Tiger Woods Earned $10.5 Million in PGA Tour Purses This Season

Sept. 28 (Bloomberg) -- Tiger Woods earned $10.5 million in tournament purses on the U.S. PGA Tour this year, his third-best season since turning professional in 1996.
Woods, who entered 2009 following reconstructive knee surgery, won six tournaments and finished in the top 10 in 14 of 17 events, including three of four in the FedEx Cup playoffs. He topped the PGA Tour money list for the ninth season, this time without winning one of golf’s four majors.
“The whole year was an unknown,” Woods said yesterday after finishing second to Phil Mickelson at the Tour Championship in Atlanta. “I didn’t know how the knee would respond. To play as well as I have the entire year is something I’m very proud of.”
The 33-year-old Woods has earned $92.9 million during his career and another $20 million in bonus money for twice winning the FedEx Cup. Yesterday’s second-place finish at the U.S. PGA Tour’s finale allowed him to win the FedEx Cup title for the second time in three years.
Vijay Singh is second on the career earnings list with almost $62 million in prize money. He made a $10 million bonus in 2008 by winning the FedEx Cup when Woods cut his season short to have surgery on his knee. Mickelson is third in career earnings with $55.9 million.
Woods won $10.9 million in purses in 2007 and $10.6 million in 2005.
Following are the PGA Tour’s money leaders for 2009 through the Tour Championship.

Mariah Carey finds freedom being 'imperfect'


NEW YORK – Lee Daniels had so much faith in Mariah Carey's acting that when the director's first choice to play a dowdy, no-nonsense social worker — Oscar-winner Helen Mirren — backed out, he quickly asked Carey to step in.
But Daniels was well aware that in hiring Mariah Carey, the actress, he was also likely to get Mariah Carey, the diva — a high-maintenance sideshow that would include an entourage of makeup artists, assistants, publicists and other hangers-on, running counter to the energy he wanted the superstar to exude in his searing drama "Precious."
So, as he gave her the role, he also issued a warning: Leave the diva act at home.
"If you come with a strip of makeup on," he recalls telling her, "I will have a backup (actress)."
"I knew that she would be out of her safety zone, and I knew that there would be no one for her to rely on, to say, 'Get me this, get me that,'" he said. "I could see in her eyes_ 'What is Lee doing to me?' But I knew that she trusted me."
By putting her faith in Daniels, Carey — who famously flopped in her movie debut "Glitter" in 2001 — may have finally proven to critics that formidable talent extends to more than just her voice. She's garnered high praise for her turn in the film, which is being released nationwide on Nov. 6.
But more importantly for Carey, the role helped her shed some of the insecurities that not only hindered her in acting, but in her real life.
"That was such a freeing experience for me," Carey says during a recent interview. "By making me look so bad he brought out the ability to never be self-conscious again, and that was a gift that he gave me."
After years of striving to reach an ideal — from her personal life to her music career — Carey, 39, is embracing life's imperfections, an attitude summed up by the title of her latest album, "Memoirs of an Imperfect Angel."
Grammy-winning producer Tricky, responsible for hits like Rihanna's "Umbrella," was one of the main writers and producers of the "Memoirs of an Imperfect," along with The-Dream. Tricky says Carey is "is kind of letting people know, I'm not this perfect angel.
"She has sexual songs and stuff like that that allude to stuff that she's never really touched on before."
But Carey herself points to a something else that shows her new outlook — the fact that she's dropped of one of her most infamous diva demands, that she only be photographed on her right side.
"I don't feel like, 'Oh, I have to be on this side, or I have to be on this side — I really had specific things that someone told me when I was 19 starting in the business and I listened to them. ... I don't care anymore," she says, laughing.
"Sometimes I like that side — and Nick likes that side better anyway," she adds.
Nick, of course, is her husband of almost a year and a half — the actor and producer Nick Cannon. The pair married after dating a little over a month: It was a union few took seriously at first.
That's in part because of the 12-year age gap between them (Cannon is 27), but also because they seemed to come from two different worlds. Cannon was seen as a teen star thanks to his Nickelodeon vehicles; Carey is a Grammy-winning superstar and one of the industry's most profitable artists.
"I didn't know what to make of the marriage," said Daniels, a good friend of Carey's, though now he proclaims their bond to be genuine.
"You see her in a place of complete and utter bliss. I want to throw up; I roll my eyes," he says, laughing, before adding with a serious note: "I've seen a changed woman in front of my eyes — you see what love does to someone."
Sitting on a couch while wearing snakeskin Gucci stilettos and sporting curly locks reminiscent of her "Vision of Love" days, Carey talks about how Cannon has changed her life, as he naps in the bed behind her.
"Nick is just a really supportive, very unique man who no matter what the differences are between us, he has been just such, like, a helping hand for me as a human being and a husband," she says. "I feel like I'm not by myself anymore, and no matter who I was with I always felt alone."
Carey took her union to Cannon so seriously that she lowered her profile right after they got married, even though she had just started to promote "EMC2," the follow-up to her multiplatinum, Grammy-winning triumph "The Emancipation of Mimi."
While "EMC2" had the hit "Touch My Body," it seemed to fade after she wed.
"I took a slight break because we just wanted to be together," she says. "(With) 'Mimi,' that's all I was focused on.'"
Carey says today, "everything is different, I'm in a different place in my life. I really enjoyed being in the studio and coming home and playing songs for Nick and talking about them.
"We have a lot of conversations about music and just listening and dissecting the songs. It's sort of a new thing for me so I really, really enjoyed it."
Cannon may have had input on the album, but he's nowhere on the credits. While they have no musical project in the works, there's been rampant speculation that there might be another Carey-Cannon production in the making — a baby.
On those rumors, Carey says coyly: "Well, we enjoy practicing."
But after a good laugh, she says now would "not be the right time" because of the pair's busy lives.
As far as working on something else together, like a movie, Carey doesn't rule it out.
"We have to make sure the movie was a stone winner otherwise they would kill us," Carey says.
"It'd have to be a comedy," interjects Cannon.
"It'd definitely have to be — our life is a comedy anyway," she says, as they laugh together.

Michelle Obama to women: Do what makes you happy

WASHINGTON – First lady Michelle Obama says women should do what makes them happy, a lesson she says she learned after realizing her two children, her husband and her physical health feed off of her good moods.
In an interview appearing in the November issue of Prevention magazine, Mrs. Obama discusses the meaning of good health, aging and her exercise, diet and beauty routines. She sat for the interview at the White House in late July.
Mrs. Obama says she learned "what not to do" from her mother, Marian Robinson, who now lives at the White House.
"She'd say being a good mother isn't all about sacrificing. It's really investing and putting yourself higher on your priority list," Mrs. Obama said. She said Robinson put her own two children first, sometimes to the detriment of herself.
"She encouraged me not to do that," Mrs. Obama said.
The first lady said there are many facets to good health — physical, internal, emotional, diet — and all are intertwined.
"Throughout my life, I've learned to make choices that make me happy and make sense for me. Even my husband is happier when I'm happy," Mrs. Obama said in her first interview with the women's health monthly. "So I have freed myself to put me on the priority list and say, yes, I can make choices that make me happy, and it will ripple and benefit my kids, my husband and my physical health."
"That's hard for women to own. We're not taught to do that," she added. "It's a lesson that I want to teach my girls."
Asked for a definition of happiness, Mrs. Obama said it's when daughters Malia, 11, and Sasha, 8, "are good and when my family is whole." She expressed relief that early in the year after moving from Chicago the girls came and told her they liked living in the White House.
"My happiness is measured against theirs. When they're in a good place, I feel really good," she said.
Mrs. Obama, who is 45 and appears on the magazine's cover, also said she has no fear about getting old.
"To me, with age, everything has gotten better," the first lady said.
She strives to be "on the cusp of being in the best shape that I can be" in, but has found she needs to work a little harder at it the older she gets. As a result, she has begun to incorporate more Pilates moves and stretching into her workouts to maintain flexibility.
Mrs. Obama also is working on balancing out her diet, which she said has "no absolute no's."
"Overall, it's good, but there are some great bakers" at the White House, she said, noting that pie is always available. "So for me, it's about setting up new boundaries. I had some challenges with that, but I'm balancing out."

