The Videogame Protection Act of 2007

I follow local politics pretty closely, so things like Council Member Peter Vallone Jr. introducing a law against homework no longer surprise me. The Sun reports:

He plans to introduce a resolution next month calling for homework in public
schools to be limited to 2 1/2 hours a night and said he wants the Department of
Education to create a weekly homework-free night.

Vallone is on quite a streak lately. Within the last few months, he has announced plans to increase fines associated with dog fighting (on the back of the Michael Vick scandal and despite the fact that New York City has no known dog fighting problem, according to the ASPCA) and strengthen laws against looking at women.

Bloomberg responded to Vallone's ridiculous homework proposal with pretty much the best line in politics this year:

"I suspect if you're running for eighth grade class president, less
homework is a good campaign platform to work with."

In Vallone's defense, I ran for student body VP on a platform of "A Pretzel Machine in Every Cafeteria." This idea seems marginally better than that.

When Cougars Attack

At first glance, this was kind of disturbing.

But upon further review, I realized that it was nothing different than what happens in New York City pretty much every night, only in reverse. Creepy old dudes making financial arrangements with young girls may not be cool, but they are widespread. So I say Godspeed to the old chicks who are looking for love in Kenya. I would recommend, however, that perhaps the next time they seek to exploit an impoverished culture for their own sexual pleasure, they choose a continent where AIDS is just a little less prevalent, like South America. Or Antarctica. Or any of them. I guess that's a personal decision, though.

Also, I learned a lesson when searching for images for this post. Do not, under any circumstances, search for the following images at work:

cougar

urban cougar

sub-saharan cougar

creepy old guy, young girl

old girl young guy

tantamount to prostitution

Britney Spears

strapping kenyan man

old hairy balls

Or else you'll have a lot of explaining to do to IT.

Kenya beware

Why should you go to jail for a crime someone else noticed?

Bob Loblaw's Ad.

At the very least, this explains how the name is to be pronounced.

Blah Blah Blah

I just found out that real life was invaded by TV.

Before I continue to write, I absolutely insist that all of you go out and watch the entire run of Arrested Development. Go ahead. I'll wait.

Ok. At least promise me you'll try to make an effort to watch at least part of it. If it suits you.

Or not.

Whatever. Its in your best interest. It is, perhaps, the funniest thing you're going to find on DVD. The critics back me up. The TV viewers, sadly, did not.

This is not just a commercial for a defunct show. This is almost as pointless. This is a post predicated on the reader having watched said show. If you haven't done what I asked by now, you might as well save your time and stop reading this post.

As it turns out, Bob Loblaw's Law Blog (say it fast), a blog written by a character played by Scott Baio, has made the leap from my DVD player to the interweb. It describes itself as:

A daily summary of the best (and worst) of federal appellate decisions

This website is intended purely for entertainment. It is not intended to be a
comprehensive review of appellate law. It is not intended as a legal research tool. Nothing in this blog should be interpreted as legal advice.

Despite the fact that nothing about that description sounds remotely like entertainment, it was a pretty solid move for some bored lawyer to capture web traffic via a (weak) pop culture reference. If a curious lawyer loved Arrested Development and happened to google the law blog, he would pretty much be a reader for life. On the other hand, if this is Scott Baio getting a little too much into his character, its a little disturbing.

I'm not sure how I feel about fictional things existing. Unicorns, I can handle, but law blogs make me nervous.

Why should you go to jail for a crime somebody else noticed?

Tis the Season...

...for striking!

First the taxi drivers, now stagehands and TV writers. Pretty soon, there will be no work done in this city by anyone. I hope the corner coffee guys don't get fed up with unfair labor practices.

A friend of mine was visiting for the weekend, so I decided to take her to the one place all tourists want to visit when they're in New York: Broadway.

Fortunately, with the stagehands on strike, we didn't have to see any boring plays. Instead, we got to experience the fun of a real, honest to goodness labor dispute. There was much sign-holding, circle-walking, and scowling. Also, opression by The Man.

The interesting things is that many stagehands get significant breaks throughout their work day. This could be as much as 3 hours of time off during a typical shift. Since all the stagehands had to picket for their entire shifts, the strike, in many cases, meant more time on the job than work would have.

Not only is that ironic, but it kind of works against them at the negotiating table.

Jeter Screws New York

Its been a bad week for Derek Jeter.

Even as the brothers Steinbrenner and A-Rod hammer out the final details on a record setting, discounted contract, Jeter finds himself exposed as a tax cheat.

