Sports, Politics, Etc

Who Dat?: Not the NFL

2010-01-29T18:52:00.002-06:00

And the NFL learns the hard way, you don't mess with Who Dat Nation. Next stop, Miami.

Saints Post-Game

2010-01-28T19:28:00.001-06:00

Here is a nice video of the Saints immediately after their victory over the Minnesota Vikings.

More NFL Greed

2010-01-28T19:26:00.001-06:00

Thinking about selling "Who Dat" shirts. Think again.

Posnanski Gets It Right

2010-01-12T17:55:00.008-06:00

In a day of frenetic self-righteous reactions to Mark McGwire's admission of steroid use, in my opinion Joe Posnanski at si.com had the most insightful comments.

As I eluded to in a post on Andre Agassi's book, just because an athlete admits to not being on the total up and up, contra those who espouse the Andy Pettite full disclosure theory, does not mean people will forgive and forget. Plenty of people took the easy opportunity to lay in the meat hooks. Take, for example, none other than the arbiter of baseball purity Brian Williams. The lead-in on this video left me thinking of one word, "smarmy":

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In full disclosure, I've never been much of a fan of Williams. Maybe I enjoyed Brokaw's slurred drawl or overdone plastic surgery too much to ever give Williams much of a chance. Regardless, his tone in this piece had the demeanor of Chris Hansen in To Catch a Predator with the look of Tiger Woods after he's badly sliced his drive.

And what discussion of steroids in baseball would be complete without a quote from Jose Canseco. Jose, it seems, felt that McGwire had no other choice than to fess up:

FH: Did McGwire have any choice but to come out and admit to using steroids?
Canseco: He pretty much had to. There's was going to be a time where he's going to have confront these issues. The media wasn't going to stop until it got a final answer.

Can't say I totally disagree. But McGwire had chosen seclusion for the past few years. He had plenty of money to keep living that way. He didn't owe it to anybody to ever come clean with what he had done. After all, the court of public opinion had already convicted him of his steroidal transgressions. That's why I think it was courageous for McGwire to speak up - he said something he didn't have to say and took a risk in doing so.

This is why I think Posnanski got it right. The gist of his story is outlined in a couple of paragraphs:

I didn't agree with or even follow everything McGwire said, but I never thought that was the point. I never thought apologizing was an Olympic sport with stoned-faced people judging how straight his toes were pointed and if he made too big a splash. McGwire is not a public speaker. He's not a philosopher. He's not a politician. He is not even an especially open person. He is a guy who dedicated his life to hitting baseballs hard. Expecting him to become Hamlet doesn't seem fair.

Let's be brutally honest here: McGwire was not the only person to use steroids in his era, and he's not one of only a few, either. He played baseball in an era when there was no testing and no real stigma attached to using performance-enhancing drugs. He had teammates who used steroids. He faced pitchers who used steroids. He had hits robbed by fielders who used steroids. Amphetamines had been part of baseball going back several decades. Steroids had been a prominent part of football for at least that long. Supplements that stirred smaller but similar effects to steroids -- such as andro -- were legal both in and out of baseball. I don't mean that as an excuse, I mean it as context. Mark McGwire used steroids in a very different emotional time.

And, yet, other than pointing out that he played "in the era" he did not blame anyone except himself. I thought the point was that an obviously private man came forward and admitted that he had done something wrong. He asked for forgiveness so that he could come back and coach baseball -- not for money (Lord knows there isn't much money in coaching) and not for glory (there's even less glory than money) but because he loves being around the game.

Of course, I can't say I had no interest in some of the typical overly emotional or nit-picky analysis out there. For example, The Huffington Post has a play by play of McGwire's facial expressions to tell if he's really contrite.

And then there's T.J. Quinn doing the super sleuth work looking for holes in McGwire's story. Enjoy the video of this modern day Sherlock Holmes:

Finally, there's some properly outraged sports writers, John Paul Morosi and Tim Brown, saying "Hell No" to McGwire ever getting in the Hall of Fame. Makes me almost want to agree with Buster Olney for once. He was the one, after all, who said today on Mike & Mike that he didn't think sports writers should vote on the Hall of Fame because they fancy themselves too much the arbiters of morality. Fine with me. Just make sure you don't replace them with a Brian Williams.

Van Gundy and Christmas

2009-12-25T17:55:00.006-06:00

Colin Cowherd reflects on the irrationality of "ultimate sports fan guy" to fill his slow days. He harps on their penchant for betting with their emotions and failing to see the big picture because they're too interested in the teams for which they cheer. Typically, I feel the reflection is a lazy piece Cowherd does because it doesn't take much preparation to get emotional reactions from fans claiming they are not "ultimate sports fan guy."

Although I might never do so at another time, I would find Cowherd's reflection to be a propos for this story on Stan Van Gundy. The piece expounds on comments by Van Gundy asking the NBA to stop scheduling games on Christmas day. It seems reasonable enough: Christmas is about spending time with your family => there's no compelling reason aside from money to play on Christmas day => if they don't play, players and coaches can spend time with their families.

But leave it to the bonehead "ultimate sports fan guy" to take issue with that. Following the story is a series of comments (the screen shot of some of them I've posted below) that heckle Van Gundy for making the statement. In my opinion, it's commendable for a guy to stand up for family and what he values. Even if the commenters don't see value in Christmas (because they don't have family to spend it with or aren't religious), I simply don't get the basis for bagging on someone for speaking honestly about his beliefs. Chalk up another glorious moment to "ultimate sports fan guy."

Curse of the Black Pants: Part 3

2009-12-19T23:02:00.003-06:00

My quick reaction to the game is - what were the Saints thinking putting the black pants on again? I know it's a superficial criticism of the game (the real reason they lost and why Miles Austin had another big game is that Scott Shanle still doesn't know how to cover a slot receiver/tight end that drags an underneath route across the middle of the field), but that doesn't mean it's invalid. Heaven help us if they pull out the black pants in the playoffs.

On a different note, I think it's a good thing for them to get a loss under their belt. The irrational hysteria that was growing over the last couple of weeks amongst the fairest of fair weather fans should die down now. While it was amusing to have things like "The Unknown Who Dat" for entertainment over the last few weeks, this game should be a good reminder for the team and fans that whether the Saints go all the way depends on one thing - how they play on the field. All of that said, it was impressive how the Drew Brees was almost able to bring 'em back at the end of the game (they did outscore the Cowboys 14-0 in the 4th quarter after all).

One final thought about the game. Any team that gets Terry McAulay in the playoffs should be ready for his tired style of officiating that he displayed tonight. He loves to call for the visiting team in the first half and then for the home team in the second half. It's not really the amount of calls, just the willingness to call for one team or the other on crucial plays.

Case in point - the illegal contact penalty on McKenzie in the first half (when there was a no call involving the same type of contact with Henderson on the next drive), and the illegal hands to the face called against whoever was covering Meachem in the second half. Both occurred on critical third downs that kept drives alive. If that's not enough evidence, think back to last year's Super Bowl - all Steelers first half, all Cards second half. All the games he officiates end up turning out like that.

In the same way Dick Bavetta's games aren't fun to watch, McAulay's games aren't fun to watch because he artificially manufactures the drama. If he would have let the teams dictate the rhythm, maybe the Cowboys would have blown out the Saints. In my mind, that would have been more fun to watch than manufacturing a close game by making ticky tack calls and no-calls at key points in the game (I wonder why NFL Network didn't show the replay after McAulay called 12 men in the huddle before a key third down on the Cowboys' second to last possession - Romo seemed a bit quizzical about it). Here's to Hochuli or Boger getting the Super Bowl - even if they screw up a few calls, at least they don't have a pre-determined formula like McAulay for how they'll call the game.

Unknown No More

2009-12-16T21:17:00.003-06:00

The website dedicated to finding the Unknown Who Dat has, well, found him. Evidently, the guy is quite a character. He's a lifelong Saints fan from Maryland. They're setting him up quite well with free tickets to the rest of the Saints games with hotel accommodations as well. Maybe it'll be just the thing to get the Saints to their first Super Bowl.

The Unknown Who Dat, Etc

2009-12-12T22:21:00.005-06:00

When a team known for stinking up the joint uncharacteristically posts a 12-0 record to begin a season, there are always going to be a few more people jump on the bandwagon. Normally, I would find this annoying. Having faithfully suffered through the not so glorious years (and still having a vivid memory of watching the Dolphins trounce the Saints at Tiger Stadium in person back in 2005 - the State Police had to guard Mr. Benson as he left the game that day as quite a few disgruntled Saints fans were ready to tar and feather him for suggesting he might move the team to San Antonio), you would think the Saints purist in me would be somewhat annoyed by the fair weather fans claiming to be part of the Who Dat Nation. But I love rooting for the Saints because even the fair weather fans keep things interesting.

I have two fans in mind. First, is the Unknown Who Dat. This guy, who looks like he had a few too many at the Redskins game, has caused a national stir. He has a facebook page and a website devoted to tracking him down in order to make him the official Saints official mascot. And here's one of the multiple stories that have been run on him.

I'm all for giving this guy, who looks like he's more than a little down on his luck, something to smile about. Plus, it looks like he's a good luck charm. When he was smiling was just about the time I angrily stormed away from watching the Saints/Redskins game thinking defeat was imminent. If he gets a few free tickets to Saints games as a result, it can't hurt him or the team's cause. Here's to hoping the crazed Who Dats find this man they have raised to iconic status.

Second, there's this bunch of South Louisiana fools.

I wish I could say this video surprises me, but I can't (except for the guy with the Fleur de Lis tat - at least he didn't get it across his face). Shooting out a tv while highly intoxicated might seem like a bad idea to fans of 31 NFL teams. But, to a Saints fan (even a fair weather one), it seems like a logical move.

With the effect the Unknown Who Dat has created and the stranger way the other Saints fan decided to celebrate victory, it's impossible to get upset with Saints fair weather fans. They keep things too entertaining. Go Saints!

Curse of the Black Pants: Part 2

2009-11-22T21:32:00.003-06:00

Maybe the Saints noticed the same trend I had. In any case, glad to see no black pants against the Bucs - which, shockingly (gasp!), correlated with no turnovers. Here's to hoping they come out with the gold pants and Sed Ellis against the Pats.

American Needle: Reebok's Brief

2009-11-21T10:23:00.007-06:00

Reebok filed its brief in the American Needle v. NFL case. The fancy little argument constructed by the folks at Latham Watkins can be viewed here.

After reading, it I decided to post what I found to be the most ridiculous part of Reebok's argument:

This argument strikes me as ridiculous for two reasons. First, after trumping up the value of competition the rest of the brief, Reebok displays a nicely anti-competivive demeanor in this paragraph. In particular, this sentence is ridiculous: "[I]t makes no economic sense to tie the manufacture and sale of NFL consumer goods to unpredictable athletic contests." In essence, it's fairer to deprive all other clothing manufacturers of the chance to compete for licensing (even if it benefits the local economy by propping up a manufacturer that doesn't have the resources to bid on a single license covering all 32 teams).

Second, the relative market sizes are hugely disproportionate at best. Championship apparel compared to all other team apparel? Come on. Championship wear can't be more than 1/10 of the total market share of team apparel. If it is, I'll gladly call myself wrong and retract my statement. Pretty confident, though, that no retraction will be necessary.

Ultimately, Reebok's argument seems a bit disingenuous that it is in favor of competition. It just doesn't like the thought of having to outbid others 32 times to have the same carte blanche it enjoys right now. Sure, that's good for Reebok. But not good at all for the local teams who miss out on pooling their resources to make a run at making the local team's clothes.

UPDATE: to the people at Latham Watkins and NFLPA who took time to read this post (you can run but you can't hide from the tracking cookie), thanks.

The Curse of the Black Pants

2009-11-21T08:14:00.005-06:00

After a long vacation of sorts (like when you get so busy at work you don't have time to pursue secondary affairs like posting on a blog), I've decided to bring to light the one factor contributing to the Saints' tailspin of recent weeks. Yeah, they're winning games, but nobody of sane disposition believes the winning will continue if their turnover prone ways continue. Thus, one piece of advice: Burn the Black Pants!

I may be mistaken, but the first time I remember the Saints donning their black leotards (oops, pants) was in 2006. Guess what they were wearing when they were destroyed by the Chicago Bears in the NFC Championship Game. Hmmm. . . Let's look at the video.

The last two seasons, the Saints grew obsessed with wearing those hideous trousers. As a result - 7-9 and 8-8 records. Does anyone remember what the Saints were wearing when they destroyed the Buccaneers in the opening game of the 2008 season. Once again, the video evidence (skip to 2:32)

Gold pants = gold performance.

The trend has continued this season. When the Saints got off to their rock star start, they were exclusively donning the gold knickers. Even in Miami, where they tried to lose, the gold guided them to victory. Since then, it's been all black pants. Let's compare the before and after stats.

BBPE (before black pant era):

Average yds/game opponent: 306.7
Average yds/game Saints: 427.3
Turnovers opponent: 18
Turnovers Saints: 10
Brees TD to Int ratio: 14/5

ABPE (after black pant era):

Average yds/game opponent: 415.7
Average yds/game Saints: 423.6
Turnovers opponent: 7
Turnovers Saints: 9
Brees TD to Int ratio: 5/4

Blame the of-late woes on what you like - lack of motivation, tougher divisional opponents, etc. A firm believer that the fashion gods will strike you dead if you stubbornly refuse to quit wearing hideous clothing, I think the Saints problems are more a product of their choice of fashion than any other factor. With how the Saints played against the Jets, it makes one think playing in all pink pants might cause a better result.

Unbelievable

2009-11-03T20:29:00.005-06:00

Work product, shmork product. Contempt, shmontempt.

Happy Halloween

2009-10-31T22:00:00.000-05:00

Andre Agassi and Meth

2009-10-31T19:34:00.006-05:00

Agassi's revelation that he was an active user of crystal meth back when he tested positive for the substance in the late 90s (surprise, surprise the ole "somebody dropped it in my water bottle" was a lie) brings forth one important point of overlap with the baseball steroids fiasco - if you come clean, people are not going to forgive you for past transgressions.

Both Federer and Nadal rebuked Agassi. So did Martina Navratilova. On a side note, I wonder if Roger Clemens' nutty attorney will go after Navratilova after she compared Agassi's meth use to Clemens' roid consumption.

The only thing that shocks me about the autobiography is that it appears to be honest. Agassi gave the following words to describe his book:

I just tell people, this book is honest. . . . It lives up to the title. It's my life, for better or worse. Get ready, buckle up, and keep your arms and legs inside the vehicle at all times.

I'm not naive to believe that 80% of professional athletes don't have an equally dark underbelly to their personal or professional lives. I've always thought it's silly to assume that someone you hardly know is a model to emulate just because they have success in the sporting world. Anyone needing evidence of how distasteful a "great" sports figure can be need look no further than MJ's horrid hall of fame speech. Here's part 1 of the speech - should give enough of an idea for those who haven't seen it or forgotten how terrible it was:

So, back to the main point of my post. I think Agassi deserves every bit of criticism he receives for doing meth and lying about it (as long as the person throwing the criticism realizes there are 4 or 5 sports figures not willing to admit what atrocious things they do in their personal lives for every one Agassi that does admit such things).

I also think that the backlash against Agassi proves that if any MLB star were to admit to using steroids, they'd get lambasted just as strongly as Agassi has been. Many talking heads say that the criticism against Bonds or Clemens was so strong because they lied. I think it's because people like to find a reason to hate the sports figures they love to apotheosize. And the Agassi story, I think, proves it.

Here was the apotheosis:

So much for that.

Goodell Not Wrong to Consider Limbaugh

2009-10-15T22:32:00.003-05:00

I'll comment once more on the Limbaugh thing and then leave it alone. I wouldn't have even dropped a second comment if Jason Whitlock's article hadn't been so off-point on the significance of Limbaugh's bid to buy the Rams.

Here's the Whitlock angle:

It's a publicity stunt Roger Goodell should've shut down within minutes of its launch.

Rush Limbaugh as NFL owner is an unfunny joke. But the kingpin of talk radio counted on the sarcasm to fly over most of our heads and for television executives to ignore the absurdity and milk the controversy for ratings.

What he didn't know is how the NFL commissioner would react.

Well, now we have our disappointing answer. Given an opportunity to add equal-opportunity credibility to his clean-up-the-image-of-the-league campaign, Goodell has stood motionless on a busy airport runway.

Short-sighted at best. What Whitlock and the rest refuse to consider is whether the NFL can afford to shun people from ownership who have the potential to get fans in the seats. Last time I checked, the Rams weren't doing so well on the sell-out front. Which is why Goodell had to give serious consideration to the ownership bid by Limbaugh.

This posturing to freeze out Limbaugh reminds me of the tactics used to keep Mark Cuban from being seriously considered to purchase the Cubs. The stodgy Cubs owners didn't like Cuban's edgy ownership style and decided to back away from controversy and go with someone more likely to uphold the integrity of the game and less likely to generate revenue.

If the bottom-line in the NFL really is about making money, the NFLPA and league office screwed up this bid big time. There's a reason that Howard Stern, Larry Flynt, and Rush Limbaugh dominate media - they're controversial. Which is why it's ridiculous for Whitlock to bemoan the fact that the NFL doesn't launch its own reality show only to criticize the league for considering casting a slam dunk leading man for the show. Michael Vick vs. Rushbo - I'd tune in for that.

So ultimately this controversy isn't about race and it isn't about doing what's best for the league. It's about arrogance. The NFL thinks it can survive without engaging divisive revenue builders like Rush. When the stuff hits the fan when there's a strike, and there will be one because a CBA is nowhere near getting pounded out, the NFL will be crying for guys like Rush or Vince McMahon to take over.

DeMaurice Smith: Should Focus on CBA, not Rush

2009-10-12T20:52:00.008-05:00

After ESPN posted the story about Demaurice Smith trying to block Rush Limbaugh's bid to purchase the Rams, I refused to comment. Then, ESPN.com posted this idiotic video.

Rather than respond to the political undertones of Smith's position (which is all Scoop and Skip seem to be concerned about), I will, in the words of Donald Trump, keep this all business. It's only appropriate, considering I'm not a huge fan of Rush.

In the position taken by Smith and brother-in-arms Al Sharpton, Smith is essentially saying two things: 1) the NFL is the one of the most lucrative sports in spite of money spent by evil Rush Limbaugh listeners 2) Smith has a mandate from current NFL players.

First, Smith's move is likely to alienate a lot of people who listen to Limbaugh. While this might not cause any immediate drop in ratings, Smith's outlandish behavior is certain to have an effect on those fans when they are contemplating whether it is worth supporting the NFL when it strikes, which I think is inevitable at this point. Don't be surprised to see the NFL take the same ding MLB did after its last strike if Smith and members of the NFLPA continue to telegraph the "I think the few million of you who watch the NFL and Rush Limbaugh are a bunch of bigots that I don't need the support of to have a successful league" type messages.

Second, the obvious question is whether the majority of NFL players are even supportive of this type of political power play by Smith. While Smith loves making himself feel politically important by taking on this false crusade, I'm not sure that the majority of NFL players would say they dislike Limbaugh. Aside from the fact that the NFL has traditionally been one of the most conservative sports leagues, Smith came in the back door to get his position over Troy Vincent and Trace Armstrong.