Facebook kills 'Kill Obama' poll

Facebook has removed a user poll set up to ask "Should Obama be killed?" and the Secret Service is now looking into it.
SAN FRANCISCO (AFP) -
The US Secret Service is trying to identify the people who launched an online poll at Facebook asking whether US President Barack Obama should be assassinated.
Facebook on Monday shut down the user-generated poll, which was titled "Should Obama be killed?" and offered answer choices of yes, no, maybe, and "If he cuts my health care."
"Once we found out about it, we worked with Facebook to have it removed," Secret Service spokesman Malcolm Wiley told AFP.
"We are certainly investigating; just like we would with any threat case."
More than 750 Facebook users had reportedly cast votes by the time the poll was yanked from the wildly popular online social networking community.
"This is sick and sad," a Facebook user with the screen name Cocoa Fly said in a posting as the poll fueled passionate online exchanges at the website.
"All of this anti-Obama rage is pure racism."
The poll was created over the weekend using a third-party application that lets users conduct their own surveys, according to Facebook spokesman Barry Schnitt.
"People were usually doing trivial polls like asking friends where they should go for dinner or what they thought of a certain movie," Schnitt said of the application.
"Then there was the offensive one created by an individual user."
Facebook had to shut down the program to get rid of the Obama poll since surveys using the software were controlled by the outside developer.
The application will remain disabled until the developer assures Facebook that the controversial survey has been removed and there are policies and procedures for handling such concerns in the future, according to Schnitt.
"Of course we are offended by the content of the poll but objectionable ideas are in the world and, unfortunately, manifest on Facebook," Schnitt told AFP.
"We felt we dealt with it in a responsible way by removing it as quick as we were notified."
Schnitt declined to discuss the Secret Service investigation.
Some 750 Facebook users had voted in the poll - they could choose between "yes", "no" and "If he cuts my healthcare". Some of those people should expect a visit from the Men in Black - the Secret Service confirmed to AFP that it was investigating.
A secret spokesman said the service had worked with Facebook to get the survey removed and was making enquiries "like we would with any threat case".
Facebook told the newswire that the poll was created by a third party application. Facebook closed down access for the survey app, and it will remain unavailable until developers can reassure Facebook that it has taken steps to stop equally offensive polls in future.
Of course, political debate is still alive and well on arsebook - you can still join groups titled "Obama will kill our Natrion" and "Impeach Obama". At least they can spell impeach.

Hackers release new attack code for Windows

Beware the claws that rend
HACKERS HAVE LOOSED a new attack code that exploits a critical flaw in Windows Vista and Windows 2008 Server.
The Vole has known about this hole in its operating systems since 7th September, but now it seems that there is at least one program that exploits it.
The new attack was penned by Harmony Security senior researcher Stephen Fewer and it lets the attacker run unauthorized software on the victim's computer, in theory making the vulnerability a much more serious problem.
The exploit code was added to the open sauce Metasploit penetration testing kit yesterday.
Another outfit called Immunity developed its own attack code for the bug, but that code is available only to the company's paying subscribers.
Metasploit developer HD Moore said the exploit works on Windows Vista Service Pack 1 and 2 as well as Windows 2008 SP1 server.
However Immunity Senior Researcher Kostya Kortchinsky told PC World the attack was not completely reliable. He could only get the Metasploit attack to work on Vista when it was running within a VMware virtual machine session. Outside VMware it just caused Windows systems to crash.
The underlying flaw lies in the server message block version 2 (SMB 2) system, introduced in Vista. The flaw apparently has been patched in Windows 7.
On 18 September Microsoft released a Fix-It tool that disables SMB 2, and the company said then that it was working on a fix for its software.

Photo of Spanish Prime Minister's daughters highlights privacy concerns for world leaders

ast week Barack and Michelle Obama hosted a reception for visiting foreign dignitaries at New York's Metropolitan Museum of Art. Over the course of the evening, the president, whose "amazingly consistent" smile created a viral video, and first lady posed for over 130 photographs with their guests, all of which were later posted to the State Department's Flickr page.
This caused a problem: Included was a shot of the Obamas posing with Spanish Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, his wife Sonsoles Espinosa, and two daughters, Laura, 16, and Alba, 13, who've never had photographs of themselves published previously in print or online due to a Spanish law prohibiting the media from doing so. The photo of Zapatero and his family with the Obamas was quickly removed from Flickr at the request of the Spanish government but still lurks online (in the shot seen here their faces are blurred). The flap is adding concerns on the issue of the privacy of world leaders' children in the digital age.
Writing on The Daily Beast today, Republican Senator John McCain's daughter Meghan expressed sympathy for the girls, who've been labeled as "goth" in the photo. She says she's also bewildered by the Spanish government's reaction:
I want to start out by saying I can't believe there is a country that exists where the media protects children of public figures, let alone the prime minister's daughters. It is literally hard for me to fathom that there is a place that respects the privacy of underage children of politicians and diplomats. The second part of this that makes me very sad is that these two girls are enduring a sort of baptism by fire with the media scrutiny that surrounds their family portrait with the Obamas. Not only are they not used to being photographed, but their first foray into being photographed and criticized is on a very public scale with the most famous and powerful politicians in the entire world.
In addition to successfully lobbying the State Department to remove the photo, the Spanish government went so far as to have the state-owned Spanish news agency EFE refrain from distributing it.
The plethora of ridicule faced by Prime Minister Zapatero's children is a reminder of the harsh scrutiny children of world leaders often face over their appearance. Here in the U.S., Chelsea Clinton, who was so closely protected that Time Magazine referred to her as "the Garbo of presidential children," was dealt a harsh review by conservative commentator Rush Limbaugh during her father's presidency, in addition to being called "ugly" in an off-color joke told by none other than Meghan McCain's father at a Republican fundraiser in 1998. The Bush twins Jenna and Barbara were famously ridiculed for - and photographed - partying with friends.
The Spanish government's policy toward Zapatero's children contrasts with the tricky relationship between the U.S. media and first daughters, Malia, 10, and Sasha, 8, who have been largely sheltered from the press but certainly haven't been invisible. Back in June, photographers were allowed to photograph the president walking to get ice cream with his girls on Father's Day weekend, not long after the White House requested that the press not publish a photo of Obama waving to Sasha as she stood on one of the White House balconies. Meanwhile, the official White House Flickr page contains numerous "behind the scenes" pictures of the Obama children.
White House press secretary Robert Gibbs recently said that the administration would permit press access to the Obama children when they are part of "official events with the president and first lady," but added that "there should be a wide berth of privacy extended to the family" when they're alone or doing something as a family. He added that the White House's Flickr photos of the children exist to control the paparazzi market for pictures of the Obama children, the youngest to occupy the White House since John and Caroline Kennedy, who were also fiercely guarded.
Sheltering their children is forcing modern world leaders to deal with challenges most of their predecessors never had to contend with: digital technology and the Internet. The influx of digital cameras and cell phones and the rise of social networking sites like Twitter, Facebook, Myspace, etc. make it easy for anyone to take a photograph and distribute it widely in a matter of minutes, making it virtually impossible for even the highest levels of government to keep the genie in the bottle.
-- Brett Michael Dykes is a contributor to the Yahoo! News Blog.

Samuel Eto'o Claim Will Go To Court - Barcelona Vice President Joan Boix

Samuel Eto'o is unlikely to receive any compensation from the Blaugrana...Barcelona are confident that they will not have to pay €3 million to Samuel Eto'o, despite the player claiming he is owed 15 per cent of the transfer fee paid by Inter for him in the summer.
The Catalan club's vice president for finance, Joan Boix, believes that the compensation ruling only applies at national level and that the money is paid to the player by the buying team.
Eto'o has made a claim for 15 per cent of the €20m that Barca received for him in the swap deal that saw Zlatan Ibrahimovic head to Inter.
"I am sure that this will end up in court," Boix told COM Radio.
"We believe that the rules protect us. It will take someone else to decide if Barca should pay.
"But I think that the possibility of that is very remote."
Transfers between Spanish clubs see players paid 15 per cent of the fee by the club who bought them, so Barcelona think that Eto'o is claiming from the wrong side.
"We know clearly that this happens at national level, but anyway, the club who should pay is the one who are buying," he concluded, denying that this is standard when a player makes an international move.

Jennifer Garner Scrubs Toilets!


Jennifer Garner has taken on a second job — she’s “scrubbing the toilets” at her three-year-old daughter’s school!
The actress — who has two children with husband Ben Affleck — has revealed how she’s been lending a helping hand at Violet’s Boston, Massachusetts co-operative preschool.
“Parents run the school, so I work at the preschool,” said Garner, who stars opposite British comic Ricky Gervais in new movie The Invention of Lying. “It’s a lot of toilet scrubbing… painting and pulling out staples. But it’s fun because you get to chat with other mums.
“Ben and I take turns. Right now he’s directing but just wait when it’s his turn… he’s going to have to make macaroni and cheese for every potluck [group dinner].”
Garner, 37, recently revealed that she once passed off someone else’s funny story as her own — and got caught!
“Somebody told me a story that I thought was funny, and I don’t even remember what the story was even, but I started repeating it to other people, but I said it happened to me instead of saying it happening to them because it’s easier to tell the story that way,” the star told FOX News.
“Then I found that I was telling it to the person that it actually happened to, so they thought I was crazy after that. I had to stop being friends with them because it was so embarrassing.”

