My Early Christmas Present Request

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Now to thank them for such a life changing epiphany, I want to invest in their ideology by snapping up this super hot shirt before they sell out in the Xmas rush. If I get enough people we can get a bulk discount according to the site, so if you're interested in what's hot for Fall '04/Winter '05 let me know ASAP so we don't miss the boat on this one...only $70 U.S. plus shipping and duty and it's ours...

David Stern, Eternal Idiot

It seems after a while of being the head of a large sports organization no matter how good your prior reputation, the power of the position eventually begins to drive them crazy. Gary Bettman, Paul Tagliabue, Bud Selig, Stern, and Sepp Blatter have all had their share of stupid ideas and statements.

Today, Mr. Stern in his infinite wisdom is trying to use the upcoming expiration of the labour agreement between the NBA and the Players' Association as a way of forcing the players to give the owners a way of dumping huge long-term contracts without regard to the cap.

Stern argues this will free up more money to be spent on relevent members of the roster who are still active, and allow for more player movement among teams. By dumping contracts of inactive or seldom used players, he believes this money will be filtered back to the upper echelon of players in the league.

I have little doubt that all Stern is doing is attempting to throw a smokescreen to the real problem which is owners simply throwing money at the best available free agents then coming to regret it later when they realize they overpaid. A contract is binding for a reason, and if Stern succeeds in pushing this through, the NBA gains one of the more negative aspects of free agency that hurts the legitimacy of the NFL's system.

The more sneaking suspicion I have is that by throwing ideas around in the media like this now, Stern is more likely to be setting up a scenario where he 'concedes' issues such as this in order to have a better chance at adopting changes like increasing the minimum age to 20.

In most cases of labour strife between owners and players I tend to side with the owners, but this case bugs me for some reason. It isn't enough really that some of the biggest stars are coming straight out of high school, but it allows owners two further years to extend rookie salary caps, retain their players and prevent them from signing long term mega-deals until later on.

Kobe just got like $117 million, and he's only 26. Had he been forced to college, the earliest at most he'd even have the chance to sign a deal like that would be near 30, the age where contracts on average start declining in value. Couple that with proposed contract lengths being reduced and you can see how this really disadvantages the players' position.

It will be interesting to see who concedes what first, and whether both sides will actually put their foot down at all to get what they want. It appears the owners have more to gain than the players, only time will tell if that remains the case.

Media Notes

• If the Source even had a shred of credibility remaining, news that Michael Jackson will appear on the cover of the next issue makes you wonder if they really even care about what they're publishing. You'd think they had finish grinding their axe against Marshall, but it looks like Ray Ray and Davey Boy will jump from their rapidly sinking ship to one drifting out to sea at a much slower pace. It's actually funny how more of their recent enemies are starting to clump together: Jacko, JD, Janet, the Source, Benzino (heh) that you start seeing how money controls every move in the rap game.
• On a lesser note, if BET is so worried about Em's disparagement of Michael, where were they when he was calling Moby a "36 year-old bald-headed fag, blow me"? Robert Johnson you are so on the ball. Keep protecting the black community from dangers like this white devil, it'll give you more time to run infommercials promoting unity of Jews and Christians at the expense of Muslims. Only $300 a month to help reunite two Russian Jews with their families is exactly the clouded message we need to start educating young impressionable minds with.
• I'm sure everything that needs to be written has about the Jon Stewart-Tucker Carlson rift from last week, but I think Stewart played right into their hands. Obviously anyone who agrees with what he's had to say about CNN, MSNBC, Fox, etc., can understand his level of frustration and perhaps even willingness to engage in debate. He should've realized though he never would have had a fair chance to argue his point rather than getting baited into the trap Crossfire clearly wanted all along. Carlson can't come off any worse than he already does, regardless of the spin he wants to put on it, that surely emanates from whatever ridiculous bow tie he was wearing.

And to think there's a university 2 minutes away from this.

This is the reality of the world I find myself in.

What's new

Okay, so it's been a while since I last posted. School is going great right now, even though this semester I'm taking all my foundations courses- gotta get them out of the way at some point.

Went to the Killers show on Tuesday night at St. Andrew's Hall in Detroit. Needless to say, after hearing from my brother who went to the Saturday show I pretty much was expecting a paint by numbers set, and sure enough that's what we got. Surferosa was good, I hadn't heard anything of theirs before but they have a lot of energy and the static crowd didn't give them much to work with.

Then again, this is the same crowd that was crowd surfing, moshing, and stage diving during the Killers' set. Detroit really has some great venues to hold shows in, but the crowds are always a mixed bag. This show was a perfect example that the bigger the band gets the more distant their audience truly becomes.

Ambulance Ltd. was the highlight of the evening for me. I had only heard their single, but their set was consistently good from start to finish. Given the material their stage presence was fairly entertaining as well. 50 bucks says the keybordist has ADHD, but at least he makes the best of it.