- The torch has been passed. The New York Yankees took the
unheard-of step a couple years back of stopping their longstanding habit of
throwing insane amounts of money at everything that moved and could swing a bat
in the hopes of buying a championship, but it wasn’t until now that their heir
apparent emerged. Yes, the Los Angeles Dodgers have ended the Yankees' 15-year
streak as Major League Baseball's biggest spenders and the $26.6 in luxury tax
money they owe is the proof. The Dodgers earned that distinction by finishing with a record payroll of $257,283,410,
according to final calculations made by Major League Baseball. That figure puts
them more than $20 million above the previous high, set by the Yankees last
year. The Yankees have paid the most luxury tax money every year since the
current system began in 2003 and for teams like the Bronx Bombers and Dodgers,
the tax is failing miserably to slow spending by high-revenue teams. Both have
blown right by the $189 million threshold and the $26.6 million L.A. owes is
based on a $277.7 million payroll for purposes of the tax includes average
annual salary and benefits for players on the 40-man roster. Those numbers
might be palatable if the Dodgers hadn't flamed out of this year's playoffs in
the division round and failed to get anywhere close to the franchise’s first
World Series title since 1988, but they’re a massive disappointment and will
see their tax rate increase to 40 percent if they go over in 2015, which is
likely. Meanwhile, the Yankees sliced their payroll and owe a scant $18.3
million in tax, which they must chip off to the commissioner’s officer by Jan.
21. That money will then be used to fund player benefits and MLB's Industry
Growth Fund. Ironically, the cheapskates across town – the Mets – had a meager
payroll of $92.9 million, proving that the line of demarcation between the
haves and have-not’s in New York extends into baseball as well……..
- Duuuude, the squares in Oklahoma and Nebraska need to
chill and take a hit off the dutchie. The two states’ western neighbor is about
to celebrate the one-year anniversary of legal marijuana and rather than enjoy
the lifestyle and modest financial benefits brought to Colorado by allowing the
recreational use of chron, Oklahoma and Nebraska are instead getting litigious
with it and whining about what they claim are negative ramifications from the
change. Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt announced that his state was
teaming up with Nebraska to petition the Supreme Court to declare legal
marijuana in Colorado "unconstitutional,” which seems ridiculous on the
surface because how the hell can one state ask that a law pertaining only to
another state be declared unconstitutional? According to Pruitt and his whiny
loser friends, Oklahoma and states surrounding Colorado are being impacted by
Colorado’s decision to legalize and promote the commercialization of marijuana.
Chief among their keef complaints is that pot from Colorado is filtering across
their borders and because ganja for recreational use is still illegal at the
federal level, that’s a reason to start filing lawsuits and other motions.
Colorado Attorney General John Suthers rightly denounced the initiative as "without merit" and promised
his state would fight the suit in the Supreme Court. Colorado will have the
support of the Marijuana Policy Project, which helped fuel Colorado's
legalization effort in 2012. Most legal experts give the joint challenge (pun
intended) of Nebraska and Oklahoma little chance in court, but it does have a
great chance to bolster the existing stereotypes of both states as
behind-the-times, uptight simpletons who need to move into the modern era………
- Massive CGI effects, angry dwarves and the battle for
control of a gold-filled mountain were too tough to beat at the box office this
weekend. “The
Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies” snagged $56.2 million in its opening
weekend and has amassed a total of $90.6 million domestically so far. That was
more than enough to triple the earnings of fellow newcomer “Night at the Museum:
Secret of the Tomb,” which ranked second with $17.3 million. The third new
movie at the top of the earnings list was “Annie,” owner of $16.3 million for
its first weekend and third place as a result. That left last weekend’s top
film, “Exodus: Gods and Kings,” in fourth place with a massive (and ironic,
given the film’s biblical basis) 66.6-percent drop in earnings and $8 million
for its second weekend of domestic release. At $38.9 million thus far against a
$140 million budget, it’s well on its way to qualifying as a massive flop. Fifth
place went to “The Hunger Games: Mockingjay - Part 1,” which also slid three
spots and banked $7.7 million for a five-week haul of $289.2 million. “Wild”
rose four spots to sixth place after adding 945 theaters to its repertoire,
taking in $4.2 million as it remained in limited release after three weeks in
theaters. Chris Rock’s “Top Five” secured seventh place with $3.6 million in
limited release and has been less than overwhelming in two weeks in theaters with
just $12.4 million and counting. That was just enough to outdo “Big Hero 6” in
all of its animated glory, as the family flick earned $3.5 million and has
stacked $190.4 million in earnings through seven weeks of work. It was a
six-spot fall for “Penguins of Madagascar,” all the way down to ninth place
with its $3.3 million in earnings and $64.1 million domestically in the four
weeks since it hit theaters. The fourth new film of the top 10 was the
relatively anonymous “P.K. UTV,” which rode its wave of mystery to the last
spot in the top 10 and $3.4 million in weekend money. That left four members of
last weekend’s top 10, “Interstellar” (No. 11), “Horrible Bosses 2” (No. 12), “The
Theory of Everything” (No. 13) and “Dumb and Dumber To” (No. 17) on the outside
looking in this time around………
- Get angry as hell, Nicaragua. Your government is looking
to jam a massive canal expected to rival that of Panama down your throats and
you don’t have to take it. The plan is for a $50 billion transoceanic waterway
set to break ground on Monday and that’s only part of the problem for the
average man. A bigger concern is the fact that such projects don’t happen
without lots of land and to get that land, the government is getting its inner
eminent domain on. That means hijacking private property on the banks of
Nicaragua's Rio Grande even though Nicaraguan officials will start building
access roads on state-owned land as the first step the process. Supporters of
the canal say it will directly employ 50,000 people and dramatically boost the
country's GDP, but soon-to-be-displaced farmers are vowing to fight like hell
to protect their land. The government is resolute in its intention to forge
ahead, dollar signs dancing in their eyes with the prospect of a massive waterway
over what is now the town of Rio Grande, a community of 2,000 people with only
a dirt road and a landscape filled by corn, bananas and beans. President Daniel
Ortega is behind the plan and many believe it is a pipe dream in which the
president has given up too many concessions to HKND, the Hong Kong-based
company set to develop and operate it. Land owners are fearful of having their
land ripped without fair compensation, while environmental groups have
complained that the government is ignoring important issues and regulations to
make the canal happen. The rage has grown steadily, with villagers in Obrajuelo,
a sleepy fishing town on the banks of Lake Nicaragua, hurling rocks at an SUV
carrying a Chinese team that showed up to survey the land earlier this month. A
tire fire the next day continued the festivities and showed the sort of
anti-government rage rarely seen in a place where Ortega's Sandinista party
dominates all branches of government. The canal would span some 173 miles
between the Caribbean and the Pacific and represents the fulfillment of a dream
that has been dreamt in various forms since the early 1800s, but it’s clear not everyone is on board………
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