Eiffel Tower evacuated after bomb threat

PARIS (AP) ? The Eiffel Tower was evacuated Saturday night after an anonymous caller phoned in a bomb threat, police said.

Nearly 1,400 people were sent away from the tourist attraction following a request from tower operators after the warning, a Paris police official said. Police then searched the monument with sniffer dogs, and set up a security perimeter.

No explosives were found and the site was to be reopened, the official said on condition of anonymity because she wasn't authorized to speak publicly.

French authorities have stepped up counterterrorism measures in recent weeks amid heightened concern about threats to France over its military campaign against al-Qaida-linked fighters in Mali which began more than two months ago.

The tower is occasionally evacuated because of such warnings ? at least once last year and twice in 2011. The 324-meter (1,063-foot) tower is one of the world's top tourist attractions, with millions of visitors a year.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/eiffel-tower-evacuated-bomb-threat-204807606.html

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Paralyzed ex-athlete's foundation helping others

Hal Hargrave Jr., who is paralyzed from the neck down after a car crash when he was 17, chats with his trainer Chris Fitzgerald as he gets ready for his physical therapy session at a gym in Claremont, Calif., Wednesday, Dec. 19, 2012. After years of grueling physical therapy, Hargrave started the nonprofit Be Perfect Foundation and raised $2 million to help other young people who couldn't afford the same kind of rehabilitation program made available to him. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Hal Hargrave Jr., who is paralyzed from the neck down after a car crash when he was 17, chats with his trainer Chris Fitzgerald as he gets ready for his physical therapy session at a gym in Claremont, Calif., Wednesday, Dec. 19, 2012. After years of grueling physical therapy, Hargrave started the nonprofit Be Perfect Foundation and raised $2 million to help other young people who couldn't afford the same kind of rehabilitation program made available to him. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Hal Hargrave Jr., who is paralyzed from the neck down after a car crash when he was 17, leaves after his workout in Claremont, Calif., Wednesday, Dec. 19, 2012. After years of grueling physical therapy, Hargrave started the nonprofit Be Perfect Foundation and raised $2 million to help other young people who couldn't afford the same kind of rehabilitation program made available to him. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Hal Hargrave Jr., left, who is paralyzed from the neck down after a car crash when he was 17, shares a laugh with his trainer Chris Fitzgerald during his physical therapy session at a gym in Claremont, Calif., Wednesday, Dec. 19, 2012. After years of grueling physical therapy, Hargrave started the nonprofit Be Perfect Foundation and raised $2 million to help other young people who couldn't afford the same kind of rehabilitation program made available to him. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

Hal Hargrave Jr., who is paralyzed from the neck down after a car crash when he was 17, shares a laugh with his trainer Chris Fitzgerald during his physical therapy session at a gym in Claremont, Calif., Wednesday, Dec. 19, 2012. After years of grueling physical therapy, Hargrave started the nonprofit Be Perfect Foundation and raised $2 million to help other young people who couldn't afford the same kind of rehabilitation program made available to him. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

The logo of Be Perfect Foundation started by Hal Hargrave Jr. is seen at a gym in Claremont, Calif., Wednesday, Dec. 19, 2012. Hargrave Jr., who is paralyzed from the neck down after a car crash when he was 17, started the nonprofit Be Perfect Foundation and raised $2 million to help other young people who couldn't afford the same kind of rehabilitation program made available to him. (AP Photo/Jae C. Hong)

CLAREMONT, Calif. (AP) ? As he rolls through the front door of the sprawling Claremont Club fitness center and shouts a friendly hello here and there, for just a moment it's as if nothing has changed since Hal Hargrave Jr. was the big, friendly teenage gym rat who haunted this place.

The burly Hargrave's head was filled with dreams of playing college baseball as he strode into the gym, stretched out on a bench and pressed 300 pounds above his body. Again and again.

He's still big and burly, his arms still muscular and he still works out nearly every day. Only these days Hargrave uses that strength to move his wheelchair in and out of the gym, where he still works out 20 hours a week and knows just about everybody in the place.

These days, though, Hargrave's goal is to get walking again, something he lost the ability to do on July 26, 2007, when he swerved his truck to avoid debris in the road. It flipped four times, the cab collapsing on him and snapping his spine. It left him paralyzed from the neck down.

The irony is never lost on Hargrave that he was delivering handicapped-accessible bathroom doors as part of a summer job. If it was a sign to a strapping 17-year-old athlete that his life was headed in the wrong direction, it would seem to have been a particularly harsh one, but Hargrave doesn't see it that way.

"Some people call me crazy for putting it this way, but I have been given a gift," the talkative, friendly 23-year-old says with a smile over lunch at the gym's small cafe. "They see this as an ailment. I don't."

He sees it instead as something that gave him a chance to help others, to have his life truly make a difference.

It inspired him to create the Be Perfect Foundation, a nonprofit charity that has raised $1.2 million to provide wheelchairs, make homes more accessible and, most importantly, keep more than 100 people in rehabilitation programs they otherwise couldn't afford.

All of which would have been pretty impressive if Hargrave had just stopped there. But he didn't.

He persuaded the Claremont Club president to turn a racquetball court and a basketball court into a wing for people with paralyzing injuries. Then he got Project Walk, a spinal rehabilitation center where he'd been treated, to open its first franchise in this bucolic college town 35 miles east of Los Angeles for those who couldn't make the commute to its San Diego area headquarters.

"Here's a 17-year-old boy who had a debilitating, life-changing accident," said Mike Alpert, who runs the Claremont Club and whose daughter has known Hargrave since the two were in kindergarten. "So many people that go through that would give up. Would be depressed. Would blame everybody else. Here's a young man who just said, 'I have a calling to change the world and to help people through what's happening to me. And then he goes out and does it! How special is that?"

"He's an amazing young man," echoes Devorah Lieberman, president of University of La Verne, where Hargrave is a full-time student.

