Football May Be Over But The Hits Will Keep Coming | NFL ...

Are you ready for some football? Some courtroom-concussion football, that is. Now that the season is over, things are going to start heating up in court.

The lawyers have spent the last several months arguing whether the players? claims are barred by the collective bargaining agreements (CBAs). The parties have submitted their respective briefs to the court, and the ball is now in Judge Brody?s hands.

In order to further flesh out the issues, Judge Brody ordered oral arguments to take place on Tuesday, April 9 at 10:00 am in Philadelphia.

Get your popcorn ready because it is going to be a star-studded event, at this Supreme-Court-like showdown. Hall of famers will be there; prominent lawyers will flex their legal brilliance, and Roger Goodell, well, he probably won?t be there ? he?ll be out kissing babies and trying to save football.

The NFL knows that this could be a make or break moment ? for football, as we know it. Billions of dollars are at stake.

The NFL is trying to slam the courtroom door shut, and prevent the plaintiffs? lawyers from digging deep into the NFL?s dirty laundry. The discovery of?81 documents in the tobacco litigation cost Big Tobacco 365 billion dollars. The same could be true here.

Both sides have invested hundreds of thousands of dollars (probably closer to millions) on the litigation already. Neither the NFL nor the plaintiffs? lawyers are working on the cheap when it comes to tackling the preemption issue.

In the NFL?s corner, Paul Clement will likely present the NFL?s argument for why the players? claims should be dismissed.

In the players? corner, David Frederick will attempt to persuade Judge Brody that this case is much more than a mere ?labor dispute.? As I noted previously, Frederick was a Supreme Court Clerk to Justice Byron ?Whizzer? White ? who also played in the NFL for three very successful seasons.

This may be the most dramatic litigation battle in sports history, and the legal hits are just starting. If Judge Brody rules in the players? favor, it could be the beginning of a long and dark story of how the NFL allegedly profited from the destruction of the brains of thousands of players. On the other hand, if Judge Brody rules in the NFL?s favor, we may never learn what, if at all, the NFL knew about the long-term damage of repetitive hits to the head.

After the April arguments, Judge Brody will be tasked with writing a well-reasoned decision on whether the players? lawsuits can move forward. Simply put, the health of former players and the NFL?s pocketbook are in Judge Brody?s hands. Of course, there will be appeals, but Judge Brody?s decision will steer the direction of the NFL Players? Concussion Injury Litigation ? perhaps into settlement.

The NFL is not the only organization trying to fend off concussion lawsuits.

In a courtroom in Chicago, arguments are set to begin to determine if the plaintiffs can certify a nationwide class of all former student athletes that suffered a concussion while playing sports at an NCAA school. Although the plaintiffs have several legal hurdles ahead, this litigation could determine whether student athletes should be monitored for the warning signs of CTE.

The gridiron of courtroom-concussion football is set to take some hits.

Source: http://nflconcussionlitigation.com/?p=1359

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Identity Thief

Jason Bateman as Sandy Patterson and Melissa McCarthy as Diana in Identity Thief.

Photo by Guy D'Alema/Universal Pictures

Watching Identity Thief, the new Seth Gordon road comedy starring Jason Bateman and Melissa McCarthy, I found myself thinking a lot about the female comic grotesque. It?s easy, and safe, to space in and out of such abstractions during the viewing of Identity Thief?the story proceeds along well-worn tracks and can be rejoined without confusion at any time, while the chances of missing out on a big laugh are, alas, minimal.

On the current American movie landscape, female comedians working in the grotesque vein?most notably McCarthy, along with the suddenly everywhere Rebel Wilson?occupy an uneasy position between feminist trailblazers and preservers of the status quo. On the one hand, the fact that their extra-large bodies lie outside the narrowly prescribed realm of leading-lady desirability?that they belong to no category ending with the letters -ILF?gives them the freedom to explore over-the-top, ?unfeminine? behavior with glorious impunity. (Think of McCarthy expressing her raw animal lust to the air marshal played by her real-life husband in Bridesmaids, or Wilson defiantly reveling in her plus-size bulk as Pitch Perfect?s self-christened ?Fat Amy.?)

On the other hand, the range of roles available to actresses like McCarthy and Wilson (both of whom, like any right-thinking comedy fan, I would like to see in as many movies as possible) can be as narrow as the performers themselves are wide. Diana, the needy, amoral grifter who?s the title character of Identity Thief may be the most brazenly grotesque character McCarthy?s played yet, though she exists somewhere on the same spectrum with the proudly eccentric sister-in-law of Bridesmaids. Tacky, loud, and oblivious to all social and moral codes, Diana dresses in hideously garish clothes and is prone to drooly open-mouthed naps. She?s also unbridled in all her appetites, whether for food, alcohol, or sex. In the movie?s raunchiest scene (the only one that justifies its R rating), she engages in a yee-hawing motel tryst with a lonely cowboy played by Modern Family?s Eric Stonestreet. It?s not even feminist theorizing to say that Diana represents femaleness at its most abject: She?s explicitly positioned by the story as the world?s most unappealing woman, the unfuckable absolute. (Hence, I guess, the purported hilarity of her encounter with Stonestreet?s equally abject Big Chuck. Two fat people having sex! Oh, my sides.)

