- Expanded replay is not exactly revolutionizing Major
League Baseball – at least not in a positive way. What was supposed to make the
game more accurate and fair while adding a bare minimum of delays and extra
time has instead turned into a giant clusterf*ck that doesn’t appear to be
accomplishing its stated mission and is successful only in creating headaches,
negative headlines and reasons for pundits to mock MLB officials’ inability to
look at a high-definition replay on a massive flatscreen in a cushy office in
New York City and decide whether or not a player is out or a batted ball was
fair or foul. After admitting to several missed calls despite the use of replay
through the first month of the season, MLB officials admitted to their latest
screw-up involving Tampa Bay
shortstop Yunel Escobar striking out in an at-bat that was completed after a
replay review. MLB admitted it failed to correct a pitch count despite STOPPING
THE GAME AND REVIEWING THE AT-BAT ON VIDEO SPECIFICALLY TO CHECK THE COUNT. A
replay delay of 1 minute, 47 seconds in Tuesday night's game against Minnesota
was not enough to correct the error after the count went off balance. Even
after the replay review, umpires wrongly ruled the count on Escobar was 3-2.
That was a problem because Escobar had already taken four balls and should have
been standing on first base. Instead, he returned to the batter’s box and struck
out on the next pitch. "An error was made when replay officials and
supervisors mistakenly thought one of the pitches was a foul ball when it was
actually a ball," MLB said in a statement. Very big of you to admit a
mistake the whole world could clearly see without your help, baseball. In spite
of the error, Tampa Bay still beat the Twins 7-3………..
- Paying for college sucks. No college or university worth a
damn is cheap and few are even affordable, which is why a University of Wisconsin professor is
attempting to find a solution to the problem that plagues, frat bros, sorority
girls, commuter students and dorm dwellers everywhere. In a paper published earlier
this month, professor Sara Goldrick-Rab laid out a model she believes will make
college accessible for those who attend public universities by lowering the
total cost of tuition – including two years of free schooling. "The
financial aid system just is not working out the way it was planned to. It's
not good for people to work really hard and then see it not pay off. That's
really disconcerting to families and it really undermines the American
dream," Goldrick-Rab said. Under the Goldrick-Rab model, students would
receive free tuition for two years and would have their books and supplies paid
for completely, as well as receive a stipend to help with living expenses. Her
plan calls for rerouting financial aid from private institutes to public
colleges and universities. Them are fightin’ words for the elitist snobs are
private schools – or for whomever those rich people would hire to fight for
them – but Goldrick-Rab wants to make it clear she’s not looking for an
academic brawl. "It's not really right to tell private schools how to do
their jobs. But it also does not seem very right for the tax payer to provide a
lot of subsidy as it does right now to private institutions, without being able
to extract the kinds of accountability that we would want to have,” she said.
The origins of government funding for private schools come from 50 years ago,
during a time when public schools were not as established. Goldrick-Rab
justified her position by arguing that public campuses can now offer more to
students, creating a greater need for federal resources……….
- The U.S. Food
and Drug Administration’s role in the health and wellness world is an important
one. Among its many duties, the FDA is charged with evaluating new drugs and
medical devices to determine if they are safe and ready for the market. If the
FDA does its job well, useful devices that will help save lives and improve the
quality of those lives reach the hands of doctors and patients. If the agency
does its job poorly, people die. Doing that job also means taking lots of heat
from policymakers, patient groups and the medical device industry and to answer
gripes that it takes too long to approve medical devices, the FDA has proposed
a program aimed at increasing the speed of approving the medical devices for
patients who do not have another treatment options. The Expedited Access
Premarket Approval Application program is being billed as a change to the
existing system rather than an entirely new way for devices to reach the market.
Its primary focus will be shortening the time for a product to be developed and
removing potential unnecessary hurdles in putting it on the market. It bears
similarities to another FDA program meant to accelerate development of certain
cancer drugs in clinical trials. Coordination within the agency will be vital
if this effort is to succeed and if it does, it could help handle the
ever-rising number of new product applications. More applications have led to a
slower approval process as the makers of new products must wait in line to
prove that their invention has new benefits for its target patients. The FDA
does have a fast-track program for well-established medical devices program
like wheelchairs and hip implants, while the new version targets approval for
high-risk devices like the devices that support or sustain life……….
- Quentin Tarantino may not be winning in court, but
he is keeping the name and brand of his potential next big project in the
spotlight as he wages what appears to be a losing legal fight. A U.S. District
Count judge in California ruled against the director in his case against celebrity
gossip website Gawker for promoting a leaked online copy of his script for “The Hateful Eight,” bur don’t assume
it’s all bad news for Tarantino. Yes, Judge John F. Walter ruled that Tarantino
“has failed to adequately plead facts establishing direct infringement by a
third party or facts that would demonstrate [Gawker] either caused, induced, or
materially contributed to the alleged direct infringement of those third party
infringers,” and on the surface that seems bad. Gawker was one of several sites
that covered the leak of the screenplay and posted a link to an online copy,
leading Tarantino to sue the site for copyright infringement and contributory
copyright infringement. Walter ruled that Tarantino failed to “allege a single
act of direct infringement committed by any member of the general public that
would support Plaintiff’s claim for contributory infringement. Instead,
Plaintiff merely speculates that some direct infringement must have taken
place.” That ruling left a slight opening for Tarantino and he now has until
May 1 to amend and re-file the secondary claim for contributory infringement
against Gawker. However, assuming that “Hateful Eight” is dead and gone is a
mistake. After putting this much effort into the project and generating this
much buzz, there is no way Tarantino lets the idea go entirely and just moves
on……..
- Angry Sherpas are a sight no one wants to see. But that is
precisely what the world witnessed in Nepal on Wednesday as dozens
of Sherpa guides packed up their tents and left Mount Everest's base camp
following the deaths of 16 of their colleagues in an avalanche. The tragedy
highlighted a growing resentment among Sherpas over their pay, treatment and
benefits. That avalanche has thrown the entire climbing season into disarray
and with the Sherpas on strike, government officials announced plans to fly to
the base camp to negotiate with the Sherpas and encourage them to return to
work. Perhaps not knowing the definition of being helpful, one tourism official
blamed the walkout on "hooligans." "It was crowd behavior --
some hooligans were creating problems, but things are getting back to
normal," said Sushil Ghimire, secretary of Nepal's Tourism Ministry.
Approximately 400 Sherpas were on the mountain at the time of the walkout and
while the number of defectors wasn’t immediately known, several expedition
companies have already canceled their climbs. The majority of attempts to reach
Everest's summit are made in mid-May, when a brief window normally offers
better weather. Sherpas are a democratic bunch with no official leader, so
negotiating with them will be challenging. Following the avalanche, the
government said it would pay the families of each Sherpa who died 40,000
rupees, or about $415. For some odd reason, the Sherpas balked at that offer
and demanded better pay, better insurance, more financial aid for the victims'
families and new regulations to ensure climbers' rights. A total of 13 bodies
were recovered after Friday's avalanche and the three Sherpas still missing in
the ice and snow are presumed dead. "It is just impossible for many of us
to continue climbing while there are three of our friends buried in the
snow," said Dorje Sherpa, an experienced Everest guide. "I can't
imagine stepping over them." The avalanche was caused by a massive piece
of glacier shearing away from the mountain along a section of constantly
shifting ice and crevasses known as the Khumbu Icefall and it is neither the
first nor will it be the last tragedy in a dangerous corner of the world. The
Sherpas are merely looking for better compensation for their role in it……….
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