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Dr. Boyce, Al Sharpton and Bill Cosby Discuss Black Male Athletes

• Jul 13, 2010 from blackvoices(BlackVoices) in Lifestyle
  Filed under: Interviews, Basketball, Football, News
  I don't always agree with everything that Bill Cosby has to say. I've listened to him speak and sometimes wanted to ask him what he'd been putting in those Jello pudding pops. All the while, I've gained a a tremendous amount of respect and appreciation for Cosby, as he provides a perspective that I think many in theAfrican American community need to hear. In fact, the reason I love Cosby the most is that he reminds me of my father; a man with whom I often disagree, but who also provided me with a chance to understand an alternative point of view. Cosby's no-nonsense approach to solving problems in black America makes sense on the surface, but it lacks the insight necessary to understand the intricacies of solving a 400-year old problem. The complex concerns of black America are not as simple as opening a Jello Pudding pop.
  
  This week when I appeared on the radio show hosted by The Rev. Al Sharpton, I noticed that Rev. Sharpton suddenly began talking a lot about Jello. Besides making me hungry, I couldn't really put my finger on why he kept referring to something I hadn't eaten since my days in the school cafeteria. Then, I thought, "Oh, maybe he's referring to Bill Cosby."
  
  I wasn't sure why Cosby suddenly entered the conversation, since we weren't talking about him before the commercial break. But Sharpton's show can be full of surprises, as last week, we were given a surprise phone call by New York Governor David Paterson. I am usually amazed and impressed with how Rev. Sharpton's work in civil rights has become the socio-political highway through which most of our celebrities, athletes and political leaders travel. It takes a great deal of work to manage that many relationships, which is something I'd never want to do myself.
  
  After a few minutes, Cosby came on the air, and I just listened. When Cosby is talking, there isn't much room for anyone else to say anything; you just allow him to go on about whatever he wants, for as long as he wants. You try to keep up, but you usually find that to be impossible. But perhaps at the age of 73, Cosby has become a respected Godfather of the African American community. For that reason, I don't interrupt him either.
  
  At any rate, much of the conversation didn't just center on Cosby and his birthday. It also centered on our community and the state of the black athlete in America. I began with a discussion about the recent suicide of former NBA player Melvin Turner. Turner was a star at The University of Kentucky in the 1980s, and recently died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. While I did not know Melvin Turner personally, I do know that he was "educated" during the corrupt athletic regime of the University of Kentucky, when the school was nearly given the death penalty by the NCAA for having so many ethics violations. The fact that Turner was a security guard when he died, along with the fact that his good friend Dirk Minniefield mentioned that Turner was bothered by the embarrassment of coming back to Kentucky as a security guard, says that Turner may not have been happy with his professional life when he died. I would imagine that most of us don't commit suicide when things are going well.
  
  The point in all this is that I wonder just how well Melvin Turner was educated during his time with The University of Kentucky. Perhaps if his educational experience had been more meaningful, he would have had professional opportunities that went beyond becoming a security guard. When I add his experience to the recent arrest of former Kentucky star Antoine Walker (who is now broke and possibly going to prison, by the way), and the fact that this school has one of the lowest GPAs of all schools making it to the NCAA tournament, I see a prototype for how the African American athlete continues to be exploited by the NCAA. Kentucky is not alone in this regard, for this kind of thing happens to black male athletes all across America.
  
  But the institutions are not the only ones responsible for the tragedy of the black male athlete in America. We must find ways to constructively modify the culture of the black athlete in order to help young men understand that there are many avenues to greatness that don't involve dribbling a basketball or throwing a football. We must cheer for them just as hard when they make good grades as we did when they scored three touchdowns during the previous week. We must also help them to understand that beyond being great on the field, academic greatness and intellectual development are critical dimensions of the blueprint to success in America. A $100 million dollar athlete who remains uneducated is eventually going to find that someone else has taken all of his money (you ever hear about sports agents going broke? I thought not).
  
  The point of this discussion, as well as our organization (ALARM: The Athlete Liberation Academic Reform Movement) is not to say that...

