- Normally, lawsuits that could be construed as frivolous because they don’t pertain to major life and societal issues are something I hate. People wasting time and money, clogging up court dockets and making a farce of the legal system by pursuing ridiculous suits doesn’t help anyone and makes the American judicial branch look like even more of a joke than it already is to the world at large. However, I’m making an exception when it comes to any and all cases in which someone - anyone - wants to take legal action against the head-in-the-sand ass hats who run college football's Bowl Championship Series. The clowns are disingenuous, dishonest, greedy and absurd to the core and their fight to prevent a much-needed playoff system for Division I football makes them one of the most loathsome groups in all of sports. With that in mind, I can do nothing but support Utah Attorney General Mark Shurtleff as he meets with Justice Department officials this week and pushes for a possible federal investigation into the BCS. Shurtleff, whose home state boasts perennial BCS buster the University of Utah, is investigating the BCS for possible antitrust violations and wants the Justice Department to do so as well. "They are doing their due diligence," Shurtleff said Thursday, a day after his meeting with the DOJ. "They had done their homework." However, Justice Department officials have not officially committed to launching an investigation, so there is still work to be done. Still, the presence of Gene Kimmelman, chief counsel for competition policy and intergovernmental relations in the department's antitrust division, suggests that the DOJ is at least taking the issue seriously. Shurtleff also has the support of Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, who is firmly behind the anti-BCS fight. In January, Hatch received a letter from the DOJ stating the Obama administration was considering several steps that would review the legality of the BCS. Hatch has since made a request for an antitrust review, but the department has yet to rule on that request. Predictably, BCS chief ass hat/executive director Bill Hancock said Thursday it was "hard to imagine a bigger waste of taxpayer money than to involve the government in college football." The government wouldn’t have to spend any time on the issue if you buffoons would do the right thing, stop the personal gravy train that you’re all riding on and exit train left in order to set up a playoff that a) fans want and would support, b) makes sense competitively, c) is feasible, as playoffs at every other level of college football attest and d) isn’t happening only because university presidents like getting paid, er, um, enjoy the system as is. But Hatch and Shurtleff are right to push for any measure or step that would topple the BCS, which amounts to a monopoly handing the champions of six conferences have automatic bids to play in top-tier bowl games, while the other conferences don't. A team like Boise State, which is perennially excellent, has to fight a hundred times as hard to even be considered for a BCS game even though they could easily whoop champions of lackluster, middling conferences like the Big (L)East and ACC. Shurtleff is hoping that attorneys general from other states will heed his call and join the push to do away with the BCS. But it is the support of the Department of Justice that he truly covets. "You get the DOJ behind one, and the BCS will finally say, 'OK, we'll go to a playoff,' " Shurtleff postulated. Well said, sir, well said………
- And the hits just keep on coming…..for nations other than the United States, that is. First, we’re 11th on Newsweek’s annual list of the world’s best countries in which to live and then we come in 10th on London analytical center Legatum Institute’s annual list ranking the prosperity of 110 of the world's nations. Thursday delivered another big hit to our collective national ego as Norway (again) was named by the United Nations as the country with the best quality of life for a record-matching eighth time and the U.S. ranked fourth on the list. Compared to the other two lists I just mentioned, fourth is something of a monumental achievement for America, but since when did we settle for fourth-best at anything? Finishing behind Norway, Australia and New Zealand used to be a reason to go for most Americans, but now we simply roll over and accept our fourth-place finish. Awesome. For the record, the U.N.’s rankings measure global wealth, poverty, health and education. The list ranks every nation in the world and this is the 20th anniversary of the rankings, meaning it would have been nice to score the top spot. Norway secured than honor with its 81.0 years of life expectancy, average annual income of $58,810 and 12.6 years of schooling per capita. Believe it or not, the Norwegians are rich in oil and have a great quality of life up in Scandinavia. However, Norway can’t boast of total supremacy because its per capita earnings were dwarfed by one of my absolute favorite places to visit, the world’s sixth-smallest country, Liechtenstein. In tiny Liechtenstein (population 35,000), the average income is a whopping $81,011. Curiously, the recent growth in the Asia-Pacific region didn’t bear out in the rankings, as nations from that particular corner of the globe could not crack the top of the list. Ireland snared the final spot in the top five, right behind the U.S. and presumably on the strength of its proficiency in the “alcohol consumption” portion of the rankings. As for Norway, it has now topped the Human Development Index (HDI) for all but two years since 2001. Who was last on the list? That would be Zimbabwe, which was the lowest of the 169 nations ranked, behind Mozambique, Burundi, Niger and Democratic Republic of Congo. Compare the stats from Norway with those of Zimbabwe, where the life expectancy is just 47 years and per capita income a mere 176 dollars, and