Message To Fans…The NFL Does Not Care

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527357_4636488312284_520134492_nThe sports-talk airwaves are blowing up over the latest botched call by the substitute NFL officials.  For those of you who don’t follow the game, last night’s Packers/Seahawks game came down to a last second Hail-Mary pass.  The replay clearly showed the Green Bay defender intercepting the ball, but the officials ruled “Dual Possession” and awarded the Seahawks the Touchdown.

Now even the regular officials have been known to blow calls (see Ed “Guns” Hochuli”), but this latest mangled call was reminiscent of a Marx Brothers movie.  As you can imagine, the sports-talk show hosts are outraged.  They remind us in no uncertain terms that the fans are not going to accept this type of football.

The fans?  Really?  They think the NFL is that worried about the fans?

Let us visit the replay booth for a moment…

  • This is a league whose goal it was to increase player safety, yet see no problem throwing scrub officials who are in way over their heads, increasing the risk of injuries from uncalled/missed penalties like chop blocks and blows to the head.
  • This is the league that makes its fans purchase preseason game tickets at regular season prices even though most of those games are played by people you’ve never heard of before (or after).
  • This is the league that makes fans purchase PSL (Personal Seat Licenses) which require paying them for the right to purchase tickets.
  • This is the league that rewards Buffalo fans (Disclaimer:  I am a long suffering Bills fan) by taking away one home game each year and having them play in Toronto so they can make even more money.

Now sports-talk hosts are preaching to us that we should boycott the games.  Don’t watch them they tell us.  Don’t attend the game (even though you had to take a second mortgage to buy the tickets in the first place).

This issue will be resolved, not because the fans are upset,  but because Las Vegas cannot be happy.  The Packers were 3 to 3 ½ point favorites to win that game.   The final score was 14-12 which means a lot of people lost money on that final play.   If I were the NFL, I would be a lot more worried about a visit from Tommy DeVito than Jim Rome.

The Most Dangerous Person on the Internet

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Do Not Click This Photo!

Do Not Click This Photo!

Who is the most dangerous person on the Internet?  Turns out it is Emma Watson, the actress who played Hermione Granger in the wildly successful Harry Potter series.  Now Watson is not some kind of nerdy super hacker  like Lisbeth Salander writing codes to destroy your computer’s hard drive and hence your entire life.  No, Watson is actually the bait to lure unsuspecting victims to sites that will launch really nasty viruses and/or steal your identity.

The tech security company McAfee is reporting that Watson tops on the list of famous names that cyber criminals use to lure online searchers.  Watson is not the only celebrity unfortunate enough to be used to entice people to click into cyber hell.  Last year’s list was topped by Heidi Klum (As Heidi likes to say, one day you’re in, the next day you’re out…Auf Wiedersehen).

Men take note; female celebrities are more likely to be utilized by cyber criminals.  Late-night host Jimmy Kimmel was the only male in the top 20.  As a public service from CultureMap.com, other risky celebrities to search online are Jessica Biel, Selena Gomez, Halle Berry, Megan Fox, Shakira, Cameron Diaz, Salma Hayek, and Sofia Vergara.

McAfee advises you to be wary about the sites you visit online to get your daily dose of celebrity scandal. Your best bet is to stick to well-known sites from established organizations like www.culturemap.com.  Even so, you still need to practice safe surfing as online charlatans may try to fool you with a genuine-looking URL address that will be sure to lead you into eternal internet damnation.

Politician’s Use of Songs Hit a Sour Note

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In a heated campaign; words matter.  The right word can sway someone who is sitting on the proverbial fence and pick a side.  The wrong word can take a candidates message off target (Google “Joe Biden” and “Chains”) and be left explaining exactly how their foot ended up in their mouth.

That’s why it so surprising no one seems to be listening to the words of songs being played at political rallies.  As careful as the campaigns are to protect the candidates image, you would think someone would bother to listen to the lyrics of the songs they use.

Take the use of “Panic Switch” by the band the Silversun Pickups during a recent Mitt Romney campaign stop.   The Sliversun Pickups heard about it and sent the candidate a cease and desist letter, but why use a song whose chorus goes…

When you see yourself in a crowded room, do your fingers itch, are you pistol-whipped?
Will you step in line or release the glitch? Can you fall asleep with a panic switch?

Now to be fair, Romney is not only candidate to not pay attention to the lyrics. We can only assume every politician who has used Bruce Springsteen’s “Born in the U.S.A.” has never bothered to listen to anything other than the chorus.  If they had, they would have discovered the song is about a disgruntled Vietnam Veteran who can’t find a job or get help from the V.A when he returns.  Not exactly flag waving stuff.

Political campaigns like to play songs such as the Lee Greenwood anthem “Proud to be an American” to excite the crowd and make them look hip and relevant.   Here’s a suggestion; maybe both parties should start playing “Words” by Missing Persons.   If you ask me, that song, more than any other, captures the true spirit of politics today.

