1. Bikes & Beats: Bike Fashion at Public Works (161 Erie St), Friday May 6, 10pm-3am, $6-$10, 21+.

The mega-hip bike hang out, Bikes & Beats, brings you their fashion edition with designs by Level 4 Couture, live music and art shenanigans, food trucks, and, of course, free valet bike parking -- tres classy, indeed. Bring your own garment for on-the-spot screenprinting, with three music and bike inspired designs, by Like Minded People.

 

2. Kasil Workshop at Blue Jeans Bar (1827 Union St), Friday May 6, 1pm-5pm; Azalea (411 Hayes), Saturday May 7, 1pm-6pm.

Kasil Workshop denim designer, David Lim, is stopping by SF for two trunk shows this weekend. First, head to Blue Jeans Bar today for the Kasil pop-up shop and receive 20% off all Kasil denim. If you can't make it, round two goes down tomorrow, so mosey on over to Azalea for the Kasil Workshop trunk show, with 20% off the Kasil Spring/Summer '11 collection and a $500 raffle prize. 

 

3. Rose and Champagne or Luma Firm Facial at La Petite Rose (2409 25th Ave), Available through May 21, $112-$150.  

If you're still stressing over that perfect gift for mom, and/or looking to rack up major plus-points with your mother-in-law, get in on the buy-one-get-one-half-off facials going on right now at La Petite Rose. Try the soothing Rose and Champagne, ($112 for two facials) or, for a more youthful glow, the Luma Firm Facial, $150 (for two facials). It's mother's day, but don't you deserve a facial, too?

 

4. 30th SF Ballet Auxiliary Fashion Show at The Fairmont Hotel (950 Mason St), Tuesday May 10, Cocktail Reception at 5:30pm, Show at 7pm, $200+.

This year, the grandiose SF Ballet Auxiliary and Saks Fifth Ave will feature Italian designer, Giambattista Valli, the "master of shape", at their 30th annual fashion show. Valli, began his line in 2005, and steadily revealed more vibrant, architectural craftsmanship, and feminine detail, with each collection. Grand Benefactor ticket holders will enjoy a post-fashion show dinner with Valli, featuring courses prepared by chefs Gordon Drysdale & Justin Deering of Café des Amis, Bill Corbett of Absinthe, and JW Foster of The Fairmont.

 

5. Swap for Good and Beautiful Things Fashion Show at BellaPelle (9 Maiden Lane), Swap for Good: Wednesday May 11, 6:30pm-8:30pm $15-$75; Beautiful Things Fashion Show: Thursday May 12, 5:30pm-9pm, $20.

This Wednesday, join BellaPelle and Spark for a night of cocktails and swapping for a cause. Bring gently used clothing to trade or donate to the Freedom House, a shelter for survivors of human trafficking. The good deeds continue on Thursday, with BellaPelle's Beautiful Things Fashion Show, benefiting the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society. The evening will start with cocktails and yummy apps, and move right into a fashion show boasting the latest creations from costume designer Julia Panciroli, with jewelry by Manika, hair by Atelier Emmanuel, and beauty services by BellaPelle. Designs from the show show will be auctioned off to raise money for the LLS.

 

6. Spring 2011: Delicious Anticipation Party at Saffron Rare Threads (One Emcarcadero Center, Street Level), Thursday May 12, 6pm-9pm (Fashion Show at 7:30pm).

Saffron Rare Threads will launch their Spring 2011 collection, this Thursday, with "Delicious Anticipation", a fashion show and haute party featuring one-of-a-kind pieces, street food and 15% discounts on all merchandise. Click here to RSVP.

 

Lily Ko (lily.7x7 @ gmail.com) studied fashion design and merchandising at Central Saint Martins and the Academy of Art University. In addition to writing for 7x7, Lily is an editor at SF Station, works as a freelance stylist and covers food, fashion and fun on her blog, Curated SF.

More than 1,000 people have attended the funeral of well-known Central Australian cattleman Bill Hayes.

John Hayes, Bill Legue, Jason Mills and 1 more joined Aggressive.com - Inline Skating

Hayes Carll, Kelly Willis and Bruce Robison, Robbie Fulks, Chatham County Line, Steve Wynn and the Baseball Project will play at this year's Twangfest in St. Louis in June. Hayes Carll headlines the Wednesday, June 8 opening night show at the Pageant. Old time punk blues Kentucky Knife Fight and an artist to be named later will round out the bill....

The 1877 Nez Perce War ended with the Battle of the Bear Paw in Montana. After a five-day siege the five non-treaty bands of Nez Perce surrendered with the understanding that they were to be sent to the Nez Perce Reservation in Idaho. A total of 418 Nez Perce surrendered: 87 men, 184 women, and 147 children. Among those who surrendered was Halahtookit (Daytime Smoke), the son of Captain William Clark, and his daughter and granddaughter.

Following their surrender, the Nez Perce were taken to Kansas as prisoners of war. Here they asked the army to take them to Idaho. They pointed out that General Miles had promised them that they could return home. General Sherman, however, denied their request saying:

"These Indians are prisoners and their wishes should not be consulted."

In 1878, Congress appropriated money for the permanent resettlement of the non-treaty Nez Perce bands to Oklahoma. The Nez Perce, who were considered to be prisoners of war, were transported from Leavenworth by train and then by wagon to lands purchased from the Peoria and Miami tribes. The Commissioner of Indian Affairs assured Congress that the climate of Oklahoma was similar to that of the Nez Perce homelands in Idaho and Oregon.

On the first day of their journey, the Nez Perce were herded into an open field near a railroad siding. In temperatures hovering near one hundred degrees they waited in the open for the train. When it didn't arrive, they spent the night in the open.

The following year, the government encouraged three young Nez Perce Presbyterians-James Reuben, Mark Williams, and Archie Lawyer-to travel from their Idaho reservation to Oklahoma so that they could preach to the exiled Nez Perce who were being held there as prisoners of war. The bands which had been at war with the United States were pagan, and many were followers of the Wanapan prophet Smohalla. If the Nez Perce prisoners were to move to the Nez Perce Reservation they would have to give up their pagan ways.

In 1879, Nez Perce leaders Chief Joseph and Yellow Bull and their interpreter traveled to St. Louis and then to Washington, D.C. In Washington, Chief Joseph addressed a packed house at the Lincoln Hall auditorium. For an hour and twenty minutes he told the audience about the history of his people, about the many broken promises, and about the problems they were having in Oklahoma. Chief Joseph and Yellow Bull spoke to a large group of cabinet members, congressmen, and diplomats. Joseph's account of the causes of the war and their difficulties in Oklahoma were eloquent and moving. An interview with Joseph was also published in the North American Review. With this publicity, Joseph became the popular symbol among non-Indians for Nez Perce heroism.

While they were in Washington, the Nez Perce were also granted a meeting with President Rutherford B. Hayes. They returned home hopeful that the government would fulfill some of its promises to them.

Shown above is Chief Joseph and family in 1880.

In 1880, Nez Perce Presbyterian leader Archie Lawyer organized a church among the exiled Nez Perce. At the same time, James Rueben opened a day school which had an average attendance of 80 students.

In 1883, a few of the Nez Perce prisoners of war-two elderly men and the rest women and orphans - were allowed to return to the reservation in Idaho.  The government refused to appropriate any money for the move so the Nez Perce raised the money themselves by selling gloves, moccasins, and foodstuffs.  

Finally, in 1884, the Nez Perce who had been exiled to Oklahoma for their 1877 war were allowed to return to the northwest. They were given a choice of going to the Nez Perce reservation in Lapwai, Idaho where they would have to become Christians or going to the Colville Reservation in Washington. Nez Perce warrior Yellow Wolf reported that they were asked:

"Where you want to go? Lapwai and be Christian, or Colville and just be yourself?"

According to Yellow Wolf:

"Because we respected our religion, we were not allowed to go on the Nez Perce Reservation."

Chief Joseph and the members of his band were not allowed to choose and were required to go to the Colville Reservation.

The Lapwai Reservation in Idaho was a Presbyterian-administered reservation, and as such it was not an environment conducive to the practice of the old ways and beliefs. Those who wished to live as Christians would be welcomed, but those who wished to practice any of the old ways faced some danger. Among the Nez Perce captives, 118 chose to go to Lapwai.  

On the Colville Reservation, those who wished to practice the old religion would be welcome. On the Colville Reservation the Nez Perce would be free from the oversight of the churches and Indian agents committed to their Christianizing and civilizing. Here they would be able to retain their traditional ways.

On the trip home, the train stopped in Pocatello where it was to be divided: taking some Nez Perce to Lapwai and some to Colville. As the train was stopped in Pocatello, U.S. Marshals attempted to arrest Chief Joseph for murder. Instead of dividing at Pocatello, the train continued through to Wallula Junction.

On the Colville Reservation, the Nez Perce settled in Nespelem territory. There was some friction as the Nespelem resented that the Nez Perce were settled on their land without their consent.

The non-Indian response to the return of the non-treaty Nez Perce to the Nez Perce Reservation raised a demand to re-garrison Fort Lapwai. One editor wrote:

"Isolated as we are and surrounded as we are by the most powerful tribe of Indians in the Northwest, the people of north Idaho have a right to demand from the government protection for their lives."

After being settled on the Colville Reservation, Chief Joseph continued being a popular icon among non-Indians. In 1897, Chief Joseph was taken to New York City to participate in a parade for the dedication of Grant's Tomb. He was invited to Madison Square Garden to watch Buffalo Bill's Wild West Show. When Buffalo Bill realized that he was in the audience, he rode over and paid his respects.

In 1900, Chief Joseph, who was still a prisoner of war, was allowed by the government to visit the Wallowa Valley. He visited the grave sites of his parents and wept openly. The Americans who were now living in the valley, however, jeered him. They denigrated his spiritual connection to the land and they viewed his claims as antiquated and delusional.

In 1901, Pendleton Wool Company in Oregon produced its first catalog entitled The Story of the Wild Indian's Overcoat which featured a picture of Chief Joseph arrayed in a Pendleton robe on the cover. In its catalog and its advertising, the company made an effort to describe native customs and traditions.

In 1903, Chief Joseph met with President Theodore Roosevelt in Washington, D.C.. At a buffalo dinner, Chief Joseph explained the situation of his people. He was promised by the President that someone would come to investigate the matter. It was another empty promise.

In 1903, railroad magnate James J. Hill invited Chief Joseph to give a speech in the Seattle Theater. Chief Joseph told the packed audience:

"The government at Washington has always given me many flattering promises but up to the present time has utterly failed to fulfill any of its promises."

Chief Joseph died of a heart attack on the Colville Reservation in 1904. Some people say that he died of a broken heart.

• Bob Ryan of The Boston Globe: "All those years, all those playoff series, and we’ve never seen anything like this around here. One playoff game in which the visitor leads late, real late, and loses? Sure. It happens. You know, you can’t win ’em all. But two of these things in the same series, and not only that, but Games 1 and 2, leaving the visitors beyond frustration and the coach of the Celtics almost apologizing for being up, 2-0? We’ve entered virgin series territory. Doc Rivers looked as if he had just run the Marathon -- with a Steinway on his back. It’s been a long time since a winning Celtics coach was so completely and utterly subdued when his team was up, 2-0. 'We won the game,’ he said, in a voice barely above a whisper. 'In the playoffs, the whole key is to win games, and that’s what we did.’ "
• Julian Benbow of The Boston Globe: "The Knicks did more than complain about two non-calls in the final minute of Game 1. They sent tape of the controversial plays to the league office, according to an NBA source. The Knicks had problems with Garnett’s collision with Toney Douglas that preceded Allen’s winning 3-pointer with 11.6 seconds left. And they also pointed out to the NBA that Delonte West ran onto the court after Allen’s trey to chest bump him. The Knicks wanted a technical foul for six players on the court. According to the source, the NBA admitted that Garnett’s trip of Douglas, who was chasing Allen, was a foul."
• Dan Duggan of the Boston Herald: "Von Wafer may not play a minute this postseason. But the fact that he’s been in uniform for the Celtics for their first two playoff games against the Knicks signifies a major personal accomplishment. Wafer had plenty of baggage when he signed a non-guaranteed, one-year contract for the veteran’s minimum last summer. The 25-year-old shooting guard was out of the NBA last season and knew he was running out of chances. Wafer didn’t know what to expect when he signed with the C’s, but he wanted the opportunity to prove he could be a contributor on a winning team. With the Celtics stacked with talent and experience, it didn’t look like Wafer would get much of a chance to make an impression. But through every checkpoint, Wafer remained. He earned one of the last roster spots out of training camp, stuck around after Delonte West was activated from his 10-game, season-opening suspension and survived the January deadline when non-guaranteed contracts become guaranteed for the season. 'I don’t think people thought that I could last here and I stayed,' Wafer said. 'Hopefully I answered a lot of questions. I feel like I did well. I feel like I could have done better, but I think I did good.' "
• Harvey Araton of The New York Times: "On another red-hot playoff night against the Celtics, Carmelo Anthony was partnered with Ronny Turiaf and Bill Walker, Jared Jeffries and Roger Mason Jr., Melo and his merry band of ornery no-names. And no longer was there any debate over who the Knicks’ leading man would have to be for what nearly turned into one of the greatest nonfinals games in the history of the franchise. Anthony was born for such situations, which began with the bad -- Chauncey Billups out with a strained knee -- and turned into the presumably catastrophic when Amar’e Stoudemire went down with back spasms in the second quarter. ... Until an inspirational win devolved into another deflating defeat, Anthony was Walt Frazier taking the baton from Willis Reed in Game 7 of the 1970 finals. He was Bernard King with fingers taped like a mummy, taking it to the Pistons in a decisive first-round game in 1985. To criticize Anthony on a night when he rang up 42 points, grabbed 17 rebounds and had 6 assists would be a flagrant nitpicking foul. But let us just say that the first two games of his Knicks’ playoff career -- or we should say endgames -- were paradoxical to the point where they could make for a compelling episode of 'The Twilight Zone.' "
• Frank Isola of the New York Daily News: "The ball was in his hands at the end. Then Jeffries' hands. Briefly. D'Antoni can talk about Jeffries being open and Jeffries sure did get loose for the layup that was the last New York basket on this night, the one that put the Knicks ahead 93-92 with just under 20 seconds left. You still have to know whom you're throwing the ball to. Jared Jeffries. At the very end, bitter end, he was the game-changer on Carmelo's night. When Anthony was walking with Knick giants, and legends. Until things went wrong in Boston again. Until the ball was out of his hands and into Jared Jeffries, on its way to Kevin Garnett. 'I thought we played great,' Anthony said in a quiet voice that seemed to end up on the floor in front of him the way the game had. The Knicks could not win the last minute on Sunday night, could not win the last minute Tuesday night. They have shown they have it in them, even down two stars, to play with the Celtics in the playoffs. They just can't beat them."
• Bill Plaschke of the Los Angeles Times: "In a hotel ballroom Tuesday, Lamar Odom received his NBA sixth man award amid a hooting standing ovation from his teammates. On his new reality show, Odom is scolded by his wife about being too loyal to his best friend. In an emotional acceptance speech Tuesday, Odom spoke with passion and strength about the selflessness that led to the honor. On his new reality show, Odom is ridiculed by his brother-in-law for not making the All-Star team. Everyone contends that neither the Lakers nor one of their most important players suffered during the making -- and now, showing -- of the cheesy series about the married life of an NBA star and a D-League celebrity. But, still, one shaky game into the postseason, you have to wonder whether the 'Khloe & Lamar' show is working out a lot better for Khloe than Lamar. 'People always want to make something out of nothing,' said Khloe Kardashian, rolling her eyes. 'People want to make this out to be a distraction, but it's not.' ... After watching Odom accept his award Tuesday, Khloe told me emphatically, 'The show has been therapy for Lamar. It's been a real release.' There was once a time when therapy involved only a closed door and a couch, but in today's reality, that's old news. While Odom's sixth man award was a tribute to his ability to escape the bench, he hasn't been so lucky with the Kardashians."
• Josh Robbins of the Orlando Sentinel: "The Orlando Magic may have saved their season Tuesday night. And to do it, they relied on a tried-and-true formula: an improved defense, a critical hustle play by Jameer Nelson and a 48-minute dose of Dwight Howard. Riding another Herculean performance by their all-star center, the Magic outlasted the Atlanta Hawks 88-82 in an intense, emotional Game 2 to even their first-round series at one game apiece. 'This one to me came down to one thing for us,' Magic coach Stan Van Gundy said. 'We played extremely hard.' No one more than Howard. With his parents and son watching from the Amway Center stands, Howard played the entire game, scored 33 points and collected 19 rebounds. Van Gundy asked him three or four times if he needed to take a take a seat on the bench, and Howard invariably responded, 'Keep playing.' "
• Jeff Schultz of The Atlanta Journal-Constitution: "They won game one and threw a scare into Orlando in game two. Forget the odds. Forget the mood swings of the regular season. Forget the part of you that says, 'I don’t like this team. I don’t trust this team. They’re going nowhere.' The Hawks didn’t guarantee themselves a playoff series upset with their performances in Orlando. But they certainly sent a message in game two that game one wasn’t a fluke. After winning the series opener Saturday, they led the heavily favored and desperate Magic by as much as 10 points in the second quarter, fizzled, fell behind by 14 in the fourth, looked dead and then showed the fight and resiliency that too often was missing this season to pull to within two at 78-76 with two minutes left. In the end, they ran out of gasps and spasms, losing 88-82 Tuesday night. But Orlando walked off their home court with their hearts nearly jumping out of their chest -- and this time Jameer Nelson didn’t make a stop to make a crack about catching Chicago in the second round."
• Eddie Sefko of The Dallas Morning News: "The Mavericks have done what a lot of people didn’t think they could. They have conquered demons. They have played physical and been the better team doing so. They have scored at crunch time without relying on their jump shooting. They even exorcised Danny Crawford. But mostly, they proved to everybody, including themselves, that they can act like a highly seeded playoff team and take charge of a playoff series. They did that with a 101-89 victory Tuesday night against the Portland Trail Blazers to take a 2-0 lead in the best-of-7 first-round series. It’s not over. The Mavericks are only halfway to advancing to the next round, but they held home court at American Airlines Center and head to Portland for Games 3 and 4 with plenty of confidence. The Mavericks played gritty defense, often forcing the Blazers deep into the shot clock before they could get a good look at the rim. In the fourth quarter, the Blazers were 4-of-10 from the field and were outscored by 11."
• Jason Quick of The Oregonian: "Brandon Roy, the face of the franchise, had to fight off tears. The urge to break down came in the first half of the Blazers' 101-89 defeat to the Mavericks. It was in part because of the humiliation of being the Blazers' last substitute, chosen to play after Nicolas Batum, Rudy Fernandez, and even Patty Mills. ... All told, the three-time All-Star played a scoreless 7:59, missed his only shot from the field, missed both of his free throws, and made one turnover. 'There was a point in the first half, and I was thinking 'You better not cry,' ' Roy said. 'I mean, serious. I mean, there was a moment where I felt really sorry for myself. Then I was like, nah, you can't be sorry for yourself. I'm a grown man, but there was a moment there that I felt sorry for myself. Especially when I think I can still help.' Roy was one of the first players to leave the locker room, but when he was stopped in the hallway, the hurt and confusion were still evident. 'I'd be lying if I said I wasn't a little hurt, or disappointed,'' Roy said. 'But the biggest thing is to keep moving, to try and keep my spirits up. But it's tough man. I just …. I just always thought I would be treated better. That was a little disappointing for me.' Earlier in the day, Roy said he is frustrated that people think his biggest obstacles are his knees. His knees, which were both operated on in January, feel good, he says. It is his mental game that needs work, Roy says."
• Tom Sorensen of The Charlotte Observer: "As Chris Paul led the New Orleans Hornets to an upset road victory against the Los Angeles Lakers Sunday, you had to consider the obvious: What would it take to coax him to Charlotte? Luck? A maximum contract? Paul likes to bowl. In Matthews, there's AMF Carolina Lanes. Change it to AMF Wake Forest Lanes. Paul is a Deacon. Paul has one more season after this one on his contract. Then he's free. He told Mike Cranston of The Associated Press that returning to N.C. to play for Michael Jordan's Charlotte Bobcats 'would definitely be something to think about.' Via Twitter, Paul backed away from the statement. He, after all, is gainfully employed by New Orleans, and he's not allowed to be disloyal or distracted. If he's not great again tonight when his team plays the Lakers, his team doesn't win. ... The trend is to be one of the many. LeBron James and Chris Bosh joined Dwayne Wade in Miami. Anthony joined Amare Stoudemire in New York. But isn't there also appeal in being one of the few? The Bobcats have no tradition. They wear orange. One time they made the playoffs. One time they had an all-star. Some nights people buy tickets to watch them play. If Paul showed up, he'd be the savior. He'd give Jordan credibility as an NBA owner and Charlotte a reason to care. He'd be saluted locally and nationally for having the guts to go his own way. Instead of being part of a trend, he'd start one."
• Jonathan Feigen of the Houston Chronicle: "Daryl Morey indicated there will be many changes. Though Rick Adelman, 64, often spoke of a lack of stability in his four seasons, with only Luis Scola and Chuck Hayes remaining from his first Rockets team, Morey spoke of the perils of standing pat. Rather than tweak the roster as Adelman likely favored, he said he would continue to aggressively seek changes. 'The mistakes that are done across the league are teams that stabilize on a foundation that wins you games and maybe preserves jobs, but they're not making the tough choices with either players or in other areas that give you the change you need to get you where you want to be,' Morey said. 'There's going to be change coming -- more change. We believe in the plan. The plan is to try to continue to bring in quality players who are improving versus declining … and continue to work to use trades. 'We're going to be a team that's young and improving, and we're going to be a team that tries to trade our way to improvement. At the end of the day, judge that. If you're ready to judge that we're already not sort of executing on the plan, that's fine. We're going to continue to execute on it until it works. Stability is a factor in teams that win the championship. But if you stabilize on a team that's going to end up short of that, then all you're doing is spinning your wheels in the 45-win range.' Morey would not discuss what he will seek in the next coach, saying the priorities have not been finalized. Though he spoke with Rockets assistants Jack Sikma and Elston Turner, no interviews have been scheduled with any candidates. Turner through his agent, withdrew his name from consideration Tuesday."
• Jerry Zgoda of the Star Tribune: "Six days have gone by since the Timberwolves' 17-victory season ended and no word yet on the future of Kurt Rambis. Don't hold your breath. This thing probably will stretch on into next week at least. David Kahn left on Thursday for league meetings in New York and now I believe he's back home in Portland for much of this week. I'm not sure if he and Rambis have met yet to discuss the future, other than the exit meetings with players that they held together last week. Much like how the Kevin McHale decision played out over days and weeks the last time, I expect this one to end with word that Rambis and his staff wont be back. But you never know ... At issue still is whether Glen Taylor is willing to pay Rambis $4 million to go away and then pay a new coach quite possibly well more than Rambis was making with a lockout looming. Either way, it's not right to let a guy who has eight NBA title rings back in his drawer at home to twist in the wind like this."
• Vincent Goodwill of The Detroit News: "Tayshaun Prince and Ben Wallace are used to being in the thick of things come the postseason. But, minutes after what could be their last game together with the Pistons, Prince wondered aloud about how he, Wallace and Richard Hamilton would be remembered. 'When guys leave on top, it's a different scenario,' said Prince, who is an unrestricted free agent, while Wallace could retire and Hamilton is likely to be traded. 'A scenario like this, where things are on a downturn, I don't know how people will perceive us.' The usually stoic Prince hopes fans won't allow the bad taste of this season, where the internal drama was matched only by losing 52 games, to sully the good memories of the past eight seasons."
• Paul Coro of The Arizona Republic: "Suns forward Grant Hill was elected to the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame ... Board of Governors. Hill will be considered for hall election as a player after retirement, and it will not hurt his case that he became the first active player to sit on the Hall of Fame's board. Hill will serve a three-year term on a board chaired by Jerry Colangelo, who remains the chairman of the Suns. 'It is truly an honor to be elected as a member of the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame Board of Governors and to represent the living history of basketball,' Hill said in a statement. 'It is important for the current generation of players to get involved with the Hall to help recognize the greatest in the game who have gone before us.' The board governs the Hall of Fame and its election process, raises revenue and aims to increase awareness."
• Doug Smith of the Toronto Star "I believe, and it’s a commonly held opinion among most coaches I’ve talked to, that a rotation of three bigs is optimal with a fourth ready to fill in when the inevitable injuries occur. So, if you’ve got Bargnani and Davis and Johnson and have some thoughts of bringing Reggie back, where’s there room for Mr. X? Does it mean no Reggie? Does it mean Bargnani gets dealt? Or how about Amir being traded? Someone’s got to go if Bryan’s going to do what he says must be done. One thing I wonder, though? Given his basketball instincts, and the fact there’s still room to put some muscle on his growing body, does Ed Davis grow into some defensive presence? Is that possible? We know he’s already a pretty good help side defender and we’ve seen him rebound the ball effectively and, with 15 or so more pounds on his frame, is that something he can do? Guess time will tell; trouble is, they don’t have an abundance of time."
• Frank Zicarelli of the Toronto Sun: "The man known as Smitty [Steve Smith] is right. What he didn’t say, but something many are saying behind closed doors, is that the Tim Donaghy cloud still hovers over the league, whether the NBA wants to admit to it or not. Of course mistakes will be made, shots that should drop hit iron, matchups that should be exploited are not because of poor coaching, there’s a myriad situations that could go either way. The NBA’s current rules do not allow for instant replay to review whether a player committed goaltending. It should and Perkins’ flagrant goaltending must serve as the catalyst for change. The bottom line is the NBA had an opportunity to at least trigger a dialogue that would lead to something tangible. All it did was reveal its insecurity and vulnerability. The play in question began with a missed Russell Westbrook jumper, which followed with Perkins’ hand going through the net and then outside the rim for the tap-in. 'Although a player is permitted to touch the net while the ball is in the cylinder above the rim, Perkins also touched the ball while it was still in the cylinder which is a violation and constitutes goaltending,' the NBA said in its statement. What the statement didn’t say is that the league is still troubled by the Donaghy fall-out."
• Ailene Voisin of The Sacramento Bee: "I was off for a few days, but it's impossible to stay away from this Kings situation, especially with relocation chairman Clay Bennett and NBA legal consultant Harvey Benjaming coming to Sacramento Thursday and Friday. While there has been considerable angst about Stern's selection of Bennett to head the committee - this is owner who moved the Sonics from Seattle to Oklahoma City in 2008 after all -- I would just say this: Stern is too smart to be so obvious. He is also an attorney. If he wanted to simply rubber stamp the Kings' relocation to Anaheim or elsewhere, he would have put someone other than Bennett to lead the study. And he never would have agreed to extending the deadline to May 2. Just my opinion. Just too logical."
• Bob Finnan of The News-Herald: "The good news is the Cavaliers' 3.93 average television rating was the seventh-best in the NBA. The bad news? The Sports Business Journal reported the Cavs experienced a 54-percent drop on Fox Sports Ohio, the biggest yearly ratings decrease in at least seven years. The Cavs were the local ratings leader in 2009-10 in the NBA. The Cavs' huge drop can be traced to their 19-63 record and the loss of two-time MVP LeBron James in free agency. A Cavs spokesman looked at the positive aspect of the story. 'We feel great that our ratings are clearly in the top tier of the league,' he said. ... Even though the Cavs' TV ratings are down, they are quick to point out there is still considerable interest in the team. They are ranked in the top 10 in the league in website traffic for cavs.com, and they are in the top five in social media elements."

Often home to the defensive play-caller, inside linebackers have numerous responsibilities on every down. While they're usually not involved in pass rushing, these players are depended upon to stop the run, as well as drop back into coverage at times. But with responsibility comes opportunity, and elite players such as Ray Lewis, Brian Urlacher and Patrick Willis have blossomed into superstars because or their superior play in the middle. In the 29th installment of the Draft Dose series, PFW looks at five teams who are in need of an inside linebacker:

Broncos

There will be some changes to the linebacking corps, as the Broncos switch to a 4-3 defensive scheme under head coach John Fox and defensive coordinator Dennis Allen. The team's most productive linebacker, D.J. Williams, is slated to move to the weak side, where he will have more room to roam and make plays. That leaves Mario Haggan, who played outside in 2010, and LBs Wesley Woodyard and Joe Mays, who were primarily reserves last season. Depending on how the draft shakes out, the Broncos could add an inside 'backer anytime after the second round. Free agency is an option, as well.

Buccaneers

The Bucs are a team that may or may not be in search of a middle linebacker, depending on what happens with free agent Barrett Ruud. He has been a dominant force in the middle for the past four seasons, recording more than 100 tackles in each of those years. Ruud has wanted a long-term contract for the past few seasons but Tampa Bay has been unwilling to extend one to him. The labor negotiations will determine if Ruud becomes a restricted or unrestricted free agent, but if he doesn't return the Bucs will be in dire need of a replacement.

Cardinals

The Cardinals have a decent option at inside linebacker with Paris Lenon, but are lacking both depth and an experienced player opposite him in their 3-4 defense. Gerald Hayes was ineffective last season after missing time because of surgery on his back. Daryl Washington, a second-round pick in 2010, started 11 games as a rookie and could stay in the starting lineup if Arizona doesn't add anyone at the position. Whether it's a starter or reserve, Arizona needs to add an inside linebacker or two to address a serious need for depth at the position.

