StrangeSox

What about on scholarships or grants?

There's already precedence for this. There are graduate student unions, and as far as I'm aware, their scholarships and stipends did not suddenly become taxable upon unionization. eta: well some quick googling seems to indicate that TA stipends are in fact taxable!

Fugazi right now

Finding an iPod I haven't touched in about five years has been fun. Listening to a lot of bands I was more into 5-8 years ago.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Mar 27, 2014 -> 10:29 AM) I acknowledged that in my first post. But that's going to be the result if they're considered employees of the school. I think you'll find someone out there - be it a congressman, an IRS agent, or the University itself - asking for the law to be changed so that scholarships/stipends are considered pay, not financial aid or grants. I mean, logically, how can you on the one hand say that these guys are employees because they lack any connection to the educational aspect of a scholarship, but then turn around and say that the scholarship and stipend are not pay for services, but aids to their education costs? That makes zero sense. I'm unclear how the University would benefit from that change--it seems more like being vindictive than anything. You'd also have to craft the law in a way that only athletic scholarships are impacted. Again I don't see how this is any different from graduate student unions. They receive scholarships and stipends, but they're also considered employees.

Illinois' budget is pretty thoroughly f***ed for a lot of reasons, so they sort of do need that revenue to survive if you don't want huge cuts in a lot of services.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Mar 27, 2014 -> 10:19 AM) But you realize if college went to a pure market system, 99% of the athletes would probably be worse off right? The vast majority of student athletes don't make a dime for the school. They COST the school money. If we go for a pure market system say goodbye to 90% of a school's athletic department. They'd offer mens/women's basketball, football and one other female equivalent sport to abide by Title IX. Everything else is scrapped and put towards mens basketball and football. And even then, the money is going to the 1% of kids that are actual stars, and the rest will share the crumbs. How is that system any better? Just for the record, again, the NW players aren't asking for the abolition of the NCAA or college sports, they are asking to be recognized as a bargaining unit so that they can have a say in scholarship rules, rules that govern the athletes' responsibilities, health coverage, scheduling expansions, etc. They are explicitly not asking for pay.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Mar 27, 2014 -> 10:19 AM) Recently we found out that tech companies are really stupid and dont have attorneys, because you could have legally done what they wanted by putting a restrictive covenant into the employee agreement. Non-compete, non-solicitation, are allowable. Not sure what this has to do with unionization. I've read that California has pretty strict laws about those sorts of non-competes, and of course if its explicit and upfront people will often demand compensation for signing one.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Mar 27, 2014 -> 10:06 AM) Becoming "employees" is the WORST thing they can do IMO. Now you open up tax issues and insurance issues that I dont think they thought about. Grad students receive scholarships and stipends while still being able to unionize, and I don't think they're hit with any tax issues.

QUOTE (bmags @ Mar 27, 2014 -> 09:35 AM) As for this just going through because it's an Obama stacked board, LOL. I doubt he's even been able to appoint anyone. But when an organization becomes a billion dollar revenue company largely through the free labor of amateur athletes while paying themselves lavishly, the shoe is gonna drop at some point. Back in 2012, Obama appointed three people to the NLRB during the controversial recess appointments. Before that, the board didn't even have enough members to reach a quorum and could not rule on anything. Any appointment was blocked to keep it that way. Last year, the nominees were finally confirmed by the Senate and the NLRB has a full board(of five) now. Chicago Tonight had a segment on yesterday with a law professor from IIT discussing the ruling. QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Mar 27, 2014 -> 09:51 AM) Also, Obama did stack the national NLRB board according to ESPN's guy. 3 of them in fact, out of a 5 person panel. All very pro-union. Appointing people to existing vacancies is part of the job of an executive. I don't think that can really be considered "stacking."

ESPN has a pretty good Q&A on what this ruling means: http://espn.go.com/espn/otl/story/_/id/106...lter-legal-team

opinion is available here http://big.assets.huffingtonpost.com/north...erndecision.pdf

hahaha, that's great. For some background on a Freidman Unit, wiki.

FWIW this would just be the regional NLRB ruling, which will be appealed to the national NLRB in washington.

Of course they went to the NLRB. That's what the NLRB does. They also don't always rule in favor of unions. This was to get CAPA recognized as a union, so I'm not sure what the SEIU would have to do with it.

Wow, I'm legitimately surprised by that. I thought it was a long shot at best.

QUOTE (Pods70Rowand33 @ Mar 22, 2014 -> 10:17 AM) Anyone been to Australia? I will be there during their winter months. I think DBAHO lives there

QUOTE (bmags @ Mar 20, 2014 -> 05:08 PM) I actually don't even hate on beats. It is overpriced, and is all marketing. But the market for headphones really was confusing. You had an explosion in mobile music players in 00, and basically no revolution for headphones there, despite the "specialty" market exploding in pretty much every other market (food, clothing, etc). Your big name (consumer facing) headphone makers (sony, panasonic, etc) had so many products, at so many pricepoints, how do you decide? You can't be brand loyal because th $20 sony headphones are horrid. How do you know their 110 are the best anymore? So you had insanely expensive headphones and terribly crappy cheap ones. And nothing in the middle. Yeah, monster head phones aren't amazing, but they also aren't horrible. Consumer ignorance was begging to be exploited there. Now that people know there's a market there it's going to work itself out, may as well thank Beats for that. You buy Sennheisers and go home happy.

The best part of the "audiophile" world are the people who get suckered into $5000 speaker wire and solid wire USB and power cords to bring out the warmth in the music.

Beats headphones are expensive, but they're not high-end audio. They're the Bose 901's of the headphone world.

QUOTE (Jenksismyb**** @ Mar 20, 2014 -> 09:27 AM) What? No. I don't think blacks were the main users of pot, LSD, heroin, meth, etc. in the 60's and 70's when the anti-drug kick started. Crack maybe, but not much else. Pot was because of those dangerous Mexicans, cocaine was all of those crazed negros, heroin/opium prohibition started with anti-Chinese racism. Most of this stuff was banned or heavily restricted in the early 20th century, not the 60's and 70's. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harrison_Narcotics_Tax_Act

QUOTE (SnB @ Mar 20, 2014 -> 08:41 AM) Are there any tricks to get CBS on a digital antenna? We have a glorious tv at work w/ one of these, but it doesn't get CBS. Obviously this is march madness related. Not really. The frequency CBS broadcasts at makes it one of hardest channels to pick up OTA. Short of a decent-sized antenna (the one in my attic is 6'), you'll struggle to get a steady signal.

My friend was backstage at that Childish Gambino show last night, I think he was doing some of the sound.

QUOTE (Soxbadger @ Mar 19, 2014 -> 04:27 PM) Its interesting to look at the law historically to try and find when exactly people gave up the right to ingest whatever they want. with respect to drugs it was pretty much a race thing

Netflix and Hulu had the original available for streaming, but it got dropped some time last year