Although he hasn't regained full use of his fingers (he fist bumps rather than shakes hands), he's gotten back enough to take notes on his iPad. He maintains a near-perfect 3.8 grade point average.

Lieberman will never forget the first time they met two years ago at a basketball rally. Hargrave, never known to be shy, rolled up and introduced himself. He told her how he'd been hurt and she expressed her condolences.

"And he said to me, 'DO NOT be sorry! It was a blessing.'"

Then he gave her a Be Perfect bracelet that she wears to this day.

Not that the road back from the accident was easy.

"It was very touch and go the first two weeks," recalled his father, Hal Hargrave Sr., who still chokes up when he talks about what his son has overcome and accomplished. "They had him on breathing machines. He got pneumonia. ... We didn't know if he was going to stay with us or not."

Hargrave himself thought he would die as he lay trapped in the truck. Those stories about your life passing before you, he says, are true.

Although he's big and strong again, nerve damage keeps his body in a near perpetual state of motion, giving the impression he's fidgeting uncomfortably in his chair although he really feels little.

Given only a 1 to 3 percent chance of walking again, he threw himself into rehabilitation with the same fervor that once made him a high school sports star. Gradually movement returned to his shoulders, then his arms and hands. Lately he's started to get some in his legs as well.

"It's nothing that's too controlled movement yet, but it's coming back and I'm doing things that doctors are in disbelief about," he says happily.

It was after one of his arduous rehabilitation sessions, where limbs are yanked and twisted and bodies are placed in expensive machinery to simulate walking, that an epiphany led to his foundation.

Brian O'Neil, an electrician who had suffered a similar injury in a dirt-bike crash, told him he wouldn't see him again. He'd lost his job, was about to lose his house, didn't have insurance and couldn't afford any more rehabilitation.

Before he left the center, Hargrave persuaded his father to pick up the cost of O'Neil's rehabilitation. Then, on the ride home, he decided why not help others as well?

He was told that running a foundation wouldn't be easy, especially for a guy going through his own grueling rehabilitation. But he was adamant.

"He didn't like the word no. And he didn't like the word can't," Hargrave Sr. says, chuckling at the memory of raising the oldest of his four children.

O'Neil was blown away ? and still is.

"For such a young man he's very ? I can't even find the words to mention the kind of guy Little Hal is," O'Neil, using the nickname close friends call Hargrave by, says emotionally. "He's just a great kid."

Hargrave scheduled the first of what would become annual fundraisers at the height of the Great Recession and he hoped he might get lucky and raise maybe $30,000. After $250,000 poured in, he thought: "Maybe we can do this forever."

So he soldiers on, getting up each day, working out, running the foundation, hanging out with friends, going to school. Still a sports fanatic, he's earning a degree in communications with the hope of someday becoming a sports broadcaster.

But the foundation will always come first.

"I had dreams of going off and going to school and becoming a baseball player and doing this and that," he says as he finishes lunch. "But when I think back on it, it was so selfish. And now my dreams are much different. My dreams are to keep people in therapy and my dreams are to help other people. That's what my life is about at this point."

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-03-31-Paralyzed%20With%20Purpose/id-e70c77df0605431d85253daaca3631eb

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House Speaker admonishes fellow Republican for immigrant slur (reuters)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories News, News Feeds and News via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/295470790?client_source=feed&format=rss

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The Chilling Effects of the DMCA

Stacked CDs

Photo by Fuse/Thinkstock

It was hard to believe, but the student insisted it was true. He had discovered that compact discs from a major record company, Sony BMG, were installing dangerous software on people?s computers, without notice. The graduate student, Alex Halderman (now a professor at the University of Michigan), was a wizard in the lab. As experienced computer security researchers, Alex and I knew what we should do: First, go back to the lab and triple-check everything. Second, warn the public.

But by this point, in 2005, the real second step was to call a lawyer. Security research was increasingly becoming a legal minefield, and we wanted to make sure we wouldn?t run afoul of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. We weren?t afraid that our research results were wrong. What scared us was having to admit in public that we had done the research at all.

Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of people were inserting tainted music CDs into their computers and receiving spyware. In fact, the CDs went beyond installing unauthorized software on the user?s computer. They also installed a ?rootkit??they modified the Windows operating system to create an invisible area that couldn?t be detected by ordinary measures, and in many cases couldn?t be discovered even by virus checkers. The unwanted CD software installed itself in the invisible area, but the rootkit also provided a safe harbor for any other virus that wanted to exploit it. Needless to say, this was a big security problem for users. Our professional code told us that we had to warn them immediately. But our experience with the law told us to wait.

The law that we feared, the DMCA, was passed in 1998 but has been back in the news lately because it prohibits unlocking cellphones and interferes with access by people with disabilities. But its impact on research has been just as dramatic. Security researchers have long studied consumer technologies, to understand how they work, how they can fail, and how users can protect themselves from malfunctions and security flaws. This research benefits the public by making complex technologies more transparent. At the same time, it teaches the technology community how to design better, safer products in the future. These benefits depend on researchers being free to dissect products and talk about what they find.

We were worried about the part of the DMCA called 17 U.S.C. ? 1201(a)(1), which says that ?No person shall circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a work protected under [copyright law].? We had to disable the rootkit to detect what it was hiding, and we had to partially disable the software to figure out what it was doing. An angry record company might call either of those steps an act of circumvention, landing us in court. Instead of talking to the public, we talked to our lawyer.

This wasn?t the first time the DMCA had interfered with my security research. Back in 2001, my colleagues and I had had to withdraw a peer-reviewed paper about CD copy protection, because the Recording Industry Association of America and others were threatening legal action, claiming that our paper was a ?circumvention technology? in violation of another section of the DMCA. Later we sued for the right to publish these results?and we did publish, four months later. We had won, but we had also learned firsthand about the uncertainty and chaos that legal threats can cause. I was impressed that some of my colleagues had been willing to risk their jobs for our work, but none of us wanted to relive the experience.

