While I might be somewhere to the left of Dennis Kucinich, I'm not at all comfortable with the concept of eminent domain, even for public-works projects. Now Pinnacle Entertainment is making headlines as far away as Biloxi with its bludgeoning effort to expand its Boardwalk foothold deep into Atlantic City. David G. Schwartz, over at UNLV, has some powerful thoughts on the subject.

(Shades of the Wallace Barr/Curtis Bashaw attempt to push out a mosque to make room for gambling. What better way to stir up opposition? At least nobody's tried to eminent-domain the Muslims out yet.)

Pinnacle, for its part, complains that one landowner wanted $30 million for property valued at $16 million. Oh, the effrontery! Damn those free-market principles! (When they don't work in your favor, that is.) Tax assessments aside, land has only one value: what you can get for it on the open market.

Which is why Phil Ruffin was able to command just shy of $43 million an acre for the New Frontier and why Oscar Nuñez apparently couldn't get Harrah's Entertainment to meet his terms for some sad-sack apartment blocks: Elad Properties wanted to get onto the Strip badly enough to meet Ruffin's price, while Harrah's obviously decided it wasn't worth it would cost to buy Nuñez out rather than just build around him.

Is Pinnacle willing to accept price caps on its hotel rooms or a windfall-profits tax? Do elephants fly? In so many words, it wants property owners to accept profit constraints it wouldn't tolerate being imposed upon itself. Pinnacle's got a right to make whatever it can at its megaresort-to-be. But so do the businessmen it intends to displace.

Blast from the past. Way back on April 30, 2007, I wrote the following, complete with mortifying typo: "Are capital markets tighening [sic] up?" This was prompted by James Packer's and MGM Mirage's ability to buy into Fontainebleau and M Resort, respectively, for relatively little money down. Gee, I feel all Nostradamus-like and stuff.

You can't believe everything you read in the newspaper, I guess. Mike Weatherford has Donny & Marie Osmond at the Flamingo for a one-year gig (starting Sept. 9), while Norm! says it's a six-month deal (sixth item, aptly enough). Two hundred and sixty five shows at six shows a week? Sounds like a one-year run to me.

Anyway, while I don't "get" the Donny & Marie vibe, I'm perplexed by the whiff of skepticism surrounding their forthcoming show. If it isn't a money-spinner for all concerned, I'll be very, very surprised indeed. And if you haven't seen the colossal head shots of the twosome which now blanket the Flamingo's façade, you're really missing something. I just worry that if Marie's teeth were to break off and fall to the sidewalk below, somebody will be on the radio, exclaiming "Oh, the humanity!"