Endangered Ugandan gorillas join Facebook, MySpace


KAMPALA, Uganda – He's hairy, his table manners are atrocious, and he wants to be your friend on Facebook.
No, it's not the ex-boyfriend. It's Muhozi, an endangered Ugandan mountain gorilla, who's appearing online as part of a fundraising program the Ugandan Wildlife Authority launched Saturday to help save the species.
Around 340 mountain gorillas — nearly half of the 740 remaining worldwide — live in Uganda's lush Bwindi Impenetrable Forest National Park and 40 more live in another Ugandan reserve. The rest live in the Virunga mountain range, which stretches from Uganda into Rwanda and the war-ravaged Congo.
Despite their size — a male silverback can reach over 7 feet (2.1 meters) and weigh 400 pounds (180 kilogram) — the gorillas are threatened by poachers who kill them for meat, farmers and charcoal-burners who encroach on their habitat, and the indiscriminate bullets of rebels on the run. They must be protected by rangers with automatic rifles.
The Wildlife Authority is hoping that fans will befriend a gorilla on Facebook or MySpace or follow it on Twitter in return for a minimum donation of $1. The money will be used to hire extra rangers to protect the gorillas and safeguard their habitat.
In return, gorilla friends will receive regular updates about their chosen gorilla, have their gorilla's picture on their home page and receive gorilla trivia — like the fact that the name is derived from a Greek word, gorillai, meaning "hairy women."
Wildlife Authority spokeswoman Lilian Nsubuga said she hoped the program would give people who could not afford to travel to Uganda themselves the chance to feel closer to the animals.
About 10,500 tourists visit Uganda each year to see the gorillas. An entry permit for the park is $500 per person. Last year Uganda earned $600 million through tourism and more than 90 percent of the money was from gorilla tourism.
"Why visit Rome to see ruins or Egypt to see mere piles of stones called pyramids, yet you can go to Bwindi and see your next of kin?" asked Uganda's Minister of Tourism, Kahinda Otafiire, pointing out that gorillas share more than 95 percent of their DNA with humans.
Thomas Slater, the director of the gorilla Web site, said Internet users would be able to befriend any individual from one of seven groups habituated to human contacts.
"You will be able to learn more concerning the particular gorilla, its character, family and relationships," he said.

Google fights Microsoft flames over Chrome

GOOGLE HAS HIT BACK after Microsoft suggested that one of its plug-ins would render IE8 less secure, or more insecure, depending on how you look at these things.
We covered Microsoft's allegation only about an hour ago but Google has already released a statement that takes umbrage at the Vole's suggestion and hits back at Microsoft, calling its web browsers out of date and unstable.
Google said that Chrome Frame is still an early version but is designed to tackle both speed and security issues inherent in out-of-date and non-standards-compliant browsers like Internet Explorer.
It said, "While we encourage users to use a more modern and standards compliant browser such as Firefox, Safari, Opera or Google Chrome rather than a plug-in, for those who don't, Google Chrome Frame is designed to provide better performance, strong security features, and more choice to both developers and users, across all versions of Internet Explorer." So there, Microsoft.
Just in case Microsoft and its users didn't get the message, Google continued to take the security high ground, adding, "Accessing sites using Google Chrome Frame brings Google Chrome's security features to Internet Explorer users, providing strong phishing and malware protection (absent in IE6), robust sandboxing technology, and defenses from emerging online threats that are available in days rather than months."

Something to tweet about: Twitter valued at $1B

SAN FRANCISCO -
Twitter Inc.'s founders now have a billion-dollar baby, and they seem determined to raise it without a corporate parent.
That was the message underlying Friday's news that Twitter has lined up $100 million to finance its operations while founders Evan Williams and Biz Stone plot ways to make money off one of the Internet's most popular communications tools.
The investment values the 3-year-old company at $1 billion, even though it has yet to generate any meaningful revenue, let alone profits.
Twitter itself didn't provide specifics about the size of the investment, saying only it involved a significant sum. Two people with knowledge of the negotiations confirmed the amounts to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity because the parties had agreed not to announce the specifics.
Williams and Stone declined an interview request.
The latest stakes were sold to three of Twitter's existing investors — Benchmark Capital, Institutional Venture Partners and Spark Capital — and two new shareholders, Insight Venture Partners and T. Rowe Price.
San Francisco-based Twitter had previously raised $55 million, with the latest infusion of $35 million coming just seven months ago.
With so much money in the bank, Twitter now has the means to buy more computers and keep improving the reliability of its outage-prone service. It can expand its work force of 60 employees without feeling the pressure to sell to a larger company.
"This is a smart move by Twitter because it buys them more time to capitalize on their momentum and come up with a business plan," said Ken Marlin, a technology investment banker in New York with Marlin & Associates.
The funding is meant to preserve Twitter's independence until its making enough money to cover its own expenses, according to one of the people familiar with the negotiations.
Twitter already turned down a $500 million buyout offer from Facebook Inc. last year and both Google Inc. and Microsoft Corp. were rumored to be inquiring about a possible acquisition earlier this year.
Williams didn't refer directly to any suitors in Friday's blog posting, but he indicated Twitter wants to see how far it can go on its own.
"It was important to us that we find investment partners who share our vision for building a company of enduring value," Williams wrote. "Twitter's journey has just begun and we are committed to building the best product, technology, and company possible."
For now Williams and Stone have been focusing on building Twitter's audience.
Twitter has more than 54 million worldwide users who share their thoughts, activities, Web links and other information in messages no longer than 140 characters. Just a year ago, only 4 million people were "tweeting" — the term commonly used to describe the chatter on Twitter. By 2013, Twitter hopes to have 1 billion users, making its service "the pulse of the planet," according to internal company documents leaked on the Internet this summer.
Those documents also included projections of $140 million in revenue next year.
Where could that come from?
Twitter has mulled the possibility of selling ads on the site, although Williams and Stone have indicated that isn't at the top of their agenda. Twitter has hinted it could capitalize on corporate use of the service, perhaps by introducing fees on some accounts primarily used for commercial purposes. The service also could be mined for insights about people's opinions and preferences that would be valuable to marketers. Or Google and other search engines might be willing to pay for better and quicker access to Twitter's postings.
If Twitter is unable to make enough money to pay its bills, Marlin thinks the company would still fetch a substantial price, although probably not $1 billion.
Valuing privately held companies like Twitter can be difficult anyway, since the prices are established by a smaller pool of investors than in the publicly traded stock exchanges.
Facebook, another Internet sensation with 300 million users and projected revenue of $500 million this year, has seen its valuation fluctuate wildly. A late 2007 investment by Microsoft valued Facebook at $15 billion, but internal company documents later surfaced showing a valuation of about $4 billion. Within the past four months, a Russian investor bought preferred shares in Facebook that valued the company at $10 billion and then bought common shares from Facebook employees that valued the company at about $6.5 billion.

Megan Fox in Wigs and Jenny Slate's FCC Moment: the Top Five Moments of 'Saturday Night Live's' Season Premiere


Megan Fox hosted the well-publicized premiere of "Saturday Night Live's" 35th season, and the "Transformers" and "Jennifer's Body" star anchored an uneven show that featured plenty of water cooler moments. Here are the top five moments of the show:

5. We Get it, Megan Fox is Pretty
Fox has been overexposed to America as a beautiful face, but has yet to prove herself as an actress (Michael Bay's "Transformers" movies aren't exactly driven by dialog). "Saturday Night Live" could have been the forum for her to show off her comedic chops; unfortunately, the writers asked little more from her than to don different wigs -- she wore five throughout the night.
Of course, a host needn't be the star of every sketch, but her role in "Russian Brides" was insultingly thin, and her inclusion in Kenan Thompson's "Grady Wilson's Burning Bedsheets" sketch was little more than an afterthought. However, she worked well with what little she was given. The "Live Lounge" fake commercial was quietly one of the better skits of the show, and she and Kristen Wiig had some entertaining interplay during the slightly-too-long "Flight Announcement."

4. Digital Shorts Fall Flat
With songs and skits like "Motherlover" and "Laser Cats," the digital short has helped keep SNL relevant in the Internet age by being a forum for the show's edgier comedic pieces. Saturday night's efforts, "Megan's Roommate" and "The Date," both failed to live up to the existing standard. Neither brought half the laughs of the "Bladdivan" sketch.

3. Really, U2? Three Songs?
In a departure from the show established schedule, U2 performed a third song over the closing credits, the Achtung Baby classic "Ultraviolet (Light My Way)." Whether this is a result of U2's relentless self-indulgence or the writers' lack of material, I don't know. But frankly, it's an improvement over the cast standing there and waving while the "SNL" band plays the same closing music every week -- Bono swinging from a glowing red microphone is certainly more interesting than whoever replaced G.E. Smith.

2. Kristen Wiig Is Funny; Kenan Thompson Is Not
The best "SNL" cast members can take a repetitive one-note joke and make it funny every time; the worst can't pull it off once. We see the best and worst of this every time Wiig and Thompson get onscreen, from their "Weekend Update" characters (Wiig's travel writer, Thompson's French comedian) to their starring roles in sketches (Wiig as a flight attendant, Thompson as Grady Wilson).

1. Jenny Slate's FCC moment
New cast members Jenny Slate and Nasim Pedrad made headlines late this summer when they were announced as replacements for Casey Wilson and the excellent Michaela Watkins. And Jenny Slate fell flat on her face in her first sketch as a biker chick in the umpteenth installment of "SNL's" "Average Person Hosts an Unfunny Talk Show." Her acid-washed jeans-wearing, teased-hair biker chick was supposed to say "fricking" every sentence, but she slipped up and dropped the F-bomb, then followed it up with a puffed-cheek, wide-eyed face that said, "Oh crap, I'm fired, aren't I?"
This will surely be in the news for days to come, as we await the FCC's fine at the ready and the judgment of "SNL" overlord Lorne Michaels. It's just a shame that the quality of the show wasn't strong enough to make headlines.

