbermann's column, go to MSNBC.com.

"Those who would give up essential liberties to purchase temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." Benjamin Franklin, Nov. 11, 1755

According to a Review Journal article, Stephen Stein, attorney for Signorelli, told the Las Vegas City Council on Wednesday that Crazy Horse Too owner Rick Rizzolo has passed on Signorelli's offer for a higher bid for the topless club.

The unknown buyer is offering $34.5 million and has $5 million in escrow, Stein said.

Perhaps the unknown buyer is Mayor Oscar Goodman. After all, he has worked very hard to keep the doors open, would have no trouble getting a liquor license from the city council despite conflicts of interests, and could soon retire as the happiest ex-mayor in the world, drinking gin, hanging with the babes, and regaling cronies with stories about the mob that wasn't there.

In Yahoo News the sun's changing energy levels are not to blame for recent global warming and, if anything, solar variations over the past 20 years should have had a cooling effect, scientists said on Wednesday.

There is little doubt that solar variability has influenced the Earth's climate in the past and may well have been a factor in the first half of the last century, but British and Swiss researchers said it could not explain recent warming.

Most scientists say emissions of greenhouse gases, mainly from burning fossil fuels in power plants, factories and cars, are the prime cause of the current warming trend.

Mike Lockwood of Britain's Rutherford Appleton Laboratory and Claus Froehlich of the World Radiation Centre in Davos, Switzerland (which is data collection agency working with the U.S. Department of Energy's National Renewable Energy Laboratory), studied factors that could have forced climate change in recent decades, including variations in total solar irradiance and cosmic rays.

The data was smoothed to take account of the 11-year sunspot cycle, which affects the amount of heat the sun emits but does not impact the Earth's surface air temperature, due to the way the oceans absorb and retain heat.

But I thought if the oceans got warmer, then there should be more water evaporation, and water vapor is also a greenhouse gas. I just love it when I am smarter than the scientists, who of course are working for research facilities which have no agenda to see fossil fuel use replaced by the nuclear (notice I did not write nucular as Poor George [Bush] says) energy sources their governments are funding.

Please follow the above link to National Renewable Energy Laboratory to learn about NREL's research and development of renewable fuels and electricity that advance national energy goals to change the way we power our homes, businesses, and cars; you decide if they would have an agenda. As for me, the article doesn't answer my question as to why global warming has been detected on Mars. Perhaps Martians drive SUV's and we just can't see them.

Pope Benedict XVI reasserted the primacy of the Roman Catholic Church, approving a document released Tuesday that says other Christian communities are either defective or not true churches and Catholicism provides the only true path to salvation.

Posted on 04/20/2005

VATICAN CITY - Pope Benedict XVI pledged to work to unify all Christians, reach out to other religions and continue implementing reforms from the Second Vatican Council as he outlined his goals and made clear his pontificate would closely follow the trajectory of his predecessor, Pope John Paul II.

Three years later and it sounds as if dialogue to other Christian churches is over; apparently unification means the Catholic way or the highway. Behind the lines has to be the message that if other Christian faiths are not true churches, then Islam is even less so. Again the battle lines are drawn.

From myfoxboston.com -- Police are looking for a man who robbed a Citizen's Bank in Manchester, New Hampshire on Saturday disguised as a tree.

The man walked into the bank with tree branches duct taped on his arms and demanded money from the teller. The teller filled the bag with cash and the suspect took off.

He must have thought that since trees are so important to environmentalists, especially in New Hampshire, the police would never shoot a tree. Now I'm waiting for a story where a tree robs a bank disguised as an environmentalist!

In Reno, Thursday's high of 108 degrees smashed the city's previous record for July 5, of 100 degrees set in 1970. Northern Nevada's hottest temperature Thursday was recorded in Lovelock at 112 degrees, surpassing the community's previous high of 104 degrees in 1991.

In Las Vegas, temperatures spiked Thursday at 116, one degree shy of the city's all-time high in 2005 and 1942.

Along with that good news is the following report that the U.S. Southwest may be in store for a 90 year drought.

Conditions in the southwestern states and portions of northern Mexico will be similar to those seen during a severe multiyear drought in the southwest during the 1950s and the drought that turned the Great Plains into the Dust Bowl in the 1930s.

Too hot to sleep; soon to be too dry to drink. Anybody worried yet?

The Latin Chamber of Commerce is hosting a series of tequila tastings this summer to benefit the La Oportunidad Scholarship Fund.

Just how do you taste tequila? I thought it was by the shot glass with a lick of salt and bite of lime. Perhaps Metro should park a few officers outside the event with a breathylizer. Maybe check a few documents while they are at it.

Swiss police stumbled across a cannabis farm while hunting for a deer that had been acting strangely. Locals in Trient had reported a deer that had been attacking hikers, wandering into shops and even sleeping on the roads. When rangers set off in search of the deer, they found the cause of the deer's strange behaviour and two men harvesting their crop were arrested.

Officials were alerted when the deer ordered a pepperoni pizza and a copy of "Fast Times at Ridgemont High" to go. OK, I added the last part.

Posted on PCWorld just one day after the iPhone went on sale Friday:

Many people who lined up to be the first buyers of Apple Inc.'s iPhone made good on promises to try to flip the gadgets online at inflated prices, but a quick buck appeared out of reach for many.

Auction Web site eBay had more than 400 listings for iPhones just 2 hours after the combination mobile phone, Web browser, and music and video player went on sale on the U.S. East Coast.

But the vast majority of offers failed to attract even a single bid, and many of those that had drawn interest were not yet above the list price.

A handful of offers did draw enthusiastic bidding. One eBay auction had attracted 35 bids and a leading offer of $1520. Another was up to $960 with 25 bids.

The iPhone is available at Apple and AT&T stores in two models priced at $500 and $600, depending on whether it has 4GB or 8GB of memory. It requires a service contract from AT&T Inc. that runs at least $1400 over two years.

