You will all love this little rant...since it is time to poke those I'm a 'member' of, the right wing...

I live in Omaha, dead smack in the center of the United States. It has a decent airport (though poor planning means very little growing room), they are building a convention center (too small IMHO, but still better than what they had), a world-famous zoo, a local Division I hockey team, 50 miles from Nebraska Football, plenty of movie theaters, a AAA baseball team, a hockey team now just across the river in Council Bluffs, Iowa...

And two riverboat casinos, and one dog track across the river in Council Bluffs as well.

With all this, and a great potential to grow, why are we so stuck in our backwards ways?

What I am talking about is the casinos. On Monday, two different chains showed up to promote the building of casinos in Omaha. One of them is a very famous chain in Las Vegas, the other one of the smaller outfits owned by a former Nebraskan. With the new convention center being built, a wasteful walking bridge across the Missouri River that will connect to nearly nothing, and plenty of room in the surrounding area to build things up, it is only logical to make Omaha the new Las Vegas. The revenues would be enormous, the prestige great, and it would solve unemployment issues in the area on both sides of the river.

So, of course it is opposed by the moralists in the city.

All of their reasoning has, honestly, gone out the window. They bring up the tired arguements of crime, etc. but really do not want the casino because of their religious beliefs. The casinos in CB already exist, all the supposed problems that the casinos are supposed to cause are already here, and there has not been that much of an increase in crime, poverty, etc. No, the entire thing is because they are fundamentalists that believe gambling is a sin.

Greed is a sin. Avarice is a sin. Gambling does cause greed and avarice, but it is of itself not a sin. But that even isn't the point...the same people that are fighting the casino are the same people trying to prevent the anti-smoking people from getting smoking banned in restaurants, and support the NRA.

Wait a second...you are claiming to be fighting for freedom on one hand, yet want to limit entertainment and freedom on the other. Frankly, folks, you cannot have it both ways. It is the same fight - the fight to drive an SUV or smoke in a restaurant is absolutely no different than fighting for gambling to be allowed. It is all about freedom.

Of course, someone would point out that the fact I am against drugs doesn't fit with the above paragraph, but I would dispute that. Drugs lowers performance measurably of ones profession/job. Driving an SUV doesn't, smoking - despite the claims - doesn't, and gambling in a casino sure doesn't. None of the latter measureably lowers a person's intelligence or reaction times, like drugs do. That's why drugs need to stay illegal...but the additional rant about this can wait.

"Gambling With The Good Life" already is gambling with my good life, and others in the area. Casinos, theme hotels, and major other attractions would make Omaha a boomtown in economically hard times, and with at least six people I know out of work from the information systems fields, we need that now more than ever in this community.