Every 76 Seconds, Lovin' Happens In Nevada!

As I expected from my reporting in The New York Times in January, State Sen. Bob Coffin has introduced a bill this week to tax legal prostitution in Nevada. The state has inserted itself in a massive budget hole and Coffin hopes Nevada can lick up some bits and pieces from a business that hasn't had to come up with any dough for all these years. The lovelies shown here are just some of the wares at the Moonlite Bunny Ranch, by the by.

What's interesting here are Coffin's numbers. He estimates that taxing each legally sold sex act $5, the state could raise $2 million a year. That's 400,000 legally sold sex acts sold per year, or about 1,096 a day. Also, 45 an hour! A legally sold sex act is occurring in this state every 76 seconds!

That does seem high, doesn't it? I mean, there are only 225 licensed legal prostitutes in the state. They'd have to be awful busy. But I suppose it also brings up what the definition of a sex act is. I mean -- hide the kiddies -- if fellatio and intercourse occur in the same encounter, is that two acts? Is the prostitute running a mental tally in her head to figure out how much tax to, uh, assess?

Gov. Jim Gibbons reacted to SB369 by telling the Associated Press' Brendan Riley, "I'm not a supporter of legalizing prostitution in Nevada. So by taxing it, there's a recognition of the legality of it. And that's all I want to say."

Um, but it IS legal. I'd like to not pay my speeding tickets and not recognize the legality of speeding limits, but that's not working out so well for me or my auto insurance bill.

The governor's missionary-inspired (he's a Mormon!) position isn't really that relevant anyway because any tax would have to be approved by a supermajority of the Legislature, which means that it's also a veto-proof majority. And Coffin's bill isn't likely to pass anyway; as I wrote in January, both the House speaker and state Senate majority leader oppose it.

Still, the hearings could be very colorful, particularly when lawmakers must answer some of the questions I've posed here.

Greetings from the luxurious Minden Best Western!

I landed in Reno last night having made my flight with about five minutes to spare. Then I wrangled mightily with the Hertz folks to get a car with an iPod jack -- oddly, I've found, the desk clerks never have any idea whether their cars have them and they usually do. I ended up with a Chevy Cobalt which is a cute little glorified golf cart that does the trick. I've been getting them a lot lately and, while they don't meet the standards of my car-nut partner, all I really care about these days is that auxiliary jack!

All I know about Minden thus far is that US 395 is well-signed with indications of where it is and, at 11 pm, the only things open are a McD's and an AM/PM. And that is likely to be all I find out. Not looking good for finding a Starbucks around here.

There are two versions of my Fossett work from yesterday available, one here for Wired News and the other is here for the New York Times. They're not terribly different except that Wired did let me deal with the flowering conspiracy theory issue involved. I just watched CNN's report from the Minden Air Field and they had nothing new to report today. But the Associated Press' excellent Northern Nevada correspondent Brendan Riley had this terrific backgrounder on what the Flying M Ranch is.

Mark my words, and I've been saying this since the beginning: The Steve Fossett disappearance will eternally be fodder for conspiracy theorists. And you know why? Because this is Nevada!

Stay tuned -- I hope to update throughout the day here and post some pix when I can. Now would be a really good time for me to have one of those air-card things, huh? But thankfully, the Best Western has free and reliable Wi-Fi and is only about 4 mins from the air field.

OK - gotta go get my complimentary breakfast!