World Cup Spain "Championship Winners"

Spain became the eighth country to win the World Cup, beating the Netherlands by 1-0 before 85,000 fans at Soccer City in Johannesburg and millions of television viewers around the world.

Iniesta’s goal, the latest ever scored to win a World Cup final match, broke up a rugged, foul-filled game that was headed to a dreaded penalty-kick contest. Among the multitude of yellow cards — 14 of them, 9 to the Netherlands — handed out by referee Howard Webb, both teams were saved by their fine goalkeeping. Spain keeper Iker Casillas stopped two breakaways from Arjen Robben, including one in extra time, and Netherlands keeper Maarten Stekelenburg stopped a breakaway by Cesc Fabregas and, early in the match, dove to turn aside a header from Sergio Ramos.

Spain’s victory, in their first World Cup final, made them only the third team ever to reign simultaneously as European champions and world champions. The Netherlands lost the final for the third time, after falling to the host country in the finals at West Germany 1974 and Argentina 1978.

READ MORE - World Cup Spain "Championship Winners"

Germany 1-0 lead over Argentina in 15 minutes

Germany winning 1-0 over Argentina after 15 minutes of their World Cup quarter-final. Mueller headed in a Bastian Schweinsteiger free kick in the third minute, after Lukas Podolski was fouled on the left wing. It was Mueller’s fourth goal of the World Cup.

Germany had most of the possession early in the match, with Mesut Oezil looking to get forward from the midfield. Argentina forwards Lionel Messi, Carlos Tevez and Gonzalo Higuain had little of the ball.

READ MORE - Germany 1-0 lead over Argentina in 15 minutes

Oil Spill in Gulf of Mexico

The catastrophic explosion that caused an oil spill from a BP offshore drilling rig in the Gulf of Mexico has reached the shoreline. Efforts to manage the spill with controlled burning, dispersal and plugging the leak have so far been unsuccessful.

This oil spill has now obtained the dubious distinction of being the worst oil spill in US history, surpassing the damage done by the Exxon Valdez tanker that spilled 11 million gallons of oil into the ecologically sensitive Prince William Sound in 1989. Unlike the Exxon Valdez tragedy, in which a tanker held a finite capacity of oil, BP's rig is tapped into an underwater oil well and could pump more oil into the ocean indefinitely until the leak is plugged.

READ MORE - Oil Spill in Gulf of Mexico

NBA Free Agent

Rockets make pitch to free agent Bosh

Houston Rockets general manager Daryl Morey sure knows how to make a first impression. Morey met with coveted free agent Chris Bosh just after midnight Thursday, making a pitch to an available player at the exact moment free agency opened for the second straight year.

The Rockets are considered long shots to land the 6-foot-10 Bosh, who has averaged a double-double in three of his seven seasons with Toronto. But Morey wanted to meet with Bosh anyway, envisioning a perfect complement to All-Star center Yao Ming, who said this week he'll pick up the player option on his contract and return to the Rockets next season.

Morey used his Twitter feed to announce he had met with Bosh in the opening hours of free agency. Morey did not immediately return a call from The Associated Press.

READ MORE - NBA Free Agent

President Obama Firing of U.S. Supreme Commander in Afghan

General Stanley McChrystal loses job after a meeting with President Barack Obama in the Oval Office that was brief, only 20 minutes. According to Obama is the right decision for national security.

McChrystal made controversial comments in a profile in Rolling Stone magazine titled Runaway General. The article claims Gen McChrystal has seized control of the war 'by never taking his eye off the real Enemy: The wimps in the White House'.

He said that the first time he met Obama he found the President 'unengaged' and 'disappointing'. He is dismissive of Vice President Joe Biden, and either the general or aides Some of his openly criticise other senior political and military figures. He underestimated Vice President Joe Biden, and the common good or some senior aides openly criticizing other political and military figures.

McChrystal will of not even get a chance to return to Afghanistan and will of his personal items have shipped back to Washington. McChrystal will not even get a chance to return to Afghanistan and will have personal items sent back to Washington.

READ MORE - President Obama Firing of U.S. Supreme Commander in Afghan

Sales in the United States House Down

Sales of newly built, single-family homes declined dramatically in May following the expiration of a popular home buyer tax credit program in the previous month, according to newly released figures by the U.S. Commerce Department."

