http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QPT6STYYfDs

In this video, Nevada Court Marshal Ron Fox is shown arresting a woman who attended a routine family court proceeding, who claimed that he had sexually assaulted her on the way out of the courtroom, taking her into a private room on the pretense of a drug search and fondling her and making her lift her shirt. The woman cries and begs the hearing master Patricia Doninger to intervene, but Doninger ignored her, playing with the victim's three-year-old daughter, who eventually toddled to the Marshal and told him to leave her mother alone.

Fox was eventually fired for his misconduct, years later, but no one told his victim(s). There is no explanation forthcoming as to why the hearing master did not intervene in a case of gross corruption in her courtroom. Fox's arrest is part of a wider investigation involving a string on incidents involving Nevada Court Marshals, including choking a citizen in a courtroom.

Fox is suing for wrongful termination. Doninger was also fired for misconduct. Read the rest

M Otis Beard sez, "The Nevada State Assembly has passed a bill that forbids the counties from charging permit fees to Burning Man and other festivals. . . but has anything really changed?" Read the rest

M Otis Beard sez, "A bill gaining support in the Nevada State Assembly would make Burning Man hands-off for state and county law enforcement officials, and subject only to Federal authority."

Each year, the local sheriff has been jacking Burning Man for increasing per-head fees, and the county's conservative lawmakers have been passing silly-season unconstitutionalities, like a law prohibiting a man from being naked in the presence of a child. It's combination of revenue generation and garden-variety harassment, and there had been rumbles about the festival taking up local native groups on an invitation to move it to Paiute land where the county wouldn't get a say.

“Earlier this morning, the Chamber supported AB 374 in the Assembly Government Affairs Committee. This bill, pushed by Assemblyman David Bobzien, came about because of threats by some rural counties to start charging local permitting fees and increasing costs for the Burning Man festival that comes to the Black Rock Desert every summer. This bill would prohibit any local government from interfering with a federally-licensed event on federal land. We strongly support this concept because of the enormous positive economic impact that Burning Man attendees have on our region.”

Some of the problem stems from the fact that Burning Man is held just over a county line; all the on-the-way spending done by burners takes place in Washoe county, but once you turn off to head to the playa, you're in Pershing county, and that's also when the ban on (most) commerce begins. So the county doing the legislating has no real financial stake in the festival continuing. Read the rest

William sez, "On August 2, 1978, a landmark decision in Reno Federal Court ruled prostitutes are actually brothel employees and therein lies the SIC coding problem unique to Nevada. My father in law was an economist for the federal bureau of labor statistics. Today he shared with me a document he found in the back of a desk drawer. Apparently the folks in Nevada responsible for categorizing businesses by industry (formerly called the Standard Industrial Classification system, now known as NAICS) weren't sure how to label brothels, which had previously been staffed by independent contractors until such practice had been deemed illegal. Thus a victory for worker rights became a nightmare for the local government officials."

REQUEST FOR SIC CODING INTERPRETATION

(Thanks, William Ray Yeager!) Read the rest

Gary Goddard tells the story of the near-construction of a life-sized Starship Enterprise replica in downtown Las Vegas. Goddard successfully bid to build the attraction as part of the 1992 competition to revitalized Vegas's sagging downtown and bring back tourist traffic that had been sucked away by the strip, but the project was scuttled at the last minute when Stanley Jaffe, then CEO of Paramount, got cold feet. The Enterprise was scrapped and replaced by the "Fremont Street Experience," which stands there today.

The “big idea” was building the ship itself at full-scale. That was the main attraction. That being said, we also knew we would have to have some kind of “show” on board. So, conceptually, it was to be a “tour” of the ship, with all of the key rooms, chambers, decks, and corridors that we knew from the movie. There was to be the dining area for the ship’s crew (where you could dine in Star Fleet comfort), and other special features. There were also one or two interesting ride elements that we were considering including a high-speed travelator that would whisk you from deck to deck. But we were really just getting into the show aspects when everything came to a head.

During this time, as we were working out the conceptual design and plan, a licensing contract was negotiated for Paramount Studios with the terms and conditions, including a substantial rights payment up front, and on-going revenue participation, all subject to the approval of the Studio Chairman, which “would not be a problem” if the project was approved.