The Fix is In?

The Fix Is In? A BASN/FRO EXCLUSIVE

By Michael – Louis Ingram

BASN/FRO



Bernie Parrish, it seems, has been playing defense all his life. From his playing days with the Cleveland Browns, he saw the future in understanding the need to look out for himself and his fellow players down the road.

Parrish would be instrumental in helping to set up the first Players’ Union back in the 1960s – the same one that would morph into the NFLPA and Players, Inc. today. “I got interested in it after I was voted player rep for the Browns in 1960,” said Parrish,” so I’ve been at this a while.

“We sat down and tore a retirement plan out of the hides of men like George Halas, Paul Brown and George Preston Marshall – a buncha tough old buzzards; developed and gifted a pension plan that became what the modern players have now; and baseball followed suit with our premise soon after.

“Fortunately, for the baseball players, Marvin Miller kept the baseball union straight and made it his business to look out for all his people, and Major League Baseball’s pensioners today receive four to five times more money from their sport than football, in spite of the fact we’ve made more money over the same time frame – while Gene Upshaw & (former NFL commissioner Paul) Tagliabue diverted from that path with retired players (from 1982 and back) into other plans for the players that excluded us.

The death of former NFLPA head Upshaw led to speculation a new leader would be sympathetic to a faction of retired players - Parrish among them – and resolve several long – standing issues; as well as a couple which emanated from the recent award of $28.1 million dollars won in a class – action suit spearheaded by Parrish and Hall of Fame defensive back Herb Adderley, now stuck in appeal.

During Super Bowl week the speculation of a new leader narrowed down to two principal candidates – former players Trace Armstrong and Troy Vincent; but the ascension of lawyer/lobbyist DeMaurice Smith to president of NFLPA was a complete surprise to just about everyone – except Parrish.

Parrish revealed on the BASN / blogtalkradio shows, “the Football Reporters Online” and “The Batchelor Pad” hosted by our colleague, L.A. Batchelor that the process in electing Smith, in his opinion, wasn’t on the up – and – up.

“I was in Tampa during Super Bowl week at the Marriott Waterside,” recalls Parrish, “which was across the street from where most of the Super Bowl stuff was happening, and was having a coffee at a Starbucks which was adjacent to the lobby and the Café Waterside when here comes the inner circle of the NFLPA - Richard Bertelsen, Jeffrey Kessler, Clark Gaines, Jack Quinn, etc. They walked right past me, and didn’t recognize me. There were a bunch of fans around, so it was a little loud.

“Kessler, who was eye to eye with me for 7 hours during the deposition in the class action suit, is looking right at me. I was ready to say, ‘So, Jeff – did you bring the check?’ But he didn’t recognize me, and I’m thinking, ‘this guy has got to be one arrogant ass…’

“They all looked dead at me, walked by and then walked into the Café Waterside, which was closed, but the maitre’d let them in and closed the door; he (maitre’d) soon left, and I walked in and sat down at a table right next to them about 4-5 feet away. I’m looking out the window at the Coast Guard gunboats - and I listened for 90 minutes to them talking about several things – including rigging the election and getting Smith enough votes to get him in as Executive Director.

“They also brought in Cornwell as a supposed challenger. At first I thought they were talking about (former Buffalo Bill) Cornelius Bennett, but it was Cornwell, who was on the list of nominees as of January 29.

“So here I’m thinking the judge leaves Berthelsen (de facto Executive Director) and Kessler (lead counsel vs. Retired players) in charge in spite of the fact they ruled their action shirked their fiduciary responsibility to the retired players, instead of appointing a conservator like they did with the Teamsters after we won the lawsuit.

“They had arranged through several phone calls what they called ‘breakout meetings’ with 10 guys and one meeting went 6-0 against them, so they reworked the process.

“They also talked about getting a hold of Mary Moran, daughter of Rep. Jim Moran, who works for NFLPA in Human Resources, saying they needed to get a hold of her right away and she had to make her dad make these calls right away.

“We know he (Moran) called Rep. Edolphus Towns (D-NY) and Rep. Kendrick Meeks (D-FL) because Troy Vincent had called these congressmen, to insure the election was honest; but Rep. Moran outed Vincent due to the fact there were indications if Vincent had been elected, he would’ve cleaned house and fired his daughter in the wake of that move.

But Rep. Moran outed Vincent not just to help Smith to win the election. Patton Boggs, who is the largest lobbying firm in Washington, D.C., would be seen in a favorable light by NFLPA. So there were more things involved than just trying to have Moran help his daughter keep her job – there’s a lot of politicking goin’ on,” Parrish said.

According to Parrish, Patton Boggs earned $330 million in monies in 2008, and allegedly gave Moran over $2 million, according to an online watchdog concern.

It is because of these discoveries that Parrish is concerned about the direction of the NFLPA with regard to hundreds of millions of dollars owed to the retired players who had their the pension plan “infiltrated” by concerns not in their best interests – as well as the logic of the newly elected Executive Director.

“Well it doesn’t appear that a positive change is gonna happen,” said Parrish, “with Smith saying he was keeping Berthelsen and Kessler; and was ‘happy with the current staff’ – I don’t know how he was able to assess that over 3 days;

“They say they pay homage to us – well, homage doesn’t pay much; we’re owed 100s of millions of dollars because of the collusion between Upshaw, Tagilabue, the owners and Aon Consulting, who controls our plan actuaries; and our salaries are held down by Aon, who was ordered to pay $190 million in restitution to clients in Illinois, New York, and Connecticut – for cheating their customers.”

Parrish went on to imply there is more to this, and he is sending a letter to the new Executive Director to get a first – hand response to what he discovered.

“Smith says his staff is just fine; the same ones who violated fiduciary responsibility in taking care of our concerns. You think AIG’s crooked? Wait ‘til all this comes out.”



