A league has been founded in Georgia.
It’s nice to know that they are focused on acedemics and atheletics.
Perhaps the league, the Glory for Christ Football League should also invest in a spell check.
I think that New York Times photog Erik Lesser, was saying something here, when he snapped that shot.
I really hope that this sort of home schooling is not the future of our educational system, or we will be sharecropping to Hondurans in 50 years,
First, let’s be clear that the domestic auto makers problems are not just incompetent management. No one is making money selling cars right now, not even Toyota, which posted its first quarterly loss in 59 years, $7.74 billion in the quarter ending in March, and, as the picture shows, is looking at more losses in the future, while Nissan posted a $2.4 billion loss.
Of course, the sight of GM executives frantically selling stocks as a trading window opened to allow them to sell their stocks without insider trading concerns.
They are also sending terms of sale sheets to the dozen or so bidders for the Saturn brand brand. It’s primarily the sale of a dealer network and brand, rather than a sale of designs or factories.
Meanwhile, across the pond, Fiat is still negotiating a deal to buy GM’s Opel division, and most of this is about how much can be extracted from the German government.
At the nexus of the two failed auto makers, both GM and Chrysler will be cutting dealers, which makes sense, and it’s the urban dealers that will see most of the cuts, which, surprise means that minority owned dealerships will see it landing them.
Same old, same old.
In any case, it now appears that the 2 month bankruptcy is a fiction, with media reports that the bankruptcy will take 2 years, though the sale of assets to the new operating company should be finished well before this.
Meanwhile, Ford, which saw the storm coming, and accumulated cash to weather it, is now looking to sell 300 million shares of common stock in order to fund the Voluntary Employee Beneficiary Association (VEBA) that it negotiated with the UAW.
Finally, we have Ferrari threatening to pull out of Formula One because they do not like the new rules, most particularly the £40 million budget cap, which is intended to make more teams competitive.
Sam Keller, a former quarterback for Arizona State University, is suing Electronic Arts and the NCAA over their licensing his image for their college sports game:
Electronic Arts Inc. and the National Collegiate Athletic Association were sued by a former college football player who claims athletes’ images are used in video games without their permission and in violation of NCAA rules.
Electronic Arts, the second-largest video-game publisher, circumvents the rules by allowing customers to upload player names directly into games and creating images that closely resemble student athletes to increase sales and NCAA royalties, according to the complaint filed by Sam Keller, a former quarterback for Arizona State University.
Normally, I fall on the side of rather open use of such things, and in the case of statistics for things like fantasy, I would do so anyway, but the fact that thee NCAA is a revolting organization does color my view here.
The equation here, at the top levels of sport anyway, is that the schools will pretend to provide an education, and in exchange the athletes will provide their services for free, and have no part in the billions that the schools rake in for the privilege.
When people complain about things like the lack of a playoff system in college football, they ignore the slave labor upon which this system is built.
I never saw Dom or his brother Joe play, but there is many an older Red Sox fan who would maintain that Dom was a slightly better player, though I think that both Joe and Dom would insist that the best player was Vince, who had a 10 year career in the NL.
Be, all I can say is go Sox.
In honor of the late Steve Gilliard, “F%$# the f%$#ing Yankees.”
CBS runs a fantasy football league, and the NFL, and NFLPA were threatening a lawsuit over the ownership of the statistics and player names so CBS got to court first, and won a judgment:
BS Corp.’s Internet unit won the right to use National Football League players’ names and statistics for free in fantasy sports leagues it sponsors after a judge ruled the information is in the public domain.
A federal appeals court decision in 2007 that companies operating fantasy leagues have a First Amendment right to use names and data of baseball players without paying a licensing fee applies to football as well, U.S. District Judge Ann Montgomery said in Minneapolis.
This is really basic stuff. You cannot copyright information in the United States, only unique expression or arrangement of that data, such as Westlaw’s citation system for court cases.
The statistics, and the attachment of them to player names, teams, and player numbers, is simply not a unique arrangement or expression of data.
That being said, restrictions of data under an IP regime is the end goal of copyright maximalists, and would make all of society a far poorer place.
The Cardinals are going to the Super Bowl????
Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich.
This man is a nasty piece of work, but you have to admire the shear ballziness that he has exhibited in the past few weeks by appointing Burris to the Senate.
It’s kind of like watching the villains in pro-wrestling, which I did when I was rooming with a wrestling fan. You hate them, but you love them, because they are so much more engaging than the heroes.
Of course, the adult in me realizes that pro-wrestling is really primarily theater, and pro-wrestlers don’t have the power of life and death, as governors do with pardons, or just through the vicissitudes of budget process, which frequently determine who shall live and who shall die.
The Illinois legislature should dump him as soon as possible, and rationally he should never be allowed near the public sphere again, but my yetzer hara* will miss him.