Online classifieds site Craigslist had 404 iPhone listings for New York City, with most seeking about $1000 and one optimist asking $10,000 from "collectors only."

Buy something that is too expensive and then try to find someone--the bigger fool--who will pay even more--sounds like a sound business plan--and sometimes it even works until the bubble bursts and someone just bought something that ain't worth all that much. And guess what...! No one seems to care whether the phone part of the iPhone even works. So you can select the songs you want to play by searching through the cover art and you can download a web page--if you want to wait a few minutes for it to load with AT&T's slowest speed network. It has no hands free capability, your headphones need a special adaptor, and the phone only works with AT&T SIM cards--not Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile, Alltel, etc., so coverage may be less than desirable. For people who really want to use technology as a tool, the iPhone is pointless; for those who need an expensive toy to define themselves, this is the "new thing." However, in a few months, it will be the "old thing" as Apple upgrades phones to use a faster network. And owning the phone should lead to an increase in obnoxious or foolish behaviors as people try to find ways to bring their phones into the conversation or flash it before our eyes or prop it on the table in the restuarant or wave it out the window of their car. For the record, I won't even recognize it so keep it in your pocket--and skip the fake phone call routine, only your like-minded friends and thieves will be really interested in your phone.

The Supreme Court on Thursday rejected school assignment plans that take account of students' race in two major public school districts in Louisville, Ky., and Seattle, WA.

Justice Anthony Kennedy wrote a concurring opinion in which he said race may be a component of school district plans designed to achieve diversity.

Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and the other Democratic presidential contenders, in a debate at Howard University in Washington, took the opportunity to slam the above Supreme Court decision barring the use of race in assigning students to public schools

Hoping for the black vote (especially interesting between Clinton and Obama, who both appear popular to black voters) the candidates spoke of racism, made promises to raise the poor off the floor and to do more for Africa. But did any of the candidates discuss antitrust laws which have been gutted allowing mega-corporations to form which limit competition and allow those corporations to dictate to the American people what services they can receive? And have Democrats done anything in the last 50 years which have actually raised the standard of living for the bottom 40 percent of the population or have they just kept promising--remember that for most of the last 50 years we have had Democrats in power in Congress and 20 years of Democrats in the presidency. Me thinks the Democrats smell just like Republicans; it's just the words are different.

The Supreme Court also abandoned a 96-year-old ban on manufacturers and retailers setting price floors for products, where in 1911 the Supreme Court found that price floors violated antitrust laws.

In a 5-4 decision, the court said that agreements on minimum prices are legal if they promote competition.

The ruling means that accusations of minimum pricing pacts will have to be evaluated on a case by case basis.

I suppose, intellectually, that Wal-Mart could set a minimum price floor with some "Mom & Pop" stores so that Wal-Mart wouldn't undersell and drive the little stores out of business, but I haven't seen an example yet; more common is the activity of an Archer Daniels Midland which was found to be price fixing and agreed to pay $100 million in fines. This latest Supreme Court ruling seems like a good way to allow those corporations, which have our best interests in mind, to agree to raise that minimum price to a level where they make enormous profit, make stockholders happy, and allow corporate officers to make obscene amounts of money. Just for fun let's look at some of those salaries.

Executive Title Company Total Compensation Salary
Thomas J. Fitzpatrick CEO Sallie Mae $39,629,325 $682,500

Richard D. Fairbank Chairman, President,CEO Capital One Financial Corp.$31,604,431 $0

Martine A. Rothblatt Chairman and CEO United Therapeutics Corp. $31,104,933 $660,000
Gary D. Forsee President and CEO Sprint Nextel Corp. $29,980,973 $1,252,875
Nicholas D. Chabraja Chairman, CEO General Dynamics Corp. $17,683,972 $1,300,000
Len J. Lauer COO Sprint Nextel Corp. $16,360,481 $934,062

Robert J. Stevens--Chairman, President. CEO Lockheed Martin Corp. $15,687,137 $1,248,750
Bryce Blair Chairman and CEO AvalonBay Communities Inc. $15,611,876 $716,827
Dwight C. Schar Chairman NVR Inc. $15,598,383 $2,000,000

Richard F. Syron Chairman and CEO Freddie Mac $15,554,809 $1,100,000

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.

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.

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.

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?

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 so they can pick up a quart of healthy soymilk. (Ok, ok, I admit there are a lot of pickup driving, cell phone using guys out there picking up a 12 pack of beer. Neither gender has a lock on virtue and brains.)

The Democratic-led U.S. House of Representatives on Wednesday responded to the deadliest shooting rampage in modern American history by passing legislation to help keep guns out of hands of the mentally ill.

What? Are they crazy? How can they abrogate the rights of citizens just because of their mental state? They might as well want to keep guns out of the hands of felons and illegal aliens. Perhaps they should take guns away from trigger happy Metro officers who shoot to kill, not to wound.

Police shot and killed a woman on a busy roadway Tuesday after she walked into traffic with a child and threatened passing drivers with a knife in Las Vegas.

Officers used pepper spray, Taser stun guns, and beanbag shotgun rounds to try to subdue the woman, but with no visible effect, said Officer Jose Montoya, a Las Vegas police spokesman.

Two officers shot her at about 8 a.m., Montoya said.

Just before the shooting, officers pulled a boy who appeared to be about 3 years old away from the woman. Neither was identified, and police did not describe their relationship.

Montoya said authorities believed the woman was suffering from a mental condition.

The good news is she no longer is suffering from a mental condition; on the other hand, if she had a gun, at least it would have been a fair fight. So the police can grabbed the child but can't subdue a woman without deadly force? Sounds like how Oscar would like to handle the homeless problem to me--oh wait, I think that was tried some months ago when an officer shot a homeless man who threw a rock at him.

For more on the legislation bill go to Gun Legislation.
For the other story go to Police Kill Woman.

Japanese researchers found that cockroaches have a memory and can be taught to salivate in response to neutral stimuli in the way that Pavlov's dogs would do when the famed Russian doctor rang his bell.

