Business Politics – 2006 July

You’ve found the Sin City scuttlebutt. Here you’ll see unofficial, off-the-record reports, obtained from fairly reliable insider information.

In other words: overheard in Harrah’s Diamond Lounges.

Pssst… Contrary to R.C. Clark’s report yesterday about Harrah’s not yet gobbling up Barbary Coast, it does seem that that is indeed the rumor and that it was sold last week.

And if that’s the case, Boyd Gaming, currently developing Echelon Place, must be very happy cash campers indeed. They knew what kind of gold mine Barbary Coast was to the Harrah’s empire, and they weren’t going to give it up without a fight. Not even with Strip land fetching $20 million per acre.

But not having BC as part of Harrah’s Monopoly board would be a thorn in their side, forcing them to build around it.

Last month, Harrah’s purchased a Koval Lane apartment complex direclty behind their main casino. That space adds 20 acres to their current 160.

If the rumor is true, this means Harrah’s can finally rest easy and announce plans for what they intend to do with that entire East Strip stretch, all now owned by the H man.

Any over/unders on when a West (MGM Mirage) vs. East Strip (Harrah’s) civil war will take place?

Got a rumor to pass on? Your secret is not safe, but your identity is. Email pokergrub@lasvegasvegas.com.

photo by FlipChip/LasVegasVegas.com

Every intersection in Vegas has a crop of political weeds.

I was wandering through the election links for Nevada over on the Democratic Underground site http://www.democraticunderground.com/ and I got curious about just who was running for Governor.
Our candidates really need to try harder, I mean, they simply can’t compete with that guy Jacobs, up in Utah who says, Satan is causing him not to have enough money to advertise at will, evidently the Devil has taken a personal interest in his business affairs.
Anyway, I made up a list of sites and a brief comment. My comments are strictly my own and in no way reflect the opinions or views of anyone else, living, dead, real or imagined, much less sane or sober.

Jim Gibson;s site is slick, obviously professionaly produced and has an animated cartoon called the “Dina show”, subtitled “a return to the dark side”, on his site, the whole thing about the $2000 she took from Enron that he says she refuses to explain.

On her site, Dina Titus accuses Gibson of dodging the growth debate and as a highlight it has a picture of her holding a save Redrock Canyon sign.

On Leola McConnell’s site she is using Nevada’s infrastructure as a cause and is talking about the neo-con/Project for a New American Century aka PNAC members and their apparent conspiracy to take over the world. Here’s a partial quote from her site:
” Their disastrous policies have led us into an ever expanding war in the Middle East (with future plans of attacking Iran, North Korea, Syria and possibly Venezuela) with no end in the foreseeable future while deaths of American soldiers (nearly 2,600) and innocent Iraqi civilian, etc.”
For a conspiracy theory, it’s terribly boring.

On Bob Beers site He has an old fashion editorial page style cartoon attacking Nevada’a big government and blaming Jim Gibbons for not supporting TASC.
It looks like the old fashion politics I’m used to, not to mention, as mudslinging goes, it’s a lot cheaper than Gibson’s site.

Jim Gibbons’ site is plain, but well designed, unfortunately, it’s just the usual, we’re ahead in the polls, now give us money or volunteer to help and here’s a bunch of political signs if you want them.

Melody Damayo has a bunch of new photos, but, when I cruised her site, I was unable to find any links to her old nudes. DAMN!
BTW, I’m voting for her, if I can’t find someone I want to vote for, I might as well vote for the D cups.

Lorraine Hunt’s site is really boring, all she’s doing is bragging about what she did as Lt. Gov.and she also needs a new picture, I don’t think the one she’s using is very flattering, even the guys she’s running against look better.
I could be wrong, but, I didn’t know the Lieutenant Governor did anything besides, cutting ribbons and parroting whatever the Governor just said.

Stanleigh Harold; Lusak’s site design is boring beyond belief, but, as a janitor and former postal worker, he’s going to singlehandedly restore the Constitution and save us all.
Maybe we should all vote for him, just for the entertainment value.

Craig Bergland’s site features a picture of him on his moped, with him bragging about many miles to a gallon it gets and how soon it paid for itself .
He wants “A Polite and Civilized Driving Culture”, if I rode a moped in a world full of SUVs I’d want that too, although a cop at every major intersection, doesn’t sound very cost effective.
He’s the Green Party candidate, nuff said.

Christopher Hansen doesn’t have a website that I could find, but he says he’s a computer consultant and anti-tax advocate.
If you think about it, he’s not a bad choice. He isn’t asking for money and he doesn’t have a platform, beyond some sort of no tax scheme. This makes him pretty much harmless, I like that in a politician.