Alex had dealt with his own previous DMCA threat, although this one was more comical than frightening. After he revealed that a CD copy protection product from a company called SunnComm could be defeated by holding down the computer?s Shift key while inserting the disc, the company had threatened him with DMCA action. Given the colorful history of the company?it had started corporate life as a booking agency for Elvis impersonators?and the company?s subsequent backtracking from the threat, we weren?t too worried about being sued. Nevertheless, it showed that the DMCA had become a go-to strategy for companies facing embarrassing revelations about their products.

What was Congress thinking when it passed this part of the DMCA? The act was meant to update copyright law for the 21^st century, to shore up the shaky technologies that tried to stop people from copying music and movies. But the resulting law was too broad, ensnaring legitimate research activities.

The research community saw this problem coming and repeatedly asked Congress to amend the bill that would become the DMCA, to create an effective safe harbor for research. There was a letter to Congress from 50 security researchers (including me), another from the heads of major scientific societies, and a third from the leading professional society for computer scientists. But with so much at stake in the act for so many major interests, our voice wasn?t heard. As they say in Washington, we didn?t have a seat at the table.

Congress did give us a research exemption, but it was so narrowly defined as to be all but useless. (So perhaps we did have a seat?at the kids? table.) I?ll spare you the details, but basically, there is a 116-word section of the Act titled ?Permissible Acts of Encryption Research,? and it appears to have been written without consulting any researchers. There may be someone, somewhere, who has benefited from this exemption, but it fails to protect almost all of the relevant research. It didn?t protect Alex and me, because we were investigating spyware that didn?t rely on the mathematical operations involved in encryption.

Source: http://feeds.slate.com/click.phdo?i=a8f3c9e152953a18b0b979c238b8987e

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Iraq rejects $4B Egypt request, talks ongoing

BAGHDAD (AP) ? An Iraqi official says Baghdad has rejected a request from Egypt for a $4 billion bond to be deposited in Egypt's central bank to bolster its faltering economy.

The official said on Friday that it's "too risky" to deposit such a large sum in Egypt but that talks are continuing for a smaller amount. The official didn't elaborate. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to talk to the media.

In Egypt, the presidency's media office confirmed in a statement to The Associated Press that discussions with Iraq are ongoing.

Egypt's planning minister, Ashraf el-Araby, visited Iraq this week.

Egypt has sought help from several oil-wealthy Arab countries to shore up reserves in its central bank, which were depleted in the aftermath of Hosni Mubarak's 2011 ouster.

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/iraq-rejects-4b-egypt-request-talks-ongoing-114528018--finance.html

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Louis Davidson : Why We Write #2 - An Interview With Mark ...

My second guest is Mark Vaillancourt (whose last name makes me very happy for the copy and paste feature), who is an Information Management consultant working for Digineer, and is a Regional Mentor for PASS in Canada. Mark is also a speaker at SQL Saturday events, as well as the SQL PASS Business Analytics conference in 2013.

Mark has been blogging regularly since early 2009 on his website (http://markvsql.com/), and interestingly, has degrees in English and Theater, two degrees that almost always lead one into a career in technology.? His twitter account, @markvsql, is also quite active with over 6400 tweets to date. To be honest, I don't enter into this interview knowing nearly as much about Mark Vaillancourt as I did about Thomas LaRock in entry #1, as Mark is more involved in Business Intelligence while I spend most of my conference and blogging time in the OLTP/Relational Engine side of things. I am looking forward to learning more about his writing process and his career in his answers to the following five questions.

Mark is currently working on his first white paper to be published via Digineer?s website. He wouldn?t reveal the topic, but describes it as a topic that he feels is under-served and will help a lot of people. I hope he will give me the link to include in this interview when he gets it finished.

-------------------------------------------

1.? Every superhero has an origin story, and in many cases it wasn't because they specifically were planning to go into the field of superhero-ness. I mean, clearly Peter Parker didn't really want to get bitten by a radioactive spider. So what is your story that led you to spend part of your free time writing about SQL?

In my early days at Digineer, Lara Rubbelke, who actually hired me during her tenure there, encouraged me to blog about my experiences learning SQL Server. Since I was hired there having never worked with SQL Server before, there were sure to be many learning opportunities. Whenever we would talk about the obstacles I was encountering and what I was doing to overcome them, she would always end the conversation with, ?Blog about it.? I finally took her advice and got a blog connected to the old Digineer website. It was some time later that I ended up heading out on my own for my blog, including getting my own domain, with a lot of great advice from Jason Strate. Jason pointed me to, among other things, Brent Ozar?s series about blogging. That was really helpful in getting going. (Editor note: here is a link to his advice on his blog a few years back http://www.brentozar.com/archive/2008/12/how-start-blog/)

2. We all have influencers that have advanced our careers as writers. It may be a teacher who told you that you had great potential? Another writer who impressed you that you wanted to be like? Or perhaps on the other end of the spectrum it was a teacher who told you that you were too stupid to write well enough to spell your own name, much less have people one day impressed with your writing? Who were your influences that stand out as essential parts of your journey to the level of writer you have become??

I had a teacher in high school for English, and also for Creative Writing, named Richard White. He taught me the power of verbs, the importance of dialog, and reinforced the old writing axiom, ?Show; don?t tell.? While these three lessons were aimed at fiction, I try to keep them in mind in my technical writing, as well. I try to make my writing sound like I am just speaking. To me, in essence, a blog post is a presentation I only have to give once; a presentation that keeps on presenting, if you will.

I have also been fortunate enough to have an unofficial blogging mentor: Jason Strate. While he was working to take his own blogging to the next level, he was constantly sharing lessons learned with me. Whether it be a new tool he had tried or just even a bit of blogging philosophy, he set a great example. Many thanks to Jason.

3.? Can you describe the process you go through to write (including any tools you find indispensable), from inception of an idea until it gets put out for consumption??

As far as tools go, Snag-It is the best thing ever. I love that application, and not just because my laptop lacks a ?Prt Scn? key. It is so easy to capture screen shots of just about anything and apply highlighting, arrows, shapes, just about anything. I rely on it heavily for images I use in my posts, and sometimes presentations as well.