In sum, I think Smith would better represent his constituents by aggressively negotiating a new CBA rather than pulling Sharpton-esque political stunts to fuel his oversized ego.

Thoughts on Jets-Saints Game

2009-10-03T23:11:00.002-05:00

While the game this week is certainly significant (if the Saints were able to get to 4-0, they'd build a sizable cushion in the NFC South), I have this sick feeling that one of my predictions might actually come true. For those that don't remember, on July 26, I made five predictions: 1) Saints would win the division, 2) Adrian Arrington would catch more than 50 passes, 3) Pierre Thomas would rush for over 1000 yards, 4) Drew Brees would get injured, and 5) Bobby McCray would have 10 or more sacks. Although the Adrian Arrington prediction is the only one officially off the table (he's on the practice squad after a partially torn hamstring kept him from showing his full potential in preseason), some of the other predictions aren't looking so good - ie, Bobby McCray getting more than ten sacks. However, I am almost certain that prediction number 4 will happen on Sunday.

Against the Eagles, Drew Brees went down hard on his shoulder. And his passing for less than 200 yards last week, I believe, was more a result of that injury than the Bills coverage scheme. What does that mean? All it will take is one good sack by the Jets D and Brees is going to be carted off the field. I don't want to say that's what's going to happen. There's just a sick feeling that I have that it will.

Even if Brees does go down, I think the defense will provide enough pressure to ensure a Saints victory. Last week was the first game that Williams incorporated a lot of his "morphed" 3-4 looks and twisting stunts that let Grant and Smith get more penetration into the backfield than I've seen from them in over 2 years. With Sanchez's over-dependence upon Dustin Keller, the key to this game for me is whether Vilma will be able to step in that passing lane to get at least one interception. If he does, Saints win. If he doesn't, the Saints' chances are considerably reduced.

One other key is the amount of touches Payton gives Reggie Bush. If Bush's touches are 15 or more, expect the Saints to lose in a low scoring game (ie, 20-17). If his touches are 10 or less, expect the Saints to win in a blowout. While it might sound arbitrary, 10 or less touches means that Payton goes to someone other than Bush early in the game, which means that the Saints will be able to develop early momentum. There's no better way to stall out a drive than to hand the ball off on 3rd and 2 to Reggie.

Amusing Riff on Jets Fans

2009-10-03T23:08:00.003-05:00

Chris "I wish I were Al Pacino" Rose has a somewhat amusing commentary on Jets fans leading up to the clash of the unbeatens. Enjoy.

Saintly Smackdown

Whitlock on Twitter

2009-10-02T18:18:00.004-05:00

I actually agree with Whitlock on something. It sort've surprised me what that something was:

2. This is what I don't get about Twitter: I don't want everyone to know what I think about everything.
A good percentage of my thoughts are irrational, stupid, sophomoric, uninformed, sexist, narcissistic, pornographic and a bunch of other things. I prefer to keep most of my thoughts confined to a tight circle of friends who are like-minded or nonjudgmental. We talk on the phone, via text or when we're out having dinner and drinks. I'm satisfied with that. It's a good life. It's a life that served our founding fathers well.
Why now is everyone on Twitter and Facebook sharing intimate, private feelings with strangers?
I don't get it. Marcus Fitzgerald, little brother of star receiver Larry Fitzgerald, could easily spend Cardinals games texting his father and a small number of friends his thoughts about Kurt Warner's play. Big Larry, the father, knows the game of football as well as anyone in the media. Big Larry has a great sense of humor, and he's passionate about Little Larry's performance. Who better to vent frustration about Little Larry's lack of pass-catching opportunities.
Marcus' decision to air his feelings about Warner's decision-making comes off as a ploy instigated by an attention-starved, jealous little brother.

Good points Whitlock.

Being a Competitor

2009-09-29T19:33:00.003-05:00

I often wonder what these sports figure types mean when they say "I'm a competitor." Michael Jordan, to demand in a quasi-embarrassing arrogant rant how he could still go beat all the players in the NBA, and Herschel Walker, to explain his foray into MMA at a tender 47 years of age, are two of the most recent to use the phrase. When these guys talk like that, I can't help thinking that the phrase means something along the lines of "My ego is so big that if I can't have crowds cheer me, I'll lose my reason for living."

Here's the videos of Herschel and Jordan using their favorite phrase. Hopefully Herschel doesn't break his hip:

As a side note, Herschel sounds a bit like John Folse. Now that would be an MMA match - that would last 5 seconds.

Is that Justice Scalia?

2009-09-22T01:02:00.004-05:00

John Hawkins used this picture to lead off his article on this year not being Tiger Woods' best. If that's Scalia in the orange shirt, Woods' play this year has done something quite impressive - I didn't realize the justice went out for anything more than operas with former Justice Ginsburg. I'll leave it up to you to determine whether that's him.

Random Saints Video Friday

2009-09-18T22:58:00.003-05:00

The master of rants. The inspiration for Coors Light coach's conferences. The one, the only - Jim Mora. One of his lesser known but, nonetheless, entertaining rants.

Marshmallows: I Don't Think I Could Wait

2009-09-18T22:51:00.002-05:00

Oh, The Temptation from Steve V on Vimeo.

The research shows the kids who wait for the second marshmallow are more successful later in life. So what. I'm sure the ones who eat the marshmallow more quickly have more fun.

Frank Fitzpatrick: A Little Over-Exercised

2009-09-17T18:40:00.003-05:00

I love Donovan McNabb. I've always thought he's underrated. I also think the Eagles have been poor at keeping much talent at QB - as evidenced by them letting Jeff Garcia go too easily the first time around. All that said, commentators who say it's all the white people holding McNabb down annoy me to the far ends of the world. Case in point, Frank Fitzpatrick.

Here's the white guy's grand dissertation on McNabb:

Why does all this fantasy fury directed at President Obama seem so familiar?

Maybe because it sounds like the same kind of skewed logic, stupidity, and - yes - bigotry that has marked a lot of the criticism of Donovan McNabb over the years.

For the Eagles quarterback, the pipe dreams of the prejudiced take on a different slant. This nonsensical speculation isn't about death panels, Alaskan gulags, or Kenyan births. Instead, the silly conjecture concerns his fragile anatomy, his lack of desire, his passing ability.

Like the president, the Eagles quarterback had the temerity to be an African American assuming a position traditionally filled by white men.

Bollocks! The reason that McNabb has always been underrated is his inability to perform in high intensity playoff games - Drew Brees and Peyton Manning are also on this list. McNabb just catches more hell about it because the Eagles are always knocking on the Super Bowl's door.

As for the cheap shots on McNabb, most of them seem to come from former NFL players - most who share his race. Like women having harsher comments for other women than a man would ever have for them (Oh, she's sooooo fat!!!), NFL players tend to unfairly criticize one another - and black NFL players tend to criticize current black NFL players harsher than anyone else.

Personally speaking, I'll be glad if McNabb's out this weekend against the Saints. Philly is exponentially more potent on offense when he is in. It's like having a Ben Roethlisberger who can throw the ball accurately!

They Photoshop Space Pictures?!?

2009-09-15T20:48:00.004-05:00

After all those years of my youth that were devoted to staring at outer space pictures, dreaming about being an astronaut so that I could see all the pretty pictures with my own eyes one day, I find out that it's all a scam. Evidently, a bunch of astronomy nerds turned photo enthusiasts take grayscale images and gussy them up in whatever way they wish.

This description of the process makes it sound not very scientific at all:

First, they put the image into a file format appropriate for media. That means that the data from the FITS files, which show a range of about 65,000 shades of grey, must be squeezed into a standard JPEG or TIFF file, with only 256 shades. This process is counterintuitively called "stretching" the data and must be done carefully to preserve important features and enhance details in the finished product.

Then each grey-scale image is assigned a color. In reality, each shot already represents a color—the wavelength of light captured by the filter when that picture was taken. But in some cases the images represent colors that we wouldn't be able to see. (The Spitzer, for example, registers the infrared spectrum.) To create a composite image that has the full range of colors seen by the human eye, an astronomer picks one image and makes it red, picks another and makes it blue, and completes the set by coloring a third image green. When he overlays the three images, one on top of the other, they produce a full-color picture. (Televisions and computer monitors create color in the same way.)

All of this I found to be forgivable, thinking that maybe they were just specifying colors based on the particular wavelengths the grayscale represented. Wrong!!! When they feel like it, those astronomers just throw in cooler colors to make it seem like space actually has a bunch of cool stuff to look at (maybe those conspiracy theorists were on to something):

Sometimes the team assigns new colors even when the original pictures were taken in the visible spectrum. An object that would in real life comprise several indistinguishable shades of red might be represented to the public as the composite of three pictures in red, green, and blue. As a general rule, professional "visualizers" try to assign red to the image showing the longest wavelengths of light and blue to the one showing the shortest.

It's official - I'm giving up on trying to be an astronaut. As an aside, I guess that dream died a long time ago when I decided not to be a pilot or to get a science degree. Oh well, "With my last breath I spit at thee."

RIP: Patrick Swayze

2009-09-14T20:33:00.004-05:00

During the year of the thousand celebrity deaths, this one in particular sucks. I enjoyed his work in just about every movie that he was in(except the terrible Donnie Darko) and he seemed a genuinely nice guy. Although Ghost and Dirty Dancing are probably his best known movies, either Point Break, Red Dawn, or Roadhouse alone excuse the chick flicks.

Either way, this video ensures his immortality alongside Chris Farley:

Patrick Swayze - Chippendale
by tressage

The funniest skit in SNL history. Period.

Ben Roethlisberger: 12th Best Player in NFL?

2009-09-11T19:06:00.003-05:00

I know I'm feeding right into the plan of the guys over at The Sporting News by complaining about their Top 100 NFL Players list. I, nonetheless, protest. And protest loudly. The geniuses got together in a room and did what just about every mindless analyst does - look at the number of Super Bowl titles a player has won and act like his play had a substantial role to play in winning that title. Case in point: Roethlisberger is ranked number 12.

It seems everyone is out these days to apotheosize Roethlisberger as the all-powerful leader of the Pittsburgh Steelers. He has two Super Bowl titles. Whooptee Doo. Put aside his pathetic statistics from each of those games. Guys putting together these lists never consider the amount of favorable calls "hallowed" teams like Pittsburgh, Dallas, New England, etc seem to receive just on their history of having won a handful of titles before 1980 (because they were more willing than other teams to unabashedly abuse steroids).

In other words, I'd love to see Roethlisberger play for a team that is good in spite of the fact that it gets no help from its defense - San Diego, New Orleans, Houston come to mind. If he could will them to win despite having some of the worst stats in the NFL, maybe just maybe I would then be willing to say he was one of the NFL's elite QBs.

PR Chance for Vick

2009-09-09T21:04:00.003-05:00

With the news that Pierre Thomas sustained a substantial laceration and sprain to his knee as a result of coming to the aid of his mini-doberman Chill, Mike Vick has a golden opportunity to win some PR points by reflecting on Thomas' devotion to his dog. Maybe he could sport a knee brace in solidarity with Thomas. Maybe he could change his number to 23 for the rest of the year to show solidarity with Thomas. Maybe he could even play a few downs for the Saints if Pierre takes too long in getting back into playing shape.

I have to admit that I'm rather nervous about Pierre being iffy for the game this weekend against the Lions. It is the Lions, but a strong ground game never hurts even against teams as bad as Detroit. Even though Mike Bell and Lynell Hamilton came on strong to make the team in preseason, Pierre anchored the running game through most of last year, and the Saints consistently struggled without him in there.

Entertaining if not Accurate

2009-09-04T19:11:00.003-05:00

Maybe I've watched Major League I & II a few too many times or maybe it's my inner chauvinist or maybe it's the sheer absurdity of the arguments, but I always find it easy to enjoy a good debate of the sexes where some guy goes off the deep end blaming women for everything (isn't there some riddle with women being the root of all evil). Steve Sailer adds another one to the heap with his somewhat brilliant and altogether irascible condemnation of women as the root of the economic recession. Read it first, tell me how much you hate it later.

When Cops Get Bored

2009-09-02T21:43:00.004-05:00

New Orleans Saints safety Usama Young was arrested for reckless operation of a vehicle and for flight from an officer using a motor vehicle. The basis for the arrest was that he was going 55 in a 40 mph speed zone in Harahan and didn't pull over for a half mile after the cops put their lights on. He was also booked on a traffic attachment for failing to show up for a court date after he parked in a handicapped spot.

At the risk of making light of the situation, I have to say that the whole arrest for this seems pretty ridiculous. There are plenty of roads in Louisiana that are marked 40 mph that would be 60 mph in California or Texas for no other reason than cops make a good living off of the speed trap. I remember the super-cop that pulled me over for going 55 in a 40 around this time last year on a Louisiana road. He was a state trooper from Lafayette working 60 miles north on the weekend because he loved the speed trap so much.

Hopefully Saints management doesn't come down too hard on Usama for this. It sounds eerily similar to the "resisting arrest" against Jonathan Vilma in Florida during the offseason that turned out to be baseless.

"Soylent Green is Chicken!"

2009-09-02T10:51:00.005-05:00

Ever wondered what's in your chicken nuggets?

150,000 a day? Armed with my weak math-fu skills, I calculated the maximum yearly figure ~55,000,000. Disappointingly, the ground-up males are used for fertilizer, not nuggets. Consider me a skeptic though.

On the bright side I would imagine that the baby male chicks lack the brain capacity to understand what is happening anyway. Now, after they have matured and developed personalities I have conscientious objections to eating the chickens. Wait a minute, what am I writing about?...

A Bit of Film Background on the Director of District 9: Neill Blomkamp

2009-08-22T22:17:00.005-05:00

I have been somewhat of a fan of Neill Blomkamp for quite a while now after watching several of his short films as well as the famous Citroen transformer ad (the commercial helped fuel the demand for a live-action Transformer movie).

As interesting as his body of work may have been I still was not expecting District 9 to be as impressive as it was. Consider me now very much a fan.

Anyway the short film that inspired District 9 is titled Alive in Joburg. It is essentially a rough draft of the newer feature-length film (incorporating the same "documentary" style) and rather interesting but it lacks what makes District 9 phenomenal; characters. Here it is:

Even more esoteric than some of the parts of Joberg is the film Tempbot. I'm not sure what to think of R2D2 in an Office Space environment falling in and out of love with "Wonder Woman" Lynda Carter.

Neill Blomkamp - Tempbot
by firat

Blomkamp also directed commercials for corporate giants such as Nike, Adidas, and Gatorade that are easily found on Youtube. The commercials show his obvious talent for incorporating photo-realistic CGI into a real world environment. One commercial in particular stands above the rest because it was connected to the Halo movie project that Blomkamp was slated to direct with Peter Jackson producing (sound familiar?). Blomkamp directed a three-part test film to promote Halo 3 as well as pitch his vision of Halo for the studio heads. Inevitably, the last great hope for a video game movie that did not suck was relegated to production hell simultaneously while film auteur Dr. Uwe Bolle's nth vid-game movie, Far Cry, was green-lit.

Here is the three-part series spliced together:

Aliens meets Black Hawk Down. If there was ever a no-brainer for a summer blockbuster, this is it.

District 9: Great Movie

2009-08-22T20:39:00.006-05:00

Last weekend, I had the pleasure of watching District 9. Even with all the violence and foul language, the plot and characterizations (particularly of CGI-created Christopher Johnson) are so strong that it is well worth seeing. Anytime a screenwriter and director can craft a movie to make you pull for what at first blush seems to be an utterly unlikable quasi-villain like Wikus van der Merwe, that screenwriter and director have some talent. Rather than drabble on and bore you to death, I thought I'd point out the best review I've seen on the movie and leave it up to you to decide whether to watch it. Anyway, here's the review.

For those that don't care to read the rather lengthy review, the following lines give the thesis of it:

The American press constantly refers to District 9 as an “apartheid allegory,” but the 29-year-old Blomkamp was ten when Nelson Mandela was released. Blomkamp’s press statements can hardly be more explicit that the movie is largely a post-apartheid parable about illegal immigration and Malthusian despair.

In fact, Blomkamp is personally a victim of the gradual ethnic cleansing of southern Africa. Rampant crime under the new black government drove his family from Johannesburg to British Columbia in 1997.

But Americans just don’t get it because they haven’t paid attention to South Africa since 1994, when Nelson Mandela was elected President and then They All Lived Happily Ever After. Blomkamp told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, “Everybody in North America thinks of South Africa for white oppression of the black majority.” Yet, 15 years later, “what we’re not familiar with is this screwed-up Johannesburg setting.”

Just as 1981’s Road Warrior, with Mel Gibson as Mad Max, memorably re-imagined the defining Australian experience of living on an empty continent, District 9 symbolizes the lesson of Afrikaans history: on an increasingly full continent, the weak can eventually triumph over the strong by outbreeding them.

The review itself taught me a good bit more about South African political structure and ongoing conflict there. Even if I hadn't seen the movie, I appreciated Steve Sailer's ability to capture some of the finer political points lost on the vast majority of American critics reducing the movie to nothing more than racial struggle.

By the way, my favorite part of the movie is when the "prawns" stand up for Wikus in the end. It was one of the more powerful and satisfying finishes to a villain (by that, I mean the demise of David James' character, Koobus Venter) I've even seen. As for the characters, I think any reflective person will be able to take a lot away from Christopher Johnson.

Prof. Gates Could Learn Something from Bob Dylan

2009-08-15T23:19:00.005-05:00

Bob Dylan was stopped as a result of what was indubitably racial profiling. How else do you explain requesting an elderly man (that's right, Dylan is 68-years-old) get in a police car on the sole basis that he was walking around and looking at houses in a "low income" area of town without identification. Sounds to me like the police officers were afraid that the white man might break in to an African American residence.

But Dylan's response was classic. He just jumped in the car and had the police take him down to the venue where he was performing with John Mellencamp and Willie Nelson. The workers there confirmed who he was (by the way, how does somebody not know who Bob Dylan is? those police officers need to catch up on the classics) and the police left him there and went on their way. No kicking and screaming and no arrests.

Here's the point. Dylan was within his rights to refuse the ride with the police. There was no reasonable suspicion and certainly no probable cause to believe he was committing a crime. But he knew how to handle the issue - he just went with the flow. If he had started calling the police officers names, I'm sure it would have gotten ugly even though, as I said above, the police had no legal grounds for doing what they did. If Prof. Gates had decided to go with the flow, I'm sure Sergeant Crowley would have acted in much the same manner as the cops did with Dylan. It doesn't mean that the police had grounds for doing what they did. Rather, it shows that overreactions by the police are minimized when you keep it cool like Dylan.

Sean Payton Proves Once Again That He's Terrible with Kickers

2009-08-15T22:18:00.009-05:00

In one of the most bone-headed moves of the off-season, Sean Payton decides to bring in 45-year-old John Carney to compete for the kicking job of the Saints because Garrett Hartley has been "struggling" during camp. Granted, Hartley is facing a four-game suspension for reasons undisclosed by the NFL. But, if this move is for any reason other than to have a kicker while Hartley serves that suspension (which seems to be the case), this move has to rank as the single dumbest move by any team this offseason. Why? I'm glad you asked.

