NYTimes Clippings for JAN 24, 2007…

Moooove Over, Vegas— China Wants A Piece of the Action! hehehehe this is CRAZY!  this whole world’s got a gambling problem! haha 

Asian Rival Moves Past Las Vegas

By DAVID BARBOZA

JAN. 24, 2007

SHANGHAI, Jan. 23 — Macao surpassed the Las Vegas Strip to become the world’s biggest gambling center in 2006, according to industry analysts and government figures released Tuesday.

Fueled by a casino investment boom and the millions of Chinese visitors flooding in, Macao said its gambling revenue had soared 22 percent in 2006, to $6.95 billion.

Las Vegas has not released its full-year statistics but the vaunted desert strip trailed Macao in the final months of last year and analysts estimate that revenue on the Strip was about $6.5 billion in 2006.

“Whether or not Macao passed Las Vegas last year is just a headline,” said Harry Curtis, a gambling analyst at JPMorgan. “The fact is, as we stand today, Macao is going to be a bigger market than Las Vegas. And by the end of the decade it could be twice the size of Las Vegas.”

Las Vegas tycoons like Sheldon G. Adelson, Steve Wynn and Kirk Kerkorian, have agreed to invest more than $20 billion in Asia’s Las Vegas, as it is sometimes called. They are planning new luxury hotels, large casinos and V.I.P. suites to cater to the enormous gambling appetites of Chinese… Mr. Adelson, who operates the Las Vegas Sands Corporation. Mr. Adelson says he plans to spend $4 billion to build a Las Vegas-style strip that will include the world’s biggest casino, the Venetian Macao — a 10.5-million-square-foot hotel, casino, shopping mall and entertainment complex.

Singapore is going ahead with plans to build its own casino resort, and even Hong Kong officials have talked about bringing gambling to the territory.

The Chinese government, however, is not wholeheartedly behind the Macao gambling boom. Some of Macao’s highest rollers have been caught gambling with government money or using cash siphoned from state-owned companies.

In 2005, for instance, Beijing said that more than 8,700 “party members and cadres” were punished for gambling.

In one case, a married couple embezzled more than $50 million from the state-run Bank of China to pay off gambling debts in Macao.

Still, in an interview, Mr. Adelson once said that turning Macao into the next Las Vegas was not difficult. “This is a no-brainer,” he said. “If you build it will they come? In my mind, not only will they come, but they’ll come in droves.”

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now, the next headline should beThank You, Silicon Valley, Thank You…

Move Over Silicon Valley, Here Come European Start-Ups

By JOHN MARKOFF

JAN. 24, 2007

MUNICH, Jan. 23 — Digital Life Design has become a showcase for a range of European entrepreneurs who have taken the start-up culture pioneered in Silicon Valley as a template and are successfully transplanting it here.

The invitation-only conference, which ended Tuesday, attracted 1,000 old- and new-media publishers this year, mixed in with Internet software and service start-ups and a smattering of American dot-com executives. It serves in part as an intelligence-gathering event for its sponsor, Hubert Burda, a German publisher trying to move his more than 250 magazines into the Internet era.

Several organizers noted that Silicon Valley’s original success as an innovation center was largely because of business and social networks developed over several decades in a community of venture capitalists and technologists.

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whaaaat?!  look at how the Menu in the picture reads! haha

You May Kiss the Chef’s Napkin Ring

FRANK BRUNI | Critic’s Notebook JAN. 24, 2007

Tony Cenicola/The New York Times

With more big-name chefs in town and more hype surrounding their restaurants, dining has become less about the diner’s pleasure and more about the chef’s ego.

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wow. GREAT picture.

Kate Brooks/Polaris

Two youths in a Beirut street Tuesday. Turmoil started at dawn, when groups of protesters set up roadblocks along major thoroughfares.

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hehehe… niiiiice.

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RYAN LELI— REMEMBER THIS KID, ’cause he WILL be somebody in the future! hahaha this kid’s a SAV! good job, youngin’!

Starstruck Mets Fan Fined for Impersonating Reporter

By COREY KILGANNON

JAN. 24, 2007

Ryan Leli did what any overenthusiastic Piazza fan might fantasize about: He created a fake press pass that fooled Shea officials and gained access to the visiting team’s clubhouse, where Mr. Piazza was being interviewed by a scrum of reporters. Mr. Leli’s line of questioning — especially the request that Mr. Piazza pose for a photo with him — annoyed a Padres official, who had him ejected.

Mr. Leli tried the same trick a week later, when the Mets played the Colorado Rockies. This time, he was stopped by detectives at the press entrance and arrested.

His journalistic foray took a detour to an arraignment in Queens Criminal Court, where Mr. Leli was hit with many charges, including criminal possession of a forged instrument, falsifying business records, petit larceny, criminal possession of stolen property, criminal impersonation and criminal trespassing. The charges carried total penalties of up to seven years in jail.

In court, Mr. Leli examined a reporter’s press pass and wrinkled his nose. “Not bad,” he said, “but mine was better.”

“[Mike Piazza's] always been my hero, and I just wanted to meet him,” Mr. Leli said.

Mr. Leli, for his part, complained that the video camera he had used to film Mr. Piazza had been seized as evidence and not returned.

“I want that camera back,” he said. “My prom pictures are in there.”