3/28: Hockey Surges, Overloaded Circuits
6:45 p.m.
• Oh you got to be kidding me. ESPN has Racist Dusty as a commentator? I just saw him on SportsCenter talking about the NL East. Oddly enough, Racist Dusty didn’t mention which teams will start out the season fast but finish slow in those chilly September nights due to a plethora of black players on their roster.
• I can't wait to hear Circuit City bitch a year from now about how they can't find any good workers.
A new plan for layoffs at Circuit City is openly targeting better-paid workers, risking a public backlash by implying that its wages are as subject to discounts as its flat-screen TVs.
The electronics retailer, facing larger competitors and falling sales, said Wednesday that it would lay off about 3,400 store workers -- immediately -- and replace them with lower-paid new hires as soon as possible.
The laid-off workers, about 8 percent of the company's total work force, would get a severance package and a chance to reapply for their former jobs, at lower pay, after a 10-week delay, the company said.
Analysts and economists said the move is an uncertain experiment that could backfire for the chain. The risks: Morale could sink and customers could avoid the stores. Also, knowledgeable customer service is one of the few ways Circuit City can tackle competitors that include Wal-Mart Stores Inc., they say.
"This strategy strikes me as being quite cold," said Bernard Baumohl, executive director of The Economic Outlook Group. "I don't think it's in the best interest of Circuit City as a whole."
If you’ve read my blog or posts for any length of time, chances are you know my opinion toward unions, "worker's rights" and all that other hippie shit, but whenever I read stuff like this, I get irked. Then again, in a free market, you always have to be on the go and ready to change jobs; staying at a place for 30 years is a thing of the past. Kind of a shame, really, but it’s a fact of life. Great, now I’m sounding like a commie. I need to change the subject … stat.
Lawrence Roach agreed to pay alimony to the woman he divorced, not the man she became after a sex change, his lawyers argued Tuesday in an effort to end the payments. But the ex-wife's attorneys said the operation doesn't alter the agreement.
The lawyers and Circuit Judge Jack R. St. Arnold agreed the case delves into relatively unchartered legal territory. They found only a 2004 Ohio case that addressed whether or not a transsexual could still collect alimony after a sex change.
"There is not a lot out there to help us," St. Arnold said.
Roach and his wife, Julia, divorced in 2004 after 18 years of marriage. The 48-year-old utility worker agreed to pay her $1,250 a month in alimony. Since then, Julia Roach, 55, had a sex change and legally changed her name to Julio Roberto Silverwolf.
"It's illegal for a man to marry a man and it should likewise be illegal for a man to pay alimony to a man," Roach's attorney John McGuire said. "When she changed to man, I believe she terminated that alimony."
Silverwolf did not appear in court Tuesday and has declined to talk about the divorce. His lawyer, Gregory Nevins, said the language of the divorce decree is clear and firm—Roach agreed to pay alimony until his ex-wife dies or remarries.
"Those two things haven't happened," said Nevins, a senior staff attorney with the national gay rights group Lambda Legal.
St. Arnold is considering the arguments. But lawyers on both sides agreed Tuesday that Roach will likely have to keep paying alimony to Silverwolf.
The judge poked holes in several of Roach's legal arguments and noted that appeals courts have declined to legally recognize a sex change in Florida when it comes to marriage. The appellate court "is telling us you are what you are when you are born," St. Arnold said.
In the Ohio case, an appeals court ruled in September 2004 that a Montgomery County man must continue to pay $750 a month in alimony to his transsexual ex-wife because her sex change wasn't reason enough to violate the agreement.
Roach's other attorney, John Smitten, said the case falls into a legal void.
9 a.m.
• I'm a cat person, but I got to admit that there's no way any of my three would be able to pull this off.
A US woman claims her golden labrador saved her life by giving her the Heimlich manoeuvre.
Debbie Parkhurst, 45, was eating an apple at home in Cecil County, Maryland, when a chunk got stuck in her throat.
"It was lodged pretty tight because I couldn't breathe," she said. "I tried to do the thing where you lean over a chair and give yourself the Heimlich, but it didn't work."
Mrs Parkhurst then began beating her chest, attracting the attention of two-year-old Toby, reports the local Cecil Whig newspaper.
"The next think I know, Toby's up on his hind feet and he's got his front paws on my shoulders," she recalled. "He pushed me to the ground, and once I was on my back, he began jumping up and down on my chest."
Toby's jumping apparently managed to dislodge the apple from Parkhurst's windpipe.
7 a.m.
• So I just heard on the news that Fast Eddie's attempt to jack up the state cigarette tax an extra dime is approved by voters in a poll by a count of 54 to 46 percent. Now I don’t smoke and I don’t care about those that do. However, I do have a soft spot for smokers if only because I treat them like disposable front-line infantrymen (and women) in the war on the State taxing its constituents. If smoking ever gets banned, or taxed to the point where not enough people won't purchase the product, then Big Brother will go and tax up the wazoo something else – perhaps something I like. Well anyway, I heard in this news blurb that the dime increase will make PA’s tax on a pack of smokes $1.45. And we bitch about BIG OIL for price gouging? Yikes.
• I’ve been rooting for the Penguins and their mid-season surge to the NHL playoffs, if only because I hope it reminds people that Fast Eddie and Shittsburgh did jack shit to keep them here (yet our local leaders bent over backwards for the Pirates when they were in "danger" of leaving town). Last night they clinched a postseason spot. Uh, yay and stuff. I normally don’t watch the Penguins on television for a full game. If I’m putting away groceries or channel surfing and a game is being televised, I’ll keep it on depending on my mood. Well last night I had the start of the game on against the Washington Capitals while I got back from the grocery store. Every time I have a Penguins game on at the start of the contest they stink up the arena, and last night was no exception as Washington got off to a 2-0 lead. I changed channels for a few hours and came back to the game. What was the score when I returned to the game? 4-2 Pens.
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