Such "conditioning" can only take place when there is memory and learning, and this salivating response had only previously been proven in humans and dogs.

Now, cockroaches appear to have that aptitude too.

Researchers said they hoped to learn more about the human brain by exploring what goes on in the simpler brain of the cockroach.

I wonder, since we have Dave Letterman's "Stupid Human Tricks", Jay Leno's interviews in the street, American Idol and 50 other "reality" shows, politicians, and a news media which finds a dead Anna Nicole Smith more newsworthy than massive Chinese troop buildups, and since cockroaches are so successful, perhaps it should be the other way around and researchers should be examining the cockroach brain to find out why humans are so stupid and simple.

For the layman's version of the whole story go to Cockroaches; for the scientific dirt go to Plos one.

Eye on Gambling reports that:

Sen. John McCain stopped by Tabu Ultra Lounge, next to the craps and roulette tables on the MGM Grand casino floor, and left with roughly $400,000 for his presidential campaign.

Former New York City Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani walked away from the Red Rock Casino with $100,000, courtesy of the owners of Station Casinos Inc., whose interests include Nevada and California gambling halls.

Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York gathered $320,000 in March at the Four Seasons Hotel on the Strip, the same place former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney celebrated his 60th birthday and collected $400,000, mostly from noncasino interests.

Gambling's campaign role has grown since the 2000 election, as Indian casinos boomed, Wall Street became a big financier for the major casinos, gambling spread to 48 states, and gross U.S. wagering revenue soared to $85 billion annually.

But gaming has always been interested in presidential politics, at least as far back as President John Kennedy and his rumoured Cal-Neva Hotel tryst with actress Marilyn Monroe.

The county's garbage collection provider, Republic Services, met last week with officials from the Teamsters Local 631, whose members now earn $24.34 per hour and rejected an $8.39 wage and benefit increase over five years last month.

$24.34 an hour works out to about $50,000 a year without overtime. $50,000 a year will buy a lot of beer and a nice car. Clark County teachers start at $30,299; to make $49,476, a teacher must have a Master's degree and 11 years of teaching experience. The obvious conclusion: teachers need a better union.

The Clark County Manager's office is encouraging recreational boaters and others to get involved by applying for a seat on the Clark County Boating Facilities and Safety Committee.

The committee advises the County Commission on the expenditure of marina fuel tax dollars generated at marinas within the Lake Mead National Recreation Area.

If interested you can request an application by calling Arlene Chapman in the County Manager's Office at 702-455-3530, which must be returned to that office on the 6th floor of the County Government Center no later than 1 p.m. June 21.

Perhaps one suggestion would be to limit boating to boats under 15 feet so that the incredible shrinking Lake Mead would at least look bigger.

Nevada Governor Jim Gibbons joined with Assemblyman Joe Hardy (R-Boulder City) May 30 during a ceremonial signing of AB 6 sponsored by Assemblyman Joe Hardy, which reaffirms the legal authority for local governments to offer prescription discount cards, such as the one offered by the National Association of Counties (NACo). The Prescription Drug Discount Card can provide as much as 20% in savings on each prescription and is available to the insured, underinsured, and non-insured.

The Governor stated, "I am pleased that all 17 counties will now have the opportunity to provide residents with the savings option provided through the Prescription Drug Discount Card program or other similar programs. The costs of prescription drugs can often create a significant burden for those living on a fixed income."

I wonder how it affects those of us on a flexible income. Mine keeps getting smaller every year.

For further details on this program contact www.NACO.org/drugcard.

Sen. Hillary Clinton (D), New York: The people of Nevada are ready for change. We want it to happen.
I believe that is a royal "We."

Nancy Pelosi, the speaker of the House, spoke in part on recent developments in Venezuela, "The decision by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez not to renew the license of Radio Caracas Television," which is a large station he shut down on Sunday, which started all this, "in order to silence criticism, is exactly the kind of action that raises concern about his leadership. President Chavez should know that efforts to suppress the media will not only ultimately fail, but are also a detriment to one of the pillars of democracy, freedom of expression.
Somewhere along the line Nancy has usurped the position of the State Department. I imagine being one of the richest people in Congress has its privileges.

George W. Bush, President: If you want to kill the bill, if you don't want do what's right for America, you can pick one little aspect out of it. You can use it to frighten people.
George, who has angered liberals, moderates, majorities, minorities, men, women, children, and most of the world, has just "killed" his last remaining support in the conservative base with this comment on immigration reform. George had the perfect blueprint for how not to run a presidency--his Daddy's, though Bush Sr. was often unfairly portrayed by the media since he was so boring--and he still screwed it up. Bush Sr. didn't do anything exciting until he jumped out of an airplane at age 80, Jimmy Carter didn't accomplish anything until he began buildings houses one at a time, and it appears Bill Clinton has a new girlfriend who hopefully has a higher IQ than an Anna Nicole Smith or that woman, Monica Lewinsky, and remembers to dry clean her dresses. It seems like all these guys simply chose the wrong job.

Drugs
Scientists have discovered particles of cocaine and marijuana, as well as caffeine and tobacco, in the air of Rome, Italy's capital. The concentration of drugs was heaviest in the air around Rome's Sapienza university, though the National Research Council's Dr. Angelo Cecinato warned against drawing conclusions about students' recreational habits.

But there is a chance the doctor is at the university right now doing some more testing. Makes me wonder where the Las Vegas City Council and Clark County Commissioners are going in the valley to get their highs, judging by some of their recent votes, especially on strip clubs. Probably safe to say, Oscar just goes to his office and cracks some more Bombay.

Money
Dollar Tree Stores, Inc. (DLTR) said that sales for the first quarter were $975.0 million, a 13.8% increase from $856.5 million, for the same period, one year ago.
That's probably because with soaring food, fuel, and utility costs, many people can't even afford to shop at Wal-Mart anymore, even with its employee unfriendly business plans to keep costs down.