Although it is not really a tool, I have to say the Flickr is an AWESOME place to get images for blogs and presentations. Jason Strate showed me that one several years ago. Just filter your search for Creative Commons content and provide links to the source for the images you use and you are off to the races. I have found so many great images out there.

As far as process, I don?t know that I have one. But I think I can nail down some actions that I tend to take during the creation of many of my posts.

• Find/Create a fun dataset.
  • The people that created the AdventureWorks database worked very hard to do so and provided examples of a lot of different things in the process. They deserve our gratitude. However, I try very hard to avoid having my blog posts and presentations be about selling bikes and accessories. If you look over my posts, you will see data examples relating to Super Heroes, The Smurfs, Romeo and Juliet? Keeping the datasets fun is part of what makes it fun for me.
    
• If I am demonstrating how to perform some set of actions, I make sure to number the steps as well as the Figures (screenshots, etc) used. Then, I truly document every step along with the expected outcome of each. That takes time. And I am OK with that. When one considers how long a blog post will be ?out there? after it is posted, taking the time to make it solid and clear is well worth it. It drives me nuts when documentation skips some steps in the middle of a process while assuming you just ?know? to do them.
  
• When screenshots are not appropriate to the topic, I make sure to find some fun pictures from Flickr to use. I make sure to choose images that are loosely related in some way to what I am writing about, but a bit entertaining as well. A picture of Devil?s Tower makes perfect sense in a post about ones experiences at a SQL Saturday in Chicago. And a 1960s era Ladies restroom sign is the ultimate homage to the Women in Technology Luncheon at the PASS Summit.

4. Assume a time machine has been created, and you are allowed to go back in time to speak to a group of potential writers, in which you and I are in attendance. What would you tell "past us", and do you think that your advice would change where you and I are in our careers now? <like would you tell yourself that one day you would be sitting here for a rather long period of time answering interview questions and not getting paid for it, instead of??>

The best advice I could give ?past us? is the same advice I give people who tell me they want to blog but are apprehensive.

• Don?t be afraid to blog because you feel you don?t know enough. If everyone waited until they knew everything before blogging or presenting, we would have ZERO bloggers and presenters. Blog now; learn while you do it.
  
• Don?t be afraid to blog about topics that others have already covered. People learn in different ways. While the topic may be the same, YOUR way of explaining may be exactly what someone needs for that AHA moment that has been eluding them.
  
• Don?t be afraid of making a factually incorrect statement and getting called out on it. Mistakes happen. Do your best to verify what you are writing (you will learn a lot during this activity) and you will be fine. If you think a particular statement is true, but are unsure, say so and indicate why. Be honest about what you are writing and people will respect that.

5. Finally, beyond the "how" questions, now the big one. There are no doubt tremendous pulls on your time. Why do you do write?

I have a few different answers to this one.

Before joining Digineer, I worked in general IT. Our department had a purple binder entitled, ?Learned the Hard Way ? or I don?t EVER want to have to figure this out again.? In that binder we placed really obscure problems we encountered along with their solutions. These were issues that happened so infrequently that remembering the details between occurrences was just not going to happen. Sometime I use my blog as my purple binder.

I went to college with the intention of becoming a high school English Teacher. I got as far as student-teaching in a local middle school and even substituted a few times. When I discovered Theater, I ended up putting my main focus into acting. Even so, I am still a teacher at heart and LOVE sharing knowledge with other people. Blogging and presenting are an extension of teaching, as far as I am concerned.

There is a poem commonly attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson (although there is a bit of controversy about that) that really sums up why I do most things. I have loved this poem since high school and try to keep true to its meaning.

Success?

To laugh often and much;?
to win the respect of intelligent people??
?? and the affection of children;?
to earn the appreciation of honest critics??
?? and endure the betrayal of false friends;?
to appreciate beauty; to find the best in others;?
to leave the world a bit better,?
?? whether by a healthy child,?
?? a garden patch?
?? or a redeemed social condition;?
to know even one life has breathed easier?
?? because you have lived.?
This is to have succeeded.

Blogging is one of the ways that I work toward achieving Success.

-------------------------------------------

Wow, that was quite an interview, chocked full of good advice, and something most blogs about technical writing will not have?controversially attributed poetry. Some of my favorite bits include noting that blogging/writing is a great way to learn, and you don?t need to be perfect to start. I find that the research I do to try to avoid being wrong makes working hours on a seemingly simple topic often well worth it when I am working during the day (during the getting paid part of the day!). And you don?t have to be perfect, as long as you try to get it right, are somewhat interesting and provide something for readers to learn (and remember, there are many levels of readers out there). When you are wrong, a reader or two will tell you? I promise. (Thick skin is very helpful for public writing!)

So far, my biggest surprise has been that I haven?t gotten a particular answer to the time machine question. Stay tuned, someone soon is bound to answer what I have expected (and then I will add a supplementary entry to admit to the answers to the questions I would give myself!)

To the focus of the series, I now have three reasons why my first two interviewees write:

1. Because there are words that have to be written

2. Keep up with stuff I know

3. Working towards success

The second answer is definitely high on my list, but it certainly isn?t quite enough to keep me typing on this keyboard week in and week out in my free time (when minimally I could be building something with my Legos and preserving the springiness of the keys on my keyboard.)? So the quest continues, with my next subject Rob Farley, who will hopefully get us one step closer to the answer to the question of why we write.

