Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Madness!

March Madness begins (for real) tomorrow, so time is running out if you haven't filled out your brackets yet. As if anyone in the world could possibly care, I've finally filled mine out and you can see it (if you want), HERE. (After the games begin on Thursday).

Highlights of my picks in this year's Tourney:

  • Notre Dame beats Old Dominion, but loses to a Baylor Bears team that makes a nice run all the way into the Final Four where they lose to West Virginia.
  • #1 seed Duke gets taken out by Texas A&M (game being played in Houston) and thus failing to advance beyond the Sweet Sixteen.
  • Baylor beating #2 seed Villanova in the other South Region semi-final (in Houston) to advance to the Elite Eight match-up versus Texas A&M.
  • #1 seed Kentucky losing to #4 seed Wisconsin in their Sweet Sixteen match-up.

My Elite Eight:
  1. Kansas
  2. Ohio State
  3. Syracuse
  4. Kansas State
  5. Wisconsin
  6. West Virginia
  7. Texas A&M
  8. Baylor

The Final Four:
  1. Kansas
  2. Syracuse
  3. West Virginia
  4. Baylor
I have Kansas defeating West Virgina in the final game to win the National Championship.

Sunday, March 7, 2010

Our own Greek tragedy

Via Instapundit I found this BRILLIANT piece by Mark Steyn, published in the Washington Times, which looks at the fiscal crisis that is about to tear the European Union apart (or at least see the Greek social welfare state collapse), and explains in impressively understandable terms how the Greece/EU tragedy is but foreshadowing of the tragedies awaiting California and the rest of America if we don't act soon to reign in unsustainable levels of government spending.

Among the key points:

[Greece's] socialist government has been forced into supporting a package of austerity measures. The Greek people's response is: Nuts to that. Public sector workers have succeeded in redefining time itself: Every year, they receive 14 monthly payments. You do the math. And for about seven months' work - for many of them the workday ends at 2:30 p.m. When they retire, they get 14 monthly pension payments. In other words: Economic reality is not my problem. I want my benefits. And, if it bankrupts the entire state a generation from now, who cares as long as they keep the checks coming until I croak?

We hard-hearted, small-government guys are often damned as selfish types who care nothing for the general welfare. But, as the Greek protests make plain, nothing makes an individual more selfish than the socially equitable communitarianism of big government. Once a chap's enjoying the fruits of government health care, government-paid vacation, government-funded early retirement, and all the rest, he couldn't give a hoot about the general societal interest. He's got his, and to hell with everyone else. People's sense of entitlement endures long after the entitlement has ceased to make sense.

And:

[The Greek and American situations are] part of the same story. It's just that Greece is a little further along in the plot: They're at the point where the canoe is about to plunge over the falls. America is further upstream and can still pull for shore, but has decided instead that what it needs to do is catch up with the Greek canoe. Chapter One (the introduction of unsustainable entitlements) leads eventually to Chapter 20 (total societal collapse): The Greeks are at Chapter 17 or 18.

What's happening in the developed world today isn't so very hard to understand: The 20th century Bismarckian welfare state has run out of people to stick it to. In America, the feckless insatiable boobs in Washington, Sacramento, Albany and elsewhere are screwing over our kids and grandkids. In Europe, they've reached the next stage in social democratic evolution: There are no kids or grandkids to screw over.

A nation cannot tax itself into prosperity. The government cannot make everyone financially comfortable by just issuing more checks. Eventually somebody, somewhere has to pay for all the socialist largesse. And the problem with socialism is, of course, that eventually you run out of other peoples' money.

Consent of the governed - and the lack thereof | Washington Examiner

If you are interested in politics (or just current events), Instapundit is a daily "must visit" blog. Today the Instapundit, Glenn Reyondols of the University of Tennessee law school has a column in the Washington Examiner asking the question: Does our current government really derive its powers from the consent of the governed? And if it doesn't, can the present government's exercise of power be considered "just" as understood from the Declaration of Independence?

Key bit:

A nation whose government does not rest on the consent of the governed is a nation whose government holds sway only by inertia, or by force.

It is a nation vulnerable to political shocks, usurpation, or perhaps even political collapse or civil war. It is a body politic suffering from a serious illness. Those who care about America should be very worried.



Thursday, March 4, 2010

NFL Restricted Free-Agent Tender Levels

If you're a fan of the NFL, as I am, you've been hearing a lot the past few days about "tenders" that NFL teams have been making to their restricted free agents. You'll hear that the Denver Broncos have made a "first round tender" to Brandon Marshall, and that the Chargers have made a "first and third round tender" to running back Darren Sproles. You may have been wondering exactly what these terms mean.

A "restricted free agent" for 2010 is a player whose contract has expired and who has completed three, four, or five NFL seasons. A player with an expired contract and six or more seasons under their belts is TRULY a free agent, as he is entitled to negotiate the best deal he can find with any interested team and his former team has no ability to hinder his career move or to demand any compensation from the player's new team.