BASN will continue to keep you posted on this issue.

michaelingram@blackathlete.com

mike@footballreportersonline.com

Hot Stove Football #2

Hot Stove Football #2: Oh Plaxico oh Plaxico... and why did the NY Jets think they needed Jay Cutler?
By Dr. Bill Chachkes-Managing Partner-Football Reporters Online

The Ny Jets never seem to be happy with what they already have. If they feel that Kellen Clemens will never run the Jets Offense on a regular basis, try trading him for the extra draft pick.Then people will take you seriously when you say you need a QB. Until then, people only see the Jets as further behind the Giants in PSL sales.
I'm not so sure they were ever seriously considered a factor in the "Jay Cutler" Saga. The three way deal between the Broncos, Titans, and the Jets was talked about for all of 5 minutes and then dismissed at least on NY sports talk radio.

The Giants are doing their "voluntary" off season workout program, and 59 of the current roster players are in attendance. Osi Umenoria is confident that his knee is close to 100%. He was also sure that his teammate Plaxico Burress would return to the Giants after getting probation. Guess that one went out the door with the last gasp of winter. Burress was released after he won his case against the Giants to recover his withheld roster bonus of one million dollars(think Mike Meyers' Dr. Evil when you hear that).

General Manager Jerry Reese has not yet made a major attempt at signing a receiver in free agency, but will certainly address that in the draft. The Giants had college prospect Percy Harvin in for a workout last week. but there have to be other names on the radar. One such name should be Cal-Poly's Ramses Barden.before the superbowl no one even knew who he was except for a handful of scouts. Barden is the only receiver in this draft at 6'5" or above (6'5-1/2"-229lbs) and while he is still a bit raw, he has the potential to go a long way in the pros. We wouldn't be surprised if Mr. Barden heard his name called mid to late on day two of this years draft. The other is Rutgers' WR Kenny Britt. I'm not so totally sold on Mr. Britt . Although he is 6'4", he only weighs about 212 pounds, hardly someone who can out muscle larger defensive backs over the middle. He can jump, but would need to learn the mechanics of the "Jump Ball" game in the endzone.

Up In Buffalo, Terrell Owens has already missed a "voluntary" off season work out with his new team of choice. So i ask you, is this the way to start off on the right foot with your new team and coaching staff? I woulkd think you'd want to do everything you can to show the people of upstate NY that you are happy to be there. Sure the workouts are "voluntary", but it is also "strongly suggested" that players attend.

Down I-95, the Eagles' QB Donovan McNabb isn't too happy that so many veteran players are leaving. One media vet tells us that it's been building up to this for years due to poor management on the part of the Eagles front office. You have to feel bad
for Donovan because he puts his heart and soul into trying to make the Eagles a winner. It's shameful that the front office won't give them the tools to do so.

Some of the area college programs have already released their schedules for 2009. The Liberty Cup match-up between Fordham University (Patriot) and Columbia University (Ivy) is sure to be hotly contested as always. Columbia's Head Coach Norries Wilson is one of the hardest working coaches to grace New York City's college football scene in some time. He also gives a great post game press conference no matter what the outcome of the game, and always has a high quality of Insight into all phases of the game. As a college player, coach Wilson played in two bowl games at the University of Minnesota as an offensive lineman. Fordham's head man Tom Massella has been around winning football for years, and while the Rams had a tough 2008, they were the 2007 patriot league champs. Both teams also work hard on the recruitment front each year. Circle your calendars for September 19th at 6pm at Fordham's Jack Coffey field.

The NFLPA elected a new executive director 2 weeks ago named DeMaurice Smith. Mr. Smith is a talented litigator, but has no other football related experience other then being a rabid Redskins fan. So maybe there is some truth to the story that the election may have been "jerrymanded" by player association lawyers Kessler and Berthlesen. At least one retired player who is part of the suit against the NFLPA to recognize the lack of health care benefits to retired players believes it is true, and has gone on record to anyone who will listen. There is even another story that the 28.1 million dollar settlement will be reduced by 50% to the players.

As comedy man Yakov Smirnoff says "what a country this America is"

You can also find us at:

www.footballreportersonline.com
www.gridirondraftguide.com
examiner.com/new york football examiner
yardbarker.com/DrFootball

Obama: The U.S. Is Not At War With Islam

From Digg.com"Reporting from Istanbul, Turkey, and Ankara, Turkey -- When President Obama declared Monday that the United States "is not, and will never be, at war with Islam," he was addressing Turkey's parliament. But his audience was the wider Muslim world.

The president's ringing affirmation of partnership with Turkey, which he described as a vital bridge between East and West, was interwoven with a highly personal appeal for a change in the tone of discourse between the United States and the world's Muslims."

Early Star Trek Review: Best Movie Since Wrath Of Khan!

he new Star Trek movie is amazing- easily the best Trek movie since The Wrath of Khan, and a veritable feast of sight and sound: A captivating adventure that grabs you from the first and doesn't let go. The effects are amazing, finally what the stories have deserved so richly. There are enough huge fireballs, shattering explosions &exciting fights

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Paul Krugman is WRONG about The Obama TARP Plan - Once Again

On March 24th, I wrote a short post on Economist and NY Times Columnist Paul Krugman and created this video below.




Today, in the wake of Newsweeks' rather unfortunate April Fools Day article on the Princeton Professor (which presented him as a kind of edgy intellectual but lacked real substance in the discussion of why Krugman is wrong about Obama), I decided to offer this expanded blog post. The problem is that Krugman is really angry that the Obama administration is and has ignored him and this emotion has driven a sloppy intellectual approach, paced by the fact that he's not presented a plan for our troubled banks, all the while taking an aim at the President's plan that has the effectiveness of a drunken sailor at an arcade shooting gallery.

Who is Paul Krugman?

Professor Krugman is a decorated International Economist, who recently - in 2008 - won the Nobel Prize in Economics for his solid theory on two-country trade. Here Krugman attacked the standard idea of two-country trade by explaining with some heft that a country like the United States that makes a Cadillac sports sedan will see that car purchased to some degree in Germany, which just happens to produce the competitor BMW 5-series. In other words, rich countries trade like goods more often than poor country to rich country or vie versa. This idea was path-breaking in that the economies of scale were not included in traditional models of trade, so pretty much any country could trade with another one in this immmaginary World. Krugman's theory explained the real World.

