- Crisis averted…..or not. The NFL is almost certainly headed for a work stoppage after its current season, with the owners set to lock the players out once the collective bargaining agreement expires in March. Anyone who follows, covers or has any part in the league whatsoever is basically resigned to a lockout and the reality that part or all of next season could be wiped out. Everyone except AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka, that is. Trumka sees a possibility for resolving the impasse between the players and owners and he believes that his own negotiating skills are the key to unlock that door. In a letter sent to both the league and NFL Players Association, Trumka offered to sit down with NFL commissioner Roger Goodell and NFLPA executive director DeMaurice Smith and determine the parameters for a new collective bargaining agreement. "I would like to invite you both to meet with me to discuss how an agreement might be reached," the letter reads. "I believe such a meeting would be an immediate and important step toward saving football for the 2011 season and avoiding the significant job losses that will occur if owners lock out the players and cancel games." That’s right, a guy who heads up one of the most powerful unions in the nation and fights for the right of overpaid, coffee-break-loving union members to take two-hour lunches and enjoy exorbitant salaries (just kidding, union members) thinks he can resolve a dispute between billionaire owners and millionaire players. I really should stop mocking unions because I don’t want to end up wearing concrete shoes at the bottom of the nearest lake or ground to pieces inside some heavy machinery at a local factory (again, just pimping you a little bit, union members). But it truly hilarious that my man Richie Trumka thinks he can just waltz into what will be one of the most contentions labor battles in the history of professional sports and sort everything out. Who knows, maybe this week’s fruitless bargaining session in Washington will inspire the two sides to try something different, but I doubt it. To say Trumka’s offer comes out of altruistic motives would be a lie; he too has a horse in this race. Just two weeks ago, he sent a letter to all 32 team owners, warning that a lockout could cost thousands of Americans their jobs and cities more than $140 million in revenue. He has also reiterated the NFLPA’s request to Goodell that the league provide profit or loss statements and operating expenses of NFL teams that would justify the need for a lockout. The bottom-line issues for the negotiations are the league’s desire for an 18-game regular season, the implementation of a rookie wage scale, HGH testing for players and the league’s desire to reduce the 59.6 percent of designated NFL revenues that players currently receive. Those are four huge issues to tackle and with no answer in sight, one Richard Trumka may be our last hope……..or not………
- Not enough people attempt something - anything - great in their lives. They’re either too lazy, not motivated enough, too weighed down by the necessities and vagaries of everyday life to truly aim for anything monumental. Suffice it to say, Karl Meltzer is not one of these people. Meltzer, a man renowned for attempting amazing and insane feats of endurance, is currently churning away on a project that commands respect and admiration. How does a man who ran the entire Appalachian Trail in 54 days in 2008 top that feat? By running 2,000 miles across what was the Pony Express route, that’s how. Meltzer is tackling a trail that crosses the Rocky Mountains and Great Plains from Sacramento, California, to St. Joseph, Missouri. For the history clueless out there, the Pony Express was the primary mail service for the country in the 1860s before the big dreamers and big thinkers of the day invented the telegraph. He began his trek on Sept. 15 and in the two-plus weeks since, has run an amazing 782 miles. That leaves more than 1,000 more miles to go, but so far Meltzer is going strong and he has the luxury of being able to sleep in an RV each night. Asked about the motivation for his run, he said exactly what you would expect a man attempting a 2,000-mile run to say. "I wanted to do something that was historic, above and beyond what anyone else has done," he said. "And you've got so much time out there. When I'm by myself, I'm constantly taking it all in, being reminded of how cool it is to do this for a living." He has a sponsor for the race - energy drink manufacturer Red Bull - and a paid crew of four people attending to his needs, making sure he consumes plenty of calories for breakfast and gets copious amounts of carbs and sugar throughout the day. His pace is a solid 7 mph clip, which won't win you any road races but is still moving well. The pace allows him to cover approximately 50 miles each day and at the end of each day, a doctor checks his vitals. Meltzer expects to complete his adventure in late October and in between now and then, you can follow his progress at www.karlmeltzer.com. I’d advise you do that because you just might be inspired to attempt something great yourself………
- Pretty much nothing fires me up like a good coup attempt. The little guy marshaling all his resources and trying to overthrow The Man is as good as it gets for an anti-establishment enthusiast like me. Bearing that in mind, I think you can imagine how I feel about the current scene in Ecuador, where a state of emergency has been declared after President Rafael Correa accused the opposition and security forces of a coup attempt. Correa made his outrageous claim at the end of a long day in which he was forced to flee a protest in the capital, Quito, after tear gas was fired. Also, troops have seized control of the main airport, forcing it to close. Cities and towns around the country have been gripped by unrest and things have become so tenuous that Peru closed its border with Ecuador. Why are so many angry protestors out in the streets? Well, they’re a tad cranky about a new law passed on Wednesday that ends bonuses and other benefits for public servants. Ripping people’s bonuses is a reason to go and clearly, Ecuadorians are looking for a fight. When members of the armed forces and police are included in an offended group, your problems increase exponentially. They can then set up road blocks across the country and even engage in protest activities they are normally looking to stop, things like setting tires on fire in the streets of Quito, Guayaquil and other cities, occupying the National Assembly building and threatening to topple the current regime. Correa gave a daring speech to the angry troops from Quito's main barracks, saying: "If you