West Ham and Millwall charged over cup fracas

Clubs face big fines while Hammers could be ordered to play behind closed doors. West Ham and Millwall were last night formally charged by the Football Association for the pitch invasions and rioting that disfigured their Carling Cup tie at Upton Park last month.
Both clubs face the prospect of heavy fines while West Ham could be ordered to play behind closed doors if they are found guilty of failing to prevent three separate pitch invasions during the 3-1 win on 25 August.
In a statement, the FA, which reviewed evidence from 47 cameras inside Upton Park, said that West Ham and Millwall would each be charged with three offences.
These were: failure to ensure supporters refrained from violent, threatening or provocative behaviour; failure to ensure supporters refrained from racist behaviour; and failure to ensure their supporters did not throw missiles or harmful or dangerous objects on to the pitch.
In addition, West Ham alone are charged with failure to ensure their supporters did not enter the field of play.
Both clubs have 14 days to respond to the charges and, if found guilty, are likely to face heavy fines. With the FA determined to stamp out any trace of hooliganism that might scar its bid for the 2018 World Cup, West Ham could be asked to play matches in an empty stadium, although that sanction is complicated by the fact they have now been eliminated from the Carling Cup.
Gianfranco Zola's team have not won since that night in August and now find themselves in the relegation zone, albeit with games in hand, and tonight facing a Manchester City side ready to add £17m worth of firepower to their attack in the shape of Roque Santa Cruz.
He has a dodgy knee, has not played competitively for six months and City have three other forwards, who cost £92m between them. And yet his manager, Mark Hughes, believes that Santa Cruz still has a major role to play, as much for his mental strength as his ability with a football.
"He has been at Bayern Munich, the biggest club in Germany, so he is used to performing under pressure and at a club with a big profile," Hughes said.
"He has the mentality I need. I blew all my budget on him when I was at Blackburn and that shows you what I thought of him.
"I will never forget his first training session at Blackburn and the reaction the other players showed when they saw what he had produced. He did wonderfully for me there and, if he can replicate even half that, then he will be good value."

Superb England reach Trophy semis

ICC Champions Trophy, Centurion:
England 323-8 beat South Africa 301-9 by 22 runs
England became the first team to reach the Champions Trophy semi-finals thanks to a thrilling 22-run win which knocked South Africa out of the tournament.
Owais Shah struck six sixes in his 98 and Paul Collingwood made 82 before Eoin Morgan launched a stunning attack.
He hit five sixes in his 67 off just 34 balls to power England to 323-8.
Graeme Smith struck a magnificent 141 but James Anderson (3-42) bowled one of the spells of his career as South Africa finished on 301-9 in Centurion.
Significantly, by failing to make 313, South Africa saw their net run-rate drop below Sri Lanka's and that means the hosts and world number one side are eliminated from Group B.
For the despondent home fans, it was a night that recalled the desperate scenes at Durban in 2003, when they exited the World Cup at the same stage. 606: DEBATE
Well I'll be jiggered, how on earth did they manage that?
I_CAN'T_LOOK
But for England, thrashed 6-1 in their home series by Australia, victory marks a sensational turnaround in the team's fortunes.
England won the toss and there were immediate signs of the potential for a high-scoring game as Andrew Strauss and Joe Denly pierced the infield regularly.
The momentum dissipated when Denly lazily flicked Jacques Kallis to deep square-leg and Strauss, attempting a deliberate steer past Mark Boucher, instead gave the wicketkeeper a sharp chance which he gratefully accepted.
With two wickets down inside 13 overs, Shah and Collingwood had to bat responsibly and there was little sign that a score near 300 might be on the cards when England were 93-2 after 20 overs.
But, in the 30th over, Collingwood deposited spinner Roelof van der Merwe onto the grassy banks at deep midwicket, and Shah - who up until then had been outscored by his partner - suddenly moved into top gear.
Graeme Smith played a lone hand with an outstanding century
The Middlesex right-hander, so often an enigma, exploded - moving from 53 to 95 in just 14 deliveries. JP Duminy was slog-swept for one six, the luckless Van der Merwe disappeared over long-off and deep midwicket and even Dale Steyn was pulled high over deep square-leg for yet another six.
But perhaps realising how close he was to what would have been his second ODI century, he then looked for singles and popped a catch to Boucher off inside edge and pad off the slow bowling of Johan Botha.
The wicket unleashed Morgan, however, who got off the mark with a reverse-sweep for four and proceeded to time the ball sweetly to all corners.
Collingwood also missed out on a century when chopping Wayne Parnell onto his stumps, but Morgan, having lofted Botha for a big six over wide mid-off, now drove and pulled the fast bowlers for fours and sixes.
It was an exhilarating display, finally ended when he speared a catch off Steyn to extra-cover, but England must have been confident their bowlers could defend such a total, despite the nature of the wicket.
Herschelle Gibbs looked to put England's bowlers under immediate pressure but, coming off an injury, he played and missed frequently in his breezy 22 before skewing a catch to mid-on off Anderson.
Kallis had hurt himself bowling and it was not clear if he was 100% fit, but he was swiftly removed from the fray, holing out at deep square-leg off Stuart Broad.
Smith and AB de Villiers put on 78, though England would have had a real stranglehold had Collingwood held a straightforward chance at backward point to end De Villiers' innings on just three.
Morgan gave England a late injection of rapid run-scoring
De Villiers did not really make England pay, giving Denly his second catch on the leg-side boundary as he completely mistimed an attempted slog off Collingwood.
The launch-pad was now set for Smith to put his team in a winning position and he had fortune on his side.
He was badly dropped on 82 by Shah, running in from long-on, and as the left-hander began to struggle for timing, Graham Onions saw a perfectly good lbw appeal denied when Smith had added two more runs.
At that point, South Africa were staring at a requirement 148 from 17 overs, and suddenly regular boundaries were required.
Smith, having looked jaded moments earlier, duly supplied them, reaching his eighth one-day international century with a delicate cut shot off Collingwood for four.
He added 64 with Duminy, who was well bowled by Graeme Swann, and continued the fight after Anderson had bowled Boucher, leaving 86 wanted off the last eight overs with five wickets in hand.
The batting powerplay was taken at that point, forcing all but three of England's fielders inside the ring, and Albie Morkel put the pressure back on England with a four and a six off Broad.
Anderson returned with a terrific over, with just two leg-byes and a single, and with Smith now suffering from cramp - and refused a runner by Strauss - England closed out the game.
Morkel was run out as he attempted to scamper a bye to emergency wicketkeeper Morgan (Matt Prior missed the match with a virus) and Botha popped up a catch off his second ball.
Smith continued to put bat to ball but when Anderson demolished Van der Merwe's stumps and Shah finally ended Smith's wonderful innings with a catch on the edge of the ring, that was effectively that.
Though Smith had to face the nation's media afterwards to explain his team's exit, he had nothing to be ashamed of having muscled 16 boundaries in his highest ODI score, with Broad taking the most severe punishment.

Polanski to fight US extradition


Lawyers acting for film director Roman Polanski say they will challenge his arrest in Switzerland and attempts to extradite him to the US.
Prosecutors in Los Angeles want the Paris-born Polish filmmaker returned, so that he can be sentenced for having sex with a 13-year-old girl in 1977.
He pleaded guilty at the time as part of a plea bargain but then fled abroad.
Polanski was detained on Saturday as he arrived in Zurich to receive a lifetime achievement award.
French Culture Minister Frederic Mitterrand said he had been "stunned" to hear about the arrest, and added that President Nicolas Sarkozy was following the case.

Mr Polanski, 76, has French citizenship.

In its Monday edition the French daily Le Figaro quotes his Paris-based lawyer as saying: "We will be demanding that he be freed. Then we will fight the extradition."

'No choice'

The director is being held under a 2005 international alert issued by the US.
CASE TIMELINE
1977 - Polanski admits unlawful sex with Samantha Geimer, 13, in Los Angeles
1978 - flees to Britain after US arrest warrant is issued
1978 - immediately moves to France where he holds citizenship
1978 - settles in France, where he is protected by France's limited extradition with US
2008 - Polanski's lawyer demands case be dismissed and hearing moved out of LA court
2009 - Polanski's request to have hearing outside LA is denied

Profile: Roman Polanski
Roman Polanski: Your comments

Swiss Justice Minister Eveline Widmer-Schlumpf said that because of agreements with the US, "when Mr Polanski arrived we had no choice from a legal point of view but to arrest him".
"He obviously has the right to appeal and I think he will do so," she added.
The filmmaker was initially indicted on six counts and faced up to life in prison. Has not set foot in the US for more than 30 years.
In recent years, he has tried to have the rape case dismissed, claiming the original judge, who is now dead, arranged a plea bargain but later reneged.
Mr Polanski has been to Switzerland before, but this time US authorities apparently knew of his trip in advance.
That gave them time to prepare the groundwork for his arrest and send a provisional arrest warrant to Swiss authorities, the Los Angeles district attorney's office said on Sunday.
The victim at the centre of the case, Samantha Geimer, has previously asked for the charges to be dropped.