Its like Christmas for Mets and Red Sox fans.

Jeter's $20 million a year is a reward as much for his on field play as it is for his representation as the face of the Yankees and, by extension, New York City. Its absurd for him to claim residency in Florida to avoid taxes on a technicality. Furthermore, HE LIVES IN NEW YORK CITY. He's always here. There isn't a day in his life, since 1996, that hasn't been documented by Page 6 or the other tabloids. Who did he think he was going to fool?

I know there's nothing that this man can do to hurt his relationship with Yankee fans. People just do not think rationally when it comes to Derek Jeter. I'm going to say for the hundredth time that his jump throw from the SS/3B gap is a weak play, due to his limited range and quickness, not a brilliant play by a defensive wizard. See? No one cares. But I hope someone, somewhere will take into consideration that if this allegation is true, Derek Jeter selfishly withheld significant money from New York that should have gone into its schools, infrastructure, and public safety.

This City has given a lot to Jeter. New Yorkers' support for the Yankees and #2 are directly responsible for his ability to become a millionaire many times over. Meanwhile, the Yankees are getting significant tax breaks to build a stadium that will increase their ability to make money. That puts the tax burden more squarely on the shoulders of everyday New Yorkers, especially when affluent members of the tax base opt out.

This was not a classy move.

I'm probably angrier about this than I should be. I think its because I'm not too excited about Yorvit Torrealba.

Long, Rambling Post on Why the Rumored A-Rod Trade is Boras' Mona Lisa

The current spin on the A-Rod situation is that he's cut off Boras and is going back to the Yankees, hat in hand.

The storyline is that A-Rod needed to show humility and take a cut for the subsidy money he cost the Yankees so that the Yankees can feel good about signing him for a hometown discount ($275mm). ESPN's Buster Olney seems to think Boras messed up. The LA Times Bill Shaikin does too.

I, on the other hand, think that Boras continues to be baseball's premier evil genius.

The first myth that needs to be dispelled is the idea that getting less than $300 million/year should be considered a failure. Just because Boras said that $350 million was the minimum price for the Yankees to even speak with A-Rod doesn't mean that even he believed it was. This is a negotiation. Even a 4 year old can start at a dollar and settle at 75 cents after a 50 cent counter offer. Especially with A-Rod, Boras has excelled at stretching the imaginations of not only the GM's and owners, but the fans. This makes it possible for him to get a $275 million contract and have it seem like a bargain.

I contend that A-Rod's personal visit to the Yankees is just another Boras maneuver. The Yankees already positioned themselves as above opening negotiations with Boras when they made their ultimatum over A-Rod's desire to opt out of the last 3 years of the contract. Boras, for his part, knows that the only team that's going to put down anything like the money he wants won't talk to him.

Boras has everyone fooled. The media, fans, everyone is focusing on the wrong numbers. The second trick is that Boras has everyone feeling good about A-Rod taking a modest pay cut over what would have been the last 3 years of his old contract and making up for the $21 million in lost money from the Rangers.

Here's the number that explains it all: $168 million

That's what A-Rod makes from his age 37-42 seasons, or 60% of the contract. Traditionally, these aren't the most productive years in a baseball player's life. A baseball player peaks somewhere between 27 and 32 and then will digress over time until he retires. So every one of A-Rod's 5 most productive seasons are not only likely behind him (he's 32) but will have cost the Yankees less than his 5 least productive seasons. So who cares about $21 million? or the slight pay decrease for the next 3 years? Its a lot easier to get a 32 year old A-Rod coming off of 54 homers $275 million than it is to get $28 million a year for a 39 or 40 year old DH coming off of 30. Not even Barry Bonds was making that kind of money (he averaged 17.5 million) and he had some of the best seasons in the history of the game at quite an advanced age. Its doubtful that A-Rod will be able to perform at that level without the chemical help that Bonds had.

When Boras got the $252 million, it seemed ridiculous at the time, but a reasonable argument could be made that it would be in line with future salaries. Seven years later, its still ridiculous. Based on the current climate, where owners have been burned so many times and teams are refusing to let their good young players get to free agency, I think it would be impossible to get if it hadn't been done before. $275 is a reasonable salary if you accept the premise that $252 is as well. I certainly don't, but Boras has single-handedly created a world where people do. That's where this deal was made. Seven years ago.

Scott Boras is a genius. He's better at his job than every single person in baseball, A-Rod included. He does have an ego, but there is nothing that would keep him from getting the contract he wants for his client. If that means stepping back and appearing to let A-Rod do it on his own, that's what he'll do. Boras let Andruw Jones's father negotiate a 6 year, $75 million contract, but still represents Jones.

