News Stories
 

Read more about it in NY Times

Holy shit, a Yankee's pitcher was flying the plane, things just keep going worse and worse for the Yankees, that really sucks. ESPN article http://sports.espn.go.com/mlb/news/story?id=2621860

You're going to hate me for saying this, but I'm not shedding any tears. When you're so filthy stinking rich in a profession in which you "get to retire and play with your six year old child" while everyone else is barely getting a good-paying position (if that), and on top of that, you decide to spend a ton of cash on learning to fly (of all things), when most people would never even DREAM of having such an expensive hobby, and on top of that, you go flying around in a city filled with HIGH-RISES, well...frankly, I really can't feel sorry for that. If an actor/actress or athlete dies from an accident at something so expensive that no normal person can afford it, that's not so much tragic as it is KARMIC.

Actually it's not really all that expensive unless you get up into fancy newer planes. I was a aircraft technician for quite a few years working on private planes, and the guys who owned the planes I worked on were not rich by any means most were probably making close to the poverty level. It's not really any more expensive than having a boat. (Which around here on the great lakes allot of people have)

The thing that got me was how on TV they were all how dangerous it was for privet planes to be flying around New York, and how this was a terrible tragedy.
Well, for the people involved it was, but how many people die in car accidents around New York every year, I bet allot more than the 2 that died in this accident. The only 2 others in recent years were helicopters that set down in the river in '97 and '05. General aviation is a 100 times safer than driving in a car, but every time there is an accident the media and politicians start ranting how dangerous it is and how it should be baned.

Yes, that's a heartless thing to say...

I hope you know, flying is not restricted to just the wealthy you know. Middle-class people can afford prop planes like the Cirrus SR20 that Lidle was flying. Prop planes like the Cirrus are like Ford Taurus... don't get confused with the luxary jets (Lear, Galaxy, etc) that cost multi-million dollars. Most of us probably will never come close to owning even a used LearJet plane, but a used prop plane is within our reach.

And they only start ranting about it because an athlete or some other high-profile individual that leeches off of "American values" eats it.

You don't see this whole hubbub about some random person dying in a car crash, but once it's a pitcher that few outside the baseball circle give a damn about, OH NOES!!!!

Pfeh, either way, doesn't really matter to me...

That's because a car crash is a rather common occurrence. When there's a private plane that crashes and people die (and when a building is set ablaze as a result), you can be damned sure it'll at least reach the local news (which, guess what, is the New York Times in this case). The fact that it was a pitcher from a local team only helps the newsworthiness of it. It doesn't define it.

It was news before they even knew who it was... A plane crashes into a building and it's going to be on the news, no matter who was flying it... :eyebrow: Try looking up the statistics for deaths in car accidents sometime. You'll then have a pretty good idea why it doesn't make the news.

Anyway, it's a good thing no one on the ground was killed.

There was another person on the plane... May they both rest in peace.

I don't see what DG86 is on about. If they were two regular people, it still would have been news. The fact that the pilot was a celebrity just adds to it.
I'm beginning to wonder if the buildings in New York City are magnetic or something... :uhoh:

If you're posting here, chances are you are incredibly wealthy compared to a person with median income or purchasing power parity for the whole of humanity. Don't say that wealth devalues a life without first considering how wealthy you really are.

I'm annoyed by how much attention celebrities get, but that's the fault of consumers, not the celebrities themselves. Dying in an accident isn't karmic, it's a bad turn for them the same way it is for anyone else, yourself included.

I'd like to point out that neither the thread title nor the original post even mention the fact that it was a NY Yankees pitcher, I brought that up, the reason why this was news was that it was a plane crashing into a high-rise in New York City. People are still a little twitchy about that whole 9/11 thing, Sure celebs and athletes make a lot more money than most people, they may not deserve it, but they do, they're not evil for having money, as your reference to karma implies. From what I understand the Yankees bring a lot of enjoyment and happiness to the people of new york (at least until recently, sorry I'm from detroit) is the enjoyment and happiness that Lidle brought to all those people worth $3.3 million dollars? Maybe, Probably, I think so.

Oh yea, just blame the guy for being able to have financial success. Just because you're so angry that you WILL NEVER BE a yankees pitcher probably never even being able to be a professional athlete in any sport. Don't think he's some cunt. You're the bigger cunt. Just because he worked harder than you, you're all angry at him dying.

