- A few weeks ago, Jack Wilson was the outspoken voice in the Pittsburgh Pirates locker room speaking out against the team’s continued practice of trading away its best players to slash payroll in favor of bringing in “promising young talent.” He was the Pirates' longest-tenured player, a veteran leader and a character guy who his teammates liked and respected. When he questioned management’s commitment to winning, the criticisms seemed on point. Now, Wilson has joined the parade out of Pittsburgh after being traded to the Seattle Mariners along with right-handed pitcher Ian Snell for shortstop Ronny Cedeno, first baseman Jeff Clement, and right-handed pitching prospects Aaron Pribanic, Brett Lorin and Nathan Adcock. Wilson is hitting .267 with four home runs and 31 RBIs, but he’s always been known more as a defensive wizard whose leadership in the clubhouse is a valuable commodity. He should be able to help the Mariners not just this season, but also in 2010, provided the team picks up his $8.4 million option for next season. So add Wilson’s name to the list of players exiting Pittsburgh this season: outfielders, Eric Hinkse, Nyjer Morgan and Nate McLouth and first baseman Adam LaRoche. If I didn’t know any better, I’d guess that the Pirates were looking to trade their entire starting lineup before this year ends so they can stock up with cheap, minor league-quality talent. Heck, Clement is the only player in this deal who will be heading to a team above the Single-A level in the Pirates’ minor league system. Pribanic, Lorin and Adcock are being assigned to Single-A teams, meaning they wont be helping the big league club win any time soon. The irony in all of this is that right now the Pirates are hanging around about 10 games below the .500 mark and could have their best season in several years……if they have enough players left by the time the front office finishes shipping away everything that isn't nailed down……..
- It only took 18 months, but technology titans Microsoft and Yahoo have finally reached an agreement to join forces and help fight the behemoth that is Google. For as long as there have been Internet search engines, Google has pretty much led the way and the Microsoft/Yahoo partnership hopes to change that reality. The 10-year deal wont merge Yahoo.com and Microsoft’s new Bing.com into one amorphous search giant, but search results on Yahoo.com will say "powered by Bing" and Yahoo will be responsible for attracting premium advertisers. Microsoft will pay Yahoo 88 percent of the revenue it gains from searches on Yahoo's sites and Microsoft will be granted the rights to integrate Yahoo's search technology into its own existing Web search platforms. Oddly enough, Yahoo is doing this deal even though it will slightly decrease its overall revenue. Yet in a true accounting oddity, it will also increase Yahoo’s operating income by about $500 million annually. If you’re wondering what this deal will mean for you, the average Internet user, there’s no need to panic. The deal wont officially close until early 2010 and U.S. users won’t start to see the change until three months later. For international users, it could take as long as two years to see the full effect. “This deal is really about scale," said Yahoo Chief Executive Carol Bartz. "By combining the ... technology of both companies, we can create a real, viable alternative for advertisers.” Like Yahoo, Microsoft expects to take short-term financial hit of "several hundreds of millions of dollars," but ultimately benefit in the long run from the ability to charge advertisers more for its service based on the increased relevance of search results. "This really is a win-win agreement both for Microsoft and for Yahoo," said Microsoft chief Steve Ballmer. "Consumers will get better products, and it will help the industry as a whole to prosper through our shared vision and shared values." One group this agreement is bad news for is search personnel at Microsoft, who could find themselves replaced by transplanted Yahoo employees in the next year or so. Still, both companies are displaying a unified front in fighting the evil giant that is Google. Ballmer believes that Google will launch an antitrust complaint against the partnership but feels that his company’s new alliance will stand up in court. I guess we’ll see how this plays out, but at least we can stop hearing about Microsoft and Yahoo bitching back and forth as they try to finalize a deal………..
- Word is that the new Tuesday caddies at Sherwood Forest Golf Course in Cedar Mountain, N.C. aren’t all that helpful in club selection, determining yardage to the green or giving you insights on the course. Of course, they also won’t give you any attitude and will never complain about the heat or how slow you’re playing. That would be because the caddies aren’t people, but rather llamas. Every Tuesday golfers can rent a llama for nine holes to carry their clubs. The llamas have been at Sherwood Forest for the past two months and their owner, Mark English, believes they could be used effectively at other local courses as well. He even claims that the llamas can give input on club selection by stomping on the ground if they agree with your club choice. English can’t claim the idea to use llamas to caddie as his own, having been inspired to follow the example of a course in Pinehurst, N.C. that has been putting the exotic animals to use as caddies for years. Renting a llama for nine holes costs $40, but the upside is that two people can share a llama. It sounds like a fun concept and assuming you don’t leave any food in your bag that the llama might want to get into, it might work. Still, I’m going the route of the budget golfer who isn't too lazy and out of shape to carry his own clubs for nine holes……..