Now, why do I have an interest in this? Because my background is in urban economics and I focused on it at both Texas-Arlingron and Cal-Berkeley, but fell in love with a kind of way of modeling relationships called System Dynamics which causes one to see the World as a set of feedback and control connections. And that's where I break with Krugman. As a traditional economist, he does not see beyond a set "straw-person example" and into the more complex World around him -- the political aspect of economics (the political economy as its called) is lost on him, which is why the Obama Administration does not embrace him.

The Obama plan for bank troubled assets, using Troubled Asset Relief Program money to finance non-recourse loans to encourage investors to buy the "junk" is one example (called the "Public-Private Investment Program for Legacy Assets"). Krugman attacks this plan around the idea that we're giving taxpayer money away to create this market, then sets the idea that it will not work without emprically showing why it will not do so in detail or offering an alternative plan.

What Krugman missed is a read of the political landscape such that Obama's TARP plan is not only one the market asked for, and for months, but was needed to take the bad debts off the banks books. And that's what Krugman misses. He rants on about the plan's possible failure from within its own system, but says nothing -- zip -- about getting the assets off the banks books, which is the real success. Then Paul makes a real intellectual error by writing that the Obama administration sees the bank financial system as sound, which it does not, otherwise this plan would not exist.

He then writes as if the plan uses all of the TARP money, rather than the truth, which is that it uses a small portion of it, thus leaving enough left over for other plans.

As I have stated again and again, the plan lacks a payment to American taxpayers under $100,000 of $3,500 each -- or about $380 Billion -- to essentially help banks and to a degree stimulate spending. Why? The vast majority of Americans don't have massive debt problems asmany don't carry credit card debt and for those who do the average level of credit card debt is about $10,000, so this plan helps reduce that by one-third. But people aren't going to leave the money under a matress, they will put it in banks, thus helping both Wall Street and Main Street. Remember the unemployment program, designed for those who were laid off from large companies in the past, does not help the apprentice plumber who has a decade-long resume of customers that suddenly dried up.

See, my idea is a supplement that I introduced a while back in a talk with CNN's Ali Velshi, who agreed it could help. But it fits within the economic and political reality of what we need to do to fix America's economy in a way that Krugman's plan does not do.

Oh. I forgot. He doesn't have a plan.

In closing, I do not embrace crits of this post that are based on the "You're not an economist" view or juvenile name-calling, which is common online but not allowed here in my space, but I do like a good debate on rigor and detail. Bring it.

Follow me on Twitter!

Click here for SF Chronicle version.

Bottoms up? Not so fast...

From the article: "When IBM can be as proud of how they treat their workers every day as General Motors was during its glory years, when I see people going back to work at jobs with good salaries and benefits, then I'll be ready to believe the U.S. economy is back on its feet." Reality check as DOW creeps above 8000. I don't know who the pundits think is better off - it's not me, is it you?

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The Secrets Of Oakland, California - A Video For CNN's iReport

I created this video at the specific request of Tyson Chandler at CNN's iReport. The idea is to give viewers a look at the secret places in your town, so I made this one for Oakland:

Alex Shoumatoff's Vanity Fair Article On The Bohemian Club

MySpace, Metacafe, Blip.tv, Crackle, Sclipo, Viddler and Howcast

Bringing an end to a story that made my blogs famous, infamous Vanity Fair (VF) Contributing Editor Alex Shoumatoff finally published his work on the Bohemian Club’s timber management plan and how he got snared by police for tresspassing at its private retreat near the town of Monte Rio, Calif. 

If you remember, Alex Shoumatoff set out last year to help his Harvard roommate Jock Hooper do a smear job on the Bohemian Club, which is a kind of resort home for many San Francisco luminaries, and not all of them male.  Hooper was someone described as a "disgruntled former member" of the exclusive gentlemen’s club that has is favored by the business elite, former presidents, international leaders, and men who enjoy music, wine and song, and ok, I know at least two women who've recently been there (with their boyfriends).  The club's lightened up a lot over the years.

Anyway, Hooper quit the club when it wouldn’t approve his forest management plan (read: major ego) and then became the leading critic of the club’s plans to preserve and protect old growth redwood trees on its property.  He then got Alex and Vanity Fair to do some dirty work for him, or try to. 

Now I write this with the full expectation of being invited to the 2010 Vanity Fair Oscar Party, rather than having to sneak into it.  Hear me talking Graydon! 

This story started last year when Shoumatoff managed to sneak in to the Bohemian Grove during the annual event the club holds in July. But his wandering, covered in detail in his story, only lasted 40 minutes before he was arrested by security guards and a part-time service employee at the famed Grove who quickly spotted that the kind of sloppy, preppy Topsider-wearing editor was not one of their own. 

In VF, Alex writes that he was trying to fit in with that style of dress, but folks I talked to say he wasn’t hard to miss: he was dressed like a caddy wearing a Pebble Beach pullover and apparently asked off-beat questions that proved to be his downfall.  Most of which he mentions in his article. 

He was quickly captured cowering behind a bush, but his large body gave him away.  He was then arrested by the Sonoma County Sherriff’s Department, spent the night in county jail, and forced to pay a fine for trespassing.  His arrest was captured in the San Francisco Chronicle, The New York Post, Gawker, Huffington Post, and, of course, here at zennie62.com and the San Francisco Sentinel .

Shoumatoff’s piece in Vanity Fair this month may be the first case of a hatchet job that turned into a hachet boomerang:  Club members say Shoumatoff’s piece is so  dramatized and so full of factual errors (that I will detail in a follow-up post), that it proves to be an embarrassment for him and well as Vanity Fair editor-in-chief Graydon Carter. And they refered to being attacked by "right wing bloggers"! 

I'm neither right of center, nor posessing wings like a bird, but I am a blogger.  As an Oakland guy who hangs out in San Francisco a lot, has worked for and helped  many local politicians both Democrat and Republican (but I'm a Dem), and gotten to personally know a number of "Grovers" as Alex calls them, I can tell you they're more than a little tired of people putting them into this "conservative White male" box, especially since this "liberal Black male" has been invited to visit and by members who are not all White, and aren't at all conservative. 

