- Correct me if I’m wrong, but isn’t Ford C. Frick Award, presented annually for excellence in baseball broadcasting by the National Baseball Hall of Fame and Museum, supposed to honor guys who are, you know, good at their job? I thought that was the case and for nine out of the 10 nominees for the award this year, that would seem to be true. But when I scan the list of nominees and see none other than Capt. Numb Nuts himself, Tim McCarver, on the list……I have to wonder….really wonder. If you’ve ever heard Tim McCarver call a game, then you know exactly what I’m talking about. This is a guy who consistently provides thoughtful and measured baseball analysis along the lines of, “When you score more runs than the other team, you drastically up your chances for a win,” or, “For contact hitters, generally putting the bat on the ball is going to make you more successful.” Seriously, if I’m watching a game and McCarver is one of the broadcasters, I will mute the sound and provide my own commentary because I know it will be infinitely better than listening to him blather on and on. I realize that he is a former player and thus has some viewpoints on the game that I, as a non-professional athlete, don’t have. Yet I am willing to sacrifice those viewpoints for the sake of not having an absolute nincompoop blasting through my television’s speakers for three-plus hours. If McCarver could actually take his experiences in baseball, incorporate them intelligently into a broadcast and convey interesting, thoughtful analysis based on his time in the sport, then we might have something. As things now stand, I would just as soon shove a rusty ice pick into both of my eardrums than listen to him call an entire game. Hopefully one of the other nominees will win the award because there are some truly deserving names on the list: Dizzy Dean, Tom Cheek, Graham McNamee, Bill King, Ned Martin, Eric Nadel, Rene Cardenas, Jacques Doucet, Dave Van Horne and, inexplicably, McCarver. Do the right thing, HOF, and give the award to any of the first nine guys on the list or simply follow in the retroactive footsteps of the Heisman Trust in handling their 2005 award debacle by not having any winner t all. Better to leave it vacant than to hand it to a bozo like McCarver. If you’re curious as to who wins, the recipient will be announced Dec. 7 at the baseball winter meetings in Orlando, Fla. and their induction into the Hall of Fame will be July 25, 2011…………
- Sure it’s a largely symbolic gesture that isn’t exactly going to solve our nation’s energy crisis, but that doesn’t mean the installation of solar panels and a solar water heater at the White House is a bad thing. Energy Secretary Steven Chu announced the change Tuesday at the 2010 GreenGov Symposium in Washington and of course, he cited it as an example of President Barack Obama’s commitment to being environmentally friendly and responsible as a nation. "This project reflects President Obama's strong commitment to U.S. leadership in solar energy and the jobs it will create here at home," Chu said in a written statement released by the Energy Department. "Deploying solar energy technologies across the country will help America lead the global economy for years to come." Sounds nice, but for an administration that came in making big promises for dramatic change and has for the most part seemed content with the status quo, one has to wonder how much action and fulfillment there will be behind this pledge. Also, gotta love the announcement being made now but the solar panel system not actually being installed until the spring. Nothing quite like waiting until your term is more than half over to get around to something that involves no actual work on your part, other than possibly signing a work order for those who will be doing the labor, Mr. President. But the system, when it is finally installed, will convert sunlight directly to electricity, while the solar hot water heater will have a solar collector pointed at the sun to heat water for use in the White House residence. Surprisingly, this isn’t the first time solar energy has been used at the White House. Former President Jimmy Carter had solar panels installed on the roof of the White House residence during his term, but Ronald Reagan inexplicably had them removed during his administration. W. used solar energy to help power a maintenance building on the White House grounds and to heat the White House swimming pool, but that was the extent of his environmental efforts. Nice to see President Obama follow through on something he promised to do, even if it is something small………
- DON’T TASE ME BRO! DON’T TASE ME……14 TIMES! No, there isn’t a professional athlete at the center of this story, nor is there an idiot University of Florida student disrupting a political candidate’s speech and getting wrestled to the ground by a half-dozen cops before getting Tased. This time, the central figure is an unarmed aboriginal man who was Tased 14 times while in police custody. The incident, which occurred in Perth, Western Australia in 2008, was caught on video and in said video, the man is showed lying on the ground surrounded by police officers after reportedly refusing a strip search. When police grew weary of telling him to submit to the search, they went to town with their Tasers in an incident that a senior Australian police chief has a described as "unacceptable and extremely disappointing." Amazingly, the Taser victim survived the incident but declined to press charges. The investigation proceeded anyhow and two of the officers involved were fined $1,149 and $718 respectively, but kept their jobs after an internal inquiry. Two other officers involved in the incident had all charges against them dismissed. "Against all their training and procedures, two officers repeatedly Tasered a detainee because he wouldn't move when told, and all this while other officers watched," Western Australia Police Acting Commissioner Chris Dawson said in a statement. "The community will obviously be disappointed when they see closed-circuit television vision today of what took place," he added. "They were fortunate not to be sacked." The footage was made public as part of a report by the state's Corruption and Crime Commission into the use of Tasers by the force. That report found that Tasers were used 3,070 times between 2007 and 2009, becoming the "option of choice" and constituting 74 percent of reported uses of force in 2008. The commission also cited this particular incident as an indication of a "broader problem with respect to officers misunderstanding the circumstances in which Tasers could be used." State Attorney General Christian Porter has since called for police disciplinary procedures to be reviewed. "There has to be some recognition that excessive use of force with a taser is of a completely qualitatively different nature to just excessive use of force with your hands, if you like," Porter stated. "I think we've reached the stage now where Tasers are such important instruments for the police force that disciplinary proceedings for excessive use of force with a Taser need to be treated in a special category." Sure, but the sight of someone getting blasted with a few dozen volts of electricity is always entertaining, whether it’s justified or not……..