Source: http://sqlblog.com/blogs/louis_davidson/archive/2013/03/28/why-we-write-2-an-interview-with-mark-vaillancourt.aspx

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Column: Farewell to the greatest hoops league ever

Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim answers questions during a news conference Friday, March 29, 2013, in Washington. Syracuse plays Marquette in a regional semifinal game in the NCAA basketball tournament on Saturday. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Syracuse head coach Jim Boeheim answers questions during a news conference Friday, March 29, 2013, in Washington. Syracuse plays Marquette in a regional semifinal game in the NCAA basketball tournament on Saturday. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Syracuse forward C.J. Fair (5) shoots over Indiana guard Victor Oladipo (4) and forward Cody Zeller (40) during the second half of an East Regional semifinal in the NCAA men's college basketball tournament, Thursday, March 28, 2013, in Washington. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Syracuse guard Michael Carter-Williams (1) is hugged by center Baye Keita (12) after an East Regional semifinal against Indiana in the NCAA men's college basketball tournament, Thursday, March 28, 2013 in Washington. Syracuse defeated Indiana 61-50. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

Marquette guard Vander Blue (13) celebrates with center Chris Otule (42), Jamil Wilson (0) and guard Trent Lockett (22) after their 71-61 win over Miami in an East Regional semifinal in the NCAA college basketball tournament, Thursday, March 28, 2013, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Thanks for nothing, greedy college administrators.

Because of you, we're bidding farewell to the greatest basketball conference there ever was ? and perhaps ever will be.

At least the Big East as we knew it is going out in style. That's only appropriate, given all it has meant to the game over the last three-plus decades.

But watching Syracuse and Marquette advance to a regional final, assuring one will make it to the Final Four, and knowing top-seeded Louisville could very well give the league another team in Atlanta only heightens the sting of what's about to happen.

Seven basketball-playing schools are jumping off a sinking ship to form a new version of the Big East, joined by three other schools that don't have major football programs. That league will carry on the legacy of what was launched in 1979, but it's unreasonable to expect "Big East, The Sequel" to come anywhere close to matching the impact of the original.

For this, we should all be ticked off.

Seriously, when does it stop?

Not anytime soon, I'm afraid.

In the mess that is college realignment, we've seen longtime rivalries ripped apart, once-sturdy leagues now scrambling for their lives or gone altogether, schools falling over themselves to start football programs or move up to the Football Bowl Subdivision ? all in the name of the almighty dollar.

Supposedly, this is progress.

Just try telling that to a hoops fan.

The major conferences have far too much power, there's no one with the backbone or the authority to bring a little sanity to the madness, and we're left with a wake for the Big East.

"It's a good league, always been a good league," Syracuse coach Jim Boeheim said Friday, talking about the league his school will soon be leaving.

The Orange's next loss ? or three more wins ? will mark the end of their time in a conference they helped start.

When this latest round of football-driven Scrabble is done, we'll have Syracuse playing in the Atlantic Coast Conference instead of the Big East (ditto for Pittsburgh and Notre Dame), we'll have Maryland playing in the Big Ten instead of the ACC, and we'll have once-mighty UConn playing in some new league with a bunch of Southeastern and Southwestern schools that used to comprise Conference USA.

Seriously, schools are changing conferences about as often as Taylor Swift writes a breakup song ? maybe she could do one for the Big East ? and there's still no indication that the dust is close to settling. UConn might wind up in the ACC, too. Or maybe some ACC schools will bolt for the Southeastern Conference.

After all, as Derek Dooley once said: It's not really about the money ? it's about the amount.

At this very moment, there is surely some college president or athletic director or booster trying to figure out a way to squeeze a few more bucks out of the pie. Who cares if college kids have to take cross-country trips on school nights for conference games? Who cares if a once-great basketball conference is carved up like an apple pie at a Fourth of July picnic?

"There's no question leaving the Big East will be sad," Syracuse assistant coach Mike Hopkins said, taking a second to think long-term amid the instant gratification of facing Marquette on Saturday for a trip to the Final Four.

"It already is in so many ways."

No one has taken a bigger beating in all this conference realignment than the Big East, largely because of a decision it made about a decade after its founding to add football to its roster of sports.

A bunch of schools giddily joined up, but they had no loyalty to the original concept. Of the eight teams that first played Big East football, seven have already moved on to other conferences or soon will be.

Because of that, we may never again see one conference put three teams in the Final Four, as the Big East did in 1985 with Villanova (the eventual national champion), Georgetown and St. John's ? certainly not a league that has nine teams, which was the Big East membership at the time.

If conferences continue to expand, we might see a league match the record 11 teams the Big East put in the NCAA field two years ago in its more bloated alignment ? though, that's the very state that contributed to its demise.

No matter what, there's no denying what the Big East once was ? and still is for another week or so.

The best in the land.

"I wish we weren't playing each other," said Marquette coach Buzz Williams, whose school will be moving on to the new Big East. "Maybe if we were in different regions, maybe we could both continue to play."

Very shortly, it won't matter. All that will be left are memories, tattered clippings and old TV footage.

Thankfully, Boeheim took a moment to reflect on Friday during his turn at the podium.

"It's remarkable that you could start a league and it could be good right away, like the Big East was," he said wistfully, remembering some of the early stars such as Patrick Ewing, Chris Mullin, Pearl Washington and Walter Berry. "It has been an unbelievable 34 years. Over that 34-year period, it's been as good as any league. You can easily make that argument."

Boeheim said he understands why it's happening, even though it really has nothing to do with his sport.

"It was almost inevitable that the football schools would need to get with football schools," he said. "I think it will work for the basketball schools now that they're going to get together, and they will have a really good basketball league. I think that's for the best. I think it will work out, and we have a great challenge going to what will be a tremendous basketball league."

Sorry, Jim, we disagree.

There's nothing good about breaking up the Big East.

Maybe there will come a day when we'll at least acknowledge that it was all a big mistake, acknowledge how much we've lost.

At that point, of course, it will be far too late to do anything about it.

Thanks for nothing.

___

Paul Newberry is a national writer for The Associated Press. Write to him at pnewberry(at)ap.org or www.twitter.com/pnewberry1963

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/347875155d53465d95cec892aeb06419/Article_2013-03-29-BKC-Paul-Newberry-032913/id-186d0d42ced54458ba0eb2a0eb1ed687

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Serena Williams vs Sharapova in Sony Open final

KEY BISCAYNE, Fla. (AP) ? Maria Sharapova keeps drawing a different opponent in the Key Biscayne final, and has yet to find one she can beat.