How about you get off your fatass seat and try and gain better finanical success than what you're doing currently. Do you think everyone can throw a fastball at 100 mph? He worked extremely hard at it.

I'm not saying there aren't other reasons for people being poor, but to just criticize the rich is just rediculous.

Sorry but I really hate people that only blame the rich for their own shitty lives.

Well, you did take the trouble of reading and posting twice on this thread, no? :rolleyes:

That was because when Monir posted that, there were not enough details about it. Heck I learned it was Corey Liddle Like 8 Hours after the post was made.

Either way, I’m a Yankee and overall baseball Fan, so its really sad to see an Athlete pass away by a tragic accident. And As You said, Planes crashing in Building in NY is freaky, and if anyone noticed, the plane crashed exactly one month after 9/11…10/11..So when I got to se the news I was a bit suspicious about that crash.

Uhhh, I hate to quibble, but I'll quibble all the same, it was known at the time of the first post that it was Lidle in the plane, if you click on the link to the NY Times article in the original post thats the first thing it says. Sorry for being anal, but that just how I am. But it really is a tragic accident, I feel most for his six-year old son who will now go without a father for the rest of his life, kinda like Goro from major...except real, and therefore infinately more tragic.

When it was posted it did not say it was Lidle, obviously, the News were updated (its a web page after all), but he first newsflash did not had any Information regarding the people inside the plane, it only talked about how Nobody in the building were Injured.

I know Because minutes from Monir post I was already reading the Article posted, not to mention when the news flash were flying the airwaves the information about who were the passengers were still unknown.

Whoops, now i just look like an ass

No, you do not, You just were misinformed. You would had looked like an ass if you have tried to say I was lying…:p

In fact it was confirmed it was Corey Lidle after the police found his Passport in the crash site. And the other passenger was just identified some moments ago:

http://www.cnn.com/2006/US/10/12/plane.crash/index.html

LMAO. Working hard? You mean working to 35 and then retiring set for life and then some? As compared to working till 65?

Working for 10 or working for 40 years? What's harder?

Well, I feel sorry for the guy, the other passager and his fans and family.
But flying in a very populated and hard area like a city as a beginner isn't realy smart, it's dangerous for yourself and the people who live there.

May they rest in peace.

Considering how much physical training and exertion is involved with being a professional athlete? Who knows? I'm not one to defend professional athletes' salaries, I think they're paid too much for what they do, but I'm not gonna sit here and say they don't work hard for it. They do more physically intensive training and exertion than most of middle class America. They're probably only outdone in terms of physical labor by people in life-long physically challenging professions like... I dunno, coal mining comes to mind, but most "blue collar" jobs are now being supplanted by machine assistance. In any event, yeah, we probably hold athletes up too high in terms of social status, but to say they're lazy for retiring at 36 when they've done more exhausting physical work than you or I will probably do in a lifetime is pretty fucking petty.

Besides, he was a dad with a family. He had a kid, who will now have to grow up without his father. I wouldn't wish a parent's death on any kid, that shit blows. I know, I've seen it. So, to sit there and go "HA HA" is pretty fucking cold, even if you think he was just some jock jackass. He was a person too, with people who loved him, just like you, so I'd HOPE you'd be able to empathize.

Yes working Hard, Considering they only get as much 3 or 4 Day off in an entire month, they can't drink alcohol while they are in the season, they need to get up earlier in the morning to do Training and then play at night while traveling all aorund the country, The only rest for some 8 hours while they work around 14 straight hours while handling the media and fan presure.

The Physical demand of Any sport are very rigorous, so you should not be comparing it with A normal job.

Futher more, none of these athletes last 10 Years working, even after retirement, they continue to work as coaches, Commentators, and what not. The Average Baseball payers Begin playing ball at 16-17 YO, and finish at 36 YO. Different from Working sitting in an office for 40 years were the only thing that suffers from your Anatomy is Your Eyes, this guys that play baseball are prone to have injuries that can sideline them for the rest of their life.

