Terrorists may be casing the casinos, but Las Vegas officials say not to worry. Though terrorist videos found in cells in Detroit and Spain include top Vegas draws like Mandalay Bay, MGM Grand, Excalibur, and New York-New York, the city’s mayor is quoted as saying the tapes contain “‘nothing that would suggest any kind of surveillance’ of Las Vegas resorts. Rather, he contended, the footage of the resorts resemble typical tourist videos.”

It’s not like we all didn’t know Vegas was a potential target all along. And somehow, seven-year-old videos of the Strip don’t make me break out in a cold sweat, either. More frightening to me is the allegation that city officials, hotels, and casinos didn’t want to see the tapes two years ago “so they would not feel forced to inform the public and thus possibly scare away tourists,” allegations which, according to the Meeting News article, they vehemently deny.

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Next time you are left hanging with a no-show speaker, go to the National Speakers Association’s handy little geographic index, where you can search for speakers by city, state, metro area, or topic expertise. Just type in the city and state, and you’ll get a listing of all NSA speakers in the area.

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I have always thought of meetings—particularly well-facilitated events—as being highly educational. But writer Suzanne Stallings has a more paranoid view: “After having seen the movie, The Stepford Wives, I understand what has happened to most of our elected officials and planners. Their brains have been programmed to instill bizarre and illogical ‘visions.’ They attend conferences and meetings where a ‘facilitator’ is employed to perform the programming.”

Sure, sometimes the meeting leader seems to be preaching to the choir, but good meetings facilitate more communication, brainstorming, and problem-solving—not Stepford-like blind conformance to someone’s idea of ideal. While I haven’t been to any major government meetings, I can’t imagine they hand out Soma at the door and brainwash officials into some bizarre Brave New World vision. Kind of interesting that this point of view is out there, though.

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