I'm happy to come to their defense to be frank. 

I'm glad Alex got caught because he could have just used the contacts he was developing to visit the club in a legitimate fashion.  Instead, he bozoed his way in and looked like a clown in doing so.

And the club's forest plan?  According to several sources, it's going through the review process well.  But what I find so interesting even over the important consideration of the trees, is how one blue-blood institution, Vanity Fair, can muster the gall to call another blue-blood institution The Bohemian Club "elitist" when VF's not even invited me to its Oscar Party, and Graydon Carter will not take my calls. 

This'll teach 'em!

Alex Shoumatoff's Vanity Fair Article On The Bohemian Club Reveals His Unfortunate Reporting Approach

MySpace, Metacafe, Blip.tv, Crackle, Sclipo, Viddler and Howcast

Bringing an end to a story that made my blogs famous, infamous Vanity Fair (VF) Contributing Editor Alex Shoumatoff finally published his work on the Bohemian Club’s timber management plan and how he got snared by police for tresspassing at its private retreat near the town of Monte Rio, Calif.

If you remember, Alex Shoumatoff set out last year to help his Harvard roommate Jock Hooper do a smear job on the Bohemian Club, which is a kind of resort home for many San Francisco luminaries, and not all of them male. Hooper was someone described as a "disgruntled former member" of the exclusive gentlemen’s club that has is favored by the business elite, former presidents, international leaders, and men who enjoy music, wine and song, and ok, I know at least two women who've recently been there (with their boyfriends). The club's lightened up a lot over the years.

Anyway, Hooper quit the club when it wouldn’t approve his forest management plan (read: major ego) and then became the leading critic of the club’s plans to preserve and protect old growth redwood trees on its property. He then got Alex and Vanity Fair to do some dirty work for him, or try to.

Now I write this with the full expectation of being invited to the 2010 Vanity Fair Oscar Party, rather than having to sneak into it. Hear me talking Graydon!

This story started last year when Shoumatoff managed to sneak in to the Bohemian Grove during the annual event the club holds in July. But his wandering, covered in detail in his story, only lasted 40 minutes before he was arrested by security guards and a part-time service employee at the famed Grove who quickly spotted that the kind of sloppy, preppy Topsider-wearing editor was not one of their own.

In VF, Alex writes that he was trying to fit in with that style of dress, but folks I talked to say he wasn’t hard to miss: he was dressed like a caddy wearing a Pebble Beach pullover and apparently asked off-beat questions that proved to be his downfall. Most of which he mentions in his article.

He was quickly captured cowering behind a bush, but his large body gave him away. He was then arrested by the Sonoma County Sherriff’s Department, spent the night in county jail, and forced to pay a fine for trespassing. His arrest was captured in the San Francisco Chronicle, The New York Post, Gawker, Huffington Post, and, of course, here at zennie62.com and the San Francisco Sentinel .

Shoumatoff’s piece in Vanity Fair this month may be the first case of a hatchet job that turned into a hachet boomerang: Club members say Shoumatoff’s piece is so dramatized and so full of factual errors (that I will detail in a follow-up post), that it proves to be an embarrassment for him and well as Vanity Fair editor-in-chief Graydon Carter. And they refered to being attacked by "right wing bloggers"!

I'm neither right of center, nor posessing wings like a bird, but I am a blogger. As an Oakland guy who hangs out in San Francisco a lot, has worked for and helped many local politicians both Democrat and Republican (but I'm a Dem), and gotten to personally know a number of "Grovers" as Alex calls them, I can tell you they're more than a little tired of people putting them into this "conservative White male" box, especially since this "liberal Black male" has been invited to visit and by members who are not all White, and aren't at all conservative.

I'm happy to come to their defense to be frank.

I'm glad Alex got caught because he could have just used the contacts he was developing to visit the club in a legitimate fashion. Instead, he bozoed his way in and looked like a clown in doing so.

And the club's forest plan? According to several sources, it's going through the review process well. But what I find so interesting even over the important consideration of the trees, is how one blue-blood institution, Vanity Fair, can muster the gall to call another blue-blood institution The Bohemian Club "elitist" when VF's not even invited me to its Oscar Party, and Graydon Carter will not take my calls.

This'll teach 'em!

Fox News' Roger Friedman's Leaked "Wolverine" Review Gets Him In Trouble With Fox News, News Corp

More at HuffPost: “FoxNews.com entertainment columnist Roger Friedman has drawn the ire of News Corp bosses after writing a review of a leaked version of the upcoming 20th Century Fox blockbuster "X-Men Origins: Wolverine" — and he'll have to answer to Fox News executives in a meeting Monday morning.

Friedman's FoxNews.com column Thursday — since deleted — was a review of "Wolverine" that studio bosses viewed as an implicit endorsement of movie piracy, according to Deadline Hollywood Daily's Nikki Finke.”

Who gets hired for Obama's green jobs?

Do you need to be able to build solar cells, or have an advanced chem background to work on cellulosic ethanol? Of course not - the first round will be traditional trades - electricians, steel and iron workers, the people who wear hard hats not three piece suits, the people who have the kind of jobs IBM can't move overseas. It's win~win!

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Sara Lacy Returns Home: A Note On How A Good Relationship Should Be

I just read Sarah Lacy's post on how she misses her husband and that he's a great guy for being patient as she travels for her work, which is writing about all things -- all almost all things -- tech. It was heart-warming. It also reminded me of how one has to have a great relationship just to survive the demands of today's work world. Congradulations to two great people.

Gingrich warns of third party in 2012

Former House speaker Newt Gingrich is warning of a third party mutiny in 2012 if Republicans don’t figure out a way to shape up.

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Obama Breaks Up 'Heated' Spat Between Sarkozy, Jintao

"...The exchange between Sarkozy and Hu got so heated, said a source -- who is not a member of the Obama administration -- it was threatening the unity of the G-20 leaders' meeting... But Mr. Obama stepped between the two men, urging them to try to find consensus, and giving them a "pep talk" about the importance of working together."