At the Spelling Bee
The English language went completely off the map Thursday morning at the semifinals of the Scripps National Spelling Bee, leaving the 59 remaining spellers to wrestle with little-seen creatures of the dictionary such as "ptilopod."
"Is that English?" asked 12-year-old Josiah Wright of Fleetwood, N.C.
"They tell me it is," the judge deadpanned.

"Is that English?" That is what I ask whenever I read e-mails or see text messages--in our sound-bite and quick messaging world, grammar, spelling, and meaning are non-existent. And for anyone who cares...ptilopod is not in MY four inch thick Webster's Dictionary, so I think Josiah had a legitimate question.

Bills passed Saturday

AB90: Punishes men who commit "paternity fraud" by recruiting friends to take their paternity test. Hey! Make it even more interesting. Make the friends responsible for child support also and see how many then want to take the test for their buddies.

AB112: Creates minimum jail hold times for those driving under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
Will we at least wait until they are sober?

AB137: Creates penalties for hoax terrorism threats.
Hmm, we could sit them on a "hoax" bomb--or is it?--and push the red button.

AB143: Increases the time the state Ethics Commission has to investigate complaints.
They investigate complaints? Oh, that's right. Investigate maybe; follow up, not likely.

AB331: Mandates that water providers set rates to encourage water conservation.
OK, I guess that means rate hikes--unless you are a casino.

AB383: Creates penalties for human trafficking and allows fines against businesses who employ illegal immigrants.
What if the business is owned and run by illegals? Fined twice?

AB483: Adds some tax credits and personal property to a list of items exempt from forfeiture in a bankruptcy. The Federal government taketh away; Nevada giveth back?

AB518: which removes state price caps on basic phone service in 2012.
By 2012 I expect the chip in my head should be able to talk directly to the chip in your head. Why will I need basic phone service?

Senate Bill 112: Mirrors a federal anti-meth law and restricts access to medicines that can be used to make meth.

SB277: Allows a program of DUI courts and alcohol treatment for repeat DUI offenders.

Will illegal aliens qualify? Apparently, about as many Americans have been killed on U.S. highways by drunk driving illegals as have been killed in Iraq over the last four years; one situation has created public outrage while the other has engendered proposed plans toward citizenship.

LasVegasNow reports that the governor's proposed plan using Clark County room tax money to help pay for road construction is considered a sure failure according to republican sources.

Below are a few bills which have passed committee and a Friday deadline:

Assembly Bill 383 would make it a Class B felony to smuggle people into Nevada.
Assembly Bill 127 will allow you to record phone conversations if a debt collector harasses you.
Assembly Bill 421 will add prison time for retail theft rings. They work in tandem to steal thousands of dollars in merchandise in a matter of minutes.
Assembly Bill 212, a high school reform bill, will increase the drop out age from 17 to 18. It will also create a clear path for graduation for incoming freshman.

According to a recent report, a team of scientists claim they have evidence to back climate change in the form of global cooling as the main cause for the demise of Neanderthals, noting that the period 26,000 years ago was very cold and dry.

However some scientists believe Neanderthals never went extinct and instead interbred their genes into our own, as recent skeletal evidence might suggest.

I think it is pretty easy to subscribe to the last theory and, judging by the performance of our politicians, global warming is bringing them back to life.

Once again I missed a debate; this time it was the Republican debate I missed as I was reading Montaigne's essay "Of Cannibalism." He writes of a tribe where prophets rarely appear in the villages but when they do they speak in public..."and if things turn out otherwise than he has predicted, he is cut up into a thousand pieces if they catch him and condemned as a false prophet. For this reason, the prophet who has once been mistaken is never seen again." Ah, one can only dream of what would be the result if we placed such a high standard on our politicians/prophets today. I suppose each would last a day or so. Anyway, back to the debate..., it must have been considered un-newsworthy by the media--not being Democrats performing--so there is little that major media seems to have put out, but here is a snippet from MSNBC:

Rudy Giuliani on abortion: "Ultimately, since it is an issue of conscience, I would respect a woman's right to make a different choice.... You have to respect a woman's right to make that choice differently than my conscience."

When asked what he disliked most about America, Mit Romney answered, "Gosh, I love America. I'm afraid I'm going to be at a loss for words...." But then, apparently, he spoke to America's natural and spiritual beauties, thereby avoiding the question.

And last, John McCain vowed that he would "follow bin Laden to the gates of hell" to capture or kill the al-Qaida leader.

John's too old to chase anyone. Rudy really is a New Yorker unlike Hillary on the other side. Mit Romney has great hair. As a woman told me after the 1992 Presidential election, she voted for Bill Clinton because he had nicer looking hair than George Bush, Sr. Ergo, Mit Romney must have won the debate last night.

Probably of more interest to the public is this article "20 million chickens may have eaten tainted feed." Pets, beef, pork, chickens, and people--here we thought we should be worried about terrorists and it's the Chinese and our own corporations we should be watching.

Exxon Mobil Corp., the world's largest publicly traded oil company, announced last Thursday its net income grew 10 percent in the first quarter, as higher refining, marketing and chemical profit margins overcame lower crude oil and natural gas prices. Net income rose to $9.3 billion, or $1.62 per share, for the January-March period.

I waited through the weekend after this announcement--and as I have been for several weeks, now--for Harry Reid to step forward on rising gasoline prices as he did for the past few years when Republicans were in power in Congress. Except for attacking Bush on the Iraq war, which is a politically safe position with Americans, he seems to be a no show on all other issues. Thank you, Harry for being so concerned for the working poor who can't make you millions in real estate deals.

After apparently performing well this week for the Democratic debate, Joe Biden must have either felt compelled to up the stakes or somehow his mouth got away from him. This morning on "Meet the Press" Joe Biden listed several ills that can be laid squarely on Newt Gingrich and his government revolution of the nineties, including the Virginia Tech. tragedy and shock jock Don Imus' stupid remark. It seems if Newt hadn't twisted the moral compass of the country, these events could not have happened, according to Biden. It's possible he meant The Contract With America which included several bills which President Clinton signed into law, but, unfortunately--or thankfully, I chose to go get another cup of coffee rather than listen to Biden spin that remark. But for someone who wants to be a serious candidate, this one sounded to me just like a stupid remark.