want to kill the president, here he is. Kill him, if you want to. Kill him if you are brave enough. If you want to seize the barracks, if you want to leave citizens undefended, if you want to betray the mission of the police force, go ahead. But this government will do what has to be done. This president will not take a step back." His speech was great……right up to the point where he was forced to flee the barracks wearing a gas mask shortly afterwards when tear gas was fired by the protesters. He was later treated for the effects of the gas at a police hospital, where he detailed his version of the attack. "They threw tear gas at us. One exploded near my face. It stunned me and my wife for a few seconds, probably minutes," he said. "I had to put on a gas mask and some cowards took it off me so I would suffocate. I mean they shot at the president - it's incredible - our security forces, our national police. It is a coup attempt led by the opposition and certain sections of the armed forces and the police.” My man, that is what you would call the start of a revolution. Lobbing tear gas at the president is how you take a big swing at the establishment. Taking control of the runway at Quito's Mariscal Sucre International Airport and causing flights to be grounded is another way. Some citizens are wondering if they should withdraw their money from the country's banks amid reports of looting, further ratcheting up the tension. Peruvian President Alan Garcia saw the melee and ordered his nation's border with Ecuador closed until Correa's "democratic authority" was re-established. Here’s hoping that doesn’t happen any time soon………
- Is Big Brother just not invasive and voyeuristic enough for your tastes? Do you want to infringe on the privacy of total strangers even further and get into their personal space in a truly disturbing way? If so, the tools who run the CW have just the show for you. Their new project, The Frame, will jam pit seven or eight teams of two players — couples, siblings, etc. — against one another by forcing them to live in a single room as small as 10-feet-by-10-feet, with a camera recording everything they do (outside of possibly using the restroom). They will also compete in various challenges and viewers will vote as to who should get booted off the show. But wait, there’s more. If you just can’t get enough of the contestants during the two weekly broadcasts, you’ll also be able to watch a continuous live stream available on the Internet. Now, one could fairly point out that for someone who routinely slams the CW for churning out a nonstop line of cookie-cutter shows about rich, privileged, beautiful people living in either New York or southern California and attending fancy parties at one another’s multimillion dollar homes or penthouses, this show is at least a departure from that genre. That’s a fair point…..until you consider how moronic this new concept is. Look, I understand that we live in a voyeuristic society wherein privacy is an increasingly scarce commodity, but I just don’t need to be in such close quarters with random people whose sole goal in life is to become famous without doing or being anything to actually justify that fame. Jamming the Big Brother concept into a prison cell-sized box and trying to turn a concept that is currently airing (and apparently succeeding somehow) in Spain into the latest reality show travesty to make the trip across the Atlantic is a terrible idea and thus an idea you know could only come from the CW………..
- This has been a great week for cybercrime that sounds like it was ripped right from an old 24 script. First, an advanced virus targeting mechanical components at nuclear power plants is revealed to be circumnavigating the globe and potentially targeting a plant in Iran, of all places. Now comes word that federal and state officials have broken up an international cybercrime ring run by alleged hackers who used phony e-mails to obtain personal passwords and drain more than $3 million from U.S. bank accounts. The ring includes 37 individuals charged with using a malicious computer program called Zeus Trojan to hack into the bank accounts of U.S. businesses and municipal entities. The U.S. Attorney's Office announced the indictments along with a related case in which Manhattan District Attorney Cyrus Vance charged 36 individuals for allegedly stealing $860,000 from dozens of individuals and corporations, including JPMorgan Chase. Thursday was a big day in the first case, as law enforcement officials arrested 10 of the defendants Thursday after 10 had already been taken into custody. I’ll do the math for you on this…..10 defendants already in custody, 10 more arrested Thursday……which means there are 17 suspects still being sought in the United States and abroad. "This advanced cybercrime ring is a disturbing example of organized crime in the 21st Century -- high tech and widespread," Vance said in a statement. His words are backed by complaints unsealed in Manhattan federal court that detail how defendants used the Zeus Trojan program to covertly obtain personal information and then hack into victims' bank accounts. From there, the thieves allegedly made unauthorized transfers of "thousands of dollars" to the bank accounts belonging to co-conspirators. As with so many Internet scams, this one began with malware that was typically sent as an "apparently-benign e-mail" that embedded itself in the victims' computers once it was opened. In other words, if you weren’t a moron, you avoided this scam. If you weren’t, then you opened the door to recorded keystrokes and allowing hackers to steal your private account information, passwords and other "vital security codes." The operation was based in Eastern Europe and also used one of my favorite groups in any criminal enterprise, mules. The "money mules" transported the stolen money overseas using student visas or fake passports, according to the federal complaint. "The Zeus Trojan allegedly allowed the hackers, from thousands of miles away, to get their hands on other peoples' money," said FBI Assistant Director Janice Fedarcyk. "But their scheme didn't eliminate risk. Like the money mules, many, if not all, will end up behind bars." Ultimately, Fedarcyk is correct and she and her colleagues can be very proud that at the end of a year-long investigation conducted by several state and federal agencies, they have gotten the job done and were able to bring charges including conspiracy to commit bank fraud, money laundering and conspiracy to possess false identification documents, among others, against those involved. Somewhere, the writers of the 24 movie should be taking notes………
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