Chiefs

Like the Cardinals, Kansas City is happy with one of its inside linebackers — Derrick Johnson — but could use help opposite him. While Johnson's total of 121 tackles last season was by far a career high, ILB Jovan Belcher did not come close to matching those numbers. Belcher's ineffectiveness meant more work for Johnson, who was left to shed more blockers than he might have had to do playing alongside a more productive player. Taking an inside linebacker in the draft could be the Chiefs' best option, as a young, athletic player would seem to fit the bill.

Jaguars

After being acquired in a trade with the Raiders, Kirk Morrison was the starting middle linebacker in Jacksonville last season, but he wasn't overly impressive in 16 starts. He will become a free agent regardless of how the Collective Bargaining Agreement is worked out and is not likely to return. The Jags seem to be set in the middle of the defensive line with DTs Tyson Alualu and Terrance Knighton and the team doesn't want to see its work wasted by poor play at the MLB spot. Without much depth to speak of at the position, middle linebacker is a major area of need for the Jaguars.

As this is the last Good, Bad and Ugly for the season, we're going to be doing things a little bit differently.  We'll be taking a look at the Good and Bad of the year, and then introducing the Greenies, the second annual StR awards for you guys, the commenter.  Because this site just wouldn't be the same without you.

The Good:

1. Here We Stay

Back when a few of us started Here We Stay back in September, none us imagined how big it could get.  It couldn't have happened without all your help, without the help of people like the Rise Guys and others in the media who got the word out there.  Whatever happens, I'm proud to have been a part of this movement.

This will forever be one of my favorite memories:

2. Marcus Thornton

See Player of the Year

3. Boogie Fever

DeMarcus Cousins has had an up-and-down Rookie season to be sure, but he has also shown us the immense talent and skill at his disposal.  He didn't set any historic marks like Tyreke did (although his 699 rebounds sets a Sacramento Rookie Record, beating Lionel Simmons), and he won't win Rookie of the Year, but he has the potential to be the best player on this team for years to come.  No other player on this team has grown as much on the court from Game 1 to Game 82 as DMC did.

What does DMC need to do in the offseason? The only thing I think he needs to work on is conditioning and strength training.  He's got so much skill already, he just needs to be able to last longer on the court.

4. Jason Thompson Is Finally Becoming Consistent, on Both Ends

While his numbers are relatively similar to his career numbers, JT has improved quite a bit in my eyes.  His shot is becoming more consistent, he's much more patient around the basket, and he's making a lot of effort on defense, especially with his team defense.  JT has been jerked around in the rotation just as much as some other guys, but he's the only one who has been able to respond each time and remain somewhat consistent.  He's finally settling into a solid role as 3rd big and with more improvement on the defensive end, he can still be a valuable piece of this team's future.

5. Nobody Expects the Yeti

Beno improved on his career year last year by having another career year.  His FG% went up to exactly 50%, 3rd in the entire league among Point Guards behind only Tony Parker and Ty Lawson and he had a solid A:TO ratio of 2.7:1.  To put it simply, Beno was our most consistent and efficient player all year.  While he was below average as a starter, off the bench, he's more than ideal.

6. Haitian Sensation

Dalembert has turned into a must-keep piece for me.  His rebounding and defense have been outstanding, and ever since coming back into the starting lineup paired with DeMarcus, he's been averaging a double-double.  Dalembert does have his issues to be sure (namely turnovers and iffy decisions on offense, which usually lead to the former), but he has proven very valuable to this team.  If the Kings do not re-sign Dalembert, I believe that will be a big step back for an already weak defensive team.  Having a shotblocker like Dalembert is not just good for against other teams, but also in practice.

7. Darnell Jackson/Pooh Jeter/Jermaine Taylor

These three guys didn't play all that much this year, but each of them had their moments.  Darnell always came in and played tough.  Pooh excited us with his quickness and Bobby Jackson-esque pull-up jumper.  Jermaine thrilled us with his explosiveness.  The future of these players with the Kings is unknown, but they definitely deserve to remain in the NBA.  

8. Great End to the Season and Props to Coach Westphal

Unlike last year where the Kings got off to a good start and then finished with a whimper, these Kings seemed re-invigorated by the acquisition of Marcus Thornton and ended the season on a tear, going 9-9 in their last 18 games.  That's the kind of momentum that hopefully carries into next season.  It's telling to me that Coach Westphal was able to do much more with the roster when he had more talent on it (Addition of Thornton + Healthy Tyreke).  Westphal might not be the best coach out there, but he's no slouch either and I think he's done the best with what he has, especially given all the distractions he's had.  The true test will come next season however, to see what he does with this roster for a full year, as well as possible FA additions.

The Bad:

1. The Whole Relocation Mess

This ongoing drama has been a sad story to follow.  It looks (to me and many others) that the Maloofs are done with Sacramento and really want to go to Anaheim.  They offered very little warning as to their intentions and made little effort to work with groups here.

But this isn't over yet.  I'm taking the news of this May 2nd extension as good news, because its yet another delay it what has been made out to be an inevitable outcome.  Perhaps it still is, but I still have hope that Sacramento will keep its team, with or without the Maloofs (Got Burkle?).

2. Tyreke Evans Gimpy Sophomore Season

I think its safe to say that Tyreke Evans season was one of the bigger disappointments of this year.  After last year's 20-5-5 campaign, we all expected great things from Evans, especially after hearing reports that his jump shot had become much smoother.  But whatever progress Evans had made was slowed down drastically by the Plantar Fasciitis he played with for the majority of the season.  Combined with the fact that opposing defenses focused all their attention on him, his production went down across the board, most noticeably in his FG%.  He also lost a bit of his aggressiveness, taking less shots at the rim and more jumpers.

Thankfully, he is now pain and Plantar Fasciitis free since returning from injury.  Tyreke has started to look much more like the rookie we all fell in love with, and a lot of hard work this offseason could help him make the kind of leap other third year guards like Derrick Rose and Russell Westbrook did.  The worst case scenario however is that we have an OJ Mayo situation on our hands, but I don't think that's the case.  Reke is a special talent, and I look forward to seeing what a healthy Reke brings to the table next year.

3. Carl Landry Was Not What We Thought He Was

After last year's trade for Carl, many of us, myself included, thought it was highly possible that Landry could be our Power Forward of the future.  That simply was not the case.  While Landry was still a solid scorer, his already awful rebounding plummeted even further to be among the worst on the team, guards included.  He took more jump shots than ever before and his efficiency hurt as a result.  It became exceedingly clear that Landry, while a good player, was not part of this teams future, especially with the acquisitions of DeMarcus Cousins and Samuel Dalembert.  I'm glad Carl landed in a good situation in New Orleans.  Best of luck to him in the playoffs and during his upcoming Free Agency.

4. Terrible Start to the Season

Before the season, many of us hoped that this team would be able to take advantage of one of the easier schedules in the league for the first few months to get off to a good start.  When the Kings started 3-1, their best start in years, I was thrilled, thinking that finally this was our year to come back.  But it was all downhill from there as the Kings dropped game after game, winning just 3 of their next 25 games.  2010 was not a good year for Sacramento.  Things turned around a bit after the New Year, with the team doubling their win total in January alone, but that terrible start was a season killer.  

5. Hassan Whiteside's Non-Season

When we drafted Hassan Whiteside at #33 this year, this was my exact reaction on the Draft Thread:

LOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOL... We just drafted Thabeet, with the 33rd pick.  And an offensive game.

I LOVED the Whiteside pick.  Coming out of College, this guy was an elite shotblocker and he had a better offensive game than I thought.  During the draft workout that I watched him at (with other guys like Udoh, Aldrich, Orton, and Ryan Richards) he was the guy I came away most impressed with.

Summer League only added to my hype watching him get up so high to block shots that he blocked them with his wrist.  But then he got injured and missed most of preseason, barely getting any time with the team.  His only action all season was a 2 minute stint in the opener in which he had to leave with 2 quick fouls.

He was sent to Reno, and while he started out well, and was leading the D-League in Block Rate, he slowly but surely started to see a big minutes decrease, with more hints of the attitude problems that caused his draft stock to drop in the first place.  With Hassan not even getting playing time in the D-League, the Kings called him back up so they could work with him.

But even that was short lived as Hassan injured his knee and would need surgery, keeping him out of practice for the rest of the year and possibly even into next year.  I have lost much of the hope I once had for him.  We'll see what happens next year.

6. Antoine Wright/Luther Head

Neither of these players were meant to be anything more than a stopgap option in the backcourt, but it still stung that the Kings chose not to go after a more solid option in an offseason where they had plenty of cap space and there were quality FA signees to be had at those positions, like Anthony Morrow, Ronnie Brewer, Tony Allen or Dorell Wright.  Those players signed for decent contracts and would've filled a need here.  Neither Wright or Head lasted the season with the Kings.

7. The Small Forward Position

If anything emerged as a big weakness this year, it had to be the Small Forward position, especially after the acquisition of Marcus Thornton solidified our backcourt.  Before the season, the SF position was up for grabs between Omri and Donté.  One finished season later, and we still have no answer at the position.  Omri failed to improve on the defensive end, and his FG% took a bit of a hit, and Donté had a bad offseason training to be a PF when he should have instead been working on his shot, resulting in his 3P% dropping by 8% and FG% by 4%.  Cisco has been our most consistent performer, but he shot his lowest percentage from the field and downtown in 4 years, as well as missing significant amount of time due to injury.  

Something has to change, and it likely won't rely on these players getting better, but instead a new player coming in.

Player of the Year:

Marcus Thornton

21.3 PPG, .450 FG%, .361 3P%, 4.7 RPG, 3.4 APG, 1.7 STL

When the Kings traded for Marcus Thornton, most of us were intrigued.  But I don't think any of us expected this.  Ever since his arrival the team has been playing much better, he has hit numerous shots in crunch time, and carried the team to victory on more than one occasion.  He was known purely as a scorer in New Orleans but he's shown he's been able to do it all, from rebounding to passing, and he's even a better defender than he was made out to be.  Acquiring Marcus balanced the roster; This team needed a perimeter scoring threat so that teams wouldn't just clog the lane against Tyreke and DeMarcus.  Marcus brought that consistently and much more.  He is without a doubt the best scorer on the team and a must-keep piece for the future. 

Comment of the Week:

First stern was all like

Then he was all like:

by Jacob.G on Apr 14, 2011 2:00 PM PDT reply actions   30 recs

GIF of the Week:

I had to post this one for you guys

by Mike Prada on Apr 14, 2011 1:44 PM PDT reply actions   28 recs

Highlight of the Year:

Caption Contest:

Link to Last Week's Picture

Last Week's Winner: andy sims

Samuel Dalembert and Chuck Hayes Performance Art Theatre Presents:

TWO GIRAFFES FUCKING

Last Week's Runner-Up: kfipp

Sammy: "Right foot on green?! Are you f’ing serious!? Wait, why is no one else playing twister?

Lottery Projection and Draft Prediction:

Final Lottery Position: 5th

Chance at #1 Pick: 7.6%

Draft Prediction #1:  If the Kings get into the top 3, they will keep the pick and take one of Kyrie Irving or Derrick Williams.

Draft Prediction #2: If the Kings do not move up in the draft it is my belief that they will trade the pick for a proven player, probably at the SF position.

And Nostradumbass's Predictions:

40-42 for the year so not a good year for Nostradumbass, who would have been 58-24 by simply predicting a loss for every game, but where is the fun in that?

The Greenies:

And now the moment you guys have been waiting for, the 2nd Annual StR Greenies.  

1. The StR Fanpost (Drama) of the Year:

Little Boys, Big Sacramento Kings Dreams by Stefanie Norlin-Lund

This post says all I want to and more about why I want to keep this team in Sacramento.  For many of us, this is so much more than just basketball.

Runner-Up:

What We Talk About When We Talk About Ron by rbiegler

Biegler hits this one out of the park, with his best post to date.  That's saying something.

2. The StR Fanpost (Analytical) of the Year:

Why Martin For Landry Was a Fair Trade by SPTSJUNKIE

While some (myself included) still feel that the Martin for Landry trade was terrible (in and of itself, not taking into account the fact that we ended up with Marcus Thornton), SPTSJUNKIE does a great job analyzing why the trade might not have been as lopsided as it seems and I have to give credit where credit is due.

Runner-Up:

Big Men Scoring Vs. Assist Rate by HighTops

Coach Tops does it again with some great analysis on how the Kings don't feed their big men down low for easy scores nearly enough.

3. The StR Fanpost (Game Recap) of the Year:

My meeting with NBA Royalty: The Bill Walton Story by Muff209

Our friend Muff tells us about his meeting with Bill Walton, great champion.

Runner-Up:

17,890 people at the Honda Center for the NCAA Tournament and who do I bump into? by SactownheartOChouse

Any story where you meet and have a converstation with Geoff Petrie is a great story in my mind.

4. The StR Fanpost (Comedy) of the Year:

Carl Landry: World Traveler by Aykis16

I may have started this FanPost, but it wouldn't have been nearly as funny without all you guys participating.  It also led to some other fun spin-offs on Omri, JT, Hassan, Beno, and Cisco. 

Runner-Up:

Tyreke Evans: Spokesperson for Mercedes Benz* by Slam_Dunk

Some quality satire here by SD.

5. The StR Game Thread of the Year

"The Shot" 12/29/10 v. Grizzlies (Venomy Snicket sneaked in a not "Green'd" comment a month later at the very end. Go in there and ruin his fun by making it "Green")

Runner-Up:

Here We Stay Night I 2/28/11 v. Clippers

6. The Xinyue75777 Troll of the Year

This award goes to the commenter who only has one purpose and fulfills that purpose like no other.

And the Greeny goes to:

cowboyron96@yahoo.com

Nobody... NOBODY knows exactly what the Kings need to do better than cowboyron.

Step 1: fire westfall

Step 2: Trade Cisco for someone who shots

Step 3: Rise the Hot Hand!

Runner-Up: 

kingstalkingpoints

He has a blog, which I will not link to for fear that someone may actually click on it.  He's alternatively pessimistic and elitist.  Nobody's viewpoint but his is right.  Check out this thread for Ziller's epic smackdown of said troll.

7. The Comment of the Year

This award goes to the most profound, or funniest comment of the year.

And the Greeny goes to:

F*ck this

We have worked hard all day and we have accomplished soooo much. I’m not ready to give up for this. We knew they would likely file before the 28th but that shouldn’t change our plans. Here We Stay is more than just an effort to build a new arena, we are now a community of people working their asses off to fight for what WE believe in.

I’ve said it too many times today, but I’m damn proud of being a Sacramento Kings fan. People have been working twitter like it’s nobody’s business all day. We have gotten endorsements from most bloggers around the country. Our story made it to the front page of Yahoo. I can bet anyone that there’s less than 1,000 tickets left for Monday’s game. And WE all did that.

One last stand, guys. If anyone is still willing, let’s just go down swinging. I know I will feel much better, no matter the outcome, after doing what was in my power to fight for what I believe in. If they’re gone, then they’re gone, but WE should all keep our heads held high because WE did the right thing and WE didn’t just sat and let it happen.

I can’t lie, I was also deflated as hell (probably still am), but if we all get down then not only is the team doomed, but our efforts will go to waste. I’m willing to be the idiot that will keep going. Anyone out there still willing to be an idiot with me?

"Children want what they want when they want it." ... Andy Sims

by edm7 on Feb 21, 2011 10:00 PM PST  actions   14 recs

8. The StR Photoshop of the Year

This award goes to the best display of fake imagery of the year.

And the Greeny goes to:

by Anton on Aug 25, 2010 8:57 AM PDT actions   22 recs

9. The Everybody Dance Post-Game Thread Gif of the Year

This award goes to the Post-Game Thread Gif that received the most recs all year.

And the Greeny goes to (we might have to re-name this award after Chen):

Your Sacramento KINGS!

by chenp22 on Jan 6, 2011 10:21 PM PST actions   62 recs

Runner-Up #1:

KINGS WIN...

by chenp22 on Jan 28, 2011 10:08 PM PST actions   58 recs

Runner-Up #2:

SACRAMENTO Kings WIN ZOMG #HEREWESTAY

by chenp22 on Feb 23, 2011 6:43 PM PST actions   34 recs

Runner-Up #3:

by DiegoKing on Mar 14, 2011 9:47 PM PDT reply actions   20 recs

Runner-Up #4:

by chenp22 on Apr 7, 2011 1:27 AM PDT up reply actions   19 recs

10. The Best Natting Meme of the Year

This award goes to the meme that lasted the longest and was most used and recognized by StR users throughout the year.

And the Greeny goes to:

Rise the Hot Hand! started as a typo by cowboyron96@yahoo.com and has since been used probably every day on this site.

Runner-Up:

Mickey Mouse Sucks by ivan209 in this thread.  Basically this meme helps vent frustration at Anaheim by showing various bad things happening to Mickey Mouse, like getting punched in the face by Doug Christie, or posterized by Tyreke Evans.  Fun stuff.

11. The Dejan Bodiroga Foreign StR Commenter of the Year

This award goes to the best poster on StR from another blog, and can at times be considered one of us.

And the Greeny goes to:

Evan Dunlap, editor of Orlando Pinstriped Post.  Evan has gone out of his way to help spread the "Here We Stay" word out on his blog as well as on Twitter, and for that I applaud him.  Thank you Evan.

Runner-Up:

Xiane, a Houston Rockets fan and member of the Dream Shake.  Xiane is last year's winner and is still a gentleman and a scholar.

12. The StR Nickname of the Year

This award goes to the nickname given to a player by StR that didn't become mainstream but still managed to become an StR favorite.

And the Greeny goes to:

"Red Flags" for DeMarcus Cousins.  No single person can really take credit for this, but section214 was the first to suggest it as a nickname, back before the draft.  Since then its taken off, as the new "NaPG".

Runner-Up:

The Yeti for Beno Udrih.  This actually came from a thread from late last year, with TZ getting credit, but it didn't really catch on till this year.  But thats because Nobody Expects the Yeti.

13. The StR Rookie Commenter of the Year

This award goes to a commenter who joined after the end of the previous season and managed to become a solid contributor and member of the StR community.

And the Greeny goes to:

kfipp (joined 2/20/2011)

Kfipp joined StR late in the season, but ever since joining he has been one of the more active foot soldiers in the Here We Stay and Here We Build movements.  He also made a couple of great videos for Here We Stay Night I and HWS Night II, not to mention the countless awesome photoshops that have since been turned into signs and taken to games.

14. The StR Commenters of the Year:

This award goes to the non-editors who I feel have gone above and beyond as StR commenters and Sacramento Kings fans.

And the Greeny goes to:

1a.  jjham15 for his absolutely amazing work in becoming a pro bono journalist for us.  I met James for the first time this year during Kings media availability day and he was a natural.  Since then he's been to every single Kings home game as a media member, has given us exclusive interviews with players and the coaches, and simply been awesome.  Big ups to James for all his hard work, which he hasn't gotten a cent for.  

1b.  HighTops for his wonderful scouting reports before almost every game.  Even when the season was spinning out of control with talk of relocation and people stopped caring about the individual games as much, HighTops was there every day with a fanpost.  I don't normally comment on them, but I always rec them and thank Coach HT for his insights.  Keep up the good work and hopefully we'll be able to look forward to many more.

1c.  ed_m7, who has taken his job as de facto "Here We Stay" Spirit Bro to the next level.  He has done an amazing job with coordinating efforts for both Here We Stay nights as well as several city council meetings.  Without Ed's unwavering positivity and indomitable spirit, Here We Stay would not have been nearly as successful.

1d. Everyone who donated money, signs or effort to the "Here We Stay" movement.  There are way too many of you to name, but you all should be extremely proud.  Keep up the good work, because this fight isn't over yet.

***

On a personal note, I just want to say thank you to all of you who have read my writing, rec'd my work, and simply been awesome Kings fans.  I'm truly blessed and honored, and this website simply wouldn't be the same without you.  

I want to say another thank you to Tom Ziller for giving me the opportunity over these last couple years to write for such a wonderful site, and I hope that I'll get to continue to do so for many years to come.

Until next year (Here We Stay!), this has been the Good, the Bad and the Ugly.   

TODAY'S TV SCHEDULE

AUTO RACING

6 a.m. Sprint Cup: Aaron's 499 FOX

8 a.m. Indy Lights VERSUS

9:30 a.m. IndyCar: Grand Prix of Long Beach VERSUS

1 p.m. NHRA: 4-Wide Nationals ESPN2

BOWLING

7 a.m. PBA: Dick Weber Playoffs (championship round) ESPN

COLLEGE BASEBALL

7 a.m. Vanderbilt at South Carolina ESPN2

COLLEGE SOFTBALL

10 a.m. Oklahoma at Missouri ESPN

GOLF

3 a.m. European PGA Tour: Malaysian Open (final round) TGC

7 a.m. Champions Tour: Outback Steakhouse Pro-Am (final round) NBC

7 a.m. PGA Tour: Texas Open (final round) TGC

9 a.m. PGA Tour: Texas Open (final round) CBS

1 p.m. Nationwide Tour: Fresh Express Classic (final round) TGC

HORSE RACING

8 a.m. Trackside Live! FOXSP2

MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL

7:30 a.m. Toronto at Boston TBS

8 a.m. L.A. Angels at Chicago White Sox FOXSP

9 a.m. Chicago Cubs at Colorado WGN

10 a.m. St. Louis at L.A. Dodgers FOXSP2

2 p.m. Texas at N.Y. Yankees ESPN

MOTORSPORTS

11 a.m. FIM World Superbike SPEED

NBA BASKETBALL

7 a.m. Western Conference quarters: San Antonio at Memphis (Game 1) TNT

9:30 a.m. Western Conference quarters: New Orleans at L.A. Lakers (Game 1) ABC

1 p.m. Eastern Conference quarters: New York at Boston (Game 1) TNT

3:30 p.m. Western Conference quarters: Denver at Oklahoma City (Game 1) TNT

NHL HOCKEY

9 a.m. Eastern Conference quarters: Washington at New York (Game 3) NBC

2 p.m. Western Conference quarters: Vancouver at Chicago (Game 3) VERSUS

 

MONDAY'S TV SCHEDULE

MAJOR LEAGUE BASEBALL

1 p.m. Milwaukee at Philadelphia ESPN

2 p.m. L.A. Angels at Texas FOXSP

4 p.m. Atlanta at L.A. Dodgers FOXSP2

NBA BASKETBALL

1 p.m. Eastern Conference quarters: Philadelphia at Miami (Game 2) TNT

3:30 p.m. Eastern Conference quarters: Indiana at Chicago (Game 2) TNT

NHL HOCKEY

1 p.m. Eastern Conference quarters: Philadelphia at Buffalo (Game 3) VERSUS

3:30 p.m. Eastern Conference quarters: Pittsburgh at Tampa Bay (Game 3) * VERSUS

4:30 p.m. Western Conference quarters: Detroit at Phoenix (Game 3) VERSUS

 

* Joined in progress

 

SATURDAY'S BIIF RESULTS

BOYS VOLLEYBALL

Varsity

Kealakehe def. Konawaena 25-19, 25-15, 25-19

Hawaii Prep def. Laupahoehoe 25-9, 25-14, 25-9

 

MONDAY'S BIIF SCHEDULE

BOYS VOLLEYBALL

Varsity matches follow 6 p.m. JV matches unless noted below

Waiakea at Christian Liberty, 6 p.m.

Kealakehe at Honokaa

 

HOCKEY

NHL PLAYOFF GLANCE

EASTERN CONFERENCE QUARTERFINALS

Washington vs. New York Rangers

Washington leads series 2-0

Wednesday's result

Washington 2, N.Y. Rangers 1, OT

Friday's result

Washington 2, N.Y. Rangers 0

Today's game

c Washington at N.Y. Rangers, 9 a.m.

Wednesday, April 20

c Washington at N.Y. Rangers, 1 p.m.

Saturday, April 23

c N.Y. Rangers at Washington, 9 a.m. *

Monday, April 25

c Washington at N.Y. Rangers, TBD *

Wednesday, April 27

c N.Y. Rangers at Washington, TBD *

 

Philadelphia vs. Buffalo

Series tied 1-1

Thursday's result

c Buffalo 1, Philadelphia 0

Saturday's result

c Philadelphia 5, Buffalo 4

Monday's game

c Philadelphia at Buffalo, 1 p.m.

Wednesday, April 20

c Philadelphia at Buffalo, 1:30 p.m.

Friday, April 22

c Buffalo at Philadelphia, 1:30 p.m.

Sunday, April 24

c Philadelphia at Buffalo, 9 a.m. *

Tuesday, April 26

c Buffalo at Philadelphia, TBD *

 

Boston vs. Montreal

Montreal leads series 2-0

Thursday's result

c Montreal 2, Boston 0

Saturday's result

Montreal 3, Boston 1

Monday's game

c Boston at Montreal, 1:30 p.m.

Thursday, April 21

c Boston at Montreal, 1 p.m.

Saturday, April 23

c Montreal at Boston, 1 p.m. *

Tuesday, April 26

c Boston at Montreal, TBD *

Wednesday, April 27

c Montreal at Boston TBD *

 

Tampa Bay vs. Pittsburgh

Series tied 1-1

Wednesday's result

c Pittsburgh 3, Tampa Bay 0

Friday's result

Tampa Bay 5, Pittsburgh 1

Monday's game

c Pittsburgh at Tampa Bay, 1:30 p.m.

Wednesday, April 20

c Pittsburgh at Tampa Bay, 1 p.m.

Saturday, April 23

c Tampa Bay at Pittsburgh, TBD

Monday, April 25

c Pittsburgh at Tampa Bay, TBD *

Wednesday, April 27

c Tampa Bay at Pittsburgh, TBD *

 

WESTERN CONFERENCE QUARTERFINALS

Vancouver vs. Chicago

Vancouver leads series 2-0

Wednesday's result

c Vancouver 2, Chicago 0

Friday's result

Vancouver 4, Chicago 3

Today's game

c Vancouver at Chicago, 2 p.m.

Tuesday's game

c Vancouver at Chicago, 2 p.m.

Thursday, April 21

c Chicago at Vancouver, 4 p.m. *

Sunday, April 24

c Vancouver at Chicago, 1:30 p.m. *

Tuesday, April 26

c Chicago at Vancouver, TBD *

 

San Jose vs. Los Angeles

Series tied 1-1

Thursday's result

c San Jose 3, Los Angeles 2, OT

Saturday's result

Los Angeles 4, San Jose 0

Tuesday's game

c San Jose at Los Angeles, 4:30 p.m.

Thursday, April 21

c San Jose at Los Angeles, 4:30 p.m.

Saturday, April 23

c Los Angeles at San Jose, 4:30 p.m. *

Monday, April 25

c San Jose at Los Angeles, TBD *

Wednesday, April 27

c Los Angeles at San Jose, TBD *

 

Detroit 1, Phoenix 0

Detroit leads series 2-0

Wednesday's result

c Detroit 4, Phoenix 2

Saturday's result

c Detroit 4, Phoenix 3

Monday's game

c Detroit at Phoenix, 4:30 p.m.

Wednesday, April 20

c Detroit at Phoenix, 4:30 p.m.

Friday, April 22

c Phoenix at Detroit, 1 p.m. *

Sunday, April 24

c Detroit at Phoenix, TBD *

Wednesday, April 27

c Phoenix at Detroit, TBD *

 

Anaheim vs. Nashville

Series tied 1-1

Wednesday's result

c Nashville 4, Anaheim 1

Friday's result

Anaheim 4, Nashville 2

Today's game

c Anaheim at Nashville, noon

Wednesday, April 20

c Anaheim at Nashville, 2:30 p.m.

Friday, April 22

c Nashville at Anaheim, 4 p.m.

Sunday, April 24

c Anaheim at Nashville, TBD *

Tuesday, April 26

c Nashville at Anaheim, TBD *

 

* -- if necessary

 

BASKETBALL

NBA PLAYOFF GLANCE

EASTERN CONFERENCE QUARTERFINALS

Chicago vs. Indiana

Chicago leads series 1-0

Saturday's result

Chicago 104, Indiana 99

Monday's game

c Indiana at Chicago, 3:30 p.m.

Thursday, April 21

c Chicago at Indiana, 1 p.m.

Saturday, April 23

c Chicago at Indiana, 8:30 a.m.

Tuesday, April 26

c Indiana at Chicago, TBD *

Thursday, April 28

c Chicago at Indiana, TBD *

Saturday, April 30

c Indiana at Chicago, TBD *

 

Miami vs. Philadelphia

Miami leads series 1-0

Saturday's result

c Miami 97, Philadelphia 89

Monday's game

c Philadelphia at Miami, 1 p.m.

Thursday, April 21

c Miami at Philadelphia, 2 p.m.

Sunday, April 24

c Miami at Philadelphia, 7 a.m.

Wednesday, April 27

c Philadelphia at Miami, TBD *

Friday, April 29

c Miami at Philadelphia, TBD *

Sunday, May 1

c Philadelphia at Miami, TBD *

 

Boston vs. New York

Series tied 0-0

Today's game

c New York at Boston, 1 p.m.

Tuesday's game

c New York at Boston, 1 p.m.

Friday, April 22

c Boston at New York, 1 p.m.

Sunday, April 24

c Boston at New York, 9:30 a.m.

Tuesday, April 26

c New York at Boston, TBD *

Friday, April 29

c Boston at New York, TBD *

Sunday, May 1

c New York at Boston, TBD *

 

Orlando vs. Atlanta

Atlanta leads series 1-0

Saturday's result

Atlanta 103, Orlando 93

Tuesday's game

c Atlanta at Orlando, 1:30 p.m.