Beyoncé Is...Sasha Nice


Beyoncé may be known as a "Diva," as she proclaims on one of the hottest songs on her album "I Am...Sasha Fierce," but it is her gentler alter ego that has been making headlines lately.
When closing out her Friday tour stop at the Acer Arena in Sydney, Australia, Beyoncé dedicated her song "Halo" to a young girl battling leukemia.
For the first run through of the song that pays homage to a personal hero, Beyoncé acknowledged Michael Jackson, as she has done at previous concerts.
Afterwards, Beyoncé invited a young girl named Chelsea on stage, knelt beside her and asked if it was okay to sing her a song.
Beyoncé sang "Halo" while hugging Chelsea, and looked her eyes as she sang "I got my angel now," before resting her head on Chelsea's chest. She also added the child's name to the lyric, "[Chelsea] I can see your halo, you know you're my saving grace."
"There was not a dry eye in the house," Sydney's The Daily Telegraph reported about the 14,000 member audience.
Last week, Beyoncé also earned good girl stripes at the MTV Music Video Awards when she helped Taylor Swift recover from her run-in with Kanye West who interrupted her Best Female Video acceptance speech to say the honor was owed to Beyoncé.
The Kanye outburst left a shocked and embarrassed Taylor on stage at a loss for words. When Beyoncé received the Best Video trophy at the end of the night, she had her own "Halo" moment.Wow, this is amazing," Beyoncé said when receiving her award. "I remember being 17-years-old and up for my first MTV award with Destiny's Child. It was one of the most exciting moments in my life. So, I'd like for Taylor to come out and have her moment."
Taylor joined Beyoncé on stage, and gave her a hug, before offering her second run at of acceptance speech.

Good job Beyoncé*****

Facebook misconduct: Med students cross line

CHICAGO - From Facebook to YouTube to personal blogs, future doctors are crossing the line — and getting in trouble.
A new study finds most medical school deans surveyed said they were aware of students posting unprofessional content online, including photos of drug paraphernalia and violations of patient privacy. Some infractions resulted in warnings, others in being expelled.
The survey cited a handful of examples. In one, a student posted identifying patient details on Facebook. Another requested an inappropriate friendship with a patient on the site. Others used profanity, according to the deans.
"The number we found was higher than we expected," said Dr. Katherine Chretien of the Washington, D.C., VA Medical Center, the study's lead author. "And these are the incidents that made it to the attention of the deans. This is the tip of the iceberg."
Yet most deans said their schools didn't yet have policies to help students figure out what's allowed online and what can get them kicked out of medical school.
A quick search of YouTube finds numerous videos posted by medical students, from harmless musical numbers to a prank with what appears to be a dead body. There's no way to tell whether the cadaver prank is real and it wasn't part of the study, but real or staged, it doesn't reflect well on the medical profession, Chretien said.
"I watched it and I definitely cringed," she said. "Disrepect for cadavers is one thing, but filming it and putting it on YouTube is another. It undermines the credibility of our profession."
Most medical deans say they were aware
The study, appearing in Wednesday's Journal of the American Medical Association, found 47 of 78 medical school deans who responded to a survey knew of incidents of online unprofessional conduct. But policies covering the behavior were reported by only 38 percent who answered that question.
The incidents were reported most often by other students or doctors in residency programs, indicating trainees are policing themselves. Most offenders received informal warnings. The deans also reported three dismissals.
Share your thoughts on this story
Medical students are no different from other young adults, said Anastasia Goodstein, a San Francisco-based marketing expert who tracks youth trends on her Ypulse Web site. The generation that first embraced social networking still considers Facebook merely a way to connect with friends.
"Now they're waking up to the reality of older people and people with authority over them, like deans, seeing their Facebook pages," Goodstein said.
And many young adults don't appreciate that an Internet prank can bounce back years later, said Susan Barnes of the Lab for Social Computing at the Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, N.Y.
"Are they going to be able to live it down when they're 50 and a well-known surgeon? Or is it going to come back to haunt them?" Barnes said.

Google hacks IE

GOOGLE has come up with an Internet Explorer plug-in that turns it into its own Chrome browser.
It says on the company blog that it brings Chrome's faster performance and expanded capabilities into Microsoft's standard offering.
Dubbed Google Chrome Frame, it installs as an IE add-on and starts working within the existing Internet Explorer setup.
All pages opened with Internet Exploder are then rendered with Chrome's WebKit-based engine. The advantage is that it has the more advanced HTML5 support not normally available in Microsoft's browser.
Google said that recent JavaScript performance improvements and the emergence of HTML5 have enabled web applications to do things that could previously only be done by desktop software.
One challenge developers face in using these new technologies is that they are not yet supported by Internet Explorer, it said. Since they can't afford to ignore IE, developers waste time implementing work-arounds or limiting the functionality of their apps.
"With Google Chrome Frame, developers can now take advantage of the latest open web technologies, even in Internet Explorer," the blog says
Google Chrome Frame can be installed in any version of Internet Explorer 6, 7, or 8.
Chrome Frame is currently described as an "early version" intended for developers. Google claims that it enables the creation of an 'open web' free from the perils of Vole.
The fact that it draws more punters into the Chrome universe will not harm Google either. It also means that the powers that monitor the World Wide Wibble will read hits from IE machines with the plug-in as Chrome hits.
Apparently there are also versions of the Chrome plug-in that will work with Firefox and Safari, too.

Google hacks IE

GOOGLE has come up with an Internet Explorer plug-in that turns it into its own Chrome browser.
It says on the company blog that it brings Chrome's faster performance and expanded capabilities into Microsoft's standard offering.
Dubbed Google Chrome Frame, it installs as an IE add-on and starts working within the existing Internet Explorer setup.
All pages opened with Internet Exploder are then rendered with Chrome's WebKit-based engine. The advantage is that it has the more advanced HTML5 support not normally available in Microsoft's browser.
Google said that recent JavaScript performance improvements and the emergence of HTML5 have enabled web applications to do things that could previously only be done by desktop software.
One challenge developers face in using these new technologies is that they are not yet supported by Internet Explorer, it said. Since they can't afford to ignore IE, developers waste time implementing work-arounds or limiting the functionality of their apps.
"With Google Chrome Frame, developers can now take advantage of the latest open web technologies, even in Internet Explorer," the blog says
Google Chrome Frame can be installed in any version of Internet Explorer 6, 7, or 8.
Chrome Frame is currently described as an "early version" intended for developers. Google claims that it enables the creation of an 'open web' free from the perils of Vole.
The fact that it draws more punters into the Chrome universe will not harm Google either. It also means that the powers that monitor the World Wide Wibble will read hits from IE machines with the plug-in as Chrome hits.
Apparently there are also versions of the Chrome plug-in that will work with Firefox and Safari, too.

Barcelona Wizard Lionel Messi Hits Back At Argentina Critics


Argentina may be in trouble in the World Cup qualifiers, but 'Leo' is angry about the level of criticism, which he believes is unfounded...Lionel Messi has hit out at critics in Argentina who have stated that he has fallen out with Diego Maradona and is under-performing at international level.

The Barcelona star has been infuriated with all the accusations, which he claims are false. Furthermore, has called on everyone involved in the national setup to pull together in order to qualify for the World Cup finals.

After two defeats this month, Argentina slipped to fifth in the South American qualifying table, and reports surfaced that Messi and Maradona are not talking any more.

"It is not true that he does not speak to me," Messi told Argentine radio.
"Our relationship is fantastic and he is great with all the players."
Cynics have accused Messi of not producing his club form when he plays for Argentina, but the player points out that lack of practice hinders the team.
"You cannot compare because at Barcelona we train together every day and with he national team it is difficult to all come together for two games and play very well," he continued.
"It is true that at Barcelona I have great players next to me, but there are also great players in the national team who can play like we do at Barcelona.
"But I cannot win a game on my own, far from it. It is the responsibility of the whole team and we have to go out to win every match."
Accusations that Argentina's European-based players are only motivated by money and are letting the national team down have also angered Messi.
"To say that is horrendous. We all feel the shirt and nobody likes to lose, even less so with the national team," he stated.
"Saying it has to do with money is wrong. If we did not feel the shirt then we would not make the effort to play for Argentina and travel to Australia or wherever the team is playing.
"If it was an economic thing then every player would stay at home. The players in Europe all travel to play.
"Sadly the results are not going well and we are not playing well, but that will change.
"We cannot continue to talk all this rubbish. We have to remain calm. This is a country that loves football and we have to stick together."

Lucas Brown, Goal.com

'Open internet' rules criticised

Mobile providers have said that US proposals to ensure all traffic on the internet is treated equally should not be applied to wireless traffic.
The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) wants rules to prevent providers blocking or slowing down bandwidth-heavy usage such as streaming video.
Providers claim a two-tiered system is essential for the future vitality of the net.
Mobile operators said any regulation would damage innovation.
FCC chairman Julius Genachowski said doing nothing was not an option.
In his first major speech since his appointment earlier in the summer, he told an audience in Washington that the rules were "not about government regulation of the internet".
"History's lesson is clear. Ensuring a robust and open internet is the best thing we can do to promote investment and innovation," he told the audience at Washington think tank the Brookings Institution.
"And while there are some who see every policy decision as either pro-business or pro-consumer, I reject that approach; it's not the right way to see technology's role in America."
The FCC's proposals are meant to ensure that internet service providers cannot block or slow down traffic, such as bandwidth-hogging video downloads. Operators must also be transparent about network management, it said.
But providers have argued that a two-tiered internet is essential to effectively manage their networks.