Imagine yourself working in the office and that because of Doing your daily choirs you loose both arms, so you are forced to quit the Job you know to do, Yeah I guess that happens every time in non Athletic job, I’m not even going to mention the level of difficulty there is of doing any Kind of sport vs. any Kind of Office Job.

i have to agree to a point.
 

it's true that they get hurt more than in a office job and they get payed to much. but the reason they get payed so much is because they get payed a perctage from the tickets people buy and also they get payed by sponcers to do stuff. and also some athletes are nice and donate to charity or go see little kids that are dying. and just so you know it's not just so know it's not just for their image some of them really do care.



and who ever was talking about 9/11 you guys are lucky. i'm jynxed because i was born the day after 9/11. because i was born 9/12.:sad:

They are celebrities, that's pratically what they are meant to do; Entertain the public so there won't be riots. I'm not much of the sports fan but I do understand that because there's a demand in celebrities, they'll keep getting paid and more will come.

ps:If ya have played Civilization III, you know you spend like 50% of your money just to keep you freaking citizens happy.

also, it's news because the amount of reported plane crashes is meager compared to the amount of traffic accidents on the road. I know i can listen to the radio in the morning and hear like 2-3 crashes every morning.

I feel sorry for the person who died.
I don't feel sorry for someone who has plenty of wealth enough to play World of Warcraft in comfort of his room, yet bitches and gripes at others for having more money than himself, and shows no sympathy for their demise simply because they are richer than himself.

You don't realize just how lucky you are, and how much you take for granted.
There's nothing more pathetic than one filled with pointless, baseless anger for the rest of the world.

peace.

First off, I'd like to say that I'm not one of those people that jump on everyone that says something cold. Sometimes, the truth is a very cold thing. (I would get into examples, but everything that I can think of would most likely throw this thread completely off topic)

But you know what? Not only is that cold, that's a moronic thing to say. I will admit that the system is kind of messed up. I mean, some people that spend every day singing/acting/talking/playing games in front of a crowd live a life of luxery where they can have just about anything that they want, while guys that spend eight hours every day breaking their backs in hazardous environments, or sitting bored behind their desks taking care of mind-numbing number crunching, or doing research or drawing up plans in order to make life and doing other things to make life for the common man more comfortable, convinient, and safe are forced to live out their lives in middle class purgatory.

That being said, are you saying that its wrong to spend your money on your hobbies? People that got dealt a bad deck of cards couldn't afford your lifestyle, so its bad karma to enjoy what you have? Well if that's the case, then drop your internet connection, throw away any modern technology that you happen to have (including your computer and videogames), ditch your house and walk over to the nearest shelter-less slum, and go get yourself a back breaking job that pays a dollar per year and offers no benefits of any kind, because you're much better off than the people over in those third world countries, and by your logic, its evil to be better off than the rest of the world.

Then do ya think that a Meritocracy type government would be the best then?

The word kings and queens would be a thing of the past, social power comes from your ability to exceeds the need of others and your accomplishments is the result of competition you win. (Gladiatiors and the days of Rome, even though they were peasants).

Actually I DON'T have enough money to play world of warcraft every month! :heh:

So you just owned yourself there.

And no, I'm not saying it's wrong to enjoy your money, I'm saying it's wrong that athletes get paid that much while more needed professions are paid so little! So when an athlete goes and gets himself killed, I think it's sort of karmic justice for them having to work a quarter of what most people work (at least timewise) while making 30x as much.

Go ahead and enjoy your money, but when you get killed by having fun with your expensive hobby (aka flying a little airplane and crashing, having your $3 million yacht sink in the caribbean and drowning, etc. and soforth.), I think it'll be sort of karmic justice that it happens to you because you can afford it, and we can't!

Think of it...Cory Lidle wouldn'ta crashed and burned if he couldn't afford his own airplane (a fifth of a million right there) and flying lessons, would he?

.

LOL, Needed Professionals are paid so little????????????????????????????? How much do you know about who is paid little and who is not??? What defines a salary of someone is the Annual income of the company divided by the amount of employee this company has and adding as a factor his professional background and role on his Company:

A Company like A national Bank that has around 4,000 Employees cant afford paying to every employee it has 1,000,000 Dollars annually, because such Company wont had an income vs Expensive that big to cover for that. With your line of reasoning, I can say that Is unfair that a Managers get paid 400,000 USD while his secretary that works his Butt off, only gets paid 50,000.00 usd.