Friday, April 22

c Orlando at Atlanta, 2 p.m.

Sunday, April 24

c Orlando at Atlanta, 1 p.m.

Tuesday, April 26

c Atlanta at Orlando, TBD *

Thursday, April 28

c Orlando at Atlanta, TBD *

Saturday, April 30

c Atlanta at Orlando, TBD *

 

WESTERN CONFERENCE QUARTERFINALS

San Antonio vs. Memphis

Series tied 0-0

Today's game

c Memphis at San Antonio, 7 a.m.

Wednesday, April 20

c Memphis at San Antonio, 2:30 p.m.

Saturday, April 23

c San Antonio at Memphis, 1:30 p.m.

Monday, April 25

c San Antonio at Memphis, TBD

Wednesday, April 27

c Memphis at San Antonio, TBD *

Friday, April 29

c San Antonio at Memphis, TBD *

Sunday, May 1

c Memphis at San Antonio, TBD *

 

L.A. Lakers vs. New Orleans

Series tied 0-0

Today's game

c New Orleans at L.A. Lakers, 9:30 a.m.

Wednesday, April 20

c New Orleans at L.A. Lakers, 4:30 p.m.

Friday, April 22

c L.A. Lakers at New Orleans, 3:30 p.m.

Sunday, April 24

c L.A. Lakers at New Orleans, 3:30 p.m.

Tuesday, April 26

c New Orleans at L.A. Lakers, TBD *

Thursday, April 28

c L.A. Lakers at New Orleans, TBD *

Saturday, April 30

c New Orleans at L.A. Lakers, TBD *

 

Dallas vs. Portland

Dallas leads series 1-0

Saturday's result

Dallas 89, Portland 81

Tuesday's game

c Portland at Dallas, 3:30 p.m.

Thursday, April 21

c Dallas at Portland, 4:30 p.m.

Saturday, April 23

c Dallas at Portland, 11 a.m.

Monday, April 25

c Portland at Dallas, TBD *

Thursday, April 28

c Dallas at Portland, TBD *

Saturday, April 30

c Portland at Dallas, TBD *

 

Oklahoma City vs. Denver

Series tied 0-0

Today's game

c Denver at Oklahoma City, 3:30 p.m.

Wednesday, April 20

c Denver at Oklahoma City, 2 p.m.

Saturday, April 23

c Oklahoma City at Denver, 4 p.m.

Monday, April 25

c Oklahoma City at Denver, 4:30 p.m.

Wednesday, April 27

c Denver at Oklahoma City, TBD *

Friday, April 29

c Oklahoma City at Denver, TBD *

Sunday, May 1

c Denver at Oklahoma City, TBD *

 

* -- if necessary

 

SOCCER

MLS GLANCE

EASTERN CONFERENCE

W L OT Pts GF GA

Philadelphia 3 1 1 10 4 2

New York 2 1 2 8 5 2

Columbus 2 1 2 8 4 3

D.C. 2 2 1 7 9 8

New England 1 1 3 6 5 6

Toronto FC 1 2 3 6 6 9

Houston 1 1 2 5 5 4

Chicago 1 2 1 4 7 9

Sporting Kansas City 1 2 1 4 8 9

 

WESTERN CONFERENCE

W L T Pts GF GA

Real Salt Lake 4 0 0 12 8 1

Colorado 3 2 0 9 8 6

Los Angeles 2 1 3 9 5 6

Vancouver 1 2 3 6 9 10

Seattle 1 2 3 6 6 7

San Jose 1 2 2 5 5 7

Portland 1 2 1 4 6 8

FC Dallas 1 2 1 4 4 5

Chivas USA 0 2 3 3 3 5

 

NOTE: Three points for victory, one point for tie.

 

Wednesday's results

Toronto FC 0, Los Angeles 0, tie

Real Salt Lake 1, Colorado 0

 

Thursday's result

Portland 4, Chicago 2

 

Saturday's results

Philadelphia 1, Seattle FC 1, tie

Vancouver 0, Chivas USA 0, tie

D.C. United 3, Toronto FC 0

Columbus 1, Sporting Kansas City 0

New York 3, San Jose 0

 

Today's games

Los Angeles at Chicago, 10 a.m.

FC Dallas at Portland, noon

New England at Houston, 1 p.m.

 

TRANSACTIONS

BASEBALL

National League

ATLANTA BRAVES -- Recalled RHP Jairo Asencio from Gwinnett (IL). Optioned C J.C. Boscan to Gwinnett.

NEW YORK METS -- Placed RHP Chris Young on the 15-day DL, retroactive to April 11. Recalled RHP Pat Misch from Buffalo (IL).

HOCKEY

National Hockey League

NHL -- Suspended Anaheim F Bobby Ryan two games for a kicking incident against Nashville D Jonathon Blum during Friday's game against Nashville.

American Hockey League

HARTFORD WHALE -- Signed F Carl Hagelin.

ECHL

ECHL -- Suspended Reading F Olivier Labelle one game and fined him an undisclosed amount for his actions during Friday's game against Kalamazoo.

 

AUTO RACING

AARON'S 499 LINEUP

Saturday qualifying, race today

1. (24) Jeff Gordon, Chevrolet, 178.248 mph.

2. (48) Jimmie Johnson, Chevrolet, 177.844.

3. (5) Mark Martin, Chevrolet, 177.807.

4. (88) Dale Earnhardt Jr., Chevrolet, 177.765.

5. (27) Paul Menard, Chevrolet, 177.702.

6. (09) Landon Cassill, Chevrolet, 177.685.

7. (6) David Ragan, Ford, 177.438.

8. (22) Kurt Busch, Dodge, 177.379.

9. (83) Brian Vickers, Toyota, 177.369.

10. (33) Clint Bowyer, Chevrolet, 177.353.

11. (21) Trevor Bayne, Ford, 177.353.

12. (15) Michael Waltrip, Toyota, 177.317.

13. (42) Juan Pablo Montoya, Chevrolet, 177.182.

14. (00) David Reutimann, Toyota, 177.143.

15. (47) Bobby Labonte, Toyota, 177.12.

16. (43) A J Allmendinger, Ford, 177.087.

17. (16) Greg Biffle, Ford, 177.074.

18. (78) Regan Smith, Chevrolet, 177.061.

19. (2) Brad Keselowski, Dodge, 177.032.

20. (99) Carl Edwards, Ford, 177.006.

21. (1) Jamie McMurray, Chevrolet, 176.872.

22. (87) Joe Nemechek, Toyota, 176.695.

23. (39) Ryan Newman, Chevrolet, 176.659.

24. (9) Marcos Ambrose, Ford, 176.575.

25. (17) Matt Kenseth, Ford, 176.519.

26. (56) Martin Truex Jr., Toyota, 176.477.

27. (31) Jeff Burton, Chevrolet, 176.461.

28. (38) Travis Kvapil, Ford, 176.425.

29. (11) Denny Hamlin, Toyota, 176.37.

30. (14) Tony Stewart, Chevrolet, 176.347.

31. (4) Kasey Kahne, Toyota, 176.298.

32. (97) Kevin Conway, Toyota, 176.195.

33. (35) Steve Park, Chevrolet, 176.162.

34. (18) Kyle Busch, Toyota, 175.939.

35. (36) Dave Blaney, Chevrolet, 175.806.

36. (20) Joey Logano, Toyota, 175.41.

37. (71) Andy Lally, Ford, 175.349.

38. (29) Kevin Harvick, Chevrolet, 175.154.

39. (34) David Gilliland, Ford, 175.134.

40. (13) Casey Mears, Toyota, owner points.

41. (32) Terry Labonte, Ford, owner points.

42. (7) Sam Hornish Jr., Dodge, owner points.

43. (46) Bill Elliott, Chevrolet, past champion.

Failed to qualify

44. (60) Mike Skinner, Toyota, 175.09.

45. (37) Tony Raines, Ford, 175.

46. (66) Michael McDowell, Toyota, 174.84.

 

INDYCAR-LONG BEACH GRAND PRIX QUALIFYING

1. (12) Will Power, Dallara-Honda, 01:09.0649 (102.582 mph)

2. (28) Ryan Hunter-Reay, Dallara-Honda, 01:09.1409 (102.469)

3. (27) Mike Conway, Dallara-Honda, 01:09.6414 (101.733)

4. (2) Oriol Servia, Dallara-Honda, 01:09.6828 (101.672)

5. (22) Justin Wilson, Dallara-Honda, 01:09.8097 (101.487)

6. (3) Helio Castroneves, Dallara-Honda, 01:09.8423 (101.440)

7. (10) Dario Franchitti, Dallara-Honda, 01:09.6037 (101.788)

8. (9) Scott Dixon, Dallara-Honda, 01:09.6385 (101.737)

9. (77) Alex Tagliani, Dallara-Honda, 01:09.6497 (101.720)

10. (82) Tony Kanaan, Dallara-Honda, 01:09.7352 (101.596)

11. (06) James Hinchcliffe, Dallara-Honda, 01:09.8122 (101.484)

12. (6) Ryan Briscoe, Dallara-Honda, 01:09.8243 (101.466)

13. (14) Vitor Meira, Dallara-Honda, 01:10.1010 (101.066)

14. (26) Marco Andretti, Dallara-Honda, 01:09.9400 (101.298)

15. (34) Sebastian Saavedra, Dallara-Honda, 01:10.1146 (101.046)

16. (38) Graham Rahal, Dallara-Honda, 01:10.5883 (100.368)

17. (59) EJ Viso, Dallara-Honda, 01:10.1465 (101.000)

18. (78) Simona de Silvestro, Dallara-Honda, 01:10.6407 (100.293)

19. (17) Raphael Matos, Dallara-Honda, 01:10.3477 (100.711)

20. (7) Danica Patrick, Dallara-Honda, 01:10.7836 (100.091)

21. (19) Sebastien Bourdais, Dallara-Honda, 01:10.8050 (100.061)

22. (5) Takuma Sato, Dallara-Honda, 01:10.8197 (100.040)

23. (18) James Jakes, Dallara-Honda, 01:10.8592 (99.984)

24. (83) Charlie Kimball, Dallara-Honda, 01:10.8672 (99.973)

25. (8) Paul Tracy, Dallara-Honda, 01:11.0249 (99.751)

26. (24) Ana Beatriz, Dallara-Honda, 01:11.0341 (99.738)

27. (4) JR Hildebrand, Dallara-Honda, 01:11.4916 (99.100)

 

GOLF

TEXAS OPEN

Saturday's third round

Brendan Steele 69-72-68 -- 209

Cameron Tringale 71-71-68 -- 210

Kevin Chappell 68-73-70 -- 211

Brandt Snedeker 69-72-70 -- 211

Pat Perez 71-74-67 -- 212

Charles Howell III 71-73-68 -- 212

Adam Scott 68-74-70 -- 212

Charley Hoffman 68-73-72 -- 213

Rich Beem 71-70-72 -- 213

Fredrik Jacobson 72-75-67 -- 214

J.P. Hayes 73-73-68 -- 214

Vaughn Taylor 68-75-71 -- 214

Ricky Barnes 73-70-71 -- 214

Jeff Maggert 71-72-71 -- 214

Dean Wilson 70-72-72 -- 214

Steve Flesch 71-76-68 -- 215

Martin Laird 72-74-69 -- 215

Martin Piller 70-75-70 -- 215

Brendon de Jonge 72-72-71 -- 215

J.B. Holmes 70-73-72 -- 215

Kevin Sutherland 71-70-74 -- 215

Geoff Ogilvy 69-72-74 -- 215

Bobby Gates 70-78-68 -- 216

Kevin Stadler 70-77-69 -- 216

Johnson Wagner 71-75-70 -- 216

William McGirt 73-73-70 -- 216

Briny Baird 71-75-70 -- 216

Hunter Haas 75-70-71 -- 216

Matt Every 73-69-74 -- 216

Bo Van Pelt 75-73-69 -- 217

Nathan Green 75-73-69 -- 217

Ryuji Imada 72-75-70 -- 217

Keegan Bradley 73-73-71 -- 217

Kevin Streelman 69-76-72 -- 217

John Senden 71-74-72 -- 217

Brian Gay 71-74-72 -- 217

Brandt Jobe 75-69-73 -- 217

Tag Ridings 70-74-73 -- 217

Kris Blanks 71-73-73 -- 217

Roland Thatcher 74-74-70 -- 218

Bryce Molder 73-75-70 -- 218

Chris Kirk 70-76-72 -- 218

Jarrod Lyle 74-71-73 -- 218

Troy Matteson 69-76-73 -- 218

Blake Adams 71-74-73 -- 218

Nick O'Hern 73-72-73 -- 218

Shaun Micheel 72-73-73 -- 218

Bill Lunde 71-73-74 -- 218

Jim Renner 72-72-74 -- 218

Chad Campbell 71-73-74 -- 218

Justin Leonard 73-75-71 -- 219

Arjun Atwal 71-77-71 -- 219

Ben Martin 73-74-72 -- 219

Billy Horschel 71-74-74 -- 219

Billy Mayfair 72-73-74 -- 219

Scott Stallings 71-73-75 -- 219

Jim Herman 69-78-73 -- 220

James Driscoll 74-73-73 -- 220

Bob Estes 71-76-73 -- 220

Scott Verplank 75-72-73 -- 220

Woody Austin 73-73-74 -- 220

Chris Riley 74-72-74 -- 220

Paul Goydos 71-74-75 -- 220

Stewart Cink 67-78-75 -- 220

Jhonattan Vegas 68-76-76 -- 220

Steven Bowditch 77-69-75 -- 221

John Merrick 72-72-77 -- 221

Michael Connell 73-70-78 -- 221

Justin Hicks 77-71-74 -- 222

Frank Lickliter II 70-77-75 -- 222

Fabian Gomez 72-74-76 -- 222

J.J. Henry 67-78-77 -- 222

Joseph Bramlett 70-74-78 -- 222

David Duval 75-72-76 -- 223

Bio Kim 78-69-76 -- 223

Colt Knost 73-73-81 -- 227

Tim Petrovic 72-76-80 -- 228

Scott Gutschewski 76-72-80 -- 228

 

OUTBACK STEAKHOUSE OPEN

Saturday's second round

John Cook 66-65 -- 131

Russ Cochran 64-68 -- 132

Jay Don Blake 66-68 -- 134

Tom Pernice, Jr. 68-68 -- 136

Joey Sindelar 68-68 -- 136

Peter Senior 69-68 -- 137

Tom Wargo 70-68 -- 138

Joe Ozaki 69-69 -- 138

Hale Irwin 70-68 -- 138

Larry Mize 70-68 -- 138

Mark Calcavecchia 69-69 -- 138

Don Pooley 69-70 -- 139

Chip Beck 71-68 -- 139

Olin Browne 70-69 -- 139

Michael Allen 71-68 -- 139

Nick Price 71-68 -- 139

Ted Schulz 68-72 -- 140

Tim Simpson 68-72 -- 140

Tom Jenkins 72-68 -- 140

Jay Haas 70-70 -- 140

Kenny Perry 67-73 -- 140

Mike Goodes 68-72 -- 140

Steve Lowery 71-70 -- 141

Keith Fergus 73-68 -- 141

Loren Roberts 70-71 -- 141

Phil Blackmar 73-68 -- 141

Mark O'Meara 72-69 -- 141

Bob Tway 74-67 -- 141

David Eger 74-68 -- 142

Tom Lehman 73-69 -- 142

Mark Wiebe 70-72 -- 142

Lee Rinker 69-74 -- 143

Chien Soon Lu 69-74 -- 143

Fuzzy Zoeller 72-71 -- 143

Andy Bean 70-73 -- 143

Dana Quigley 71-72 -- 143

Jim Thorpe 72-71 -- 143

Bobby Wadkins 70-73 -- 143

Bill Glasson 72-72 -- 144

Mike Reid 71-73 -- 144

Bruce Fleisher 72-72 -- 144

Rod Spittle 70-74 -- 144

Bob Gilder 69-75 -- 144

Tommy Armour III 72-72 -- 144

Scott Hoch 70-74 -- 144

Jeff Sluman 71-73 -- 144

Brad Bryant 75-70 -- 145

Mark Brooks 76-69 -- 145

John Jacobs 70-75 -- 145

As the pollen count climbs and temperatures warm, everyone is heading outside to enjoy the nice weather.

For most the warm Spring weather also marks the time for yearly preparation to both lawn and garden. Now I am a Meteorologist and admittedly my knowledge and tips are minimal. With that in mind, I decided to dig around online and find a few sites to point you in the right direction for ideas and tips.

The first article I found called “Tips on preparing your garden, yard for spring” written by Bill Hayes is a honey hole for great ideas and tips. If you haven’t started preparing don’t panic there is plenty of time to get your lawn mower tuned up and your garden ready to accept this year’s round of crops.

Perhaps you just bought a new home or just want to give new life to an existing landscape then check out this article“Tips For Preparing a Planting Bed” by Michael J. McGroathy. He takes what may seem like an overwhelming project and turns it into one that is much easier to tackle. On this same page there are links discussing plants, garden design, gardening spaces, pets/diseases, and organic gardening. This site is pretty much a one stop source for getting your hands dirty and producing a garden or landscape that you can be proud of.

One thing that I personally love to grow is Tomato’s so I thought I would find a good link to share that can answer almost any question you have regarding this sweet and juicy summer treat.  This article called "How to grow a tomato plant" by Jack Herrick, Edge, Syndi B, Krystle C. and more pretty much covers tomatoes from A to Z.

~ Enjoy

The Marlins ' 9-game road trip started with a bang Friday night at Minute Maid Park. And we don't just mean the bang Hanley Ramirez took courtesy of a dirty-ish slide from Bill Hall . Ricky Nolasco gave the Marlins 8 strong innings, Gaby Sanchez and Logan Morrison both had 3-for-4 nights, Chris Coghlan drove in half the Marlins runs, and backup catcher Brett hayes had a good night both at...

Source : FishStripes

I hear Cinemax is finalizing the deals for a 13-episode order to Chemistry, a half-hour comedic drama eyed for late night that is executive produced by CAA co-founder Bill Haber. Richard Christian Matheson and Norman Steinberg have written all 13 episodes of the series, about the complexity of the relationship between Liz and Michael, who have strong physical attraction bordering on erotic madness. The series, said to have overtones of Last Tango in Paris and an upscale, sophisticated Red Shoe Diaries, is executive produced by Haber and Jeff Hayes, with Matheson and Steinberg serving as co-executive producers. In anticipation of a series greenlight, Chemistry has already started casting. Cinemax has been making a big push in original programming with three recent primetime action series orders: Strike Back, The Transporter and The Sector. Unlike those series, Chemistry is staying closer to the brand of erotic late-night programming Cinemax is most often associated with.

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Filed under: Daily Hot List

Fox News is about to lose one of its most recognizable faces and loudest voices. A press release on Glenn Beck's website, The Blaze, states Beck will 'transition off of his daily TV program' later this year.

The site reports that in the 27 months the show aired on Fox News, it averaged more than 2.2 million viewers.

Beck looks forward 'to starting this new phase of our partnership,' a collaboration between his production company, Mercury Radio Arts, and Fox News. There's no word on what that joint project will be.

A polarizing figure, Beck become a national lightning rod when he organized Restoring Honor, a rally in Washington to celebrate 'America's heroes and heritage.' Beck claimed 500,000 people turned out for the August event; CBS News later made an estimate of 87,000 attendees.

Hot Searches for April 6, 2011:
1. Glenn Beck Quits - Polarizing TV host to leave FOX News show
2. Wisconsin Election - Recount likely in Wisc. Supreme Court race
3. Federal Shutdown - No budget deal yet as possible shutdown looms
4. Bristol Palin Income - Teen abstinence work earned her $262K
5. The Masters 2011 - McDowell chooses Man U over Par Three Contest
6. Jon Cryer New Job - Actor seeks other work after Sheen fiasco
7. Richard Branson - Billionaire launches Virgin Oceanic
8. Bill and Ted 3 - Keanu Reeves gives his idea for movie plot
9. Three Stooges - Sean Hayes cast as Larry in upcoming film
10. NFL Lockout - NFL, players take fight to federal court

Are you a Glenn Beck fan?

For more on today's hottest stories, check out our top searched list. Also check out AOL News Search for breaking news around the world. What other big stories happened today? Let us know! Come back for tomorrow's Hot Searches and follow us on Twitter and Facebook for daily updates.

 

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Charities join forces to write letter to Theresa May, reproduced here, complaining that women will be penalised unfairly by new child support proposals

To: Rt Hon Theresa May MP

Minister for Women and Equalities

Dear minister (and home secretary),

We write to draw your attention to the unfair impact we feel the government proposals for the future of child maintenance will have on women raising children alone, and would ask that in your capacity as minister for women and equalities you request that the secretary of state for work and pensions reconsider his proposals to impose financial charges on those who need to use the statutory maintenance service as the only means of obtaining maintenance for their children.

The government's proposals are contained in its consultation paper Strengthening families, promoting parental responsibility: the future of child maintenance. The consultation ends on 7 April. The welfare reform bill currently before parliament incorporates some of those proposals.

Ninety-seven per cent of parents with care who are eligible to receive child maintenance are women. It is our view that the proposed procedural and financial hurdles to be introduced from 2012 for all applicants to the statutory maintenance system will unfairly impact on them, rather than on non-resident parents (mostly fathers) who have failed to meet their responsibilities to their children. Below we explain why.

The government's proposals to charge all parents with care £100 to access the statutory maintenance system, plus up to 12% of any money received via the collection service, will put (and are expressly intended to put) pressure on them to settle for private arrangements instead.

Yet no equivalent direct pressure from the commission will be placed on non-resident parents (mostly fathers) to enter into a private agreement – until the parent with care has paid a £100 application fee to enter the statutory system.

The government says it wants parents living apart to make "family-based arrangements" regarding child maintenance, on the basis that families themselves are best placed to determine what arrangements will work best for them. We think the government underestimates the extent to which, when parents separate, there can be difficult and painful circumstances and very different interests when it comes to working out the financial contribution of one party to the other for the maintenance of children.

The charging proposals in particular undermine the negotiating position of parents with care on a low income in need of child maintenance. A non-resident parent can offer less than the statutory rate of child maintenance, knowing that the parent with care will not only have to pay an application fee to enter the statutory system, but will then lose up to 12% of any child maintenance paid, if the collection service is necessary because he is an unreliable payer.

Whereas the parent with care will have to pay an application fee to get the statutory child maintenance service involved, the non-resident parent can escape all charges if, once contacted by the commission with the statutory amount he has to pay, he opts to make payment direct to the parent with care rather than have the money collected by the commission.

The charging regime thus impacts unfairly on parents with care, mostly women.

Moreover, whereas the non-resident parent has a choice whether to pay via the statutory collection service or pay directly to the parent with care, clause 129 in the welfare reform bill will have the effect that the parent with care will only be allowed to use the collection service if either the non-resident parent consents to this, or she can convince the commission that the child maintenance due will not be paid in full.

The different rules governing access to the collection service make it more difficult for parents with care than for non-resident parents to opt for this service.

The equality impact assessment prepared by the government, which accompanies the consultation document, admits that a parent with care could lose out on a period of child maintenance ("a small cost"), if she is only able to persuade the commission through a process of experiencing non-payment that the non-resident is an unreliable payer and the collection service is necessary.

It is wrong that parents with care should have to face any period of financial loss in order to gain access to the collection service.

Once the non-resident parent has chosen to make direct payments to the parent with care, the proposed new system will put added pressure on the parent with care to go along with reduced or irregular payments. She will know that if she asks to use the collection service at this stage, not only will she lose up to 12% of the child maintenance due, but the non-resident parent might well be antagonised by having to pay 20% more.

There is often an inequality of power in this situation, which can make a parent with care very vulnerable to pressure.

The consultation paper proposes that "victims of domestic violence" will be exempt from the application charge to use the statutory maintenance scheme, but makes no mention of automatically allowing them to use the collection service to avoid direct contact with the perpetrator.

This could mean that the perpetrator could insist on making direct payments, thus exposing the parent with care to a risk of further abuse. Where victims do manage to persuade the commission to allow them to use the collection service as a buffer in collecting child maintenance, under the proposals they will be financially penalised as a result,with their children losing up to 12% of the maintenance paid.

A quarter of parents with care using the Child Support Agency (24%) say their break-up was due to the other parent being violent towards them, and in 4% of cases they said the separation was due to the ex-partner being violent to a child or children. No information has been given by the government as to the circumstances when the "domestic violence" application fee exemption will apply, or what parents with care will have to prove to qualify. Nor has any definition of what is meant by "domestic violence" been given.

We are concerned that the government's proposals will impact harshly and unfairly on parents – mostly mothers – raising children alone who are unable to make their own private arrangements with the other parent (mostly fathers).

There is a strong risk that, as a result of the government's plans, a considerable number of women, particularly if on a low income, or where the amount of child maintenance due is modest, will simply give up on child maintenance altogether or accept inadequate and irregular sums of child maintenance from the other parent, because they feel there is no alternative.

Those who have used the statutory system because of the other parent's failure to meet his responsibilities will be financially penalised. The result will be greater poverty among an already vulnerable group of families and their children.

We therefore urge you to intervene to stop this unfair penalisation of women and their children.

Fiona Weir, chief executive, Gingerbread

Anna Bird, chief executive, Fawcett Society

Emma Scott, director, Rights of Women

Amy Watson, co-ordinator, Women's Budget Group

Vivienne Hayes, chief executive, Women's Resource Centre

Marai Larasi, director, Imkaan, on behalf of Women's Health and Equality Consortium

Sandra Horley CBE, chief executive, Refuge

Holly Dustin, director, End Violence Against Women Coalition

Davina James-Hanman, director, AVA

news@sfbg.com

1892: The Sierra Club is established by John Muir and a group of professors from UC Berkeley and Stanford in San Francisco. In its first conservation campaign, the club leads efforts to defeat a proposed reduction in the boundaries of Yosemite National Park.

1902: After two years of intense lobbying and fundraising, the Sempervirens Club, the first land conservation organization on the west coast, is successful in establishing Big Basin Redwoods State Park — the first park established in California under the new state park system.

1910: The first municipally owned and operated street car service commences in San Francisco.

1918: Save the Redwoods League is established in San Francisco. A leader in proactive land conservation, SRL would go on to assist in the purchase of nearly 190,000 acres to protect redwoods and help develop more than 60 redwood parks and reserves that old these ancient trees in California.

1934: The East Bay Regional Park is established as the first regional park district in the nation. This radical Depression-era idea would much set the tone as the Bay Area land conservation vision expanded.

1934: The Marin Conservation League is founded by wealthy Republican women. Three years later, at the league's behest, the Marin County Board of Supervisors adopts the first county zoning ordinance in the state in 1937. Over the next 10 years, the league helps create State Parks at Stinson Beach, Tomales Bay, Samuel P. Taylor, Angel Island, and expand Mt Tamalpais State Park.

1956: San Francisco activists, led in party by Sue Bierman, launch a campaign to stop a freeway that would have run through Golden Gate Park. It marks the first time city residents successfully block a freeway project and launches the urban environmental movement in America.

1958: Citizens for Regional Recreation and Parks is founded. It becomes People for Open Space in 1969 and morphs in 1987 into the Greenbelt Alliance. Their efforts lead to the creation of the Mid-Peninsula Open Space District in 1972 and Suisun Marsh in 1974.

1960: Sierra Club Executive Director David Brower launches a brand new organizing and educational concept, the exhibit format "coffee table" book series, with This Is the American Earth, featuring photos by Ansel Adams and Nancy Newhalland. These elegant coffee-table books introduced the Sierra Club to a wide audience. Fifty thousand copies are sold in the first four years, and by 1960 sales exceed $10 million. The environmental coffee table book emerged as part of a campaign to persuade Congress to enact the Wilderness Bill, legislation that would guarantee the permanence of the nation's wild places.

1961: Save San Francisco Bay Association is founded by Sylvia McLaughlin, Kay Kerr and Ester Gulick to end unregulated filling of San Francisco Bay and to open up the Bay shoreline to public access.

1961: Pacific Gas and Electric Co. announces plans to build a nuclear power plant at Bodega Bay. Rancher Rose Gaffney, UC Berkeley professor Joe Neilands and others mount what will become the first citizen movement in the country to stop a nuclear plant. The Bodega Bay campaign marks the birth of the antinuclear movement.

1965: Responding to Bay Area citizens' demands for protection of the bay's natural environment, the California state legislature passes the McAteer-Petris Act, which establishes the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission (BCDC) and charges it with preparing a plan for the long-term use and protection of the Bay and with regulating development in and around it.

1965: Fred Rohe opens New Age Natural Foods on Stanyan Street in San Francisco. He goes on to open the first natural foods restaurant in 1967, Good Karma Cafe on Valencia Street. Rohe would go on to open the first natural foods distribution company in Northern California, New Age Distributing in San Jose in 1970 and found Organic Merchants (OM), the first natural foods retailer trade group.

1967: The Human Be-in is held Jan. 14 in Golden Gate Park (as a prelude to the Summer of Love) with as a major theme higher consciousness, ecological awareness, personal empowerment, cultural and political decentralization.

1967: Alan Chadwick comes to UC Santa Cruz and establishes the Student Garden Project and training program, which would train hundreds of today's organic farmers.