First, Payton's track record of ruining kickers. Olindo Mare, Martin Gramatica, Taylor Melhaff, and John Carney (before they cut him the first time) all seemed to have a pretty good track record before Payton got his mitts on them. Whatever "art of war," "mind over matter technique" Payton and his special teams coordinators used made each of these guys crumble under the bright lights - in the case of Gramatica, the crumbling was epic. What makes Payton think the same thing won't happen to Carney this time around? I haven't a clue.

Second, Hartley has been the lone exception to Payton screwing up kickers. He was perfect (let me repeat that - PERFECT) in regular season games last season. Check it - 13 for 13. Who cares if he missed a 20 yard chip shot at the beginning of Friday's preseason game. He came back to nail a 54-yarder straight down the pipes!

Third, the Saints cut Carney for a reason the first time around. Remember the turning point of the NFC Championship game against Chicago - when Billy Cundiff had to try a 47-yard-field goal and missed because Carney didn't have the leg for it. The game was 16-14 in favor of the Bears with 6:57 left in the 3rd quarter. A made field goal and the Saints wouldn't have been pinned on their own 4-yard-line the next possession that resulted in a safety.

If that isn't good enough, let's look at why the Giants decided not to resign him. Could it have been that he couldn't make a field goal to save his life against the Eagles? Missing from 46 and 47 yards made it a completely different ball game that eventually led to the 23-11 blowout. And, imagine this, the Giants decided this year to go with the young, strong-legged Lawrence Tynes rather than waste any more time on Carney. Leg strength seems to be the biggest thing missing from Carney's game. And you don't get more leg strength as you age into your 40s. I guess he'll be whiffing on thirty-something yarders this time around.

If all that isn't reason enough not to bring in Carney to replace Hartley, all Saints fans remember this dagger to the heart. I can still tell you the exact place I was standing when I saw this piece of work that knocked the Saints from playoff contention.

When the Saints lose in the playoffs because of a missed field goal, don't say I didn't tell you so.

Glenn Beck: The "Anointed" One?!?

2009-08-15T10:13:00.003-05:00

After letting my curiosity get the better of me and listening to Glenn Beck's radio program a couple of times too many this week, I was having some serious rage issues. While Beck can be entertaining in how over-the-top he gets (look at this), he is certainly mistaken when he says that he is the only person opposing big government spending. Beck doesn't even call for reform in one of the biggest areas of spending - the Department of Defense. He seems to assume that those at the Pentagon are always acting in the best interest of the people when they fund the next multi-billion dollar project or spend trillions of dollars on an "engagement/quasi-war/shooting a lot of bullets that result in the death of a sizable number of Americans" with foreign operatives/countries.

While I think it's ridiculous to look for purity in descriptive terms (ie, saying that there is only one meaning that can attach to a particular term), this video does at least show Beck's equivocations on whether a big government is a good or a bad thing.

Of course, this type of thought is popular these days - take a look at Eric Dondero, another "fiscally conservative" but strong on defense guy.

If I had to point to my problem with these guys, I'd have to say that there are three specific troubling things. First, guys of Beck and Dondero's mindset love to use scare tactics. Everyone loves to use scare tactics as a good rhetorical device, but these guys seem to take it to the next level. Is it any surprise that Dondero's latest blog posting is "Could Obama care lead to small scale Human Genocide?" Moreso than any particular claim is that Beck's program is pervaded by this "the sky is falling" mentality. Yes, the government is getting larger. No, that doesn't mean we need to freak out and scream like crazy people - or wear lederhosen and later claim that you're not trying to bring up images of the Hitler Youth. It just means that if you oppose that expansion that you should more actively engage in the legislative process.

My second problem is that Beck is inconsistent. For example, he's been railing on government healthcare all week as an infringement of private liberties and another form of wasteful government spending. However, as shown in the video above, he's for all the "war" spending and was for the Patriot Act. Also, he consistently railed on Ron Paul during the presidential campaign even though Paul was the only candidate who proposed ending the Department of Education as one of the most frivolously spending federal entities.

However, one needn't go past the healthcare issue to observe Beck's inconsistency. He says that we can't allow the healthcare system to be government run, but, as far as I'm aware, he doesn't propose a plan for doing away with Medicare. Also, there's been absolutely no debate about large hospital conglomerates as the root of high cost. Inasmuch as Medicare artificially raises the price of healthcare for everyone (ask a doctor which entity pays the majority of their compensation) and for-profit hospitals that make millions of profit each year even in small communities gobble up most of that Medicare reimbursement, the reasonable alternative to the current healthcare bills seems to be to propose how each of those issues can be handled rather than just saying everything is fine with the current system. But Beck, as far as I'm aware, never threw his support behind the Weiner amendment.

My third and final point is that guys like Beck seem themselves as special or set apart. Much of the posturing in his program is as somebody who is different or revolutionary. The "Ron Paul Revolution" was annoying to me for pretty much the same reason. Why do people have to feel like they are part of a "cause" or a "revolution" to feel like their insights have merit? I like Ron Paul's ideas. I don't need some teenager telling me to be part of a revolution as a license to like his ideas.

But Beck's placing himself apart seems, at least in part, to be for an additional reason. He postures himself in this way so he can be the "lone true voice." I guess part of the idea is to generate controversy and to get people like Bill Maher calling him a dangerous man. But the ovverriding rationale for the "lone true voice" posturing appears to be having a basis for marginalizing people who disagree with him - for example, those that think that being fiscally conservative also demands a humble foreign policy.

While Beck seems to have some good ideas, he will neither be as revolutionary as he fancies himself or as effective until he gets a bit more consistent and a little less demagogue-ish.

IAAF: No False Starts

2009-08-14T21:01:00.004-05:00

It seems to me that the IAAF has doomed the short distance track and field events at London in 2012 to be low on world records and low on drama. A couple of days ago, IAAF passed a resolution that states that the first false start in a track event will result in disqualification. They justified the move by referencing how the NCAA has showed that the policy is workable in its track events. That may sound fine and dandy in theory but, with Olympics ratings lagging the last few Olympiads, I'm not sure that reducing the chances for a potential world record to be broken because everyone is scared to death of getting disqualified is the best route to go.

Ron Mexico: It Was Only a Matter of Time

2009-08-14T00:13:00.002-05:00

Well, it only took Daulerio over at Deadspin a couple of hours to post of a picture the new Philly Ron Mexico jersey. When PETA's lagging behind, at least you can count on Deadspin to be utterly predictable - both in going for the cheap laugh and for using a potty mouth in doing so (just look at the title of the linked article). Here's the image in case you're dying to see it.

And here's a link to the Ron Mexico background for all those not in the know of all things Mike Vick.

Grim Sleeper Update: Newsweek on the Trail

2009-08-13T22:45:00.004-05:00

To follow-up on the serial killer that I've been following through the news for the past six months or so, Newsweek is the latest of the major media outlets to pick up on the scent of the Grim Sleeper. There's not much of anything new in the article. However, it is nice to see that the effort to nail this twisted guy has stepped up - more likely that they'll actually nab him after multiple decades on the loose. For those who don't feel like following the link to read the whole article, here's the first paragraph of the piece that is fairly representative of the article as a whole:

Reporter, cop, killer: the eternal triangle of tabloid journalism, pulp fiction, and film noir. Turn them loose in Los Angeles, cue up the Coltrane, watch their taillights disappear down Sunset. The cop is LAPD homicide detective Dennis Kilcoyne, at 54 still rangy and vital, but burdened by decades of sifting the muck of human depravity in search of prosecutable felonies. In a dark suit and black sunglasses, at the wheel of his silver Lincoln, he could pass for a Hollywood player on the make, but in the bleary fluorescent glare of his office, his eyes—the weary, puffy eyes of someone not about to spend six grand on an eyelid tuck—give him away. The reporter, Christine Pelisek of LA Weekly, is "late 30ish or maybe a little past," as she puts it, a slender, stylishly dressed blonde, blue eyes still wide with amazement at the tragicomic panoply of folly and greed she is lucky enough to witness. As for the killer, we don't know. The last description of him dates from 1988, when he shot a woman in his car and dumped her on the street. Sometime soon the paths of these three will intersect, and here is how we see it ending: with the killer in jail, facing multiple counts of rape, assault, and murder; with Pelisek's reporting triumphantly vindicated and rewarded with a big book deal; and Kilcoyne cleaning out his desk at police headquarters, thinking about retirement.

There is one downside to all this publicity, as is alluded to in the snippet above. Inasmuch as this guy is part of the "eternal triangle of tabloid journalism," he might take it as a tip of the hat to do even more heinous acts than he has already done. Hopefully subsequent articles on this guy won't get any more "Off the record, on the QT, and very hush-hush" than this.

Disappointed in PETA

2009-08-13T21:06:00.003-05:00

As of right now, Michael Vick is a member of the Philadelphia Eagles. For all interested, here's the story. However, PETA has yet to address the issue on its website. Shame, shame. I expected more. I was hoping they had some pre-canned crazy photos of Vick or some over-the-top passionate story of the sort that Richard Cohen shared the other day in the Washington Post. They had none of that. Instead, they decided to keep up a lead story about the Ringling Bros.' cruelty to elephants. Hopefully they'll get on the ball before too long here and put up a crazy post making reference to Tom Heckert or Jeff Lurie as Satan. As for now, all PETA has is this on their homepage (click on the picture to see the full view):

Time for ETC

2009-08-12T01:58:00.003-05:00

After reading endless bankruptcy reems today, I'm in a bit of a funny mood - and ready to act on that funny feeling by posting about a couple of awesome/off-color things I ran across today. What might those two topics be, you ask. To end the suspense, I'll just throw it out there. It's 1) Steve Locklin's review of Mad Men and 2) Nun of That.

First, Steve Locklin's review. This pretty much sums it up:

Despite the annoying anachronisms, Mad Men is great fun to watch, in much the same way Archie Bunker was fun to watch. As a friend put it, Mad Men is kind of like watching Halo night in a 21st-century fraternity house—with costumes. I’m not watching as one of the enlightened ones for the meathead sanctimony; I’m watching it for the sleazy gropings, the postmodern cool guys, the hilarity of high office drama, the female-looking women and the drinking of enormous quantities of booze. Plus, everyone smokes; modern television has entirely not enough smoking!

If this wraps you in as it wrapped me, here's a link to the rest of the review. Locklin makes other great points like the following:

[T]he most galling anachronism is the lack of manners. People were more refined in 1961 than they are now, just as they were more refined in sartorial style. While it makes for good television drama to have a bunch of immaculately coiffed goons making beetle-brows and gritting their teeth at each other, sort of like a Brooks Brothers version of professional wrestling, that sort of histrionic behavior simply wasn’t done by gentlemen. I realize that this is a foreign concept to modern people, but I’m here to tell you: people had good manners in the old days. It was considered important.

On to the second topic - Nun of That.

This low grade B movie was appealing to me on a few levels. For starters, it had a nun taking out the mob - awesome. And taking out didn't mean with prayers. No, it was with sub-machine guns - super awesome. A second point of hilarity is just how aware the movie is of its terrible effects. One final point is the guy trained in the art of Jew-jitsu who gets hired by the mob to take out the killer nun. All of it just seems utterly ridiculous and incredibly funny in a Wanted "will James McAvoy be able to bend the bullet?" kind of way.

In fact, the movie (as far as I can tell from the trailer) might have actually enticed me to go see it if it hadn't gone for lesbo-nun bit or the nun-making-out with Jesus bit. Neither matches the over-the-top tone of the mortal combat between mob and nun and just seem to be thrown in there so that the film lives up to its subtitle "A Blast for You and a Blasphemy." The irrelevant idiocy of the scenes reminded me a bit too much of a certain scene from the original Wicker Man (a two second shot of the five-minute scene is here at 1:34).

However, maybe there's hope that somebody else will try the nun-assassin theme again in one of these "so low budget that it's not even easy to find when it goes straight to dvd" movies.

Paulson and Goldman Sachs

2009-08-10T00:25:00.004-05:00

The NY Times has a priceless article on the problematic relationship of Paulson with Goldman Sachs during the period where the first bailout was being negotiated.

First, the background:

Before he became President George W. Bush’s Treasury secretary in 2006, Henry M. Paulson Jr. agreed to hold himself to a higher ethical standard than his predecessors. He not only sold all his holdings in Goldman Sachs, the investment bank he had run, but also specifically said that he would avoid any substantive interaction with Goldman executives for his entire term unless he first obtained an ethics waiver from the government.

The article then points out that the problematic issue is that Paulson essentially decided the fates of Goldman and its rivals Lehman and Bear Stearns before ever receiving a waiver to discuss potential bailout plans directly with Goldman executives. The article notes that the waiver was not obtained until September 17, 2008.

Before that, according to the NY Times Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request, the following communications happened:

Mr. Paulson’s schedules from 2007 and 2008 show that he spoke with Mr. Blankfein, who was his successor as Goldman’s chief, 26 times before receiving a waiver.

Also consider this:

On Sept. 17, the day Mr. Paulson secured his waivers, he and Mr. Blankfein spoke five times. Two of the calls occurred before Mr. Paulson’s waivers were granted.

The article later details other suspect behavior by Paulson after he did receive the waiver, including a lot of calls to Blankfein. It states that at the height of the crisis, Paulson consulted Blankfein 24 times - more than any other executive.

Quotes in the article from people like Samuel L. Hayes, professor emeritus at Harvard Business School, call on Paulson to show that these communications did not help Goldman secure a place of priority at the bargaining table. One can imagine that it will be hard to sell this line for, among other reasons, the following:

During August 2007, for example, when the market for asset-backed commercial paper was seizing up, Mr. Paulson spoke with Mr. Blankfein 13 times. Mr. Paulson placed 12 of those calls.

By contrast, Mr. Paulson spoke six times that August with Richard S. Fuld Jr. of Lehman, four times with Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan Chase and only twice with John Thain of Merrill Lynch.

However, I find Jeffrey Tucker's criticism of the NY Times piece to be poignant in pointing out the real problem at issue - always point to the previous administration and claim that you've fixed all of that corruption stuff:

I also find it fascinating how these revelations always seem to pertain to the last administration while the current administration always claims to have fixed the problem so that we can continue to move onward and upward into the light of perfect democracy. So far as I can tell, this endless game of pretending to improve stretches back to the 18th century.
. . .
Are we supposed to believe that no one with Obama or Congress spoke with anyone in the car industry before "Cash for Clunkers?"

What Might Have Been Between Tiger and Paddy

2009-08-09T22:07:00.005-05:00

Continuing a line of thought from a week or so ago, it may be time for golfers to start carrying their own lawyer/caddy around the course. Another rules official, John Paramor, got in the way of a great finish today when he put Tiger Woods and Padraig Harrington on the clock on the 16th tee. While Tiger would have had a great chance to win without Harrington's snowman on the 16th, that hole blew all of the drama out of the round for the viewing audience.

Tiger Woods, many times the victim of being put on the clock, bemoaned how there wasn't any apparent reason to put he and Harrington under the gun. Here's a summary from Bob Harig's article on ESPN.com:

Although Woods hit another highlight-reel shot -- an 8-iron from 178 yards to kick-in range at the par-5 16th -- to play a part in his victory, he also felt that Harrington got a raw deal when the players were put on the clock for slow play while standing on the 16th tee.

"Like I was telling him out there, I'm sorry that [rules official] John [Paramor] got in the way of a great battle because it was such a great battle for 16 holes, and we're going at it head-to-head and unfortunately that happened," Woods said. "I don't know why we were put on the clock."

All the more reason for Harrington (or Woods or any other PGA player) to carry along a lawyer on the course this week at the PGA Championship to challenge these unilateral, and seemingly incorrect, rule impositions. I'm sure Jeffrey Standen would oblige.

Mina Brees: Dead at 59

2009-08-09T21:49:00.005-05:00

At 59 years of age, Drew Brees' mother Mina Brees died at a friend's home in Colorado. She was the former president of the Austin Bar Assocation.

Her relationship the last few years with Drew has been tense, to say the least. It all came to a head with threats of lawsuits over her use of Drew's likeness in her run for the Texas Attorney General's office. Hopefully they were able to reconcile in some manner before her death.

Another Reason Not to Tweet

2009-08-04T18:43:00.003-05:00

Antonio Cromartie drew a solid $2500 fine for complaining about the Chargers' training camp food via Twitter. Surprise, surprise - Cromartie, I mean crimetime31, now has his Twitter page "protected" from scruffy little outside viewers like myself (as an aside, doesn't that defeat the whole point of Twitter).

If Cromartie were honest with himself, I'm sure he'd admit that at least as significant factor as the food at training camp in keeping the Chargers from the Super Bowl are off-the-field distractions like having to pay child support for seven kids living in five different states. After all, in this article he did have the following to say about the kid situation:

"Last year my head wasn't in there," Cromartie said. "I was dealing with my kids and their moms. It had my mind somewhere else."

I'm not dogging him for having that many kids, I'm just trying to remind him not to get fined anymore, or else he might not be able to make all those child support payments. Remember Travis Henry?

Adrian Arrington Update

2009-08-04T10:01:00.004-05:00

An MRI revealed that Adrian Arrington's hamstring "strain" is actually a mild tear. Arrington said that he will have to deal with the injury during pre-season games since it is not healing quickly. Obviously, Arrington is a little frustrated:

"Rest is the best thing, but I can't rest, " Arrington said. "So that's the struggle I'm going through. It's extremely frustrating, just knowing that more than likely I'm going to have to play the preseason games still with this nagging injury. It's real frustrating, but it's the nature of the game. It's unfortunate, but it's something I got to battle through."

And some people still wonder why professional athletes are tempted to take HGH. Arrington is a guy that I predicted would catch more than 50 passes this season (he will if he's healthy). Instead, he's now battling just to make the team. And he's having to do so to the detriment of his body.

If people were really interested in reducing PED use, they would address issues like these. They would demand that the NFL give a grace period to those guys who enter training camp injured on the team having to make a decision to cut them or not by the start of the season. The likely add-on to the 53 man roster would be three or four guys each year and would allow guys like Arrington to get the rest he needs to recuperate and not stress about getting immediately cut.

But, with a looming loss of a roster spot, Arrington now will likely ask about getting some HGH. That's what I would be tempted to do in his position. And then he'll be made out as the bad guy for taking it if he does take it and later get caught. The whole system makes no sense to me.

Another Reason to Dislike Bob Bowman

2009-08-03T10:28:00.004-05:00

Mike Cavic's latest trash-talking has certainly made swimming more visible. Along with that, Phelps laying the smack down on Cavic after those comments made watching the victory more satisfying to the average swimming fan. Watching Phelps put a whoopin' on Cavic next year in a duel meet, one Cavic has offered to swim in, would seem just as satisfying and would be a great boon for the sport.

But . . . there's Bob Bowman. He had this to say about the possible duel in the pool:

We go to lots of meets. . . . They can come to any of the meets we go to.

