Congressman Steve Cohen Takes Aim at NBA Age Limit

U.S. Congressman Steve Cohen (D-Tennessee) has written to NBA commissioner David Stern and NBPA executive director Billy Hunter asking them to eliminate the NBA's age limit, which requires that a player be 19 years old plus one year removed from high school in order to be eligible for the NBA Draft (the rule was negotiated in 2005; previously, players could join the NBA right after finishing high school). The NBA and NBPA will be negotiating a new CBA in the near future and the age limit will likely be a source of tension between the two bargaining units. There are several stories on Congressman Cohen's request. Gary Parrish of CBS Sportsline has one of them and it's excerpted below.

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U.S. Rep Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) wrote a letter Wednesday to NBA commissioner David Stern and NBA Players Association executive director Billy Hunter that asks them to eliminate the league’s 19-year-old age minimum for U.S. players to enter the draft.

CBSSports.com obtained a copy of the letter from Cohen's office.

"I am writing to express my deep concern over the policy of the National Basketball Association (NBA) to bar athletes from playing in the league on the basis of their age," Cohen's letter to Stern begins. "The '19 plus 1' policy, which requires American players to be at least 19 years of age and one year removed from their high school graduating class, is unfair restriction on the rights of these young men to pursue their intended career. I also believe that it has played an important role in several recent scandals involving college students who were prevented from entering the NBA upon high school graduation. I ask that this policy be repealed when the NBA completes its new collective bargaining agreement with the NBA Player's Association."

Cohen expanded on his thoughts in an afternoon interview with CBSSports.com. He said that though he represents a district that includes Memphis, the timing of his letter is unrelated to recent news that the University of Memphis men's basketball program has been charged with major violations by the NCAA. Rather, the timing is connected to Thursday's start of the NBA Finals, and Cohen said he has long planned to send his letter this week because he expected two stars who never attended college to be participating on the sports' biggest stage.

"We've been looking at the issue since April, to be honest," Cohen said by phone. "We were expecting a Kobe-LeBron Finals, but we got a Kobe-Dwight Finals, which is just as fine because we've got two players who went straight from high school to the NBA (in the Finals), and it didn't seem to hurt them at all in their development as players."

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For the rest, click here. For empirical research on high school players and the NBA Draft, see my law review article Illegal Defense: The Irrational Economics of Banning High School Players from the NBA Draft and my study NBA Players That Get in Trouble with the Law: Do Age and Education Level Matter? and my research on points/boards/assists as featured in ESPN The Magazine. Also be sure to see Alan Milstein's comments from a New York Law School sports law symposium two months ago about a legal challenge to the NBA's age limit, and posts on Sonny Vaccaro's remarks about the topic.

CofE spokesman misleads on Today programme

This from philosopher Simon Blackburn (passed on with his permission):

Some of you may have heard on yesterday's Today programme a C of E
spokesman, George Pitcher, say and repeat that there is no palliative
care in Holland as a result of their legislation on euthanasia. He
was not challenged by the presenter or by Lord Falconer, who is
seeking a change in the law governing assistance (which at present
renders a carer liable to up to 14 years in prison).
For interest, I gave evidence for the BHA to Lord Joffe's committee
who looked into this matter when he was seeking to change the law in
2004 - 5. I have the extremely thorough and impressive report and
evidence volumes in front of me. The evidence from Dutch professionals
was unambiguous that palliative care increased massively in Holland
from 1995 onwards, and partly as a result of their euthanasia
legislation has continued to develop. Palliative care is not a
speciality in Dutch medicine but is part of all health professionals'
training.

Incidentally. George can be found wriggling about this here - read comments, especially Peter51, to whom George responds by making an irrelevant and (it turns out further down - see Peter51's response) misleading statement about 1,000 people year being killed against their will in the Netherlands. What a wanker.

P.S. Someone suggested I clarify that the above insult comes from me not S.B. Which of course it does. I don't normally issue insults - don't think I ever have on this blog. So the should be taken to indicate just how awful Pitcher's comments were. But perhaps this was a lapse and he is otherwise an nice, honourable chap. For all I know he is.

Virtual world lecture and Q&A on Second Life this Saturday

This Saturday I'll be presenting a lecture and a short Q&A thereafter about my book, "The War for Children's Minds", at The Open Habitat Project, a Second Life programme promoting science, reason and critical thinking.

I'll be discussing my book at Open Habitat on Saturday, 6 June, from 19:30 to 20:15 GMT (or 11:30 to 12:15 PDT). If you are familiar with Second Life then you can follow the SLURL link below to reach the island. If you are unfamiliar with how Second Life works, please see the information below:

Open Habitat Amphitheatre SLURL:

http://slurl.com/secondlife/Open%20Habitat/132/204/25

The organizers have provided the following information:

Second Life is 3D interactive ‘world’ in which you are represented by an avatar. If you have ever played a computer game, or an X-Box or something to that effect where you have a character/avatar within the game that you control – that is essentially what it is like in Second Life – the main difference being that you interact with other ‘real’ people within a virtual world.

Second Life is full of interesting and exciting places to explore and interact with.

1. To start with you go to http://secondlife.com/ and sign up (it’s free) and create an avatar. Be careful in what name you choose as this cannot be changed!

2. Once your avatar is set up, click on the following link to go to Open Habitat (http://slurl.com/secondlife/Open%20Habitat/132/204/25) or simply run a search using the Second Life in world group search using the terms “The Open Habitat Project” and you will find a link to the island.

3. If you have any problems, please email Maria Hume (mhume@orange.fr) and/or get in touch with her in world by running a search for Marya Blaisdale (Second Life name) and she will help you get to the right place at the right time.

NB: It is important to note that you do need a broadband/cable connection to use Second Life and a ‘decent’ graphics card. You can find more information on specifications on the Second Life web site link above.