Back to the atletes, the team pays them a lot of money because People pay a good amount of money to get nice seats to go and see Big Names players play like A-rod, Reason why The team pay A-rod a lot of money to begin with, so their stadium gets filled with people.


If You going to blame somebody on why the players are paid so “much”, blame the spectator that Paid so much to see a Baseball Game, a team that has an stadium capacity of 50,000 people and the less expensive ticket is around 30 bucks while they do a sell out in 81 Games. is expected to have enough money to pay a lot for its players.


The Yankees has the money to pay a lot of money for big names, not so with teams like The Royals, the Royals don’t pay a lot of money to its player, go see how the Royal stadium is when they on the Regular Season, Empty, guess if they Royals reached the Playoff? Guess if the Royals Year Incomes comes remotely close to the Yankees, so, why is that? Because The people at Kansas don’t like Baseball? Or Because The People at Kansas wont pay money to see a bunch of No name loosing a Game??

The other needed profession paid so little, Why? Because the income vs expenses of the Company they work in are Not as Big as a MLB team, period, and not because The teams that pay for this players have a tree of money so they can pay whatever amount the athletes demands. In the world of Salaries everything is relative to the Company you work in, The Athletes had the good faith that this profession pays a lot of Money.


Your analogy is like saying that is Karmic Justice that a Normal people with normal Income gets Killed by a Shark while enjoying the Hobbies he likes best, Surfing. because he did not had a ot of money to afford a more expesinve Hobbie.... Sorry, but the only thing you have is jealously because you don’t have what this athletes have.

BTW, They pay way more taxes than your average employee…so they give back more to the comunnity in every sense of the word.

I'm not going to point blame. I'm stating facts. Athletes get paid far more than regular people. And no, they don't necessarily need to receive a zillion dollars because they're athletes. This is where the concept of taxation comes in. If there was an arbitrarily large tax on the absurdly rich professions such that their salaries were that of a regular worker, (re: no more than $1,000,000 net pay annually, that is, how much they actually get to pocket after their bills and all, and that's still dramatically high...a regular job might pocket maybe $20,000), then the government would probably have a ton more money as well, and quite a few problems would be solved.

Yes, I've heard the economic shpiel that athletes are far less in demand than college professors, but there are FEWER STILL that "qualify" for the job, so the few that do get paid exorbitant amounts of money, at which point I say that a tax can be instated to create deadweight loss for the athletes while funneling that money somewhere else besides buying fancy houses or planes or yachts.

Get the idea now?

BECAUSE Cory Lidle had the money to buy airplane, and BECAUSE he had the money to pay for flight lessons, he flew plane. Since every flight has a probability of crashing, heightened by flying low, heightened still by flying in an area full of HIGH RISES (WTF was he thinking?), then he got what was coming.

It's all very cause and effect. If someone has an arbitrarily expensive hobby which on top of that could get them killed, well, tough crackers.

Heck, what if you heard on the news that two random people were street racing when oh no, they ran in front of a train and died? Would that be tragic? What if it was two sports cars bought by two big-name athletes?

Come on, people...cause and effect here. If you're going to do something risky such as fly a plane around in low altitude over NYC, you better be damn good. Especially if it's an expensive hobby...

And about jealousy, yes, I sort of AM jealous because I don't understand why the heck my parents, me, everyone around me, etc... has to go and bust their ass from age 17 to 67, try and get good grades to get into a great school, to get as good of a job as they can possibly get, and then still just be some LOL relatively low-paid member of society compared to the big shots, when some guy that his whole life has just been training to swing a bat gets paid millions.

"Oh gee, look at me, I swing bat and hit ball, pay me millions!"

Hey, isn't that what we did as little kids playing wiffleball in the school playground?

This is why I'm not so hateful of people like Donald Trump or Robert Kiyosaki or Bill Gates...because they're SMART and make the GOOD DECISIONS TO GET THEIR WEALTH. If every businessman was as good as Trump or Kiyosaki, they'd ALSO be rich. Not just "oh, me swing bat and hit ball!" or "oh, me read script and look pretty!"

And also, which girls go to hollywood or get their own CDs? Not the best singers or actresses...just the ones which are found in the right place in the right time. That element of luck is what I believe makes anyone in the entertainment industry lucky, and which is why I shed no tear for anyone making an exorbitant salary for doing a glorified version of what kids do in elementary school for fun.

