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I’ll Have Another set to go for another at Belmont – San Francisco Chronicle

admin — Sun, 20 May 2012 18:23:13 +0000

(05-20) 10:14 PDT BALTIMORE (AP) –

I’ll Have Another poked his head out of his stall, started nibbling on his nameplate tacked to a wall and looked up at all the people watching his every move.

Yes, I’ll Have Another came out of his thrilling Preakness victory over Bodemeister in “super shape,” trainer Doug O’Neill said Sunday, and now it’s on to New York for a Triple Crown try in the Belmont Stakes on June 9.

“We’re ready. Bring it on,” O’Neill said as he held court outside the stall of his Kentucky Derby and Preakness winner. “I can’t put into words how incredible it is. We’re just on Cloud 9. It’s super exciting.”

The colorful and controversial trainer returned to his home base in California later Sunday, and has begun making plans for the trip to New York in the next week or so. I’ll Have Another, meanwhile, was loaded onto a horse van en route for Belmont Park. O’Neill’s assistant, Jack Sisteron, will oversee the chestnut colt until O’Neill and the rest of his team arrive.

The trainer took time to soak in the moment at Pimlico, and contemplate the pressure-packed days that await leading to the first Triple Crown attempt since 2008. It will be the 12th try since 1978, when Affirmed won thoroughbred racing’s most elusive prize.

“It’s hasn’t completely sunk in yet,” he said. “The party out here after the race was like wow! I’ve never seen anything like that — everyone so excited about horse racing and I’ll Have Another 2-for-2. I definitely feel the energy and buzz in the air.”

He hasn’t seen anything yet.

The Triple Crown quest brought some tantalizingly close calls since Affirmed turned back Alydar in the Derby, Preakness and Belmont 34 years ago — the longest drought between Triple Crown champions.

There was Real Quiet in 1998, who looked like a lock to take the Belmont until he was nailed at the wire by Victory Gallop. And there was Smarty Jones, who also looked golden in the Belmont stretch only to be reeled in by 36-1 long shot Birdstone in the final 70 yards.

J. Paul Reddam, who owns I’ll Have Another, would like nothing better than to have his horse join the equine pantheon of Triple Crown heroes that includes Secretariat, Seattle Slew and Citation. He’s just not ready to deal with the three-week buildup to a race also known as the “Test of The Champion.”

“I’m actually not looking forward to the next three weeks at all,” Reddam said. “I know there is going to be a certain amount of tension, and I’m not eager to do a bunch of TV interviews. That’s not me.”

O’Neill, however, has embraced the hoopla. He can’t wait to take Manhattan.

“Like we did in Louisville and Baltimore, when we come to New York we’re going to see the town, enjoy it, soak it in,” he said. “And the reason we’re enjoying it so much is the horse has been thriving so much. If he continues to do good, we’ll have a good time.”

There could be bumpy times, too. O’Neill has been under scrutiny over his many violations for giving his horses improper drugs. He has been accused in California of “milkshaking,” the illegal practice of giving a horse a blend of bicarbonate of soda, sugar and electrolytes. The mixture is designed to reduce fatigue and enhance performance. He was fined $1,000 and suspended 15 days in one incident. He is contesting another and faces penalties ranging from a minimum 90-day suspension and a $5,000 fine to a maximum 180-day suspension and fine of $15,000.

“I can’t talk about all that stuff,” O’Neill said. “I know we play by the rules, and I know we love our horses and we take great care of them.”

He chooses to accentuate the positive.

“One thing we have here is an open door policy and a backstage pass for everybody,” he said. “And it’s been a great opportunity to share with everybody who loves horse racing to see what goes into trying to take care of a horse,” he said.

And that horse has proved again he’s deserving of a chance at greatness. Purchased for $35,000, he won the Santa Anita Derby by a nose over Creative Cause. He came back a month later and caught Bodemeister in the final 100 yards to take the Derby, and then produced an even more dramatic finish when he ran down Bodemeister in the final strides to win the Preakness by a neck.

In less than three weeks, I’ll Have Another will be looking for one more win — this one for history.

Source Article from http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/n/a/2012/05/20/sports/s101403D71.DTL

How Zuckerberg’s wedding reveals Facebook’s problem – CNET

admin — Sun, 20 May 2012 18:23:10 +0000

(Credit:
Facebook Screenshot: Chris Matyszczyk/CNET)

Who could not be moved by the fact that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg finished his bountiful week by getting married?

The churlish might have whined that his fooling his friends into thinking that this was merely a graduation party for his fiancee was not exactly open and connected. Indeed, it surely showed a peculiar yearning for privacy.

However, I wanted to go to his Facebook page and see what his fans had written. Honestly, it was quite dull. Reams and reams of congratulations, with nary an unkind word.

Suddenly, I looked to the right to see that, even on this blissful page, Facebook has chosen to display some advertising.