Now she'll give it a try against Serena Williams.

Sharapova, a four-time runner-up, earned another berth in the final by beating Jelena Jankovic 6-2, 6-1 Thursday at the Sony Open. Eight hours later, five-time champion Williams advanced when she beat defending champion Agnieszka Radwanska 6-0, 6-3.

Sharapova has lost the Key Biscayne final to four different players ? Kim Clijsters in 2005, Svetlana Kuznetsova in '06, Victoria Azarenka in '11 and Radwanska last year. The No. 1-ranked Williams might be the toughest matchup for her yet.

Sharapova is 2-11 against Williams, with both of the wins way back in 2004. Williams has won their past 10 meetings and their past 13 sets.

"They have been pretty quick matches," Sharapova said. "She's a tremendous athlete, has so much power, and a confident player as well. So if you have a few games where you're not stepping in and not playing the way you should be, she takes really good advantage of it."

With a victory Saturday, the No. 3-seeded Sharapova would plug one of the few holes in her resume. She completed a career Grand Slam by winning the French Open last year but has never won the tournament near downtown Miami.

"It would mean so much to me," the Russian said. "I absolutely love this city. It's the first city I landed in when I came to the United States as a little girl."

Palm Beach Gardens resident Williams considers Key Biscayne her home tournament, and she was at her best before a near-capacity crowd for the night's final match.

"I'm excited because I'm in the final again. Yay!" she told the crowd. "So many of my friends are here. My family is here. I have to do well here. I can't let my friends down."

Williams broke the tournament record for victories by a woman. She's 60-7; Steffi Graf went 59-6.

Andy Murray, the 2009 champion and runner-up last year, advanced to the semifinals by beating No. 9 Marin Cilic 6-4, 6-3. Murray has yet to drop a set, and his path is made easier because Rafael Nadal and Roger Federer skipped the tournament, and Novak Djokovic lost in the fourth round.

"Obviously, if they aren't there, then you don't have to play against two or three of the best players that have played the game," Murray said. "So it's not as challenging. I always enjoy playing against them because it's good for me. It's a good test of my game."

Murray's opponent Friday night will be No. 8-seeded Richard Gasquet, who beat No. 4 Tomas Berdych 6-3, 6-3. The other semifinal will match No. 3 David Ferrer against 34-year-old Tommy Haas, who upset Djokovic.

Williams had struggled in her previous two matches but played almost error-free tennis in the semifinal, using her superior power to keep Radwanska pinned deep and on the run. They played for 37 minutes and 55 points before Radwanska won a game, prompting a big roar from the crowd.

That made it 1-all in the second set, but there would be no comeback. Williams hit 12 aces, including four in one game, and enjoyed a 40-6 advantage in winners.

Radwanska, who also lost to Williams in last year's Wimbledon final, fell to 1-11 against No. 1 players.

The earlier semifinal was just as lopsided. On a sunny, mild afternoon, Sharapova won the first 10 points against the No. 22-seeded Jankovic, then hardly let up from there.

Sharapova swept seven consecutive games during one stretch, and committed only 10 unforced errors from the baseline in 88 points while breaking serve six times.

Sharapova took the Indian Wells title two weeks ago and has won 22 consecutive sets, a career best, while winning 11 matches in a row.

Williams said her final against Sharapova should be a crowd-pleaser.

"She's playing so well," Williams said. "I'll do the best I can. It'll be a good match. We love playing against each other. I love playing her and we always have a great match."

Like Williams, Sharapova survived a sloppy quarterfinal, winning despite 57 unforced errors, including 13 double-faults. She double-faulted only three times against Jankovic and won 23 of 25 points on her first serve.

"I just really thought I needed to step it up from my last match and play a little better," she said. "I was really happy with the way I focused."

Jankovic, playing for the second time in less than 18 hours, was repeatedly a step late trying to reach Sharapova's shots.

"I wasn't moving," she said. "I felt heavy on the court. I felt really tired and exhausted."

Jankovic questioned scheduling that forced her to play in consecutive sessions while Williams and Radwanska had a day off before the semifinals.

"Kind of crazy," she said. "I had a couple of hours of sleep, and then I had to be back on the court."

Sharapova looked fresh even though she has played a lot of tennis lately. She's bidding to become the third woman to win Indian Wells and Key Biscayne in the same year.

Steffi Graf did it in 1994 and 1996, and Kim Clijsters won both in 2005.

"Winning a title on its own, whether it's here or Indian Wells, is a great achievement," Sharapova said. "To be able to come back from that and recover in just a few days and come back to the final here, it's great. Physically, many years ago I wouldn't be able to do that, so I'm very proud of the way I have recovered."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/serena-williams-vs-sharapova-sony-open-final-022101800--spt.html

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Delicious Becomes A Bit More Social Again, Adds Twitter And Facebook Logins

It’s recently been very quiet around Delicious, the social bookmarking service Yahoo bought in 2005 and then sold to AVOS in 2011. Back then, the AVOS team said it was relaunching Delicious “back to beta,” but Delicious hasn’t made all that many waves since then, nor has it added all that many features to the relaunched service. But after four months of slumber, the Delicious blog sprung into action today and launched a few new features that could make the site a bit more interesting for those of us who long ago abandoned social bookmarking for social networks like Twitter and Facebook. Indeed, today’s update is all about Twitter and Facebook: Delicious added the ability to log in with your credentials for those two social networks and connect. It’s now easier to use Delicious to automatically save all those links you share on Facebook and shared and favorited on Twitter directly on Delicious, too. Delicious?acquired the link-saving startup Trunk.ly?to power?this?feature in November 2011 and?turned it on for Twitter last March?and for Facebook in July. Using Twitter and Facebook logins isn’t exactly innovative, but it does point toward a more social future for Delicious, especially in combination with the new “Friend Finder” tool that lets you friend and follow people you know on Twitter and Facebook. The team also made other small improvements – the bookmarklet and site now load faster, for example, but the main feature Delicious power users will surely appreciate is that every link now includes a “first saver” attribution. I’m not sure that any of this will really rescue Delicious from its current obscurity. Saving the links you share on social networks doesn’t exactly feel like the hot new thing, after all. It’s good to see a sign of life out of Delicious, however, and if Digg is still around and kicking, why shouldn’t del.icio.us be, too?