Lotta Ugly Behind The Bitter Republican Party Civil War

• Sep 23, 2010 from dwt1(DownWithTyranny) in Politics
  Ohio's 8th congressional district has been sending John Boehner to Congress for two decades. But he isn't well-liked in the district and the district isn't even Republican by registration. In fact, there are about the same number of registered Democrats and Republicans. The district is mostly Independent, albeit independents who have been voting for Boehner. However, unlike previous years, Boehner has a real opponent now, Justin Coussoule, with an alternative vision to Boehner's outsourcing and off-shoring trade policies-- he was a force behind NAFTA, CAFTA, WTO/GATT and is still pushing for job-killing trade agreements with half a dozen low wage countries-- and to Boehner's vision of bank bailouts on the one had and stiffing middle class families on the other. (Yes, Boehner engineered the victory for Bush's no-strings-attached Wall Street TARP bailout in 2008.) Interestingly, Boehner's Ohio media allies can only make one rationale for re-electing him again-- he might wind up as Speaker (as though that might be beneficial for Ohio voters, instead of the disaster his term in office has already proven!). But will the lazy, hard-drinking golfer wind up as Speaker if the Republican manage to win in November? Republican House members prefer to not discuss it openly but there's a lot of chatter about kicking the corrupt Boehner out of the leadership (again) and inserting a more ideologically extreme candidate more in line with the teabaggers. Mike Pence is the obvious choice.Even AOL managed to sniff this one out, although they focused on the impending battle between right-wing fanatic Jim DeMint and corrupt conservative Mitch McConnell in the Senate where a 10 seat pickup would "include a crop of true limited-government conservatives like Rand Paul of Kentucky, who has suggested eliminating the Departments of Education and Energy; Mike Lee from Utah, who advocates revisiting the 14th and 17th Amendments to the Constitution that deal with citizenship and states' rights; Alaska's Joe Miller, who told "Face the Nation" on Sunday that he believes unemployment benefits are unconstitutional; and Marco Rubio of Florida, who has consistently campaigned on repealing the recently passed health care law."The result of the new blood, say senators, staffers and congressional scholars, would be a Republican caucus that is far more conservative than it is today, leading an assault on the Obama administration's agenda on the outside, while it faces a potential civil war within.Without even gaveling into session, Senate-watchers say Day One of a Republican-led Senate would mean the legislative death of anything left on the wish lists of special-interest groups aligned with Democrats, such as the Employee Free Choice Act (the union-backed item known as "card check"); climate change legislation with a cap-and-trade mechanism; comprehensive immigration reform; and Don't Ask Don't Tell, if the Senate fails to pass it this year. Also in danger would be portions of the health care reform bill passed into law in 2010, which Republicans have repeatedly promised to "repeal and replace," and possibly the most treasured-- but increasingly controversial-- form of legislating: the congressional earmark.Yesterday's Washington Post put the prospect of a Republican win in even starker terms in a piece by Steven Pearlstein and he started with the House.Over in the House, Minority Leader John Boehner is pushing the idea that two years of record budget deficits have badly hurt job creation and economic growth. I don't know where Boehner learned his economics, but the last time I checked the textbooks they still said that deficit spending by the government actually increases employment and economic activity. To believe otherwise is to believe that hundreds of billions of dollars in tax cuts and stimulus spending somehow disappeared from the economy without a trace.Indeed, anyone who argues, as Boehner does, that it would be economic folly to raise taxes during a recession is a card-carrying Keynesian. In the world outside of the Republican cloakroom, it doesn't matter whether it's the government or a household spending that extra dollar - each generates at least an extra dollar of economic activity somewhere in the world. To the extent that the stimulus money has been spent or invested here in the United States, it is axiomatic that it has generated or protected jobs.Boehner's delusion finds company on the other side of the Capitol, where Senate Republican leaders Mitch McConnell and Jon Kyl claim popular support for their whacky theory that tax cuts, in and of themselves, don't add to budget deficits."There is no evidence whatsoever that the Bush tax cuts actually diminish revenue," McConnell declared, speaking for himself and "virtually all" of his Republican colleagues. The Republicans must be unaware of the warehouses full of reports by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office issued over the past decade that are chock full of just that sort...