1968: The Whole Earth Catalogue, published by the Point Foundation and edited by Stewart Brand out of Gate 5 Road in Sausalito is introduced, providing tools, philosophy, and reviews to the growing back-to-the-land movement, helping promote ecological living and culture alternative sustainable culture decades before those words became mainstream.

1969: Brower, after losing his job at the Sierra Club in part because of his opposition to the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant, founds Friends of the Earth, the cutting edge activist group that would eventually have affiliates in 77 nations around the globe and become the world's largest grassroots environmental network.

1970: Peninsula resident Neil Young writes and sings the lyrics "Look at Mother Nature on the Run in the 1970s."

1970: Berkeley Ecology Center opens.

1971: Sierra Club Legal Defense Fund is established, marking the beginning of an explosion in environmental law.

1971: Alice Waters opens Chez Panisse, serving up California Cuisine and altering the Bay Area diet helping to create a market for local fresh organic fruits and vegetables. 1971: Berkeley resident Francis Moore Lappé publishes her best-selling book Diet for a Small Planet. Two million copies are sold and as the first book to expose the enormous waste built into U.S. grain-fed meat production, for her a symbol of a global food system creating hunger out of plenty; her effort alters millions of diets.

1971: San Francisco dressmaker Alvin Duskin launches a campaign to limit high-rise office development in San Francisco, creating new allies and a new coalition for urban environmentalism.

1972: The Trust for Public Land, a national, nonprofit land conservation organization that conserves land for people to enjoy as parks, gardens, historic sites, and rural lands, is founded by Huey Johnson, Doug Ferguson and Marty Rosen in San Francisco. TPL would go on to protect 2.8 million acres of land and is key in getting land trusts started in Napa, Sonoma, Marin, Big Sur, and around the state.

1972: The Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge, first urban wildlife refuge in the United States, is established, encompassing 30,000 acres of open bay, salt pond, salt marsh, mudflat, upland and vernal pool habitats located in South Bay.

1972: The Save Our Shores campaign, developed in part by Bay Area residents, results in a state initiative, the Coastal Act of 1972, which is passed by the voters and establishes the first comprehensive coastal watershed policy in the nation.

1974: Berkeley Ecology Center starts the first curbside recycling approach in California, one of first such programs in the nation.

1974: The Farallones Institute in Berkeley begins building the first urban demonstration of an ecological living center with the Integral Urban House, a converted Victorian using solar and wind technologies, a composting toilet, extensive gardens, and energy and resource conservation features. It serves as an early model for the emerging Appropriate Technology Movement.

1975: Berkeley resident Ernest Callenbach self publishes Ecotopia after a round of rejections from New York publishers; it ultimately sells more than a million copies and becomes an environmental classic.

1975: San Francisco's first community gardens are established at Fort Mason and elsewhere.

1975: The Marine Mammal Center, a nonprofit veterinary research hospital and educational center dedicated to the rescue and rehabilitation of ill and injured marine mammals, primarily elephant seals, harbor seals, and California sea lions, is established in the Marin Headlands.

1978: Raymond Dasmann and Peter Berg coin the term Bioregionalism in the publication of Reinhabiting a Separate Country, published by Berg's Planet Drum Foundation in San Francisco. It represents a fresh, comprehensive way of defining and understanding the places where we live, and of living there sustainably and respectfully through ecological design.

1979 Greens Restaurant opens at Fort Mason in San Francisco and quickly establishes itself as a pioneer in promoting vegetarian cuisine in the United States.

1980: The Marin Agricultural Land Trust is established by Wetland Biologist Phyllis Faber and diary farmer Ellen Straus.

1980: Berkeley resident Richard Register coins the term "depave" — to undo the act of paving, to remove pavement so as to restore land to a more natural state. Depaving begins to spread to create many inner city urban gardening projects.

1981-82: Register and other activists, bring about the first urban day lighting of a creek in Berkeley's Strawberry Creek Park where a 200-foot section of the creek is removed from a culvert beneath an empty lot and transformed into the centerpiece of a park.

1982: Earth First, a radical environmental group founded by Dave Foreman and Mike Roselle, sponsors the first demonstration against Burger King in San Francisco for using beef grown on land hacked out of rain forests. The demonstrations spread, turn in to a boycott, and after sales drop 12 percent, Burger King cancels $35 million worth of beef contracts in Central America and announces it will stop importing rainforest beef.

1983: Local residents Randy Hayes and Toby Mcleod release the documentary film The Four Corners, A National Sacrifice Area? , which conveys the cultural and ecological impacts of coal strip-mining, uranium mining, and oil shale development in Utah, Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona — homeland of the Hopi and Navajo. The film wins an Academy Award and illustrates serious environmental justice issues 10 years before that term is coined.

1985: The Rainforest Action Network, established in San Francisco, emerges from the Burger King action.

1986: Fifteen years after Duskin's first anti-high-rise initiative efforts, San Francisco finally passes Prop. M, the nation's most important sustainable growth law.

1988: Register invents a stencil to be used next to street storm drains that says "don't dump — drains to bay." The wastewater pollution mitigation education concept spreads around the region and nation and then becomes an international volunteer effort to lessen pollution in urban runoff, which generally flows untreated into creeks and saltwater.

1989: Carl Anthony, Karl Linn, and Brower establish the Urban Habitat Program in San Francisco, one of the first environmental justice organizations in the country.

1989: Laurie Mott of the National Resource Defense Council's SF office rattles the apple industry by engineering a suspension of the use of the pesticide Alar by the Environmental Protection Agency. A national debate ensues.

1992: Berkeley writer Theodore Roszak coins both the term and field of ecopsychology in his book The Voice of the Earth. The movement he helps found asks if the planetary and the personal are pointing the way forward to some new basis for a sustainable economic and emotional life.

1992: The first Critical Mass bike ride (initially called a "Commute Clot") is held in San Francisco. Similar rides, typically held on the last Friday of every month, began to take place in more than in over 300 cities around the world.

1993: The U.S. Green Building Council is founded by David Gottfriend in Oakland. The council becomes the most important environmental trade organization in the world. In 1998, the council develops the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) Green Building Rating System, which provides a suite of standards for environmentally sustainable construction and design.

1995: The Edible Schoolyard is established by Chez Panisse Foundation at Martin Luther King Jr. Middle School in Berkeley. It serves as a model for similar programs in New Orleans and Brooklyn, and inspires garden programs at other schools across the country.

1999: The Green Resource Center starts as a joint project of the City of Berkeley, the Northern California Chapter of Architects, Designers and Planners for Social Responsibility (ADPSR), and the Sustainable Business Alliance.

2000: Wendy Kallins, working with the Marin Bicycle Coalition, begins a Safe Route to Schools program in Marin to encourage students to walk or bicycle to school. The program is so successful that Congress allocates more than $600 million for similar efforts across the country.

2001: The first Green Festival is held in San Francisco.

2001: Berkeley becomes first city in nation with curbside recycling trucks powered by recycled vegetable oil, thanks to a campaign by the Berkeley Ecology Center.

2002: San Francisco adopts a greenhouse gas reduction initiative that aims to reduce the city's greenhouse gas emissions to 20 percent below 1990 levels by 2012.

2003: Bay Area Build It Green is formed by a number of local and regionally focused public agencies, building industry professionals, manufactures, and suppliers. Its activities are focused on increasing the supply of green homes, raising consumer awareness about the benefits of building green, and providing Bay Area consumers and residential building industry professionals a trusted source of information.

2005: San Francisco passes the Precautionary Principle Purchasing Ordinance, which requires the city to weigh the environmental and health costs of its $600 million in annual purchases — for everything from cleaning

supplies to computers.

2006: Bay Localize is launched in the East Bay with the aim to work to build a cooperative, inclusive movement toward regional self-reliance and increase community livability and local resilience for all while decreasing fossil fuel use.

2007: In an effort to meet the challenges of global warming, carbon pollution and job creation, East Bay activist Van Jones declares that the nation is going to have to weatherize millions of homes and install millions of solar panels. His best-selling book, The Green Collar Economy, stimulates a national movement and a new organization, Green For All.

2007: San Francisco begins collecting fats, oils and grease from residential and commercial kitchens, for free, to recycle into biofuel for the city's municipal vehicles, the largest biofuel-powered municipal fleet in the United States.

2008: San Francisco becomes the first U.S. city to establish green building standards.

2010: The Green Building Opportunity Index names San Francisco and Oakland the top two cities in the nation for green buildings.

2010: San Francisco becomes home to the Sunset Reservoir Solar Project, the largest solar-powered municipal installation in California.

 

by Ralph Loglisci.

The editors of Scientific American recently encouraged U.S. hog farmers to “follow Denmark and stop giving farm animals low-dose antibiotics.” Sixteen years ago, in order to reduce the threat of increased development of antibiotic resistant bacteria in their food system and the environment, Denmark phased in an antibiotic growth promotant ban in food animal production. Guess what? According to Denmark’s Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Fisheries the ban is working and the industry has continued to thrive. The government agency found that Danish livestock and poultry farmers used 37 percent less antibiotics in 2009 than in 1994, leading to overall reductions of antimicrobial resistance countrywide.

Except for a few early hiccups regarding the methods used in weaning piglets, production levels of livestock and poultry have either stayed the same or increased. So how did Danish producers make this transition, and why isn’t the U.S. jumping to follow suit? Like many things in industrial agriculture, the answer is not clear.

If any country knows how to intensively produce food animals, particularly pigs, it is Denmark. In 2008, farmers produced about 27 million hogs. In fact, the Scandinavian country claims to be the world’s largest exporter [PDF] of pork. Thus Scientific American editors argue that the Danish pork production system should serve as a suitable model to compare to ours. U.S. agriculture economists from Iowa State University agree. In a 2003 report, Drs. Helen Jensen and Dermot Hayes stated that Denmark’s pork industry is ” ... at least as sophisticated as that of the United States ... and is therefore a suitable market for evaluating a ban on antibiotic growth promotants (AGPs).”

Based on Denmark’s experience, concerns that an AGP ban in the U.S. would cripple the industry appear to be overblown. A study published last year in the American Journal of Veterinary Medicine by Danish researchers suggested that Denmark’s AGP ban in food animals reduced overall antibiotic use and did not significantly impact production. In fact, recent numbers from Denmark show production levels of hogs increased by roughly 50 percent between 1992 and 2008.

So what additional changes did Danish hog producers make in their methods of production to ensure that the AGP ban did not negatively affect their bottom line to a significant degree? Robert Martin, senior officer of the Pew Environment Group and former executive director of the Pew Commission on Industrial Farm Animal Production, visited several Danish hog farms in 2009 to see first hand what producers were doing to compensate for not being able to use antibiotics as growth promoters. Martin listed some of what he describes as the most important changes:

Switching to lower density models of housing pigs The use of open pen and deep bedding systems Cleaning barns more frequently and systematically Improved ventilation systems Improved quality of feed Extending weaning period for piglets

Martin explains that many of these changes were phased in as farmers adopted a set of new best practices. Martin says immediately following the ban, Danish producers did see an increase in mortality of young pigs. “But instead of reverting to using antibiotics as a crutch,” Martin continued, “they initiated changes in their system.” For example, Martin learned that many producers extended the piglet weaning times by about 10 days, allowing maternal antibodies in milk to provide increased immunity. Martin also pointed out that reducing the crowded conditions and switching to a dry, deep bedding system, “allowed them to manage waste more effectively.” He said the changes are also “more humane for the pigs.” Moreover, Martin says, “They also paid more attention to feed mixtures instead of relying on antibiotics for weight gain.”

Dr. Jensen and Hayes’s report, published in the Iowa Ag Review, determined a ban similar to Denmark’s could cost the U.S. industry more than $700 million over 10 years and increase the price of pork by about 2 percent at the grocery store. Hayes noted, in recent email exchanges with the Center for a Livable Future, that in the long run a ban would not keep producers from making money. He also wrote, “hog farmers would reduce production until prices recovered, so there is no profit impact.” When it comes to the study’s findings, Hayes believes the economics are secondary:

The key take away for me from our studies was that the ban at the finishing stage worked as planned and reduced antibiotic use by a lot. However, when they extended the ban to the weaning state they ended up using more antibiotics and these were stronger human-use antibiotics. So a ban at the weaning stage did not work in terms of its original intent.

It is worth noting that recent Denmark data shows weaner mortality is significantly lower since the ISU study was published in 2003. Despite that fact, Hayes is correct. The therapeutic use of antibiotics has increased since the ban was instituted. According to the latest Danish Integrated Antimicrobial Resistance Monitoring and Research Program (DANMAP) report [PDF], therapeutic antibiotic use rose by almost 13 percent from 2008 to 2009. DANMAP also found the occurrence of resistance in Danish pork increased during that time period, “and is not significantly lower than in imported pork.” However, resistance to the antibiotic ciprofloxacin, an important antibiotic in human medicine, was very low in E. coli from Danish pork in contrast to imported pork. It is important to point out that therapeutic use poses much less antibiotic resistance risk than low-dose application. Don’t forget, Denmark’s overall antibiotic use in all food animal production remains nearly 40 percent lower then when the ban was first initiated.

If the AGP ban is, at the very least, reducing overall antibiotic use and Danish pork production levels are increasing, why wouldn’t U.S. producers follow suit? The National Pork Producers Council (NPPC) lobbyists publicly maintain they still don’t believe antibiotic use in food animals poses a risk to human health. In a presentation [PDF] prepared for the World Pork Expo 2010, Chelsea Redalen, the NPPC’s director of government relations, maintained that there is “little to no evidence that restricting or eliminating the use of antimicrobials in food-producing animals would improve human health or reduce the risk of antimicrobial resistance to humans.”

Statements like these, repeatedly made by hog industry representatives, leave many public health experts exasperated. Numerous peer reviewed research studies [PDF], including in the U.S. and the Netherlands, clearly demonstrate the transmission of antibiotic resistant bacteria from food animals to people. Studies out of the Netherlands published in the Journal of Emerging Infectious Diseases and the Annals of Clinical Microbiology and Antimicrobials, demonstrate that MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus) was transmitted from pigs to a farmer, and between pig farmers and their family.

Despite industry claims, U.S. government health officials have concluded there are direct links between antibiotic use in food animal production and the risk of antibiotic resistant infections in people. Responding to a letter from Drs. Robert Lawrence and Keeve Nachman of the Johns Hopkins Center for a Livable Future (CLF), the director of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Dr. Thomas Frieden, confirmed that the CDC, “feels there is strong scientific evidence of a link between antibiotic use in food animals and antibiotic resistance in humans.”

CLF helped bring to light recently released FDA data showing that 80 percent of the antibiotics produced for human and animal use in the U.S. are sold for use in food animals. Even if significant portions of those antibiotics are used to treat disease, Dr. David Love, CLF scientist, says he finds that statistic, “astounding.” Love believes, “if producers are reliant on the use of antibiotics to produce animals in a highly concentrated way, it means that the design of these farms makes them breeding grounds for diseases.” “Even more troubling to me,” Love says, “is the unwise use of antibiotics for growth promotion in animal production, which compromises antibiotics, a precious resource used to protect the public’s health.”

Curently there is proposed federal legislation that would greatly limit antibiotic use in U.S. food animal production. Rep. Louise Slaughter (D-N.Y.) recently reintroduced the Preservation of Antibiotics for Medical Treatment Act, better known as PAMTA. The bill would ban the routine use of antibiotics “deemed” critical in human medicine to promote growth in healthy animals.

So, should the U.S. follow Denmark’s lead and stop all food animal producers from dishing out low dose-antibiotics? Public health experts say it appears that those with a higher priority on limiting health risks are at loggerheads with those unwilling to change or corporations more concerned about the risks of increased costs. One thing is clear—most large pork producers do not plan on instituting a ban voluntarily.

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On Monday Night RAW, March 28 edition, this writer got goosebumps when the greatest tag team in history was announced as being inducted into the WWE Hall of Fame.

On the night before WrestleMania 27, Paul Ellering, Animal, and the spirit of Hawk, made the speech to formally bring them into the Hall of Fame family. 

How fitting it was for the Road Warriors' road to end where it all began: Atlanta. 

They were innovators, they had charisma, they had the skills on the microphone; Hawk and Animal had it all.

In today's wrestling, everyone has a theme song, but back in the early 1980s, only a select few made their entrance to music, and the Road Warriors were one of those few. 

During the 1980's, wrestlers were either muscle bound with limited in ring skill or small with excellent in ring skill. The Warriors were very capable in the ring and in the gym. 

Michael Hegstrand, Joe Laurinaitis, and Paul Ellering became synonymous with the name, Legion of Doom.

Though the stable began in Georgia Championship Wrestling (GCW), later known as World Championship Wrestling (WCW), the three became loved, hated, feared, and respected all over the world.

Their stiff style in the ring made them crowd favorites in every promotion in which they competed. 

The Legion of Doom (LOD), taken from the Superfriends, was actually a stable consisting of the likes of King Kong Bundy, Buzz Sawyer, Jake Roberts, the Spoiler, Iron Sheik, original Sheik, and Arn Anderson.

The Road Warriors were just a part of the stable with Precious Paul Ellering as the manager and mouthpiece. As members left, the Warriors and Ellering kept the name of LOD. 

Laurinaitis (Animal) began as a member of the group known as the Road Warrior. Eventually, Hegstrand (Hawk) came into the fold and the two teamed to form the Road Warriors.

The face paint added even more to their intimidating aura. Within six months the tandem would capture the National tag team titles.

This offended a few in the back, as others felt the Warriors did not pay their dues to receive such a high push so soon. But what could one say to the Road Warriors. 

Adding to their intimidating aura, there is a backstage story which states many of the jobbers coming in to the arena would see their names on the board to face the Warriors and would immediately grab their bags and head towards the exit.

Not many wanted to wrestle the Road Warriors. Not because of carelessness like other wrestlers such as the Ultimate Warrior and Lex Luger, but because of Hawk and Animal's stiff, realistic wrestling style.

The Road Warriors in ring style was very similar to Crusher, Dick the Bruiser, Stan Hansen, Bruiser Brody, many Japanese legends such as Antonio Inoki and Giant Baba. 

In Georgia, the Road Warriors ran roughshod over the competition and decided against going to World Wrestling Federation (WWF) in favor of Japan and the American Wrestling Association (AWA).

Though AWA boss Verne Gagne preferred more technical wrestlers over musclebound cartoon characters, he saw something special in the Warriors and allowed them to win the AWA World titles and hold them for well over a year. 

In the AWA, the Road Warriors started hearing the cheers for the first time. The squash matches and special style of destruction was loved by the AWA faithful. The team won the staps from Baron Von Raschke and Crusher in August 1984.

A few times, Gagne wanted the Warriors to drop the titles to the Fabulous Ones, Steve Keirn and Stan Lane. The Warriors had fun making Verne upset by not doing the job. 

The Road Warriors finally dropped the belts to Steve Regal and Jimmy Garvin in September 1985 thanks in part to outside interference from the Fabulous Freebirds.

The Road Warriors did not mind doing the job this time, as they were headed to WCW/NWA exclusively.

During the Road Warriors' time in WCW, they had memorable feuds against the Russians, Midnight Express, Powers of Pain and Four Horsemen. 

When the team first started splitting time between the AWA and NWA/WCW, the whole point was to pit the AWA champions against the NWA champions, Ivan and Nikita Koloff.

The feud also was the typical American heroes vs. the evil foreigners, but the Road Warriors were not the typical flag-bearing good guys.

During this feud, the team met up against an old friend, Barry Darsow, who was portrayed as a Russian sympathizer who had joined up with the Koloffs to be collectively known as the Russians. 

The Road Warriors may have won the six-man title with Dusty Rhodes during the Russians feud, but the backstage bookers decided to put the tag team titles on the Rock and Roll Express.

As many fans, this writer wanted to see the Warriors destroy the Express. It would have been fitting to set up the inaugural Jim Crockett Sr. Memorial Cup finals to be the two most popular teams in the NWA/WCW at the time.

Instead, the fans got to see the Road Warriors capture the cup by defeating Magnum T.A. and Ronnie Garvin. 

After the cup and a few visits to Japan, the Warriors set their sights on helping friend Dusty Rhodes and former foe Nikita Koloff in battles against the evil Four Horsemen. The foursome competed in the first WarGames match in which the fan favorites were able to win. 

Hawk and Animal had a few singles matches against the great Ric Flair and were able to hold their own against the Nature Boy.

In a match as part of the Great American Bash in Philadelphia, Hawk was able to pin Flair and appeared to be the new World champion. But a Dusty finish was set in motion and the belt was returned to Flair. 

After the Horsemen, the Warriors had to face a team of imitators, the Powers of Pain, the Warlord and Barbarian.

Finally, it appeared the Warriors had met their match in power. After a few gruesome incidents and matches, the Warriors were able to send the Powers of Pain packing to the WWF.

Legend has it the Powers of Pain were unwilling to face off against the Warriors in a series of scaffold matches, matches the Warriors fought the Midnight Express in at Starrcade. 

The stage was set for the Road Warriors to finally capture the NWA World titles. Once again, a Dusty finish cost the Warriors the gold.

Against Tully Blanchard and Arn Anderson at Starrcade 1987, the fans were in a frenzy as the Warriors were finally crowned new NWA World tag team champions. A technicality prevented the Warriors from winning the belts.

The Road Warriors appeared to be turning heel as they started to become more dominating in their matches and focusing less on the crowd.

A turning point occurred when facing the favorite whipping boys, the Midnight Express, in New Orleans in October 1988. Hawk and Animal totally dominated the Express in a match for the titles. The turn was completed by turning on Sting and by putting a spike in Dusty's eye. 

The spike incident, where Dusty decided to go against policy by blading on camera, cost Dusty his job. The Road Warriors lost by disqualification to Sting and Rhodes at Starrcade. 

The Road Warriors soon found themselves being cheered once again without doing a thing. The cheers forced the bookers to put them against bad guy teams once again.

The title reign ended at a Clash of the Champions where a quick count by Teddy Long cost the Warriors the belts against the Varsity Club, Mike Rotunda and Steve Williams, led by Kevin Sullivan. 

The Road Warriors were still relevant in tag team wrestling, but were relegated to feuds against the Skyscrapers and Samoan Swat Team.

The organization was moving to the direction to place the Freebirds, Jimmy Garvin and Michael Hayes, and eventually the Steiners, Rick and Scott, as the top tag teams.

The Road Warriors last major accomplishment was winning the Iron Team tournament at Starrcade.

The next step was a natural one to move to the WWF and complete the triple crown for tag teams. At this time, the Road Warrior name was retired and the team started using LOD exclusively. 

Vince McMahon may have also broke up the Powers of Pain, since that feud was done at a competitor and set up for the dream match wrestling fans wanted to see. 

Like many dream matches, the Demolition vs. LOD feud did not live up to the hype. Not because the teams did not mesh in the ring, but because of Bill Eadie's failing health.

The teams could have meshed well as Demolition Smash was an old friend and foe of the LOD, Barry Darsow.

Since the WWF had a policy of not acknowledging wrestlers' pasts during this time, the LOD vs. Demolition feud was set up by having Hawk and Animal costing Demolition the belts at Summerslam. 

The feud failed to live up to the hype because Ax (Eadie), was not able to perform up to Demolition standards and was replaced in many matches against a 'green' Brian Adams, who was performing as Demolition Crush.

The LOD also teamed up with the Ultimate Warrior for six man matches against Crush, Ax, and Smash. The chemistry just was not present and the feud was short-lived. 

Soon the Road Warriors set their sights on the WWF tag team belts. Standing in their way was the Nasty Boys. The LOD completed the triple crown by defeating the Nastys at Summerslam 1991. 

They held the belts until a familiar foe, Mike Rotundo, who was teaming with Ted DiBiase as Money Inc., defeated the LOD for the gold.

Just like what occurred in the WCW/NWA, a short title reign and surprising loss, put the team back in the middle of the pack in tag team wrestling. 

A ventriloquist dummy, Rocco, was part of the inspiration for the Road Warriors leaving the WWF. The other was Animal was suffering from major back issues. Hawk left first to go to Japan and team with Kensuke Sasaki as the Hell Raisers. 

In 1996, Animal was ready to come back 100 percent and the team returned to WCW. After numerous title shots and feuds against Harlem Heat and the Steiners, the team left the organization to head back to the WWF.

The Warriors claim a dispute in contract pay was the reason; Eric Bischoff claims otherwise. 

Before going to WWF, the Road Warriors took time to travel back to Japan and work other independent promotions. Upon their return to the WWF, the Warriors aided Stone Cold Steve Austin in his feud against the Hart Foundation.

The duo became two-time WWF tag team champions by beating the Godwinns. As with so many of their title reigns, the run was cut short as the New Age Outlaws, Road Dogg Jesse James and Billy Gunn, were able to dethrone the powerhouses. 

The duo appeared to be on a verge of a feud as they brawled against each other after a match on RAW. They left television so this feud, thankfully, did not materialize.

Hawk and Animal returned as LOD 2000 with new ring apparel at Wrestlemania XIV. They even took on Sunny as their manager. 

The magic the Road Warriors seemed to have faded into wrestling lore. After a terrible angle exploiting Hegstrand's personal demons, the Warriors disappeared from television.

The duos final WWE television appearance occurred on an episode of Monday Night Raw against champions Kane and Rob Van Dam (RVD). 

Hawk finally was able to cure his personal demons, by reaching out for help through Christianity, but after years of chemical abuse, his body had enough.

Hawk, after working to move, laid down for his final slumber. Hegstrand passed away in October 2003. 

Road Warrior Animal formed a new LOD with John Heidenreich. The team won the WWE tag team title from Joey Mercury and Johnny Nitro (Morrison), known at the time as MNM.

After the win, Laurinaitis looked to the heavens and told Hawk, "This one's for you."

The Road Warriors paved the way for many of the great teams and performers throughout the years.

From the entrance music to the face paint to being muscular wrestlers who could perform in the ring and on the mike, the Road Warriors will always be remembered.

The Hall of Fame induction is the last chapter in their glorious history. 

 

References:

World Wrestling Entertainment production, (2005). Road Warriors: the life and death of the most dominant tag team in history [DVD].

WWE, (2011). Hall of Fame class of 2011: the road warriors and paul ellering. Retrieved from http://www.wwe.com/shows/wrestlemania/wrestlemaniaxxvii/2011-hall-of-fame-photos-road-warriors

Wikipedia, (2011, March 29). The road warriors. Retrieved from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road_warriors

Starting lineups HEAT (50-22) Center: Erick Dampier Power forward: Chris Bosh Small forward: LeBron James Shooting guard: Dwyane Wade Point guard: Mike Bibby Inactive: Mario Chalmers, Dexter Pittman, Udonis Haslem. Rockets (38-34) Center: Chuck Hayes Power forward: Luis Scola Small forward: Chase Budinger Shooting guard: Kevin Martin Point guard: Kyle Lowry Inactive: Hasheem Thabeet, Terrence Williams, Yao Ming. Referees: Bill Spooner, Rodney Mott, Scott Wall. Pregame note of note: When Dwyane [...]

Baby Love, London

While your typical indie, funk and pop nights have never been ones to shy away from digging out the 1960s girl group platters, Baby Love must be the capital's only club dedicated wholeheartedly to the sweet, soulful sound of lady-led Motown. And about time too. Playing shower sing-alongs you know and ones you don't from the likes of the Supremes and Martha Reeves And The Vandellas, the night's resident DJs Paddy Hughes and Tors Beedles will also be branching out into the Brill Building beat of the Shirelles and the Chiffons as well as the Phil Spector-fiddled oeuvre of the Ronettes and the Crystals. A free-entry Sunday session, this new weekend wind-down will also host guest decks sessions from various East End faces, who'll be playing songs that owe a serious debt to all those wonderful women in matching sequinned evening gowns and backcombed bouffants. It's all really saying something …

Hoxton Square Bar & Kitchen, N1, Sun

Leonie Cooper

A Taste Of Eden Warm-up, Glasgow

Organisers of this summer's Eden Festival – a three-day family and eco-friendly celebration of music, dance and culture – preview a host of acts from the festival bill in Glasgow tonight. No representation of the Garden of Eden would be complete without its resident serpent so, compering is Viper, introducing circus show-band the Carny Villains, corseted suppliers of sin-with-a-grin the Voodoo Dollz plus a smattering of sauce from the Club Wonka Performers. Tune spinners include Wee G, Swank'n'Jams, the Jumblesale Soundsystem and Junglist Alliance DJs, while the wandering Fruit-Bearing Mistresses ensure things stay messy and juicy throughout the night.

Stereo, Renfield Lane, Sat

Patric Baird

Back In The Dark, Bournemouth

The biggest adventures sometimes begin with the smallest of coincidences. When Bournemouth's geezers-about-town DeepBlue played a private party in London last year, not only did they thrill to the chilled deep house soul of Zero 7's Sam Hardaker, they managed to persuade him to take an excursion down to their manor. Steering resolutely away from the "chill" tag his band are often labelled with, Hardaker's DJ sets are as widescreen as his recorded work and take in jazz and soul influences as well as uplifting house. The lush marble'n'mahogony-lined confines of Bournemouth's uber-cool Winchester pub is the venue for this scene of sonic experimentation and Hardaker is ably supported by Back In The Dark residents including deep house nuts Gary Ellis and Wayne Bailey. The frankly unsettling-sounding Special Branch Room is staffed by Dave Hornby, Paul Moore and Stalker.