Source: http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/Techcrunch/~3/Te0Z4Xpu-ac/

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Exclusive! Ryan Gosling's Friends Tease Him for Being Hot

The fact that he has a coloring book, endless Tumblr pages and an awesome meme all dedicated to him can only mean one thing: The ladies love Ryan Gosling! 

Source: http://www.ivillage.com/ryan-gosling-my-friends-tease-me-about-my-heartthrob-status-0/1-a-530936?dst=iv%3AiVillage%3Aryan-gosling-my-friends-tease-me-about-my-heartthrob-status-0-530936

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Opinion: President Petraeus? (CNN)

Share With Friends: | | Politics - Top Stories News, RSS and RSS Feed via Feedzilla.

Source: http://news.feedzilla.com/en_us/stories/politics/top-stories/295218700?client_source=feed&format=rss

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Andrew Simpson: Three for the &#39;ville, number 1, the Sports Pavilion ...

I am in picture mood and over the next few days I want to return to Chorltonville and feature three more pictures of the place.

This was the Sports Pavilion in the Recreation Area not long after the ?ville had been built.

?Like many projects of its kind the designers were keen to provide places of leisure and the sports pavilion offered both tennis and bowls.

I doubt now that we will ever discover the identity of the people in the picture. ?Given that it was taken around 1914 even the young girl will now be dead.

And because this was a commercial photograph it is unlikely that it forms part of a treasured family album which might just offer up a name.

Still the young girl in the dark dress appears on a number in the collection and each case holding a tennis racket.

You have to admire the tenacity of our six 'ville residents, because judging by the leaves on the trees and bushes it must still be sometime in the spring.

But then we do get some nice weather in April and May, so perhaps they have taken advantage of just such a day.

Picture; from the Lloyd collection

Source: http://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/2013/03/three-for-ville-number-1-sports.html

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Fla. lawyer accused of heading charity scam talks

Jacksonville, Fl. attorney Kelly Mathis, left, walks a hallway with his attorney Mitch Stone before an interview at Stone's office in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fl., Wednesday, March 20, 2013. Mathis is accused by prosecutors as the "mastermind" of the Allied Veterans of the World internet gambling operation. (AP Photo/Rick Wilson)

Jacksonville, Fl. attorney Kelly Mathis, left, walks a hallway with his attorney Mitch Stone before an interview at Stone's office in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fl., Wednesday, March 20, 2013. Mathis is accused by prosecutors as the "mastermind" of the Allied Veterans of the World internet gambling operation. (AP Photo/Rick Wilson)

Jacksonville, Fla. attorney Kelly Mathis, left, reviews documents with his attorney Mitch Stone during an interview at Stone's office in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., Wednesday, March 20, 2013. Mathis is accused by prosecutors as the "mastermind" of the Allied Veterans of the World internet gambling operation. (AP Photo/Rick Wilson)

Jacksonville, Fl. attorney Kelly Mathis, left, talks with his attorney Mitch Stone during an interview at Stone's office in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fl., Wednesday, March 20, 2013. Mathis is accused by prosecutors as the "mastermind" of the Allied Veterans of the World internet gambling operation. (AP Photo/Rick Wilson)

Jacksonville, Fla. attorney Kelly Mathis, right, greets his attorney Mitch Stone before an interview at Stone's office in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., Wednesday, March 20, 2013. Mathis is accused by prosecutors as the "mastermind" of the Allied Veterans of the World internet gambling operation. (AP Photo/Rick Wilson)

Jacksonville, Fla. attorney Kelly Mathis, left, listens as his attorney Mitch Stone explains their position at Stone's office in Ponte Vedra Beach, Fla., Wednesday, March 20, 2013. Mathis is accused by prosecutors as the "mastermind" of the Allied Veterans of the World internet gambling operation. (AP Photo/Rick Wilson)

JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) ? A prominent Jacksonville attorney accused of masterminding a $300 million gambling ring disguised as a veterans charity says he simply advised his clients on legal matters and that prosecutors are trying to "force a connection" between him and the operation of the business.

During an hour-long interview with The Associated Press at his lawyer's office on Wednesday, Kelly Mathis said that his arrest last week has ruined his life and damaged his law career.

Mathis's eyes became red when he talked about how his family has stood by him since his arrest and release from jail on bond. He's been charged in state court with racketeering, money laundering and gambling-related charges.

"Lots of prayer," he said, when asked about the past several days.

Mathis, who is 49 and a former president of the Jacksonville Bar Association, is one of about 60 people charged in Seminole County, Fla., with running the now-shuttered Allied Veterans of the World, which operated 49 Internet parlors with computerized slot machine-style games.

Adding to the probe's notoriety, Lt. Gov. Jennifer Carroll resigned a day after she was questioned by investigators ? though she isn't among those charged.

Those who knew Mathis say he's a well-respected, down-to-earth and hard-working lawyer who's not prone to wearing the silk shirts and shiny suits favored by some of his colleagues.

"I would have thought of him more as milquetoast more than mastermind," said Jim Bailey, the editor of a legal and business newspaper called the Jacksonville Daily Record.

Mathis said Johnny Duncan and Jerry Bass, the two men who once owned Allied Veterans of the World, sought his legal advice about seven years ago and he took the men and their company on as clients. He eventually became the registered agent for several Internet cafes owned by the organization.

Under Florida law, a company must have a registered agent to be responsible for receiving important legal and tax documents; many companies use lawyers.