In their arguments for new taxes to pay for roads in Nevada legislators note that vehicle traffic on Nevada highways has doubled from 1990 to 2005, but during that same period, total lane miles have increased by only 12 percent.

What I want to know is since Nevada was collecting taxes for the last 15 years on all those new driversand vehicles, where are the dollars that Nevada collected if they didn't build new roads?

Steve Miller reports that Mayor Oscar Goodman stormed out of the room after complaining to City Attorney Brad Jerbic that he "didn't understand" why he must abstain from voting on the permanent licensure of the Crazy Horse Too this week.

Jerbic did not need to explain that the Mayor's law firm represents the past and present owners of the topless bar before the Mayor left for the majority of the hearing, only to return when it looked like the Council was about to close his client's troubled business once and for all.

Moments after Goodman re-entered the small room located behind the City Council dais; a room where two Council members at a time were being served sandwiches during the extended hearing, the Council made a sudden about face and granted Goodman's law partner Jay Brown's client, Mike Signorelli, the permanent license after Goodman returned to the his seat on the Council dais and watched silently as they voted. (Note that Jay Brown is Harry Reid's business partner who has been involved in some of Harry's amazing land deals.)

"The Mob" might not be running Las Vegas anymore, but it sure looks like "a mob" is still here. I wonder what the side dishes included with those sandwiches in the back room.

"Food and energy costs are surging, but if you don't have to eat and drive, life is not that bad." So said Joel Naroff, president of Naroff Economic Advisors, after reports that although wholesale prices went up one percent for the month of March, it was primarily food and gasoline prices which rose leaving other sectors flat last month; however, this came after a 1.3 percent jump in February. (See Wholesale prices jump 1 percent in March)

Sounds like double digit inflation to me no matter what spin you put on the story and Joel, I do occasionally have to eat. And I guess life isn't too bad for the home buyers with interest only and negative amortization mortgages soon to adjust as long as they can eat and drive?

I told a friend a few weeks ago that I thought the Internet was falling apart, getting buggy, and just acting strange, but he assured me that it might burp but will go on. Now I have evidence that I might be right. Okay, so he is too.

The article Researchers explore scrapping Internet reports that some university researchers, with the federal government's blessing, want to scrap the Internet and start over.

It appears that starting over may be the only way to correct security, mobility, and other problems that have attacked the net since UCLA professor Leonard Kleinrock helped supervise the first exchange of meaningless test data between two machines on Sept. 2, 1969.

The Internet "works well in many situations but was designed for completely different assumptions," said Dipankar Raychaudhuri, a Rutgers University professor overseeing three clean-slate projects. "It's sort of a miracle that it continues to work well today."

The end of the Internet brings to mind a few questions:
If the Internet goes down, will I still have a voice?
Will women stop writing R U :) and LOL without e-mail?
And will drivers here ever learn that the left lane is for passing and not a "designer" lane for current and former Californians? All right, I know that has nothing to do with the Internet, but it's a fact.

On Tuesday transportation experts, local officials, business, labor and construction industry representatives testified before the Senate Taxation Committee in support of Senate Bill 324.

SB324 would raise the gasoline tax by 6 cents a gallon over two years and allow annual increases after that tied to inflation. Fees for driver's licenses would be increased, vehicle depreciation schedules adjusted, and a portion of the sales tax collected on vehicle sales and repairs would be directed to highways.

Proponents of the bill claim that it is time for the legislature to make some tough decisions. Placing an increasing tax burden on Nevadans through this bill will hit the working poor the hardest. It isn't a tough decision in Nevada to tax those who can least afford it; tough would be to raise the taxes on casinos which make billions each year.

I was reading a Reno Gazette-Journal article which stated that, though many lawmakers and the governor started by making methamphetamine addiction in Nevada a top priority, several issues are sinking and might not get the support needed.

Increasing treatment options and reducing the wait lists was the top suggestion during a recent governor's task force meeting, but no new funds have been added to the budget for treatment beds and the amount proposed by Gov. Jim Gibbons apparently will help only a small percentage of those waiting for treatment.

Maria Canfield, director of the Substance Abuse Prevention and Treatment Agency, said that in 2006 about 2,226 people waited an average of 24 days for treatment, while the $3.8 million Gibbons proposed will take only about 154 people off the list.

Assemblywoman Sheila Leslie, D-Reno, said that adding more treatment money is key to addressing Nevada's meth crisis.

According to my math that $3.8 million for 154 people works out to about $24,675 per person. By contrast Nevada spent $18,000 per prisoner per year in 2001 according to the Department of Justice figures I found. I looked for more recent numbers from the Nevada Department of Corrections but I think you need an accounting degree to understand the numbers; however, it still appears less than $24,000 per inmate. I am not suggesting that the Nevada Department of Corrections run the meth program for the state but I would like to know how $3.8 million can only help 154 addicts.

Attorney Jan Schlichtmann and his innovative Public Shade Tree Trust were featured last week in over 200 media and news publications and outlets across the country and around the world. The groundbreaking project to help towns and cities protect the urban forest from the poisoning caused by leaks from our aging natural gas pipeline network can be reviewed by going to Google News..

Mr. Schlichtmann's career and his representation of eight Woburn, Massachusetts families against W.R. Grace and Beatrice Foods for the contamination of the Woburn City water supply was chronicled in the national bestseller, "A Civil Action" that became a major motion picture starring John Travolta as Mr. Schlichtmann.

He also spoke at the the recent Mass Torts Made Perfect Conference in Las Vegas, NV.