The Winchester, Poole Hill, Sat

John Mitchell

Mono_cult 4th Birthday, Leeds

Heading back to The Faversham for the first time since New Year's Day, Mono_cult are making a pretty big deal out of tonight's birthday. Though presently without a permanent home, the night is still in great form, popping up for special parties wherever and whenever they've got something exciting to add to Leeds' almost-too-good club scene. And this massive student boozer will allow three rooms of music. That's just as well, as the evening's soundtrack will be pretty varied, from the disco-tinged house of Panorama Bar residents Soundstream or Dead Rose Music Company, through the deep house of We Play House Recordings' FCL, to the eclectic and very current UK bass sounds of Julio Bashmore. Typically for Mono_cult, each of the guests is making their Leeds debut, alongside residents Matt Long, Brad Mercer and Paul Kaminski.

The Faversham, Springfield Mount, Sat

Marc Rowlands

One More Time!, London

Boldly celebrating the music of the 90s and the noughties, One More Time! rifles through the all-encompassing record bags of the recent past to create a gleeful, unselfconscious south-of-the-river soiree. Likely to attract a crowd who happily remember the songs from first time around, there'll probably be a fair few young'uns scratching their heads when the En Vogue drops, wondering if they're listening to a rare Destiny's Child B-side, in attendance too. Unfettered fun is the name of One More Time's simple but effective game, with Amersham Arms and Guilty Pleasures man Dan Hayes holding the fort alongside Old Queens Head DJ Max Raymond. What's also exciting about this new night is its location, the sumptuous, light-up dancefloor-boasting Clapham Grand, which normally plays host to rowdy events like the notorious Aussie piss-up, The Church.

Clapham Grand, SW11, Fri

Leonie Cooper

It's almost time to say goodbye to 2010. A year that featured the launch of the iPad, the Old Spice commercials, the European debt crisis, Foursquare rising (soon to fall?), Groupon turning down a $6 billion offer from Google, Steven Slater's dramatic exit from his Jet Blue flight (and career), the TSA-inspired catchphrase "Don't Touch My Junk," a Gap logo that was junked following a Twitter outcry and Spain winning the World Cup (while I was there). While all this was going on, these were the six most popular Brand Mix posts of the year:

1) Great Brands of Tomorrow
Credit Suisse released an impressive report on the 27 brands it considered to have the greatest potential in the years to come. Most of the brands on the list are ones that have started to make the leap from niche/emerging players into powerful mainstream brands. Brands like Trader Joe's and Hyundai. These brands still have plenty of room to grow but are more established and have less risk of flaming out than early-stage companies. The report also had some interesting thoughts on the power of brand investing and what, in their opinion, constitutes sustainable brand value creation.

2) Marriott launches Autograph Collection, a tricky proposition
It was nice to see a post about brand architecture, my specialty area, make the top six. This post talked about the branding challenges for Marriott as it launched its new Autograph Collection bringing together high-end, unique properties in an upscale franchise. It's a  tricky challenge to get the balance right between recognizing marketing and operating efficiencies of bringing these properties closer together without eroding the unique characteristics that customers value.

3) Six of the Best: Sticky accelerators, iPad jokes, phone book forts and more edition
Back in January, almost any reference to iPad in your headline was guaranteed to increase traffic. In the early days of the iPad, there was a lot of chat about the name and its unfortunate proximity to a category of feminine hygiene products. In this SOTB, I listed a post written by Hayes Roth, Landor's CMO, who correctly predicted that the product would be a smash and the hoo-hah about the name quickly forgotten.

4) In questions of perception and behavior, font matters
This post reported on an article by Hyunjin Song and Norbert Schwarz in the February edition of The Psychologist that showed how fonts can significantly influence people's assessment about how easy or difficult things are to do. People estimated that an exercise with instructions printed in Arial would be much easier and faster to complete than the same exercise with instructions printed in Script MT. The more difficult-to-read fonts tax our brain's limited processing power and lead us to make false inferences about the task itself.

5) Six of the Best: Branding edition
I should probably put the words brand and branding into my titles more often if I want to get more readership. Anyway, this SOTB featured six posts about various aspects of branding from what we can learn from the remarkable turnaround of Ford to the transformation of Bill Gates as a presenter.

6) Essentials of Branding: FREE! download
Well this post had "branding" and "FREE!" in the title so it should have been the most popular of all. McGraw Hill's Big Book of Marketing is, they say: "The most comprehensive book of its kind... the definitive resource for marketing your business in the twenty-first century." Landor contributed content for the chapter on branding and it's that content that's STILL available for free download on landor.com

That's it! Back soon with more stories from the world of brand strategy. More thoughts and comments also available on Twitter (@martinjbishop).

Photo: last rays by paul (dex)  (Flickr)

Over the past couple of years, I’ve started a thread focusing on albums that would be celebrating the 40th anniversary of their release. It takes quite a bit of work to compile the list in this form but, I figured that it’s worth it. Since I had a bit of time over the holidays, I thought that I’d work on the list for 1971/2011. (I'm sure that there are many more that could be on the list but, this is a pretty good representation. Any corrections are certainly welcome. Feel free to mention additions to the list.) Once again, it was another good year for new releases. Three of The Beatles had releases. John had Imagine, Paul had Ram (and Wild Life with Wings) and George issued a set with his Concert for Bangladesh. ELO released their debut and ELP and Yes issued a pair of albums each. Traffic issued a pair as well with The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys and Welcome to the Canteen. There were some nice live albums, too. The Allman Brothers released their At Fillmore East and Humble Pie put out their Performance: Rockin’ the Fillmore. There were also a pair of Hendrix posthumous releases (Cry of Love and Rainbow Bridge). Some big sellers in the form of Jethro Tull’s Aqualing, Led Zeppelin’s fourth LP, The Who’s Who’s Next and Carole King’s Tapestry also hit the shelves. Joni Mitchell released Blue, David Bowie issued Hunky Dory and Van Morrison had Tupelo Honey. Pink Floyd issued an album of new material (Meddle) as well as a compilation (Relics). The same for The Rolling Stones with Sticky Fingers and Hot Rocks. So much good stuff! I’ll let the list speak for itself... *Record Albums Released in 1971* (note that release dates in North American and Europe may vary) A The Allman Brothers Band - At Fillmore East Amboy Dukes - Survival of the Fittest (Live) Amon Düül II - Tanz der Lemminge Lynn Anderson - Rose Garden April Wine - April Wine Atomic Rooster - In Hearing of Atomic Rooster Brian Auger - Oblivion Express Kevin Ayers - Whatevershebringswesing B Badfinger - Straight Up Joan Baez - Blessed Are... The Band - Cahoots Bang - Bang Barclay James Harvest - Once Again Count Basie - Afrique Count Basie - Have a Nice Day Shirley Bassey - Something Else The Beach Boys - Surf's Up The Jeff Beck Group - Rough and Ready Bee Gees - Trafalgar Chuck Berry - San Francisco Dues Birth Control - Operation Black Oak Arkansas - Black Oak Arkansas Black Sabbath - Master of Reality Black Widow - Black Widow Carla Bley & Paul Haines - Escalator over the Hill Blood, Sweat & Tears - Blood, Sweat & Tears 4 Blue Cheer - Oh! Pleasant Hope Booker T & the MG's - Melting Pot David Bowie - Hunky Dory Bread - Manna Edgar Broughton Band - Edgar Broughton Band James Brown - Hot Pants James Brown - Sho Is Funky Down Here James Brown - Super Bad Jack Bruce - Harmony Row Jack Bruce - Things We Like Budgie - Budgie Eric Burdon & Jimmy Witherspoon - Guilty! The Byrds - Byrdmaniax The Byrds - Farther Along C Cactus -One Way...Or Another Cactus - Restrictions John Cale & Terry Riley - Church of Anthrax Can - Tago Mago Captain Beefheart & his Magic Band - Mirror Man (material recorded in 1967) Caravan - In the Land of Grey and Pink Carpenters - Carpenters Johnny Cash - Greatest Hits, Vol. 2 Johnny Cash - Little Fauss and Big Halsy Johnny Cash - Man in Black Johnny Cash - The Man, The World, His Music Johnny Cash & Jerry Lee Lewis - Johnny Cash & Jerry Lee Lewis Sing Hank Williams Ray Charles - Volcanic Action of My Soul Chase - Chase Chicago - Chicago at Carnegie Hall Chicago - Chicago III The Chi-Lites - (For God's Sake) Give More Power to the People Gene Clark - White Light Jimmy Cliff - Another Cycle Cluster - Cluster Bruce Cockburn - High Winds, White Sky Leonard Cohen - Songs of Love and Hate Ornette Coleman - Twins John Coltrane - Sun Ship (recorded 1965) Judy Collins - Living Shirley Collins and the Albion Country Band - No Roses Colosseum - Colosseum Live Rita Coolidge - Nice Feelin' Rita Coolidge - Rita Coolidge Alice Cooper - Killer Alice Cooper - Love It to Death Chick Corea - Piano Improvisations Vol. 1 Chick Corea - Piano Improvisations Vol. 2 Crazy Horse - Crazy Horse Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young - 4 Way Street David Crosby - If I Could Only Remember My Name King Curtis - Live at Fillmore West Curved Air - Second Album D Miles Davis - A Tribute to Jack Johnson Miles Davis - Live-Evil Deep Purple - Fireball Delaney & Bonnie - Motel Shot Sandy Denny - The North Star Grassman and the Ravens John Denver - Poems, Prayers and Promises Neil Diamond - Stones Bo Diddley - Another Dimension Dion DiMucci - You're Not Alone Dr. John - The Sun, Moon & Herbs Donovan - H.M.S. Donovan The Doobie Brothers - The Doobie Brothers The Doors - L.A. Woman The Doors - Other Voices Bob Dylan - Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Vol. Ii E Earth, Wind & Fire - Earth, Wind & Fire Egg - The Polite Force Electric Light Orchestra - The Electric Light Orchestra (aka No Answer) Emerson, Lake & Palmer - Tarkus Emerson, Lake & Palmer - Pictures at an Exhibition John Entwistle - Smash Your Head Against the Wall F Faces - A Nod Is as Good as a Wink... to a Blind Horse Faces - Long Player Fairport Convention - Angel Delight Family -Fearless Faust - Faust The 5th Dimension - Love's Lines, Angles and Rhymes Ella Fitzgerald - Ella à Nice Roberta Flack - Quiet Fire Flamin' Groovies - Teenage Head Fleetwood Mac - Future Games The Flying Burrito Brothers - The Flying Burrito Brothers Focus - Moving Waves Aretha Franklin - Aretha Live at Fillmore West Aretha Franklin - Aretha's Greatest Hits Free - Free Live! Funkadelic - Maggot Brain G Serge Gainsbourg - Histoire de Melody Nelson Rory Gallagher - Deuce Rory Gallagher - Rory Gallagher Marvin Gaye - What's Going On The J. Geils Band - The Morning After Genesis - Nursery Cryme Gentle Giant - Acquiring the Taste Golden Earring - Seven Tears Grand Funk Railroad - E Pluribus Funk Grand Funk Railroad - Survival Grateful Dead - Grateful Dead (live) Grateful Dead - Historic Dead Live 1966 Al Green - Al Green Gets Next to You Grin - Grin Gordon Lightfoot - Summer Side of Life Groundhogs - Split The Guess Who - So Long, Bannatyne H Bill Haley & His Comets - Rock Around the Country Tom T. Hall - In Search of a Song Peter Hammill - Fool's Mate John Hammond - Source Point Roy Harper - Stormcock George Harrison and Friends - The Concert for Bangladesh Richie Havens - Alarm Clock Hawkwind - In Search of Space Isaac Hayes - Black Moses Isaac Hayes - Shaft Jimi Hendrix - The Cry of Love Jimi Hendrix - Rainbow Bridge Dan Hicks and his Hot Licks - Where's the Money? The Hollies - Distant Light Honey Cone - Soulful Tapestry Honey Cone - Sweet Replies John Lee Hooker - Goin' Down Highway 51 John Lee Hooker - Mad Man Blues John Lee Hooker and Canned Heat - Hooker 'n Heat Hot Tuna - First Pull Up, Then Pull Down Howlin' Wolf - The London Howlin' Wolf Sessions Humble Pie - Performance Rockin' the Fillmore Humble Pie - Rock On I If - If 3 Incredible String Band - Liquid Acrobat as Regards the Air J The Jackson 5 - Goin' Back to Indiana The Jackson 5 - Greatest Hits The Jackson 5 - Maybe Tomorrow Jade Warrior - Jade Warrior Jade Warrior - Released James Gang - James Gang Live in Concert James Gang - Thirds Jefferson Airplane - Bark Waylon Jennings - The Taker/Tulsa Jethro Tull - Aqualung Billy Joel - Cold Spring Harbor Elton John - 11-17-70 (aka 17-11-70) Elton John - Madman Across the Water Tom Jones - Tom Jones Sings She's a Lady Janis Joplin - Pearl Joy of Cooking - Closer to the Ground Joy of Cooking - Joy of Cooking K B.B. King - Live in Cook County Jail Carole King - Music Carole King - Tapestry King Crimson - Islands The Kinks - Muswell Hillbillies The Kinks - Percy Kluster - Eruption (live) Kluster - Zwei-Osterei Kris Kristofferson - The Silver Tongued Devil and I Fela Kuti - Live! (with Ginger Baker) Fela Kuti - Why Black Man Dey Suffer? L The Last Poets - This is Madness Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin IV John Lennon - Imagine Lindisfarne - Fog on the Tyne Little Feat - Little Feat Jon Lord - Gemini Suite M Taj Mahal - Happy Just To Be Like I Am Mahavishnu Orchestra - The Inner Mounting Flame The Mamas & the Papas - People Like Us Man -Do You Like It Here Now, Are You Settling In? Bob Marley & The Wailers - Soul Revolution Bob Marley & The Wailers - Soul Revolution II John Martyn - Bless the Weather Curtis Mayfield - Curtis/Live! Curtis Mayfield - Roots Paul McCartney and Linda McCartney - Ram MC5 - High Time Don McLean - American Pie Melanie - Gather Me Melanie - The Good Book Steve Miller Band - Rock Love Mr. Fox - The Gypsy Joni Mitchell - Blue The Moody Blues - Every Good Boy Deserves Favour Van Morrison - Tupelo Honey Mott the Hoople - Brain Capers Mott the Hoople - Wildlife Mountain - Nantucket Sleighride The Move - Message from the Country Mungo Jerry - Electronically Tested Mungo Jerry - You Don't Have to Be in the Army Anne Murray - Talk It Over in the Morning N Graham Nash - Songs for Beginners Nazareth - Nazareth Rick Nelson and the Stone Canyon Band - Rudy the Fifth Willie Nelson - Yesterday's Wine Randy Newman - Randy Newman Live New Riders of the Purple Sage - New Riders of the Purple Sage Olivia Newton-John - If Not for You The Nice - Elegy Harry Nilsson - Aerial Pandemonium Ballet Harry Nilsson - Nilsson Schmilsson Harry Nilsson - The Point! Laura Nyro - Gonna Take a Miracle O Ocean - Put Your Hand in the Hand Yoko Ono - Fly Le Orme - Collage Osibisa - Osibisa Osibisa - Woyaya Gilbert O'Sullivan - Himself P Dolly Parton - Coat of Many Colors The Partridge Family - A Partridge Family Christmas Card The Partridge Family - Shopping Bag The Partridge Family - Sound Magazine The Partridge Family - Up to Date Pentangle - Reflection Pink Floyd - Meddle Pink Floyd - Relics Poco - Deliverin' Poco - From the Inside Elvis Presley - C'mon Everybody Elvis Presley - Elvis Sings the Wonderful World of Christmas Elvis Presley - Love Letters from Elvis Elvis Presley - You'll Never Walk Alone John Prine - John Prine Procol Harum - Broken Barricades Q Quicksilver Messenger Service - Quicksilver R Bonnie Raitt - Bonnie Raitt The Rascals - Peaceful World The Rascals - Search and Nearness Renaissance - Illusion REO Speedwagon - REO Speedwagon Emitt Rhodes - The American Dream Smokey Robinson & The Miracles - One Dozen Roses The Rolling Stones - Hot Rocks 1964-1971 The Rolling Stones - Sticky Fingers Diana Ross - Surrender Todd Rundgren - Runt: The Ballad of Todd Rundgren Leon Russell - Leon Russell and the Shelter People Mitch Ryder - Detroit S Buffy Sainte-Marie - She Used to Want to Be a Ballerina Pharoah Sanders - Thembi Mongo Santamaria - Afro Roots Santana - Santana III Boz Scaggs - Boz Scaggs & Band Boz Scaggs - Moments Carly Simon - Anticipation Carly Simon - Carly Simon Frank Sinatra - Sinatra & Company Sir Lord Baltimore - Sir Lord Baltimore Skid Row - 34 Hours Sly & the Family Stone - There's a Riot Goin' On Soft Machine - Fourth Sparks (as Halfnelson) - Halfnelson Spirogyra - St. Radigunds Jimmie Spheeris - Isle of View Status Quo - Dog of Two Head Steeleye Span - Please to See the King Steeleye Span - Ten Man Mop, or Mr. Reservoir Butler Rides Again Cat Stevens - Teaser and the Firecat Rod Stewart - Every Picture Tells a Story Stephen Stills - Stephen Stills 2 Stoney & Meat Loaf - Stoney & Meatloaf Barbra Streisand - Barbra Joan Streisand Barbra Streisand - Stoney End The Stylistics - The Stylistics Sun Ra - Pictures of Infinity Supertramp - Indelibly Stamped Sweet - Funny How Sweet Co-Co Can Be T James Taylor - James Taylor and the Original Flying Machine (recorded ‘66-'67) James Taylor - Mud Slide Slim and the Blue Horizon Kate Taylor - Sister Kate Livingston Taylor - Liv The Temptations - Sky's the Limit Ten Years After - A Space in Time Thin Lizzy - Thin Lizzy Three Dog Night - Golden Bisquits Three Dog Night - Harmony Traffic - The Low Spark of High Heeled Boys Traffic - Welcome to the Canteen (live) T.Rex - Electric Warrior U UFO - UFO 2: Flying Uriah Heep - Look at Yourself Uriah Heep - Salisbury V Van der Graaf Generator - Pawn Hearts W War - All Day Music War - War Dionne Warwick - The Dionne Warwicke Story Muddy Waters - They Call Me Muddy Waters Weather Report - Weather Report Tony Joe White - Tony Joe White The Who - Meaty Beaty Big and Bouncy The Who - Who's Next Andy Williams - Love Story Wings - Wild Life Edgar Winter - Edgar Winter's White Trash Johnny Winter and - Live Wishbone Ash - Pilgrimage Bill Withers - Just as I Am Stevie Wonder - Where I'm Coming From Link Wray - Link Wray Y Yes - Fragile Yes - The Yes Album Z Frank Zappa & The Mothers of Invention - Fillmore East, June 1971 Frank Zappa - 200 Motels Soundtrack ZZ Top - ZZ Top's First Album

And the GOP weeps.

... of Commerce to lobby against the measure . Meanwhile, on MSNBC’s Countdown last night, guest host Chris Hayes brought on Ground Zero worker T.J. Gilmartin, who recounted his disturbing interaction with Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) on the bill earlier this month. Gilmartin told his heartbreaking story about losing his ability to breath properly after working in the toxic dust at Ground Zero,...

Source : Motor City Liberal

The bill extending medical benefits to 9/11 responders passed today. It had been held up because, well, it's not exactly clear.

At one point, Sen. Tom Coburn said the problem was the bill hadn't had a hearing in committee. That was untrue: It had been heard and passed through the Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee -- the very committee Coburn sits on. It turned out he just hadn't shown up to the hearing.

At other times, Coburn said that the problem was that the bill wasn't paid for. That also wasn't true: The bill was fully offset by closing a tax break for foreign corporations that operated in the United States. Coburn had also supported the unpaid-for extension of the Bush tax cuts under the theory that "It’s not a cost. That’s where we are today. That’s the baseline. It doesn’t score anything to continue them." None of that is true, incidentally. The budget baseline does not include the extension of the Bush tax cuts, and so they score as a cost.

Coburn eventually released a "detailed outline" on his opposition to the legislation. It's detailed, but it's not particularly persuasive. It really just throws a lot of spaghetti against the wall to see what sticks. Coburn argues, for instance, that "government health care benefits crowd-out private benefits. Private plans will have incentive to drop coverage for procedures and health care entities in which enrolled patients can receive benefits through the 9/11 program." The idea that "crowd-out" would be a problem when you're dealing with a population as small and unique as 9/11 responders is laughable. Coburn's document also relied on his office's calculations of the bill's cost ($10.4 billion), rather than the Congressional Budget Office's ($7 billion).

The bill finally did pass, but only once Democrats shaved it from $7 billion in benefits to $4.3 billion in benefits. It's quite a place for the GOP, which just fought to extend $700 billion in tax cuts for the rich, to begin cutting back. To get a sense of the people and problems we're talking about here, watch this interview Chris Hayes conducted with a 9/11 responder who subsequently lost 30 percent of his lung capacity due to inhalation of particulates at Ground Zero:

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Sex workers who suffer violence or worse only come to light when murderers such as Stephen Griffiths are caught

The death of Geraldine Brocklehurst, unlike those of Susan Rushworth, Suzanne Blamires and Shelley Armitage, was not an act of almost cartoonish savagery carried out by a man with a violent personality disorder and an obsession with serial killers.

It was, rather, a casual, almost banal act of brutality by a drunk man whom she asked for a cigarette.

Brocklehurst, who was 40, was with a friend in the centre of Huddersfield on 4 October 2007 when 22-year-old Shayne Hayes walked by. As he passed, Brocklehurst asked him if he had a spare cigarette; in response he pulled out a knife and stabbed her four times in the upper body and neck. She bled to death minutes later. His barrister argued in court by way of mitigation that Hayes had been "in a state" about his relationship and had gone for a walk to "clear his head" when he encountered Brocklehurst.

The cases of Stephen Griffiths, given a full life term yesterday for the brutal, cannibalistic murders of Rushworth, Blamires and Armitage, and of Shayne Hayes may have little in common, but the lives of their victims were dispiritingly similar. All four were youngish women with chaotic lives who were working as prostitutes when they were murdered, and died because their activities made them vulnerable to violent men.

No-one knows how many women sell sex in the UK – one estimate puts the figure at 80,000, including those who work from premises and those who work on the streets – and no one knows how many have been the victims of violence, rape or worse. "When it's a covert activity, all you can do is guess, basically," says Hilary Kinnell, the former co-ordinator of the UK Network of Sex Work Projects and the author of Violence and Sex Work in Britain.

But just over four years after part-time lorry driver Steve Wright killed five women in Ipswich – murders that shocked Britain and led to calls for a new approach to prostitution – and almost exactly 30 since Peter Sutcliffe was finally arrested after killing 13 on the same Bradford streets as Griffiths, sex workers are still being murdered by those sometimes referred to as clients.

No comprehensive figure is available, but based on informal reporting through her own networks, Kinnell suggests that 134 sex workers, including a small number of transsexuals, are known or believed to have been killed since 1990.

Since Wright's spree in late 2006, she believes that number to be 15, though another recent victim, not widely reported to have been a sex worker, could take that total to 16. While a few cases like Griffiths's convulse the news media, most victims are barely noted outside their home towns and barely mourned beyond their families. Not a single national paper carried a mention of Geraldine Brocklehurst's death or the conviction of her killer.

While no change in legislation or shift in policing policy will be able to stop every determined killer, campaigners hoped that, particularly after the Ipswich killings, an examination of the laws around prostitution and a better public and police understanding of the risks faced by sex workers might begin to make their lives safer. Prostitution attracts passionate argument on both sides of the debate, with campaigners who work with sex workers such as the English Collective of Prostitutes (ECP) arguing vocally in favour of more liberal vice laws that might allow women to be less furtive in their activities. Others, including feminist campaigners and rightwing and religious groups, have argued for tougher penalties against the men who pay for the women's services.

Politicians too have fluctuated between the two positions. In 2004, the then home secretary David Blunkett published a consultation paper calling for debate on the issues of legalised brothels, registration for prostitutes and council-backed red-light areas; the proposal that emerged, however, was greatly watered down thanks to fears of a hostile media response, according to insiders. After the Ipswich murders, a Home Office review resulted in the powers introduced in the Policing and Crime Act, 2009, which among other things made it an offence to pay for sex from someone who had been trafficked.

After Griffiths's arrest in May, perhaps inevitably, the issue was raised once more. David Cameron said the possible question of decriminalisation of prostitution should be "looked at again", at the same time as he argued for a clampdown on kerb-crawling.

Campaigners detect no appetite for any significant policy shifts, however; the Home Office today would say only that the government "is committed to tackling the harm and exploitation associated with prostitution" and that it wanted police to "use the law, where appropriate, to tackle those who have taken advantage of those who have been forced into prostitution".

"Although there were changes in the law after Ipswich, they were certainly not in the direction of decriminalisation," says Kinnell. "The police have more powers to close down properties [in which women are working], to arrest, to do practically anything, but the argument was they would only do it in the women's interest. That is such an unrealistic expectation."

Cari Mitchell of the ECP agrees that rather than making women safer, the effect of the bill, in toughening the response to customers, has been to make sex workers less safe. "Crackdowns just drive women further underground," she says. "Any sensible person will know that if you're driven underground you're going to be less safe." The bill, she said, had been "a green light to violent men to attack women".

"Violence is not that common, but when men know you are not going to report it, men try to get away with it. Men will try to rip women off to any level, and when you're criminalised and working on the streets and people know you may be desperate, women will take risks."

While creative approaches to policing prostitution, such as in Liverpool, can have striking results, the national response, according to Kinnell, is "patchy at best". The Association of Chief Police Officers provides no guidance on interpretation of the prostitution laws, and a spokesman said it was up to individual chief constables to set the priorities for their forces. One officer working with sex workers who have been victims of rape acknowledged that the approach of vice officers and that of those attempting to support victims are often in tension.

Kinnell does detect some positive signs, however, noting that thanks to changing police and prosecutor attitudes to sex worker deaths and advances in forensics, the rate of clear-up for murder cases involving sex workers is no longer very different from that for other murders. "I would say that looking at my data since the mid-1990s, there's a huge change in the number of cases that are at least being brought to court, and most of them are resulting in a conviction."

Officers from West Yorkshire police were praised yesterday for securing Griffiths's speedy arrest and conviction, in a "stressful" operation. Det Supt Sukhbir Singh , who led the investigation, described it as dogged traditional policing "supported by developments in science and technology".

But David Wilson, professor of criminology at the University of Central England and the vice chair of the Howard League for Penal Reform, argues that there is a long way to go in terms of police – and public – attitudes to women who sell sex and the violence they face.

"Within police culture, no matter what we hear about the quality of policing, we know that if a prostitute goes missing and is reported as missing, that they won't be given the same priority as other people would get. I think the public statements have changed, but those public statements often hide the continuing of a private cultural phenomenon.''

An expert on serial killers, Wilson's view is that while, following high-profile multiple murder cases such as Griffiths, the temptation is to agonise over the killer's motives and psychology, the more important question is to ask why the victims of such killers are so often sex workers.

"There are always going to be a small but consistent group of people in our culture who will want to do the maximum damage to other human beings. They can't continue to do harm to other people … if they are stopped early enough, if the group of people that they initially targeted are valued enough in our culture for the police to take it seriously. We create the phenomenon of serial killing by not valuing this group of people enough."

... of Commerce to lobby against the measure . Meanwhile, on MSNBC’s Countdown last night, guest host Chris Hayes brought on Ground Zero worker T.J. Gilmartin, who recounted his disturbing interaction with Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) on the bill earlier this month. Gilmartin told his heartbreaking story about losing his ability to breath properly after working in the toxic dust at Ground Zero,...

Source : Think Progress

Explore : Famous Blogs, Think Progress

Some light reading for the holiday: writing for American Scientest, Brian Hayes says in The Semicolon Wars

A catalog maintained by Bill Kinnersley of the University of Kansas lists about 2,500 programming languages. Another survey, compiled by Diarmuid Piggott, puts the total even higher, at more than 8,500. And keep in mind that whereas human languages have had millennia to evolve and diversify, all the computer languages have sprung up in just 50 years. Even by the more-conservative standards of the Kinnersley count, that means we've been inventing one language a week, on average, ever since Fortran.

For ethnologists, linguistic diversity is a cultural resource to be nurtured and preserved, much like biodiversity. All human languages are valuable; the more the better. That attitude of detached reverence is harder to sustain when it comes to computer languages, which are products of design or engineering rather than evolution. The creators of a new programming language are not just adding variety for its own sake; they are trying to make something demonstrably better. But the very fact that the proliferation of languages goes on and on argues that we still haven't gotten it right. We still don't know the best notation—or even a good-enough notation—for expressing an algorithm or defining a data structure.

The 2010 Census is over and the bureau has released new numbers which tabulate the population of the largest cities in the U.S. 

These are the 50 largest cities in the US and their NBA counterparts, and why each player fits the city he ranks with:  Hey, at least this is original! Get an education kids:

2010-11 Biggest cities and greatest player ever up to 2010-11

#50 - Wichita Kansas - 383,475 people - Jerry Lucas - they are both all American  and yet hardly anyone knows about either.

#49 - Arlington Texas - 390,718 people - Mark Aguirre - a growing city and a player that grew on fans when he won a couple of titles.

#48 - Minneapolis Minnesota - 391,879 people - Gary Payton - Payton would leave your offense out in the cold, and Minneapolis is always cold.