The China Syndrome

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olympics-uniformsThe Olympics haven’t even started and already we’re being treated to trash talking and finger pointing.  This has nothing to do with the games themselves, but the fact the official U.S. Olympic teams outfits were made in China (insert gasp here).

You don’t hear a lot of agreement in Washington these days, but it appears everyone can agree outsourcing the making of the outfits to China was a bad idea.   Republican House Speaker John Boehner said that Ralph Lauren (who is the evil mastermind behind this sinister plot) should “know better”.  Senate Harry Reid from Nevada said “the uniforms should be put in a pile and burned” immediately conjuring heartwarming images of book burnings in Nazi Germany and burning Beatles records in the bible belt.

Interesting how politics can make force one to speak out of both sides one’s mouth.  Moving jobs to China is simply part of free enterprise and part of living in a global economy, but having an American company like Ralph Lauren manufacture uniforms to be worn by our Olympic athlete is simply un-American!  What’s a citizen to do?  Next thing you know, they’ll want to take away our iPhones!

Now before we go and burn Mr. Lauren in effigy (although one does wonder what he would wear to it), it’s important to remember that only 5% of clothing sold in the United States was actually made by Americans (that figure was 95% back in 1960).   Hindsight being 20/20, Ralph Lauren could have created a wonderful “Made In  America” campaign and had us all waving the flag, but than again, nobody seemed to care that the U.S. Uniforms for the 2002 Winter Olympics held in Utah were made in Canada.

Putting all that aide, I’m more irked that they will be wearing berets with strip of red, white and blue that looks more like the French flag (is that is supposed to invoke a feeling of Americana?).

And what’s up with the huge Ralph Lauren logo on the front the blazer?  Those makes soccer uniforms seem classy.  If we want to go down that road, why take a cue from NSCAR and sell multiple sponsorship logos?  Maybe we can use that money to bring down the nation debt.

Electric Owl

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Here’s a photo I recently took of a barn owl.  I added some filters in Photoshop to the image and came up with this.  I call it Electric Owl.

Electric Owl

 

 

 

 

 

You can double click the image to see a larger version.

Voting to Vote

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VoteIt seems like there’s one political skirmish after another these days.  The latest one centers on whether voters should be required to present a photo ID.

Texas Attorney General Greg Abbot claims that voter fraud is rampant.  He recently wrote an Op/Ed piece for USA Today and said.…

“In recent years, my office has secured more than 50 voter fraud convictions. Those include a woman who voted in place of her dead mother, a political operative who cast ballots for two people, and a city council member who registered foreign nationals to vote in an election decided by 19 votes. Voter fraud is hard to detect, so cases like these are just the tip of the iceberg.”

I, for one, would be curious to know exactly how long a period of time those convictions took place.  Was it one year, five years?  And, how many voter fraud cases went to trial that resulted in no convictions?  I get voter fraud is hard to detect, but really wonder just how prevalent it is.  90% of an iceberg is submerged, so does that mean there were actually 500 cases in “recent years”?

The other side of the fence will insist this is just a ploy by those terrible Republicans to make it harder for minorities to vote for their favorite Democrat.  They will tell you many minorities are afraid to have a photo ID because they don’t trust the government which ironically aligns them alongside the Tea Party (and you thought there was no common ground).

How many people who previously voted without an ID, would not vote if they had to present one?  Yes, you can say one less legitimate vote is one too many, but you can make the same argument that one case of voter fraud is one too many.  So what is a democracy to do?

There has to be a way to determine how many Texans don’t carry a Photo ID, and how many of them actually bother to vote.  Anybody want to place on bet on which number would be higher?  The number of voter fraud cases, or the number of people who vote without a picture ID.

And, putting everything to the side for just a moment, I have a hard time understanding how anyone can function in today’s world without a Photo ID.  How do you cash a check?  Do you live in cash only world?  You certainly can’t have a back account.  How does one get around?  Walk, take the bus?  You don’t have to have a Photo ID.  to be a citizen of these United States of America, but I gotta believe it would make it much easier on you.

Let’s face it, voter turnout is a joke.  We should be encouraging people to go the polls, and not run away from them, but I still don’t have a problem requiring someone to show a little proof of who they are before they vote.  I just wish both sides of the debate would actually use some facts when making their case, and not spew out a bunch of speculation and presumptions.  I would leave that to the experts like economists and sports bookies.

Getting Lost on the Yellow Brick Road

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DebateListening to the pundits try to make sense of Wall Street is a bit like riding one of those old wooden  roller coasters.  You begin by starting off slowly.  Then you climb a big hill and just as quickly, head screaming back down.  In between, you get shook around a lot and end up were you started (if you’re lucky).

Take some recent analysis from the 4th estate…

The price of gas goes down at the pump.  Drivers now spend less money to fill up their tanks.  That’s a good thing, right?  Wrong!  Analysts report consumer spending is down because Americans are losing faith in the recovery.  What happens?  Stocks tumble on the news of the report.  Huh?