Bowman doesn't seem to get the concept that more people would get interested in swimming if Phelps would participate in these mini soap operas. While everyone knows that Cavic's act is a put-on to get more publicity, it is, nonetheless, fun to watch. Do you really think that everyone watching WWE does so to watch the great athletic talent?

Which leads me to my next point, perhaps Cavic should get Vince McMahon to produce the event. While it might seem laughable at first blush, he's the only guy so far who's been able to make men prancing around in lycra briefs a prime time event.

Technology and Trashtalking: The Phelps-Cavic Rematch.

2009-08-01T13:44:00.005-05:00

Phaeton posted on his love of dominant athletes being served a healthy dose of comeuppance. Well, today he gets to enjoy a super-sized helping of reality delivered to Milorad Cavic courtesy of Michael Phelps. Cavic posted a WR time of 50.01 in the 100 Fly during semis edging into uncharted sub-50 waters. Phelps posted a then fifth-fastest ever time of 50.48.

When Cavic was asked about the suit controversy and how it might affect Phelps' performance in the finals (he was seeded in the lane next to Cavic) he responded in his trademark less-than-subtle fashion.

“I think there’s three options for Michael,” Cavic said. “The first option is to use the suit that he’s wearing, the second option is to get one of these (polyurethane) suits, which I guarantee Arena will provide him within the hour, as soon as he wants. The third option would actually be a dream of mine, to have the whole final everybody swimming in briefs. I swear to God, this is it, this is what I want, but this is the most unrealistic of all scenarios.”

However these comments were rather mild when compared to some of Cavic's other claims concerning swimming technology. Cavic still believes that he beat Phelps last summer at the Beijing 2008 games and that his silver medal performance was solely the result of faulty timing equipment. Although Bowman and Phelp's earlier comments (see Phaeton's earlier post) concerning suit technology straddled the hypocrisy line; Cavic's claim that the Omega timing system malfunctioned only during his 100 fly swim is simply delusional.

It's too bad that the flamboyant Cavic can't protest the karmic smackdown that he received from Phelps since the victor was rather obvious this time. Unless he has elephant balls and wants to claim that the LAZR was a superior suit that gave Phelps an unfair advantage.

In contrast Phelps was rather gracious in his loss to Germany's Biederman in the 200 Free.

Update: I felt obligated to point out that "Mike" Cavic's comments that "Fina has spoken..." on the polyurethane suits are less than genuine. Fina has expressively banned the Jaked, X-Glide, and all other polyurethane or technical suits. Unfortunately that ban does not go into effect until next year so international competition is in a very strange dilemma that is predominantly FINA's fault.

Next year shall be very interesting in the swimming world...

Big Fan

2009-08-01T13:39:00.003-05:00

I'm curious to hear the verdict on this movie set to come out in a couple of weeks. It's getting good reviews, but it looks a couple parts too creepy to me.

Freeze Those Assets!

2009-07-31T22:22:00.003-05:00

U.S. Bankruptcy Judge Elizabeth Magner did just that today on Louisiana Film Studios, LLC and Wayne Read. That wasn't all. Judge Magner also belted out a Judge Judy style demand on Read when she learned that he was in the courthouse but too chicken to show up in the courtroom - "I'd like to see the white's of this individual's eyes." Who's the boss, apple sauce?

The article says that the court scheduled a hearing for Aug. 7 on whether to appoint a "financial overseer." I'm guessing that this is a Chapter 11 case and that just means whether they'll appoint a trustee for the bankruptcy estate.

It looks like Read made sure to hire a good-looking, presumably very expensive attorney in the person of William Patrick. The fun is just beginning.

Golf and Lawyers

2009-07-31T19:46:00.004-05:00

Jeffrey Standen has a fun post up at his Sports Law Professor Blog, detailing the ramifications of not having a lawyer on-hand to interpret the rules of golf. He details a junior golf tournament in which his son was participating where one of the participants had his shot at winning the tournament dashed in no small part by an unsophisticated rules official.

Here's the essential part of the story:

A few days ago I was doing parental duty spectating at a junior golf tournament. On a par four, one of the players in my son's group shanked his approach shot dead right into the woods; he then dropped a provisional ball from the original spot and struck the provisional ball to within a few feet of the hole. Spectators are allowed to assist players in finding lost balls, something I customarily do. But in this case I hung back, and waited to see if the player wanted to look for his original ball or instead proceed to play his provisional. (If he were able to play his provisional he would surely score a bogey.) In a misjudgment, the player trudged into the woods, and I followed. A tournament rules official (this was a serious tournament) was already in there, poking around for the ball. A few minutes later he found the ball, but it was unplayable, stuck in a bush. No plausible place to drop it was nearby or back, and so the only choice for the golfer was to replay the original stroke and see if he could duplicate the excellent provisional shot. Before he did so, the player asked the rules official if he could forget about the first ball and go play the provisional. The official replied in the negative. He said that with the original ball found the provisional had to be abandoned and that to play the provisional ball would be to play the wrong ball, with attendant penalty. Glumly, the junior golfer dropped the original ball back at the original spot and replayed the shot, albeit into a bad lie in a sand trap. He ended up with a triple bogey. He also lost the tournament by a single stroke.

Tough luck for the golfer? Certainly. But also a questionable call by the official. To be clear, the rules of golf provide exactly what the official described. He got it right. But the rules just as clearly provide for exactly the opposite conclusion. So he got it wrong. Which rule should apply? Why not allow the golfer the benefit of the rule that militates in his favor? When I happened to mention all of this to the rules official after the round was over, even showing him the relevant rule in the book (my son keeps a copy in his bag; he's a born lawyer) that provides for the conclusion opposite the one he declared on the course , the official became quite agitated. He said that I was ignoring the spirit of the game and was arguing for bad sportsmanship and that we (adults) need to set a better example for these young men and women.

Evidently, one possible definition of when a ball is "lost" (that allows someone to play the provisional ball for the rest of the hole) includes where someone plays the provisional and refuses to keep looking for the original wayward ball.

The story is humorous to me (and tragic in a small-scale sort of way for the kid who lost the tournament) because it highlights a funny phenomenon of people who agree to be officials/referees/umpires for junior athletics. It brings me back to high school soccer and the dads who would hike up their socks and shorts and call the game like their life depended upon it, all the while failing to realize that they had missed 90% of the kicks to the crotch or elbows to the face that happened as soon as they turned away their attention.

In sum, it's funny how these junior officials are more unwilling than any other official to bend the rules (or be open to other "interpretations" of the rules) for purposes of equity.

The unfunny part is putting a kid through the stress of an event like this only to have some stickler for the "correct" interpretation of the rules play a significant part in the outcome of the tournament. It makes me wonder whether putting kids through the stress of these types of events is worth it when the level of officiating is inevitably unsophisticated and draconic. My initial response is that it probably isn't worth it unless the kid has enough of a sense of humor to laugh off such ridiculous situations. And, on the other hand, perhaps the value of such events is that it forces kids to develop a sense of humor about such ridiculous situations that are sure to encounter them throughout life.

Or maybe the lesson is like those Centennial Wireless commercials - always have your lawyer ready to interpret the rule. There would probably be a fair amount of attorneys who would take such a gig so long as they could play a few holes themselves and get paid upwards of $50/hour.

Janet Evans vs. Mustapha: My Money's on Janet

2009-07-30T15:05:00.007-05:00

Janet Evans, the queen of American distance swimming, is more than a little ticked to see 29 world records fall at the World Championships in Rome - especially when the swimming isn't over yet. Here's a summary of Evans' position in an AP story:

Janet Evans, one of swimming's greatest stars, said Wednesday she was deeply troubled by the controversy over high-tech suits and believes it threatens to make "a mockery of the sport."

. . .

Evans reserved her harshest comments for FINA, saying it should put the swimmers' interests first and quit catering to swimsuit companies that are mainly concerned with improving their share of the marketplace. She just recently completed a stint with the organization as chair of the athletes commission and said many of her suggestions "fell on deaf ears."

"The fact that FINA can do this is making a mockery of these times and these swimmers," she said. "It doesn't put the athletes first, and that's the most important thing at the end of the day."

If pressed on the issue, I'm sure Evans would second the statement made by Alain Bernard right after FINA stripped him of his 100M free world record (remember FINA said basically all swimsuits were fine except for the one Arena swimsuit that Bernard had worn to set a new world record in the 100M free a few months ago):

FINA's positions are contradictory and impossible to understand.

What else would you expect from an organization that was run by a guy named Mustapha for 21 years (now Julio Maglione is at the helm)? As a final note, in spite of Evans' five foot five frame, I think she'd have no trouble laying the lumber on Mustapha. Just look at the guy!

Who knows, maybe they can even get UFC on board to organize the fight. I'm thinking Mustapha drops faster than the 14 seconds Seth Petruzelli needed for Kimbo Slice.

Saints Week: Brees' Guantanamo Comments, Houser's Involuntary Bankruptcy Petition

2009-07-29T23:29:00.005-05:00

Nola.com is lighting up with multiple new stories about the Saints. The two that I found most interesting were Drew Brees' comments after visiting Guantanamo Bay and Kevin Houser's filing a petition for involuntary bankruptcy against Louisiana Film Studios. Let's explore each of these.

Evidently, Brees has alienated a number of Saints fans by implying that Guantanamo Bay is kiddie prison. Here's the now infamous comments:

I can say this after that experience -- the worst thing we can do is shut that baby down, for a lot of reasons. . . . But I think there's a big misconception as to how we are treating those prisoners; those detainees over there. They are being treated probably 10 times better than any prisoner in a U.S. prison.

. . .

I mean, they're allowed to call and write letters home, and receive letters and calls. They get five opportunities a day to pray, and they have arrows in the prison pointing towards where Mecca is. And the prison goes dead silent so these guys can have their religious time. They have rooms where they can watch movies and play Nintendo Wii. So I think that just goes ahead and says it right there.

. . .

And you just talk to all the guards that are Army and Navy personnel, they'll tell you stories about how these prisoners, they'll be walking the cell blocks as they're keeping an eye on these guys and they'll be throwing the feces and urine in the faces of the guards as they walk by and the guards are not allowed to do anything. They're not allowed to physically retaliate or do anything hardly to try to restrain these guys at all. These guys get away with whatever they want.

The intrigue of the story for me lay not in Brees' comments but, rather, in the various responses from irate Saints fans. Take this one from stujo4:

I'm calling BS big time
Drew, you are a smart guy. They don’t let celebrity guests tour the Gitmo dungeons and torture chambers. Did you think that maybe they’d like you to spread some favorable propaganda for them (“The detainees are happy, well fed and well treated. Hell I’m taking my next vacation at Gitmo!”) ? Use your head, man. 6500 calories my a[@@].

Here's another from TAYDIGGA:

wow Drew...
Im sure Drew’s political views inspired these comments but sounds like propaganda to me. “6500 calories?” Stick to football Drew throw td’s not BS.

It always intrigues me why sports fans care so much about the politics of the sports figures that they idolize. Further, it's bizarre to me that this caring by fans exists on two levels. First, they expect their sports hero to speak eloquently about an issue. While I find Brees to be more eloquent than most of his colleagues, football players are not exactly paid for the amount of political adeptness that they acquire. Second, fans expect their sports heroes to agree with them politically on every issue. Personally, I think it is more fun when they disagree. At least it serves as a reality check and keeps me from irrationally attaching my lips to their backside (Vic the Brick has proven on many an occasion how detrimental that can be by permanently affixing his lips to both Kobe and Manny's buttocks).

I guess what I'm trying to say is that I think that Brees is an interesting guy, but my interest in him as the QB of the Saints is exclusive of whether I agree with him politically or not, which does not seem to be the case for some fans. In other words, I'm not going to follow in the footsteps of TAYDIGGA and tell Brees to shut up if I don't agree with him - I'll just choose to give the appropriate amount of deference that it deserves.

As for the second issue, this involuntary bankruptcy petition looks like a good one. Here's the quick run-down provided by Alan Sayre:

A film studio executive who never repaid $1.9 million he took from New Orleans Saints players and others paid $452,000 to settle a dispute over another failed investment, court records show.

Wayne Read took money from New Orleans Saints players that was supposed to be used for an investment and paid off other debts, according to court records.
Wayne Read, chief executive of Louisiana Film Studios LLC, paid Dr. Spiro Gerolimatos on Jan. 21 -- nearly three weeks after he raised $1.9 million for a Louisiana movie tax credit deal.

Now Houser, the Saints former long-snapper who was terminated because of the incident (but has subsequently found employment with the Seahawks), filed a petition with Scott Shanle and Mitch Berger for involuntary bankruptcy against Louisiana Film Studios and Wayne Read.

What has resulted is a great film script in itself (who knows, maybe that's how Read will have to pay off his creditors) - the FBI is investigating, the state is mad because Read abused its tax credit system, and the guy behind all the crooked deeds just looks creepy. Don't believe me - take a look at him. Almost sounds like this movie (in a round about way):

Regardless, this Houser drama is great stuff that just can't be made up. My only commentary on the issue is that I can't get enough of this craziness. I'll be interested to hear what the bankruptcy judge determines in the first hearing on the case this Friday.

Michael Phelps Wants Swimming to Be Swimming Again: Does That Mean He's Planning to Swim Naked?

2009-07-28T21:16:00.005-05:00

I find it laughable when top athletes and their coaches belly-ache after that athlete's dominance is challenged on even a single occasion. Enter Michael Phelps. Fresh off of a spanking in the 200 free applied firmly by Paul Biedermann, Phelps let it all hang out. What did he say?

Here's the priceless quote:

"It's going to be fun next year," he said, "when swimming is back to swimming."

Of course, Phelps is alluding to the fact that FINA has banned the Arena X-Glide, Biedermann's suit, starting in 2010. Is Phelps really all that concerned about the purity of the sport?

Paul Newberry, the author of the AP article is right on in the following passage - lobbing a hypocrite grenade at Phelps and his coach Bob Bowman:

[Bowman] went off on FINA for allowing swimsuit technology to get out of hand — a race for speed that, interestingly enough, actually started in February 2008 when Speedo introduced the LZR, the very suit Phelps is paid a great deal of money to endorse.

The very suit that now looks like a slowpoke alongside fully rubberized suits such as the X-Glide and Jaked.

So now, I implore Phelps to make good on his desire to bring swimming back to its roots. Please go all East German and take a naked splash in Dubai next year. Even if the local authorities lock you up for indecent exposure (although it's likely to be more severe in Dubai - with something getting chopped off that is probably not your hand), you would have stayed true to your word - making swimming swimming again rather than a neoprene disguised arms race. Also, I'm sure there's a few ladies in the US who would be there to console you on your release from prison after they watched the au naturale swimming footage on TMZ.

Secession - Nebraska?

2009-07-28T11:22:00.007-05:00

Nebraska legislators are showing that the movement to be free of the federal government's golden handcuffs is not something that can easily be tied to racial or North/South politics.

While only three senators have banded together and will seek to assert 10th Amendment objections to recent attempts by the feds to broaden their power even further.

The article in the Omaha World-Herald states that the move, at least at the current time, is not one seeking secession:

“My goal here is to shine light on the fact that the federal government is overstepping its bounds,” said State Sen. Tony Fulton of Lincoln. “We would be making a statement on behalf of Nebraska.”

. . .

Critics say the current measures amount to little more than political posturing — passing resolutions doesn't mean that states refuse to comply with federal law or send back federal funds that come with mandates.

And, of course, everyone who "objects" to this movement by several states is trying to tie this to slavery. Take this quote from the article:

State Sen. Bill Avery of Lincoln said the proposals sound disturbingly similar to the states' rights arguments made in defense of racial segregation and laws blocking blacks from voting.

“The history of this movement is rife with racism in the name of states' rights,” he said. “I'm not saying that the people making the case now are racist, but I don't think Nebraska needs to be getting in bed with these kinds of resolutions.”

However, the fact that states like Nebraska have people willing to object on 10th Amendment grounds should be evidence to people like Sen. Avery that the objections are not founded upon race. Also, while detractors like Avery keep trying to pigeonhole the argument, they underestimate just how frustrated most of the country is with shouldering the effects of reckless government spending.

I predict two things will happen as more resolutions like this get passed. First, it will encourage more states to pass resolutions and more legislators to join in in each of those states. Second, if enough states do pass such resolutions, it is not unthinkable in my mind that one of them does contemplate secession - such a second step was implied by Gov. Perry's comments a few months ago. The bottom line is, there's nothing like taxes to bring people together. And there's nothing that has quite the same power as taxes to galvanize a group of people breaking away from a strong centralized government.

If the equivalents of Avery in the federal government were wise, they would try to address these taxation/spending issues before many more states adopt resolutions like Nebraska. Because, if it does get to the point where states are trying to secede (even though that would be a long way down the road), such actions would surely not be bloodless. But by refusing to take the issue seriously and simply casting those opposing some of this latest spending as "teabaggers" or "racists" rather than addressing the underlying concerns seriously, legislators like Avery aren't doing anyone any favors.

2009 Saints Predictions

2009-07-26T13:31:00.020-05:00

With training camps underway and the NFL season right around the corner, I thought now would be as good a time as any to make a few predictions about what is in store for the 2009 version of the Saints.

1. The Saints will win the division

While John Kasay's last minute field goal against the Saints last season ended the worst to first streak in the NFC South, I don't see why that streak won't be revived this year. For those that aren't aware of the worst to first tradition of the NFC South, the team that finished last in the NFC South went on to win the division each year from 2002 (when the NFC South began) until last year when the Falcons fell one game short of continuing the tradition.

Of course, this means that things don't look good for the Panthers or the Falcons, regardless of what the experts say. Don't be surprised to see Matty Ice Ryan go from heralded rookie to slumping sophomore. Anyone who actually took the time to look at his stats from last season shouldn't be surprised.

Ryan had a pedestrian 16 touchdown/11 interception ratio and a respectable but not stellar 3400 passing yards. Add to that the fact that most of the offensive firepower was from Burner Turner and there is a recipe for sophomore slump even with the addition of Tony Gonzalez.

As for the Panthers, last year John Fox was on the hottest of hot seats. With a little more leeway after winning the division last season, expect the Panthers to perform poorly with Julius "I want a trade but can't get one" Peppers having closer to 2.5 sacks than 14 and Jake Delhomme performing more like he did in the playoff loss to Arizona than during last regular season.

2. Adrian Arrington will catch more than 50 passes

All the buzz at the Saints training camp last season was Adrian Arrington as the next Marques Colston. That is, until Arrington went down for the season with a toe injury. Expect Arrington to get some of the catches that went to Lance Moore last season. Consequently, expect Moore's numbers to suffer a bit from the Saints having another monster receiver on the field.

3. Pierre Thomas will rush for over 1000 yards

Everybody has been overlooking Thomas as a capable rusher. Instead, the talk once again has focused on Deuce (and his release from the team) and Reggie Bush not living up to the hype. But take a look at Thomas' production last season, in spite of Sean Payton making Bush the primary back through the first four games of the season.

Also, people have been bagging on Thomas as not being an effective short-yardage guy. However, this was more the result of Payton only making limited use of Thomas in the early part of last season in short yardage situations. Also, don't forget that much of the perception about Thomas' short yardage abilities was based on this one play in Denver where Thomas was stopped on third and one.