While today's numbers are sobering, they were to be expected at the conclusion of the tax credit program and are in keeping with the results of our latest home builder surveys," said Bob Jones, chairman of the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) and a home builder from Bloomfield Hills, Mich. "Clearly the tax credits were very successful in drawing potential buyers back to the market.

"The big drop-off in new-home sales this May emphasizes how effective the tax credit program was in bringing home buyers back to the market while it was in existence," agreed NAHB Chief Economist David Crowe.

Sales of new homes declined across every region in May. The Northeast registered a 33.3 percent decline, the Midwest a 23.9 percent decline, the South a 25.4 percent decline, and the West a 53.2 percent decline.

READ MORE - Sales in the United States House Down

How is the fate of France in the World Cup?

France were 90 minutes away on Tuesday from completing their worst ever performance at a major tournament, or restoring their tarnished reputation and performing a miraculous turnaround.

The 1998 champions, responsible for one of the biggest dramas in World Cup history, need a win with plenty of goals against hosts South Africa in their final Group A match and must hope that Mexico and Uruguay do not draw at the same time.

However, after boycotting a training session in support of Nicolas Anelka, sent home in disgrace for insulting coach Raymond Domenech at halftime of a 2-0 defeat by Mexico last week, it remains doubtful whether the France team can regroup. "Words would not help now, we need action," Domenech said before the uncertain battle at the Free State stadium.

South Africa, too, have plenty to fight for and can count on the wholehearted support of the crowd and an entire nation. All hope is not lost for France, however. French Sports Minister Roselyne Bachelot, who was dispatched on Monday to address the warring parties and galvanise wobbly troops, said she could feel another French revolt coming, but a positive one this time.

READ MORE - How is the fate of France in the World Cup?

U.S. Department of Energy Asks, Is Cloud Computing Fast Enough for Science?

With cloud computing gaining acceptance in the business world, the U.S. Department of Energy wants to know if cloud computing can also meet the needs of the scientific computing. The National Energy Research Scientific Computing Center (NERSC) has launched Magellan, a cloud computing testbed to explore this question, with facilities that will test the effectiveness of cloud computing for scientific projects.

Magellan is built to meet the special requirements of scientific computing using technology and tool sets unavailable in commercial clouds, including high-bin processors, high-bandwidth parallel file systems, high-capacity data archives, and pre-installed scientific applications and libraries.

But will cloud computing be fast enough?

According to a report in Federal Computing Week, preliminary results suggest that commercially available clouds operating Message Passing Interface (MPI) applications such as weather calculations suffer in performance. "For the more traditional MPI applications there were significant slowdowns, over a factor of 10," said Kathy Yelick, NERSC division director.

Performance isn't the only factor the Magellan cloud is testing. It's also looking at cloud computing's efficiency and its suitability for various research projects. Magellan is a two-year $32 million project involving about 3000 NERSC scientists. The goal, in part, is to help inform the DOE, scientists, and the tech industry what is needed in terms of configuration and management of scientific cloud computing resources.

source : readwriteweb.com

READ MORE - U.S. Department of Energy Asks, Is Cloud Computing Fast Enough for Science?

Israel sets out changes to Gaza blockade curbs

Israel has given details of its plan to ease the blockade of Gaza, with all civilian goods now expected to be let into the territory.

Israel will allow items into Gaza unless they feature on a new list which specifies banned goods.

The move will let in humanitarian aid, food and building supplies.

Israel has blockaded Gaza since 2005, but has faced heavy criticism since the recent killing of nine people on an aid flotilla heading to Gaza.

In a statement, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said a long list of previously banned items, which included some food, domestic equipment and building materials would be replaced by a shorter, specific list of "weapons and war materiel".

Read More

READ MORE - Israel sets out changes to Gaza blockade curbs

Armenia: Juries hurt our chances

The Head of the Armenia television Harutyunian has implicitly criticised the jury system of the Eurovision Song Contest: “If the winner of the contest would be chosen through public televote only, Armenia would’ve won or at least achieved another top position”. Armenia’s Eva Rivas reached 7th place in Oslo. Harutyunian also announced that in 2011 the Armenian entrant will be selected internally by the National television channel again.

