- This holiday season, it’s great to hear news of the least
fortunate among us getting help when they need it most. Nowhere is the truer
than in Major League Baseball, where the sport’s bottom-rung players are
getting a pay raise so they can afford another 70-inch LED television for their
other guest bedroom. Yes, MLB’s minimum
salary is rising to $507,500 next year from $500,000 because of a provision in
the sport’s collective bargaining agreement that calls for a cost-of-living
adjustment based on the yearly increase through October of the Consumer Price
Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers, rounded to the nearest $500.
Even better, there’s going to be another such adjustment for the minimum in
2016, the final season of the labor contract. That means the short-timers
trying to cling to a spot on an MLB roster and wondering how they're going to
stretch half a million dollars out to make ends meet for a while longer will
have enough disposable income to dine at a couple more four-star restaurants
and afford the premium accessories package on their new sports car. The news
even extends to the minors, where the minimum for a player signing a second
major league contract goes up to $82,700 from $81,500 and the minor league
minimum for a player signing an initial big league contract rises to $41,400
from $40,750. In a world where prices on everything from toothpaste to tofu are
always on the rise, those living on the lower rungs of the income ladder
clearly need all of the help they can get and MLB is doing what it can to
address those needs………
- Did no one think of Michigan before getting all hyped up
about strengthening Environmental Protection Agency standards for ground-level smog?
After all, the one state in the nation most likely to hit up neighboring states
for a loan because it’s broke and the bank is about to foreclose on the house
is heavily dependent on industry for its few remaining businesses and while
cracking down on the key pollutant leading to smoggy summer days sounds awesome, it would
also make life incredibly difficult on manufacturers who comprise the core of
the state’s enterprise. The proposed revision would reduce allowable ozone
emissions from 75 parts per billion to a range between 65 and 70 parts per
billion, with the possibility of reducing the level to as low as 60 parts per
billion. "Bringing ozone pollution standards in line with the latest
science will clean up our air, improve access to crucial air quality
information and protect those most at-risk," EPA Administrator Gina
McCarthy said in a statement. That has the Michigan Manufacturers Association
uneasy and warning that such a reduction will come with a high cost. "It's
going to cost jobs; it's going to increase the cost of energy," said
Andrew Such, the association's director of environmental and regulatory policy.
Ahead of the EPA announcement, the National Association of Manufacturers commissioned
a self-serving study that found a reduction of the standard to 60 parts per
billion would cost Michigan 83,000 jobs and a reduction of $75 billion in gross
state product from 2017 to 2040, Such said. Yes, but summer days when broke-ass
Detroit residents can stroll outside in the middle of the day because they were
laid off last month and enjoy breathing semi-clean air in the abandoned streets
of ghost towns that used to be full of people is worth the cost, right?
Besides, the EPA estimates that every dollar spent to comply with the new
standard will result in $3 of health benefits, so it’s all about whose
stats you believe in……….
- Simmer down, Jurassic Park enthusiasts. The next,
long-awaited sequel in a franchise that should have stayed dead just like the
dinosaurs who are at the heart of its bizarre world of resequenced DNA doesn’t
drop until next year, but even the release of a trailer that failed to live up
to expectations was enough to send scores of Twitter trolls looking to bash
everyone associated with the project. The chief target of that drastically
overblown ire is the director of “Jurassic World,” Colin Trevorrow. The guy in the big chair
and with the mash-up of a last name found himself in an unfortunate spot this
week, defending, of all things, the park gate that appears briefly in the
film's trailer. Yes, there are ass hats who are up in arms over a split-second
shot of a park gate that didn’t look quite right. The full-length trailer for “Jurassic World” was released on
Tuesday and rather than appreciate that it was ready to view several days
earlier than originally expected, a few haters went against the grain and that
the gate to the Jurassic World theme park seen in the trailer is butt-ugly and less
realistic-looking than it should be. Their high standards aside, most who
viewed the trailer gave it positive reviews. One fan tweeted Trevorrow about
it, asking, "Will the JW gate in the movie be CGI or practical? Everything
was so seamless in the original. Trevmorrow took the chance to clear up the
drama, letting fans know that the gate in the trailer was part of the trailer
and nothing more, so they need not get their basement-dwelling,
no-friend-having knickers in a bunch. Just think what these bonafide tools will
have to say when they see the actual movie and can break it down frame by frame
like it’s the freaking Zapruder film……….
- Rage, rage against the machine….with sheep? It’s kind of
Europe’s thing these days, but typically the protest comes in Spain and it
comes in the form of shepherds leading their flock along an ancient migration
route that takes them through the heart of Madrid and seeks to call attention
to the urban sprawl that has disrupted the shepherds’ way of life. Today, the
protest is a bit more stationary and it’s in France, where disgruntled farmers have brought their sheep to the Eiffel Tower
to protest wolf attacks and what they deem to be the government's anti-farmer
environmental policies. It’s ironic because the regime of President Francois
Hollande has enraged the country’s most affluent citizens by allegedly
targeting them unfairly with higher taxes, but apparently the administration is
also pissing off the little guy. Oh, and if the wolf attacks are a problem, why
not handle it directly with the wolves rather than penning your woolly charges
in a grassy area near the Eiffel Tower? The government is on the record as
saying that its existing plan on preventing attacks and compensating farmers is
sufficient, but that they must balance those concerns with protections for
wolves. This week’s protest came as Hollande spoke at an environmental meeting
about plans for cleaner energy and France's plans to host the U.N. Climate
Change Conference next year. Protester Franck Dieny said the government’s
sheep-related policies “don't recognize ... the role we play maintaining the
landscape" that so many visitors to France appreciate. So are you looking
for your own monument or do you just want dudes with guns – not normally a
French specialty – on every hillside in the country, looking to pick off hungry
wolves………
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