Problem was, as the picture shows, that the Broncos were offsides. With or without the Saints adding a bruising third down back, the Saints running production will be much better if Payton realizes that Thomas should be the feature back and Bush should be relegated to a Devin Hester specialist role.

4. Drew Brees will get injured

I'm not sure how badly he will get injured, but I've got that feeling he is going to go down for at least a couple of weeks. The past couple of years, just about the entire Saints squad has missed time due to injuries with the exception of Brees. His luck runs out this year, but the difference will be that Gregg Williams' defensive scheme will keep the Saints on the winning course during that period of time - unlike the Gary "I'd rather sit in prevent defense all game except for the couple of times I use super-obvious blitzes" Gibbs' coached defense. By the way, any Chiefs fan who thinks that Kansas City will turn things around quickly will soon learn the pain of having a Gibbs defensive mindset and how it dooms a team to defeat.

5. Bobby McCray will have 10 or more sacks

Under the much-maligned, far too passive defense of Gary Gibbs, McCray managed to scrounge up six sacks last season. With Charles Grant and Will Smith probably set to miss time by serving their suspensions, McCray is going to get a chance to shine in a much more aggressive defense. His combination of size, speed, and quickness will ensure that McCray is the primary recipient of the revamped defense and might even get in the discussions for defensive player of the year.

Well, there's my predictions. All of you are welcome to rub my face in them if and when some or all of them don't come true - although I wouldn't mind if I'm wrong about #4.

Jason Whitlock on Erin Andrews

2009-07-23T11:40:00.019-05:00

Earlier this week, I came down pretty hard on Jason Whitlock's critique of golf and Tom Watson. While I wanted my next post on Whitlock to say that he had gotten something oh so right (as he has done so many times in the past), after reading his latest article at foxsports.com I simply couldn't bring myself to saying that he had gotten it right.<br

Rather than trying to tackle the Erin Andrews invasion of privacy issue with any degree of sophistication, he brings his indiscriminate hammer - call it his Thor hammer if you like - and starts hammering away at Deadspin. Here's Whitlock's central claim:

Surely by now you've heard. Someone secretly videotaped Erin Andrews while she was nude at a hotel(s) curling her hair and ironing her clothes. TMZ.com speculated rather persuasively the Zapruder in this fiasco might very well be one of Andrews' co-workers.
The video had been available (and ignored) on the Internet for months, but gained popularity this week when the influential Web site Deadspin wrote a post on the subject and linked to the Web site hosting the Andrews peephole footage.
Deadspin has been the world-wide leader in sexually objectifying Erin Andrews (ESPN actually trails Deadspin in this category) and in invading the privacy of athletes and members of the sports media, so it is not all that surprising that its editor, AJ Daulerio, would throw the match on gasoline poured by a peephole pervert.

For the rest of the article, Whitlock basically says that it's all Deadspin's fault that the incident occurred. Of course, Whitlock is in no way affected by Deadspin taking aim at him on multiple occasions.

In its response to criticisms like Whitlock, Will Leitch at Deadspin makes several good points in an article he posted on Tuesday. Here's the thesis of the article:

In the wake of the awful video that hit the Web over the weekend — actually, it had been hanging around for months, apparently, but no one had seen it — everyone is pointing fingers. It's blogs' fault for objectifying her. It's fans' fault for often caring more about what happens off the field than on. It's ESPN's fault for not strangling this story in the crib when they had the chance. (And they did.) It's her fault. It's our sports culture's fault. It's the fault of the thin walls of a lousy hotel.

None of these things are true, of course, and all of them are. Obviously, the fault lies in the a[@@]bag who shot the video in the first place, something this person has made a habit of, ultimately stumbling on someone in the public arena. (Let there be no doubt, though: This could happen to you, your wife, your girlfriend, your daughter. These slugs exist because it's impossible to find a way to kill them all.)

Next, he goes on to speculate why the video has even caught the interest of those in the sports world. To be honest, I didn't know a whole ton about Andrews outside of her being called out for the way she dressed in MLB clubhouses and being the object of Rey Maualuga's nasty dance. I hadn't realized, and have a lot of respect for her upon learning, that she had refused the easy way of advancing her career by posing nude. Here's Leitch's commentary:

But it's more than that, obviously. That's the reason we're all here and talking about it, aren't we? This is not just any sideline reporter snoop video. It's Erin Andrews. If this is Holly Rowe, or Jill Arrington, or Michele Tafoya, this story is over in a day, if it even goes that far. But it wasn't. It was Erin Andrews. She was not called America's Sideline Sex Object: She was called America's Sideline Princess. Lisa Guerrero posed for Playboy. Jamie Little models when she's not updating us on NASCAR. Andrews was never like that. She was a sideline reporter, and a busy one, sloughing through West Lafayette and regularly traveling with Brent Musburger. It would have been shocking to see her do so much as a photo shoot.

But that doesn't really matter, does it? It's not like Jamie Little or Lisa Guerrero would deserve a snoop cam video any more than Erin Andrews did. No, the reason the video has gained such traction, and the reason everyone is so upset — and I can assure you, I've yet to talk to a single person, blogger, blog reader, ESPN employee, sideline reporter, upright walking normal human being, who wasn't profoundly disturbed by this — is because we all felt somewhat complicit with Andrews. Everyone felt like they knew her. They didn't, of course. But everyone with an interest in the world of sports was present for her rise. When the stills from the video hit the New York Post this morning, it is very likely that 95 percent of their readership were seeing her name for the first time. (Suddenly, Nick Denton cares about sports!) It's all out of everybody's hands now. The toothpaste is out of the tube.

I believe Leitch's "apology" in objectifying Andrews (which follows the above-quoted passage) about as much as Whitlock does - which says I don't. However, credit must be given to Deadspin for at least placing the blame where it is deserved, on the guy who made the video, and for giving a little more insight into why this video exploded the way it did. Maybe everyone but me already knew that, but inasmuch as it gave me a little more insight, I appreciated it.

As a final note, it's amusing to see how Deadspin and Whitlock never get tired of going back and forth at each other.

Bobby Jindal: Stirring Things Up

2009-07-22T22:25:00.002-05:00

After retreating from the national eye after his ill-received rebuttal to Pres. Obama's state of the union address, Bobby Jindal has returned with an op-ed at the Wall Street Journal that has people talking.

Here's a sampling of the opinions. First, those that think Jindal's ideas are crazy. First up is Lincoln Mitchell from The Huffington Post. He says that Jindal's article is nothing more than the rhetoric of Dan Quayle. The cornerstone of the empty rhetoric, Mitchell claims, is labeling the health care bill as socialist:

Labeling any program seeking to use public resources to help poor people or provide opportunity to more Americans as socialist has been a tactic employed by many Republicans and no small number of conservative Democrats over the years. It has at times been quite effective. In this regard, Quayle, Jindal and others in the Republican leadership are not employing a new strategy. To the contrary, they are relying on a the same tactic conservatives used more than 40 years ago to fight against Medicare, and more than 70 years ago to fight against Social Security. Labeling any progressive program socialist remains a tried and true conservative tactic, but in the 21st century it feels almost quaint and seems to have little power to move voters outside of the Republican base. One cannot help but wonder if this message, and these messengers, are the best the Republicans can find.

However, others take a more aggressive angle on Jindal. For example, Barbara O'Brien claims that the article is all "word salad" and "pathetic." In essence, she states that Jindal is an insurance shill because he uses statistics gathered by the Lewin Group. She also provides a link to a point-by-point comparison of the Lewin Group's findings with CBO estimates.

Last, Perrspectives reduces the article as nothing more than Jindal parroting Karl Rove. Of course, the article's contention is that adoption of a public option as part of the health care system will not result in 100 million people leaving private health care plans.

After reading all of these criticisms, I still think that Chris Good has the most perceptive analysis of the article over at The Atlantic. Rather than fight with Jindal over the particular statistics involved or get into a name-calling match reducing him to nothing more than an insurance industry shill, Good notes how Jindal's article was important because it presents a different type of discourse over between the Republicans and Democrats over the health care issue. In particular, he contrasts Jindal's style with that of RNC chairman Steele:

Unlike the much-criticized Steele, Jindal is a policy guy. This week, he's stepped into the role of high-profile GOP spokesman, a typically political role, and his attacks on Democrats' efforts have been broad and political. But as a guy who can talk policy, he carries more gravitas than Steele or DeMint, and he isn't afraid to verge into wonkishness.

The reason that I like Good's analysis is that he focuses on precisely what was lacking in the Republican/Democrat sparring over Obama's health care plan before Jindal's articles (and what has been lacking for the most part in Republican commentary on the issue) - trying to back up political stances with actual cold-hard policy, including use of statistics. After all, the only way to make progress on either side of the debate is to tie it to empirical data and find out what really works rather than debating the issue at the 10,000 foot level by couching the debate in terms of general notions of fairness and justice and unverified anecdotal references. That's why I think that Lincoln Mitchell misses the boat in trying to reduce the article to a rhetorical attack and why I think that O'Brien's article is productive inasmuch as she acknowledges that the key is confronting the empirical data and trying to actually determine what it is saying.

Whether the Democrats like it or not, they are going to have to confront Jindal's policy criticisms and further the debate along specific policy lines. In other words, if Pres. Obama wants to get the health care bill passed, he is going to have to refute the specific arguments that Jindal and people like him are making. Merely cheerleading the bill in general terms is not going to convince Democrats opposing the bill to get behind it when their doubts are precisely about the issues that Jindal addressed. Inasmuch as Jindal decided to engage the health care debate in the way that he did and the fact that it has led to countless criticism and praise, Jindal has at least done one thing - reposition himself in the national spotlight in a big way.

Posner, Law Schools, And Recovery From Economic Downturn

2009-07-21T09:42:00.001-05:00

Richard A. Posner, federal judge, has an intriguing post on his blog discussing the possibility of law schools playing a major role in digging out of the current economic downturn - if law schools are willing to rethink their current structure.

Posner's thesis is relatively simple but also compelling. He identifies the following problem with the current law school structure:

Increasingly, in imitation of more conventional academic disciplines, legal academics are expected to focus the research component of their work (and this inevitably influences the teaching component) on specialized research the results of which are publishable in academic journals read mainly by other academics in the author's specialized subfield. The preparatiion and publication of such research are time-consuming endeavors and therefore are ill adapted to responding constructively to rapidly evolving current issues, especially ones that cross disciplinary and subdisciplinary boundaries.

Posner notes that the problem, in essence, is that some of the brightest minds that should be able contribute their understanding toward solving some of these problems are unable to do so because they are wasting their time trying to solve some unsolvable constitutional law conundrum. While constitutional law is important, getting lifted up high in the constitutional firmament might not be what society most needs at the current time.

Even better is Posner's proposition for possible areas of research that would best contribute to resolving current issues with the economic crisis. Here's that list:

1. Whether, given the economic emergency presented by the collapse of the global banking industry last September, Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke is right in claiming that the Federal Reserve lacked legal authority to save Lehman Brothers, which was at or near the center of the crisis. (I have touched on this issue briefly in a previous blog entry.)

2. Whether a bankruptcy judge should be permitted to cram down the mortgage on a primary residence (that is, reduce the mortgage to the current market value of the mortgage property).

3. In a bankruptcy, should government bailout loans be given priority over claims of secured creditors?

4. Is there any constitutional limitation on the federal government's abrogating a private contract, for example a contractual obligation to pay bonuses to employee of AIG?

5. In cases in which the depression prevents a firm from honoring a contract, can it ever appeal to such doctrines of contract law as impossibility and frustration, or to such common contractual provisions as force majeure clauses and material adverise conditions clauses, to be excused from performance without incurring legal liability for nonperformance?

6. Should bankruptcy law be amended, with respect to the bankruptcy of financial institutions, to bring it closer to the "resolution" procedure by which the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation winds up the affairs of banks that go broke. Were that done, would resolution still be a superior method of dealing with bankrupt financial institutions (not limited to banks)?

A virtual cornucopia of law review topics - I hope at least a few professors decide to take up some of these issues.

WWV: Weekly Workout Video

2009-07-20T23:02:00.003-05:00

This montage shouldn't need much justification as it is more relevant now than ever. Although Rocky IV is important for single-handedly ending the Cold War, the training ethics demonstrated in the montage are equally excellent. Rocky's raw training contrasts well with the current era of asterisks when athletic team owners are conducting their own arms races within their respective sports.

Sport success has become more a result of controlling resources (monetary, doping, technological doping, even media control - see the BCS) rather than a combination of talent and hard-work. Although the owners and many media commentators who rarely have participated in any sport and who are motivated purely by financial incentives may prefer that predictability, this scene (although somewhat cheesy) captures effectively the true ethos of sport. I personally think the Rocky series (minus #5) should be mandatory viewing for any aspiring athlete, regardless of age, gender, etc..

While I'm up on my virtual soapbox I think I'll make one last point. Phaeton posted earlier about media sycophants/critics and their inability to grasp simple fundamental points concerning athletic achievement. After reading the post I reminded myself of a famous but oft-ignored quote from the 26th president of the United States that I read to keep myself in check:

"It is not the critic who counts: not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles or where the doer of deeds could have done better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly, who errs and comes up short again and again, because there is no effort without error or shortcoming, but who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself for a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows, in the end, the triumph of high achievement, and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least he fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."

Theodore Roosevelt "Citizenship in a Republic,"
Speech at the Sorbonne, Paris, April 23, 1910

A rather accurate indictment of the sports-industrial complex.

If you are not pumped by the clip and ready to wrastle an alligator or two then there is no hope and this pic is for you:

Jason Whitlock: Wrong About Golf, Wrong About Tom Watson

2009-07-19T17:56:00.000-05:00

Jason Whitlock was probably a little sullen that Tom Watson wasn't able to pull of the unthinkable at Turnberry today. Now he won't be justified in dwelling on the subject of whether golf is a sport for another week because Stewart Cink isn't nearly as old as Watson.

In his article at the Kansas City Star, Whitlock is dead wrong in his conclusions about both whether golf is a sport and whether Tom Watson laying the smack down on most of the field at Turnberry was bad for the sport.

First, whether golf is a sport. Here is Whitlock's rehashing of his buddy's argument that golf is a skill rather than a sport:

[T]here is no other legitimate sport in which a 60-year-old could slay a field of 30-somethings. Is golf more an activity (fishing and hunting) than sport (tennis and swimming)?

My good friend Greg Couch, a sports writer for Fanhouse .com, argued this point with me on the radio recently when I hosted Jim Rome’s radio show. Couch called golf a “skill.” I was incensed. I’m a huge Tiger Woods homer and was offended Couch wouldn’t recognize Tiger as an athlete.

Couch conceded that Tiger was an athlete. But he said lots of athletes enjoy activities such as golf, hunting, fishing and darts.

I lost the debate.

This argument is garbage for three reasons. First, as I mentioned in my Tiger Woods posting a couple of days ago, just because something requires skill does not make it not a sport. Under the "Whitlock analysis via Couch," the only sports would be the pure sports (ie, Olympic sports) because there is limited to no skill involved. Whether someone wins the track and field mile at the Olympics does involve some skill, but it is only de minimis. In fact, the sport that would triumph supreme would be Olympic weightlifting. The only "skill" involved there is making sure that you don't break your arm on the lift (remember this?).

Second, this argument presupposes that other people Whitlock assumes to be athletes (including his overweight self) could perform the athletic requirements of a round of golf. I honestly wonder if Whitlock or a big bruiser like Vince Wilfork could walk 18 holes without even having to hit any golf shots.

The third problem with Whitlock's argument is that it dooms the average person to only feeling validated by watching sports where unimpeded aerobic tolerance or muscle development is the key to victory. I guess it's okay to endorse sports like running or cycling where guys are routinely busted for drug violations or sports like football where, even when they are busted for drug violations, federal judges that are so smitten by those muscles that they insist on putting injunctions on the suspensions (remember I'm a Saints fan and, as far as I know, have never been accused of arbitrarily hating on Deuce, Will Smith, or Charles Grant).

However, I don't think that Whitlock truly believes his argument - notice how he ends his article by bemoaning the fact that Tiger Woods was eliminated from the tournament. In my analysis, golf is a sport that has one of the best balances of skill, raw strength, and endurance. Also, the British Open is the venue where that combination is best shown because Mother Nature plays such a large role. Instead of slamming golf, perhaps Whitlock should be questioning Woods' approach to playing Turnberry: maybe Woods didn't prepare enough, maybe Woods' swing has devolved so much under Hank Haney the past couple of years he doesn't play as well as he used to on links courses, etc.

And if Whitlock really wanted to question the good of Watson's performance, he would have questioned whether someone can return from hip surgery to play competitive golf at a high level without the assistance of PEDs like HGH. I don't know the average recovery time for hip replacement, but a full recovery after only six months does seem rather quick.

But, instead, the big boy took the easy road by spewing out his non-reflexive contempt for the game when he knew something went wrong with Woods missing the cut but couldn't muster up the gall to place that failure squarely on Woods' lack of execution.

Jack Hunter on H.R. 1207 Federal Reserve Transparency Act

2009-07-18T22:09:00.001-05:00

Mark Levin's new arch-nemesis Jack Hunter has compiled a good summary of the posturing inside the Republican party before Ron Paul's submission of HR 1207 and the subsequent bipartisan support that the bill has gained in the House and the similar support its sister bill in the Senate has garnered. Here's the video that goes along with Hunter's article.

It is funny how much difference a year makes. Last year Paul was made fun of by both parties as a kook and a crank. Now, both parties are enthusiastically supporting his bill for more transparency with the fed. After watching this, I'm going to add Jim Demint to my list with Alan Grayson as interesting politicians I need to do more research on.

More American Needle

2009-07-18T22:02:00.000-05:00

Lester Munson does a good job at ESPN.com with a thought experiment on the possible implications of the Supreme Court deciding in favor of the NFL. Here is the pertinent passage:

Fast forward to a high-definition picture of sports late in 2010. Here is the news of the day, scrawling across the bottom of your TV screen or mobile Web device:

• LeBron James, who had been expecting a free-agency bonanza when his contract with the Cleveland Cavaliers expired after the 2009-2010 season, opens the 2010-11 season with … the Cavs, the only team with the right to sign him. Cleveland retains the NBA MVP by slotting his salary into the new league-wide scale.

• Minnesota Vikings defensive coordinator Leslie Frazier, the hottest commodity for every opening in the NFL over the past six months, signs on to be the new head coach of the Dallas Cowboys … at a league-determined salary that will pay him far less than he'd have made if the Denver Broncos had chosen him over Josh McDaniels in 2009.

• The Ricketts family, new owner of the Chicago Cubs, scraps plans for its own cable channel because Major League Baseball has barred all such broadcasts, as well as webcasts, by individual teams.

• A young Detroit Red Wings fan who has saved his pennies for months shells out $300 to buy a replica sweater that would have cost him $80 in 2009.

• Lockouts and strikes loom large in all four major team sports as an era of relative peace on the sports labor front ends and owners begin to exercise their new power over player unions.

Unlikely?

Discouraging?

It could happen.