'Phenomenal success'
Almost as soon as Mr Genachowski stepped off the podium, industry critics condemned the inclusion of wireless traffic in the new policy proposals.
The FCC says the internet is at a crossroads
"We are concerned the FCC appears ready to extend the entire array of net neutrality requirements to what is perhaps the most competitive consumer market in America - wireless services," said AT&T's Jim Cicconi.
"The internet in America has been a phenomenal success that has spawned technological and business innovation unmatched anywhere else in the world," said David Cohen, executive vice-president at Comcast.
"So it's still fair to ask whether increased regulation of the internet is a solution in search of a problem."
Verizon, the nation's biggest cellphone operator, said it believed the FCC had no reason to impose "a new set of regulations that will limit customer choices and affect content providers, application developers, device manufacturers and network builders".
Politicians also weighed in on the proposals.
Six Republican senators introduced a measure that would cut the FCC's funding to "develop and implement new regulatory mandates".
Meanwhile, the two Republicans on the FCC's board said they were not convinced that there were widespread problems of internet providers blocking or slowing traffic that needed to be addressed with new rules.

'Pivotal moment'
However, just as many supporters as critics stood up to praise the FCC's move.
Touch screens are changing the way people use mobiles
The FCC "took an important step in... ensuring that the internet remains a platform for innovation, economic growth, and free expression", wrote Google internet evangelist Vint Cerf, on a company blog.
Consumer groups saw the move as a victory.
"This is a tremendous day for millions of us who have been clamouring to keep the internet free from discrimination," said John Silver, executive director of advocacy group Free Press.
Mr Genachowski said the increasing number of people who went online using their mobile phones could not be ignored.
"The revolution in wireless technologies and the creation of path-breaking devices like the Blackberry and iPhone have enabled millions of us to carry the internet in our pockets and purses."
Gigi Sohn of digital rights group Public Knowledge told BBC News the move was necessary given that "wireless is the next frontier and where the great growth of internet access is going to come from".
Mr Genachowski said he wants as much feedback from consumers, the industry and others on the proposals.
"This is about fair rules of the road for companies that control access to the internet," said the FCC chairman.

Bridge made of recycled plastic

Vid The US Army, seeking to embiggen its green image, has proudly announced the building of the world's first bridge made from recycled plastic and able to support heavy loads. To test the recycloplast bridge, troops drove a monster 70-ton Abrams Main Battle Tank across it.
“This represents a ‘first of its kind’ event in terms of how we partnered with industry, the R&D community and government in looking for sustainable solutions to infrastructure challenges,” said Colonel Stephen J Sicinski during the dedication ceremony last week.
“What better way to commemorate this, than with a recycled plastic bridge that is going to hold an M1 Abrams Tank.”
The M1 Abrams is one of the heaviest main battle tanks - and therefore one of the heaviest ground vehicles - in current service, with modern examples generally tipping the scales at over 70 tons. The mighty machine is powered by a 1500 horsepower gas turbine and features heavy depleted-uranium armour plate - with an outer facing of explosive slabs on upgraded tanks, intended to disrupt the armour-piercing plasma jets formed by shaped charge warheads or roadside mines.
The M1's use of old uranium from nuclear powerplants is one kind of recycling, but the new bridges built at the US Army's Fort Bragg training centre are another. Made from high-strength thermoplastic processed out of 100 per cent recycled plastic bottles and suchlike, they are described by their makers as "the first known structures of their type to support loads in excess of 70 tons".
The recycloplast bridges are also said to be corrosion resistant compared to other bridge materials, meaning that they need almost no maintenance. Steel structures typically need regular repainting and inspection to guard against rust: timber needs expensive and potentially troublesome coatings or treatments. Procurement officials estimated that there would be a 34 to 1 return on the extra expense of the plastic bridges from reduced maintenance costs.
The recyclothermoplast material comes from makers Axion International, who developed it in cooperation with boffins at Rutgers University. The firm sees it as taking on many structural and building tasks in coming years, replacing "last-generation materials, such as wood, steel or concrete". ®

Jessica Simpson, Do Not Read This!


If being single and losing her dog to a coyote weren't bad enough for Jessica Simpson, she now has to find out her ex-husband is getting back together with his ex-girlfriend.
Nick Lachey and Vanessa Minnillo have been on a total PDA parade for the last three days (and nights!) in Las Vegas...
On Saturday night, the two checked out singer Matt Goss' new show at the Palms Casino Resort. (Side note: Kim Kardashian was there the night before and even got on stage to sing and dance with Goss.)
Nick and Vanessa were later seen partying and dancing until the wee hours with Wilmer Valderrama at nightclub LAX.
No word if they were hurtin' hard the next morning, but on Sunday they watched the New York Giants game against the Dallas Cowboys (you know, Tony Romo's team) at First Food & Bar inside the Palazzo.
They obviously liked First Food & Bar. They returned last night to watch Monday Night Football and dine on Grandma's Pizza and ice cream sandwiches.

Yum.

$529 million loan for new hybrid car producer

Fisker Automotive will receive more than $500 million in federal loans to develop a plug-in hybrid sports car and a new plug-in hybrid vehicle to be built in the United States.

“Fisker has raised tens of millions of dollars from top venture capital firms such as Palo Alto Investors and Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers, of which former Vice President Al Gore is a partner.”

This is not about the environment. It is about funneling money to politicians such as Al Gore. There is nothing wrong with using the internal combustion engine.

These articles tell you nothing about how the hybrids work in cold weather. The answer is that they don’t work by the battery in cold weather and require the engine to run full time. The environmentalists want the hybrids to be a step in between full electric cars, but they cannot and do not tell you that they will perform miserably in cold weather.

Arguments Begin in John Travolta Extortion Trial


NASSAU, Bahamas — Prosecutors said Tuesday that a paramedic who treated John Travolta's son shortly before he died in the Bahamas threatened to release private information unless the movie star paid $25 million.
Travolta was among those expected to take the stand during the trial, but he was not in the courtroom as prosecutors began presenting evidence in the capital of this island chain off the Florida coast.
"Contact was made with certain persons to communicate a threat to John Travolta," said Bernard Turner, chief prosecutor in the Bahamas, in his opening argument.
Ambulance driver Tarino Lightbourne and former Bahamas senator Pleasant Bridgewater, a co-defendant who allegedly acted as an intermediary, have pleaded innocent to extortion charges.
Defense lawyers had not yet presented opening arguments.
Police say the alleged scheme involved a document related to the treatment of Jett Travolta, a chronically ill teenager who died Jan. 2 following a seizure at a family vacation home on Grand Bahama island. It would have released emergency responders from liability if the family refused an ambulance but police said that did not happen.
The first trial witness, police inspector Andrew Wells, testified that after 16-year-old Jett was loaded into an ambulance, Lightbourne told him that Travolta wanted his son taken directly to the local airport instead of the hospital. Wells said that Travolta signed a release form.
It was unclear why Jett Travolta was not taken to the airport and why the defendants allegedly believed the actor would pay to keep it secret.
Travolta, who has kept a low profile since his son's death, is on a list of 14 witnesses who could be called to testify. Prosecutors have not said when the actor might take the stand. The other potential witnesses include lawyers for Travolta as well as five police inspectors and detectives.
A jury of six women and three men was seated in the Supreme Court case Monday.

Dancing with the Stars' celebrity Mya suffers "deep cut" on her hand

Singer Mya said on her Twitter page she suffered a "deep cut" on her hand on the eve of the ninth season of "Dancing with the Stars" in Los Angeles."Went2the hospital late last night2get stitches," Mya wrote on her Twitter page Monday. "Deep cut from glass. Only caught 2hours of sleep but feel great. Must be adrenaline."
"She went to grab a glass for something to drink late last night and it just broke and shattered in her hand," a source told People.com.
"She went right to the hospital and got stitches and got it taken care of. ... She feels great, she's doing fine. ... She's excited for the show and this will not affect her performance in the show."
Season 9 of "Dancing with the Stars" premiered Monday night. Mya is scheduled to perform on Tuesday night's broadcast.

Video: World's longest basketball shot

I'm still waiting to hear from the Guinness Book of World Records regarding the actual title of this video clip, but if the guys from Dude Perfect claim this hail mary off the third deck of Texas A&M's football stadium down to the field below is the "World's Longest Basketball Shot," so be it. These dudes are professionals.What's that you say — looks digitally doctored? I don't know. The basketball never leaves the frame, it takes the right looking bounce (considering how flat it is), and their reaction appears genuine, especially if you guess this took 50 or so attempts to successfully pull off like I do.
But hey, if you're still not convinced, Debbie Doubter, here's a second reverse-angle shot from the field.
Real or fake, it doesn't matter, because Dude Perfect is filming and uploading these videos for a good cause. For every 100,000 views their Summer Camp edition clip receives, the guys will sponsor an impoverished child through an organization called Compassion International.

So visit Dude Perfect, watch the videos and help do some good in this world.