Speaking of gasoline, the former president of Shell Oil predicted in December 2011 that gas would cost $5 a gallon in 2012.  Gas prices did go up, but have returned to January 2012.  Maybe that’s why he is the former president for Shell.

Several large banks get their ratings lowered because of questionable deals with European countries.  That’s bad right?  Wrong!  Stocks go up because investors were already expecting this and like the fact it was done.  What happens?  Stock prices rise on the news.  Say what?

The Supreme Court surprises many people by upholding “Obama Care”.  This was not based on commerce, but that the government can tax just about anything it wants.  The money experts on Fox and CNBC immediately screamed this would ruin the economy and kill jobs.  The market did go down after the ruling was released, but only dropped around 40 points.  Wonder what Obama did when the market dropped over 100 points before the announcement was made?

There is a television ad currently airing for a financial services company.  Various husbands are getting ready for bed and fretting to their wives about what could happen if the economy goes south (I’m guessing the company doesn’t feel women are smart enough to be worried).  The wives offer sound advice saying “it’s all noise” and we should “tune it out”.

scarecrowI remember a very smart (and wealthy) financial adviser telling me to look at the market as a long term process, and not to focus on a day/week or month.  I try to follow that advice, but I have to admit it’s hard to do when all the talking heads sound like the scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz giving me directions to find the end of the Yellow Brick Road.

Maybe There is Hope for Us

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Something amazing recently took place on the Internet.  It won’t bring us world peace, or end famine, but it could help restore our faith in mankind just a little bit.

The story begins with an unlucky tourist.  Anyone who lives to travel knows how important taking pictures are.  You want to capture all the sights from places that you’ve always dreamed of visiting, creating a special collection of wonderful memories.  So imagine how it would feel to travel in Europe, take over 2,800 pictures and then lose your camera.  That moment of realizing all the photos are gone would feel like being sucker-punched.

That’s exactly what happened to one unlucky traveler who visited Amsterdam, but this story has a happy ending.  You see, the camera was found by a good hearted soul who realized the camera held a clue as to its owner, but how to find him?

After looking at some of the photos, it became apparent the camera’s owner liked to have his picture taken (a valuable lesson for those who hate having their picture taken).  Still, there are millions of visitors to Amsterdam so what can one person do?

Jan van Cappellen, who found the camera on a train, said he felt like a detective.  After realizing he had a picture of the owner, van Cappellen emailed several hostels, and other tourist sites including the Iamsterdam page on Facebook.  The photo was posted on Monday and by Tuesday, the owner, Reggie Downing from Canada, was recognized and found still traveling in Europe.

Now, in the grand scheme of things, it might not seem like much, but it’s those little victories that make it feel like we still have a chance.

Amsterdam

Was it Something I Said?

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So here’s the scenario.  A media company broadcasts something the Federal Communications Commission deems indecent.  The FCC decides to revise its’ policy in response to the broadcast and then fines the media company for it after the fact.  Make sense?

Supreme CourtThe U.S. Supreme Court didn’t think so.  In a rare unanimous ruling, the high court threw out the fines and sanctions issued by the FCC.  The court concluded that the broadcasters could not have known in advance, the broadcasts would later be deemed indecent and subject to fines.  In other words, they said it wasn’t fair to change the rules in the middle of the game.

 

NYPD BlueThe indecent broadcasts included a brief display of nudity on ABC’s “NYPD Blue” and several obscenities uttered by Cher and Bono during different awards shows.  In case you’re having trouble remembering; The “NYPD Blue” episode “Nude Awakening” aired on February 25, 2003.  Yes, the wheels of justice do turn very slowly.

What the court did not do is free “over the air” broadcasters from the regulations that other media outlets (Cable, The Internet, etc.) are free from.  While that argument may be compelling, the government still controls the airwaves and can dictate different rules, even if many viewers don’t realize they are switching back and forth between a cable channel and a broadcast channel. It appears that, for now, broadcast outlets (television and radio) will still have to adhere to the current policy.

janet-jacksonIn case you were wondering, the infamous Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction was not part of this ruling.  That case is currently making its way through the judicial process.  The government has appealed a lower court’s ruling that threw out the fine in that case.

In regards to the case just wrapped up by the Supreme Court, Justice Anthony Kennedy said “it is unnecessary for the court to address the constitutionality of the current policy” which means we might get to relive the Super Bowl half-time show from Reliant Stadium all over again.  Anybody want to place on bet on how that ruling will come out?

Now granted, the faster technology moves, the harder it is for laws and regulations to keep up.  Social standards can also change, causing even more confusion as to what is, and what is not acceptable.  Still, it seems like we just wasted a bunch of money.  In the last month, the Government has lost its case against John Edwards, Roger Clemens and now this.  With a record like that, they very well might end up replacing the Astros for last place.