- Another NFL offseason isn’t even in full swing yet and already the Oakland Raiders are showing that no team is capable of being true to its identity than they are. The Raiders do dysfunction like no one else and this offseason will be no different, not if the past couple of weeks are any indication. After alleged franchise quarterback and aspiring The Biggest Loser contestant JaMarcus Russell blew off his season-ending exit interview with coaches and was spotted in Las Vegas partying instead (although the team attempted to cover for him), the focus turned to the team’s tenuous head coaching situation. Following a 5-11 season that gave them double-digit losses every year since making the Super Bowl in 2002, coach Tom Cable’s fate was uncertain at best. After all, he did spend part of this season being investigated by Oakland police for allegedly breaking assistant coach Randy Hanson’s jaw in a meeting-room confrontation. Combine that behavior with a losing record and you can see where owner Al Davis might want to find a new coach (assuming that Al is still alive, a dubious assumption to be sure). Davis and Cable were supposed to meet last week to discuss things, but that meeting didn’t happen. As of now, Cable is still the team’s head coach……but that hasn’t stopped Davis from contacting other coaches, both college and professional, to see if they have any interest in being the new head coach of the Raiders. The first name to surface was Stanford head coach Jim Harbaugh. Sources confirmed that the Raiders spoke to Harbaugh about their head coaching job and that Harbaugh had no interest. Smart move by him, as the Stanford job is a much better gig than the Raiders job at this point and any job at all is less stressful than working for Davis. Up next was their former offensive coordinator Marc Trestman, who now coaches in the CFL. Yes, the Raiders are looking to pillage and plunder the Canadian Football League for coaches. That is not at all embarrassing, Raiders. After speaking with Trestman, the team also met with former NFL coach Jim Fassel. That meeting may have taken place, but not if you ask Fassel. In an interview with Sirius/XM Mad Dog Radio on Wednesday, he sort of denied speaking to the Raiders. "I'm not lobbying for the Raider job. I have never in my life rooted for a coach to be let go so there's an opening. I never have. I'm in the same fraternity," Fassel said. And why would he, what with the sweet gig he has as the head coach of the Las Vegas Locomotives of the UFL? Notice that he said he is not lobbying for the job, not that he didn’t speak with the Raiders. Mind you, all of this takes place as Cable is still officially the team’s head coach. The team is also tinkering with the coaching staff outside of the head position, bringing in Baltimore Ravens quarterbacks coach Hue Jackson to interview for their offensive coordinator job. Nothing like the front office assembling a coaching staff, interviewing for a currently unavailable head coaching position and looking like every bit the running NFL punchline it has been for the past eight-plus years. Keep doing your thing, Raiders……………
- New York Gov. David Paterson may not have the benefit of physical sight, but he clearly is not blind to the financial bind his state is in. Gov. Paterson is facing tough choices all over the political map and he’s not going to win any friends with a sweeping budget plan announced Tuesday that slashes services, raises fees and takes some odd steps to bridge a massive $7.4 billion fiscal gap. "We can no longer afford the spending addiction we've had for so long," Paterson said. "Nobody wants to make these cuts. They will be difficult. They will be painful. They will affect the lives of our citizens. But they are necessary." It’s important to note that this is only a proposed budget and still must be ratified by the legislature, so don’t get too worked up over it. Then again, I realize how wasted those words are to potentially affected parties. They see a fiscal 2011 budget cutting billions from school aid and state agencies, closing four prisons, legalizing ultimate fighting and increasing taxes and fees by $1 billion and they freak out. But before New Yorkers lose all mental control, let’s take a closer look. Some of the measures are good, namely the proposal to slap losers who smoke with an additional $1 tax on every pack of cigarettes. We all hate smoking and people who breathe in that toxic air and subject the rest of us to their equally toxic secondhand smoke should be penalized, both financially and otherwise. Perhaps this will help push more smokers toward quitting their nasty habit and thus driving down smoking-related health-care costs. Given New York’s run of attacks on unhealthy eating, drinking and smoking habits, it makes perfect sense. In that vein, Paterson also proposes an additional tax of a penny per ounce for sugary drinks. No complaints there, either. As for the push to legalize ultimate fighting……sure it’s barbaric, sure it’s bloody and no, it’s not for everyone. But if the bloodthirsty MMA freaks in their Tap Out t-shirts want to throw down their money for MMA tickets, let them. You’re telling me that an MMA event at Madison Square Garden wouldn’t draw a big crowd? Better still, legalizing ultimate fighting in the Empire State could bring with it an estimated $2.1 million in tax revenue. Again, this is merely a starting point for the budget and the state legislature will definitely make changes to the $134 billion budget before it adopts the spending plan. The issue is coming up now only because New York's fiscal year starts in April, the earliest of any state. New York's deficit is the fourth largest nationwide, in terms of dollars, behind California ($14.4 billion), Illinois ($12.8 billion) and neighboring New Jersey ($8 billion). Paterson and the legislature are in a tight spot because they raised taxes last year and simply can’t get away with it again this soon. An exception to that would be the cigarette tax, which would a) raise $218 million and b) target losers who have it coming. On the flip side, New York’s tree huggers won't be pleased if Paterson has his way with budget cuts. Funding for the Environmental Protection Fund would be slashed by $79 million under the proposed budget, which is sure to spark plenty of outrage. In the end, there will be a lot of pissed-off people, no happy people (except for those of us who hate smokers) and a lot less money to go around in New York come 2011…………