So, could you play pro ball, DG86?
Unless you can get up early and train all day every day, deal with the pressure to perform in front of hundreds of thousands of people, peacefully coexist with eleven other guys you see more than your own family, and get a base off a 100mph fastball, I suggest you STFU.

Of course I can't play PRO ball. Nor can quite a few people around here. It's why the pros are on TV, but it doesn't mean they should be paid so damn much. Heck, can an athlete be intelligent enough to teach a classroom of 200 college students and try to teach a class so that they're all interested and learn the material? There's a reason that nobody can do everything, but apparently, the way the money goes, being an athlete is more important than being, say, a college professor.

Tell me, is a voice actor or voice actress paid out the wazoo ala <<insert famous actress here>>? I doubt that Tomozaku Seki or Tanaka Rie or Ikeda Shuuichi or Yu Asakawa or Maaya Sakamoto or whoever are making hundreds of millions of yen simply for their voice talent.

Message here? We wouldn't go nuts if there was no more Sunday football or Britney Spears CDs. We don't need to pay our entertainers millions and millions of dollars to fuel their TV shows or "my life the drama" BS. Hell, just look at Terell Owens going WAAAH WAAH WAAH with the eagles because of pay. At heart, I bet most entertainers think they deserve every single penny of the millions and millions that they earn, even though no other society pays its entertainers that damn much. I remember Troy Aikman said that teachers should be paid more than athletes. I never really forgot that, and the man's right. He's one of the very few respectable athletes in my book.

So please...don't spew that "can YOU do it?" argument? Of course I can't. Nobody can do everything.

You know why entertainers get paid so much? Because people want to see them. Their fans are the ones paying them. Britney Spears only makes what she makes because she sells loads of CD's and concert tickets. It takes people to buy those things. Athletes wouldn't make any money if people didn't pay to see them do what they do. If you want to complain about something, complain about the hoardes of people throwing their paychecks at them.

Exactly. Don't criticize others unless you're able and willing to do a better job yourself. Rule #6 of living like a decent person.

Who cares what his profession is... He was a human being and he died, and because of the unusual circumstances under which he passed away it made the news... yes, there is more attention because he was a pro athlete, but that is because more people know who he is and his death will have a greater impact on a larger number of people. It has nothing to do with his 'worth' so much as that lots of people know him. We should all be mourning the death of a fellow human, just like you should be for the other passanger, and the unnamed individual who got into a car accident and makes the morning news.

We'd be doing an awful lot of mourning then :heh:

I understand what you're trying to say DG, truely I do, except I also know that its total bullshit that you pulled out of your ass to try to defend yourself. This is one the first things you said.

You were claiming that it was only news because of Cory Lidle, after we showed you that this was news even if it wasn't Cory Lidle, you realised that your arguements were worthless, I mean it was a plane flying into a building in New York City, things like that have happened before, and people are still a little touchy about that, but then you turn to

You try to change the arguement to that because he was rich he could do things that were dangerous, and because he was rich thats why he died. Thats true, if he didn't have the money to buy the plane, he might still be alive.

But your statement also reveals your total ignorance of the facts surrounding the crash. From eyewitness accounts of people in the building they could see the pilot wrestling with the controls, he avoided heading straight into a construction worker who gave this accound swung around the building and then crashed. So it sounds like there was some sort of mechanical problem. Also FYI, what he was doing: flying around NY City is legal and happens regularly, do you know what he did prior to going to Manhatton? He flew around the statue of liberty, could you understand why he wanted to do that?

What I'm guessing is that he had no intention of flying around inbetween high rises, what I'm guessing happened is that he wanted to fly over the city, which commercial planes do all the time, and then had some sort of engine or mechanical trouble.

It was an accident, it was tragic, and you can call the economics of why hes paid so much bullshit if you want, but its true, real, and will never change. I think the wage disparities in this country are atrotious, but instead of focusing your anger on professional athletes who are paid market price, yes market price, where the supply curve meets the demand curve, is misplaced and misguided. Pro athletes aren't stealing any opportunities from you or your family, or the people around you who are working hard. Who you should be pissed at are people like Ken Lay and George W. Bush, people who were never poor, never even close to it, and who don't give a shit about making your life better unless there's something in it for them.

