CASINO NEWS

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Exiled by Russia: Casinos and Jobs
By CLIFFORD J. LEVY June 29, 2009 New York Times

MOSCOW -- One of the largest mass layoffs in recent Russian history is to

occur on Wednesday, and the Kremlin itself is decreeing it, economic

crisis or not.

The government is shutting down every last legal casino and slot-machine

parlor across the land, under an antivice plan promoted by Vladimir V. Putin
that just a few months ago was widely perceived as far-fetched. But the

result will be hundreds of thousands of people thrown out of work.

And in a move that at times seems to have taken on almost farcical

overtones, the Kremlin has offered the gambling industry only one option

for survival: relocate to four regions in remote areas of Russia

as many as 4,000 miles from the capital. The potential marketing slogans

-- Come to the Las Vegas of Siberia! Have a Ball near the North Korean

Border! -- may not sound inviting, but that is in part what the

government envisions.

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from the Review Journal

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Jun. 22, 2009
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal

City and its silver and gold deposits helped put Nevada on map

Economy doesn't keep tourists away

By ED VOGEL
LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL CAPITAL BUREAU

VIRGINIA CITY -- Two Irish pick-and-shovel prospectors named Peter O'Riley and Patrick McLaughlin were digging into a water seep in a canyon near Virginia City on a sunny day in June 1859 when they happened upon shiny flakes of gold.

Trouble was, the gold was surrounded by "blue stuff" that clogged up their rockers, primitive devices miners filled with water and gravel and swayed back and forth to sift for gold.

But someone sent a sample to an assay office. Three weeks later, the report came back.

The "blue stuff" was silver, valued at nearly $4,000 a ton.

Soon the rush was on to Ophir, as the tent and shack community of prospectors quickly became known.


Facts of the day

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27% - The increase in vehicle traffic on state's rural roads between 1990 and 2003.

6,000 miles - The length of California's network of levees that protect areas from flooding.

18% - Segment of the state's rural population that completed college in 2000 vs. 26.8% of urban population.

1.4 million - The number of mostly rural Californians lacking broadband access at any speed

7.1% - The unemployment rate in California's rural areas vs. 6.2% in urban areas (2004 data).

3,400 - The estimated number of California jobs saved through the help of USDA Rural Development business programs in 2007.

Sources: USDA Economic Research Service, USDA Rural Development, California Chamber of Commerc

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REPHRASE OF THE DAY

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When I was a kid my mom used a waffle iron to make waffles.

WAFFLE IRON has now been REPHRASED to MORNING BAKER.

I assume they did this to get away from the negative connotations that are associated with wafflers and the hard imagery of iron.

Again, it is all about the words.

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WORDS

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I recently read Frank Luntz Book Words that Work.

Somewhere in my life when I ran Congressional Campaigns I worked with Luntz. He is a fascinating guy and has really taken his work beyond politics and works with Major Corporations helping them say things the right way.

I have been keeping track lately of how things get rephrased and I find it almost comical.

Here is the REPHRASE OF THE DAY:

My ELECTRIC BILL is now my MONTHLY ENERGY STATEMENT.

SMARTSVILLE IS BACK

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Seems like cities are reclaiming their real names. Soon we can expect to be Rancho del Cielo Don Fernandez de Chico, 95928 or 26.

Not to mention all of the supposed Chico people in 95973 who technically live in Richardson Springs.

This from the local Grass Valley newspaper...

Now that’s Smarts(ville)
Post Office finally adds second ‘s’ for town’s name
By Trina Kleist
Staff Writer

Smartsville officially retrieved its second ‘s’ from the maw of bureaucracy last fall, but there was something about getting that ‘s’ up on the sign of the town Post Office on Wednesday that made it real.

U.S. Postal Service employee Scott Stirnaman made the shiny, burnished letter, which was affixed in its proper place to the upper wall of the Post Office.

Smartsville, ZIP code 95977, is just one of many towns in the United States that are getting back their historic names, said resident Kit Burton, who helped lead the campaign to correct the town’s appellation.

“It all started with the Post Office,” Burton said. “That’s the federal agency that changed the name on us 100 years ago, in 1909.”

“They were trying to reform the names of post offices,” Burton explained. “The mail was not getting delivered properly because so many different post offices throughout the country have identical names, and there were no ZIP codes at that time.

“Then they just kept on changing names, even if there was no problem with uniqueness, because they thought it would be somehow better or more efficient,” Burton said.

For the same reasons, the Postal Service also tried to get the town of Rough and Ready to change its name to either Rough or Ready, Burton alleged.

“Towns like Skagway, Alaska, ended up with names changed, and slowly throughout the U.S., towns are getting their names back,” Burton said.

For 100 years, townspeople have chafed at the change made without their consent by faceless bureaucrats to alter their identity. The effort to right that wrong, Burton said, “has brought the townspeople much closer together.”

Smartsville residents will host their annual Pioneer Day celebration on Saturday, April 25. Watch for more information in future editions of The Union.

WHAT IF THE NEWSPAPER DIES?

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Another interesting article about the affects of losing newspapers. Or as is happening in our area the shrinking of newspapers:



One 12-nation study found Americans the least likely to discuss politics with people of different views, and this was particularly true of the well educated. High school dropouts had the most diverse group of discussion-mates, while college graduates managed to shelter themselves from uncomfortable perspectives.

The Daily Me

Op-Ed Columnist
The Daily Me

By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF
Published: March 18, 2009
Some of the obituaries these days aren’t in the newspapers but are for the newspapers. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer is the latest to pass away, save for a remnant that will exist only in cyberspace, and the public is increasingly seeking its news not from mainstream television networks or ink-on-dead-trees but from grazing online.

When we go online, each of us is our own editor, our own gatekeeper. We select the kind of news and opinions that we care most about.

Nicholas Negroponte of M.I.T. has called this emerging news product The Daily Me. And if that’s the trend, God save us from ourselves.

That’s because there’s pretty good evidence that we generally don’t truly want good information — but rather information that confirms our prejudices. We may believe intellectually in the clash of opinions, but in practice we like to embed ourselves in the reassuring womb of an echo chamber.

AMMO

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gun.jpg

This is a fascinating article about guns and ammo sales:

From the Tulsa World Newspaper:


Four months after the election of President Barack Obama, firearms and ammunition sales in Tulsa remain at a fever pitch.

by: KELLY BOSTIAN World Outdoors Writer

Popular self-protection ammunition is often sold out at local stores, weapons are flying off shelves and the state reports an 87 percent increase in concealed carry permit applications for February 2009 over February 2008.

"People are hoarding. They're creating a shortage," Jim Prall at Sports World on 41st Street said of ammunition sales. "We've sold more ammunition in the last three months than we sold last year."



Josh Cook

About Me: Observations and mussings.

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