you begin to understand the breath of the disparity between the have’s and have-not’s in the world. Zimbabwe has ranked last on the U.N. list for the past five years, so for Zimbabweans it is nothing new. The goal of the study is to provide a broader assessment of quality of life than just income by including, health, education, gender equality and political freedom. Among the noteworthy revelations as the study reaches its 20th year are: average life expectancy rose from 59 to 70 years, primary school enrollment grew from 55 to 70 percent, and per capita incomes doubled to more than 10,000 dollars. China has been one of the biggest risers, moving up eight places in the last five years to 89th, with Indonesia and South Korea also having made significant gains. The poorest and most-struggling nations continue to be sub-Saharan African countries and former Soviet Bloc countries, where life expectancy is now below 1970 levels. As for the inability of the U.S. to compete with the Norwegians, Aussies and Kiwis……America, it’s time to step your game up………
- How do you react to success? The answer to that question determines much of how a person or group will fare in any facet of life, and coming off of their first studio album to truly be embraced beyond the narrow confines of the indie rock world, Canadian rockers Arcade Fire face that very query. The band is booked up with gigs in the United Kingdom until mid-December, but lead singer/multi-instrumentalist Will Butler said recently that the band will "definitely" announced more shows for the first quarter of 2011. "We'll definitely be touring next Spring because the weather will be nicer to drive around in the springtime than the winter," he said prior to speaking Tuesday at Northwestern University in Evanston, Ill., which he used to attend. Additionally, Butler stated that the band would start new writing sessions before the spring dates. "We're going to experiment this winter," he said. "We're not quite sure what we're doing in February, but January and March we'll probably be off. We've never successfully written or done anything really in a middle of a touring cycle. We're going to see if we can maybe get into a different rhythm besides the tour, tour, tour, rest, rest, rest, tour, tour, tour, rest, rest, rest. We're going to see if we can intertwine them a little bit.” Coming off a successful, well-received album, it’s great to see one of indie rock’s finest continue grinding away and committing to work on new music rather than rest on their success and drop off the radar for months on end. For fans around the U.K. and North America, the chance to see Arcade Fire live coupled with new music in the works is a nice combo………
- Every conceivable form of media and entertainment is available in 3-D by now…..except for 3-D content on smartphones. People use their smartphones as phones, computers, gaming devices, organizers and pretty much everything else, so why not add 3-D content as well? Sharp Electronics is looking to lead that revolution by introducing a pair of handsets that render 3-D images without the need for those über-dorky 3-D glasses. The phones will run Google's Android operating system and at least initially, they will be available only in Japan. The phones will be released in Japan in December and February, respectively. The first model released will be the Galapagos OO3SH, which features a touchscreen and a 9.6-megapixel camera, and the Galapagos OO5SH, which has a slide-out keyboard and an 8-megapixel camera. Both phones will boast 3.8-inch display screens. Users who rely on their phone primarily as a phone likely won't have much use for 3-D entertainment on their smartphone, but the reality is that more and more people are turning to their smartphones as portable entertainment devices on which to watch movies and TV shows or to access the Web. Even though Sharp has just announced its first two 3-D phones, video-game maker Capcom has already announced that 3-D versions of several games -- "Mega Man," "Ghosts 'n Goblins: Gold Knights" and "Resident Evil: Degeneration" -- are in development for the Android system. No price points have yet been revealed, but rest assured that you’ll be paying $500 or more for these bad boys………
- How long has it been since we’ve had a good weapons trafficking scandal? Too long, that’s how long. That means we all owe a ginormous thank you to Nicholas Bickle of San Diego, Richard Paul of Durango, Colorado and Andrew Kaufman of Las Vegas. These three have been arrested for allegedly selling machine guns and other firearms to an undercover law enforcement officer in Nevada and Colorado. Making the case all the more amazing, Bickle is apparently an active duty U.S. Navy SEAL. These are the toughest, baddest, most resourceful and most dangerous people around and they’re the ones we send into the toughest situations to perform the tasks that no one else can get done. So of course, when the exists a dearth of people willing to sell machine guns and other illegal firearms to individuals they believe to be members of the general public, a Navy SEAL is going to be the one to step up and “git R done.” In this case, however, the U.S. Attorney General's Office in Nevada took great offense to these three men getting it done and busted all three for smuggling machineguns into the United States by special forces military personnel returning from Iraq and Afghanistan. What that means is if convicted, Bickle, Paul and Kaufman face up to five years in prison on the conspiracy charge and a $250,000 fine. Yet I’m always a fan of going against the trend, spitting in the face of The Man and so I will stand up and applaud these three brave men even though I don’t actually like guns or the thought of using them. Where the rest of the world sees a problem that needs to be stopped and prosecuted, I see bold men stepping up to fill a void………
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