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Eric Holder Wants To Release Bush Interrogation Memos

Attorney General Eric Holder wants to release classified Bush-era interrogation memos. But U.S. intel officials are fiercely lobbying the White House to block him from moving forward.

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663,000 U.S. Jobs Lost in Mar., Pushing Unemployment to 8.5%

Despite better-than-expected reports on everything from housing to manufacturing this week, recession-wary U.S. companies are still shedding hundreds of thousands of jobs. The government reported that the nation's employers cut 663,000 workers in March, push the unemployment rate up to 8.5 percent, the highest in nearly 26 years.

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Hedge Fund Paid Obama Adviser Summers $5.2 million

By Roberta Rampton WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Lawrence Summers, a top economic adviser to U.S. President Barack Obama, was paid about $5.2 million by hedge fund D.E. Shaw in the past year, financial disclosure forms released by the White House showed on...

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W.H. team discloses TARP firm ties - Kenneth P. Vogel - POLI

Lawrence Summers, a top economic adviser to President Barack Obama, pulled in more than $2.7 million in speaking fees paid by firms at the heart of the financial crisis, including Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan, Merrill Lynch, Bank of America Corp. and the now-defunct Lehman Brothers.

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First Commenters Are First Douchebags.

If you've heard of this thing called "The Internet," then you've inevitably seen thousands of first comments on blogs, news articles, etc. that simply say "First!"

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Economist: US collapse due to fraud, Geithner covering it up

In an explosive interview on PBS' Bill Moyers Journal, William K. Black, a professor of economics and law with the University of Missouri, alleged that American banks and credit agencies conspired to create a system in which so-called "liars loans" could receive AAA ratings and zero oversight, amounting to a massive "fraud" at the epicenter.

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Getting Out Late In Oakland After Too Much Work: A Brief Report

This phase of work, work, work is not done (and this is part of it) but not yet taking its toll. To make sure that doens't happen, I did two things: 1) I went to the gym and 2), I went out to just relax. The first thing, the gym, I do every day, or try too. I'm working to keep by weight below 200 pounds. I find I feel best at less than 196. Yesterday I was at 198.

The second act was just plain going out. I wound up, as they say, at Luka's and ran into my neighbors and their friend who can dance up a storm. So, for the first time in a a while, I danced to some combination of "house" and reggae. Then, once enough sweat was produced to make think of my desire not to sweat a lot, I stopped, and fortunately so did they, and left. That was fun. It's also a blast to do it with people from your hood.

Then I wound up at another place called Mua and ran into a couple I generally see at Cafe Ven Kleef. They had a friend in West Oakland who had a story tip for me so they brought me over to her and we talked for a long time. To give the short version, it seems there's this company that specializes in cleaning up after a homicide. Now, according to my new friend, that firm, called "Crime Scene Cleanup", reportedly has been telling West Oakand residents that they "own the neighborhood" and plan to buy distressed property. For what reason, I do not know.

But the company has been -- according to my new friend -- active around West Oakland. Now remember they clean up after, say, a murder. And that, from what I've read today, is not a pretty thing. It's mostly maggots, and other disgusting stuff.

My friend then sent this message:

What we do know: they are moving into a property that touches a restaurant, is surrounded by residential properties and a half a block away from a school.

When my neighbors went over there in good faith - in fact excited to meet these guys because they had heard about them and thought that their van was really cool - they were instantly met with hostility and intimidation.

The questions we in the neighborhood have are:
- why hasn't this business notified residents that they are moving in, as they are supposed to do?
- what is their waste disposal procedure? Their safety measures must be excellent, since they were approved to operate right next door to so many families with children.
- how will this affect our neighborhood activities, such as our planned community garden, National Night Out block parties, etc?
- why is the business hostile to the community it plans to join?
- and finally, as a matter of curiosity, what kind of homework did they do that led them to choose a property right next door to two large loft developments (some of the oldest ones in West Oakland), a school, and lots of residential?

The main question is, are the employees of Crime Scene Cleanup doing any illegal waste dumping and with a sense of entitlement, which would explain the exchange I reported above? I understand Councilmember Nancy Nadel's aware of this so I'm going to do some digging. More soon.

At any rate, it was fun and even though I was the only person not "coupled" -- hey I could have gone to a fundraiser with a woman friend of mine but I had too much work to do (she' pissed at me now) and the woman I've been dating recently has a job that keeps her on a plane, overseas for months at a time. So you can imagine what I'm thinking.

So, perhaps taking pity on me, the women teased me mercilessly while their boy friends laughed in approval. Life is so fun, especially when your surrounded by great pairs of legs. There was a "film at 11" but to protect the identity of my source, it will not see the whites of your eyes.

Senate Republicans want Coleman to go to SUPREME COURT

Coleman has been battling Democrat Al Franken since November for the seat that used to be his, but recent court decisions have moved against him in the legal battle over the recount. Franken technically has a 225-vote lead, and last week a decision gave him a stronger chance of clinging to it. So, if MN won't pick Coleman, let's argue longer.

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Anti-NATO protests in Strasbourg and Kehl

From nocommenttv on YouTube: Anti-NATO demonstrators torched a former border post on the French side of the Franco-German frontier as protests took a violent turn.

North Korea launches rocket, defying world pressure

South Korea's presidential office has confirmed North Korea's launch of a long-range rocket launch from its east coast base.

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The New York Times Threatens to Shut Down Boston Globe

"The New York Times Co. has threatened to shut the Boston Globe unless the newspaper's unions swiftly agree to $20 million in concessions, union leaders said."

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The New York Times Threatens to Shut Down Boston Globe

"The New York Times Co. has threatened to shut the Boston Globe unless the newspaper's unions swiftly agree to $20 million in concessions, union leaders said."

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Disney announces 1,900 job cuts At Theme Parks

Walt Disney Co. said Friday it has eliminated about 1,900 jobs at its U.S. theme parks through job cuts and attrition.

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3 Police Officers Killed, 2 Injured in Pittsburgh shootout

After responding to a domestic dispute call in a quiet upper Pittsburgh neighborhood, officers and a suspect exchanged 70-80 shots in gunfire. 3 officers were killed, 2 were injured. The apprehended suspect is a 23 year old white male who was wielding a high powered assault rifle and a pistol.