While the chances of all of the possibilities on this list occurring if the Supreme Court decides in favor of the NFL are not very good, I do think that the lockouts possibility is very likely particularly in light of the apparent lack of progress in negotiating a new CBA for the NFL. 2011 is not that far away. Tick, tick, tick . . .

Irrational Tiger Woods Fans

2009-07-18T00:45:00.000-05:00

I've always loved watching Tiger Woods play golf (when he's playing golf and not dropping f-bombs or screaming at photographers or throwing his clubs after a bad shot), but that's because I love good golfers playing golf. That's also why I appreciate watching other golfers who play well from time to time - such as the oft-mentioned Mark Wilson.

However, there is a contingent of Tiger Woods crazies. It's those people that Woods probably even finds annoying. You know who I'm talking about. These guys scream "Get in the hole!" after each of his tee shots, and they always reduce golf to nothing more than Woods.

All of these people are up in arms over the fact that Woods missed the cut in the British Open today. Of course, they always declare that the rest of the tournament is not interesting if Woods isn't in it, and how could anybody suffer watch a tournament once TW has been eliminated.

A unique spin that I had not heard from this group until today was Doug Gottlieb's saying (no I don't have a link to his show from today because ESPN makes it impossible to find all the segments) that this proves that golf is not a sport. How, you might ask? Because Tiger Woods is obviously the greatest of all time and he was beaten by a 59-year-old Tom Watson with a freshly replaced hip. And obviously anything where you can be good at that age means it's not a sport. He compounded his point by saying that golf is nothing more than the World Series of Poker because it's all skill.

Which brings me to two points. If golf is not a sport and requires no physical acumen, why did everyone praise Woods for winning the US Open last year on one good leg at Torrey Pines. I don't have Gottlieb's take on that, but I'm sure he put in a few good words for TW back then. Also, his dismissal of golf as a sport because guys aren't over 250 lbs and can compete after they turn 40 to me comes across as everything that is bad about the average sports fan. It's that sort of mentality that continues to fuel complacency about guys taking performance enhancing drugs. If the name of the game is that it doesn't count unless you are some beefy superhuman, then anyone who tries to stay within the confines of a steroidless body will never be good enough. The fact that guys can be good at golf at 59 shows the strength of golf - that even if you do take steroids it won't necessarily turn you into a dominant player because so many other factors (particularly putting) combine skill with the brute strength other areas of the sport demand that football and basketball fall short of. Isn't some of the beauty of baseball the fact that it has a lot of skill involved to where somebody like Greg Maddux, who most think didn't take steroids, could still be a very effective pitcher after 35?

The other point Gottlieb's jibber jabber made me think about is how guys like Scott Van Pelt argue that it is dumb to say that Jack Nicklaus was better than Tiger Woods because the competition against Nicklaus was so much stronger. What I say to them is if Tom Watson can beat Tiger Woods at age 59, I wonder how much he would have beaten him in his prime?

While I enjoy watching Tiger play, I do think he's way overrated. Golf isn't all about having huge muscles and intimidating the other guys in your group with childish antics so that you win almost as much from distracting them as by outplaying them. Take, for example, the different effect that Sergio Garcia had upon guys in his group than Tiger Woods did. Sergio's group all made the cut, including the youngest player in the field and the oldest player in the field. Sergio even gave a motivational kick in the pants to Watson that was part of the reason that Watson got back on track on the ninth hole.

What did Tiger do? His club throwing and ranting, I believe, was a big factor in Ryo Ishikawa not making the cut. And while Westwood ended up two under, my bet is that he will play much better without having to put up with Tiger's club throwing during the weekend.

Wild Score Card: Gaganjeet Bhullar

2009-07-17T01:49:00.000-05:00

Is this not the craziest scorecard you have ever seen? I don't think I would have believed it if I had not seen it for myself. How do you possibly get a triple bogey and a double bogey in the same round and only end up one over for the round?

The scorecard belongs to Gaganjeet Bhullar for his first round of the British Open. Bhullar started hot on his second round, playing one under through the first four holes to get his score back to even par for the championship. His scorecard doesn't look nearly as interesting for this round, but I'm sure Gaganjeet doesn't mind one bit.

IOC to Kuwait: Shape Up or Ship Out

2009-07-16T23:18:00.000-05:00

None of the news releases documenting the ongoing spat between Kuwait and the IOC have been all that informative in specifying what are the particular laws and/or rules at issue in Kuwait that are interfering with the IOC's jurisdiction. However, the IOC seems to have had enough based on a piece in The Washington Post and is ready to start taking punitive actions against Kuwait if things don't turn around to Jacques Rogge's liking rather quickly. Here's what The Washington Post had to say about the issue:

Kuwait was prepared to amend a law threatening the autonomy of its sports organizations and putting the country at risk of suspension from the Olympic movement, the International Olympic Committee said on Wednesday.

The IOC has tried for two years to find a solution with authorities over the independent operation of Kuwait's National Olympic Committee (NOC) and the country's sports bodies but previously said deadlines had repeatedly not been respected.

However, following a "fruitful" meeting between Kuwaiti authorities and the IOC in Lausanne on Wednesday, the two sides have agreed to settle the issue by December 31.

As best as I can gather from this article and a few others, the issue appears to be that under current law in Kuwait, the government can interfere with who is elected to positions in Kuwait's national olympic committee. The IOC doesn't like it because they want these olympic comittees in each country to be independent from state contol.

With the current state of Kuwait athletics, this might actually be a good thing. A couple of years ago when they had gotten utterly irrelevant in soccer, FIFA put them on suspension for the same reason that the IOC is seeking to put them on suspension. And based upon the number of athletes that they put into the Beijing Olympics, it doesn't look like they competed for most medals won. Last I counted, they had the following eight athletes at Beijing:

Judo: Talal El-Enezi; Shooting: Abdullah Alrashidi; Nasser Al-Mugled; Zaid Almutairi; Swimming: Mohammed Madoo; Table Tennis: Ibrahim Alhassan; Track & Field/Athletics: Mohammed Alazemi; Ali Zenkawi.

But ultimately why I found this story interesting enough to write about is that I think it's one more step in the transition from the Olympics being the controlling sporting venue for sports like swimming and cycling and such to the Asian Games controlling that venue. I don't know if there's much to evaluate from this shift in power other than the IOC better be careful how hard it pushes the Middle Eastern countries on issues like these. If those countries decide they've had enough, the amount of money they can expend on the Asian Games alone (along with the reduced amount of regulations that Asian Games participants have to deal with) might make it more attractive for top tier talent - which would essentially be the death knell for the Olympics. Maybe that wouldn't be such a bad thing. At least they recognize golf as a sport.

Follow-Up to Grayson

2009-07-15T23:41:00.000-05:00

One reason that I appreciated the Grayson interrogation enough to post it was that he seems to be one of the few lawmakers genuinely concerned that trillions of dollars are getting spent and that nobody knows where it's going. Nobody knows, of course, except for the fat cats actually getting paid off.

So it should come as no surprise when Inspector General Elizabeth Coleman hasn't been investigating where the payments are going to that the entity with the biggest conflict of interest with the TARP money, Goldman Sachs, is reporting record profits this year. Here's a run-down of the profits from the New York Times:

Goldman posted the richest quarterly profit in its 140-year history and, to the envy of its rivals, announced that it had earmarked $11.4 billion so far this year to compensate its workers.

At that rate, Goldman employees could, on average, earn roughly $770,000 each this year — or nearly what they did at the height of the boom.

Senior Goldman executives and bankers would be paid considerably more. Only three years ago, Goldman paid more than 50 employees above $20 million each. In 2007, its chief executive, Lloyd C. Blankfein, collected one of the biggest bonuses in corporate history. The latest headline results — $3.44 billion in profits — were powered by earnings from the bank’s secretive trading operations and exceeded even the most optimistic predictions.

In the words of Colin Cowherd that I am fond of repeating - Ricola Ridiculous.

Rosenhaus: Cutting Edge Again

2009-07-15T23:13:00.000-05:00

If you asked me most days, I'd say that I hated Drew Rosenhaus and how he's been the main contributing factor in turning the NFL into a bunch of crybaby prima donnas. But today is different.

It took me a little while to get to the story, but I noticed up on the Rosenhaus website that the Florida Panthers season ticket holders have hired him to negotiate ticket prices. Here's a snippet:

“We felt we needed the very best agent in professional sports to represent us in these negotiations,” said Florida Panthers advisory board member and season ticket holder Nat Levine. “We understand that negotiating season ticket prices may be a first in the industry, but there is simply no option we won’t explore to make sure every South Florida sports fan has the opportunity to experience the excitement of Florida Panthers hockey.”

That's the thing about Rosenhaus - whether you love him or hate him, Rosenhaus is, as Levine points out, always on the cutting edge. And that's why he's such a great agent. I don't think I'd mind one bit if he were to step in and negotiate the ticket prices for the New Orleans Saints.

One interesting question to spring from these types of negotiations is whether it would be an impermissible conflict of interest to do this sort of negotiating for a team in a league where you also represent some players (a non-issue in this case with Rosenhaus with it being the NHL he's negotiating with). I wonder if one could argue that the union would be able to sufficiently shield your clients to prevent price elasticity with players so that even negotiating down on season ticket prices would not be a direct harm to the client.

Regardless of those issues, I think it's a great concept for Rosenhaus to be doing this.

Alan Grayson: Way Awesomer Than Dick Grayson

2009-07-14T22:24:00.000-05:00

Yes, I know my grammar is incorrect in the title. But I got giddy when I saw someone actually bold enough to lay the smack down on the Federal Reserve Inspector General Elizabeth Coleman. That man is Rep. Alan Grayson, a Democrat out of the 8th District of Florida.

Grayson is a Democrat, but he could teach a lot to talking head Republicans who put all the blame for the bad economy on Obama's spending. Likewise, he could teach a lot to Democrats who blame the economic troubles on Bush's spending. While massive spending doesn't help, what's more important is accountability in spending. And there's nobody less accountable these days than the Fed.

Which leads me to this video.

I join Grayson in saying that I'm shocked to hear that Inspector General Coleman doesn't have a clue where any of the $2 trillion of the Fed's fresh off the press money has gone. And everyone wonders why the economy is in such bad shape. Kudos to Rep. Grayson for some great tough but fair questioning.

Fact Stranger Than Fiction

2009-07-14T01:47:00.000-05:00

By now, this wonderfully chaotic story about a black man in Alligator, MS beating out the incumbent white mayor of the past 30 years has made its way around the web.

In particular I love the excerpt highlighted by Rod Dreher:

Some youngsters ran into Mr Fava's store to taunt him. "They was pulling down their pants, shouting, 'Kiss my black ass, because we got a black mayor', swinging their things around and throwing stuff," said Jennifer Green, 31, a black mother of 10.

Miss Green is dubious about whether Mr Brown, whose duties will include organising contract labour, overseeing the water and sewer systems and distributing any grant monies, can deliver. "He says there's going to be lots of changes and everything with all these kids running around here.

"But he do the same thing they do, drinking beer and stuff. You've got to stay at home and study the town. Alligator is the kind of place where if you leave your door open, when you come back there ain't nothing in your house.

"There's guns. Kids knock on your door asking for a beer at three and four in the morning. I get 14-year-olds asking me if I want weed or whatever. They should have just left Mr Robert in there.

"Tomaso won't do anything about any of it. He's going to put his hand in the cookie jar just at the wrong time and get caught."

Her boyfriend J. R. Cook, who is white, disagreed. "It was about time for Robert to get out. He was tired. And there ain't no saints around here. They may be Christian people but when they get out of church it makes no difference."

Dreher points out that this reminds him that Flannery O'Connor was a realist. Rather than go into a long exigesis of why I think this is such a funny story or explain the Flannery O'Connor reference, I'll leave it to a commenter on Dreher's site:

Read the article...observe and make your own judgments. That's why there is so little commentary. Note the Flannery O'Conner comment. There is a going on. First, this is a ridiculous story, a ridiculous way for people, black or white, to behave and to talk. On the other hand, you can find things to think about in how the town handles it's local democracy, part 'pragmatic" (e.g. let the old guy mayor for 30 years, nothing gets done anyway...said by white and black people) and idealistic (e.g. white and black people voted for the "new Obama").

People live everywhere, but they act so different; some live in uneventfully administered suburbs, some begin democracy (note Athens in title), some act like this when they have it. These are apparently, the ridiculous stories you find from the South...they usually involve things like black and white, poverty, education, resistance to change, and so on. Again, the white and black characters in the story are on both sides of every distinction you care to parse the story for, so don't limit it to that.

There's plenty here to reflect on, especially if you are actually willing to judge between the good and bad (both are here in this story, on both sides, not just one of them). And if you are such a PC reactionary to not be able to see the ridiculous absurdity all over that article that is too bad for you, life doesn't need to be so boring.

All I can say is that I haven't enjoyed reading a story like that in quite some time. So true and yet so bizarre. What a wonderful place the South is, where the people are always hospitable and the politics are always interesting.

Sotomayor and Baseball: What if the Strike Hadn't Stopped?

2009-07-13T23:08:00.000-05:00

While I have no intention of getting into whether Judge Sotomayor should be confirmed or not, I did want to take the opportunity of the start of her confirmation hearings to ponder an issue. Many have praised Sotomayor for effectively ending the the MLB strike of 1994.

Representative among those stories is an article entitled "Supreme Court nominee Sonia Sotomayor well known in sports" posted at si.com by Ted Keith back on May 26. He makes the following assertion:

The owners appellate brief stated that, "Major league baseball will likely suffer its second consecutive year of no playoffs, no World Series and, therefore, irreparable damage to the credibility of the institution in the eyes of its fans, advertisers, rights holders and other sources of economic lifeblood. The damage caused by another disrupted season will likely drive some clubs out of business ... their teams would be lost for good."

That doomsday scenario not only failed to materialize, but baseball instead embarked on its longest sustained period of labor peace in over 30 years, while the game set new records for both attendance and revenue. No teams went out of business, but two expansion teams were added, and the World Series has been played as scheduled every year.

Fairly obvious in this excerpt is the implicit undertone that ending the strike was a good thing in all ways and a bad thing in no ways. Other pieces making the same assumptions have been less reserved in praise of Sotomayor and simply called her "Baseball's Savior." President Obama even chose that title to introduce her as his candidate for the Supreme Court: “Some say that Judge Sotomayor saved baseball."

Once again, my intent is not to evaluate Sotomayor's jurisprudence. Rather, it is to question whether ending the work stoppage of '94 really was a good thing for baseball. Good things in an economic sense, as stated in Keith's piece, certainly came from play resuming. However, that resumption of play also ensured that the basic power structure of MLB continued. That was the same power structure that facilitated the great home run derby, uh season, of '98.

So my thought is: if the baseball strike had continued and the internal structure of MLB had collapsed, would the game of baseball be in a better place today. Would a decentralized structure have prevented the steroid scandal from becoming nearly all-encompassing?

My admitted love affair with the benefits of decentralization make me think that baseball would have been better had the strike never ended and it was forced to break into smaller satellite leagues. Sure, it might be smaller. And sure, places like the new Yankee Stadium might not exist because there might not be the same ability to rake in shovel loads of cash if baseball were comprised of three or four different leagues instead of one. But, then again, there are a lot of people upset that there is a new Yankee Stadium that charges outlandish prices.

The logical objection to this line of reasoning is "why don't you look at what happened to boxing?" Sure, boxing has progressively faded from national consciousness since becoming an amalgam of undifferentiated entities, to the point that nobody can determine at any one time who is the true champion. Those same critics are likely to point out that the failure of boxing had to have been based on the existence of multiple "leagues." They would say that those who blame decreased boxing viewership on the fact that interest in blood sports have decreased in the US obviously must not pay attention to another incredibly popular blood sport, MMA - and while it is comprised of a few bodies, many think of the MMA and UFC as one in the same, as a single entity, and that is the major reason why MMA has gained in popularity while boxing has faded.

The quick counterpoint I would offer is that baseball and boxing are different at a fundamental level - one is America's pastime while the other is a favorite of those doing time. However, I think the bigger reason that boxing has failed is the perceived corruption with results and the fact that the big names in the sport over the past couple decades (when the sport really did its downturn) seemed to be 90% creepy and only 10% tough - Mike "Bite An Ear" Tyson and Don "I Ain't Yo Ratfink" King. With the rise of more respectable stars like Manny Pacquiao, it's no surprise that the allure of boxing is edging back into the public consciousness. In other words, the problems of boxing had more to do with the players in the sport rather than the decentralized structure.

And with that, I return to my initial point. If the MLB had broken into multiple leagues because the strike had not ended, wouldn't the game be in a better place even though it would have suffered some on its profit margins? Without the all-powerful grip of the commissioner's office, it would have been harder to keep things under wraps. Also, there would have been considerably less pressure placed on players to cheat if there were smaller satellite leagues because increased competition would have made it harder to inflate ticket prices so easily. By evading competition, teams were able to offer players more, which meant that teams had more leverage in encouraging players to do whatever it took to justify those big salaries. There's a reason that steroids weren't so rampant in baseball forty or fifty years ago - there wasn't enough money on the line to justify it.

Isn't that what writers like Howard Bryant at ESPN.com are really lamenting when they say that baseball needs a Hank Aaron now more than ever. Take this passage:

Two years ago, a bullet train of circumstances not of his own making sped toward Henry and, as it did, he very publicly and very definitively showed baseball once again which of those three men he is.

Bonds was near Aaron's career home-run record. The game was in steroids crisis, and some of the heroes who had helped bring it back from the 1994 strike, well, they didn't look so heroic anymore. The apologists and the disbelievers and the ones who couldn't be bothered to understand the impact of steroids on the game tried to minimize the effects of a sport without integrity -- of interest without belief in the product -- and those effects, for once, weren't measured by money, but by numbers that could not be argued.

I, for one, think that decentralization would have led to more Hank Aaron's and a few less of the likes of A-Rod, ManRam, Clemens, Bonds, and McGwire. But MLB wanted the money, and they're getting shown what money buys.

Branagh, Portman, Thor?

2009-07-13T21:27:00.000-05:00

Generally, I think of Thor as one of the most ridiculous comics of all time that doesn't warrant a cameo on screen, much less a full feature.

But, I'm willing to keep an open mind after I read that Kenneth Branagh is directing. My interest in Branagh's direction should be obvious to regular readers of this blog, as I've rated his Band of Brothers speech as the best movie speech of all time. While good direction doesn't always follow good acting, Branagh has the chops to do both as he showed in his various Shakespearian escapades.

As for Portman being named as Thor's love interest, that's definitely a mark against me wanting to see it. That is, unless she can live up to the epic performance of this no-name actress (warning: somewhat violent and over-the-top crazy content):

Taki's Take on Wimbledon

2009-07-13T19:11:00.000-05:00

I found Taki's summary of Wimbledon to be one of the funnier ones out there. Most articles (rightfully so) were focused on the record-making aspects of the Federer-Roddick duel, but Taki decided to focus on far different side of things. Here goes the old bird dog:

So farewell, then, to probably the best Wimbledon fortnight ever, certainly the sunniest that I can remember. Andy Roddick now joins Gottfried von Cramm and Ken Rosewall as a three-times-losing finalist, coming within a whisker of winning the greatest trophy in tennis, but turning into a tragic hero instead. Still, unlike the elegant German baron and the great Aussie, Andy might still do it, although I wouldn’t bet on it. But not to worry, Andy old chap, you’ve got by far the prettiest wife of all the players, and you exhibited more fight and good sportsmanship than the rest of the field combined. Roddick should be made an honorary member of the All England Club for bringing some decency to the game. Not once did he or Federer sully the great final with Murray-like boorish histrionics and screams for support, nor did their wives emulate that ghastly Murray woman, who spends her time fist-pumping and shouting, her square mouth wide open as if in a dentist’s chair.