The Oil Drum | Drumbeat: January 25, 2012

• Jan 26, 2012 from DrKyawwwin(DrKyawwin)
  Oil Supply as a Strategic Risk
  Concerns about the climate have not inspired a lot of action lately on global energy policy. Now two professors are arguing that supply concerns and rising oil prices ought to be enough to get governments moving, even if the climate does not.
  
  In an opinion piece released on Wednesday by the journal Nature, James Murray of the University of Washington and David King of the University of Oxford point out that global oil production appeared to hit a cap of about 75 million barrels a day in 2005. Since then, they note, small supply bumps have caused big price gyrations, yet even when prices spike above $100 a barrel, supply appears incapable of rising to meet the demand.
  
  The professors make only a glancing mention of the term “peak oil,” a widely touted and widely attacked concept, but their argument resembles some of the less feverish versions of the peak oil case.
  
  IMF: Iran Oil Export Halt May Send Prices Surging 30%
  The International Monetary Fund warned on Wednesday that global crude prices could rise as much as 30 percent if Iran halts oil exports as a result of U.S. and European Union sanctions.
  
  If Iran halts exports to countries without offsets from other sources it would likely trigger an "initial" oil price jump of 20 to 30 percent, or about $20 to $30 a barrel, the IMF said in its first public comment on a possible Iranian oil supply disruption.
  
  
  A brighter energy future?
  A week after President Obama denied the application for the Keystone XL pipeline — which would carry oil from Canada’s tar sands deposits in Alberta to U.S. refineries along the Gulf of Mexico — it’s time for an energy reality check. What does the future hold? It may be better than you think. That’s one message from the U.S. Energy Information Administration’s latest “Annual Energy Outlook,” which projects the supply and demand for fuels through 2035.
  
  
  
  
  
  Canadian pipeline needs aboriginal consent: chief
  OTTAWA (Reuters) - A Canadian firm seeking to build a pipeline from oil-rich Alberta to the Pacific Coast needs to obtain the consent of aboriginal bands, some of whom oppose the project, Canada's top native leader indicated on Wednesday.
  
  The comments underline the difficulties facing Enbridge Inc as it tries to push through the C$5.5 billion ($5.4 billion Northern Gateway oil pipeline, which would cross land belonging to many Indian bands, or first nations.
  
  
  
  
  Staying in Afghanistan: Where’s the sense?
  Since Sept. 11, 2001, we have spent hundreds of billions of dollars on the Iraq war. Forty-five hundred members of our armed forces have sacrificed their lives. Nearly 32,000 American troops have been wounded on the battlefield of Iraq. And yet this is the news that greeted America this spring: “Syria and Iraq Eager for Cooperation with Iran in Building Joint Gas Pipeline.”
  
  What Detroit Might Tell Us About America’s Future
  “This is coming to you,” declares Tommy Stevens, owner of a blues bar in Detroit. By that he means the decay, deflation, and defeat of the middle class that has comprised the last decade of Detroit’s history. That painful story and its meaning for the rest of America is the subject of Detropia , an important, heartbreaking, and yet still occasionally hilarious documentary directed by Heidi Ewing and Rachel Grady, which premiered this past week at Sundance.
  
  Historic Buildings May Be Greener Than You Think
  Despite prevailing conceptions, said Lisa Kersavage, the senior director for preservation and sustainability at the society, many historic buildings actually already incorporate energy-efficient design features — a legacy of having been built before the advent of cheap energy and modern mechanical systems. In those days, natural ventilation and light and the collection of water in cisterns were standard in quality construction.
  
  
  
  Farmer Groupies and Chicken Coddlers
  Thus the paradox of the modern DIY movement. Farmers have gone from 20 percent to 2 percent of the American workforce since World War II, and 80 percent of Americans now live in cities. Modern Americans may yearn for simplicity and self-sufficiency, but they’re much less familiar with the gritty realities of rural life than even 45 years ago, when more city dwellers knew or were related to farmers. The result is that today’s back-to-the-landers, whether suburban chicken fanciers, serious urban foragers, or just obsessive locavores, have much farther to go before they can even get back to the land.
  
  
  New federal map for what to plant reflects warming
  WASHINGTON (AP) — Global warming is hitting not just home, but garden. The government's colorful map of planting zones, most often seen on the back of seed packets, is changing, illustrating a hotter 21st century.
  