So consider this. If anyone deserves $28 million a year (no one does), its 32 year old third baseman Alex Rodriguez, but 41 year old DH A-Rod is probably worth, today, $12 million. Let's assume everything goes well, and A-Rod ages in a Bonds-ian fashion. Conveniently, this was Bonds' age 42 season. from 2002 (Age 37 season) to 2007, Bonds made $105 million. At the time, Barry Bonds was the best player in the history of baseball for his age and for many other ages. We know now that steroids were the main reason for this. Not only will A-Rod not likely be on steroids, but some of Bonds' seasons in that time frame are better than any A-Rod has ever put up. I think its safe to say that A-Rod won't be better in 4 years than Barry Bonds was at the same age.

That means that at a cost of about $12 million (32 million over the next 3 years down to 28), Boras was able to get A-Rod, at worst, about an extra $63 million more than Bonds got between ages 37 and 42. Not bad. If, for some reason, A-Rod doesn't take up steroids later in life, this is an even better deal. That's a net gain of $50 million.

Write this down:

Not only does Boras get his cut, proving that this was his work, after all, but A-Rod's salary his final year of this deal, at age 42, is still the highest in baseball.

Nice job, Scott.

Amen

From Kos:

The vital distinction between extraordinary powers and extraconstitutional powers.

Its really such a fine line, I guess. I could see how George would get confused.

There's Still Plenty of Room

Sometimes, it gets lonely here on the Dennis Kucinich bandwagon, but I have a feeling I'm about to have a lot of company.

Kucinich irked Democratic leadership yesterday when he introduced a resolution to impeach Vice President Dick Cheney. Democratic leadership irked me by moving to table the resolution. Republican leadership then irked Democratic leadership again by voting against the motion to table, which would have led to a mandatory hour of debate. The irking came to a conclusion when the house finally voted to have the resolution sent to the Judiciary committee, where it will be ignored almost as intensely as the American people ignore Kucinich himself.

I actually watched all this on CSPAN. Let me tell you, it was a rousing couple of hours of parliamentary procedural maneuvering. There were yeahs and nays being flung about willy nilly.

Science has already shown that I identify closely with Kucinich's politics, but this little maneuver has really impressed me. See, Dennis doesn't seem to be all that politically savvy. This isn't the first time he's kowtowed to the clearly expressed desires of the American people in open opposition to his colleagues in Congress. Unlike Hillary or Barack, who won't even blow their noses without conducting an in depth poll, Kucinich just let this resolution fly, even though it probably wasn't going to pass! But this time, he obviously chose to play the system a bit and build off of my lukewarm endorsement in order to gain some momentum for his campaign.

So I'm going to keep it rolling too, Dennis. I'm upping my Kucinich '08 enthusiasm from "acknowledgement of a congruence of thought" to "general acceptance of political principals." Keep this up, though, and I'm willing to go as high as "wish political realities did not exclude you from being a viable candidate."

Come on!

Kazmir may be available.

If he was worth Zambrano in the first place, I think the Ray's would still be coming out ahead if we traded them, say Orlando Hernandez. What do you think, Tampa Bay? I don't necessarily speak for Omar, but I think I could convince him of this one.

I'd also like to state, for the record, that its a bad idea to trade young, once in a generation talents for shitty pitchers who can't throw strikes. I think TB owes us.

Apparently, I'm Dennis Kucinich's Biggest Supporter

By dutifully following the links on Daily Kos, I came upon a website that purports to "connect you to the presidential candidate that represents your beliefs the best."

I would have taken Obama, but I suspected I'd come up with Hillary. Wrong on both counts.

Kucinich. I got Kucinich. Not only did I get Kucinich, but I was about a 94% match. By my estimation, I'm a better political match with Dennis Kucinich than I am a personality match with my fiance. Fortunately, Dennis and I are only a .02% love match.

I should have seen it coming when I spent a quarter of my points on health care. Hillary, Obama, and Edwards have put together proposals for universal coverage, but the systems they envision will probably do more for the insurance companies than for American citizens. That might be an exaggeration, but these plans will likely need to be reworked in 10-15 years to look a lot like what Kucinich is putting on the table today, which is single-payer, "socialist" health care.

But that is a story for another day. Today, I'll just dream of a magical world where tiny people can be leaders, not just dreamers faced with an impossible task.

Actually, that sounds a lot like Middle Earth.

Frodo in '08