Now before I get going, I'm gonna stop- I could flame about bush all day but that wouldn't get us anywhere. Instead of being pissed off at the people who lived the american dream, who were poor, found something they were good at and now live a great life, which is true of a very large amount of pro baseball players, look at all the players from central america and the caribbian, you should be pissed off at the people who are preventing you from getting what you do deserve, what you should be looking into is the difference in pay between a CEO of a company and a line worker, because in reality, the money that goes to pro athletes is chump change compared to what goes to the elite powerbrokers, who you rarely hear about, but run almost the entire country. Always remember the golden rule: he who has the gold rules.

Absolutely true...and you think I'm not PO'd with Bush? I thought Gore shoulda been in the oval office after Clinton!

On that note, Clinton for prez! Hillary, that is!

And frankly, I am ticked off that the government is allowing exorbitant salaries such as half a billion a year while there are homeless people...hell, put a 50% tax bracket on every dollar above $100 million and wham, how much money will that generate?

the odds ANYONE will earn 1/2 a billion dollars is slim to none. That'll only affect like 0.1% of the US population. Althetes don't even earn 1/2 a billion dollars. Sheesh. Don't you think Bill Gates has enough crap going for him? So to answer your question, probably not very much. But still more than what you're going to pay in taxes your entire life and probably my life combined, if I continue to do what I'm doing.

By the way, the top 10% of the wealth already pays for 60% of the federal taxes collected by the entire US. You also forget all the charities they help pay for, donations, stimulating the economy much more than what you or I can do.

Also the percent of income the rich keeps much lower income than one that gets paid less. For example if I made 100 dollars, and in the tax bracket of 30%. I'll pay 30 dollars in taxes. Lets say you're earning 50 dollars and in the 15% bracket. You get to pay $7.50 in taxes. Which means you have 40.25 dollars left to spend.

I may still have 30 dollars more than you do, but you pay less taxes than I do. This is how the US government taxation system works. You argue that should I be taxed even more so I also only get $40.25 of disposable income, since now we're equals, and me being richer I should pay more. Which leads me to my next point:

Exactly what incentive would anyone have to be rich, if the government forces taxes on you until you earn nearly as much as a middle class worker? Who would want to be bothered with all the extra work? For example, lets take a doctor, a fairly good postion, which is earning 100k+ (And this is really low).

Would you honestly regulate a doctors wages so the doctor gets as much as a nurse?

What about people in poverty? I say, don't do things you can't afford. Which includes, pumping out an extra kid, getting married at 15, run away, do drugs, drink, etc.

It's like people that get into credit card debt. They're techincally in poverty, since they have negitive disposible income. But you don't help people in CC debt (i.e pay for their bills, food, etc). It's not your fault they like to spend so much. And if you do, you're a moron.

Look at Mrs. Spears now, nobody is buying her CDs, her career is finished, she's fat, pregant, and nobody really likes her. She'll be incredibly resourceful if she can maintain her life style. Look at Michael Jackson, he's in debt.

And they do deserve it. Lets take a look at the Beatles. Even if they only make 10 cents for every CD they sell, they deserve it. (Which is more or less what artists do make... for recordings and such...). It's incredibly hard to sell CDs. Look at all the failed bands that couldn't make it. You never hear anythign about them. They're just not good enough to sell. Their contract is terminated and they're off doing something else. So saying that these people don't deserve it is rediculous.

Hell I'll bet if you're a entertainer right now, making millions. You'll change your stance.

Now about 2 months ago I heard a radio station talk about this issue with celebrites and their mass amount of revenue that they get. Ok, supposably a pretty popular person was suppost to come and have a interview with them at 11am but came in at 3pm, so insted of waited they left the celebrity. And stated the next day "why should we spend our time waiting for her when we can do other things" or something of that nature. One of the caller said this " It's supply and demand, if we want entertainment, we'll glady pay for it." And this works perfectly for the entertainers we are talking about.

Aashinn, that why I proposed a Meritocracy type goverment. But if you look at the free market, we are pratically a Meritocracy. Look at the wealthy, did they earn their keeps, I'm not sure, but they're not going away any time soon.


ps: Ewwwww...we sure are getting off topic.