Autumnal Equinox


The date (near September 22 in the northern hemisphere) when night and day are nearly of the same length and Sun crosses the celestial equator (i.e., declination 0) moving southward (in the northern hemisphere). In the southern hemisphere, the autumnal equinox corresponds to the center of the Sun crossing the celestial equator moving northward and occurs on the date of the northern vernal equinox. The autumnal equinox marks the first day of the season of autumn.

The above plots show how the date of the autumnal equinox shifts through the Gregorian calendar according to the insertion of leap years. The table below gives the universal time of the autumnal equinox. To convert to U. S. Eastern daylight saving time, subtract 4 hours, so the autumnal equinox occurs at September 23, 1998 at 1:34 a.m. EDT; September 23, 1999 at 07:23 a.m. EDT; and September 22, 2000 at 13:11 (1:11 p.m.).

Note that the times below were calculated using AutumnalEquinox[] in the Mathematica application package Scientific Astronomer, which is accurate to within only an hour or so, and in practice gives times that differ by up to 15 minutes from those computed by the U.S. Naval Observatory (which computes September 23, 1999 at 11:31 UT instead of 11:23 UT and September 22, 2000 at 17:27 UT instead of 17:11).

Date UT Date UT Date UT
09-22-1980 21:01 09-23-1990 07:06 09-22-2000 17:11
09-23-1981 02:50 09-23-1991 12:54 09-22-2001 23:00
09-23-1982 08:38 09-22-1992 18:43 09-23-2002 04:48
09-23-1983 14:27 09-23-1993 00:32 09-23-2003 10:37
09-22-1984 20:15 09-23-1994 06:20 09-22-2004 16:25
09-23-1985 02:04 09-23-1995 12:09 09-22-2005 22:14
09-23-1986 07:52 09-22-1996 17:57 09-23-2006 04:02
09-23-1987 13:41 09-22-1997 23:46 09-23-2007 09:51
09-22-1988 19:29 09-23-1998 05:34 09-22-2008 15:39
09-23-1989 01:18 09-23-1999 11:23 09-22-2009 21:28

Here is a QuickTime movie illustrating the tilt of the Earth's equatorial plane relative to the Sun which is responsible for the seasons. The dates of maximum tilt of the Earth's equator correspond to the summer solstice and winter solstice, and the dates of zero tilt to the vernal equinox and autumnal equinox.

4 People With Super Memory

What if you finished reading this article and remembered every detail of it for the rest of your life? That’s the problem people with super-autobiographical memory face—and yes, it’s often referred to as a problem, not a gift. Their minds are like a computer hard drive that retains everything: dates, middle names, license plate numbers, even what they eat for lunch on a daily basis There are only four confirmed super memory cases, a disorder experts say is somewhat related to OCD, though no doubt there are plenty others who haven’t been identified yet.
So who are the four individuals who’ve all recently been the subject of a study at the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory at the University of California, Irvine.? Let’s meet them and find out…
1. Bob Petrella

A Los Angeles based producer for the Tennis Channel, Bob Petrella may remember every number in his cell phone, but it’s his ability to recall sporting events that’s most remarkable. Give him a date, like March 30, 1981, and he could tell you not only that it was the day Reagan was shot, but also that Indiana beat North Carolina for the NCAA championship that evening. Even more impressive: when it comes to the Pittsburgh Steelers, his favorite team, you can show him a single freeze frame from most any game that he’s seen, and he can tell you not only the date of the game, but the final score.
According to a piece on ABC news, Patrella “remembers all but two of his birthdays since he turned 5. He recalls where he was and what he did with high school buddies. Grainy images of the 1970s are vivid pictures in his head. ‘I remember all my ATM codes,’ he said. ‘I remember people’s numbers. [I] lost my cell phone Sept. 24, 2006. A lot of people, if they lost their cell phone, they would panic because they have all these numbers. I didn’t have any numbers in my cell phone because I know everybody’s numbers up here [in my head].’
2. Jill Price

Probably the best known of the four, Jill Price has described her ‘gift’ as “nonstop, uncontrollable and totally exhausting.” She was the first to be diagnosed with the condition, and recently published a memoir, The Woman Who Can’t Forget. Price remembers most details of nearly every day she’s been alive since she was 14 and compares her super memory to walking around with a video camera on her shoulder. “If you throw a date out at me, it’s as if I pulled a videotape out, put in a VCR and just watched the day,” she has said.

Like Bob Petrella, Price calls California home, though working as an assistant at a Jewish religious day-school, she’s about as far from Hollywood as you can get. And although people she meets at parties are impressed with her ability to remember everything from the date of the Lockerbie plane crash (December 21, 1988) to the last episode of Dallas, (May 3, 1991), in her memoir, she describes super memory as a nuisance, partly because she can’t seem to forget painful events, like when someone she was crushing on rejected her.
3. Brad Williams

For every Jill Price, there’s a Brad Williams, a Wisconsin radio anchor who embraces his super memory and enjoys having it tested. Ask him what happened on November 7, 1991, and he’ll tell you that it was the day Magic Johnson announced he was HIV positive. But Williams does not stop there. “It was a Thursday,” he once said in an MSNBC piece. “There was a big snowstorm here the week before.”
Unlike Bob Petrella, Williams has a tough time with sports, but excels at pop-culture trivia. For instance, he could name you every Academy Award winner and even nailed all five questions in the category “1984 Movies” when he appeared on Jeopardy! in 1990.
Although the folk at the Center for the Neurobiology of Learning and Memory at the University of California, Irvine don’t agree, Williams says he never saw his ability as anything out of the ordinary. “Growing up, I never really had reason to think I wasn’t like everyone else,” he has said. A feature-length doc on his life, titled Unforgettable, is presently in production.

If you’re interested in the subject, remember to check it out once it hits theaters.
4. Rick Baron

A Cleveland native, Rick Baron came out and announced his super ability directly to USA Today, after reading a piece the newspaper published on Jill Price. Unlike Price, Baron uses his super memory to win stuff. Although unemployed, he’s extremely resourceful and is constantly entering, and winning trivia contests. His list of rewards include restaurant gift cards, tickets to sporting events, even all expense paid vacations (Baron has won 14 of them). Baron claims to remember every detail of his life since the age of 11, and is usually pretty successful at remembering the day-to-day going all the way back to when he was seven.

According to the USA Today piece on Baron, his sister claims he shows signs of hardcore OCD. “He organizes and catalogs everything. He even keeps his bills in order of the city of the federal reserve bank where they were issued and also by how the sports teams in that city did.”

Dancing Curse Strikes Again! Mya Injured!


The show hasn't even started and 3 people have been hurt!
Dancing with the Stars contestant Mya is the latest victim of the show's mythic curse. And, of course, a trip to the hospital was required!
The singer took to her Twitter to explain her injury:
"Went 2 the hospital late last night 2 get stitches. Deep cut from glass. Only caught 2hours of sleep but feel great. Must be adrenaline."
"Nothing to worry about. Just an ugly slice on my finger-not the first time I've had stitches. I'll be just fine. Thanks4the concern."
SHE should be concerned!
Kim Kardashian also had a run-in with some broken glass during her time on Dancing, and she was booted on week 3.

Rest up, bb!

You're gonna need it!

Facebook, Nielsen to partner on ad stats

As part of the Advertising Week festivities in New York, Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg is slated to make a marketing-related announcement on Tuesday morning.
The announcement of a partnership with Nielsen on a product called "BrandLift," which polls Facebook users on ads they see on the social network, was first reported by The Wall Street Journal.
There weren't a whole lot of details disclosed, even when the two companies confirmed the news of "a multi-year, strategic alliance" later on Monday. Nielsen BrandLift, a release explained, is the first product created from the deal. It will use opt-in polls on Facebook's home page to gauge user sentiment around advertisements, measuring "aided awareness, ad recall, message association, brand favorability, and purchase consideration." It'll roll out in the U.S. to a number of test partners this week and to all advertisers over the next few months. There will be "hundreds" of BrandLift tests in that time, the release explained.
An end date to the multi-year deal has not been disclosed, Nielsen Online CEO John Burbank told CNET News on Monday evening.
For now, Nielsen BrandLift is part of its partnership with Facebook. But the product "will expand to other websites" eventually, Burbank said. He wouldn't comment on repeated rumors that Facebook would be launching an ad network for sites participating in its Facebook Connect program.
The Palo Alto, Calif.-based Facebook has a history of big New York marketing pushes to further establish itself as a major player on Madison Avenue. Earlier this year, Sandberg keynoted the AdAge Digital conference to pitch Facebook's "active network" of friend connections as a powerful advertising tool, and two years ago Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg unveiled the social network's first major advertising initiative shortly after Microsoft had taken a $240 million stake in the company.
(Part of that 2007 announcement included Beacon, the ill-fated advertising program that Facebook finally put the kibosh on this week.)
Getting statistics on advertising effectiveness is important for Facebook, especially with a longtime industry player like Nielsen on board. While Facebook has been growing in prominence as a digital ad destination, it's still had to do some convincing to combat the industry attitude that social-media advertising doesn't work.
Also sure to be mentioned at Tuesday's announcement? The fact that Facebook has recently hit 300 million active users around the world and continues to grow fast. That's a lot of eyeballs.
Nielsen's own measurements of Facebook traffic place the social network as the fourth largest unique audience in the U.S. (and remember, most of its traffic is now overseas), and that out of all Web-based brands it enjoys the most individual time spent per user.