Friday, April 6, 2007 11:45 a.m., at the Canyon Gate Country Club in Las Vegas, the Las Vegas chapter of the Federalist Society is hosting a luncheon which will include such speakers as Prof. Michael Dimino, Widener University ; Prof. Stephen Presser, Northwestern University Law School ; and Moderator: Circuit Judge Jay S. Bybee, U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

The speakers will discuss the blue ribbon Article VI Commission which is studying Nevada's judicial system and is reportedly leaning toward a Missouri-type plan for Nevada: a nominating commission with gubernatorial appointment and subsequent retention election. The panel will explore the questions whether appointive methods of judicial selection are necessarily superior to the elective ones; are partisan elections better at securing accountability and competitive elections than nonpartisan ones; or do they sacrifice judicial independence? Does the national model of presidential nomination and senatorial advice and consent provide a model worth imitating? Does retention election strike the appropriate balance between accountability and independence, or is it merely a means of securing voter approval?

Contact KOLESAR & LEATHAM, Chtd., 3320 West Sahara Ave., Ste 380, Las Vegas for more information on the luncheron.

Macaulogia: Forum de Estudos reports that the government collects a cool 40% in tax on the daily take on the many casinos now in Macau including those owned by Sheldon Adelson and Steve Wynn and yet Macao's coffers have swollen and its GDP has doubled. Research by JP Morgan suggests that it could be twice the size of its American rival by the end of the decade.

Currently, Nevada casinos pay licensing fees on each slot and gaming table and according to NRS 463.370, based on gross gaming revenue - payable on or before the 24th day of each month covering the preceding calendar month at the following rates.

3.5% of the first $50,000 during the month, plus
4.5% of the next $84,000 plus
6.75% of revenue exceeding $134,000.

Alan Goodenough, chairman of LCI, once said, "We pay an effective tax rate of 29.9 percent in London; 50 percent in Egypt and 20.1 percent in South Africa. No tax regime is better than Nevada's. It's a breath of fresh air." (The Aladdin Genie stays in the bottle)

I suppose if the same casino owners paid half the Macau amount in taxes to Nevada, well...education might have half a chance of improving in this state, except for interference by legislators, administrators, parents, students...oh, and casinos.

Just one day before the United Nations vote on increased sanctions against Iran for pursuing nuclear development, President Mahmoud Admadinejad raised the stakes in this poker game by ordering the arrest of fifteen British sailors and marines, who supposedly will be tried as criminals for entering the country illegally.

However, the U.N. Security Council, approved a resolution that bans all Iranian arms exports and freezes financial assets of Iranian individuals and entities linked to that country's military and nuclear agencies. The resolution passed unanimously with not only Russia and China voting for the resolution, but Qatar, a Gulf Arab state, and Indonesia, a Muslim nation.

Last summer the Israelis went to war in Lebanon over the kidnapping of soldiers. Now that Iran's capture of the British wasn't the turn card they were hoping for to leverage the U.N. vote, Las Vegas bookies are posting odds on the outcome of bluff or showdown.

It sounds like a 1950's science fiction movie but it is true.

Cane toads have been spreading through the Australian tropics since being introduced in the 1935 from South America, but new research suggests that people in western and south Australia may soon have to beat them off with sticks and clubs.

They have also prompted new thoughts on climate change adaptation.

The study, undertaken by the University of Sydney and an international team of researchers, reveals the toad has rapidly adapted to the Australian climate since its introduction and has overturned previous predictions about the spread of cane toads through Australia, which were based on the assumption the toads could only survive in conditions similar to their original South American habitat.

One of the researchers, Professor Rick Shine, said the toads had evolved incredibly quickly because of the rich genetic diversity, the result of a reproductive cycle in which they lay 30,000 eggs in a single clutch.

Their body shape has changed to enable them to move more quickly, and they have become more resilient, coping with much higher temperatures.

"The toads at the invasion front are long-legged, very fast-moving animals and they move every day ... in pretty much straight lines," Prof Shine said, "Compared to the ones in the old populations, which have got relatively short legs and are much less active and tend to meander around."

My mutant invasion nightmare includes 10 foot high bobble head dolls of Mayor Oscar Goodman on every Las Vegas street corner, in the parks, in the malls...!

For more on these toads go to Yahoo News.

And in another report, scientists said on Monday that global warming could re-make the world's climate zones by 2100, with some polar and mountain climates disappearing altogether and formerly unknown ones emerging in the tropics.

But we know that cane toads will survive. I'm less sure about global warming scientists and Al Gore, though.

A Texas schoolteacher won first place in a contest to find America's messiest desk.

Sponsored by publisher Little, Brown and Co., the competition promoted "A Perfect Mess: The Hidden Benefits of Disorder," by Eric Abrahamson and David Freedman, a new book that argues neatness is overrated, costs money, wastes time and quashes creativity.

Ha! I can't even find my desk. But, of course, I know where to find everything...except when I can't.

France has placed all the information it has gathered on more than 1,600 UFO sightings on a website. The site immediately crashed when millions of aliens visited the site to see if their vacation photos had been posted. I thought to go to the site, but as of yet my internet connection can't go galactic. George Knapp, a Las Vegas reporter known for his fascination with Area 51 located north of Las Vegas, probably hasn't come back from the site, yet.

The site (if it ever comes back) is: cnes-geipan France UFO Site

One of our readers wrote in about a letter written recently to Governor Gibbons--our other reader was following all day kindergarten news--and as the professor sent this to as many media outlets he could, we provide the letter here:

March 5, 2007

MEMORANDUM

TO: Jim Gibbons
Governor, State of Nevada

FROM: Hussein S. Hussein, Ph.D.
Associate Professor

SUBJECT: WHY IS A STATE EMPLOYEE UNDER SURVEILLANCE BY A STATE AGENCY FOR MORE TWO YEARS?

Request: This memorandum is a request to our newly elected governor to protect a state employee (Dr. Hussein Hussein) from a state agency (Nevada System of Higher Education "NSHE") and to immediately order the removal of the long-term surveillance by NSHE against me.

