{"id":12741,"date":"2014-02-13T11:50:55","date_gmt":"2014-02-13T19:50:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/?p=12741"},"modified":"2021-12-24T18:22:44","modified_gmt":"2021-12-25T02:22:44","slug":"battle-of-sands-widens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/battle-of-sands-widens\/","title":{"rendered":"Battle of Sands widens"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Sheldon<\/a>Las Vegas Sands<\/strong>‘ Web sites remain “under maintenance,” as the company reels from a vast and invasive cyber-attack. In addition to the FBI<\/strong>, the Secret Service<\/strong> has taken an interest in the matter<\/a>. The assault is a boon for third-party sites, because online bookings can’t be made directly with Sands for the time being. (It’s a foul wind indeed that doesn’t blow somebody some benefit.) If credit-card records were stolen, Sands won’t say, which is a disservice to the company’s customer base. It’s possible that Sands itself doesn’t know, depending on the amount of damage to “certain core operating systems<\/a>,” as spokesman Ron Reese<\/strong> called them. That damage is so extensive and so thorough that it looks as though the attack was a long time in the planning. After all, it’s been four months since Adelson’s now-infamous ‘nuke\u00a0Iran<\/strong>‘ remarks, the causus belli<\/em> for the cyber-warfare unleashed on his company.<\/p>\n

It is difficult to say which caused the greater unease: The identity theft of Sands workforce or the spectacle of computer-generated flames representing Adelson’s four American properties (including Sands Expo Center<\/strong>). The latter is an icon that has taken on a sinister meaning in a post-9\/11 world.<\/p>\n

\"Sheldon-Adelson-297x300\"<\/a>Adelson knows a thing or two<\/strong> about warfare. An eloquent Jon Ralston<\/strong>-penned, must-read probe in Politco.com<\/em> looks into Adelson’s “Internet jihad<\/em>” and notes that “the industry’s Christopher Columbus<\/strong>” has always seen what his competitors could not (whether it was all-suite hotels or Macao<\/strong>). “I\u2019m not a political guy; I\u2019ve been apolitical my entire life<\/em>,” Sheldon asserts ludicrously. Writes Ralston, “for a man who makes his living from a business long associated with society\u2019s seamy underbelly, Adelson can sound surprisingly like a Southern Baptist preacher<\/em>.” Ultimately, Sheldon wraps himself in the last refuge of a scoundrel: patriotism.<\/p>\n

What can one make of a gambling mogul whose father allegedly (to hear Adelson tell it) had a gambling problem? Or one who says, “I know how vulnerable [people] are, and how easily they can get sucked into the concept of, \u2018Oh, this is very easy.\u2019<\/em>\u201d To hear that coming from the owner of the world’s biggest casino is rank hypocrisy. Indeed, Adelson is so desperate to wall off a realm of gambling he doesn’t understand that he’s crawled into bed<\/a> with the Religious Right, including the Universal Baptist Church<\/strong>. Hallelujah, Brother Sheldon!<\/p>\n

MGM Resorts International<\/strong> plans to spread parking for its arena-to-be across several adjacent resorts. If the company didn’t have extensive experience supplying parking to MGM Grand Garden Arena<\/strong> and Manadalay Bay Event Center<\/strong>, I’d fear they’re lowballing the number of vehicles that this newest venue will draw. MGM is certainly sanguine about making this elaborate scheme<\/a> work like a charm.<\/p>\n

To the east, in Springfield<\/strong>, MGM is finding it must walk a narrow tightrope while squeezing a casino into the Massachusetts<\/strong> city’s narrow downtown. The facades of many an elderly building will be incorporated<\/a> into MGM Springfield<\/strong>. However, a planned demolition of the Union House Hotel<\/strong> is drawing opposition. Local preservationists are trying to negotiate a win-win solution.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Las Vegas Sands‘ Web sites remain “under maintenance,” as the company reels from a vast and invasive cyber-attack. In addition to the FBI, the Secret Service has taken an interest in the matter. The assault is a boon for third-party … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[65,37,112,11,33,90,12,9],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12741"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12741"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12741\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30522,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12741\/revisions\/30522"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12741"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12741"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.lasvegasadvisor.com\/stiffs-and-georges\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12741"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}