*Yetzer hara is Hebrew for one’s evil inclination, and yetzer hatov is the inclination to do good. Imagine if you will, going to a store, and paying with a $10 bill, and getting change for a $20. When you correct the cashier, it is your yetzer hatov, and when you walk out of the store calling yourself a moron for not keeping the money, that’s your yetzer hara.
One of the early greats of the game.
He was 94.
So the good professor Dorf is discussing the issues caused by the 2nd amendment intersection of DC v. Heller and the sad matter of New York Giants receiver, and sad sack, Plaxico* Burress, who shot himself with his own unregistered gun in a New York night club:
Which brings us to Plaxico Burress. Suppose he had applied for a NYC handgun license. As I read the application materials, he could not have gotten a carry license because he had no reason related to his business to need to carry a handgun. His story that he needed a gun because he wears a lot of expensive bling and carries a lot of cash, while touching, doesn’t establish a business need. Burress’s business is catching footballs, and with the possible exception of playing the Eagles on the road, would not generally expose him to the risk of armed attack.
(emphasis mine)
After cleaning my screen, my thought was, “Ahhh yes….Philly sports fans….The only people capable of making me feel empathy for former Dallas tight end Michael Irvin.”
*Ask your physician if Plaxico® is right for you. Nursing and pregnant women and persons with sensitivity to lead should not take Plaxico.†
†
As much as I’d like to, I cannot claim credit for this line. Manny at Stellar Parthenon came up with this.
With the Phillies winning the series after a 28 year drought, I’m expecting rioting and vandalism.
After all, it is Philadelphia, and the fans there have a reputation to live down to.
[updated]
I’m very disappointed…A few Drunk and Disorderly arrests, a couple of guys busted for jumping on car roofs….Seriously, whatever happened to Philadelphia sports fans?
OK, it was actually the deciding game of the World Series that was rain delayed, but it’s the same thing, at least it is in Philly.
If the boos in response to Sarah Palin and her 7 year old daughter are any indication, the answer is “yes”.
The last game ever to be played at Yankee Stadium will be played tomorrow, with the Orioles and the Yankees fighting for the basement.
I’m not sure if Steve would give a damn about that, but the fact that the Yankees will be out of the playoffs for the first time in 13 years, that would make him smile.
Oh…Yeah….F@#$ the F@#$ing Yankees.
I won’t be watching. Over the past few decades, I’ve become increasingly put off by the nationalistic and jingoistic coverage from the networks, and quite honestly, they the sports that I follow anyway.
Obviously if some news crops up, most likely athletes having problems breathing, or protests, or something worse, then I will discuss this, but as to the sport itself, I am simply not interested.
Let’s be clear: the air in Beijing is a miasma of pathological chemistry, and members of the US Olympic Bicycle team were completely justified in wearing filter masks when they flew in.
It looks like as a result of some arm twisting from Steve Roush, the chief of sport performance for the U.S. Olympic Committee, they all signed a letter that he drafted apologizing for wearing a mask, though bicyclist Mike Friedman said, “I’m not sorry for wearing the masks at all.”
This is a health issue. Athletes are delaying going to Beijing to minimize their exposure to the air. The bicyclists are completely justified in their actions.
Obama spent $5 million, so McCain is spending $6 million.
To quote Shreck, “Do you think maybe he’s compensating for something?”
The IOC just meekly assented to allowing the Chinese government to filter internet access for the reporters at the games, despite promising otherwise just weeks ago.
What a bunch of losers.
That being said, ShaMao’er asks the question that immediately comes to mind, “The same old question… why are they so dumb?”
Meaning the Chinese government. They had to know that this would be found out in short order, and they had to know that the consequences of being found out would be worse than anything that a reporter pulled off Amnesty International’s web site.
My only guess is that is about a need to be in control trumped their need to get good foreign press.
A number of analyses have suggested that the primary audience that is being targeted by the PRC for the Olympics is internal, not external, and that would explain this action.
Good move, I don’t watch the Olympics, so if someone could send me a link to whatever ads he puts up, I’d appreciate it.
I think that some ads linking McCain to, “more of the same”, would be good, but that’s out of my pay grade.
Well, it looks like FIFA is weighing in on Zimbabwe and Mbeki’s support of Mugabe, as they are now making statements that seem to imply that the world cup may be moved because of “regional instability”.
As lame as it sounds, this may be the only thing to keep Mbeki from being Mugabe’s agent in this matter.
Still the news is generally not good with ZANU-PF planning to escalate the violence against the opposition.
As to negotiations, were are getting conflicting reports, and Tsvangirai has just denied that there are any talks in process.
Botswana has taken what I believe to be the proper stance, saying that they do not recognize Mugabe as president.
Interestingly, we have reports that Mugabe has been effectively sidelined by the 6 top members of the state security apparatus, and that they are more brutal than Mugabe.
We are also seeing increasing calls for sanctions, which, predicably, the Mugabe regime called racist.