Background: On December 27, 2004, NSHE found itself on the front page of the Reno Gazette Journal (RGJ). The news was bad for NSHE. The news exposed rampant animal abuse at the UNR. The RGJ called the series of articles "Trouble on the Farm". The news hit the wires and was republished across the nation in the press. I exposed this animal abuse to the RGJ. I was "the source".

Within hours of the release of this news, a surveillance camera was installed outside of my laboratory and office at the UNR. The surveillance is 24/7 and continues to this day. I don't know if you have ever been under such a microscope. It is not very fun.
Why was this one State employee singled out for 24/7 surveillance for more than two years, all within hours of being exposed as a whistle blower in the press? Regardless of the answer to that question, the time has come for this to stop. This is where I need your help.

The law on spy cameras on campus is clear in at least two regards. One, criminal activity has to be suspected. Two, the UNR President must approve it.
Therefore, the UNR President has concluded I am a criminal in need of surveillance. But all I am is a State employee who is trying to do his job.

In the last two years, no criminal charges have been brought. I am an innocent State employee who happens to have blown the whistle on severe and systemic animal abuse. The surveillance continues almost as persistently as the animal abuse continues. You may recall the 400 drowned UNR sheep last winter. This continues, despite UNR having paid taxpayer money to the USDA for the 56 confirmed violations of the Animal Welfare Act.

Are we working as State employees in an Orwellian totalitarian State?
Well, maybe not everyone is, but I am.
I need your help, Sir.

I have endeavored for two long years to get an answer to the surveillance, to the spy cameras. No one has any answers.
NSHE State lawyers have no answers. NSHE private lawyers, McDonald Carano Wilson LLP, have no answers.
So, I need your help. Can you help me?

Thank you very much.
_______________

Reading about the surveillance kind of reminded me of that little known critter known as the Patriot Act which then reminded me of ....

Just 45 days after the September 11 attacks, with virtually no debate, Congress passed the USA PATRIOT Act.

Originally passed after the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Centers in New York, New York; the Act (full text) was formed in response to the terrorist attacks against the United States, and dramatically expanded the authority of American law enforcement for the stated purpose of fighting terrorism in the United States and abroad. , At the time the ACLU, who often supports frightening causes such as NAMBLA, correctly pointed out flaws that threaten your fundamental freedoms by giving the government the power to access to your medical records, tax records, information about the books you buy or borrow without probable cause, and the power to break into your home and conduct secret searches without telling you for weeks, months, or indefinitely. It has also supposedly been used to detect and prosecute other alleged potential crimes, such as providing false information on terrorism, but on March 9, 2007, the US Justice Department released an internal audit that found that the FBI had acted illegally in its use of the USA Patriot Act to secretly obtain personal information about US citizens. Federal courts have ruled that some provisions are unconstitutional infringements on civil liberties. The Patriot act had been renewed on March 2, 2006 with a vote of 89 to 11 in the Senate and on March 7 280 to 138 in the House. The renewal was signed into law by President Bush on March 9, 2006.
.
And then there is a little something called the Real ID Act which federalizes and standardizes state driver's licenses for all 50 states, and it will result in something that has been resisted in this country for a long time -- a national identity card.

The Real ID Act was pushed through Congress in 2005 with little meaningful debate. The changes should result in new fees and if you thought the lines were long at the DMV before, wait until everyone has to come in to replace their now obsolete license, loaded with paper to scan. Plus, there is a little more to consider about this new threat to Americans' privacy.

The law requires DMVs to store scanned copies of birth certificates, Social Security cards, and any other documents that individuals present when they apply for a license. It creates a national linked database allowing millions of employees at all levels of government around the nation to access personal data. It also mandates a nationally standardized "machine-readable zone" that will let bars, merchants, and other private parties scan personal data off licenses with greater ease than ever before, putting all that information into even greater circulation. Privacy activists, such as privacyrights.org, point out how this will create new opportunities for ID thieves to commit identity theft, while the supposed reliability of the documents should make them more valuable to counterfeit.
An anti-Real ID Web site that includes the status of efforts in all 50 states and what consumers can do to take action is at www.realnightmare.org.

But back to our professor and his letter. If I was the professor, I would either put up a giant smiley face, find creative ways to express my magic finger, or, heaven forbid, install my own camera aimed right at theirs.

California has joined as many as two dozen states that have selected Feb. 5 or are considering that date for one or both of their Democratic or Republican primaries or caucuses. Other states that have already set that date for their primary are Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Idaho (Democrats only), Missouri, Utah, and New Mexico Democrats have set their presidential caucus for Feb. 5.

Another 15 other states are considering moving their contests to Feb. 5 including Florida, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, New York and Texas.

With all those big states--Florida, Illinois, Michigan, New Jersey, New York, Texas, and California--lining up for a February 5 primary, will anyone even remember the Nevada caucus NV Senator Harry Reid was so proud of a few months ago.

For a little more you can go to CBS News.

Right now the media is fueling a minor frenzy over a usually ignored political reality and the Democrats are making the most of it, claiming to be absolutely shocked at the White House based firing of eight U.S. Attorneys. "I think we need a change in the top at the Justice Department," said Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, a member of the Democratic leadership, in response to the firings and about whom Dob Dole once said that the most dangerous place in Washington, D.C. is between Schumer and a television camera.

What seems to have escaped the notice of most of the country and all of the Democrats is that one of President Bill Clinton's very first official acts upon taking office in 1993 was to fire every United States attorney then serving -- except Michael Chertoff, now Homeland Security secretary but then U.S. attorney for the District of New Jersey, because New Jersey Democrat, Sen. Bill Bradley, specifically requested his retention.

Personally, I am so tired of hearing from our Congressmen and women that exhausted refrain that the other party is playing partisan politics. It usually means that the other side simply beat them to it. I for one want to hear another refrain for anyone who has six years in Congress ..."It's Time You Learned About Goodbye." Just start voting them out before they have enough time to wear the hypocracy and corruption well.

