$8.5 billion is how much the press reports CityCenter cost to build. That number comes from MGM. I am not the first to point out that $8.5 billion is not an accurate number and can not be. It is an almost arbitrary number with real world significance perhaps only to accountants and tax collectors. My [...]
During the boom times Las Vegas companies made all sorts of deals with countries that do not grant political rights to their citizens. China, of course, through Macau, is the most obvious way in which the gambling resort companies worked comfortably within the laws established by corrupt and totalitarian regimes. In fact, longtime rivals Sheldon [...]
No, I don’t vote, and I am not a fan of Harry Reid. But if you live here you know Sharron Angle is going to lose the election. Yet, my phone rings a few times a night with pollsters searching for my latest opinion. If only Las Vegas casinos would take bets on this election, [...]
First Amendment work you fight, because you believe in the slippery slope argument as well as a total conviction that consenting adults making movies for other consenting adults can never be called a crime no matter what is depicted, ever! I am sure this attitude is influenced by living in an adult playground where I [...]
I am back from my Washington DC adventure covering the trial of former Vegas show producer John Stagliano for obscenity. The charges arose from his day job as a director and distributor of pornography. I was working for the libertarian magazine Reason who allowed me to cover the trial as well as reveal the essential [...]
One of the many repercussions of BP’s destruction of a large chunk of ocean has been some locally and many nationally want to reconsider storing nuclear waste at Yucca Mountain less than 100 miles from Vegas. In fact, just as the government failed to finally kill the project, the Republican nominee for Senate in Nevada [...]
I am working on a couple projects. But some quick Vegas reads from obscure corners: This story from Computer World looks at one of two data centers in Venetian. I am so stealing this idea for a story. I have never been to a casino data center. That they exist is obvious looking back but [...]
This is an absolutely true story. In 2007 I got in touch with a major Las Vegas area drug dealer. Or, at least, he had been one. I met him years earlier at a party thrown by High Times magazine at Sahara. At the time, he had grow houses for pot all over Las Vegas. [...]
The Ribbon of Life benefit for Golden Rainbow happened yesterday afternoon. But unlike the usual non-partisan concern for the sick, there was one skit that was pure political satire and message. If Lanie Crossman’s photo is not self-explanatory, please read Doug Elfman’s outstanding take on the event. My own story on Ribbon of Life and [...]
It happened one day in June, 2008. I was at the food court at the Palms. I was covering the CineVegas film festival when a total stranger sat down to talk to me. Of course, it is hard to think of the face belonging to Dennis Hopper as that of a stranger. Dennis Hopper was [...]
