NCAA Cheating its Players?

Mark Emmert at an NCAA conference

There is an interesting topic in the college sports arena that has garnered a lot of attention in recent years: should college level athletes be financially reimbursed? According to the PBS Frontline documentary "Money and March Madness" (link below), there are two sides to the argument. The current scenario is that college students wishing to participate in college sports while earning their degree are required to sign a form that includes two things, one being a refusal to accept financial reimbursement for their athletic abilities; the second is that the NCAA is allowed to use their picture, name and likeness at any time.

Some such as former UCLA basketball player Ed O'Bannon, and author Michael Lewis (author of Blind Side) feel that this isn't fair to the college students. The NCAA has turned 'college sports' into a professional business venture, bringing in billions of dollars every year. The NCAA pays the schools, and the schools pay their employees. After a season, and the extremely well marketed "March Madness", billions of dollars have changed hands, but no money has found its way into the hands of the actual players. Should the NCAA and people like Mark Emmert (pictured, top), earn money off the abilities and efforts of the players and not in any way reimburse them?The other side of the coin is that the college students are not employee's, and do not need to be paid. The availability of equipment alone at a large university costs the school billions. The services, such as training and cleaning, would cost the players in the hundreds of thousands. The players receive these for free as long as they play, and are showcased for possible future professional playing. The question is, is this fair?

Legally, yes it is. The students agreed to the trade, which is in simple words: "the college trains me as best as they can, and I play for free." In many cases, this is also true: "The college gives me a degree, and I play for free." The successful college student will earn a degree, highly specialized training, access to extremely expensive facilities, and a chance to get to the major league. There is nothing wrong with that, but some are asking whether or not this should be the way it is done. It is fair, but is a change a good idea? The negative is what about the smaller colleges? They don't make millions every season, and they are only surviving year to year off of government subsidies and grants. How can they be expected to pay their players?

The economics is another aspect that must be considered. Out of all the college students, if some of them were being financially compensated for their athletic performance, what would that do to their social aspects? In a dorm, even being paid 20 or 30 thousand a year (which is extremely small compared to major league salaries), it could possibly have detrimental effects on the campus as a whole. No other college student is being paid for their research and development, but the professor's are. No college athlete is being paid for their athletic ability, but their coaches are. It doesn't seem that the situation warrants a change.

Click here: www.pbs.org

This Dog is This Woman's Best Friend

Automobile accidents are a terrible thing. Death is a terrible thing as well. When two pets are thrown into the mix, they are generally left to fend for themselves. Here is a unique story of a couple, their two dogs, and a tragic accident.

There isn't much I can say that isn't stated in the article, so I won't talk your ear off. Give the article a read through, and leave your thoughts!

I will say I really think this is unique as an animal and its owner recover as a team. They both lost the one closest to them. That's the kind of pet I would want if I owned one, something where there is a genuine relationship. Or at least as much as one can have.

("Dog Survives 53 days in wild..." Article on MSNBC)

School Bus Hero

Some say the days of superhero's and legendary figures like John Wayne and George Patton are over. That is true, we no longer have many of our legendary figures, and never did have anyone flying in tights and a cape; withouth the help of a Boeing anyway.

However if we look just a little closer we realize that we don't need a cape or big name to be a hero. This woman simply did her job, and 6 lives were saved. She took her job as a school bus driver and her position as a public service vehicle operating license seriously. She was responsible for the souls in her bus, and she did her job in removing them at the first sign of trouble. At this point I am unaware of what caused the combustion, or whether it was preventable, but she did the right thing at the right time, and for that she should be commended.

We don't need capes and tights, we need sound brains that think in action. We need common sense. We need people who are willing to stand up and fight for what they believe and for other people who are unable to protect themselves.

http://www.cnn.com/2012/02/09/us/north-carolina-bus-fire/index.html?hpt=hp_bn1

Robot vs Bird

Some may remember the Alfred Hitchcock horror film entitled "Birds", but in the airport industry it seems that this is more than a vague memory of a classic! Every year there is damage, not extensive per say, to many aircraft due to birds on the airstrip being hit by the airplane. For years, birds have been attracted to airfields in the same way a duck is attracted to water: open space. They enjoy strutting along the tarmacs, or maybe they just like hanging out with the newer "breed" of motorized birds.

In answer to these feathered pests, Korean designers engineered an automatic robotic vehicle to roam the airport and scare away birds. Not such a big deal, just design it to go in a pattern to cover the most ground and stay out from under the airplanes. Bingo.

But no, the Koreans wanted a smarter robot than that. This robot is controlled from a central station and not only scares the birds away, but listens for the birds and records any information that it can glean from them. Such as where they hang out, what times are they around, and what are the most effective ways of getting rid of them.

There's a problem, its not programmed to drive around by itself, someone has to sit in a simulator and drive it virtually, and control which 'noise' to use when to scare the birds away. So an airport needs to buy the robot, all the charging equipment and fuel, then a whole additional 'space station' to run it. All to keep birds away from planes.