  An update of the official guide for 80 million gardeners reflects a new reality: The coldest day of the year isn't as cold as it used to be. So some plants and trees that once...

Panasonic TC P50G15 49.9 plasma TV widescreen 1080p (FullHD) HDTV

• Oct 10, 2010 from epakapong(Peter) in Technology
  Panasonic TC P50G15 - 49.9" plasma TV - widescreen - 1080p (FullHD) - HDTV
  
  
  List Price: USD 1899.95Lowest Refurbished Price: USD 999.00Price is accurate as of the date/time indicated. Prices and product availability are subject to change. Any price displayed on the Amazon website at the time of purchase will govern the sale of this product.
  Available from 0 Store
  Average Rating:
  Features:
  1080p Full-HD Resolution
  Elegant Slim Design
  THX Certified Display
  Viera casttm
  600 Hz Sub-field Drive
  
  
  
  Customer ReviewsMisLead by PANASONIC and REP's !waited to write my review to see how satisfied i was after a year, amazon and the online vendor was very prompt in email communication and followed with updates to the status and shipping tracking, id give them a 5 star, however the info i recieved while shopping for a 50" plasma TV lead me to believe that "NetFlix" WOULD be added to the viera cast features with firmware updates, netflix was an important feature in making my decision on a flat panel tv as i only intended over the air reception along with netflix streaming through dsl, i even went as far as calling panasonic's customer support line on the netflix update feature and was told by thier rep that it was scheduled for a latter firmware update, i was VERY DISSAPOINTED to recently find out that netflix WOULD NOT be added to viera cast and that only the 2010 models would get the netflix feature, after finding this out i may sell the unit at a loss and go to SONY who has netflix, i certainly WILL NOT buy another panasonic product after being MISLEAD, pissed off.
  
  Impulse buy with no buyer remorseI wasn't even looking seriously for a TV and was looking for something smaller but ran across this for $[...] with free Panasonic Blu-ray player included at a Local Video Only store after a little haggling. If have owned this model for the past 6 months and have had no problems with it. The picture is great with anything I have used it for including Blu Ray movies, PS3 games and even used as an external monitor to watch You Tube videos with friends. Panasonic is known for it's superior plasma technology shared with Pioneer plasmas and it most definitely show in this television. The color setting of customizable to my liking. The THX is fine for some movies but a little dark for others.
  Like anything visual, It's all a matter of preference and varies between people. My friend has this model in a 42" and has his picture settings on supper bright and he loves it, me not so much. I would recommend going to see televisions on display before buying for this reason. Some people like LCDs better and I think those people are delusional.
  I love the optical out it has since I have an older Onkyo receiver that does not have hdmi inputs. This allows a great sound output through my system with out the need of upgrading my receiver(yet!). If you can find this for around what if got this for, I don't think you would be disappointed. The only television I saw that was better was Pioneer Kuro for around four times the price.
  Issues that people warned me about with plasma tv's have been unfounded with this one thus far.Big freaking TVPRO:
  Color reproduction/depth is great, & we are very happy with the quality of the picture. Having said that, I must warn you that I personally have worn glasses all my life, not coke bottle glasses, but I am used to things being a bit fuzzy and well, I don't really get the appeal of seeing a newscasters every last blemish up close, so I am not that critical as long as there are no glaring imperfections.
  However, I do care about how pixilated and horrible standard TV shows look on big TVs. I am very impressed with how well this TV handles standard images at full size. We have 2 SD DirectTV TiVos, one hooked up via Svideo and the other RCA, and while the Svideo machine is clearer, they are both quite impressive on this size TV.
  The sound automatic sound leveling is something you dont really notice till you go to someones house who doesnt have it, it just works well and discretely.
  We also have a computer hooked up to the TV directly (VGA) and I am very impressed with how well that works. We are able to watch HD & SD videos I have on the machine, we got a Netflix account so that we could stream videos directly off their website (looks great), and we are able to flip over to the computer any time we want to hop on the net without going to the computer room.
  CON:
  For an energy star TV this TV gives off a fair amount of heat. You can really feel it when standing up close, and we have this on a corner stand, not wall mounted, so it gets good air flow.
  Sound modulation works great from show to commercial, but not as great from channel to channel and even less great from input to input.
  Sound quality is pretty good, but not quite as good or deep as our 5yr old, SD, 0, JVC. Nice and thin is great, but if saving an inch means worse sound, Ill take the inch.
  There are plenty of inputs, if you are...

