As IF Times

link George Clooney and Amal Alamuddins wedding cost £8m – Telegraph.

Eight million pounds sterling is almost 13 million US dollars based on recent exchange rates.  Think about that.  $13 million dollars…for a wedding.  That’s approaching Rap star money.   In truth, we have no idea how this number was arrived at, since who would actually know?  Of course the ‘lucky’ father of the bride will have bills of some kind, the hotel, the food, maybe the dress and of course the booze bill.  If we take at face value the estimated count of high profile guests at the wedding which apparently hovers at around 100, that means that each person’s attendance cost somewhere in the neighborhood of between $100,000 to $130,000 apiece.

They must be good friends.  But how does that even possibly add up? We’ll assume George sprung for the odd water taxi and picked up the occasional bar tab.  So that leaves a lot of money thrown around for the guests and their comfort on the grand occasion.  Having first hand knowledge of the extortionate prices in Venice for everything involving food and fun, it still stretches credibility that the $13 million tab can be accurate.  It makes good headlines; who wants to say that it was a $50,000 wedding?

But let’s just say the number is accurate and the father of the bride gets stuck with the bill that resembles a telephone number.  That’s a lot of money to pay to get rid of a daughter, even if it is to arguably the world’s most eligible bachelor George Clooney.  Based on what’s known about the bride, Amal Alamuddin, she seems to be more the catch!  She’s young, an accomplished lawyer, attractive and obviously from a wealthy family.  George…well George is an actor… a good and famous one of course, but…to spend $13 million to get the deal done?  Seems molto costoso to us.

link Roger Goodell criticized harshly over handling of Ray Rice mess, but he isn’t the one who threw the punch  – NY Daily News.

It may only be apparent to those not involved in generating ratings, but the media inspired frenzy of outrage over Ray Rice’s intemperate actions looks more and more like the tabloid journalism that now dominates American media.  It’s not in debate that Rice’s actions were ungallant at best and perhaps criminal at worst.  But there are mechanisms to determine that.

I’m not sure how his employer, the NFL and it’s head, Roger Goodell could be held responsible, legally or morally for Rice’s actions.  In this particular instance, both the right and left factions of the media are tripping over each other to determine who gets the prize for being most sanctimonious.

When the Benghazi scandal happened a few years ago, people were actually killed due to incompetence; yet to this day, no one has been held to account, no head of any department has resigned, no one has been fired.  Heck, the person directly involved may become the next President.  But poor Roger Goodell; he is being pressured to resign over the perceived mishandling of Rice’s case.  One minute, he is running a lucrative business and next thing he knows, his head is on the block.

As was the case of former LA Clipper’s owner Donald Sterling, he is being tried in the court of public opinion and held to a standard that is totally fabricated by  the PC media.  At the very least, what this type of arbitrary morality does is to introduce a new layer of bureaucracy to the employment process by way of more boxes to tick off during the hiring of workers–in any job.  We can think of a number of items to tick off in the employment application:

Do you beat your spouse or significant other?

Do you smoke in bed?

Do you recycle?

Do you leave your children in hot cars with windows up? Your dogs?

Have you ever kicked a cat or dog?

Do you text while driving?

Do you make fun of minorities or fat people?

Do you leave the toilet seat up?

I could go on, but could never possibly anticipate the next moral outrage that will be elevated from tsk tsk level to crimes against humanity by the sensationalist media.  If the above standards were the filter for NFL players, you may be lucky to field 4 teams worth of people and the product would be as interesting as girls’ soccer.  In the Rice case, it’s not a stretch to have all other institutions that he may have contact with withdraw their support as well for fear of being seen as endorsing of his conduct.  The state driver’s license can be revoked, his Starbucks card and maybe even his American Express points could be cancelled.  The heads of those corporations should be squirming as we write.