Thanks to McCarthy?s abundant comic gifts and those of her equally ill-served straight man Jason Bateman, Identity Thief doesn?t leave nearly as icky a taste as it could have, but Gordon?whose Horrible Bosses I found similarly underscripted and flat?only taps into a fraction of his actors? potential. Bateman plays Sandy Bigelow, a stressed-out accountant at a Denver financial firm whose shot at a lucrative new job is threatened when he learns that someone in Florida has stolen his good name and is busily besmirching it, racking up drunk-and-disorderlies and stratospheric unpaid bills. Sandy stands to lose a lot if he can?t track down the faux Sandy Bigelow and wrest back his life from her: He has two lovely children, not to mention a beautiful pregnant wife (Amanda Peet), who?s bizarrely forbearing about her husband?s increasingly cryptic phone calls from the road.

I need to check and make sure my credit-card company offers a better fraud-insurance program than Sandy Bigelow?s?one that gives cardholders options besides flying to the thief?s home city, breaking into her house and forcing her to come along on a cross-country drive back to Denver. Along the way, Sandy and Diana (if that is her real name) encounter significant obstacles: As it turns out, she?s being pursued simultaneously by a model-gorgeous pair of bickering hired killers (G?nesis Rodriguez and T.I.) and a grizzled credit-company ?skip tracer? (Robert Patrick). And then there are the car crashes. And the bank heist. And the rattlesnake up the pant leg.

It would be easier to forgive Identity Thief its overfamiliar comic setups and shameless gag-recycling (someone is throat-punched by McCarthy approximately every 20 minutes, and endless ?fun? is had with the gender neutrality of Sandy?s first name) if the movie?s second half didn?t make such an abrupt about-face from soliciting our revulsion to begging for our pity. Worse still, the movie?s final scenes attempt to reshape the vulgar, anarchic Diana into something resembling an acceptable rom-com heroine. In a makeover sequence that approaches The Breakfast Club?s in its deep philosophical wrongness, Diana submits to the ministrations of three catty department-store employees, who openly mock her appearance before beckoning her over and transforming her into a tastefully styled, slimmingly black-clad beauty. Now there?s a moment where a throat punch or three might have come in handy.

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=44c23fd8c3338090dab25372abfdc2e9

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Pirate Bay documentary now streaming, up for download on (surprise!) The Pirate Bay

Way back in 2010, filmmaker Simon Klose petitioned folks on Kickstarter for $25,000 to hire a professional to video editor. The pro's task? Sifting through and editing over 200 hours of footage Klose had recorded that chronicles the journey of The Pirate Bay's three founders throughout their trial. Now, over two years later and after the case's conclusion, the documentary has premiered at the Berlin International Film Festival and is now available for your viewing pleasure. Sure, you could watch the whole hour and twenty minute-long affair in 1080p on YouTube, but what would be more fitting than legally downloading it (thanks to a creative commons license) through The Pirate Bay? Hit the neighboring source link to start downloading TPB AFK: The Pirate Bay Away From Keyboard, or head past the break for the full film.

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Via: Boing Boing

Source: The Pirate Bay Away From Keyboard (YouTube)

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/d2A8y26LM0I/

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EA posts finished Origin for Mac, widens gamers' worlds

EA moves faster than we thought. Origin for Mac was in alpha just two weeks ago, and yet it's already launching to the public. The completed gaming portal gives Mac users their software library, socialization and the online store in an interface that will be mostly familiar to Windows players. While the selection of Mac-native titles is currently narrow -- we hope you really like Batman and Dragon Age 2 -- there's also a Steam Play-like level of cross-platform support, where a game bought for the Mac or Windows will be free to download for the other OS. Origin is currently too small to directly challenge the Mac App Store or Steam, but it's a step forward for computer gamers wanting platform parity -- and when it's free to download, it won't hurt to have a look.

Filed under: Gaming, Software

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Via: MacNews

Source: Origin

Source: http://feeds.engadget.com/~r/weblogsinc/engadget/~3/BjulYUCbKHs/

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Argentine president defends accord with Iran over bombing

BUENOS AIRES (Reuters) - Argentine President Cristina Fernandez defended a pact with Iran to set up a "truth commission" to investigate the 1994 bombing of a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires and asked Congress on Thursday to approve the accord.

Argentine courts accuse Iran of sponsoring the attack, which killed 85 people. The pact signed with Tehran has been criticized by Israel and Jewish groups who fear it could end up weakening the case against Iranian officials.

They also see it as a diplomatic victory for Iran as it faces international isolation over its nuclear program.

"What I want to avoid ... is the pain of the (victims') families and the country's shame by finding the path to break the deadlock," the left-leaning Fernandez said in a speech, refuting criticism over the accord.

"The memorandum of understanding we have signed is a step toward unblocking a case that has been paralyzed for 19 years," she added. "Dialogue is a part of Argentina's foreign policy."

Fernandez said she sent a bill to Congress asking it to approve the agreement, which envisions the establishment of a five-member "truth commission" of international legal specialists.

It also outlines plans for Argentine prosecutors to travel to Tehran to question Iranians accused of links to the attack, which Iran denies any involvement in.

In 2007, Argentine authorities secured Interpol arrest warrants for five Iranians, including Iranian Defense Minister Ahmad Vahidi, and a Lebanese citizen.

(Reporting by Helen Popper; Editing by Stacey Joyce)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/argentine-president-defends-accord-iran-over-bombing-002923958.html

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Buy This Glowing Antler Lamp Instead Of Shooting Bambi's Mom

Looking for that perfect home accent to hang over your fireplace? Instead of grabbin' yer guns and heading out into the woods to bag a trophy buck, you might want to consider trying to coerce artist Chen Bikovski to start selling her brilliant deer lamps that recreate a set of antlers using shafts of light. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/ngFF3FODgiY/buy-this-glowing-antler-lamp-instead-of-shooting-bambis-mom

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Video: New baby in 2012? Claim a $3,800 tax exemption

Source: http://www.nbcnews.com/id/3041440/vp/50733766#50733766

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