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Reform health care in the U.S.A. now

Released: Thursday, March 26, 2009 BURLINGTON, VT

Howard Dean launched a new campaign yesterday evening on a Democracy for America conference call with thousands of supporters across the country. The former chair of the DNC called on Congress to pass healthcare reform which includes a universally available public option, such as Medicare.

"Healthcare reform legislation rises and falls on whether the American public is allowed to choose a universally available public option, like Medicare, or not."

"If we are allowed to choose a public option like Medicare, the bill will be real healthcare reform. If we're not, we could be back fighting about it for another 20 years before anybody tries again."

~Governor Howard Dean, M.D.

Dr. Dean's announcement comes at a time when insurance companies and HMO's have vowed to fight President Obama on his campaign promise to include a publicly available option in the healthcare reform he wants passed by Congress this year.

"The battle against real healthcare reform already begun. Our Stand With Dr. Dean campaign will ensure that policy makers in DC hear from every American, not just big money who will stop at nothing to retain the status quo."

~Arshad Hasan, Executive Director of Democracy For America.

As a first step in the campaign, Dr. Dean asked supporters to add their name to a petition statement at www.StandwithDrDean.com. The campaign will be run by Governor Dean and Democracy For America. This is the beginning of a multi-pronged campaign which will generate broad based support for a public option through neighborhood canvasses, meetings with legislators, running ads in targeted districts, and more. The organization expects to deliver over 250,000 signatures to members of Congress in the weeks to come.

---

I know it’s fashionable in certain circles to say government can’t get things done - but big insurance has had decades of control over our medical decisions and costs, and they sure aren’t getting it done right. We pay more per capita than any other nation, yet the results are high costs and millions with no coverage at all. Let’s put an end to bureaucrats at insurance companies making decisions about our medication and treatment now, those decisions should be left to skilled doctors and nurses interested in our well-being, not accountants and CEOs interested in their bottom lines.

Work. Work. Work. One Tired Guy I Am.

I've got a lot of work to do which is good, but it's taking a lot of hours. The absence of a good work partner is the problem. Really, I need someone who will write proposals and blog for a small compensation but a percentage of revenue of work secured. That person also needs to be someone I can count on and is credible -- I can truat their word.

Sources: Google In Talks To Acquire Twitter (Updated)

More at TechCrunch: “Here’s a heck of a rumor that we’ve sourced from two separate people close to the negotiations: Google is in late stage negotiations to acquire Twitter. We don’t know the price but can assume its well, well north of the $250 million valuation that they saw in their recent funding.”

Promise Tech Sued By Carbonite : A Lesson In Data and Responsibility

Three days ago I decided to write a blog post that focused on an issue which at first glance would seem to have all the stuff of sleep-producing content.  It's a tech matter involving a company known as Carbonite , who's corporate mission is to provide "Unlimited online backup for one flat fee" according to its website, versus another firm Promise Technology.  The same website reads "How will you survive a computer disaster" and with a photo of a man that could very well be me, head bowed in his hand. 

Video version:




YouTube, MySpace, Metacafe, Blip.tv, Crackle and Sclipo

In fact, a couple of months ago that was me.  My MacBook's hard drive crashed big time, and while I was away from my home and office.  Even though I was visiting my mother in suburban Atlanta, I was still without my second computer and even worse, I had to catch a flight in just five hours.  So, I found a place nearby that works with Apple products and the tech warned me to have my "stuff" backed up.   All of the "stuff" I needed was online in various places, so I was ok.  

But it never entered my mind to me to sue Apple Computer.   

Thus my interest in this lawsuit over a matter that happened over a year ago but with a lawsuit filed almost two weeks ago.  Here's what happened:  

According to The Boston Globe , Carbonite is suing Promise Technology and another company Interactive Digital Systems for allegedly faulty equipment and breach of warranty, respectively.  Carbonite was responsible for over 7,500 backups which it lost in 2007.   Promise Technology hardware was supposed to monitor customer data and preserve the information  Carbonite claims the products by Promise were "defective".

Promise stands by its hardware devices and says they're reliable.  

This story has hit the tech blogsphere like wildfire.  It was picked up by TechCrunch first, and that story became linkbait for a number of blog posts rendering fact and opinion, including mine, because I was interested in what the comment writers had to say, most of which was critical against Carbonite.  

See, what's hard for many to wrap their mind around is why Carbonite itself lacked a backup system, especially considering the number of customers they had?  Every time I've had a hard drive problem over the years, people have asked, "Did you backup your data?"  That's asked all the time; I can hear someone asking it now.  So, the story spread and so did the comments.  Eventually, even our San Francisco Focus Blog entry on this had comments.  But one of them really caught my attention.  

This one:

Hi Zennie, 

I would like to make sure that your readers understand two points with regard to Carbonite’s lawsuit against Promise Technologies as your headline is misleading to the facts of the case:

1) This event happened over a year ago. We do not say this to minimize the matter. But we do want to point out that this has not happened in a long time and is not an ongoing problem. 

2) The total number of Carbonite customers who were unable to retrieve their data was 54, not 7,500. We did take responsibility for the loss of data, which impacted the 54 customers. 

Here is what happened: The Promise servers that we were purchasing in 2006 and 2007 use RAID technology to spread data redundantly across 15 disk drives so that if any one disk drive fails, you don't lose any data. The RAID software that makes all this work is embedded as "firmware" in the storage servers. In this case, we believe that the firmware on the servers had bugs that caused the servers to crash. Carbonite automatically restarted all 7,500 backups and more than 99% of these were completely restored without incident. Statistically, about 2 out of every 1,000 consumer hard drives will crash every week, so 54 of these customers had their PCs crash before their re-started backups were complete. Since they weren’t completely backed up when their PCs crashed, these customers were unable to restore all of their files from Carbonite. Most of the 54 got some or most of their data back. We took full responsibility for what happened and I did my best to call each of these customers personally to apologize. 

