Ball Over Vol

Go Cardinals!  Congrats to the Ladies of Ball St for pulling the splashy 1st round upset, handing  Pat Summit her first ever loss in the opening two rounds of an NCAA Tournament.  I will admit that part of me is disappointed that it wasn’t Bowling Green in that game pulling that upset, but it was neat to see either way.  And I would like to say this is a real shot in the arm for the MAC, but reality is that next March will come around and the MAC will again be a one bid conference unless someone goes undefeated and then randomly loses a game in Cleveland in the MAC Tourney.  Bowling Green made the Sweet 16 in 2007 and it didn’t really change anything for the MAC.  Still, it was very very neat to see Ball St win last night, and win going away at that.  Good luck Cardinals against Iowa St. tomorrow night in the 2nd round!

Steelers to Open Season Hosting Titans

The NFL announced the primetime schedule for Week 1 along with the Thanksgiving schedule.  As is customary in recent years the defending champs will host the opening Thursday Night game and the Steelers have drawn the Tennessee Titans this season.  For all I know this was the route the NFL was going to go all along, but it did grab some headlines in Pittsburgh last weekend that the Baltimore Ravens put a request into the league offices that they NOT be the Steelers opponent for this game.  I guess they figure they don’t want to play an important division game in what figures to be a super-charged atmosphere, and they also sited the fact that 4 of the past 5 seasons their game in Pittsburgh has been in primetime of some form.  Still makes them look like a bunch of nancy boys, though.

The Sunday Night game will be Vikings/Packers with a Monday Night doubleheader of Bills/Patriots and Raiders/Chargers, the latter becoming something of a tradition as it clears the two Pacific Time AFC teams from the schedule as CBS does not want 4pm kickoffs Week 1 as they will be airing the men’s final US Open tennis in that timeslot.  Thanksgiving will be Packers/Lions, Raiders/Cowboys and Giants/Broncos.  The full Master Schedule should be released on a Tuesday in early to mid April.

Lady Falcons Make WNIT Sweet 16

Lauren Prochaska blocked two shots in the final seconds to preserve a 72-69 win over Syracuse.  Bowling Green will now host Indiana, who barely survived Dayton, at Anderson Arena Thursday March 26th at 7pm.  Forward Falcons!

Proposal of Congressman Wilson

Dear Friends,

This week we are focused on the ridiculous bonuses paid to American  International Group (AIG) employees at taxpayer expense, and rightly so; but I worry about the next shoe that’s going to drop. I believe that shoe will be the flipping of the compensation structure at financial companies. Due to the critical eye of Congress and the American taxpayer on bonuses, there is now an effort by the companies to flip that compensation structure.

Currently, most Wall Street firms use a compensation approach where bonuses make up a majority of the total income package for more senior employees. So, salaries are kept relatively low and bonuses are, by comparison, huge.

But this week, I read in the Wall Street Journal that companies – anticipating Congressional action on bonuses - are trying to go around Congress by proposing to significantly increase salaries rather than have to deal with scrutiny of bonuses.

That is why I introduced the TARP Wage Accountability Act.

The TARP Wage Accountability Act would stop such proposals in their tracks. My bill would force companies that took 10 billion dollars or more in TARP funds to abide by the government Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) structure set for military and government employees. This year for example, that would mean that salaries for AIG employees couldn’t be raised more than 3.9%.

If the COLA is good enough for our soldiers and government workers, it should be good enough for Wall Street. The intent of my bill is to stop those TARP recipients that are scheming to change their pay structure to reward themselves with double or triple their salaries. I want to make sure that taxpayer money does not go to outrageous raises – raises that are not deserved.

Sincerely,

Charlie Wilson
Member of Congress
Ohio’s Sixth District

This makes me a bit uneasy.  First of all, I don’t share many people’s outrage over the AIG bonuses.  It was a very small fraction of the amount of money the government gave them.  But I’m just not comfortable about the government telling a private company how much of a raise they can give employees and/or executives irregardless of how much money we give them.  I can’t seem to put it in profound words at the moment, but I find the very notion icky.  If you don’t like what they are doing then pull the TARP money off of them or don’t give them any more and let them sink or swim on their own.  But don’t be in the business of telling them how much and how they can compensate those on their payroll.

64 to the Sweet 16

Just a few quick and random thoughts now that the first weekend of the NCAA Tournament is in the books:

1. I certainly cannot recall a Tourney with this much chalk.  14 of the 16 pod seeds advanced the Regional Semis, and its only a couple #4 seeds missing.  In one case its a #5 seed (Purdue) in their place.  Of the 16 2nd round games the team wearing the home uniform won 15, including #12 Arizona’s win over Cleveland St.  There were a number of games in both rounds where the underdog had a legit chance, had late leads.  But the favorite almost always found a way to pull it out, whether it be wearing their opponent down in the last 10 minutes or simply hitting the key plays late in the game.

2. Speaking of Arizona who’s complaining about The Committee including them in the field now?

3. I thought Schyer (I think it was him) of Duke made one of the smartest plays I’ve seen lately in their win over Texas on Saturday when he grabbed that loose ball falling out of bounds and had the presence to throw it way up in the air and into the backcourt.  One of his teammates got fouled in the scramble, but even if Texas gets the ball, they have to re-advance it and many crucial seconds have been wasted.  That and the fact that Texas was unable to rebound a missed free throw when Duke only had one guy besides the shooter in the lane was the difference in a completely even game.

