The NFL Lockout

Owners have sucked it up for long enough and the NFLPA has decided to no longer take part in the stalemate. The NFLPA has decided to let the current CBA expire tonight at midnight and allow the Player's Association to go through decretification (which is barely a real word). I figured out what it means by furiously searching the internet for better explanations. Basically, the NFLPA gives up its position as a player's union and individual players from the NFL are then allowed to sue the NFL for antitrust violations.

This is a sad day because this means we're a long way away from watching the NFL this September. :( And I love football... good thing college football is more dramatic than Bush's presidency.

The only good thing about these talks not working is that Commissioner Roger Goodell now has a salary of $1. Charlie Sheen would call that "Duh. Losing."

To find out more about the Decertification and break down of talks check these sites:

http://msn.foxsports.com/nfl/story/NFL-Players-Association-union-decertifies-labor-talks-owners-031111

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2011/football/nfl/03/11/union-labor/

http://seattle.sbnation.com/seattle-seahawks/2011/3/11/2045016/nfl-lockout-union-decertifies-cba-negotiations-antitrust-lawsuit

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I Have Sex

Oh, illustrious University which granted me an overpriced degree, your students have done something outstanding... even due to your continuous draining of their bank accounts.

Please pass the video around.

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30K; Income for a Struggling U.S. Family of 4 or an Overly Impressive War Weapon?

Both!

The U.S. is now using a new weapon in Afghanistan called "the XM25 Counter Defilade Target Engagement System". It's the first time an individual soldier is equipped with such technology. It shoots bullets and fires grenades. The "game-changer" technology is the ability to detect enemies, even if they're behind walls or whatever else. And it only costs the salary of a small U.S. family!



Sounds like something out of Black Ops. The weapon is impressive but why can't we use this money elsewhere? Read more about the weapon and what it does here.

6 days = New Building in China!

There are simply no words for the greatness that is achieved here in less than a week by these Chinese workers. None.



Click here for the article.

The Rent is Too Damn High

Agreed.

The rent is too damn high. Poor people need a party in this world and the democrats aren't speaking to poor people. This guy is on to something.. though, he and his political party may need to start playing politics to get anywhere.



He's not gonna be our next governor here in New York City but I hope the party is real and gets somewhere, it would be awesome for mankind in general. Bravo, The Rent is Too Damn High man.

You may also be my next Halloween costume, as the holiday approaches and my idea pool is draining...

F**k Glenn Beck

Color of Change is a very, very, very liberal organization that uses technology to organize, similar to the efforts of the Obama administration and U.S. Soccer over the last few months. I consider myself liberal however, I also often find myself disagreeing with some things the organization says. They'll have me following along for 85% of the e-mail and then step over the line. In the words of Dave Chappelle, they are "habitual line steppers". If you know me, however, you will know that I am one too.

Below is an e-mail that I am asked to send to friends. It's a campaign to "Turn Off Fox". Fox News habitually steps over the line in the other direction so I don't f**k with them (honestly, I haven't written on this blog in so long, I forgot if I curse or not, smh). If this e-mail moves you in the slightest then I suggest that you, at minimum, get the free sticker and not watch Fox. For my friends that are reading this, I know how hard that will be for you; I'm sorry in advance (sarcasm).

Cherrio champs!

--

Dear friends,

Many of us already know that Fox News is biased -- but it's actually much worse than that. For years they have used lies, distortions, and race-baiting to divide this country. Recently, it's gotten downright dangerous. Earlier this summer, a heavily armed man got into a gun fight with police after he was pulled over on his way to kill people at the Tides Foundation^[1] -- an obscure non-profit that Glenn Beck regularly demonizes on his Fox News TV show.^[2]

Fox News is bad news for America -- and it spreads, and is legitimized, partly through TVs in public places.

That's why I've joined the TurnOffFox campaign -- the first part of a larger campaign to diminish the influence of Fox. It's about educating people about Fox and getting it turned off in stores, restaurants, and other public places.