The Armenian public will only be given the chance to choose the song. This selection process has already been used with Sirusho in 2008, when the Armenian public could choose between 4 different songs, resulting in the best result for Armenia ever. Whether this change of the preselection process has anything to do with a disappointment about the 7th place for Armenia remained unanswered.It has also yet to be seen whether this notion has any foundation at all, as the EBU still hasn’t released the separate jury and televoting results.

READ MORE - Armenia: Juries hurt our chances

Lena sells 1,4 million records in 4 months

Germany – Just 4 months ago Lena released her first single “Satellite” after she won the German preselection for the Eurovision Song Contest and shortly before the contest she also released her debut album “My cassette player” in Germany, Austria and Switzerland.

Now her label Universal announced, that Lena has sold over a million records in Germany already! Satellite has now been sold over 600.000 times (double platinum) and “My cassette player” over 500.000 times (5x GOLD). In the rest of Europe she has sold over 300.000 records to date.

READ MORE - Lena sells 1,4 million records in 4 months

Sexy TV presenter Sara Carbonero VS Spain World Cup defeat

Spain captain Iker Casillas lover Sara Carboner is blamed for the defeat of the Spanish team, after being accused of disturbing the goalkeeper during the game.

The beautiful 25 th of the world as a reporter terpilis sexiest by the magazine FHM-USA, stood behind the goal.And her presence there has angered many Spanish fans, who think Casillas' mind may have been on 'other things' during the game.

As well as the controversy over her placement by the pitch there was also an awkward moment after the match when she interviewed her fella to ask what had gone wrong.

Some commentators claimed she would have a destabilising influence within the camp, although Carbonero, when confronted with the accusations, dismissed them as 'nonsense'.

READ MORE - Sexy TV presenter Sara Carbonero VS Spain World Cup defeat

Switzerland beat Spain

Spectacular, the Swiss won 1-0 through a kick from spain Gelson Fernandes. It also provided a thrill at a tournament that has seen few surprises and just 25 goals after the first game for all 32 teams.

"To be fair, I'm not used to scoring goals, so I was a bit surprised," said Fernandes, who got just his second in international play. "It was a bit of luck."

Eren Derdiyok created Switzerland's big chance in the 52d minute by surging through the center of Spain's defense and rounding goalie Iker Casillas. Gerard Pique's desperate tackle stopped Derdiyok, but Fernandes pounced on the loose ball and forced it into the net.
Spain badly outshot the Swiss and held the ball 63 percent of the time, but could find no way through Switzerland's determined defense.

"Today wasn't our day," Spain coach Vicente del Bosque said. "We have two games ahead of us. We have to find a way to win them."

READ MORE - Switzerland beat Spain

Franz Beckenbauer's England criticize Matthew Upson

Upson was not keen to become embroiled in a war of words with Beckenbauer, who led his team to World Cup glory as a player in 1974 and a coach in 1990.

But he does not feel there is any reason for England to be deflected from their chosen path.

''We will play the football that suits us best,'' said Upson, who was speaking on a visit to an SOS Village in Rustenburg to spend time with local children, many of whom have been orphaned.

''We want to win matches, so we will play the style according to that.

''Whatever he thinks about our style of play is his opinion. If we are accused of kick and rush but win something, I don't think many people would complain.''

Upson did admit England had been working hard on the training ground attempting to iron out the problems that surfaced at the weekend.

READ MORE - Franz Beckenbauer's England criticize Matthew Upson

World Cup Recipe Apps for Good

Over the last couple of weeks I've used Twitter to ask for user recommendations on Hungarian, Recipe, and World Cup apps. It seemed unfair to keep the results to myself.

I also recently had the pleasure of working with a Apps for Good, a program from CDI Europe that teaches young people how to create apps that change the world - a philosophy I could not possibly agree with more. The class I was involved with recently graduated, and published 3 new apps to the Android Market in the process.

So, for your enjoyment (and with limited commentary) here are some of the apps I've been checking out recently.

Apps for Good

• Stop and Search: Really useful reference app that walks you through your rights and obligations when you're stopped by the police in the UK. Bonus points for providing a mechanism for rating and mapping the experience, as well as viewing a map of other reported stops.
• StudioPhly: For aspiring musicians, this app will let you find a local recording studio with the gear you need.
• StudentVoice: Lets prospective students find out more about the prospective Universities.