As a result of our problems with the Promise servers, we switched to a popular Dell server that uses RAID6 – an improved RAID that allows for the loss of 3 of the 15 drives simultaneously before you lose any data. This configuration is in theory 36 million times more reliable than a single disk drive — the chances of 3 out of 15 drives failing at the same time are almost nil. 

So far, Promise has refused to accept responsibility for their equipment’s failures, so now we are suing them to get our money back. The Dell RAID servers have been flawless and we're extremely happy with them. 

Dave Friend, CEO

Carbonite, Inc.

Dave's friendly comment certainly gave this blog entry new weight, but something Mr. Friend wrote concerned me:

 The RAID software that makes all this work is embedded as "firmware" in the storage servers. In this case, we believe that the firmware on the servers had bugs that caused the servers to crash. Carbonite automatically restarted all 7,500 backups and more than 99% of these were completely restored without incident. 

"We believe that the firmware on the servers had bugs" is another way of claiming there's no real evidence to back that claim.  That's a real problem and I'm surprised Dave Friend just hauled off and wrote that.  In other words, there's no way Carbonite can actually prove Promise Technology's hardware was at fault.  They have their belief, but that's it.  That means there could have been a lot of actions that led to the loss of customer data, and even Carbonite's Friend admits that only 54 of 7,500 customers were adversely impacted by this data loss.

Let's go back to my Apple example.  If my Apple MacBook crashes, techs ask me if I use disk utility tools to properly maintain the hard drive.  They instruct me to use those tools both in the care and recovery of data and the hard drive. Thus the care of the hard drive is ultimately my responsibility.




This is also at SFGate.com

Welcome for Obama in France on 3 April 2009

Video: Barack Obama in France, Europe on 3 April 2009.

American School of Paris Students Shake Hands with President Barack Obama

From dlynn78 on YouTube: On Friday, April 3rd, 47 American School of Paris students traveled to Strasbourg, France to witness the first public address delivered internationally by President Barack Obama. The address was followed by a "town hall" question/answer format. Afterwards, President Obama shook hands with our students. This starts about 40 seconds into the video.

Health insurance industry red tape hurts - it adds no value

It's time to put doctors and nurses back in charge of medical decisions. If you think government can't get anything right, ask yourself: has big insurance been getting health care right? No way.The insurance industry profits by taking roughly 1/3 of the money going to health care to pay for overhead while they overturn the decisions of doctors to pay executive bonuses.

Big insurance companies make so much money that they spend millions of dollars on lobbyists every year in DC, yet costs are outrageous and a disgraceful number of people don't even have coverage. Obviously there's big money working to keep the status quo or this would have been fixed decades ago. Instead of reform, instead of the kind of continuous quality improvement they apply to their internal functions, we get red tape - we get misinformation trying to label any reforms as "socialized medicine" while medical decisions are made by bureaucrats.

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CIA: Torture Gave No Leads, Foils No Plots, Led Goose Chases

The Feds are finally releasing more & more information that was hidden under the Republican administration that reveals that torture was not just totally unreliable, but is a waste of valuable resources, sending the CIA on global wild goose chases over & over with little to zero results. In fact other techniques have proven much more reliable.

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CIA: Torture Gave No Leads, Foils No Plots, Led Goose Chases

The Feds are finally releasing more & more information that was hidden under the Republican administration that reveals that torture was not just totally unreliable, but is a waste of valuable resources, sending the CIA on global wild goose chases over & over with little to zero results. In fact other techniques have proven much more reliable.

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Fox accuses White House of trying to impose Sharia law in US

No, this isn’t an April Fool’s joke. Fox is seriously accusing the Obama administration of seeking to impose Sharia law in the United States. Needless to say, the accusation totally false and just another example of the hate-filled paranoia and insanity of Foxaganda.

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How One Man Travelled to New Zealand Relying on Twitterers

A brave traveller has made it all the way to New Zealand without buying a single ticket along the way. Paul Smith - dubbed the Twitchhiker - made the 11,000-mile trip using only donations from people who use the social networking site Twitter.

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Report: Google to invest $100 million in VC fund

Google on Tuesday is expected to announce more details of its venture capital fund, including a $100 million investment in the first year, according to a report Monday on The Wall Street Journal's Web site that cited people familiar with the matter.

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Twitter To Kill Off The Auto-Follow

Twitter co-founder Biz Stone sent out an Email earlier this afternoon to a number of users who had previously enabled ‘autofollowing’, stating that the company is planning to shut the feature down. ‘Autofollowing’ allows users to automatically reciprocate whenever another Twitter user follows them.

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Twittering & Watching YouTube Makes Workers More Productive

Have you been caught Twittering or on Facebook at work? Well now you can tell your manager it actually makes you a harder worker. An Australian study found surfing the internet for fun during office hours actually increased employees productivity by nine per cent.

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Stop Time Warner Cable's unfair bandwidth tier system

Time Warner Cable is planning on introducing a tier based bandwidth allocation system in Austin TX, San Antonio TX and Rochester, N.Y.

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Google Redesigns YouTube, Copies Hulu

Google is redesigning YouTube to make the site more attractive to the content creators who make the kind of stuff Google could actually sell ads against -- like Disney, for example.

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Joe the Plumber Gets Booed Out of Pennsylvania

Somebody in the Republican Party thought it would be a great idea to send Joe the Plumber to Pennsylvania to rally against the Employee Free Choice Act. The pretend plumber faced audiences so hostile in Pittsburgh and Harrisburg that he skipped a rally in Philadelphia. This perfectly sums of the state of Joe the Plumber’s 15 minutes of fame.

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MPAA chairman Dan Glickman to be Thrown Out

MPAA chairman Dan Glickman is currently searching for another job. The Clinton-era cabinet minister has been head of the MPAA for the last four and a half years, but will be replaced in 18 months time because of his lacking performance. By contrast, Glickman’s predecessor, Jack Valenti held the office for 38 years.

