Archive for May 21st, 2008
FYI: NFL CBA now MIA
NFL owners unanimously voted today to opt out of the current collective bargaining agreement (CBA) with the NFL players association. The most important ramifications of this action are that unless a new CBA is in place the 2010 season will be uncapped and the possibility of a strike or lockout if a new agreement is not worked out within the next few years. As mentioned in the article, outside council for the NFLPA mentioned that the players will ask for a greater share of the revenue in the new agreement. Gene Upshaw, the NFLPA union president also mentioned that if the uncapped year occurs the salary cap is most likely gone for good. Although it is obviously early in the process of establishing a new CBA, the players union is off to a roaring start towards a strike/lockout situation. How idiotic and greedy can the players be? One of the main reasons that EVERY single owner voted to opt out of the CBA was that for many of the teams the revenue sharing was already to high compared to the expenses.
On the bright side this at least this will allow the league to hopefully fix the outrageous salaries for rookies taken early in the draft. Only in the current NFL could people who have not had a single play get money on par of the upper echelon of league veterans. This ridiculous rookie salary inflation coupled with the difficulty of projecting college players into the NFL is one of the main reasons teams like Oakland, Arizona, San Francisco, and Miami are almost always perennial contenders to be in the top ten draft picks. So much of their money gets committed to rookie players who turn out to be busts that they cannot afford decent free agents and thus inevitably return to the top of the draft order.
Sea-Tac invites disaster; NSA competence in question
Retired lieutenant Army colonel Greg Alderete and Chris Clodfelter, a former senior master sergeant in the U.S. Air Force, arrived at Sea-Tac International Airport on May 8th to pick up a two-star general flying in from Portland.
Apparently without realizing, the two were able to drive onto the runway with no challenge, inspection, or even concern from security personnel. What’s more, officials said subsequent investigation “revealed no problems with the airport’s security.”
“We were sitting there, the engine idling, nobody around, when all of a sudden I realized: We’re out on the goddamn runway,” Alderete recalled. “We’re in a gassed-up, seven-passenger van, and no one really knows who we are. We have an unobstructed path to the main runways, the commercial gates, the whole place. It was unbelievable.”
“Within 30 seconds we could have been flooring it down the runway,” Clodfelter said. “They couldn’t have stopped us.”
“With a van full of weapons we could have shut down the entire aviation system,” Alderete said.
So sad TSA, so sad. And here we’re supposed to believe the hassles are for our own good.