Some Hungarian Apps

• Ball Madness (by A-Droid): A satisfyingly difficult bouncing ball puzzle game. Recommended despite my difficulty in getting past level 3 :(
• VibraSeq (by A-Droid): Love this. A sequencer to create complex device vibration patterns. But wait! You can export the recorded vibration patters for use in 3rd party apps that support them.
• Names (by Elek, Márton): Simple widget that tells you what Hungarian name day it is. Bonus points for searching your contacts and triggering notifications to remind you of anyone's name day.
• GPS Status (by EclipSim): There's a few apps out there that will show you the position, strength, and details from the GPS - but from what I've seen this is the best of them. Nice UI, lots of information, perfect for the data obsessives amongst us.

Recipe Apps

• Cooking Capsules (by Smart Capsules): Recipes + shopping list + video of the recipe being made. An ADC1 winner, it's an oldie but a very goodie.
• Epicurious (by Condé Nast Digital): This seemed a popular choice, and with 28,000 recipes I can see why.

World Cup Apps

• Goal.com Mobile (by Handmark): Live scores, breaking news, good stuff.
• World Cup News Pro (by Mippin): All the World Cup news for all the teams you follow, presented in Mippin's familiar flip-card UI.
• Sun Football (by News International): Live scores, highlight videos, and world cup news from The Sun newspaper.
 source : http://blog.radioactiveyak.com

READ MORE - World Cup Recipe Apps for Good

Germany VS Australia Scores Updates

Watch Live Germany VS Australia Scores Updates – FIFA World Cup 2010 Live Streaming & TV Telecast Channel – Watch game 3 of Fifa World Cup 2010 which is scheduled between teams of Grpup D. In this exciting match Germany and Australia will be facing each other at 18:30 GMT or 2:30 pm ET at Durban Stadium. Michael Ballack is not playing from Germany so hope Germany will make good of this loss by putting more efforts. To cope the loss of Ballack veteran superstar International rookieMesut Ozil will be replacing him and hope he will compensate the loss by adopting the world’s football pace immediately.

Watch the live TV coverage through ESPN, Univision, ABC. You can also watch the Live Stream through ESPN3.com, Foxsports.com, ESPN and FIFA.com for live scores update. To See more live TV coverage based from your country, just visit Livesoccertv.com.

READ MORE - Germany VS Australia Scores Updates

Google Maps 4.2 Are Now Available With Voice Guidance

Google Maps 4.2 are the latest free update from Google. Google Maps 4.2 are now available with voice guidance.

Google has released it ’supdate of Google Maps 4.2 that goes to fill a gap for some time in the Italian version: the lack of turn voice guidance turn can give you information in real time (up to the previous release was only possible plan your route). Together with Italy, the service Google Maps 4.2 Navigation is made available in Spain, France and Germany (after the U.S. and Britain).

The Navigator is compatible with versions of Android 1.6 and newer allows map display in three-dimensional graphics or vision satellite and calculates the route to cheaper car, on foot or by public transport.

Among other features, to be reported (if you have the latest versions of Android) the ability to set the destination by voice, so no need to type addresses on the keyboard. You can also set the destination from the phone book.

Keywords :

Google Maps With Voice Guidance

The Phone Book

The Previous Release

Google Info

Google Hot Trends

Google Hot Searches

Google Hot Topics

READ MORE - Google Maps 4.2 Are Now Available With Voice Guidance

NCAA Sanctions

The NCAA threw the book at storied USC, imposing a two-year bowl ban, four years' probation and signficant scholarship losses that likely will damage the program's foundations. "So higher-profile players require higher-profile monitoring."

With pointed language, the NCAA said in its report that USC's oversight of its top athletes ran contrary to the fundamental principles of amateur sports. The coaches who presided over the alleged misdeeds — football's Pete Carroll and basketball's Tim Floyd — left USC in the past year.

USC reacted with uniform outrage to the harshness of the sanctions, promising an appeal. USC beat Oklahoma in the BCS title game on Jan. 4, 2005, and won 12 games during Bush's Heisman-winning 2005 season, which ended with a loss to Texas in the 2006 BCS title game.

While no action would go into effect until USC's appeals are heard by the NCAA, Hancock said there would be no 2004 champion if USC's victory is vacated.
The NCAA says Bush received lavish gifts from two fledgling sports marketers hoping to sign him. Members of the Heisman Trust have said they might review Bush's award if he were ruled ineligible by the NCAA.