- Courtney Love is absolute garbage. She gravy-trained Kurt Cobain and helped turn his life into a nightmare that ended far sooner than it should have. She leeched onto his rising star and sucked all of the juice she could out of it to help fuel her own insatiable appetite for fame. I seriously doubt that her own band, Hole, would have had much success at all if not for her once being married to Cobain. Having said that, isn't it ironic that Love is accusing Australian pop duo The Veronicas them of stealing her look and making "crappy" music. She did so in the place where everyone seems to vent and spew their thoughts these days, Twitter. In a largely incoherent Tweet, Love attacked one half of The Veronicas, Jess Origliasso, as an image thief.
She wrote: "Why is the blonde one from the verons or whatever they are clled wearing my actual clothes? I will do my job you kids runalong and find your own little jobs whne you can even think that you can play a rock show for 3.5 hrs call me.” In another Tweet, she posted, "The verons girls arent actually playing rock music anyone takes seriousl.” Wow…..bad spelling, terrible grammar, genuine bad blood…nice Tweet, Courtney. Not to quibble with your sound logic, but of course The Veronicas can’t play a rock show, they’re not a rock band. They’re twin sisters who make electro-pop music with very little depth or substance. Of course, that doesn’t mean they wont fight back against a past-her-prime, attention whore like Love. On their own Twitter Page, The Veronicas called Love a "jealous" attention seeker. Jess Origliasso also claimed that Love had asked to come to one of the pair's current U.S. shows just a week prior to making her critical comments on Twitter. "I guess she just wanted my attention by writing s---. She is madly in love with Azaria (Byrne) and she's very jealous I'm dating him," Jess said. “All I really wanted to say to her was: 'Come on Courtney, cut all the bulls--- and release another record already. I loved your music and I know you've got it in you," she said. Love clearly didn’t like Jess’ comments because she had deleted them from her Twitter page the day after they were posted. This is one of those battles where I don’t like either party and would prefer that both just shut up and go away, so here’s hoping…….
- Boy, I cannot tell you how much of a relief it is to know that the current regime in Iran not only brutally abuses its power and assaults its citizens in the street when they dare to stand up against it, but it consistently applies that same treatment once those brave citizens are wrongfully imprisoned. Those claims come from prisoners who say they watched fellow detainees being beaten to death by guards in overcrowded, foul-smelling holding pens. Other claims of abuse include the ripping off of fingernails, being forced to licked disgustingly filthy toilet bowls and that sort of heinous abuse. Families have been given the bruised, battered remains of their loved ones and left to wonder just what happened to them before they were killed. The government is trying to smooth things over with hollow gestures like releasing 140 prisoners on Tuesday and hoping everyone would see that and simply gloss over the fact that more than 100 protesters have died since the country’s rigged presidential election. President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad issued a letter urging the head of the judiciary to show “Islamic mercy” to the detainees and of course he did so in very public fashion so as to make himself appear as magnanimous as possible. Backing him up was the head of Iran’s Supreme Administrative Court, Ayatollah Ghorbanali Dorri-Najafabadi, who said more prisoners would be released by the end of the week and promised that a “serious judicial inquiry” was being conducted into the deaths that have occurred in prisons since the June 12 election. Riiiiight. I’m sure that inquiry will be very thorough and in no way a total sham with no hope of ever revealing what truly happened. This is an overt public relations play by the Iranian government and no more, period. Oh, and just as this is a PR ploy for the government, the claim that only 150-250 of the more than 2,500 people arrested in the post-election crackdown remain in prison is a complete lie. If the number is anywhere near that close it’s because so many prisoners have been killed, er, um, died of natural causes while in captivity. Hospitals reporting the receipt of bodies of dead protestors dispute the numbers the government is putting out on how many deaths have occurred from the protests alone, so it’s not a stretch to imagine that the government is lying about the number of people still in prison too. But hey, at least Ahmadinejad and his crew are consistent….consistently abusive and dictatorial, but consistent nonetheless…….
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