Here's the kicker, according to an International Civil Aviation Organization study, only 420 aircraft were damaged since 2003. That's almost ten years. So every year, 42 airplanes are damaged. Now that doesn't sound like a small number until you put it into perspective; that's less than half of an incident every year per country. Statistically speaking, of modern countries, any one country will only ever have 1 damaged airplane every other year. Yet they will spend how much money to buy this robot to run all the time and maintain to stop 5 incidents in ten years? Seems a long ways to go to just keep a few feathers off the field.

See original article on CNN World News:
http://www.cnngo.com/seoul/visit/birdstrike-robot-779434?hpt=hp_bn8

Sport's Most Wanted

This list comes out every year and it can be interesting to see who is still on it, and who has worked themselves off of it. Interestingly enough it shows who've simply dug themselves even deeper into the mire. This year, with a tie for first between Michael Vick (pictured, Philidelphia Eagles-image when he played for the Falcons), and Tiger Woods (Golf), it has an interesting aspect to it. I think almost everyone that's here deserves it, and I can't think of anyone else we could possibly add. Ben Roethlisburger (Pittsburgh Steelers) making it out of the top ten is probably a good thing, despite the fact that I think his possible crime was more serious than Vick's.No matter how ugly dog fighting is, rape is worse. But again, Roethlisburger didn't get charged and may not have done anything illegal. If Big Ben's rape incident was simply alleged as a publicity stunt, than I am very glad to see him off of this list. However he was on this list before the 2009 incident.

I wouldn't even let Ndamukong Suh (pictured, Detroit Lions) on my team. I don't care who you are but Vick and Big Ben were only really 'bad' off the field, this guy stepped on a Green Bay player's head and kicked him repeatedly before team mates could pull him off (offense pictured). There's nothing good about that situation. I looked at the Detroit Lions early this NFL season (2011) with awe as the Lions and Buffalo Bills started out hard and had up to 5-0 and 4-0 respectively, both phenominal for their history. The Lions roar faded a little bit as the season progressed and I almost forgot about them by the time I was eating turkey and watching the Baltimore Raven's and San Fransico 49ers play that night. They showed a replay of Ndamukong Suh angrily stomping on the man's head, and then whining to his coach that "I didn't see him" after he was ejected from the game. I lost nearly all my respect for that team.

Okay, long explanation, but I don't want that kind of man on my team! He ruined the image of the Detroit Lions, and nearly erased the memory of such a phenominal season.

Tiger Woods may be my only exception to people that belong on this list. He had an ugly divorce and cheated on his wife, not to downplay that, but he's always been such a good athlete. I'm kind of surprised that he's still on the list and Big Ben made it off. I like Woods better than Big Ben.

I never liked Kyle Busch. I mean really, how can you get SO many speeding tickets? Ok sure, you're a race car driver you know how to drive fast safely, and are a better driver than 99 percent of the other people on the road, and I'm sure he even respects automobiles more as well. But he drives $120,000 Lexus's over a hundred miles an hour in 35 miles an hour posted areas. That's off the track. On the track, he wants his way all the time. Sure, a lot of young drivers do because they don't have the class of Richard Petty or Dale Earnhardt Sr., but other young drivers are respectful. Look at Carl Edwards. Needless to say, Kyle Busch could learn alot from his older brother. And everyone else behind the wheel of a stock car (with the notable exception of Scott Speed and Danica Patrick).

Now this is just the top ten posted below, but even worse thatn Kyle Busch (but barely worse) is Kevin Harvick. He's older and should know better, but is a meaner driver, team member and arrogant celebrity. Maybe these two can learn, some drivers do. Just look at Tony Stewart!

http://www.forbes.com/sites/tomvanriper/2012/02/07/americas-most-disliked-athletes/

Unemployment and Unfair

This article confuses me. Why, if there are 1,000,000 jobs open, will 30,000 people quiting instead of 20,000 better? So the 130,000 unemployed people can have a better chance to get in if that many people come out? How does that help? Then you have a different 30,000 unemployed out of that 130,000 already unemployed. And if so, why would anyone quit just to let someone else have his job?

Working hard in any job, whether it's flipping burgers or filing large corporation's records is going to pay off if one works well at it. Don't quit because you don't like the job, and don't quit looking because you can't find the job you want.

Leave your thoughts, I don't get the math.

http://bottomline.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/08/10351082-jobless-want-you-to-quit-already

PR Stunt: "Epic Fail"

Oops. PR stunt completely failed, and now BMW and MINI are apologizing, and embarressed. Nothing wrong with naming a storm after an automobile for free advertising, but this one just happend to kill 12 people. Yeah, the storm "Cooper" killed 12 people. Youd don't have to be a marketing major to know that is bad publicity. At least they only payed about $300 bucks for the name, not a huge financial loss.

Do you think this will effect anything? How much will a storm's name really affect business? If it only costs 300 bucks, I don't see how many people actually view that as advertising. However, it's hitting the news bigtime now. Odd how that works out, they still paid for it. And it didn't help a bit.

http://worldnews.msnbc.msn.com/_news/2012/02/02/10303397-mini-cooper-pr-stunt-backfires-with-weather-disaster