Bellamy faces three-match sanction for attacking fan

City could lose second striker to three-game ban as fall-out from derby escalates
By Ian Herbert, Deputy Football Correspondent
The rancour between the Premier League's two Manchester clubs showed no sign of abating last night as the Football Association considered imposing a three-match ban on the City striker Craig Bellamy, following his altercation with a fan at the end of the Old Trafford derby, and the club's defender Javier Garrido, hit by a coin as he left the field at half-time, accused United of "creating a climate of hostility against us".
A violent conduct charge for Bellamy, which could be levelled as early as today, would infuriate City, who are still smarting over Emmanuel Adebayor's own three-match penalty for the same offence. United may not escape scot-free from the controversies of Sunday afternoon: a one-game ban for improper conduct may also be imposed by the FA on Gary Neville over his inflammatory celebrations at the end of the game. The FA, which was gathering evidence to supplement referee Martin Atkinson's report yesterday, may take into account Neville's celebration against Liverpool which earned him a £5,000 fine three years ago. The defender was warned back then as to his future conduct.
But no action against United would pacify Hughes if the FA bans two of his strikers simultaneously. Hughes has been told by Bellamy that he simply pushed away the fan who ran on to the field after Michael Owen scored United's 96th-minute fourth goal, such was his desire to get the match re-started immediately.
Bellamy, who is understood to feel aggrieved that the incident has been blown up, has explained to Hughes that when he was confronted by the fan, named locally as 21-year-old Jake Clarke, he told him to "get off the fucking pitch." The fan was unwilling to and when he responded to the Welshman with the same expletive, Bellamy pushed him away. The fan has not made an official complaint against Bellamy though he has been charged with going on to a playing area without lawful authority or excuse and he is expected to receive a lifetime ban from Old Trafford. He will appear before Trafford Magistrates on 30 September. "We are at an investigatory stage. We have received the referee's report and are gathering evidence," an FA spokesman said.
City believe Neville's celebration in front of their fans at the end of the derby were at least as provocative as Adebayor's before Arsenal's fans and are already intent on using it in their Togolese striker's defence against FA charges of improper conduct. The club were infuriated by the way the Manchester United club captain performed a series of star jumps down the touchline until he reached a position in front of City's fans. It was a taunt masquerading as a warm-up exercise, City feel. The club are compiling a case to counter the FA's improper conduct charge against Adebayor which will draw on other celebrations which have attracted similar FA charges, including Neville's 2006 offence and Thierry Henry's celebration in the 3-0 win against Tottenham Hotspur in 2002.
The FA is also investigating the Garrido incident, in which a missile – seemingly aimed at Carlos Tevez – hit the City substitute as the two players walked off at half-time and United may find themelves in the dock. The prospects of catching the offender are slim. First examination of CCTV footage shows a mass of waving arms at the moment the missile was released and using the footage to bring charges is seemingly impossible.
Garrido, an unused substitutes in the game, expressed his anger yesterday. "I have been in England for two seasons and this was the match with more fanaticism than any other," he said. "This atmosphere was incredible with insults flying as soon as we arrived at the stadium. I was hit by a coin [on] the head when I was just walking calmly down the tunnel and I believe that the target was Carlos Tevez." The missile left Garrido with a cut beneath the hairline.
"This was [observed] by Manchester United staff but nobody offered any kind of reason. It's incredible that this could take place at Old Trafford, one of the biggest stadiums in the world.
"Manchester City have not provoked any of this controversy and United have created a climate of hostility against us. We have received insults on the bench during all the match but I never would have thought that situations like this would happen at Old Trafford. Really, it's very sad."
The FA yesterday continued its investigation into allegations that Blackburn Rovers' El Hadji Diouf hurled racist abuse at a ball boy who did not return the ball to the player's satisfaction in the 3-0 defeat to Everton at Goodison Park. Merseyside Police interviewed the 13-year-old ball boy yesterday, as well as the linesman, nearby stewards and fans.
United likely to be in the clear over Fornasier transfer
The chances of Manchester United facing sanctions over the transfer of Italy's Under-16 captain Michele Fornasier to Old Trafford from Fiorentina receded last night as Fifa indicated that action was not appropriate on the basis of the documentation the Italian club had provided.
Fiorentina who, under Italian rules, are unable to sign players until their 16th birthday, have been infuriated by the player's move, which saw United capitalising on a contractual loophole. Sources in Italy had suggested that the contractual positions of its young players were incomparable with those in France, where the move of Gael Kakuta from Lens to Chelsea has prompted a transfer ban to be imposed by Fifa. A Fifa spokes man said: "We were contacted by Fiorentina with regard to Michele Fornasier. [But] no formal investigation was opened, since the documentation in our possession is not apt to sustain such action."

Seagate ships the world's fastest largest hard drive


SEAGATE HAS JUST started shipping the Barracuda XT, the first 3.5-inch 7200RPM two Terabyte desktop hard disk drive that has a 6Gbps SATA interface for all your faster than SATA-II needs.The HDD announcement was timed to coincide with the Intel Developer Forum in San Francisco this week, primarily due to the fact that the SATA 6Gbps interface can be found on some of Intel's latest P55 motherboards unveiled a few weeks back.
This marks the second two TB Seagate drive, with the low power drawing 5900RPM Barracuda LP having been announced in April. Western Digital beat Seagate to the punch in the high end capacity stakes with its first two TB drive back in January.
The Barracuda XT is backward compatible with the SATA 3Gbps and SATA 1.5Gbps standards, to accommodate those who need more disk space but might not want to fully upgrade their systems yet.
Seagate is expecting its latest Barracuda drive to be used in high performance, high-end gaming rigs first and then also small business servers.
We had no UK specific prices at press time, but as a point of reference the Barracuda XT is selling for $299 in the US or approximately £185.

The president and the potato

By BEN FELLER, Associated Press Writer
Mon Sep 21, 5:00 PM PDT
Add this one to the presidential collection: the heart-shaped potato.
By the time Barack Obama came on stage to the taping of the "Late Show" on Monday, host David Letterman had offered up 10 reasons why in the world the president had agreed to do it.
Among Letterman's theories: Obama said yes without thinking about it, or as Letterman put it, "Like Bush did with Iraq."
But Obama had other ideas. It turns out he was listening when Letterman had bantered with a woman in the audience who brought — yes — a potato in the shape of a heart to the show.
Obama told Letterman: "The main reason I'm here? I want to see that heart-shaped potato."
The woman tossed the potato to Letterman.
She agreed to let Obama keep it. Said the president: "This is remarkable."
Obama also had his most irreverent answer yet on the question of whether some of the vitriolic reaction to his health care plan is driven at least partly by racism.
"First of all, I think it's important to realize that I was actually black before the election," Obama said to huge laughs from Letterman and the audience.
Responded Letterman: "How long have you been a black man?"
Letterman covered a number of topics with Obama — many of them serious — in a taping that ran about 40 minutes. The show will be broadcast on CBS on Monday evening.
On the economy, Obama offered a sober prediction as the country deals with 9.7 percent unemployment, the worst level since 1983. He said he expects unemployment will be a "big problem" for at least another year. But he also said the economy will rebound even stronger.
As for the war in Afghanistan, Obama said he knows some people want him to bring troops home, and others are calling for him to increase U.S. force levels to combat the insurgency. The top U.S. commander there is warning the war could be lost without more troops.
Obama said he won't make a decision on sending in more troops, though, until he completes a comprehensive review of the war effort and settles on his next strategy.
"I'm going to be asking some very hard questions," Obama said.
Obama's visit made him the first sitting president to appear on Letterman's program. He had been on Letterman's show five times before, though, most recently in September 2008.
The White House said it was a good way for him to reach yet another audience as Obama wraps up a blitz of TV appearances, trying mainly to build support for his health care plan.
As president, Obama also went on NBC's "Tonight" show when it was hosted by Jay Leno.
After the taping, the president returned to his midtown Manhattan hotel and quietly emerged a while later in gym clothes and a baseball cap. His destination: the church across the street for some basketball with his aides.
Tomorrow starts Obama's main mission in New York: His participation in the United Nations General Assembly.

Facebook break leads to burglary suspect

Facebook may have 300 million members, but a news story this week makes one particular member stand out from the crowd.
Jonathan G. Parker, 19, of Fort Loudoun, Pa., is alleged to have burgled a house of two diamond rings. However, according to the Journal of West Virginia, Parker is alleged to have done something of a highly modern nature during this burglary.
For the victim, examining her computer after the burglary, noticed that her computer was logged into someone else's Facebook account. This might seem strange in itself. However, the person who logged on (perhaps to update his status to "feeling lucky today"?) also seems not to have logged off. That led intrepid sleuths to the figure of Parker, whose Facebook page it is indeed alleged, was the one that lay open.Parker has been charged with one count of having an impressive and excessive ego. I'm sorry, that's not quite right. He has been charged with one count of felony daytime burglary.
It would be churlish to suggest that our obsession with networking socially will get us into trouble. However, after a Florida case in which a man allegedly stole a laptop in order to check his Facebook page, shouldn't we really consider whether the Facebook habit might be leading some to difficult and damaging behavior?