Every glass in Paris shattered this afternoon. Shopkeepers tried to piece together why the windows to their stores lay in a billion pieces on the Champs Ellysees. The massive traffic jams from blown out tires brought the entire city to a halt. Packed emergency rooms treated injuries ranging from cuts on hands to removing shards of glass from eyes of those Parisians who wore eye glasses. Every light bulb exploded…and The City of Lights went dark.
It took a few hours of painstaking detective work, but scientists got a lucky break when Maria Sharapova demanded medical attention for her strained vocal chords…and it was only a matter of time before this modern day biblical plague was traced to The Women’s Tennis Semi-Final at Roland Garros.
Enough already. Something needs to be done. The piercing shrieks, in addition to causing tinnitus en masse, are turning the women’s game into a joke.
Does Maria Sharapova put more effort into a shot than Rafael Nadal? [For that matter, does her forehand cause her more pain than the systematic implementation of nailing one’s toes to a hardwood floor?]
There is simply no reason for the auditory assault; and Sharapova is hardly the only culprit. The Williams sisters, Ivanovic, and Portuguese teen phenom, Michelle Larcher de Brito all give Ella Fitzgerald a run for her money.
If the screams are involuntary as many claim, then the Women’s Tennis Tour should change its name to the Women’s Tourette’s Tour. Please excuse the following redundancy, but...the demonstrative divas are as shrill as a bad horror flick. [...more]
Plummeting home prices.
Skyrocketing unemployment.
On average, then, the U.S. economy on solid ground.
That is, if you subscribe to the notion that, on average, a
human has one breast and one testicle.
The fact that home prices are still falling, while unemployment claims are still rising is an equation that will yield one result...and it is in no way "average". Get ready for a new wave of foreclosures. And don't think Obama's anti-foreclosure plan is going to do anything to stop it.
The fact that home prices are still falling, while unemployment claims are still rising is an equation that will yield one result...and it is in no way "average". Get ready for a new wave of foreclosures. And don't think Obama's anti-foreclosure plan is going to do anything to stop it.
[...more]
With handsets like the Storm 2 and the Blackberry Tour coming down Verizon’s pipeline, it’s sort of hard to get excited about anything else they’ve got. That’s not about to stop LG though – they’re poised to launch three new handsets on Big Red within the next few days. Let’s take a look: At first glance, the enV3 doesn’t look much different from the phone it was intended to replace. That’s actually because… it really isn’t. Sure, the enV3’s front face has been tweaked a little bit to allow for easier navigation, and both the screen size and camera resolution have received modest bumps (2.6 inches and 3 megapixels, respectively), but everything else seems to be strictly old hat. Those looking to stick to the basics with LG’s iconic flip-QWERTY style shouldn’t be disappointed though, and for $129 after a mail-in rebate, it’s a solid choice for texting addicts who don’t mind the merely modest update. Interested? If so, you can hit up your local Verizon store tomorrow. The enV Touch (a.k.a. the Voyager 2, before Plantronics had something to say about it) actually made out a little better than its little brother. The size of both screens has hit 3 inches diagonal, and they both sport a resolution of 800 x 480, giving even the Sidekick LX 2009’s legendary display a run for its money. In a surprising gesture of goodwill toward more business-oriented users, the enV Touch also supports viewing Office documents (.doc, .xls, and .ppt) in addition to PDF support. Toss in support for up to 16 GB of expandable memory and a $179 price tag, and we may have a solid contender for the summer’s hottest seller. The Glance is LG’s only truly original offering this time around, and it’s peculiar in that it’s one of their only non-touchscreen candy bar phones in recent memory. Slim and sleek, the Glance sports a unique woven metal mesh on its back plate, but that so far seems to be the only standout feature. With its 1.3 megapixel shooter and it’s slim stature, the Glance seems destined for a spot on the freebies list, but right now it’ll run all you LG devotees (seriously, who else would buy this thing?) $49. Don’t worry if you’re a little strapped for cash though - both the enV Touch and the Glance aren’t due out until June 5, so you’ve all got plenty of time to dig through your couch cushions. Crunch Network : CrunchGear drool over the sexiest new gadgets and hardware. [...more]
![Why Rick Porcello Matters [Mlb]](http://tekpop.com/wp-content/themes/newspress/thumb.php?src=http://tekpop.com/wp-content/uploads/af307d1664lde-031.jpg&h=75&w=75&zc=1&q=80)
Rick Porcello won his fifth straight start yesterday, which ensured the 20-year-old a long season of being inaptly compared to Doc Gooden . He'll probably finish the year reminding everyone of Zach Duke instead, but there's a reason to hope he doesn't, and it has to do with the Amateur Draft . Go back to 2007. Porcello was far and away the best high schooler in the draft and very likely a top-five prospect overall. It's proof that the system is irrevocably broken that he fell to the Tigers, who had the 27th pick. This was largely because of "signability issues," which is a baseball euphemism for "Scott Fucking Boras" and which doesn't exist in other leagues, where salary caps mostly free teams from the burden of lying constantly about their finances. Porcello, as expected, wound up signing for a fat pile of money — four years, $7.3 million, the largest contract ever granted a prep player signed out of the draft — just about busting the openly collusive slotting system whereby Major League Baseball, in suggesting how much teams pay their draft picks, tries very earnestly to protect owners from themselves. The Tigers merrily flouted the slot recommendation, a reported $1 million, annoyed Bud Selig in the process, did Tigers fans a favor by investing in their product, and got a very good prospect at a still-considerable discount. And since then, more and more teams have followed suit. Porcello wasn't the first time a team — or even the Tigers — had gone over slot. But the size of his contract and his early, if unsustainable success on the mound (3.48 ERA but only 32 strikeouts against 16 walks in 51.2 innings) have made him the face of a small triumph of good sense over greed and institutional stupidity, an enormous upset in the baseball world. I see no problem in overhyping someone like that. Rookie Rick Porcello wins fifth consecutive start as Tigers beat Kansas City [MLive.com] Porcello, Jackson have 20-20 vision [Yahoo] How good can Rick Porcello be? [Nick Underhill] Tigers ink Rick Porcello, irritate Selig [ Detroit Tigers Weblog] [...more]
? As Hewlett Packard reportedly considers moving part of its operations to the Czech Republic, I wonder: are labour markets as flexible as they say east of the former Iron Curtain? The minimum wage in the Czech Republic currently stands at around €1.83 or ?1.60 per hour, after the government rejected calls for an increase during these recessionary times. Overall, union membership in the nation has dropped since the fall of communism two decades ago. This means that the largest Czech labour?union now has half a million members in a country of 10.5 million which equates to about 5% of the population. Yet?union membership has been on the rise recently, as eastern Europe feels the chill wind of the economic downturn. According to Reuters, more than 20,000 unionists demonstrated for workers rights earlier this month in Prague as layoffs across the country boost the unemployment rate to 7.9% from 5.2% this time last year. The jobless rate across the UK has been gathering pace this year as foreign firms relocate to countries with cheaper manpower, loser labour laws and a lower tax burden. Meanwhile, the number of Britons claiming unemployment benefits saw its sharpest increase in the first quarter since back in 1981. Still, that doesn’t mean more people are joining the unions. In fact, the number of members shrank 1.5% last year to 7.2 million, equal to 12% of the population. Here in Britain economists reckon the spate of plant closures and falling prices?for food and clothes?could?encourage workers to curb their salary expectations. Despite fears of such a “deflationary spiral,” the minimum wage rose 3.8% in 2008 to ?5.73 an hour. In Prague such a rate would buy you 3 and a half hours’ more work.? Perhaps it's time to take a reality "Czech." [...more]