How To Kill The Music Industry

• Sep 26, 2010 from pixelstoreus(PIXELSTORE.US) in Technology
  How To Kill The Music Industry
  During The Pirate Bay trial, the music industry placed the blame for the decline in their revenues squarely on the shoulders of file-sharers. Their logic is clearly flawed, but it could sway the verdict if no alternative explanation is presented. So, if piracy isnt to blame, then what is *actually* killing the music industry?
  
  According to Per Sundin, CEO of Universal Music, the decline in music revenues in the past 8 years can be fully attributed to illegal file sharing. If this were actually true, many of us might even respect his decision to go after pirates as fiercely as the music industry is doing right now. However, the past 8 years have seen a lot more changes in the landscape of home entertainment than Per Sundin would like to admit, and some of those changes have had a massive impact on music profitability much more so than any amount of piracy.
  Let us refresh our memories and take a look at what actually happened during and just before the past 8 years:
  1. First, the explosive rise of computer and console gaming. This competitive third element has appeared in the entertainment landscape, beaten both music and movies to the curb and taken a huge cut out of the music industrys revenues. Consumers dont have infinitely-deep pockets, and billions of recreation dollars that used to go almost exclusively to music, are now going into gaming.
  2. International trade agreements have allowed consumers to buy their music across borders, rather than accepting local prices on music based on the relative wealth of nations, rather than the actual value of the product.
  3. New forms of distributable media, most notably MP3s but also CDs, have become mainstream. These new media dont degrade over time and rarely break at all, making music rebuys a thing of the past, and allowing the second-hand market for music to thrive and expand both of which take a cut out of the music industrys former revenues.
  4. Radical technological innovation has taken place in the field of music creation, processing, mixing, and mastering. Recording hardware, CD burners, music software, and media encoders have evolved to the point where most artists can actually afford decent-quality equipment to do their own recording and producing. Furthermore, this has fostered literally thousands of smaller, specialized studios that are challenging the Big 4? with lower prices, better terms for artists, genre-specific expertise, etc. Successful artists can now leave the big labels and start their own recording outfits on relatively modest budgets. Naturally, super stars like The Beatles or Frank Sinatra have always had this option, but the recent technological advances have lowered the bar drastically. This development is depriving the Big 4? of many of their former cash cows, who now use the major labels for their advertising and distribution infrastructure alone.
  5. The World Wide Web has become an omnipresent force in the world, allowing cheap, end-to-end distribution of digital music, increasingly cutting out the corporate music distributors, who deal in trucks and CD covers, rather than bytes and bandwidth. With iTunes leading the way (very successfully competing with free, I might add), billions of songs are now purchased digitally rather than physically, no longer necessitating the big labels distribution networks.
  6. The total number of radio stations, music television networks and other streaming sources of music has grown exponentially, giving music fans a huge selection of free (and legal) music options. Satellite radio, DAB, and internet radio broadcasts have made it trivial for consumers to simply tune into a channel broadcasting the exact sub-genre of music that they feel like listening to (they can even have a stream created for them dynamically, e.g. on Pandora), making the *purchase* of music entirely optional for the casual listener.
  7. A massive selection of entertainment alternatives (home computing, console gaming, mobile devices, etc.) have appeared in the home, effectively marginalizing music as an activity. 15-20 years ago, youths would regularly visit each other just to listen to music together; today, that is virtually unthinkable without some form of activity involved, such as playing Guitar Hero or Rock Band, or dancing at a concert.
  8. And finally, the music industry itself has embraced the opportunities of digital media, at last letting consumers buy *single* tracks at a time rather than forcing entire albums full of fillers on them. Looking at the RIAAs own sales figures for the past 10 years, there is a *direct* correlation between the break-off in album sales and the introduction and increase in single track digital sales. Looking at the actual numbers, it is abundantly clear that the vast majority of consumers never wanted to buy full albums in the first place, but were merely forced to by the lack of affordable single-track media. Now that the digital revolution has arrived, countless...