#47 - Tulsa Oklahoma - 394,658 people - Robert Parish - a quiet city that is big. Parish was a big 7' quiet man.

#46 - Colorado Springs Colorado - 399,903 people - Bernard King - up there in elevation, and BK was up there in scoring. Way up there.

#45 - Oakland California - 420,937 people - Kevin McHale - Oak town gets down and dirty and so did McHale in the post.

#44 - New Orleans Louisiana - 421,587 people - Bobby Jones - Jones helped his teams build into champions and New Orleans is now basically rebuilt. 

#43 - Cleveland Ohio - 424,670 people - Billy Cunningham - Cleveland used to have 850,000 people and Cunningham was champ, and then Wilt left. Sound familiar?

#42 - Raleigh North Carolina - 432,118 people - Pete Maravich - Raleigh is growing rapidly and Pete did everything rapidly, on the court.

#41 - Virginia Beach Virginia - 432,573 people - Steve Nash - A safe city, and Nash is safely one of the best point guards ever.

#40 - Miami Florida - 441,610 people - Spencer Haywood - Miami seems bigger because of it's suburbs and Haywood seemed bigger than 6'10".

#39 - Long Beach California - 465,283 people - Dave Cowens - LB is in the middle of it all, and Cowens was the man in the middle on two title teams. Can you guess which two?

#38 - Omaha Nebraska - 467,010 people - Bob Cousy - People do not know Omaha is this large, and no one knew what Cousy would do next on the court. He's the Houdini of the hardwood.

#37 - Mesa Arizona - 473,821 people - Alex English - AE scored more total points than any player in the 80's and Mesa gained more people than almost any city in the last 10 years. 

#36 - Sacramento California - 477,592 people - Bill Walton - Sacramento is bigger than just itself and Walton was bigger with good teammates. Alone, he kinda sucked, but not as bad as Luke.

#35 - Kansas City Kansas - 488,768 people - Paul Westphal - KC is a blue collar town...sorta...and Westphal was one of the scrappiest players of all time.

#34 - Fresno California - 494,167 people - Patrick Ewing - Fresno is big but everyone makes fun of it..and Ewing...well, you get it right?

#33 - Albuquerque New Mexico - 541,276 people - Scottie Pippen - Just a few years back, Albuquerque was small, and in his first few years, Pippen played small. Thanks MJ.

#32 - Tucson Arizona - 551,068 people - Allen Iverson - Tucson gets really, really hot and so did Iverson.

#31 - Atlanta Georgia - 562,275 people - Nate Archibald - Atlanta seems bigger than this, but it is not and Nate was also Tiny.

#30 - Louisville Kentucky - 570,374 people - George Gervin - There are thousands of smooth talkers in Louisville and George was as smooth as they come. 

#29 - Oklahoma City Oklahoma - 574,756 people - Rick Barry - OKC is not flashy, but it is a hard working town. Barry was hard working, and a little flashy, except for the granny free throws. 

#28 - Las Vegas Nevada - 575,390 people - Clyde Drexler - The Blazers took a gamble on Drexler and it paid off, the Rockets saw his worth too.

#27 - Milwaukee Wisconsin - 607,370 people - Kevin Garnett - Milwaukee is bigger yet less famous than Green Bay, and KG is bigger yet less productive than Allen and Pierce, at least now.

#26 - Washington DC - 612,905 people - Dwyane Wade - DC is the center of it all and Wade is the center of it all for the Heat.

#25 - Nashville Tennessee - 618,443 people - Bob McAdoo - Big but no NBA team, and big man McAdoo had no title until he got to the Lakers.

#24 - Baltimore Maryland - 634,686 people - Elvin Hayes - Old school town and old school legend.

#23 - Seattle Washington - 640,607 people - LeBron James - The Sonics left Seattle and LeBron left...uh..forget it.

#22 - Denver Colorado - 641,901 people - Isiah Thomas - The mile high city is as elevated as Isiah made the Pistons in the late 1980's.

#21 - El Paso Texas - 658,510 - Elgin Baylor - El Paso is a huge city that never gets the recognition it deserves and Baylor was a huge talent but never won a title. So much like El Paso. Hot temperatures but not appreciated, and left out in the cold, like when Elgin retired early in the 1972 season, right before the Lakers would have brought him his first title.

#20 - Boston Massachusetts - 667,590 people - Karl Malone - Bostonians are hard nosed and who was harder than K. Malone?

#19 - Memphis Tennessee - 673,876 people - Oscar Robertson - The Big O did everything for his and Memphis does alot for the TV show 'The first 48.' Ha Ha. O Rob was scary and so is Memphis.

#18 - Charlotte North Carolina - 739,154 - Charles Barkley - Charlotte is continually growing and Barkley is too...

#17 - Fort Worth Texas - 774,721 people - Julius Erving - Ft. Woth is the epitome of Texas culture, and Erving is the epitome of great basketball.

#16 - Columbus Ohio - 787,964 people - Moses Malone - Cleveland gets all they hype but Columbus is bigger - Dr. J got all the hype but without Malone he would have zero titles.

#15 - Indianapolis Indiana - 818,557 people - David Robinson - He didn't play as big as he was, until the end, and Indianapolis never seemed as big as it is either.

#14 - Jacksonville Florida - 818,557 - John Stockton - Easily and by far the biggest city in Florida, but overshadowed by Miami. Stockton was the best player in Utah but was often overshadowed by K. Malone. 

#13 - Austin Texas - 823,652 people - John Havlicek - Hondo is still overlooked even though he is an 8 time NBA champion, and Austin is overlooked as one of the biggest and fastest growing cities in the nation.

#12 - San Francisco California - 831,531 people - Jerry West - SF is legendary and has alot of money; same with West.

#11 - Detroit Michigan - 904,608 people - Kobe Bryant - Detroit is a huge and empty city now and KB's name is bigger than his bite.

#10 - San Jose California - 998,046 people - Bob Pettit - Closest city to a million without being there just yet. Pettit is closer to the GOAT than you all think and I truly would pick him over KB if I had to choose one for my team in their prime season. Like San Jose, Pettit is WAY under-recognized. You just don't know how great he was. The only player to interrupt the Celtics dynasty.

 #9 - San Diego California - 1,314,976 people- Bill Russell - A huge city with no NBA team; the biggest US city without an NBA team. Likewise, NO TEAM could beat the Celtics for a long time, except the Hawks and Pettit.

#8 - Dallas Texas - 1,332,712 people - Tim Duncan - With talent as big as Texas, Dallas would be the prefect retirement spot for Duncan, so he could stretch out those long arms with some space.

#7 - San Antonio Texas -1,423,638 people - Shaquille O'Neal - San Antonio is big and overlooked on the biggest city list, and Shaq is overlooked on the all-time great list because he is 38 now. Yes, I know..he went to HS in SA.

#6 - Philadelphia Pennsylvania - 1,564,563 people - Hakeem Olajuwon - This player had limitless talent and capitalized on it. Philadelphia was the capital too, way back in the day.

#5 - Phoenix Arizona - 1,648,887 people - Larry Bird - Talk about hot, Larry and Phoenix are always on fire.

#4 - Houston Texas - 2,309,280 people - Magic Johnson - Houston is straight up HUGE and Magic was one of the HUGEST talent players the world has ever seen. Overlooked by the hype, Houston is related to Magic in that he is now overlooked on all-time great lists by unknowing children.

#3 - Chicago Illinois - 2,891,501 people - Kareem Abdul-Jabbar - The Sears Tower is representative of Kareem's career. Huge and now overlooked because everyone thinks they can just put up a taller building as if that would make those buildings better. Nothing is more classic than the Sears Tower. OK, maybe the Empire State Building.      

#2 - Los Angeles California - 3,935,078 people - Wilt Chamberlain - LA is exciting, huge, expansive and full of talent. Wilt was full of talent, and full of himself, just like LA. Also, LA has less than half the population of the #1 largest city in US, and Wilt has less than half the rings of the #1 player of all-time...

#1 - New York City New York - 8,435,508 - Man, this city is so huge it is almost unfathomable, unless you've been there. Jordan was unfathomable and yet if you saw the dude play there would be no doubt in your mind he was the greatest player ever. I saw him play and he is like NYC, head and shoulders above every city in the US. NYC also has attitude, just Like MJ, who knows he is the best too and is not afraid to tell you. Like a NYC citizen, he is kind of annoying, but it is still undeniable. NYC had it figured out a long time ago. So did MJ.

See you next time kids.................... 

Throw out the implications. Negate the BCS or non-BCS factor.

When it comes right down to it, what are the most intriguing, watchable, entertaining games on the bowl game schedule for this holiday season?

Here is how I see them breaking down with my 2010-11 bowl game rankings, from the worst to the best of what to watch for the next month.

35. New Orleans Bowl: Ohio vs. Troy

The bowl game may be approaching some kind of unofficial record of having the longest streak of having the worst bowl game matchup. And why does the game that draws some of the worst bowl-eligible teams of all time get to be played in the Big Easy? They should move the New Orleans bowl to Boise, Idaho.

34. New Mexico Bowl: BYU vs. UTEP

This game gets bonus points for kicking off our bowl season—just not enough bonus points to be ranked higher than 34th. I understand letting 6-6 teams compete in bowl games, but why against each other, and why in New Mexico?

33. Little Caesars Pizza Bowl: Florida International vs. Toledo

Part of the player’s gift bundle for this game is a commemorative football. Because if you are from Florida International, why would you not want to commemorate being forced to spend Christmas in Detroit, Michigan, playing in the Little Caesars Pizza Bowl against Toledo?

32. Military Bowl: East Carolina vs. Maryland

Points are immediately lost for somehow not landing a single service academy in a bowl called the Military Bowl. This game is played at RFK Stadium, so at the very least the game serves as a reminder that the stadium is still standing, even though no one else uses it.

31. Armed Forces Bowl: Army vs. SMU

The Armed Forces Bowl got it right. If you are going to call your bowl game such, you better have an inside track on Army, Navy or Air Force. After watching the ESPN documentary Pony Excess, can you imagine a better matchup of a program as sleazy as SMU and as un-sleazy as Army?

30. BBVA Compass Bowl: Pittsburgh vs. Kentucky

What exactly is a BBVA Compass? I am pretty sure the Pitt offense couldn’t even find the end zone using one. If you really need a reason to watch this debacle, it will be your last chance to gaze at Pitt coach Dave Wannstedt’s mustache.

29. Beef ‘O’ Brady’s Bowl: Southern Mississippi vs. Louisville

Beef ‘O’ Brady’s is a restaurant franchise originally founded in Brandon, Florida in 1985. It currently boasts 240 locations in 23 states, mostly in the Southern and Midwestern United States. Now you know more about Beef ‘O’ Brady’s than you do about either team playing in its bowl.

28. GoDaddy.com Bowl: Middle Tennessee vs. Miami (Ohio)

Turn this dud of a game on to see if former Miami (Ohio) coach Michael Haywood is or isn’t on the sideline (he was just hired by Pitt) and to see what Danica Patrick is or isn’t wearing.

27. Humanitarian Bowl: Northern Illinois vs. Fresno State

The definition of "humanitarian," according to Merriam-Webster, is “promoting human welfare.” If anybody had any care about human welfare, specifically the humans who play football for Northern Illinois and Fresno State, they would not send them to Boise, Idaho, to play football on blue turf in the dead of winter.

26. Independence Bowl: Air Force vs. Georgia Tech

This game is more of a personal preference. It could be ranked as high as five or as low as 35, depending on your preference of offense. This game is a match made in Woody Hayes heaven. Both teams run the triple-option—and by "run" I mean run the ball every single play.

25. Insight Bowl: Missouri vs. Iowa

How is Missouri ranked 12th? How is Iowa 7-5? How is Iowa favored? How is anyone going to watch this?

24. Music City Bowl: North Carolina vs. Tennessee

North Carolina is not the only scandal-ridden program in the NCAA. They are just the only one that does not win. Their prize for going 7-5 with half of their roster suspended at some point in the season is a trip to Nashville, Tennessee to play, who else, Tennessee.

23. Pinstripe Bowl: Kansas State vs. Syracuse

Play this game anywhere but Yankee Stadium, and the 13 people who would watch this game probably wouldn’t.

22. Meineke Car Care Bowl: South Florida vs. Clemson

The bowl game changes names more than Puff Daddy. After a few years as the Queen City Bowl, then the Continental Tire Bowl and then the Meineke Car Care Bowl, Charlotte’s newest bowl game will be dubbed the Belk Bowl starting next season. So crack your muffler jokes now and get one last chance to see George Foreman hand out a trophy.

21. Liberty Bowl: Georgia vs. Central Florida

Turn this game on in time for the final whistle, when Georgia wide receiver A.J. Green is finally free to declare for the NFL draft and sell whatever used paraphernalia he wants to.

20. Ticket City Bowl: Northwestern vs. Texas Tech

Ticket City is a secondary ticket market that specializes in selling hard-to-find tickets for big-time games. Needless to say, this matchup of 7-5 teams is neither a hard-to-find ticket nor a big-time game.

19. Poinsettia Bowl: Navy vs. San Diego State

This game has traditionally had some great matchups, including Boise State vs. TCU in 2008 and Utah and California in 2009. This is not one of them.

18. Kraft Fight Hunger Bowl: Nevada vs. Boston College

Somebody said it best when writing to a newspaper columnist asking the simple question, “With the Little Caesars Pizza Bowl, the Outback Bowl and the Chick-fil-A Bowl, why do we need a Fight Hunger Bowl?”

Reasons to watch: It is played in a baseball field (AT&T Park), it’s the day before the National Championship Game, so if you’re lucky they’ll talk about Oregon vs. Auburn, and most importantly, it starts at 9 p.m. EST, which means the only people watching it on the East Coast will be gamblers, insomniacs and gambling insomniacs (are there any other kinds?).

17. Champs Sports Bowl: North Carolina State vs. West Virginia

If not for a 52-yard Connecticut field goal, it would be West Virginia in the BCS saving the Big East from embarrassment. Instead the Mountaineers are here and with a unique, to say the least, coaching situation. Bill Stewart is the fired-coach-in-waiting, while former Oklahoma State offensive coordinator Dana Holgorsen is the head-coach-in-waiting once he takes over as offensive coordinator starting Jan. 1. Got it? Good.

The Mountaineers have the weapons to put on a show, and North Carolina State has quarterback Russell Wilson, a homeless man’s Cam Newton.

16. Texas Bowl: Baylor vs. Illinois

Looks like a good old-fashioned shootout. The "over/under" is 63, and both teams boast dynamic playmakers. Baylor has Robert Griffin III at quarterback, and with a name that sounds like a Texas Marshal, Illinois has tailback Mikel LeShoure.

15. Alamo Bowl: Oklahoma State vs. Arizona

Oklahoma State just lost its offensive coordinator, but with Kendall Hunter running the ball and Justin Blackmon catching the ball, who needs one? The Cowboys are 10-2 and No. 14 in the country. They probably deserve better than a 7-5 Arizona team, but that’s what you get for not playing defense.

14. Holiday Bowl: Washington vs. Nebraska

The game is being hyped as Jake “Hurt” Locker, Washington’s top NFL prospect at quarterback, vs. the Nebraska Blackshirt defense. Considering that is an 11-on-1 mismatch, maybe that explains why Nebraska is favored by two touchdowns.

13. Sun Bowl: Notre Dame vs. Miami

Turn the clocks back 20 years and this game is tops on the list. In 2010—not so much. The firing of Randy Shannon gives the watchability a boost, plus there’s always the fun factor of watching just how few South Beach residents decide to spend their New Year's in El Paso, Texas.

12. Chick-fil-A Bowl: South Carolina vs. Florida State

The game is on New Year’s Eve and kicks off at 7:30 p.m. EST, so it gives you something to do if your NYE plans suck. Other than that, South Carolina fans cannot be happy with this trip back to Atlanta. Last time they were here, four weeks ago, Auburn rolled over them 56-17.

11. Gator Bowl: Mississippi State vs. Michigan

Remember when the Gator Bowl used to be a major bowl game? Now it is laced with an awful Michigan team and a Mississippi State team from which you cannot name a single player. It could possibly be Rich Rodriguez’s last game as Michigan’s coach, so there’s that to watch for.

10. Capital One Bowl: Alabama vs. Michigan State

Michigan State is ranked No. 9. Alabama is ranked No. 16. Michigan State is 11-1 and Big Ten co-champions. Alabama is 9-3 and did not even get to play for an SEC title. But Alabama is favored by 10. The game will be fun to watch just to see how much more college football handicappers know than everyone else.

9. Cotton Bowl: LSU vs. Texas A&M

The best thing about the Cotton Bowl is that it’s only one of two bowl games not on the ESPN mafia family of networks. FOX will air this showdown scheduled at a new time, Friday night, Jan. 7, in Cowboys Stadium. This bowl game is probably the best chance to see January football at Cowboys Stadium.

8. MAACO Bowl Las Vegas: Utah vs. Boise State

The game is in Las Vegas, it features the biggest favorite of bowl season (Boise State by 17), two teams who are a combined 21-3, two prolific offenses and one incredibly ticked football squad. The Broncos thought they would be playing in early January. Instead, because of a missed chip shot field goal, they’ll be playing Dec. 22. Poor Utah.

7. Hawaii Bowl: Hawaii vs. Tulsa

They should rename this “The perfect television event to hold you over from Christmas Eve dinner until Midnight Mass.” The annual Christmas Eve tradition, the Hawaii Bowl, kicks off at 8 p.m. EST, Dec. 24. Of the 119 teams who play Division I football, 118 would love to be in this game. Hawaii is not one of them.

6. Outback Bowl: Penn State vs. Florida

Maybe I am overreacting for a matchup of 7-5 teams, but consider the following: The game is on New Year’s Day. Florida has a hotshot new coach, Will Muschamp, who may or may not be there. The Gators are unveiling new Nike uniforms for the game. Most importantly, Urban Meyer is 46 years old. Joe Paterno has been coaching 45 years. Meyer is the one retiring after this game.

5. Fiesta Bowl: Connecticut vs. Oklahoma

There is always that one David vs. Goliath game in the BCS, and Oklahoma usually gets stuck playing as Goliath. However, in this case calling UConn David is an insult to David. The point spread is 17, and ESPN is not even treating it like a BCS game. They are dispatching Sean McDonough and Matt Millen to call this bloodbath, although it is one of a few bowl games to be broadcast in 3D.

If I were a Connecticut fan, I would stick to watching the beatdown in 2D, or maybe just listen on the radio, or maybe just pick up a newspaper Jan. 2, or maybe just watch Connecticut basketball. Women’s, that is.

4. Sugar Bowl: Ohio State vs. Arkansas

Ohio State in a BCS bowl game is getting to be like listening to a broken record. However, they get to face some new BCS blood with Arkansas. The game also features big-time quarterbacks with Terrelle Pryor and Ryan Mallett.

3. Orange Bowl: Stanford vs. Virginia Tech

In the past a matchup between teams like this would be called the Catholics vs. the Convicts. Since Stanford is not a Catholic school, we’ll just settle with the Cardinal vs. the Convicts. All moral issues out of the way, this should be wildly entertaining.

2. Rose Bowl: TCU vs. Wisconsin

Stanford vs. Wisconsin would be a heck of a game here, and it’s likely what the old guard of the Rose Bowl wants, but tradition be darned, the undefeated Horned Frogs are a lot of fun to watch, and everybody wants to know how they would hang with a perennial Big Ten power. On New Year’s Day we finally find out.

1. BCS National Championship Game: Oregon vs. Auburn

Any argument for a college football playoff gets hurt when the best game of the bowl season is the National Championship Game. Does anybody really need a round of 16 or a plus-one or some other hokey playoff idea to figure out that Auburn and Oregon need to play and need to play now? The "over/under" is 74.5—first to 40 points is your next national champion.

Mark Levin, who I’ve known for a long time, he has said some awful things about me. He declared this minor war on National Review, which I find baffling. He’s constantly ripping into my friend Steve Hayes. But at the end of the day, look, even if you’re willing to concede all the stuff Friedersdorf does about Mark Levin, the problem is that Mark Levin – his myriad talents and successes notwithstanding – is not the pope of conservatism.

And the reality is that very very few people listen to Mark Levin who don’t already agree with Mark Levin. The idea that Mark Levin is doing some profound damage to the country or the conservative movement rests on the idea that there are all these liberals tuning in who would otherwise be persuaded by Bill Buckley, but instead are being turned off by Mark. I don’t buy the logic of it.

My position on the conservative movement is that different people need to do different things. As I put it in that C-Span interview, it’s not the best analogy, but if you’ve got to tear down a house and replace it with another one, you need some guys with sledgehammers and earth movers, those are the people like Levin and Glenn Beck, some of those guys. But you also need people who do the fine carpentry and detail work. The way Bill Buckley or George Will or Charles Krauthammer might, or the guys at the Claremont Review of Books. It’s like a symphony. You need the string instruments and you need the percussion.

And there are all these people who think it’s up to conservatives to get rid of the percussion section because it’s too loud. And I don’t buy that. I think you need some people whose job it is to buck up and be cheerleaders for our own side. And you need some people who are going to be kind of Jesuitical proselytizers for conservatism, and go out among the masses and try to convert them.

And you need everybody in between. And I know I’m mangling and mixing my metaphors with reckless abandon here – there are people who love Ann Coulter because Ann is fantastic at getting conservative audiences to laugh and get revved up. And I think Ann is great at that stuff and she should be celebrated for it. But she’s not very good at going into an audience with a lot of moderates and middle-of-the-roaders and people sitting on a fence, and converting them to conservatism. She pushes people who aren’t already convinced to the other side. That doesn’t mean we should denounce Ann Coulter. It does mean that maybe we shouldn’t send her into audiences where she isn’t the right person to go there. That’s fine, just like we shouldn’t send David Brooks or David Gergen, heaven forfend, to a meeting of CPAC. You wouldn’t send one of those guys into CPAC and come out with some sort of platish, one the one hand, on the other hand kind of talk. You would send Ann Coulter into CPAC, and Ann Coulter would clean their clock with that sort of thing. But everyone has got different talents, and you use them for different things.

– Jonah Goldberg, in conversation with D.R. Tucker

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The lump on Princess's face turns out to have been the equivalent of a giant cat-pimple. It's been drained. She's home again, and a bit grumpy about having had to go to the vets. She'll be around to be grumpy for a long time to come, I hope.

With the physique of a lineman, a Woody Hayes approach to offense and a Pete Carroll love for his players, it's...

Seems we’re having an avalanche of panel events.

Italian Ambassador Giulio Terzi is hosting a panel discussion called “What’s Next In U.S. Politics?” The discussion also includes a “book presentation” by MSNBC Commentator Richard Wolffe, author of  Revival: The Struggle For Survival Inside the Obama White House. On the panel will be NYT‘s Helene Cooper , CNN International Contributor Bill Schneider and The Weekly Standard’s/Fox News’s Stephen Hayes. The moderator will be Gerardo Greco. A reception is scheduled to follow the panel discussion.

The event is Tuesday Dec. 14 at 6 p.m. See further details below.

New Career Opportunities Daily: The best jobs in media.

Proposals to scrap police authorities and replace them with directly elected police and crime commissioners (PCCs) will be highlighted again today as the police reform and social responsibility bill receives its second reading in the House of Commons. The government, however, seems confused about the changes which introducing PCCs would bring. For example, the policing minister has recently been quoted in a Guardian blog interview saying: "We do not wish to see the politicisation of policing." Yet in the same interview the minister says: "The police have to answer to someone. They will answer to a politician."

We believe the government's proposals to introduce PCCs would result in the dangerous politicisation of policing, and at significant cost to the public. This comes at a time when every penny spent from the policing budget must be justified and not spent on elections. There is no evidence that PCCs would improve the service the public receive, and every reason to reject this proposal.

Cllr Rob Garnham Chair (Conservative), Ann Barnes Deputy chair (Independent), Cllr Mark Burns-Williamson Deputy chair (Labour), Cllr Brian Greenslade APA board (Lib Dem group Leader)

Association of Police Authorities

• We are joining the chorus of voices against government proposals (contained in the police reform and social responsibility bill) to give the director of public prosecutions a power of veto over arrest warrants for war crimes suspects who are visiting the UK. These warrants are issued very rarely by extremely senior district judges in Westminster, and only in response to submissions from victims accompanied by substantial evidence against the suspect. Giving a power of veto to the DPP would risk: political interference by ministers in the arrest of war crimes suspects; delaying proceedings, allowing suspects to escape justice; and would constitute a gross interference with the rights of the victim and the responsibilities of the judiciary.

Ministers and diplomats are already protected by immunity when carrying out their public duties, but this change in the law would risk creating a culture of impunity in the minds of those politicians and military leaders who already treat international law with cavalier disregard. We call on parliamentarians in both houses and of all parties to support international law and reject these proposals.

Richard Burden MP 

Jeremy Corbyn MP  

Alex Cunningham MP

Mark Durkan MP

Jonathan Edwards MP

Clive Efford MP

Paul Flynn MP

Mike Hancock MP

Cathy Jamieson MP

Gerald Kaufman MP

Ian Lavery MP

Andy Love MP 

Caroline Lucas MP

Kerry McCarthy MP

John Mcdonnell MP

George Mudie MP

Ian Murray MP

Sandra Osborne MP

Yasmin Qureshi MP

Joan Ruddock MP

Bob Russell MP

Baroness Jenny Tonge

Mike Wood MP

Billy Hayes, CWU

Paul Kenny, GMB

Chris Kitchen, NUM

Kevin Courtney, NUT

Hugh Lanning, PCS

Bob Crow, RMT

Betty Hunter, Palestine Solidarity Campaign

John Austin

Victoria Brittain

Caryl Churchill

Jocelyn Hurndall

Dan Judelson

Bruce Kent

Ken Loach

Kika Markham

Prof Karma Nabulsi

David Polden

Prof Hilary Rose

Prof Steven Rose

Alexei Sayle

Clare Short

Keith Sonnet

Ahdaf Soueif

Dr Benjamin Zephaniah 

Revd Canon Garth Hewitt, Amos TrustAbe Hayeem, Architects and Planners for Justice in Palestine

Len Aldis, Britain-Vietnam Friendship Society

Chris Doyle, CAABU

Estella Schmid, Campaign Against Criminalising Communities (CAMPACC)

Kate Hudson, Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND)

Ismail Patel, Friends of Al Aqsa

Brenda Heard, Friends of Lebanon, London

Liz Davies, Haldane Society of Socialist Lawyers

Mary Nazzal-Batayneh, Human Rights Legal Aid Fund

Pat Price-Tomes, ICAHD UK

International Solidarity Movement (ISM) London

George Farebrother, Institute for Law Accountability and Peace

Diana Neslen, Jews for Justice for Palestinians

Martin Linton, Labour Friends of Palestine & the Middle East

John McHugo, Liberal Democrat Friends of Palestine

Daud Abdullah, Middle East Monitor (Memo)

Pat Gaffney, Pax Christi

Frank Barat, Russell Tribunal UK

Dr Alan Mackinnon, chair, Scottish CND

Hugh Humphries, Scottish Friends of Palestine

Michael Marten, Scottish Palestinian Forum

Lindsey German, Stop the War, Tahrir Swift, Women Solidarity for Independent and Unified Iraq

John Hilary, War on Want

Sarah Lasenby, NOW Network of Oxford Women for Justice and Peace

Marguerite Finn, Norwich Branch Of Women's International League Of Peace And Freedom (Wilpf)

Nigel Day, Oxford Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) ,

Mike Reiss identifies the key matchup for the Patriots against the Bears:

"It’s the defense against quarterback Jay Cutler. He has 17 touchdowns and 10 interceptions on the season and as of late he’s been playing mistake-free football. This Patriots defense is one that thrives on turnovers. New England is 9-0 this season when on the plus-side of the turnover differential. "

Greg A. Bedard breaks down his three keys to a Patriots victory over the Chicago Bears.

1. Patriots must disguise coverages and confuse Bears QB Jay Cutler.

2. Stay balanced on offense.

3. Contain game-breaker Devin Hester.

Neil Hayes (Chicago Sun-Times) Brian Urlacher has the utmost respect for QB Tom Brady, and remembers what happened the last time he played the Patriots.

"[Brady’s] the best," Urlacher said. "He knows what to do with the football. If you play zone, he throws the check downs. If you put seven in the box, he runs it. He just knows where to go with the football every time. You’re not going to trick him. You may get pressure on him, you may hurt him a little bit, but he’s smart. He has a great arm. He knows everything. Big challenge for us.

"And he runs fast, too. I remember he’s really fast. Good runner."

TEAM TALK

• John Cockrell Friday Out-Takes: As good as it gets.  Great line: How about Five-foot-nuthin' DANNY WOODHEAD running as fast as his little legs can carry him all over the team that cut him after opening day?
• Erik Scalavino tells us what happened yesterday at the Patriots practice at Gillette.
• Patriots-Bears Thursday Injury Report.
• Patriots Today - Bears' third-ranked D true test for Pats. (3.30 min. video)
• Patriots Today - Sanders vs. Olsen. (3 min. video)
• Locker Room Uncut - Thoughts from Sanders, Mankins and more. (4.29 min. video)
  
• Shayne Graham spent Tuesday at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston to help kick off a special Patriots Charitable Foundation blood and platelet drive.
• The Patriots celebrated Monday night's big win against the Jets with youth across Rhode Island during a day of serving the community on Tuesday, December 7.