Funny stuff. Although his homage to Roddick's wife does sound a bit like Walken's parting shot in Click (in my opinion, amidst all the dogs humping stuffed animals and Winkler's tired jokes, Walken was the one genuinely funny guy in that movie): "Your wife's rockin' body still drives me crazy."

Coast Guard: Pirate Hunters

2009-07-12T21:57:00.000-05:00

I always wondered what the Coast Guard did when they aren't rescuing overturned vessels in the Bering Sea in an episode of The Deadliest Catch. According to the LA Times, these guys are highly skilled pirate hunters.

Crew of the Coast Guard cutter Boutwell just returned from a mission to take out some Somali pirates in the Gulf of Aden back in April. Even though they didn't arrest any of the seven pirates (because they didn't find any weapons aboard their vessel), I still respect these guys for being tough enough to last on such a long voyage.

In order to complete the mission, the crew had to circumnavigate the globe. It took them quite a bit longer than the usual deployment:

The crew's six-month deployment was about twice as long as Coast Guard crews are accustomed to serving. Sleeping in cramped, coffin-like "racks," eating the same food all the time and being limited in their communication with friends and family back home had begun to take their toll.

I'm sure they were glad to return home last week and be free of the scurvy.

More Thoughts on Juan Pierre

2009-07-12T21:31:00.000-05:00

Caught this post that Joshua Worley put up last week at Dodgerama concerning Juan Pierre. Evidently, he is none too pleased with people like me who are making a case for Pierre staying in the starting rotation.

He starts his criticism in terms of a threat to Matt Kemp's playing time:

Why would Kemp have to vacate center field? He's been great there defensively, after all, and with the bat he's been the Dodgers offensive MVP of the first half. So why? Why? Juan Pierre. Juan bleeping Pierre. And not because of any talent Pierre possesses, but because of a talent he doesn't possess.

When Pierre plays in place of Manny, there is no problem. Pierre slides into left field and Kemp stays in center. Given that Manny has only played in a third of the team's innings so far, maybe we can leave it at this. Pierre will get all the playing time he deserves, and more ( far more! ) just subbing for Manny. But let's be serious --- we know Manny is going to eventually get into playing shape ( or Torre will stop being so damn cautious ) and then Pierre will have to find more of his outfield innings at someone other player's expense.

He then goes on to lament Pierre's possibly replacing Ethier:

That player will probably be Ethier, most of the time, and not Kemp. Ethier is batting 0.250, while both Pierre and Kemp are batting over 0.300. Never mind home runs or ability to wear a batting helmet without having to have a cap underneath it, even if that cap is red and the visual result is hideous and soul-crushing --- and never mind slugging percentage and career averages or anything else --- Pierre will have to play because he has a shiny batting average and he "makes things happen" and he's done everything the Dodgers have asked of him without complaining very much and he's a hard worker while Ethier is a lazy drug cheat --- er, wait, that's Manny, but Ethier will have to stand in for him because of course Manny has to play!

I can't say that I totally disagree with the frustration over Pierre cutting into Kemp or Ethier's playing time. However, the thing I don't understand after following the Dodgers fairly closely for the past couple of years is why LA fans refuse to turn this rage toward El Maniaco? Why do they quarantine the all-powerful Manny from any of this contempt? Worley points out that Pierre should be getting playing time in front of Manny right now. But the whole argument is based on the fact that Manny isn't in playing shape right now, not a deeper analysis of whether someone who had to take a break because he was cheating automatically deserves to get his place back just because he can mash more homeruns than the guy currently in that position. That's why I think Worley is unfair in his ultimate diagnosis of the situation:

Why does Pierre need to play? Because we're throwing a pity party for him, and every terrible announcer from Fox Sports is invited.

Rather, he should have ended by asking: Why does Manny need to play? Because Dodger fans are too obsessed with great stats (even if it doesn't necessarily translate into wins), and are able to overlook cheating in order to have those numbers in the starting lineup.

Hawaiian Space Port

2009-07-12T13:40:00.000-05:00

D'Arclon's workout video made me feel terrible about how much of a wuss I am, so I thought I'd do a little coping by posting rather than binging on ho-hos. I'm always interested in a good space story, and this looks like one of the more interesting ones to come out in a while.

Hawaii is planning on using existing run-ways as launching pads for rockets that will travel to outer space and then land in different parts of the world. Here's the lead of the story from AP:

Tourists coming to Hawaii for high-end getaways could someday be launched from the sand to the stars, taking island-hopping to new heights. Hawaii could even be the first state where space travelers use rocket planes to get from one place to another. Rather than launching and landing in the same spot, planners envision the planes taking off in one place, traveling through space, then coming down in another, going from the Big Island to Oahu. Within a decade, space travelers could island hop from Hawaii to Japan in 45 minutes.

They go on to describe the mechanics of the space travel package. It's pricy but sounds like it would be a lot of fun if you have enough discretionary income to let loose at it.

If the plan goes forward, tourists would pay $200,000 for a weeklong package including spaceflight training, resort accommodations and short test flights to simulate weightlessness.

At the vacation's finale, five voyagers would embark on a horizontal takeoff aboard a special rocket plane, climb to 40,000 feet before rockets fire, accelerate to 3,500 mph, coast for a few minutes of weightlessness 62 miles above the Earth, flip over and then return to ground.

I'd have to imagine that somewhere like California would put up similar ideas in the months to come, particularly due to the fact that Virgin Galactic has been doing some of its test flights there.

WWV: Weekly Workout Video - Nicole

2009-07-12T09:05:00.000-05:00

This is Nicole from Crossfit. The video is her attempts at 15 reps of body-weight overhead squats. It is nice to see that somebody knows how to break parallel on squats properly. I'm curious how many pro football and baseball players could make 7 reps (I'll give the NBA guys some slack for height).

First Superman gets beat down by a girl, now this. Stuff like this brings out the Beta male within.

Good Summation of Michael Jackson

2009-07-11T11:13:00.001-05:00

While the rest of his article devolves into partisan political rambling, Charles Taylor provides a fairly accurate portrayal of how I reacted to Michael Jackson's death and the two divergent media responses in reporting the news. Of course, that accurate portrayal only lasts for the first three paragraphs of his article, as the rest descends into over-the-top language and quasi-deification of Jackson. Here are the first three paragraphs:

THE TWO easiest media responses to the death of a public figure are reverence or ridicule, and Michael Jackson made both easy. A singer of breathtaking suppleness and soulfulness, one whose early work with the Jackson 5 the rock critic Dave Marsh called “the last great moment of soul as we knew it,” and a dancer who, as the film critic David Edelstein observed in a piece on CBS’s “Sunday Morning,” seemed intent on synthesizing the entire history of popular dance from Fred Astaire on, Jackson was one of the few performers who could truly amaze you. And as a reclusive, obviously troubled man whose talents were eclipsed by public eccentricities and allegations of private behavior that despite a not-guilty verdict in his 2002 child molestation trial most of us still believe, Jackson was, like Elvis, an active participant in creating an image of himself as freak.

That’s why my first reaction to hearing that he had suffered cardiac arrest and was expected to die was relief. He won’t, I thought, be able to do anything more to embarrass himself. We might even be able, once again, to be amazed by Michael Jackson.

The fact is that, in the collective imagination, where Jackson once reigned by popular acclamation, he had died a long time ago. As each successive album tried to outdo Thriller, and as each failed, as each new tabloid story broke, his living presence seemed an affront to the performer who had once captivated us.

How Does One Collapse From Aesthetics?

2009-07-11T00:45:00.000-05:00

I suppose it's possible if you were to tap dance or do ballet for several hours. Or if you were wearing a corset that was five times too small. Or if you had the unfortunate circumstance of watching Transformers 2. Or if you were tackled because you were dressed in your favorite artwork - that also happened to be a Superman costume.

Those are about the only reasons that I can think of why one would collapse from aesthetics. But Summit Strobe LLC, the company that made the infamous building for the Dallas Cowboys practice facility has thought up one more way - a building collapsing in a storm. To be fair, the company isn't saying this explicitly. Rather, it can be implied from the fact that they said that the roof replacement for the practice facility last year was due to aesthetics rather than structural concerns. Regardless, it looks like they're gonna try to blame the collapse on art.

Who knows, it might be a brilliant defense. Texans have been known to blame a few of the world's problems on art - so long as it's that modern, crazy lookin' art.

Bizarre Release: Kevin Houser

2009-07-10T23:06:00.001-05:00

When I first read about the New Orleans Saints releasing long-snapper Kevin Houser, I thought it was a bit odd. I didn't remember Houser being off on any significant number of snaps last year, and he had been with the team for quite a while.

So, as nola.com reports, the odd underlying reason for his release appears to have been his role in encouraging teammates to invest in Louisiana film tax credits on a project that was a bust and will end up costing various coaches and players on the Saints up to $2 million.

Houser seemed very professional and not bitter about the release in the article. However, it's the first time that I can recall a guy being released for some unrelated off-the-field failed business venture. All I know is I feel sorry for the fool who went after NFL players to finance his failed film. Having somebody who can bench five times your bodyweight for a creditor is never a good idea.

The Keene Act. It Begins...

2009-07-10T07:07:00.000-05:00

Today the New York Post details the NYPD's first instance of enforcing the Keene Act. Officers apprehended two masked vigilantes self-described as "Batman" and "Superman".

A witness recounts:

"The Man of Steel didn't go down with just two officers, it took seven officers!" witness Ryan McCormick said. "He was putting up a good fight. Little kids were like, 'Mommy, it's Superman!' "

/sarc.

If that picture is not a unadulterated representation of postmodernism, I don't know what is.

Bivens Action

2009-07-09T23:31:00.001-05:00

No, I'm not describing what you do to the FBI when they violate your 4th Amendment rights. I'm talking about what the LPGA did to its leader today - it said goodbye Carol Bivens.

The reactions to this are a bit varied. Over at The Golf Blog, mulligan had this to say:

This is a terrible state of affairs, no doubt caused or exacerbated by the bad economy. But firing LPGA Commissioner Carolyn Bivens is not the solution. The Commissioner is not a miracle worker. The LPGA is in a sad state of affairs in large part for one simple reason: Annika Sorenstam's retirement has left the LPGA without a star player with crossover appeal, and none of the up-and-coming U.S. players has lived up to her potential. (The PGA tour has lost sponsors, but it has Tiger Woods to help bring in others.)

Most of the people that are defending the Bivens firing (or buyout or whatever you care to call it) are defending it on the same ground that possible commissioner to be Jan Stephenson had stated:

"I'm sure the commissioner was doing it for the good of the LPGA and the players, but you've got remember that these sponsors have been here to support us through thick and thin, and right now especially you've really got to make them feel good," Stephenson said. "Carolyn didn't do that.

"I love the fact that she's very straightforward and that she tells it the way it is. That's the way I am," Stephenson added. "But I've had a lot of dialogue with sponsors, and they haven't liked that tough approach. It's either her way or no way."

I'm sure that the guys at Deadspin will have a field day with this. They had already posted something today about the wackiness of the players on the LPGA tour.

I'm not really sure if I have too much of an opinion about Bivens getting canned. It seemed like the right time to do it after the LPGA Tour had started losing a number of sponsors. The thing that I really thought about with regards to this story is my concern if Jan Stephenson is appointed the next commissioner. The LPGA events I watch now aren't really inspired by wanting to see a bunch of naked women prance around a golf course. If Stephenson is the next commish, I wouldn't be surprised to see them head in that direction. She's been pounding Bivens for years for not exploiting the sexuality of the LPGA players more. I just wonder if fish net stockings would be standard garb if ex-Playboy model Stephenson became the new big gun for the ladies' tour.

Hopefully, LPGA finds a good leader that allows it to continue to grow while not having to rely solely on the lowest common denominator.

Mark Wilson: The Human Roller-Coaster

2009-07-09T23:14:00.001-05:00

Just a couple of weeks ago, Mark Wilson looked like he was Superman while he was trying to hold off Tiger Woods at The Memorial. Woods ultimately won, but Wilson kept his calm and took home a large chunk of change in 3rd place.

What makes Wilson endearing to me is that he goes from that performance to the first round at the John Deere where Lee Janzen of all people is in the lead at 7 under because birdies are so easy to come by. So, what did the leader of all golfers less than 5'9" shoot? Well, 4 over of course.

When he shoots such a miserable score on the final three holes of the day (5 over for those who were wondering), it helps me identify with him. I know I've hit 5 over through a three hole stretch many a time on what is supposedly an "easy course." I can't really identify with guys like Tiger Woods because they never seem to go through those stretches where the golf course absolutely overcomes them. I guess it's why so many people get behind Phil Mickelson - he makes those stupid mistakes that the rest of us make on the course and it's easy to see ourselves in him.

In addition to letting me identify with Wilson, a round like he had today makes me appreciate how hard it is to shoot the low rounds like he did at The Memorial and reminds me how those low rounds happen - lots and lots of hard practice. I wouldn't be surprised if that's exactly what he did on the driving range after his round today.

In any case, hopefully Wilson shoots a low round tomorrow to make the cut.

Not to Belabor the Point But . . . Manny's Out, Dodgers Win

2009-07-08T00:03:00.000-05:00

In a follow up to a couple of earlier posts, there seems to be this strange trend of the Dodgers winning handily when Juan Pierre finishes the game for Manny. I know Manny hit a few RBIs himself to help the Dodgers but that doesn't change the underlying fact that when he's out the Dodgers look like a pretty good team. Here's the video:

Once again, Juan Pierre wasn't too shabby (1 for 2 with a run) when ManRam did the quick exit from the game.

Wall Street, NFL, and Gambling

2009-07-07T20:34:00.000-05:00

Lane Wallace has a thought-provoking article at The Atlantic, suggesting that Wall Street would benefit from emulating the NFL's no betting policy. The article is essentially a summarization of Roger Martin's argument on the issue. Here is the meat of the argument:

[B]oth the NFL and publicly-traded companies operate in two different worlds. First, there is the real world. In football, that's where the players play real games, with real touchdowns, and games are won and lost. In business, that's where real products and services are developed, produced and sold. The second world is the world of expectations. In football, this is where bookies establish "point spreads" for each upcoming game, so people have to bet on not just whether or not a team will win or lose, but by how much. That way, a strong team isn't an easy-win bet. You have to bet whether or not the strong team will exceed expectations (the point spread) or not. In business, the "expectations" world is called the stock market. Like point spreads, stock prices are based not on actual product sales or performance, but on expectations of a company's future performance.

The problem with expectations, and especially rising expectations, is that at some point, they become impossible to sustain. Martin gives the example of the New England Patriots, who in 2007 did not lose a single regular-season game. As a result, the point spread for their 14th game, against the New York Jets, was "a record high of 24.5." The Patriots won the game, but only by 10 points, thus winning the game in the real world, but failing to beat the spread in the expectations world.

Fortunately for the Patriots, the NFL compensates its players and managers based only on real-world results. Not only are they not compensated on beating the spread, they would be banned from football forever if they ever dared to bet money on whether or not their team would do so. Why? Because if they stood to gain from fluctuations in the expectations world, they might be tempted to throw or fudge the real game for their own financial remuneration. The integrity of the game would be compromised.

Later in the piece, Wallace explicitly states that the NFL system could best be appropriated by Wall Street by divorcing executive compensation from actual performance of the company:

"The true key to long-term sustainability," Martin argues, "is building customer and employee bases that enable long-term profitability. If we are to emerge from the current mess, executives must switch their focus entirely to the real market and completely ignore the expectations market. Management should not, and in fact cannot, protect the interests of those who buy shares on the open market at prices that are purely a function of expectations."

Finally, Wallace provides a link to one of Martin's articles on the issue. I have to say, I think this Martin guy might be on to something here.

The only tricky thing about this plan would be to answer objections of people who would say that this would destroy the incentive for executives to work hard to make their companies perform well. Also, there would be an issue with who would actually perform the regulation. As best as I can remember, the whole reason that executive compensation is currently based so much on stock options is that President Clinton tried to limit executive compensation across the board to a certain amount - and stock options were a way to do an end run around that regulation. Therefore, with the ever-resourceful way that Wall Street entities are able to find loopholes, I don't know how practical it is to actually achieve this type of system. But, at least in concept, it seems like a good idea.

Michael Jackson Tribute

2009-07-07T02:32:00.000-05:00

On the day of Michael Jackson's memorial, I thought it would be appropriate to post about how I will remember the king of the moonwalk. For a moment, images of his trials came to mind. Then I thought about Thriller. But I had to settle on this awesome video of him storming off stage after Slash decided to rock out longer than he was supposed to.

Michael Jackson Gets Pissed Off At Slash | Viral/Other | SPIKE.com

I wish I had better memories of him, but I don't. In my memory, there'll always be twice as much footage of him doing things like this and showing up in court for child molestation charges then there will ever be of the artist Michael Jackson. And there will be that creepy Captain Eo video - watching that almost scarred me for life. And for those sneering at this post, if you were honest with yourself deep down (real deep down), you'd probably find yourself agreeing with me more than you'd like to admit.

While Jackson was a one of a kind talent, it had really been close to twenty years since he put out any sort of groundbreaking music. Sorry Free Willy fans, that theme song never seemed to get to me like Thriller.

Lupica is Sooo Cute

2009-07-06T23:01:00.000-05:00

I love it when Mike Lupica decides to try to be relevant again by tying in gun control to the Steve McNair discussion. This post won't get into the merits of Lupica's argument because, based on Lupica's history of trying to concoct flammable topics just to get readership rather than to actually try to address and solve issues (ie, the Barry Bonds witchhunt), there's a fair chance Lupica doesn't even buy the arguments he makes in his article.

Rather, I'm just going to use this as an excuse to post one of my favorite angry reporter tirades of all time - Jason Whitlock's parting shots to ESPN and particularly to Lupica. Here it goes:

Lupica is an insecure, mean-spirited busybody. ... The Little Fella probably won't let the producer (Joe Valerio) have me back on ["The Sports Reporters"] again. That's cool. They're mostly upset that I wouldn't participate in their Barry Bonds witch hunt and help them single Bonds out as the creator of steroids. Lupica doesn't like to be disagreed with, and he's spoken so abusively to that producer for years that the producer probably doesn't realize people are allowed to disagree with Lupica. I enjoyed my time on the show. But if the price of admission is stepping to Lupica's drum, I'm more than happy to go without.

It never gets old for me reading that piece. And you have to love Lupica's cute little snicker at the 32 second mark in this video - a tape of the Roger Clemens hearing.

I guess I post all this to say that I'm taking everything that silly Lupica says with a grain of salt.