"There is no connection. They're trying to force a connection," Mathis said of prosecutors. "And that's all they've got, is to say that I was the registered agent, that I had some relationship to all of these companies. And the relationship they've got is that I was the registered agent. But what they fail to realize is that's no relationship at all."

Mathis, who went to high school in Brooksville, Fla., and law school at Vanderbilt University, opened his own practice about nine years ago in Jacksonville after working at larger firms.

Mathis said he researched whether Internet sweepstakes cafes were legal in Florida.

"I spent months researching this in-depth, of sweepstakes law, gambling law, to make sure they didn't violate any of the gambling laws," he said. "Reading cases, reading statutes. Reading legislative history. Gathering all of that information before I ever issued them an opinion. That this is what they could do and needed to do in order to comply with Florida law."

At issue is the legality of the games. To play, customers get prepaid cards and then go to a computer to play "sweepstakes." The games, with spinning wheels similar to slot machines, have names such as "Captain Cash," ''Lucky Shamrocks" and "Money Bunny." Winners go back to a cashier with their cards and cash out. Lawmakers in Florida and other states are now considering whether to ban them.

The game makers argue they are legal sweepstakes because there's a predetermined number of winners, similar to a McDonald's Monopoly game or Coca-Cola's cap contest.

"The law is filled with ambiguities. The lawyer's job is to come up with a legal opinion to advocate for that position," Mathis said. "Even right now in the state of Florida, there is no appellate court opinion. There is no definitive black and white answer. I and my clients were complying with the law."

Mathis is a registered lobbyist and said he met with Jennifer Carroll several years ago while she was a member of the Florida House of Representatives.

Mathis said he had lunch "a couple of times" with Carroll and was asked to explain to her how the cafes operated under the law.

He said he didn't know anything about the public relations firm she co-owned or work that it did for Allied.

He said that he knows nothing about the charity angle of the business ? prosecutors say that only 2 percent of the nearly $300 million earned by Allied went to charity ? and that he merely advised the company about laws regarding philanthropy.

Mathis said he has only been paid his hourly fee for his work with Allied.

Mitch Stone, Mathis's attorney, said that at one point, Allied wanted to reduce the amount they were paying in legal fees and have Mathis work for a flat rate. Stone said that if Mathis was the "ringleader" of the operation, it made no sense that he would want to reduce his salary.

Mathis said he is being targeted by Seminole County officials because he sued the county over its stance on Internet cafes.

"I think the law permitted the activities that my clients were doing," he said. "Some people call it a loophole. To me, it's either allowed by the law or not allowed by the law."

Anthony Alfieri, a professor at the University of Miami's School of Law, said Mathis has a difficult task ahead.

"He's going to have to demonstrate beyond a reasonable doubt, with hard evidence that his belief was reasonable at that time," said Alfieri. "The key analysis is not what he thought was criminal or fraudulent. The key for both the state attorney and for ultimately, the Florida Bar, is whether an objectively reasonable and prudent lawyer should have known better and that's the case he's going to have to make."

___

Associated Press writer Michael Biesecker contributed to this report from Jacksonville, Fla.

Follow Tamara Lush on Twitter: http://twitter.com/tamaralush

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/386c25518f464186bf7a2ac026580ce7/Article_2013-03-20-US-Charity-Gambling-Scandal-Lawyer/id-cf91542ac3a343c3bcdd24529e4c2a10

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Take Weather: Order the Forecast With a Side of Pictures

Apologies in advance—if you spend all day cooped up inside, depending on the forecast, Take Weather might make it worse. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/qVZQIIG5sgI/take-weather-order-the-forecast-with-a-side-of-pictures

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Step-By-Step Tips You Can Use For Home Improvement ? Yahoodiary

Your home maintenance will involve home improvements which can be tackled by effectively determining the time and money you'll need for a project. You need to know about tools, materials, techniques, safety procedures and regulations before you get started. Here's some tips to be sure your home improvement project is done safely and correctly.

If you are doing any home improvements in your kitchen, ensure you shut off the gas in your home before you begin. You must be very careful with these types of projects. A fire could damage you and your efforts in any project.

Put down an asphalt sealer if you see any damages or cracks in your driveway. Sunny and wet weather conditions can damage your driveway, particularly when water gets into cracks, freezes, and then thaws. Sealants provide a protective layer that extends the life of your driveway by preventing damage from the elements.

One of the most basic ways to update or freshen up your house is with a few coats of new paint, especially in a new color. Exterior paint can greatly improve the look and value of your home. Select a new and unique color, and it will look like an entirely new house!

You don't have to spend lots of money to brighten up your kitchen and bath. Just invest a few dollars in good light fixtures. Tired track lighting can be replaced with modern lights for less than a thousand bucks. Think about putting in pendant lights; these are very modern and appealing.

A bathroom can be redecorated easily and cheaply. Just replacing the towels and shower curtain can quickly improve how your bathroom looks. An instant lift can be achieved using this method. Your bathroom can be a great place to incorporate plants; however, be judicious in your choice of plants to make sure they thrive.

Ready For Upgrading Your Home? Read This First! You should receive copies of everything as part of a file containing inspection reports and permit applications, as well as the permits themselves. This should be a question you ask before you hire a contractor.

Give the bubble in your old vinyl floor covering a shot! You can easily slice into the vinyl floor and let out the air. Cutting it will make the bubble go down. In order to permanently repair this part of the floor though, you are going to need to put an amount of fresh glue in. Use glue that comes in syringes to get the job done.

You can easily make a window screen, if you cannot locate one that goes into your window. Frame kits can be cut to any window size, and then it's just a matter of attaching the screen with the cording and an inexpensive tool. Some windows may require a particular screen, but an external screen can be added to nearly any window with the use of adapters.

If you want to change the look of your home for cheap, try painting it. Paint can give your home a new look without a high cost. A fresh color of paint can change a room's entire look. And the best part about a paint job is that it's very easy to change if you don't like the results after a while.

Source: http://yahoodiary.com/blog/64323/step-by-step-tips-you-can-use-for-home-improvement/

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