According to a Police Executive Research Forum report on violent crime statistics, fwith over 50 major police departments reporting, most have seen a substantial increase in violent crime over the past two years including increases
of more than 30 percent in robberies in Arlington, Tex.; Baltimore County, Md.; Cleveland; Detroit; Fort Wayne, Ind.; Las Vegas; Memphis; Milwaukee; Minneapolis; Montgomery County, Md.; Orlando, Fla.; Prince William County, Va.; Rochester, N.Y.; San Francisco; San Jose, Calif.; and Virginia Beach, Va.; and increases of more than 30 percent in aggravated assaults with firearms in Boston; Cincinnati; Cleveland; Las Vegas; Orlando; Rochester, N.Y.; Sacramento, Calif.; St. Louis; Seattle; and other jurisdictions.

The numbers for Las Vegas show the homicide rate jumped 15.91 percent from 2004 to 2006; robbery from 3729 in 2004 to 5381 in 2006 or 44.30 percent increase; aggravated assault from 5318 to 6681 for a 25.63 percent rise; and agravated assault with a firearm rose 30.69 percent.

Probably the reason a paunchy Bill Young, former Sheriff Jerry Keller's protege, chose to ride into the sunset rather than run again for Sheriff...that and he put in his five years so his sheriff's pension would vest, and there is a lot more money in the private sector for ex-politicos even if there is less fame.

Possible GOP presidential candidate Rudolph Giullani's popularity across the nation has some New Yorkers baffled as they remember him as an antagonistic and mean-spirited mayor, while admitting that he got many things done in New York in areas of violent crime, welfare reform, etc. See New York Wonders.

Maybe those complaining wanted a return to the days of corrupt Mayor David Dinkens' administration.

Michigan Democratic leaders announced they'll hold their presidential caucus no later than Saturday, Feb. 9, 2008, and may go earlier if other states abuse national party rules.

Former Sen. John Edwards’s (D-N.C.) strong support of prohibiting gambling on college sports is seen as snake eyes for his chances in the Nevada presidential caucus. The Hill
After all, I think we should allow gambling on T-ball games in Nevada so six year olds can learn the real meaning of why we play games. Note that "Mr. Cleanface," I mean Senator Harry Reid, of course endorses betting on college sports for the revenue it brings the casinos--and the casinos have always bet on Harry and haven't lost yet. Maybe Nevada needs more than a one dimensional economy and a one dimensional Senator.

I recently learned that at one Clark County high school the algebra teacher has taken at least one week off for jury duty. With the teacher shortage in math, science, and special education, it seems absurd to take a (hopefully) qualified teacher out of the classroom for a week and replace that teacher with a substiture teacher, euphemistically called a "guest teacher" by Clark County school administrators, who often can't spell algebra, let alone teach it.

Each day that the regular teacher is not in the classroom there are probably 125 or more students who aren't getting the education they need. Seems to me a simple solution would be an exemption from jury duty--at least while the teacher's school is in session.

While in Washington, D.C., for the National Governors Association Winter Meeting, Nevada Governor Jim Gibbons announced details of his proposed legislation to improve the tracking and registration of sex offenders in Nevada. The legislation includes:

Global Positioning System (GPS) monitoring of tier 3 sex offenders, or those most likely to re-offend, on parole or probation;

A requirement for convicted sex offenders to register before they are released from prison;

And a requirement for out-of-state sex offenders to submit DNA samples when registering as sex offenders in Nevada.

Maybe we should require all our politicians and candidates to wear those GPS ankle bracelets also, so that we might have known where Governor, then U.S. Representative, Gibbons was in that parking garage on the night he allegedly assaulted the cocktail waitress. It certainly would have helped to keep track of all those Clark County Commissioners so we knew where they were when they were bribed or when questions of residency arose without subjecting them to expensive FBI or union funded surveillance.

Nevada Senate Bill 52 would expand the Millennium Scholarship by giving a near full ride to 100 University of Nevada, Reno students who major in math and science education and to 300 potential special education teachers studying at University of Nevada, Las Vegas.

I wonder if there is a requred service attachment to the scholarship, because I can see recipients taking their credentials and heading off to a state with a more reasonable salary to cost of living--read housing costs--ratio. Also, does 400 scholarships address a 1,200 to 1,500 teacher shortage per year, high attrition rate among teachers, overcrowding, and the general dismal performance in Clark County alone?

Hillary Clinton announced that former Nevada Attorney General, Frankie Sue Del Papa, will lead her northern Nevada steering committee.

Del Papa attended George Washington, graduating in 1974. She served as a staff assistant to U.S. Senator Alan Bible, a Nevada democrat, and then clerked for U.S. District Judge Bruce Thompson. After practicing law for 12 years, she was sworn in as Nevada's first woman secretary of state. Four years later she became the state's first female attorney general. Del Papa backed out of a 1998 bid for governor and also a 2000 bid for U.S. Senate.

Assembly Speaker Barbara Buckley, D-Las Vegas, is pushing for a $15 million-per-year plan which should lower the number of uninsured Nevadans by 12,000 or about 3 percent.

AB168 would improve health care coverage for low-income pregnant women and children, while expanding a subsidy program for small businesses employees.

According to Michael Willden, director of the Department of Health and Human Services Nevada has an estimated 400,000 to 450,000 people without health insurance.

But other reports suggest that number is much higher. More than one out of three people (36.8 percent) in Nevada under the age of 65 went without health insurance for all or part of the two-year period from 2002-2003, according to the Census Bureau in its Current Population Survey published in Families Today, June 2004.

Steve Wynn recently revealed that dealers at his Wynn Las Vegas hotel-casino make $100,000 annually. Poor Steve can't retain floor supervisors because they only make $60,000 a year. A first year teacher with the Clark County School District makes $30,299 and a teacher with a doctoral degree and 13 years experience receives $59,141. Guess who wins?

The Pentagon has abandoned plans for its massive test explosion in the Nevada desert, which would have raised the dust with the first mushroom cloud near Las Vegas since a nuclear test in the 1960's. No Big Boom?