LOCAL LINKS

• Christopher Price details the preparation, smarts and focus of the Patriots secondary.
• Mike Petraglia writes about how the Patriots are prepping for the 'ridiculous' Devin Hester and the fastest offense in the NFL.
• Danny Picard notes the Patriots have already matched their total number of interceptions from last season with 18.
• Ian Rapoport writes about the invaluable, play-past-the-whistle Logan Mankins, who loves nothing more than to mix it up with defenders.
• Monique Walker focuses on the toughness and "extra spice" Logan Mankins brings to the O-Line.Christopher Price details the preparation, smarts and focus of the Patriots secondary.
• Christopher Price tells us the five most important things we need to know about the Patriots from Thursday. Logan Mankins, Shayne Graham, James Sanders and more.
• Ian Rapoport gives readers a behind-the-scenes look at the taping of 'Patriots All Access' with Scott Zolak and Bill Belichick.
• Mike Reiss looks at the special teams tackle leader-board, noting Matthew Slater's rise to the number 2 spot behind Tracy White.
• Mary Paoletti sees the Patriots focused, but not on the playoffs.
• Mike Reiss tries to figure out 'the case of the disappearing Moss.'
• Shalise Manza Young Patriots Notebook: Belichick talks up how disruptive Julius Peppers can be; Shayne Graham, who turned 33 yesterday, says kicking for the Patriots is a dream job; Bears' TE Greg Olsen is a big, vertical threat that will have to be contained; Injury update.
• Ian Rapoport Patriots Notebook: Rob Ninkovich grew up in the Chicago suburbs; Shayne Graham knows he has to be wary about Devin Hester; Pats will have to contain Bears TE Greg Olsen; A Pats' win will clinch a playoff spot; Injury update.
• Boston Globe Staff's Week 14 picks.  All four pick New England to win.
• Jim Lazar Week 14 NFL picks: Pats over Bears 27-20.

NATIONAL NEWS

• Dan Pompei (Nat'l Football Post) The legend of Tom Brady continues to grow.
• Dan Wetzel (Yahoo! Sports) Case for Brady over Vick in MVP race.
• NFL Sunday crew (Fox Sports) Patriots are the real deal; Ravens made mistake?
• ESPN Stats & Information provides a few facts and figures on the Patriots heading into Sunday's game against the Bears in Chicago.
• Tim Graham (ESPN) Three-and-out redux: By the percentages.
• Tim Graham (ESPN) Dolphins move chains better than Patriots.
• Tim Graham (ESPN) Patriots must cope with the rookie wall.
• Tim Graham (ESPN) Overachievers prevailing in AFC East.
• Gil Brandt (NFL.com) Pivotal Week 14 matchups to monitor. Tom Brady vs. Rod Marinelli.
• Countdown Daily (ESPN) Herm Edwards and Mark Schlereth preview Sunday's Bears-Pats game. (1.30 min. video) Mark Schlereth picks Pats, Herm Edwards picks Bears.
• Peter King (SI) Weekend Pickoff: Week 14. Pats over Bears 17-14.

VIEW FROM CHICAGO

• Brad Biggs and David Haugh (Chicago Tribune) Bears-Patriots preview. (3.15 min. video)
• David Haugh (Chicago Tribune) Brady vs. Urlacher gives Patriots-Bears extra buzz.
• Neil Hayes (Chicago Sun-Times) Brady's fake and shake is on Urlacher's menu.
• Fred Mitchell (Chicago Tribune) When Patriots QB Brady gave Urlacher the slip.
• Neil Hayes (Chicago Sun-Times) Briggs, Urlacher a pair of aces.
• Larry Mayer (ChicagoBears.com) Bears must generate consistent pass rush Sunday.
• Dan Pompei (Chicago Tribune) Hybrid fullback-tight end Brandon Manumaleuna giving Bears best of both worlds.
• Staff report (Chicago Tribune) Low temps, high winds expected for Bears game.
• Sam Farmer (Chicago Tribune) Week 14 NFL picks. Bears 24, Patriots 23.

By: Cord Jefferson

At 5:30 p.m. on Wednesday, before a crowd of about 150 lawmakers from both parties, African-American activists and Native American leaders, President Barack Obama brought to a close decades of government-sponsored racial injustice -- or at least two chapters in a lengthy book.

Standing in the White House's South Court auditorium, the president signed into law H.R. 4783, otherwise known as the Claims Resolution Act. The act provides billions to fund two separate class-action-lawsuit settlements against the U.S. government: Cobell v. Salazar and Pigford v. Glickman.

In the first lawsuit, filed in 1996, Native American claimants alleged that the Interior Department had been conning them out of oil, gas and timber royalties since the late 1800s. In the second, brought by Timothy Pigford in 1997, African-American farmers argued that the Department of Agriculture systematically cheated them out of loans and other public assistance throughout the '80s and '90s. In the end, the Native Americans won a settlement worth $3.4 billion, and the African Americans won nearly $1.2 billion.

President Obama had promised on the campaign trail to resolve the lawsuits, which for years had been stuck in limbo in the courts. (In Pigford, for example, the suit was initially settled in 1999 for $1 billion, but many qualified claimants were unable to file applications on time because of ineffective notices. The new settlement is thus frequently called Pigford II.)

Before signing the bill, the president said that the settlements were about "reaffirming our values on which this nation was founded -- principles of fairness and equality and opportunity. … It's about restoring a sense of trust between the American people and the government that plays such an important role in their lives."

John Boyd, president of the Black Farmers Association, has said that the settlement is "bittersweet" because some slighted farmers died while awaiting justice.

From the Obama administration, Attorney General Eric Holder, Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, and Deputy Secretary of the Interior David Hayes were present at the bill's signing.

And though the event was dubbed bipartisan, of the 29 members of Congress scheduled to be present at the signing, just three were Republicans. In the days before the Pigford-Cobell bill went to vote in Congress, in fact, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) had called the settlement "pure and complete fraud" and "flat out wrong." Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) likened the payouts to slavery reparations. "That war's been fought," he said on the floor of Congress in November. "That was over a century ago. That debt was paid for in blood, and it was paid for with blood of a lot of Yankees."

The vast majority of Bachmann and King's colleagues disagreed with them, of course, as did Obama, who last night said, "Here in America, we believe that all of us are equal and that each of us deserves the chance to pursue our own version of happiness. It's what led us to become a nation. It's at the heart of who we are as a people.

"And our history is defined by the struggle to fulfill this ideal -- to build a more perfect union, to ensure that all of us, regardless of our race or religion, our color or our creed, are afforded the same rights as Americans, and the fair and equal treatment under the law."

It's estimated that the hundreds of thousands of claimants will begin receiving their checks sometime in August 2011.

Cord Jefferson is a staff writer at The Root. Follow him on Twitter.

Like The Root on Facebook. Follow us on Twitter.

Tom Brady talks about the difference between his level of play now versus earlier in the season, and how hard it is to stay mentally sharp week-to-week.

Regardless of how I play it's how our offense plays. That's what I'm concerned most about. I think we've been playing better as of late, and we're going to need to continue to play better. The weather is getting colder. The conditions are getting tougher. Everyone has to be able to execute at a high level, and I think that the guys that are on the field that are playing play-in-play-out we're doing a good job of that. We're still searching for more consistency for all us, myself, Wes [Welker], Deion [Branch], the veteran guys, the younger players. The games only get bigger from here.

That's really what we're preparing for. That's really our jobs. It's only been 12 weeks. It's not like this is the last week of the season. We're three-quarters of the way through the season, haven't accomplished anything. Yeah, it was a good win on Monday night, but it doesn't do anything for us. It doesn't do anything this week. We're going to need to go out there this week and put on a good performance. Try to go out there and play our style, understand the strengths that they have, and try to commit to doing things that we need to do to win the game.

Bill Belichick talks about the challenge of scouting an unfamiliar NFC opponent on a short week.

It's tough. I think the process starts in the offseason. You get the schedule and you seen that you're going to be playing Chicago in a short week. You see you're going to be playing Detroit on a short week, so you try to do your offseason preparations on them and get a feel for what they were like the year before.

I think today is going to be a tough day for everybody. It already has been. What you hope for is that when you come back in here tomorrow on Thursday, is that you are pretty close to being on schedule for a normal Thursday. If you can do that, then I think you can stay on track for Friday, Saturday and Sunday. That's kind of our goal today, is to get to where we normally are by tomorrow morning. It's a challenge and one of the main things we emphasize to the players is how important everything is this morning with paying attention and the walk-throughs and the films and the game plans and getting on it and being on top of it, even though we haven't had a chance to do as much preparation on Tuesday as we normally would with the Monday game.

TEAM TALK

• Patriots-Bears Wednesday Injury Report.
• Erik Scalavino reports Tom Brady is at the top of his game.
• Erik Scalavino tells us what happened at Wednesday's practice and in the locker room at Gillette.
• Patriots announce over one million people tuned in to ESPN and WCVB in the local market to watch the Monday night massacre in New England.
• Wednesday Press Conferences: Bill Belichick (15.49 min. video) and Tom Brady (6.03 min. video) Plus transcripts.

LOCAL LINKS

• Greg A. Bedard reports Sunday's game in Chicago will depend on the play of the O-Line and D-Line.
• Michael Vega points out the Patriots receivers racking up the YACs.
• Greg A. Bedard offers some interesting Jets-Patriots nuggets from Showtime's Inside the NFL that weren't shown during the game.
• Karen Guregian reports Deion Branch says Tom Brady's best trait as a quarterback is "the studying we do in the classroom".
• Karen Guregian catches up with Kevin Faulk and notes he hates being a spectator to the sport he loves, especially on a big Monday night game.
• Mike Reiss updates us on how the Patriots are faring so far in fan Pro Bowl voting.
• Mike Reiss notes Sunday's Pats-Bears game will be broadcast by the top CBS team of Jim Nantz (play-by-play) and Phil Simms (analysis) for the 7th time this season.
• Boston Globe Patriots Notebook: Tom Brady is pleased with his AFC Offensive player of the week honor, but not satisfied; Kevin Faulk couldn't resist being on the sideline Monday night since it was against the Jets in Week 2 that he was injured; Braylon Edwards didn't like that the Patriots "ran it up" against them; Injury update.
• Ian Rapoport Patriots Notebook: Brian Urlacher goes on record saying he feels the Bears are 'the best team, period' ; Brady is asked about his 2nd straight AFC POTW honors; Darius Butler played the nickel corner Monday night, breaking up two would-be completions.
• Steven Krasner sees Julius Peppers as a good fit in Chicago, but how would he have looked in a Patriots uniform?
• Ian Rapoport focuses on Chicago Bears' elite pass rusher Julius Peppers.
• Mike Reiss weekly P.A.T. : Two important areas facing the Patriots this week: 1. Avoiding a letdown after emotional win and 2. The challenge of facing Jay Cutler. (2.20 min. video)

NATIONAL NEWS

• Peter Richmond (SI) Pats' Danny Woodhead is just like us, and that's why we root for him.
• Tim Graham (ESPN) Want to beat the Patriots? Run don't throw.
• Tim Graham (ESPN) How the Patriots, Jets can clinch Sunday.
• Shutdown Corner (Yahoo! Sports) Rex Ryan buries the game ball from the Monday night massacre.
• Tim Graham (ESPN) Ryan RIPs off Belichick motivational ploy.
• Mike Sando (ESPN) MVP watch. Tom Brady looks like the favorite.
• Steve Rushin (SI) In football, real men wear short sleeves.
• Tim Graham (ESPN) Will Fins at Jets be Interceptionpalooza?
• Rick Gosselin (Dallas Morning News) If we redid 2010 NFL Draft. Interesting read, with McCourty at 4, Hernandez at 19 and Gronkowski at 30.
• Alex Marvez (Fox Sports) 2010 NFL team-by-team rookie evaluations: AFC and NFC.
• Ross Tucker (SI) Rookies have wall to scale.
• Michael Lombardi (NFL.com) McDaniels paid price for Broncos' lack of commitment to change. Excellent article.
• Randy Cross (Nat'l Football Post) The 'Stink Eye': No. 18 has his turn.
• Pat Kirwan (NFL.com) Several factors contributing to Manning's recent struggles.
• Matt Bowen (Nat'l Football Post) Colts-Titans: five things to watch for tonight, plus Week 14 picks.

VIEW FROM CHICAGO

• Sean Jensen (Chicago Sun-Times) Here's the real clash: Martz vs. Belichick.
• Brad Biggs (Chicago Tribune) Martz vs. Belichick go at it again: Patriots coach has won all previous meetings.
• Brad Biggs (Chicago Tribune) Bears' Martz on the deep ball: 'It will happen'.
• Vaughn McClure (Chicago Tribune) Martz, Cutler present challenge for Pat's Belichick.
• Daily Blog (ChicagoBears.com) Cutler performing at elite level during win streak.
• Neil Hayes (Chicago Sun-Times) Belichick has more to say about Bears.
• Fred Mitchell and David Kaplan (Chicago Tribune) Harris says win over Pats won't sway skeptics.
• Vaughn McClure (Chicago Tribune) Add Cutler to those dissatisfied with playing surface at Soldier Field.
• Vaughn McClure (Chicago Tribune) Urlacher makes pitch for Julius Peppers for NFL's defensive player of year.

Tom Gower of Total Titans is one of my favorite bloggers.  Tom is also one of the Football Outsiders, and always worth a read and a follow on Twitter.  Today, we trade answers about tonight's game.

TG:  Well, even when the Titans were 5-2, I never thought they were an elite team.  My preseason expectation for the team was 8-8, give or take a game.  Early in the year, the defense showed an ability in some ways reminiscent of the 2007 team to exploit bad opposing quarterbacks, which made me think 9-7/10-6 was possible.  Other people, of course, disagreed.  Lately, the defense is playing more at what I think is its true level, whatever his other flaws Vince Young was the Titans' best quarterback this year, and the offense is really missing Kenny Britt's ability both on deep balls but also to do something with short and intermediate passes.

TG:  My current best guess is Vince Young will start for the Titans next year.  The Vince thing is very frustrating, because since his reinsertion into the lineup at 0-6 last year, he's shown flashes that he can be a competent NFL starting quarterback-average or even above-average but with one or more flaws that keep him from being part of the true upper echelon, kind of like how I think about Matt Schaub.  He's just not reliable enough, especially off the field and in the practice room, to be average or above on a consistent basis, and he's not good enough on the field a team has to put up with that.

As to who should start, I don't have a specific name.  The biggest name who might be available is probably Kevin Kolb, but (a) with Vick's propensity to get injured, I'm not sure the Eagles will trade Kolb and (b) Kolb in the time he's played this year was not regularly throwing with anticipation, and a quarterback who doesn't do that cannot win in the NFL unless the rest of the team around him is truly superb.  It's tough, because they're not going to draft high enough to grab Andrew Luck, and then it's a tough question of taking a more questionable prospect or making do with an available mediocre veteran.

That said, he's been less consistently successful than I thought he'd be.  Many Titans fans blame the interior of the offensive line, but they're just ignoring that the Titans were lousy running up the middle last year, too.  The real problems are on the edges, especially running right end.  Teams are definitely scheming more to set the edge and prevent him from turning the corner, and he's dancing too much to take consistent 2-4 yard gains that tend to be available against defenses not attacking the line quite as aggressively and letting their players flow to where he's going.

TG:  I'd like your piece of paper.  The Titans have gotten elite results out of their defensive at times this season, but they've relied a lot on the defensive line's pressure to camouflage a mediocre back seven.  The linebackers, especially, are lousy in pass coverage.  WIll Witherspoon is the best, but can get beat athletically.  He did well against Zach Miller (OAK), Brent Celek, and Jason Witten earlier in the year, and I'm optimistic he'll do ok if they line him up against Tamme.  Stephen Tulloch looked semi-competent in pass coverage earlier in the year, but that's proved illusory, and Gerald McRath still looks like a second-year player adjusting to the game.

Was I surprised they got shoved around? Absolutely, especially coming off an unimpressive performance the previous game against the Texans.  Tulloch and McRath got worked, defensive ends William Hayes and Jacob Ford got blown off the ball and couldn't set anything, and Cortland Finnegan, Chris Hope, and especially Michael Griffin all did a bad job at tackling.  That said, they also shut out the Jaguars in the second half (thanks in part to Josh Scobee not hitting long field goals).

TG A veteran backup who can be sort of effective for a game or two.  He's the same guy he was in 2008-he reads the defense, throws the ball away too much, doesn't necessarily react well to unanticipated pressure, and can't throw the ball well enough in the short and intermediate area to consistently move an offense down the field.  He's regressed in two ways since 2008.  First, he's gotten worse at throwing an accurate deep ball.  Second, he's responding even less well to pressure, to the point where he's started feeling it even faster.  A general decline in the offensive line is part of what's produced that, but part of it is definitely on him.  With Young on IR, he's the best quarterback the Titans have to start the rest of this year, but the Carolina Panthers have a best quarterback too and that doesn't mean he's any good either.

TG:  Jeff Fisher's teams get beat.  That sort of thing happens to pretty much every coach.  Everybody's crowning the Patriots right now, but it wasn't that long ago they got worked by the Browns.  What's unusual is for it to happen twice in a row, and the Titans did not have a good game against either the Texans or the Jaguars the last two weeks.  It's possible that after 16 years with the team, Jeff Fisher's message has finally grown stale.  It's probably not an exaggeration to say that if the team doesn't respond to him the rest of this year, he won't be back in 2011.

And if the team doesn't respond to him the rest of this year, and especially if owner Bud Adams is committed to Vince as his starting quarterback, then Fisher should not be back in 2011.  It's weird for me to type that, because I firmly believe that the next coach of the Tennessee Titans has about a 90% chance of having less long-term success than Jeff Fisher, about a 75% chance of having less intermediate-term success than Jeff Fisher, and about an X% chance of having less short-term success than Jeff Fisher.  It's just that when that X drops from maybe 60-70% to maybe 40-50%, it probably makes sense to make a change just to get some fresh perspective.

As to Jeff Fisher's tenure as a whole, it seems like the sine qua non for success in the NFL is a top 10 quarterback.  Well, for the vast majority of his time as Oilers/Titans head coach, Jeff Fisher has not had a top 10 quarterback.  It was true for a couple of Steve McNair's seasons-definitely 2002 and 2003, maybe 2001-but the rest of the time not.  Judged by that baseline, Fisher's run has been remarkably successful.  He hasn't had great playoff success, there are points where I disagree strongly with his perspective, and I wouldn't want him as a Bill Parcells-style organizational czar, but he's won 8+ games 11 times in the previous 15 seasons.

TG: I did a Q&A before the Texans game where I said if Bud Adams sided with Vince Young over Fisher, I'd start drinking heavily.  Since then, the Titans have been shut out by the team with the worst pass defense in DVOA history through 11 weeks and manhandled by a Jaguars team they'd previously manhandled themselves.  I'm totally in.  Don't worry, though, as one of your teams will likely win Thursday's game to give us a ray of hope and one of us gets to return to their normal teetotaling ways.

Bill Belichick addresses the media Tuesday morning, following the Patriots' epic win over the Jets Monday night.

Well, after last night, it was certainly good for the final result to be what it was. I think we can all see from the film that there are still a lot of things that we can work on and do better. Some things turned out well that maybe weren't as great as they looked. We'll try to take care of that and then move onto Chicago.

Chicago's been really impressive. They really do everything pretty well: offensively, defensively, special teams. They have a great returner, [Devin Hester]; Robbie Gould, a great kicker. Defensively, they really do well on third down. They haven't allowed many points, have a lot of negative plays in the running game [and] cause a lot of fumbles. They definitely thrive on turnovers. I think, offensively, [Jay] Cutler is playing as well as I've seen him play. He's done a great job with Coach [Mike] Martz's offense. He's really carrying a lot of the offense on his shoulders, along with their receivers. Certainly [Matt] Forte and [Chester] Taylor do a good job in the back field. [Greg] Olsen and all the receivers - [Earl] Bennett, [Johnny] Knox, Hester - are a good group with a really good quarterback. Cutler's made a lot of plays running as well as throwing, so he's very dangerous in and out of the pocket, throwing or running. So, I think the Bears' record really speaks for itself: 9-3.

Vince Wilfork reveals what Bill Belichick told the team when they huddled up late in the game.

"He basically told us we’re going to finish this game, and we’re going to play for 60 minutes, so don’t let up. And you know what, he took the words out of my mouth, because I was getting ready to tell the defense the same exact thing. That’s why I kind of smiled and chuckled about it, because sometimes we think alike and it comes out.

"And you know what? Everybody felt it. Everybody felt it. We wanted to win. We did everything in our willpower to go out and play a good football game against a good football team. And I think it started in practice. But Bill said it best: 60 minutes of football. And we’ve been saying it all year: Let’s see how 60 minutes of good football looks. Because we didn’t do it all year. We never played 60 total minutes of good football. And I think last night was the first time that we did that, and you saw the results."

TEAM TALK

• Game Preview - Patriots at Bears: Broadcast info, series history, team connections and more.
• Ask PFW: Mixed mailbag.
• Tuesday Conference Calls: Bill Belichick (10.20 min.), Nick Caserio (7.53 min.) and Bill O'Brien (7.55 min.)
• Patriots Today - Rest of the AFC looking up at Pats. (4.02 min. video)
• Patriots Today - Rookies shine on defense. (3.08 min. video)
• Patriots Today - Belichick on WEEI. (5.08 min. video)
• WEEI Patriots Monday audio: Tom Brady (28 min.), Vince Wilfork (15.05 min.), Brandon Meriweather (5.20 min.) and Bill Belichick (37.16 min.).  Links to transcript highlights below.
  

LOCAL LINKS

• Ian Rapoport notes Tom Brady ignored Revis and threw to receivers covered by Cromartie and lesser defenders.
• Tedy Bruschi breaks down Monday's win, calling it a night to remember.
• Jim Donaldson sees Tom Brady continue rewriting the record books as the Patriots continue winning.
• Chris Gasper points to Deion Branch as an official difference maker, who makes the team better with him on it over Randy Moss.
• Jeff Howe focuses on how Devin McCourty continues to excel, earning praises of 'Best in the League'.
• Paul Kenyon details how the newcomers helped the Patriots win big.
• Tom E. Curran knows coach Belichick doesn't get the logic behind anyone wondering if the Patriots poured it on the Jets.
• Christopher Price tells us the five most important things we need to know Tuesday. The first is what Bill Belichick really told his team when they huddled up late in the game.
• Tom E. Curran hears Bill Belichick channeling his inner Herm Edwards, "You play to win the game." There's no running up the score in football.
• Ian Rapoport reviews Devin McCourty and James Sanders using Santonio Holmes and Braylon Edwards, 'Flight Boys' celebration Monday night.
• Mike Reiss looks at the positional groupings utilized in the Patriots 45-3 win over the Jets and says the diversity, balance and versatility of the offensive approach really stands out.
• Mike Reiss takes a look at the snaps played by Patriots defenders Monday night, while identifying possible trends that could be a factor in Sunday's game.
• Mike Rodak re-watches the TV copy of Monday night's game against the Jets and offers some of his observations: First quarter - Second quarter - Second half.
  
• WEEI Patriots 'Monday' highlights: Tom Brady with Dennis & Callahan, Vince Wilfork with Dale & Holley, and Bill Belichick on the Big Show.
• Ron Borges Week 13 Patriots Report Card. Must be Christmas, he even gave an A to Belichick.
• Ian Rapoport Patriots Notebook: Bill Belichick wasn't rubbing it in by leaving Brady in the game, he just remembers the Pats' trouble scoring in the second half; Tom Brady is receiving plenty of MVP consideration; Red Sox 3rd baseman Kevin Youkilis likes Wes Welker on his fantasy team; Bill Belichick felt empathy for Josh McDaniels getting fired from Denver; The Brady-to-Gronkowski connection is the NFL's best.

NATIONAL NEWS

• Mike Freeman (CBS Sports) Patriots prove they're best team in NFL, let alone division.
• Kerry Byrne (Cold Hard Football Facts) The clinic: NE 45, NYJ 3.
• Shutdown Corner (Yahoo! Sports) So, are the Patriots that good or are the Jets that bad?
• Peter King (SI) MMQB Tuesday Edition: Mailbag; Pats retool, barely miss beat; K.C. defense's secret weapon.
• Tim Graham (ESPN) AFC East High Energy Player of the Week. WOODY.
• Tim Graham (ESPN) AFC East Stock Watch.
• Tim Graham (ESPN) Trent Dilfer delivers NFL's 10 best players through Week 13, emphasizing "game-plan changers and game-plan breakers."
• Mike Greenberg and Mike Golic break down the reasons the New England Patriots trounced the New York Jets on Monday night. (1.30 min. video)

VIEW FROM CHICAGO

• Vaughn McClure (Chicago Tribune) Urlacher says Bears can handle Brady and Patriots.
• Jeff Hughes (Chicago Tribune) Why the Patriots don't particularly scare me.
• Brad Biggs (Chicago Tribune) 10 thoughts looking ahead to Patriots.
• Fred Mitchell and David Kaplan (Chicago Tribune) Ex-Patriot Troy Brown says New England will be ready for cold.
• Mike Mulligan (Chicago Sun-Times) Martz thinks small, gets big turnaround.
• Sean Jensen (Chicago Sun-Times) Bears running backs praise run-and-fun offense.
• Dan Pompei (Chicago Tribune) Belichick and Angelo go back long way.
• Brad Biggs (Chicago Tribune) Belichick: Bears' record 'really speaks for itself'.
• David Haugh (Chicago Tribune) Scotty Bowman sees a lot he likes in Belichick.
• Neil Hayes (Chicago Sun-Times) Lovie close to hitting return key.
• Neil Hayes (Chicago Sun-Times) Team short at LB after Pisa's surgery.

** But Wait, There's More!  Check Back before Noon for updates! **

Music listings are compiled by Cheryl Eddy. Since club life is unpredictable, it's a good idea to call ahead to confirm bookings and hours. Prices are listed when provided to us. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.

WEDNESDAY 8

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Andrew Jackson Jihad, Hard Girls, Royal Monsters Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.

Blackstone Heist, Deathjazz, Lloyd's Garage Elbo Room. 9pm, $7.

*Blind Guardian, Holy Grail, Seven Kingdoms Regency Ballroom. 8pm, $26.

Chairman Wow Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:45pm, free.

Greenhornes, Hacienda Independent. 8pm, $15.

David Liebe Hart, Hot Panda, Chris Thayer, Donny Divinian Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $7.

Reckless Kelly Slim's. 8pm, $16.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Belanova Fillmore. 8pm, $39.50.

Gaucho, Michael Abraham Amnesia. 7pm.

Farmer Dave Scher, Chapin Sisters, Neema Café Du Nord. 9pm, $15.

DANCE CLUBS

Booty Call Q-Bar, 456 Castro, SF; www.bootycallwednesdays.com. 9pm. Juanita Moore hosts this dance party, featuring DJ Robot Hustle.

Cannonball Beauty Bar. 10pm, free. Rock, indie, and nu-disco with DJ White Mike.

Hands Down! Bar on Church. 9pm, free. With DJs Claksaarb, Mykill, and guests spinning indie, electro, house, and bangers.

Jam Fresh Wednesdays Vessel, 85 Campton, SF; (415) 433-8585. 9:30pm, free. With DJs Slick D, Chris Clouse, Rich Era, Don Lynch, and more spinning top40, mashups, hip hop, and remixes.

Mary-Go-Round Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; (415) 431-0306. 10pm, $5. A weekly drag show with hosts Cookie Dough, Pollo Del Mar, and Suppositori Spelling.

Open Mic Night 330 Ritch. 9pm, $7.

Red Wine Social Triple Crown. 5:30-9:30pm, free. DJ TophOne and guests spin outernational funk and get drunk.

Respect Wednesdays End Up. 10pm, $5. Rotating DJs Daddy Rolo, Young Fyah, Irie Dole, I-Vier, Sake One, Serg, and more spinning reggae, dancehall, roots, lovers rock, and mash ups.

Synchronize Il Pirata, 2007 16th St, SF; (415) 626-2626. 10pm, free. Psychedelic dance music with DJs Helios, Gatto Matto, Psy Lotus, Intergalactoid, and guests.

THURSDAY 9

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Heather Combs, Edie Carey, Aiden Café Du Nord. 9pm, $12.

Ex-Boyfriends, Complaints, Bruises Eagle Tavern. 9pm.

Alan Iglesias Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $16. Stevie Ray Vaughn tribute.

Little Teeth, Blackbird Raum, Future Twin Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

Mike Pinto Band, Jahlectrik, She Beards Bottom of the Hill. 10pm, $10.

Millionyoung, Teen Daze, Great Mundane Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $12.

Needtobreathe, Daylights Fillmore. 8pm, $20.

Randy Rogers Band, Whiskey Dawn Independent. 8pm, $15.

Lenny Williams Rrazz Room. 8pm, $35-45.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Graham Connah Socha Café, 3235 Mission, SF; (415) 643-6848. 8pm, free.

SF Jazz Hotplate Series Amnesia. 9pm.

SF State Afro Cuban Jazz Ensemble Coda. 10pm, $10.

Swing with Stan Rite Spot, 2099 Folsom, SF; www.ritespotcafe.net. 9pm, free.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Alhambra Valley Band Atlas Café. 4pm, free.

Mission 3 Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:45pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Afrolicious Elbo Room. 9:30pm, $10. DJs Pleasuremaker and Señor Oz, with guest Nappy G, spin Afrobeat, tropicália, electro, samba, and funk.