- Well this is certainly odd and disconcerting. A cell phone provider is giving copious amounts of money to its customers instead of taking said amounts from them? Verizon Wireless is the company bucking this trend by issuing millions of dollars in rebates to customers who were incorrectly charged tens of millions of dollars for data they didn't use. The U.S. Federal Communications Commission plunged itself into the midst of this mess and began investigating the "mystery fees," which could amount to $50 million in total. The bogus charges have affected at least 15 million wireless customers, all of whom were charged data fees even if they didn't subscribe to data plans. That wonderful trend is being blamed on a defect in Verizon's phone software. Those impacted by the error should see rebates coming their way soon, with charges generally in the range of $2 to $6. The refunds will be credited to customers' bills in October and November and when you add up all the money being sent back by Verizon, it is expected be one of the largest paid by a wireless network. "The majority of the data sessions involved minor data exchanges caused by software built into their phones; others included accessing certain Web links, which should not have incurred charges," Verizon's statement said. "We have addressed these issues to avoid unintended data charges in the future." With the FCC breathing down its neck since January, when word of the erroneous fees first came from customers, Verizon didn’t really have much of a choice. But the FCC is still investigating because it wonders why making things right took so long on Verizon’s part. "We're gratified to see Verizon agree to finally repay its customers. But questions remain as to why it took Verizon two years to reimburse its customers and why greater disclosure and other corrective actions did not come much, much sooner," said Michele Ellison, the FCC's enforcement bureau chief. "The Enforcement Bureau will continue to explore these issues, including the possibility of additional penalties, to ensure that all companies prioritize the interests of consumers when billing problems occur." So how did these fees find their way onto customers’ bills? Well, some fees were charged when customers without data plans opened mobile Web links, even though they were not receiving data and even more amazingly, other fees were levied without any actions from mobile phone users. "Customers who did not have data plans were billed for data sessions on their phones that they did not initiate," the company said. "These customers would normally have been billed at the standard rate of $1.99 per megabyte for any data they chose to access from their phones." Verizon hasn’t been very specific about the overall size of the rebate, saying it could range from about $30 million to $90 million. But for someone like me, one of the five people in the United States without a cell phone, this is all totally irrelevant………
- When a writer or director goes to great lengths to get a movie made and that movie is finally sent out to theaters, it is a time of both relief and apprehension. On the one hand, their baby has finally been born, so to speak, and there is nothing more they can do at that point besides watch and wait. On the other hand…..all they can do it watch and wait. That means their movie could meet the same fate as the unrated slasher sequel “Hatchet II,” which has been yanked from all theaters in the AMC theater chain just a few of days after its release. The decision came as a complete surprise to director Adam Green, who had no warning that such a move was forthcoming. "We woke up this morning and the movie was gone," Green said. "I'm bewildered and confused." Those comments are a 180-degree turn from his previous statements about the partnership between AMC and his movie, as he once said that AMC volunteered to exhibit an unrated version of the movie after the MPAA declined to give the movie an R rating. "It turns out the people who make the decisions at AMC were big fans of the original Hatchet and loved the sequel," Green said at the time. "I think the quote was that they thought it was the best slasher sequel they'd ever seen.” The battle with the MPAA over the film’s rating actually generated a substantial amount of attention for the film and Green fanned those flames by labeling it as an "evil" organization. He now wonders whether those comments were the reason AMC pulled his movie, which stars relatively unknown actor Kane Hodder as a homicidal psychopath named Victor Crowley. "I assume it probably had something to do with the controversy online about an unrated movie playing in theaters," Green mused. "To me, the whole thing is unfortunate because this is not a movie that deserves to be unrated. It's a very funny, silly slasher movie about a swamp ghost that's killing people in ridiculous ways. And now it's become, you know, 'Banned from cinemas.' I've lost 11 pounds in the last week from stress." AMC has been rather obtuse in explaining its decision to pull the film, preferring to hide behind the following written statement: "At AMC theaters, we review all films in all of our theatres every week and then make our business decisions based on their performance." With his film’s removal from AMC theaters, Green has resigned himself to the film having no real future on the big screen and hopes instead that it will receive an infusion of life on demand and DVD. All in all, a very curious situation that would seem to have a lot more to its story than we know right now because quite frankly, something here doesn’t smell right………..
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