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Oakland A's Ownership Rumored To Consider Firing Lew Wolff - Oakland Focus

The above headline will catch you by surprise, but the wind is blowing in that way.  The point is that several people behind the scenes, in touch with the ownership group, and around the Bay Area are talking about how Oakland Athletics Managing Partner Lew Wolff has, as one person put it "blown $20 million" on the effort to find a new home for the Oakland Athletics. Another contact told me one would be "fired" if they lost even $8 million on such a development project so early into the process. 

But the concensus for now is to let Wolff continue to do his work, but he's on a short leach.  The main problem is Wolff fell in love with the "baseball village" concept, where the ownership has to buy a lot of land not just for a baseball stadium but for residential development in the hope that the improved land sells for more than the group bought it for.  That works in a credit-health, prosperous economy, but in today's recessionary and deflationary world its a terrible strategy.  

And there's where a lot of the money was lost; in land acquisition.  As has been reported, Wolff was not-so-quietly buying land in Fremont with the idea of implementing the village strategy.  But now, with the credit crunch that blew up in his face.  I explained to the other member of the A's  ownership team Don Fisher not too long ago (at a party) that such a move was risky because of the economic bet, but hey, no one listens to me except Alameda County Supervisor Nate Miley.

Maybe that will change.  

Perhaps in calling Mayor Dellums for a meeting, Wolff has seen the light of a possible new approach involving redevelopment funds and whatever stimulus money can be gotten from the federal government.  It's a better gambit now than it was even a year ago, when the word "stimulus" wasn't in the American lexicon.

When I use the term "rumor" in this case, it's not to be taken as something I "overheard"; this possible letting go of Wolff was told to me by two different sources, which I will not reveal, but frankly do want the news out there.  So am I saying "the knifes are out"?  Yes.  They are.  And they're sharp ones.

People in the A's organization will wonder who the person's are, but the unfortunate fact is I talk to a lot of people, even folks there.  Zeroing in on who it is?  Impossible.

Wolff's on notice.  Perform and stop losing money.  Or else.  Of course, now that Major League Baseball's committee on the need for a new A's stadium is in place, it could be said that Wolff's college buddy Commissioner Bud Selig saved him from almost certain doom.

Maybe.

Promise Technology Inc Announces New ServicePlus On-Site Parts Replacement Program for US and Canada

First I take a stance on how backing up data is a personal responsibility and how Carbonite - a data protection company -- should take the rap for losing its customer's data, then I get comments on the San Francisco Blog about it, and from some high level folks, and now a press release?  Interesting.  It means our blogs matter in the tech world after all.  Here's the release I got on Promise Technology's news about an onsight parts replacement program:

Promise Announces New ServicePlus On-Site Parts Replacement Program for US and Canada

Industry leading support program expands to include on-site component swap offering

MILPITAS, Calif., April 1, 2009 – Promise Technology Inc., a leading supplier of sophisticated RAID storage solutions for enterprise and SMB customers, today announced general availability of the Promise ServicePlus parts replacement plan for their VTrak enterprise class RAID storage subsystems. The ServicePlus program is an available upgrade to Promise’s leading 3-Year limited advanced parts replacement warranty. The ServicePlus plan offers onsite parts replacement 24 hours a day, 7 days a week for the existing VTrak warranty period.

The Promise ServicePlus Plan provides for the rapid response and installation of components that have been identified as being in a fault state. This program provides storage administrators with the peace of mind that their storage is protected 24x7 against component failure. Combined with Promise’s existing 24x7 technical phone support this program is able to significantly minimize downtime. Average response time for component replacement can be as little as four hours in most major metropolitan areas.

“The ServicePlus program builds upon our already best in class support program”, said Vijay Char, Vice President of QA and Support, Promise Technology.  “Continuing to add to our support offering is part of our commitment to providing our customers with the best available uptime and service.”

The Promise ServicePlus plan is available for VTrak E-Class RAID, J-Class expansion chassis and M-Class iSCSI models in the 3U/16-bay form factor. The program is valid for the entire 3 year VTrak standard warranty period.

Pricing and Availability
The Promise ServicePlus plan is immediately available in the U.S. and Canada. Please contact the Promise sales department for further information.

About Promise Technology, Inc.
With a long history of innovation, Promise Technology develops and manufactures sophisticated RAID solutions – offering a complete line of RAID controller cards and SAS/SATA RAID subsystems catering to enterprise, mid-range and entry-level data protection needs worldwide. Known as the originator of SATA/ATA RAID products, Promise’s comprehensive product base includes high available (HA) standalone RAID subsystems with standards-based management interfaces, SAS host-based (internal) RAID controllers for servers and NAS appliances for SOHO. Headquartered in Milpitas, Calif., Promise is ISO-9001:2000 and ISO-14001:2004 certified, and has offices and operations throughout Asia and Europe to support local business partners and customers. For more information, visit Promise Technology's website at http://www.promise.com/serviceplu

Feminist Advisory Board [FAB] within Organizing for America

The founder, Madama Ambi, is now exploring turning FAB, which first gained notice during the 2008 Presidential campaign, into a platform for communicating with The White House Council on Women and Girls. She also hopes for the women's movement to "unify and strengthen its networks" but stresses you need not be a feminist or female to participate.

In the words of U.S. President Barack H. Obama,

"...it's up to us to carry that work forward, to ensure that our daughters and granddaughters have no limits on their dreams, no obstacles to their achievements -- and that they have opportunities their mothers and grandmothers and great grandmothers never dreamed of."

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Protect Military spending, cut everything else? GOP fail

Bush knew leaving the economy for Obama to fix would stain the GOP reputation for years, possibly decades. Yet today the GOP numbers, as detailed by the ranking Republican on the House Budget Committee, Paul Ryan (R-WI) reveal they were only talking about improving education, reforming the health care system, and energy independence to win votes.

The GOP budget proposal is: protect the military spending (that evidently funds their campaign finances,) and preserve Bush tax cuts for the wealthy. With their backs to the wall they're writing off the moderate, middle of the road voters?

With the Obamas modeling family values, the President's popularity riding high, and the world markets in chaos despite bailing out the bankers on Wall Street all the Republican economics experts have got to offer is "Defense spending" and keep helping the rich?

They call that a plan?

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