- Persecution of one brave dissident anywhere in the world is persecution of all dissidents, everywhere. In other words, I’ve got my eyes on you, Vietnam. You a-holes convicting and sentencing four prominent dissidents to lengthy jail terms Wednesday for attempting to overthrow the government has not gone unnoticed. These four great men spat in the face of the country’s Communist rulers and for that, those Commies are showing off their oppressive muscle. The best-known of the defendants, human-rights lawyer Le Cong Dinh, a former vice chairman of the Ho Chi Minh City Bar Association, was hit with a five-year sentence in Ho Chi Minh City. What was his crime? Brace yourself, because dude had the audacity to (gasp) join a banned political party and own it in open court. Prosecutors claimed in court that Dinh's transgressions represent a "particularly serious violation of national security." Perhaps because he has since been brainwashed by his Communist a-hole government, Dinh blamed his actions on the undue influences he fell under while studying law at Tulane University in New Orleans. He went on to cowardly admit that he never intended to challenge Vietnam's leadership. "From the bottom of my heart, I myself and these three other defendants had no intention to overthrow the government," Dinh stated. One co-defendant, Internet entrepreneur Tran Huynh Duy Thuc, was sentenced to 16 years in prison. He received a sentence more than three times as strict as Dinh’s despite testifying that he hadn't broken any laws and was solely interested in helping to stamp out corruption. Clearly, Vietnam’s government is very fond of its corruption. Both Dinh and Thuc faced the death penalty on charges of subversion, as did another defendant, Nguyen Tien Trung. A fourth defendant, Le Thang Long, was convicted as an accomplice. The government clearly sought to make examples of the four men, featuring the trial extensively in local, state-controlled Vietnamese media. It is a disturbing example of the sharp U-turn Vietnam has taken politically of late, going from a reputation as one Asia's fastest-growing, most vibrant economies to a brutal Communist regime that stifles and tramples the basic rights of its citizens. Signs of this crackdown could be seen last year, when Vietnam began blocking access to Facebook.com, which has been used to organize anti-government activities in other nations in turmoil. Keep it up, ‘Nam, and you could soon find yourself in China’s elite company as the top rights-oppressors in the world……………
- Good news, everyone who has been downing fish or fish oil supplements containing omega-3 fatty acids to improve their health. A new study in the latest edition of in the Journal of the American Medical Association suggests that cramming extra fish or fish oil supplements in your body acids may protect against death and illness by slowing biological aging. Heart disease patients have long been told to consume more fish or take fish oil supplements containing omega-3 fatty acids, but based on these findings, even those not suffering from a heart ailment might want to consider following suit. But the study had barely been published before some cardiac experts questioned its legitimacy because they felt it had serious limitations. The study was conducted by Dr. Ramin Farzaneh-Far of the University of California San Francisco and his team of researchers. They followed more than 600 men with heart disease and found those taking the most omega-3 appeared "biologically younger." That term means the ends of their chromosomes, called telomeres, looked longer and healthier. "Patients with the highest levels of omega-3 fish oils were found to display the slowest decrease in telomere length, whereas those with the lowest levels of omega-3 fish oils in the blood had the fastest rate of telomere shortening," Farzaneh-Far said. "This suggests that these patients were aging faster than those with higher fish oil levels." Some cardiologists, including members of the staffs at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn. and the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland, Ohio, were encouraged by the results of the study, but they were balanced out by those who pointed out that the results are preliminary, and need to be replicated before physicians can use them in practice. Part of their beef with the study is that it was strictly observational and couldn't prove cause-and-effect. "We don't really know whether ingestion of omega-3 fatty acids resulted in this 'benefit,'" said Dr. Steven Nissen of the Cleveland Clinic. "It remains entirely possible that individuals who consume more fish also have other favorable healthy habits. ... The relationship between telomere shortening and cardiovascular health is not well established." In assessing the study and its findings, I would have to concur with those who have their doubts about what it proves. There are simply too many other potential factors in play with these 600 participants to definitively state that the fish oil supplements are the primary reason for these men appearing "biologically younger." Keep researching, come back with something more conclusive and we can go from there…………
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