WWV: Weekly Workout Video

2009-07-06T08:58:00.000-05:00

Swimming Videos on Floswimming

Auburn Sprint Coach Brett Hawke coaching a pre-meet warm-up for his male sprinters. Hawke coaches both gold medalist sprinter Cesar Cielo and WR-holder Freddy "Biscuits" Bousquet.

Make sure that you listen to Hawke describe his "Gatorade Set" near the end of the video. Rather unorthodox warm-up but so is Hawke.

Simple Plan: Sit Manny, Dodgers Win

2009-07-05T23:07:00.000-05:00

Here's the proof:

By the way, Juan Pierre went 4 for 7. Some would say that's not too shabby - hopefully Torre does too.

Jonathan Ginsburgh: Big Time Leg

2009-07-05T21:02:00.000-05:00

The local paper in Alexandria, LA, The Town Talk, has a report today on punting prospect Jonathan Ginsburgh. He seems like a fairly level-headed guy and like he's worked hard to become one of the brightest punting prospects in the country. Here's what his coach, Freddie Hallman, had to say:

"There was no doubt in my mind [that Ginsburgh would be a great punter] from the time I first got to the school (two years ago)," Hallman said. "He has a great work ethic and is always working to get better on his fundamentals ... And he's got a great family behind him."

Ginsburgh recently had the best punt of the day, a 57-yard punt that had a 4.81 hang time, at the Kohl's Midwest Regional Showcase Camp at the Chula Vista Resort in the Wisconsin Dells. At that showcase were some of the best punting prospects in the country, including a guy that was ranked the #2 punting prospect in the country at the time.

I thought I'd do my part in throwing a little more exposure on a deserving kid from the small town of Alexandria and the even smaller school of Holy Savior Menard Central High School. Hopefully his dreams of punting at LSU become a reality (but that full-ride some say he's been offered at Tulane isn't a bad second option).

Dumbest Quote of the Week

2009-07-05T20:23:00.000-05:00

Now that more facts have come out about the fatal shooting of Steve McNair, it does seem that the age-old adage of detectives rings true once again - at some point every victim puts into place a series of irreversible events that leads to the victim's demise.

While McNair was one heck of a tough guy on the football field and seemed to be one of the better guys off the field, he was not without his faults. And cheating on your wife who is also the mother of your four kids with a mistress named Sahel Kazemi is not exactly the best plan of action to avoid something
bad from happening. That said, it is pretty much totally unforeseeable that such actions would lead to you getting pumped full of lead.

And, regardless of the culpability of McNair, it is still a tragedy. There is now a wife with no husband. And there is now four kids without a father.

This all leads into the most idiotic quote I've seen for some time. Rich Schapiro at the Daily News has a quote from Kazemi's ex-beau Keith Norfleet about the incident, my nominee for dumbest quote of the week (and possibly of the year):

"She is the sweetest girl, and she did not deserve this," Kazemi's ex-beau, Keith Norfleet, told the newspaper upon learning of her death. "He was making her believe they were going to be together, and everything would be perfect."

So, Kazemi didn't deserve to die because McNair was lying to her about leaving his wife and running off with her? That makes sense, but there's one small problem: Kazemi did the killing (allegedly)! Basically what Norfleet's saying (if he's not just implying that Kazemi is an innocent victim) is that Kazemi was justified in murdering McNair just because McNair was a cheating scumbag. Couldn't that same woefully flawed logic be turned around on Kazemi? It's an extremely dumb (and morally problematic) argument to make in either direction.

Also, the last time I checked, the sweetest people in the world don't go around instigating murder-suicides.

Juan Pierre Deserves Better

2009-07-04T02:57:00.001-05:00

During Manny's 50 game suspension, Juan Pierre did more than a serviceable job in replacing the man with a million dreds. Hence, it makes me wonder when all of the Dodger fans are so eager to get Manny back in the lineup and not even pretend to want an apology from him for taking steroids.

Even though guys like Gregg Patton write articles entitled "Dodgers' Pierre Deserves Better," his case for keeping Pierre on the starting lineup is rather weak - and rather typical of the stuff being written out there. This is about as strong of a case as he makes for keeping Pierre in the starting lineup:

[F]or those who are feeling at all queasy about the return of the substance abuser, maybe a bit ill that someone of his now-tarnished reputation will slide so easily back into the Dodgers' lineup, there's something quite satisfying about Pierre's superior play as a sub-in.

The fact that the skinny veteran with the short, slap swing is playing so well and making people even think twice about the necessity of Manny Ramirez is a sweet addition to the story.

What is disappointing about columns like these are the sense of resignation that they have - you have to start the all star (even if he is a cheater) in favor of the guy that has played ball the right way and helped the team maintain the best record in the NL West.

Perhaps the problem is that the Dodger fan is acting too much like a teenage girl in love and not enough like true baseball fans. Although the Yankees apparently had the only cheaters in baseball (at least what the Mitchell Report would lead you to believe), at least most of them seemed to get genuinely unhinged with the Roger Clemens saga. And the Giants fans didn't seem to appreciate having a cheater in their midst either. But Dodger fans, they simply don't care. If they simply demanded more integrity from those they root for, Pierre might still have a chance to see significant playing time this season.

Then again, Manny did catch some bench at the end of the game - and he certainly couldn't have made that over-the-shoulder catch Pierre did to put the game on ice. Maybe there is some hope for Pierre, a guy who's always played the game the right way.

Swamp Sharks

2009-07-04T02:49:00.000-05:00

The name pretty much says it all for this random post. While I was aware of these things getting into the Atchafalaya, the guy in this video claims they've been found all the way up in St. Louis.

Makes you wonder if it will make guys like this think twice before sticking their hand in a catfish hole in the Atchafalaya:

Why Isn't Equal Opportunity Enough?

2009-07-01T23:30:00.000-05:00

When people come out arguing in favor of quotas, I'm always taken aback regardless of what the basis for the quota is. I'm even more taken aback when people use discussion of quotas an end-all be-all solution to race relations.

So while many will find the recent comments of NCAA President of Diversity and Inclusion Charlotte Westerhaus in favor of imposing quotas on the college football head coaching ranks to be encouraging, I find them quite the opposite. When someone has a job pulled from underneath them for no other reason than that person's race, chances are that person is going to grow more hostile and less hostile toward the person who received the same job on the basis of race.

In any case, here's the pertinent part of her commentary:

The NCAA is not opposed to equal opportunity within the interview process. But what is needed now is an end to side-stepping the crux of the hiring dilemma. Interviewing is not hiring. What is needed is more hires of head football coaches of color, not mandated interviews and the continued perpetuation of false hope.

This doesn't sound all that different from the arguments in support of quotas for OBCs (if you think that's an uplifting term, just search its wikipedia page) approved by the Indian Supreme Court last year. While the court originally seemed hesitant to pass the measures on the fear that it might further divide the country on the basis of caste, it then decided to approve the proposed quotas in April 2008.

I guess my underlying point is that even the Indian Supreme Court acknowledged that the imposition of quotas divides a nation into castes. While that idea is acceptable to the Indian people because they have tolerated the caste system for so long, why should this be acceptable to Americans? Further, I would hope that the EEOC would come out in opposition of such quotas that are implemented after the countless number of times I have heard EEO representatives tell me - remember, the work is not about quotas (that would be illegal), it's about equal opportunity; there's a big difference. Well, I guess we'll see what Chairman Ishimaru decides to do if Ms. Westerhaus' plan is implemented.

2 Licensing Notes From Sports Law Blog

2009-07-01T23:17:00.000-05:00

Over at the Sports Law Blog, there are a couple of pieces on different licensing cases.

First, Gabe Feldman does a great job clarifying the implications of the American Needle suit if the Supreme Court were to decide that the NFL were a single entity:

The issue before the Supreme Court is not whether the NFL’s exclusive licensing arrangement is legal under the antitrust laws. The issue is whether the licensing arrangement should even be subject to scrutiny under the antitrust laws. If the NFL wins, they escape Section 1 scrutiny. If the NFL loses, their arrangement will then be analyzed under the rule of reason, where a court will weigh the procompetitive benefits of the agreement versus its anticompetitive effects.

There is no reason to believe that the Supreme Court’s rejection of the single entity argument makes it any more (or less) likely that American Needle would prevail in the underlying antitrust case (or that a suit against the exclusive deal with EA would be successful). Rather, it only subjects the NFL to the same antitrust scrutiny they have been subjected to for the last 50 years. American Needle could win the underlying case, but only if it could prove that the anticompetitive effects of the NFL’s exclusive apparel licensing deal outweighed its procompetitive benefits.

Thus, while a win for the NFL in the Supreme Court would have significant implications, a loss merely gets us back to the way we were before the Seventh Circuit’s outlier in American Needle.

Whether or not my post showed it, I was a bit under the wrong impression on this issue. If it did come out in the post, I hope this bit by Feldman clarifies what's at stake.

As a second issue, Michael McCann links to a piece on Deadspin (one that I completely missed). Here are the key passages:

Three years ago, a small company called SportsFuzion saw an opportunity. They convinced the Basketball of Hall of Fame to sell them "exclusive worldwide rights to the Hall of Fame's trade names, logos, trademarks, designs, and photos for use in sportswear." At the time, those rights didn't seem that valuable, because who buys a hat that says "Hall of Fame" on it? But SportsFuzion, was thinking ahead because they knew that in three years Michael Jordan would be in the Hall of Fame, and people will buy anything even remotely associated with Michael Jordan.

So, they took their idea—and their licensing rights—to Nike and made their pitch. And Nike passed. Michael Jordan and the Hall of Fame isn't really going to work for Brand Jordan. Thanks, but no thanks.

Then two months later, the Hall of Fame suddenly decides they don't want to be in business with SportsFuzion. They want to renegotiate their contract. Oh, and look at that ... Nike is now selling their own Jordan Hall of Fame gear!

Inasmuch as the pieces pretty much speak for themselves, I'll just recommend to read them in their entirety rather than do any fancy commentary.

Where in the World is Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf?

2009-06-30T22:54:00.000-05:00

My introduction to college basketball came through Chris Jackson. The Tourette-afflicted star point guard at LSU was the ying to Shaq's yang - ok, some sports writers argue that Jackson's ball-playing style held back Shaq's development. Regardless, I always looked at Jackson's career through quasi-rosy spectacles.

But I never did follow him with the same fervor when he turned pro. I'm not sure exactly why. I do remember reading about his converting to Islam, changing his name to Mahmoud Abdul-Rauf, and refusing to stand for the national anthem. But I don't recall very much about his actual on-court exploits as a pro.

So, out of curiosity, I thought I'd take a look to see where Abdul-Rauf ended up after all of these years. To my surprise, he's still playing pro ball. Evidently there's a vibrant pro-basketball league in Saudi Arabia. He plays on a club called Al Ittihad Jeddah. Due to my inability to read Arabic, I couldn't really get a whole lot of in-depth information about the club. I was able to gather that they are the oldest surviving sports club in Saudi Arabia and that it is located on the Red Sea port city of Jeddah. In addition, there's this blurb from the wikipedia page:

Today, Ittihad is one of the best teams in Saudi Arabia and one of the best teams in Asia. It is hugely successful not just in football, but in basketball, water polo, table tennis, volleyball, and swimming, amongst others. In all, Ittihad has won 661 trophies. However, football remains the primary sport.

Ittihad is now based in Sahafa street, Mushrefa district, in east Jeddah, where they have a large sports complex. Senior teams play official games at the municipal sports centre, in the south of the city, while youth teams play at the club.

The club is renowned throughout the region for its fans. They are particularly famous for their loyalty and chants, which are copied by many others. The head of the Ittihad fan club, Saleh al-Qarni, even records studio versions of the year's chants which are widely sold in Jeddah and beyond.

It seems that it is one of the preeminent sports groups in Asia. With the major investments in sports that Qatar and other Middle Eastern countries are putting into sports, I'm fairly certain that the name of this club, as the flagship of Saudi Arabian sports, will get much more familiar in the future. After all, the Middle East is becoming the preeminent place to do business and, with the willingness of those countries to spend money on sports, there will inevitably be some big name American talent that decide to chase the cash, once the money these countries are offering grows large enough.

As for now, it's interesting to see that Abdul-Rauf is still playing basketball. It's also interesting to see where he's doing it. He's always been a provocative guy - from the Tourette struggles to not standing for the anthem. And playing pro ball in the last place that I thought had any interest in basketball certainly keeps him interesting in my book.

The Problem With Trying to Run the World

2009-06-30T00:44:00.001-05:00

When you're trying to run the world, Democrat or Republican, it gives way to all sorts of unsolvable problems. The latest incarnation is what to do with the uprising in Honduras.

First up is Karl Penhaul from CNN who seems to think that Obama's decision to team up with Chavez and Castro to reinstate President Zelaya is a good idea:

And on the opposite side of the fence is Charles Krauthammer, who thinks that the current action in Honduras was justified and that we should support the people of Honduras in keeping Zelaya out of power because Zelaya acted extra-constitutionally and was legally kicked out of office - not technically a coup. Here's the video of Krauthammer talking about it in a round table with Brit Hume:

My thought is this: why do we have to make a decision either way on this coup? Much like the hubbub over Iran's elections, it seems that US leaders are always more concerned about how to further insert themselves into the international scene than to come up with meaningful domestic solutions. I guess it isn't quite as fun to actually try to balance the budget rather than constantly flying cool jets to these different locales in order to talk to all these heads of state, but it seems like the better thing to do.

In my mind, it doesn't appear that US intervention in either situation is going to bring a great deal more stability. In addition, it doesn't seem like either situation is posing an immediate threat to American safety - encouraging a coup in Iran won't make it any less likely that they'll develop nuclear capabilities and allowing the coup in Honduras won't result in rebels invading the US and gunning down people in the streets. However, I am quite sure that US involvement in both of these situations will keep costing a-plenty - it's hard to play Marie Barone and not run up a tab.

FINA Decision = The Records Will Keep Tumbling

2009-06-28T23:53:00.000-05:00

Last week, US Swimming adopted the FINA's relaxed swimsuit standards that basically allow all types of suits to be in play in major competition. Here's an excerpt of the US Swimming reaction from Swimming World Magazine:

USA Swimming stands firm in its desire to preserve the integrity of the sport, and for that reason, we will continue to push for stricter restrictions on swimsuit technology. We are highly disappointed by the FINA ruling released Monday, but in order to keep USA Swimming's rules in compliance with those of the international governing body, we will immediately adopt the revised list of approved swimsuits. Moving forward, we encourage FINA to carefully examine this matter in order to ensure the best possible future for our sport.

And they aren't the only ones criticizing the move. Australia's Alan Thompson, one of the people who had originally voted to ban some of the more high tech suits, let his disgust be known at FINA's inconsistent treatment of the suits:

"I'm very disappointed. I was in Lausanne on Thursday for a meeting of the swimsuit approval panel and we made a recommendation to FINA and they have chosen to ignore that recommendation and certainly that's thrown things back into chaos again," he said.

Allowing so many crazy suits to be worn in international competition does seem to be a problem for the sole fact that the world record seems to be more about the type of suit being worn than the athlete actually swimming. If I had any say in it, I'd make all these swimmers get all East Germany (aka, naked) and do the swimming that way. At least then you'd have a consistent way to see if people really are getting faster in the water as time goes by - and it would equalize the playing field by not giving those with access to better suits an unfair advantage. The latter issue seemed to be why Thompson voted against the approval of these new suits in the first place. At least one thing is guaranteed with the relaxed standards on swimsuits - the records will fall.

But, just in case you were thinking that FINA would be happy to stop there, think again. Evidently not all world records are equal. Even though it seems that nearly every imaginable suit is acceptable in international competition, FINA found at least one suit it didn't like. It's not clear if it was just because this suit was made by Arena or simply because it was worn by Alain Bernard why it didn't meet FINA's "discerning standards." Regardless, the world record Bernard set last week in the 100M free while wearing the suit will not stand. I think Bernard summed up FINA fairly well after he learned of their decision:

"FINA's positions are contradictory and impossible to understand."

Amen to that.

WWV: Weekly Workout Video

2009-06-28T12:24:00.000-05:00

I will be attempting to provide a post every week detailing a workout. These workouts might be either practical or nonsensical, real or fictional. However, they will all share one common quality; pure unadulterated awesomeness.

Here is the first:

The website Kung Fu Cinema provided the above video from the film Ninja: The Final Duel. The training routine is alternatively known as P90x is for the WEAK!

NFL: Single Entity?

2009-06-27T23:36:00.000-05:00

NFL.com has a report on the NFL at its worst, trying to stomp out any competition with its licensing deals. In particular, the NFL hopes that the Supreme Court will review the American Needle case to determine once and for all that the NFL is a single entity. Single entity essentially means the following:

"Member clubs of the NFL have no independent value, no purpose, indeed no meaningful reason for existence but for their participation in the league itself," the NFL argues. It cited a ruling in an antitrust challenge involving the NBA, in which an appeals court wrote, "A league with one team would be like one hand clapping."

The district court and 7th Circuit Court of Appeals already held that the NFL was a single entity, allowing it to have exclusive licensing agreements for its apparel with Reebok without violating antitrust law. American Needle is the plaintiff in the case and argues to the contrary, claiming that it was a violation of antitrust law for the NFL to effectively end A.M.'s contract with the Buffalo Bills through its exclusive licensing deal with Reebok.

Marc Edelman believes that the district and circuit courts misapplied the law and that the office of the solicitor general is making a big mistake by urging the Court to deny certiorari:

Unfortunately, by encouraging the Supreme Court to deny certiorari, the United States is ultimately helping activist sports leagues to use the Seventh Circuit's ruling in American Needle to further expand the single-entity exemption in other matters. For instance, the NHL, through their lawyers Skadden Arps, have since argued to the Second Circuit that the American Needle holding exempts all of their league's internal business decisions from antitrust scrutiny. This clearly is not a position ever stated by the Seventh Circuit in American Needle, much less one ever stated by the Supreme Court in Copperweld. It is also not a position that would ever be acceptable from the perspective of a sports consumer.

It's on issues like these that I get fed up with the NFL. Each of these owners (and NBA and NHL owners who, by the way, have joined in amicus briefs) holds their cities hostage by constantly threatening to leave if they don't get new stadiums (ie, Jerry Jones leaving Irving and Dallas for the greener pastures of Arlington). And the argument is always that the small businesses in the area will benefit from whatever subsidies are given to the teams to build those monstrous stadiums (or stadia, if you prefer). However, this is a clear example of that not happening. While American Needle is not really a small business, there is a value to the NFL looking to a variety of vendors for supplies. It at least makes it somewhat possible for local small business to vie for those licenses. After all, there are only a handful of multinational corporations that have the means to compete for the contract when the license covers all 32 NFL teams.

The bottom line is that American Needle's contract with the Bills was a good thing. It stood for another person bellying up to the table to benefit from the lucrative product that is the NFL. By shutting down American Needle's licensing rights, the NFL cuts off a viable income stream for any number of small, local clothing suppliers. Maybe, just maybe, there will be a bit more fallout from this case and cities will be a little more courageous in standing up to these organizations and putting a hold on handouts until the NFL does more to encourage competition in its licensing agreements.