Wednesday, November 2, 2011

Hey Los Angeles, Try Keeping Films In House, Before Stealing The Vikings

While Minnesota Vikings fans are understandably nervous about losing their football team to Los Angeles, lets remember that getting a new stadium built in LA is far from a done deal.

Even though the city power brokers have managed to grease the skids on the ultra tough environmental rules in the Golden State for this project, until I see cranes putting the scoreboard in place, I won't believe anything.

And if you want to know how completely effed up Los Angeles and California are when it comes to their enviro laws, consider this: the FILM INDUSTRY has lost almost HALF of its work to other locations in the last 15 years!

From Koel Kotkin's piece in Forbes about the LA stadium push...

LA’s leaders should therefore focus on the systematic causes for the region’s ailing economy. 
One source of the problem lies in tough environmental rules that, although lifted on behalf of football, clamp on growth of virtually every other industry, including the city’s port and manufacturing sector. Powerful green interests, for example, make any plan to modernize the port all but impossible. This could prove catastrophic when the widening of the Panama Canal will allow aggressive, cheaper posts in the Gulf or Southeast U.S. to compete with the Pacific Asian trade that has driven LA’s port economy for decades. 
Los Angeles’ huge industrial sector has also been a victim of the regulatory tsunami. 
Manufacturers have lost roughly one-third of their jobs over the past decade as firms head out to more congenial regions with less onerous regulatory burdens. Sadly, Los Angeles has benefited little from the recent upsurge in manufacturing nationwidewhen compared with metropolitan areas such as Detroit, Salt Lake City and San Antonio. 
Even Hollywood, an industry less affected by green regulations, has begun to lose steam. Film production has dropped by more than half over the past 15 years. LA’s share of film and television production has eroded as well, with much of the new work headed to Toronto, New Mexico, New Orleans, New York and Atlanta. All these cities offer richer incentives to attract productions than the world’s self-proclaimed “entertainment capital."

Tuesday, November 1, 2011

"Hey Zornie, Shanny Just Fell Behind Your Mark In DC!"

This pretty much sums it up. Other than this stat: First 23 Games: Zorn 10-13. Shanahan 9-14.

Boom... roasted.


Czabe,

Does anyone else see the similarity between Shanahan and all the other past overpaid Redskin free agent signings?  Of course Shanahan is a coach rather than a fat defensive lineman but the comfortable sense of entitlement and lack of accountability is still there.  Shanahan is making 7 million dollars this year which goes along with the “come to the Redskins to get paid” theme over the past 11 years.  Shanahan is 59 years old and has 2 rings.  What else does he have to prove in his career?  What drives him everyday other than getting paid an obscene amount of money. 

The whole situation allows him to casually hire his son which most people agree opens up the door for more drama and controversy that the Redskins are so used to.  It allows him to go 0 for 4 on quarterbacks but say things like “we know the quarterback position.”  And would someone who’s job/career/financial situation was on the line allow his sons roommate/BFF to start at quarterback??  Schwartz and Harbaugh literally fought on the field after the game.  Bilichick cheated to make sure he had the best chance to win.  He had a career to think about.  I dont condone cheating but the point is they have motivation, drive and urgency to build a team and make a name for themselves.  Shanahan has none of that.  He has a cushy situation in which really his only motivation is to give his sons career a bump in the right direction while he cashes 7 million dollar checks.  

Let’s not even get into the fact that his two of the brighter spots (Torain and Banks) were left off the opening roster last year and that he shoves the “scheme” down everyone’s throat even when he doesn’t have the personnel to fit it (not just offense – see 3-4 defense).  But again he could care less because of the same reasons Haynesworth could care less about laying on the field and chilling on his million dollar boat during OTAs.  No accountability, no motivation, no drive, and no sense of urgency.  It all comes back to the same thing – you can’t buy a championship. 

Matt Sol

"I Didn't Know Trick Extended To A Felony Trick"