4. Interesting decision by WKBN Youngstown this afternoon in the 2nd window of games.  4 games, and 3 of them involved Ohio teams; Xavier v Wisconsin, Cleveland St v Arizona, and Dayton v Kansas.  I assumed they would show the Vikings.  Nope. They picked door #4 and showed Pitt v Oklahoma St.  Understandable in most scenarios as the would certainly have Pitt fans in their viewing area.  But I thought they would go with Cleveland St, and I was hoping they would since I already had the Pitt game on KDKA Pittsburgh.  But it was by far the best game of the window, so no big deal.

5. I hope Ohio St works on their press break during the offseason.

6. Buckeyenewshawk still has little idea who is going to win this thing.  But I think you have to favor Spaghetti Jimmy, as Martial Arts Jimmy seems to always blow it in crunch time.

Specter To Seek Reelection . . . But on What Ticket?

Apparently Pennsylvania Republican Senator Arlen Specter is giving strong consideration to running for reelection as an independent and not trying for the Republican nomination:

http://www.salon.com/politics/war_room/2009/03/18/specter/index.html?source=newsletter

Its not a shocking development.  Specter simply is not as conservative as the modern Republican Party, not even close.  And, that has served him well in Pennsylvania, whose politics are moderate and sometimes quirky.  But its becoming increasingly difficult for him to fend off grumblings and challenges from those on his right flank in the state party.  And, as far as that goes, Specter used to be a Democrat.  He switched party affiliation back in the 60s when he ran for, and won, the office of District Attorney in Philadelphia.  The reasons were in no way idealogica; he was simply trying to get out around the machine that ran the Democratic Party in Philadelphia at the time.  But now the Northeastern “Rockefeller” Republican is a dying breed.  If Specter either leaves the party and/or fails to win reelection, it will basically leave the two Senators from Maine clinging to that more moderate, far less religious, brand of Republicanism.

And, on the practical level, if Specter runs as an independent against Toomey and against the Democrats, I would have to think that hands the election to the Democrats unless they run someone weak enough that Specter peels too many of their votes.  As I think and type at the same time, that could be a really entertaining 3 way battle.  As I blogged a couple weeks ago, I have no idea who the Democrats are going to run in this race.  I have even heard Franco Harris’ name.  Yes, that Franco Harris.  If the Democrats run someone to weak to prevent Specter from accumulating numbers on Squirrel Hill, and too poorly known in SE PA to eat into Specter’s homecourt advantage, and if Rendell doesn’t run hard against Specter, perhaps the Democrats run a paper candidate with the thinking they could let Specter win, fracture the state Republican party in the process, and then caucus with Democrats in the Senate  . . .  I would advise we all stay tuned.

President Names New Ambassador to Ireland

Not very often I can cross-list a post under “Steelers” and “National Politics” but yesterday gave me such an opportunity when President Obama named Steelers owner Dan Rooney to represent the interests of the United States to the government of his ancestral Emerald Isle.  What is not immediately known is if he shall try to sell the Irish government on the notion of combatting this recession with a 3-4 zone blitz look.  Personally, if I held that job I would feel it my duty to, ahem, inspect every pub on the island to make sure its safe for American tourists, but I’m sure Rooney will play the role more straight than that.  The Steelers have said this should not affect their operations at all, as Dan’s son Art II has been overseeing day-to-day operations for several years now.  Either way, the appointment is a nice feather in the cap for the Hall-of-Fame owner.

Of Buckeyes & Lady Falcons

The first bit of good news is that my readers that receive Cleveland stations for local channels on their cable or satellite system will be able to see the Ohio St game Friday night.  It is opposite the Cleveland St game, but both will be seen in greater Cleveland:

http://www.cleveland.com/sports/csu/index.ssf/2009/03/channel_19_will_show_ohio_stat.html

The other bit of good news is that the Lady Falcons of Bowling Green received a bye in the first round of the 48 team WNIT and will get to host the winner of the Canisius @ Syracuse game at a time still listed as TBD in the Round of 32.  The actual bracket has not been posted, but the early round pairings are listed at http://www.womensnit.com Forward Falcons!

Obama Receptive to Taxing Health Benefits

Under current law employer provided health benefits are withheld from employee paychecks, and then the lower amount of pay is assessed taxes.  In the 2008 campaign McCain proposed removing that exemption and using the revenue to help fund his healthcare reform ideas, and Obama assailed it as the largest increase of middle class taxes in history.  Obama might be softening that position:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/us/politics/15health.html?th&emc=th

I share the thoughts of that spokesman from the SIEU; I would need to see the big picture before passing judgement.  But my gut reaction is to oppose it; my paycheck is small enough as it is.  Of course, I suppose I might get a larger IRS refund the following spring if I pay more payroll taxes in the first place.  On the practical level, I fear any proposal that ends the payroll exemption would be dead on arrival in the House of Representatives.  Liberals will never go for this, and without a solid Democratic block of votes Republicans can kill the measure, and they will if they can unless Obama moves so far right that it becomes essentially a Republican bill.  And, at that point, he might struggle to get enough Democrats of any stripe to field a majority.  Either way, its a thorny one.

Falcons to Visit Creighton in NIT

Its the 1v8 matchup in one quadrant of the bracket and will be played Wednesday at 8pm.  According to the bracket I just printed it is not slated to be on the ESPN family of networks.  The winner will play either Kentucky or UNLV in the 2nd round, with New Mexico, Nebraska, Notre Dame, and UAB also being in this section of the draw vying for a trip to Madison Square Garden.  Forward Falcons!