A restricted free agent can negotiate a new contract with any interested team, but his old team can maintain a "right of refusal" to re-sign the player by matching the other team's written offer, or the old team may be entitled to compensation in the form of draft choices if they choose not to match the other team's written offer. In order to preserve these "rights of first refusal" and the right to draft choice compensation, the player's old team must first "tender" to the restricted free agent a qualifying offer. The NFL's collective bargaining agreement (CBA) sets the salary levels a team's tender offer must meet in order to trigger the various levels of draft choice compensation. The higher the salary level in the tendered offer, the more compensation a team is entitled to receive from another team who signs the player away from them.

After some digging around, I finally located the following data regarding the dollar thresholds for tender offers for 2010 at nfllabor.com. Note that the numbers (including the number of years required) are different in 2010 than in previous years due to the unusual circumstance that the CBA is expiring.

Q. What are the different levels of tender offers to this year’s class of Restricted Free Agents and their associated levels of draft choice compensation?

A. Below is a breakdown of the tender offers, listed by number of accrued seasons, for Restricted Free Agents in 2010.

Player with THREE Accrued Seasons

Right of First Refusal — $1,101,000
Right of First Refusal + Pick in player’s original draft round — $1,101,000*
Right of First Refusal + Second-Round Draft Pick — $1,684,000*
Right of First Refusal + First-Round Draft Pick — $2,396,000*
Right of First Refusal + First- AND Third-Round Draft Picks — $3,043,000*

*or 110% of player’s 2009 Paragraph 5 Salary, whichever is greater

Player with FOUR Accrued Seasons

Right of First Refusal — $1,176,000
Right of First Refusal + Pick in player’s original draft round — $1,176,000*
Right of First Refusal + Second-Round Draft Pick — $1,759,000*
Right of First Refusal + First-Round Draft Pick — $2,521,000*
Right of First Refusal + First- AND Third-Round Draft Picks — $3,168,000*

*or 110% of player’s 2009 Paragraph 5 Salary, whichever is greater

Player with FIVE Accrued Seasons

Right of First Refusal — $1,226,000
Right of First Refusal + Pick in player’s original draft round — $1,226,000*
Right of First Refusal + Second-Round Draft Pick — $1,809,000*
Right of First Refusal + First-Round Draft Pick — $2,621,000*
Right of First Refusal + First- AND Third-Round Draft Picks — $3,268,000*

*or 110% of player’s 2009 Paragraph 5 Salary, whichever is greater

Having found the above information, I find it a lot easier to understand all the chatter about the impending free agency period, and I hope this is helpful to you too!

Wednesday, March 3, 2010

Detroit teachers unions opposing the very reforms that have vastly improved New Orleans public schools after Katrina

As if it needed to be documented any more thoroughly, organized labor is killing America. Teachers unions are engaged in a ongoing conspiracy to deny a quality education to America's children. Kids in the poorest, most crime-ridden neighborhoods in the nation, who could benefit the most from a good education, are hit the hardest. Even President Obama is working with teachers' unions to shut down a popular and effective school voucher program in Washington DC that has been helping underprivileged kids in our nation's Capital obtain a quality education and a more promising future. Union jobs are more important to our President than the future of our kids.

In Los Angeles the teachers' unions have recently been successful in thwarting an effort to broaden the use of charter schools which have been PROVEN to deliver a better education than union-staffed public schools in L.A.

It isn't just in education. Unions have nearly killed off the American auto industry, and the airline industry has been on life support because of unreasonable union contracts for years.

California's fiscal crisis can largely be traced to the outsized influence of the public employee unions (teachers, police, firefighters, prison guards) who have extracted from the weak-willed state government compensation systems and especially retirement benefit schemes that are overly generous and totally unsustainable.

How has this happened?

The unions used to have a lot more members, so being pro-union was a good way for politicians to get votes. Most unions used to have a lot of public goodwill, that they used as leverage to "guilt" politicians into being very generous once in office. Teachers still do this very effectively, and nobody is better with the "guilt" card than firefighters and law enforcement.

Today, although memberships have shrunk, unions still have a lot of money to invest in the political process, which they do to great effect. In the era of Obama we are also seeing unions (most notably the Service Employees International Union, SEIU) becoming more actively involved some very ugly "political" activity, namely voter fraud, intimidation tactics, and physical violence.

Look at our failing public schools, at our auto industry, at our fiscal crises both nationally and locally. Now ask yourself: Can the unions really be expected to be part of the solution to our problems? Or are they really the biggest part of the problem?



Detroit teachers unions opposing the very reforms that have vastly improved New Orleans public schools after Katrina

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

Purdue Pete Too Fearsome: Seeking A Kinder, Gentler Image

I saw this story linked over at thewizofodds.com and just had to post it here. It seems that the Boilermakers' unofficial mascot, Purdue Pete, just causes way too many young kids to cry with his freakishly over-sized head and intense stare, so he's getting a makeover to soften his image and make him more approachable.

I will NOT make any jokes about the Boilermakers being plenty soft already!

Anyway, I will keep my eye out for Pete's post-makeover look and report back as soon as there are any public sightings of the new Pete.