USC, which plans to appeal some of the football-related penalties, released details later Thursday of its defense arguments. The NCAA cited a 2 1/2-minute phone call in January 2006 between fledgling marketer Lloyd Lake, who allegedly provided many of Bush's illegal benefits and USC assistant coach Todd McNair, who said he couldn't remember the call. The NCAA took no further action against the men's basketball team, which had already banned itself from postseason play last spring and vacated its wins from Mayo's season. We're still going to play an extremely high level of football. USC is the first Football Bowl Subdivision school to be banned from postseason play since Alabama served a two-year ban ending in 2003. The NCAA condemned McNair's professed ignorance of Bush's dealings with sports marketers Lake and Michael Michaels.

READ MORE - NCAA Sanctions

Holloway urges transfer caution

Blackpool boss Ian Holloway has warned other clubs and agents that the newly-promoted Seasiders will not be held to ransom over potential signings. Chairman Karl Oyston has a strict transfer policy in place - a stance that Holloway agrees with.

"I don't want Karl to change how he does deals because I agree with him," Holloway told BBC Radio Lancashire.

"Anybody who has ever tried to knock any sort of deal out of him, where do they get? Not very blooming far."

Oyston has built up a tough reputation within football circles of a no-nonsense approach when he is bringing in players to the club.

Blackpool broke their transfer record in August 2009 when they signed Charlie Adam from Rangers for £500,000.

But, despite receiving £90m for winning promotion to English football's top flight for the first time since 1971, Holloway is keen for the Seasiders to avoid being dragged into inflated deals.

And, in terms of having the strength of character not to automatically swim with the tide, he even likens his chairman to that stubborn old Blackadder character, Captain Redbeard Rum.

If these people think they can put an extra nought on with Karl Oyston they can think again

Blackpool manager Ian Holloway

'We won't be held to ransom this summer," said Holloway, "because we have a chairman who could be straight from Blackadder, one of my favourite ever television programmes.

"He was going to sail around the world and he found a captain with a ginger beard and no legs, who said 'All the other captains think you need a crew, I think you don't'.

"It's like that with Karl. I can hear him saying 'all the other chairmen realise they have to do this, but I say you don't and I'm not going to do it'.

"And what happened to the bloke with the ginger beard was that Nursie ended up wearing his beard because he was eaten by cannibals.

"I just hope my chairman doesn't get eaten by agents and all these people at other clubs.

"But do I think he will? Absolutely no chance. God help them trying to deal with him, I'm finding it hard enough myself.

Holloway believes other clubs perceive Blackpool as an easy target after their Championship play-off final victory in May.

"It's a huge problem because people think we have a huge pot of gold. But I can tell you they won't get any of that," said the 47-year-old Bristol-born manager.

"I've got to be really clever and ask lots of questions and get so much information to give to my chairman, who will be the one trying to do these deals. We've never been in this position and we don't know what's going to happen.

"But, if these people think they can put an extra nought on with Karl Oyston they can think again. And I wouldn't want Karl any other way.

"He'll quite rightly continue to do things as he has been and there's no doubt he will be a breath of fresh air in every Premier League meeting because he will not change - and that's the refreshing thing about it all."

Source: BBC Sport

READ MORE - Holloway urges transfer caution

House works to remove liability cap for hazardous spills off our coast

Today, the House Environment and Natural Resources Committee took the first steps to remove a cap that limits the financial liability of corporations responsible for oil or hazardous waste spills off our coast. Currently North Carolina follows the federal cap which is placed at the cost of clean up, plus 75 million. The main provision of Senate Bill 836 completely removes the State's tie to the federal liability cap.

Over the last few weeks there has been a lot of debate at the national level on whether or not the cap should be raised to 10 billion. Although the US Senate has not yet acted, its great to see the General Assembly moving quickly to insure North Carolina is capable of handling a potential spill.

The bill also requires that the Coastal Resources Commission review existing laws and regulations pertaining to offshore energy exploration and production and make recommendations to the Environmental Review Commission before October of 2011. Along those same lines the bill also directs the Department of Public Safety to review and update the State's oil spill contingency plan.

from http://sierraclubnc.blogspot.com/2010/06/house-works-to-remove-liability-cap-for.html

READ MORE - House works to remove liability cap for hazardous spills off our coast