What, this isn't good enough?

Aw crap, more state politics. This time we’re talking new stadium agreements, and the fun begins in Minnesota, where the Vikings have agreed to terms on a partnership with the taxpayers for the creation of a $975 million stadium. The team will pay $477 million toward the new facility, while the state and Minneapolis will pay the other $498 million. This is truly a remarkable day for unions between the people and the billionaires who take all of their money.

But before you go shopping for new tailgate gear, Vikings fans, you should probably know that you will never ever be able to see just how that taxpayer money is being spent, because the state gave the Vikings a “blanket protection” that allows Zygi Wilf and Co. to be super secretive about everything they do. Hooray, democracy!

One provision would shield “any financial information” from the team from public eyes. Critics say the blanket protection goes beyond state law, leaving taxpayers in the dark.

“We now have the largest public commitment in the state’s history in an agreement with the Vikings, and we have an unprecedented lack of disclosure,” said Rep. Mary Liz Holberg, R-Lakeville, who voted against the stadium bill. (Via the Seattle Times)

Basically, Governor Mark Dayton and a team of people that he will choose will be able to check in on the finances of the Vikings and their new stadium whenever they want. And if they see something they don’t like, they can handle it internally. But even if it’s something totally f*cked up, the public still can’t see it. Dayton might as well cut the stadium’s ribbon, scream, “HEY, LOOK OVER THERE!” and light a pile of money on fire.

Read the rest of this entry »

So it looks like the people trying to build a Formula One race track in Austin, Texas, have been taking negotiation tips from the NBA.

[Formula One boss Bernie] Ecclestone said last week the sides have “forgotten to talk to each other.”

In case you haven’t been following the story (like most people who live in Austin), here are the two sides; On side one, the billionaire Circuit of the Americas officials who won’t move construction on a 130,000 to 140,000-seat race track forward until they have a contract from Formula One to stage the race in Austin next year. On the other is Formula One itself, who made a surprise announcement in 2010 that Austin would host “the return of the U.S. Grand Prix on the first track built specifically for Formula One”, kept pushing back the schedule and eventually (and somewhat randomly) announced a different race to take place in New Jersey in 2013. Meanwhile, the people of Austin are being asked to take their money and throw it into a gigantic dirt hole which will eventually be filled back up with dirt and driven over in normal cars.

Instead of reaching any sort of working agreement, both sides seem set on topping each other with racing-jargon press statements.

The Associated Press left a telephone message seeking comment from Hellmund. A statement from [former race driver Tavo] Hellmund’s Full Throttle Productions said: “It is the responsibility of Circuit of the Americas to bring it across the finish line. For the sake of everyone, we are hopeful that they can reach an agreement with Formula 1.”

We hope to drive the point home by putting our athletes indy car and having them race to finish the track, right, everybody?

Austin is a great place to live, but our sports and entertainment organizers need to tighten up. First we lose Danzig over some French onion soup and now we’re going to lose our track because you’re forgetting to talk about it? What’re we, Moody?

[via SI.com]

Oklahoma Senator Tom Coburn has raised an eyebrow this week over the concern that the National Science Foundation has been wasting a great deal of money on various projects that he believes aren’t worth a diddly and the squat it rode in on. Among those projects, scientists have been running shrimp on tiny treadmills to “measure the impact of sickness on crustaceans”.

That’s right – we’re training shrimp to be the best at exercising.

The Oklahoma Republican issued a new report Thursday that concludes the National Science Foundation has misspent $3 billion on “waste, fraud, duplication and mismanagement.” It offers a list of research projects that could have been left as questions for the universe.

Among them, $2 million to analyze 38 million photos on Flickr and cross-reference them against the site’s social networking service. Turns out, researchers concluded, that friends generally post photos on the Internet depicting the same place at the same time. (Fox News)

$2 million to analyze Flickr? Let me save them some effort – it’s 30 million photos of dudes in skinny jeans drinking PBR. But let’s go back to the part that really matters – shrimp on tiny treadmills. If there is video of these alleged shrimp running on their alleged tiny treadmills, then I would say the money is well spent. Until then…

*cowboy octopus riding a seahorse crashes through wall, sprays ink message*

Oh there’s a video, friends.

Read the rest of this entry »

New Jersey lawyer and New York Jets season ticket holder Carl J. Mayer is a patriot. Of course I mean he’s a patriot in the American sense and not the New England football sense, because he took advantage of this country’s incredible justice system by taking his fight all the way to the United States Supreme Court. So what was Mayer fighting – Abortion? Immigration? War? The Westboro Baptist church? Gay marriage? Wall Street executives? Nah, none of that unimportant crap. His fight is Spygate.

That’s right, after a lower court had dismissed Mayer’s initial lawsuit against Bill Belichick and the Patriots – I like to think the judge was wanking his gavel the whole time – Mayer took his case (Mayer v. Belichick, 10-867) to the highest court in the nation because he believes that the Pats videotaping scandal from 2007 had “cheated him and other fans out of their right to see honest competition on the field”, according to Bloomberg News. And somewhere a St. Louis Rams fan looked up and said, “Oh yeah, the Jets… they should be upset.”

Read the rest of this entry »