Will you join me? It takes just a moment to declare your own household "Fox free", and at the same time appeal to public establishments in your community to stop playing Fox. And you'll get a FREE Turn Off Fox sticker when you do. Click here:

http://colorofchange.org/turnofffox/?id=1695-703497

No other news organization that's considered legitimate consistently wages smear campaigns based on lies and race-baiting. But for years Fox News has done exactly that, and the pattern has only gotten worse since Barack Obama entered national politics.

Here are just a few examples:

-- A frequent Fox guest, Jesse Lee Peterson, said that the majority of Black people have poor moral character, and cited "what they did to the dome" after Hurricane Katrina as evidence.^[3] Peterson has also used his platform on Fox to claim that 90% of Black people are racists -- against Whites.^[4]

-- In a case of naked race-baiting, Fox host Glenn Beck called President Obama a "racist" who had a "deep-seated hatred for White people or the White culture."^[5] Earlier that week, Beck claimed that the President's health insurance reform proposals were a form of "reparations" designed to "settle old racial scores."^[6]

-- Fox host John Stossel argued that the public accommodations section of the Civil Rights Act -- which prevents businesses from discriminating based on race, sex, and other factors -- should be repealed.^[7]

-- Fox News hosts Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity were the first to air deceptively edited and incomplete video of Shirley Sherrod's remarks to the NAACP.^[8] The video made it seem like Sherrod was confessing to using her position at the USDA to discriminate against White farmers, when she was really talking about the importance of overcoming prejudice. Sherrod lost her job over this misrepresentation, which Fox enthusiastically repeated without seeking the facts. Fox has since tried to pretend it had nothing to do with this smear -- but Fox is the number one reason these kinds of distortions and smears have any part in our national dialogue.

The examples above aren't even a tenth of Fox's vicious lies and smears, and over the years they've just gotten more brazen.

The goal of Turn Off Fox is to reduce the number of public TVs showing Fox News, while spreading the word about Fox's poison (and how it works) to those who don't know.

Signing up for the campaign is just the first step. We make it easy for you to tell us about businesses playing Fox. If you're willing to talk with them, we'll provide you with straightforward materials that explain why they shouldn't be a party to what Fox is doing. And if there are businesses you know that want to tell the world they would never play Fox, you can help them declare themselves a "Fox-free zone."

As businesses Turn off Fox and stand up as Fox Free, and as we encourage our friends and family to do the same, we'll help make clear, to people across the country, what Fox is about. And we'll reduce their ability to do harm.

Please join me in signing up for the TurnOffFox campaign:

http://colorofchange.org/turnofffox/?id=1695-703497

Thanks.

References

1. http://bit.ly/a5F7kW
2. http://mediamatters.org/research/201007290032
3. http://mediamatters.org/research/200510030005
4. http://bit.ly/c060C0
5. http://mediamatters.org/research/200907300019
6. http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/200907230040
7. http://mediamatters.org/mmtv/201005200033
8. http://mediamatters.org/blog/201007200060

I've Been Saying This Forever!

Basically, going to school during such a recession as this one and expecting it to help you is counter-intuitive... to me, at least. It just removes you from the job market for a while as the other, less educator job seekers have the chance to score positions as the market recovers ever so slowly. I guess the original bet is that the job market will be better by the time one comes out of school. However, some people are getting educations that they never plan to use. Personally, I could have done without my undergraduate education but I see it as a stepping stone to getting a higher degree, just as high school and everything before that was.

This article (NYTimes: Plan B) from the New York Times speaks on the benefits of not obtaining an undergraduate degree. I think it has valid points... well, unless you're one of my many college aged cousins or my future children or grandchildren. If you identify in one of those categories, you're going to college! Sorry for the bias but I'm only human!

Also Please Remember (APR)

That on April 4th, 1968, Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated. Having Easter on the same day makes it tough to share the grief with the joy but his impact on the world should be remembered.

Feel Good Stuff

My dude Ryan pointed this one out to me! I want to help save the school too! Alas, I am poor! :(

http://ncaabasketball.fanhouse.com/2010/03/30/bigger-dreams-than-hoops-in-the-street-stops-here/

Why explain it or post the trailer here when it's just a click away? Maybe one day when I care more.. in this case, the casualty is caring. But this weekend is notorious for a certain someone coming back alive so maybe me caring more will find a comeback. But as the ancient poet Cool James would say, don't call it a come back.