Base Vessel. 9:30pm, $10. Featuring Hot Natured (Jamie Jones and Lee Foss).

CakeMIX SF Wish, 1539 Folsom, SF; www.wishsf.com. 10pm, free. DJ Carey Kopp spinning funk, soul, and hip hop.

Caribbean Connection Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, $3. DJ Stevie B and guests spin reggae, soca, zouk, reggaetón, and more.

Club Jammies Edinburgh Castle. 10pm, free. DJs EBERrad and White Mice spinning reggae, punk, dub, and post punk.

Drop the Pressure Underground SF. 6-10pm, free. Electro, house, and datafunk highlight this weekly happy hour.

Electric Feel Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; (415) 431-0306. 9pm, $2. With DJs subOctave and Blondie K spinning indie music videos.

Good Foot Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521. 10pm, free. With DJs spinning R&B, Hip hop, classics, and soul.

Guilty Pleasures Gestalt, 3159 16th St, SF; (415) 560-0137. 9:30pm, free. DJ TophZilla, Rob Metal, DJ Stef, and Disco-D spin punk, metal, electro-funk, and 80s.

Jivin' Dirty Disco Butter, 354 11th St., SF; (415) 863-5964. 8pm, free. With DJs spinning disco, funk, and classics.

Kissing Booth Make-Out Room. 9pm, free. DJs Jory, Commodore 69, and more spinning indie dance, disco, 80's, and electro.

Koko Puffs Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; (415) 885-4788. 10pm, free. Dubby roots reggae and Jamaican funk from rotating DJs.

Mestiza Bollywood Café, 3376 19th St, SF; (415) 970-0362. 10pm, free. Showcasing progressive Latin and global beats with DJ Juan Data.

Motion Sickness Vertigo, 1160 Polk, SF; (415) 674-1278. 10pm, free. Genre-bending dance party with DJs Sneaky P, Public Frenemy, and D_Ro Cyclist.

Nacht Musik Knockout. 10:30pm, $4. Dark, minimal electronic with DJs Omar, Josh, and Justin.

Peaches Skylark, 10pm, free. With an all female DJ line up featuring Deeandroid, Lady Fingaz, That Girl, and Umami spinning hip hop.

Ümloud DNA Lounge. 7pm, $10. Play Rock Band onstage to raise money for Child's Play Charity.

FRIDAY 10

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Seth Augustus Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:45pm, free.

Dave Rude Band, Angels of Vice, Dead Neck Bottom of the Hill. 10pm, $12.

Dead Souls Knockout. 5pm.

Hanni El Khatib, Th Mrcy Hot Sprngs, Hairspray Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $8.

Fleeting Trance, Stymie and the Pimp Jones Luv Orchestra Make-Out Room. 7:30pm, $7.

Kottonmouth Kings, (hed)p.e. Slim's. 8pm, $25.

"Lusty Lady Kinky Kiss-Mass" DNA Lounge. 9pm, $12-15. Burlesque show plus Destroyer, Minks, Trixie Carr, and Horror X.

Magic Bullets, Sleeptalks Knockout. 9pm, $7.

Soulive feat. Karl Denson, DJ Harry Duncan Independent. 9pm, $22.

Kim Wilson Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $24.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Bryan Girard Trio Cliff House, 1090 Point Lobos, SF; (415) 386-3330. 7pm, free.

Greenhorse Amnesia. 7pm.

Greg Rite Spot, 2099 Folsom, SF; www.ritespotcafe.net. 9pm, free.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Bossa 5-0 Socha Café, 3235 Mission, SF; (415) 643-6848. 8pm, free.

Right On Time Dolores Park Café, 501 Dolores, SF; www.doloresparkcafe.com. 7:30pm, $10.

Ozomatli Fillmore. 9pm, $26.50.

DANCE CLUBS

Exhale, Fridays Project One Gallery, 251 Rhode Island, SF; (415) 465-2129. 5pm, $5. Happy hour with art, fine food, and music with Vin Sol, King Most, DJ Centipede, and Shane King.

Fat Stack Fridays Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; (415) 885-4788. 10pm, free. With rotating DJs B-Cause, Vinnie Esparza, Mr. Robinson, Toph One, and Slopoke.

Fo' Sho! Fridays Madrone Art Bar. 10pm, $5. DJs Kung Fu Chris and Makossa spin rare grooves, soul, funk, and hip-hop classics.

Fubar Fridays Butter, 354 11th St., SF; (415) 863-5964. 6pm, $5. With DJs spinning retro mashup remixes.

Good Life Fridays Apartment 24, 440 Broadway, SF; (415) 989-3434. 10pm, $10. With DJ Brian spinning hip hop, mashups, and top 40.

Heartical Roots Bollywood Café. 9pm, $5. Recession friendly reggae.

Hot Chocolate Milk. 9pm, $5. With DJs Big Fat Frog, Chardmo, DuseRock, and more spinning old and new school funk.

Indy Slash Amnesia. 10pm. With DJ Danny White.

Rockabilly Fridays Jay N Bee Club, 2736 20th St, SF; (415) 824-4190. 9pm, free. With DJs Rockin' Raul, Oakie Oran, Sergio Iglesias, and Tanoa "Samoa Boy" spinning 50s and 60s Doo Wop, Rockabilly, Bop, Jive, and more.

Some Thing Stud. 10pm, $7. VivvyAnne Forevermore, Glamamore, and DJ Down-E give you fierce drag shows and afterhours dancing.

Treat 'Em Right Elbo Room. 10pm. Groove Merchant's 20th anniversary celebration with Groove Merchant DJs and guests.

Two Kinds of Stupid Holiday Party Rickshaw Stop. 9pm, $10. Live sets with K. Flay and TigerCat, plus DJs Brother Grimm and BAS.

Vintage Orson, 508 Fourth St, SF; (415) 777-1508. 5:30-11pm, free. DJ TophOne and guest spin jazzy beats for cocktalians.

SATURDAY 11

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Dandy Warhols, Blue Giant Regency Ballroom. 9pm, $27.

Family Scott, K-9, Psychology of Genocide Thee Parkside. 3pm, free.

*Forbidden, Evile, Gama Bomb, Bonded By Blood, Fog of War DNA Lounge. 2pm, $20.

Donald Glover, Childish Gambino Slim's. 9pm, $15.

Golda + Guns, Sugarspun, Skyflakes, Apple Orchard, Little Bits Rock-It Room. 9pm, $6. San Bruno fire victims benefit.

Derick Hughes Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

Chaka Khan, Chrisette Michele Warfield. 8pm, $45-82.

Phenomenauts, Neutralboy, Murderland Thee Parkside. 9pm, $10.

San Cha, DJ Moxy 50 Mason Social House, 50 Mason, SF; www.50masonsocialhouse.com. 9pm, free.

Shannon and the Clams, Night Beats, Outlaw Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $6.

Soulive feat. Karl Denson, DJ Harry Duncan Independent. 9pm, $22.

Voodoo Glow Skulls, Jokes For Feelings, Rockfight Bottom of the Hill. 10pm, $12.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Bill Carey Socha Café, 3235 Mission, SF; (415) 643-6848. 8pm, free.

Emergency String X-Tet with Rent Romus Meridian Gallery, 535 Powell, SF; www.meridiangallery.org. 8pm, $10.

Emily Anne's Delights Rite Spot, 2099 Folsom, SF; www.ritespotcafe.net. 9pm, free.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Ozomatli Fillmore. 3 and 9pm, $10-26.50.

Zoyres Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:45pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Bar on Church 9pm. Rotating DJs Foxxee, Joseph Lee, Zhaldee, Mark Andrus, and Nuxx.

Bootie: Holiday Party DNA Lounge. 9pm, $6-12. Xmas mash-ups with Adrian and Mysterious D.

Club Gossip Cat Club. 9pm, $5-8. Tribute to Nine Inch Nails.

Cockblock Rickshaw Stop. 10pm, $7. Queer dance party with DJ Nuxx and guests.

Frolic Stud. 9pm, $3-7. DJs Dragn'Fly, NeonBunny, and Ikkuma spin at this celebration of anthropomorphic costume and dance. Animal outfits encouraged.

HYP Club Eight, 1151 Folsom, SF; www.eightsf.com. 10pm, free. Gay and lesbian hip hop party, featuring DJs spinning the newest in the top 40s hip hop and hyphy.

Rock City Butter, 354 11th St., SF; (415) 863-5964. 6pm, $5 after 10pm. With DJs spinning party rock.

Same Sex Salsa and Swing Magnet, 4122 18th St, SF; (415) 305-8242. 7pm, free.

Spirit Fingers Sessions 330 Ritch. 9pm, free. With DJ Morse Code and live guest performances.

Spotlight Siberia, 314 11th St, SF; (415) 552-2100. 10pm. With DJs Slowpoke, Double Impact, and Moe1.

Tormenta Tropical Elbo Room. 10pm, $5-10. Electro cumbia with Natalie Storm, Max Glazer, Sabo, Disco Shawn, and Oro11.

SUNDAY 12

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

"Anais Mitchell Presents: Music of Hadestown" Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $21. With Thao Nguyen, Sean Hayes, John Elliott and the Hadestown Orchestra, and Michael Chorney.

Jon Anderson Regency Ballroom. 8pm, $37-55.

Arsis, Powerglove, Conducting from the Grave, Absence Thee Parkside. 8pm, $12-15.

"Battle of the Bands" DNA Lounge. 5:30pm, $12. With Astronomy Lounge, Madman's Lullaby, Smash Atoms, and more.

Black Crowes Fillmore. 8pm, $60.

Karina Denike, Upsets Rite Spot, 2099 Folsom, SF; www.ritespotcafe.net. 8pm, free.

Gene Taylor Blues Band Slim's. 8pm, $21.

Stornoway, Head and the Heart Independent. 8pm, $14.

Toiling Midgets, White Pee, Bloodfucker Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $7.

Joe Louis Walker Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Valeriana Quevedo, Larry Vuckovich, Jeff Chambers Bliss Bar, 4026 24th St, SF; (415) 826-6200. 4:30pm, $10.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Amy Obenski, Erica Sunshine Lee, Jess Brewster Yoshi's San Francisco (in the lounge). 8pm, $7.

Whiskey Richards, Leo Rondeau Thee Parkside. 4pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

DiscoFunk Mashups Cat Club. 10pm, free. House and 70's music.

Dub Mission Elbo Room. 9pm, $6. Dub, dubstep, roots, and dancehall with DJ Sep, J Boogie, and guest Ross Hogg.

Gloss Sundays Trigger, 2344 Market, SF; (415) 551-CLUB. 7pm. With DJ Hawthorne spinning house, funk, soul, retro, and disco.

Honey Soundsystem Paradise Lounge. 8pm-2am. "Dance floor for dancers – sound system for lovers." Got that?

Kick It Bar on Church. 9pm. Hip-hop with DJ Zax.

Pachanga! Coda. 5pm, $10. Salsa dance party with Orquesta La Moderna Tradición.

Religion Bar on Church. 3pm. With DJ Nikita.

Swing Out Sundays Rock-It Room. 7pm, free (dance lessons $15). DJ BeBop Burnie spins 20s through 50s swing, jive, and more.

MONDAY 13

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

C-Money and Players Inc. Elbo Room. 9pm, $10.

Ed Jones Rite Spot, 2099 Folsom, SF; www.ritespotcafe.net. 8pm, free.

Tame Impala, Stardeath and White Dwarfs Independent. 8pm, $15.

DANCE CLUBS

Black Gold Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; (415) 885-4788. 10pm-2am, free. Senator Soul spins Detroit soul, Motown, New Orleans R&B, and more — all on 45.

Death Guild DNA Lounge. 9:30pm, $3-5. Gothic, industrial, and synthpop with Joe Radio, Decay, and Melting Girl.

Krazy Mondays Beauty Bar. 10pm, free. With DJs Ant-1, $ir-Tipp, Ruby Red I, Lo, and Gelo spinning hip hop.

M.O.M. Madrone Art Bar. 6pm, free. With DJ Gordo Cabeza and guests playing all Motown every Monday.

Manic Mondays Bar on Church. 9pm. Drink 80-cent cosmos with Djs Mark Andrus and Dangerous Dan.

Network Mondays Azul Lounge, One Tillman Pl, SF; www.inhousetalent.com. 9pm, $5. Hip-hop, R&B, and spoken word open mic, plus featured performers.

Skylarking Skylark. 10pm, free. With resident DJs I & I Vibration, Beatnok, and Mr. Lucky and weekly guest DJs.

TUESDAY 14

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Badly Drawn Boy Café Du Nord. 8pm, $25.

Black Crowes Fillmore. 8pm, $60.

CCR Headcleaner, Bleak Ethnique, Tongue and Teeth Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $5.

Dominique Leone, Ash Reiter, Poor Sweet Creatures Amnesia. 9pm.

Low, Charlie Parr Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $17.

Man Among Wolves, Damaura, Red Light Mind Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $8.

Bob Margolin Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

DANCE CLUBS

Bombshell Betty's Burleque Bailout Elbo Room. 9pm, $10. With Fromagique and the Burlesqueteers.

Eclectic Company Skylark, 9pm, free. DJs Tones and Jaybee spin old school hip hop, bass, dub, glitch, and electro.

Share the Love Trigger, 2344 Market, SF; (415) 551-CLUB. 5pm, free. With DJ Pam Hubbuck spinning house.

Womanizer Bar on Church. 9pm. With DJ Nuxx.

FROM THE BLOGS:

The anger of Barack Obama
President Obama showed the passion many of his critics have said he lacks at his afternoon press conference Tuesday in defense of his tax-cut deal, Chris Cilizza writes at The Fix. 

Republicans and the 'temporary economy'
It appears as if congressional Republicans will accept the White House's deal on tax cuts, even though they still have some reservations, according to Dave Weigel. 

Gitmo is staying open
There is no way the Obama administration can shut down the Guantanamo Bay military prison considering the spike in recidivism rates among ex-detainees, the Weekly Standard's Stephen F. Hayes predicts.

The president gets passionate and the village swoons
Obama may have pleased the inside-the-Beltway crowd with his passionate display at the podium on Tuesday, but his position on tax cuts is pure Clintonian triangulation, digby writes at Hullabaloo. 

OTHER NEWS SOURCES:

President defends tax-cut compromise and lashes out at left
In a surprise White House press conference, President Obama staked out his position on tax cuts while criticizing his own base, our Sam Youngman reports. 

N.M. Gov. Bill Richardson may head to North Korea
The U.S. could send its former U.N. ambassador to ease tensions with the rouge Communist nation, Al Kamen reports in the Washington Post. 

Tea Party Nation makes pick for Republican chairman
The group picked Michigan committeeman Saul Anuzis after it preferred candidate Sarah Palin opted not to seek the post. Jeff Zeleny has more in the New York Times. 

WikiLeaks: Lieberman suggests New York Times could be investigated
The Connecticut senator said that the Gray Lady committed "bad citizenship" at best by publishing secret documents from the site, and a Justice Department probe at worst. The Guardian details his comments.

Last week I posted about the government shutdown fight between Congress and Rutherford B. Hayes.  I thought I would add some more detail about that debate.

In 1879, Congress passed the annual appropriation for the Army.  The Democratic majority in both chambers included provisions in that bill that repealed federal military or civil authority to protect the integrity of federal elections.  This was an obvious attempt to roll back African-American suffrage in the South in a way that would be hard to veto.

President Hayes did veto the bill, though, on procedural and substantive grounds. With respect to the procedure of tacking unrelated substantive legislation onto a revenue bill, he argued that this practice “did not prevail until more than forty years after the adoption of the [...]

---Quote--- PLANS to build a state-of-the-art library next to Republican catastrophe Sarah Palin are causing outrage across mainstream America. Campaigners have described the project as insensitive and a deliberate act of provocation by people with brains. The issue is forming a dividing line in advance of November's mid-term congressional elections with candidates being forced to declare whether they have ever been to a library or spoken to someone who has books in their home. Meanwhile President Obama has caused unease within his own Democratic party by endorsing the library and claiming that not everyone who reads books is responsible for calling Mrs Palin a fuckwit nutjob nightmare of a human being. Almost 40% of Americans still support the idea of books But Bill McKay, a leading member of the right-wing Teapot movement, said: "Sarah Palin is a hallowed place for Americans who can't read. "How is she going to feel knowing that every day there are people going inside a building to find things out for themselves and have thoughts, right in the very shadow of her amazing nipples." He added: "Our founding fathers intended for every building in this country to be a church containing one book, written by Jesus, that would be read out in a strange voice by an orange man in a shiny suit who would also tell you who you were allowed to kill. "Building a library next to Mrs Palin is like Pearl Harbour. Or 9/11." And Wayne Hayes, a pig masseur from Coontree, Virginia, said: "I is so angry right now. "It's like something is on fire right in the middle of my head. Like I've eaten a real hot chilli, but it's gone up my nose tubes rather than down my ass tubes." He added: "Would these library lovers allow me to set up a stall next to the Smithsonian Museum and start selling DVDs of bible cartoons as long as it was in accordance with local regulations? "Oh they would? I see. So is that why they're better than me?" ---End Quote--- :)

The Sacramento Kings today announced the 2010-11 members of the Kings Ambassadors program, along with new Kings Ambassadors Director Angela Gianulias.

Kings Ambassadors are community leaders committed to assisting the Kings with their mission of strengthening the bond between the team and the Sacramento community. The 2010-11 members of the Kings Ambassadors program are:

Darius Anderson, Adam Attia, Dave Baker, Constantine Baranoff, James Beckweth, Bill Blanas, Lou Blanas (Co-Chair), Kelly Brothers, Bob Buccola, Kirk Camunez, Larry Cassidy, Simi Chehrazzi, Brian Cooley, Dan Crowley, Darrell Darnell, Grant Deary, Roni Deutch, Larry Dicke, Billy Downing, Roger Dreyer, Chris Eaton, Susan Foondos, Ilan Frank, John Frisch, Troy and Yvonne Glenn, Tom Gotelli, Marc Haddad, Matt Haines, Steve Hammond, Lloyd Harvego, Greg Hayes, Jeffrey Hohlbein, Michael Horowitz, Laura Izon Powell, Bobby Jackson (Co-Chair), Caroline Jensen, Kelly Jensen, Mayor Kevin Johnson, Randy Kajioka, Gerry Kamilos, Seth Kaplan, Gale Kaufman, Julia Kelly, Bill Kershaw, Janet Kershaw, Tim King, Sotiris Kolokotronis, James Kouretas, Jamie Llopis, Donna Lucas, Matt Mahood, Colleen Mains, John Manikas, Ramin Manshadi, Hayden Markstein, Ed Marszal, Adam Mendelsohn, Nancy Miller, Pat Mitchell, Michael Mock, Fabian Nunez, Christopher Obmann, Kitty O’Neil, Arlen Opper, John Pappas, Chuck Peterson, Chevo Ramirez, Tim Ray, Aaron Read, Lindsey Read, Bob Rosenberg, Brian Salemme, Bruce Scheidt, Bill Simas, Alex Sioukas, Dean Sioukas, Karen Skelton, Kevin Sloat, Sandy Smoley, Rhett Snider, Terry Street, Rose Tafoya, Bob Teagle, Tom Tenge, Mike Tooley, Sofia Tsakopoulos, Greg Van Ness, Dan Weitzman, Brian White, Petter Willingham, Jim Wilson, Chris Wohl and Aaron Zeff.

Gianulias takes over the Kings Ambassadors program having 25 years experience in politics and government on the local and state level, including most recently serving as Finance Director for Alberto Torrico’s Attorney General campaign. She also previously served as Finance Director for Phil Angelides’ California State Treasurer campaign, and served as one of his chief fundraising consultants in his bid to become Governor of California.

In addition, Gianulias worked in the policy area as Legislative Director for Senator Patrick Johnston and she served as a fundraising consultant for 10 years for a variety of non-profit and political clients.

Gianulias earned her Bachelor’s degree in Political Science from California State University, Sacramento, and she lives in Sacramento with her husband Chris and their daughters, Antonia and Juliana.

Community leaders interested in more information on the Kings Ambassadors program and how to become an Ambassador should contact Gianulias at 916-928-8122 or agianulias@arcoarena.com.
 

So much for lift-off.

After whipping the Minnesota Timberwolves and reeling off two straight against the Indiana Pacers and New York Knicks, the Houston Rockets crash landed like a shuttle with all of its engines blown out and now must digest a miserable 3-9 record. Houston surrendered in consecutive beatdowns and in a three-point home defeat that might sting for the rest of the season.

The Chicago Bulls, Oklahoma City Thunder and Toronto Raptors could have been mistaken for the Los Angeles Lakers, Golden State Warriors and Denver Nuggets. The Rockets did not stop anyone on any of those squads when it counted.

Shannon Brown, Steve Blake, Monta Ellis, Stephen Curry, Al Harrington, Marco Belinelli, Jason Smith, Kyle Korver, Andrea Bargnani and Linas Kleiza have each circled a common future date on their calendars in the previous month.

None of them can wait to play the Rockets again, so they can light up the scoreboard and look good doing it. Houston, despite crippling injuries and a road-heavy early schedule, looks ready for Secaucus.

It would be fool-hearted for the team's supporters to give up hope 12 games into an 82-date campaign. Fans believe at all costs because it is their job to do so. Management, however, must know the returns of Aaron Brooks and Yao Ming will not provide a panacea.

The front office, headed by GM Daryl Morey, cannot allow the "we'll get better" charades to continue. This team has issues time will not fix. For one, the basketball and football franchises seem to be aligned when it comes to historic defensive ineptitude.

The Rockets might not allow the equivalent of 400 passing yards per contest, but they have done enough to warrant the criticism that accompanies yielding an average of 107 points on 46 percent shooting.

Different week, same problem. Maybe the Texans and Rockets can commiserate together. Texans Safety Bernard Pollard, who ranks in the NFL's top 10 in giving up big plays that lead to touchdowns, could show Kevin Martin a thing or two about tough talk. No one seems qualified, though, to put that gab into practice, aside from a few usual suspects not talented enough to compensate for the rest of the clueless stiffs.

Friday's effort was pathetic, even if the team led at several junctures and was close before the Raptors pulled away late. The Air Canada Centre has become the Rockets' version of Helga's House of Pain. Toronto, now 4-9, brought plenty of it from the start.

Tonight, the Phoenix Suns bring a 6-7 record and an offense that can still pour it on, even with Amar'e Stoudemire's defection to New York, to Toyota Center. A groin strain will sideline Steve Nash, making reserve spark plug Goran Dragic the probable starter at point guard.

Can the Rockets take advantage of some rare good fortune in their favor, or will Dragic become the latest salivating baller to shred through a defense that might struggle in a senior citizen's league? Hell, 76-year-old Bill Russell could decide to test his skills against Houston if this continues.

The man-to-man and team coverage would merit praise if the Rockets could duplicate the efforts at home versus Minnesota and at Madison Square Garden more often. Instead, those lockdown master clinics seem more like aberrations than the start of a trend.

Rick Adelman oversees the fifth most productive offense in the association, but the Rockets lack a passable go-to option on that end with Yao and Brooks unavailable. This team couldn't close a Wal-Mart or a coffee shop, much less a quarter in an NBA game.

Wednesday night, it was Battier missing a free throw that would have cut the Thunder's halftime lead to seven. Then, it was Scola fouling Russell Westbrook beyond the arc before the second quarter buzzer sounded. The Rockets trailed by 11, 64-53, instead of eight.

Friday night, Scola delivered the Rockets a brief third-quarter lead, 75-74, then the Raptors proceeded to score four straight baskets. When it comes to closing the deal, this teams squad knows as much about that art as Steve Carell's character in the 40-Year-Old Virgin.

No coach in sports history could win with this slapdash, abominable defense. Few could survive the grind with such a confused, inept crunch-time offense.

Two weeks ago, Scola's fast-break layup afforded the Rockets their last fourth quarter lead in Washington, 85-84. The Wizards then mounted a killer 10-0 run with a turnover-prone rookie at the helm and a similarly horrific half-court defense.

The excuses may come flying off the shelves like popular Christmas toys. Tough schedule. The back-to-back champs were too good and experienced on opening night. Too many road contests versus ones at home.

The author of the Lakers' game-winning shot was playing in his first ever regular season game in purple and gold. The sleepy, unfashionably late fans, aside from the dedicated Red Rowdies, and comical fourth-quarter lapses create a no-advantage atmosphere at Toyota Center. The Rockets have choked away final frame leads in every loss. What makes anyone think the venue matters?

Give Houston's pro basketball team a high school gym for the evening, and they will find a way to lose there, too. The squads atop the Western Conference have dealt with hardships, and the disparity or varying degrees should not tilt the discussion.

When the Rockets rolled into the AT&T Center without Kyle Lowry or Yao's services, and then lost Brooks at halftime, they played opposite a Spurs team missing reserve forward/center Matt Bonner. Anyone who considers the comparison laughable did not watch Bonner drill seven consecutive treys in Oklahoma City a week ago. The Spurs owe that paramount road victory to second-half defense and his shooting.

Lakers starting center Andrew Bynum has not played in a game since June 17, and when healthy, he can demolish pillow-soft frontlines by himself. The Hornets overcame uncertainty and a front office upheaval in speeding to an 11-1 record.

Did anyone expect a lineup with Emeka Okafor, who looked washed up and disengaged at times last season, and Smith, Belinelli and Willie Green to win at a pace that portends more than 55 victories?

The Nuggets limped into Houston Oct. 30 with key big men Chris Anderson and Kenyon Martin out until January. Harrington, who dropped 28 points, had been playing through discomfort and some minor injuries.

The Rockets, much like the Portland Trail Blazers, could compare their luck over the last five years to Hurley from the now defunct TV drama Lost. No matter how many times Morey seems to win the lottery in a trade or with a draft pick, the house keeps falling down just after his pants do. Forgive him if he feels like the emperor with no clothes or Clarice Starling battling a sicker, crueler enemy than Hannibal Lecter.

Beyond the caustic defense, other obvious issues have plagued this last-place outfit. Chase Budinger, the team's best spot-up shooter and dunker, is hitting just 15 percent of his three-pointers and has thrown it down just four times. He was scoreless Friday in his return from injury. What is it with the Rockets and left ankle sprains?

Kyle Lowry established himself as one of the league's best change-of-pace point guards last season. He took charges and made remarkable hustle plays. Now, he's just taking bad shots and making 29 percent of them. Back spasms and similar ankle issues do not excuse his paltry selection.

Fans groaned when referees removed his late off-balance trey and leaner in Wednesday's loss. Replays showed the ball was still in his hands when the shot clock expired and the red light appeared. Instead of berating blatant calls, the Rockets' faithful should have bemoaned an offense that could not muster better attempts.

Good luck winning with those numbers.

Shane Battier and Chuck Hayes can still administer brutish, intelligent and admirable defensive performances, but they still can't score with a pencil. Budinger would merit more praise for the time he spent working on defensive fundamentals if he was not abusing the rims.

Then again, Raptors forward Linas Kleiza beat him to a pulp and treated him like a rag doll in Friday's loss. Courtney Lee's minute ration is not the only thing in fluctuation. His game also comes and goes. Adelman needs a lot more from Lee than he's getting.

Jordan Hill has looked like a lost mountain climber in need of a Sherpa. Ishmael Smith has heart and grit, not to mention superb court vision, but he would not have gone undrafted if he was destined to take over fourth quarters the way Rose did during the Bulls 18-0 spurt to open Wednesday's final period.

Brad Miller has given Adelman everything he could want as a role player who can pass and knock down uncontested jumpshots, but giving him starter's minutes exposes his flaws. His ability to protect the rim has not aged gracefully.

Martin earns nine free throw attempts a game, a fabulous number on paper, but he cannot manufacture enough points when the pressure-packed moments arrive. If Kobe Bryant is the NBA's best looking bride in the clutch, Martin is its most perplexing example of a bridesmaid posing as the wedding's star attraction.

He impresses during the rehearsal dinner and interlude, but when it comes time to walk down the aisle and say "I do," you might as well sing "Here comes the brick."

Scola, who still has not located Harrington, gets by on effort much more than talent. He has been the best and most consistent Rocket thus far, and that is another problem. The best teams boast No. 1 options who can slack off and still rank as plus players. Scola would be nothing more than a benchwarming body if his competitive juices did not fuel him so.

Sheer talent beats depth in a head-to-head race. Morey thought he had assembled a roster with plenty of both. Instead, the guys with the finest physical gifts too often appear sluggish and disinterested, and the workhorses cannot jump any higher or move any quicker.

Few in Houston, including this writer, ever imagined the Rockets would start 3-9. Now, many once jubilant fans wonder if the team will ever win again. Houston did not roar out of the gates when Brooks and Yao started. No one can expect the future re-additions to the lineup to transform this defense into an adequate one, especially when Yao's peak abilities following reconstructive foot surgery remain unknown.

Brooks and Yao, 20 points-per-game scorers at their best, can help the offense late in games, but can either approximate a superstar?

So much for liftoff.

The Rockets were supposed to fall into the NBA's abyss in the 2009-2010 campaign sans Yao's interior presence. They would take that 6-4 start in a heartbeat now.

The atrocious defense has been the worst of the myriad problems. If they want to stop a painful slide tonight, they must first stop somebody on the Suns with the game on the line.

After that, all Morey and Adelman have to do is worry about everything else. Forget lift-off. Mere engine noise in Houston might pass for beautiful music these days.