My mood of rampant joy and giddiness was turned to ashen concern. For, first off, I was invited to “Save With State Farm.”

Look, I have
car insurance. It’s just fine. And the mere concept of insurance melding with a wedding announcement rang a little vacuous.

Clearly the site must have been aware of my sudden pallor. For the next ad was headlined: “Before a Heart Attack.”

What? I’ve come here to bathe in the beauty of perfect love and you want to talk to me about dying?

The copy told me: “These four things happen before a heart attack. How many have already happened to you? Watch this video offer here.”

Isn’t this, in essence, Facebook’s biggest problem? People don’t want to see ads there at all. To appease them, Zuckerberg has cleverly forced advertisers to make their ads look as much as possible like Facebook posts.

But the company has done little to show it actually knows or even understands either its users or the context in which it is shoveling ads.

(Credit:
Facebook Screenshot: Chris Matyszczyk/CNET)

You might imagine that I was a little unlucky with the ads I was served. I don’t use Facebook much, so perhaps this was merely an experiment on the company’s part in getting to know me.

So I refreshed the page. State Farm was still proudly there. (Gosh, it must be spending heavily.)

Thankfully, the heart attack ad had gone. It was replaced by the headline: “Constipated for months.”

I know I’ve made a few jokes about Facebook in my time here, but this was getting nasty. However, the copy insisted: “It’s a serious medical condition. Find out about a research study.”

Yes, sometimes ads in all media seem slightly inappropriate. But here was a page that had already enjoyed more than 750,000 likes, and the machines were shoveling, well, this stuff at me.

If Facebook doesn’t find better ways of making money out of ads, it’ll have to find better ways of making money out of you.

If ads for heart attacks and constipation on its most important page of celebration are anything to go by, the company has a long, long way to go in order to even begin to make advertising work.

May I wish the happy couple all the wealth, um, happiness in the world. I hope as they log on to Facebook this morning to view all the good wishes, they aren’t being served with ads for divorce lawyers, marriage guidance counselors and, um, investment advisers.

Source Article from http://news.cnet.com/8301-17852_3-57437885-71/how-zuckerbergs-wedding-reveals-facebooks-problem/

Lockerbie bomber dies in Tripoli – CNN

admin — Sun, 20 May 2012 18:23:07 +0000

(CNN) — Abdelbeset Ali Mohmed al Megrahi, the only person convicted in connection with the Lockerbie bombing that killed 270 people, died Sunday, the Libyan government and a family member said. He was 60.

The former intelligence officer, who had suffered from prostate cancer, will be buried Monday, a foreign ministry spokesman said.

Al Megrahi’s cousin Omer al-Gharyani told CNN he was with al Megrahi at the Tripoli hospital when he died.

His death came more than two years after he was freed from a life sentence in Scotland on the grounds that he was dying.

His brother, announcing al Megrahi’s death, said the family refers “to the deceased as ‘the convicted innocent.’” He added, “May God bless his soul.”

Lockerbie victim’s brother on Megrahi

2009: Lockerbie bomber released

A look back at Lockerbie plane bombing

The destruction of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland, in 1988 in the deadliest act of air terrorism against Americans until the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington, according to the FBI.

American and British investigators who painstakingly pieced together the wreckage of the Pan Am 103 found it had been destroyed by a bomb, and they accused al Megrahi and another man of planting it.

“I’ve always been clear he should never have been released from prison,” British Prime Minister David Cameron said Sunday at the NATO summit in Chicago.

“Today is a day to remember the 270 people who lost their lives in what was an appalling terrorist act,” Cameron said. “Our thoughts should be with them and their families for the suffering they’ve had.”

Scotland’s First Minister Alex Salmond — the top Scottish political figure — issued a statement saying, “Our first thoughts are with the families of the Lockerbie atrocity, whose pain and suffering has been ongoing now for over 23 years.”

Al Megrahi’s death puts “to rest some of the conspiracy theories which have attempted to suggest that his illness was somehow manufactured — today’s news confirms what we have always said about his medical condition,” Salmond said.

He added that the Lockerbie case “remains a live investigation, and Scotland’s criminal justice authorities have made clear that they will rigorously pursue any new lines of inquiry. “

And Salmond insisted that despite widespread criticism of the decision, “extensive scrutiny” has found that Scotland released Megrahi on “compassionate grounds alone.”

Al Megrahi — once the security chief for Libyan Arab Airlines — and Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah were Libyan intelligence agents, the United States and Britain charged, indicting them in November 1991 on 270 counts of murder and conspiracy to murder.

The indictment set off the first of two international battles over al Megrahi. The first resulted in international sanctions and finally led to his trial and conviction.

The second came after he was released from a Scottish prison, on the grounds that he was diagnosed with terminal prostate cancer in August 2009 and was expected to have only a few months to live. He was sent home to Libya on “compassionate” grounds, and received a hero’s welcome at the airport.

His release — a little more than eight years after being sentenced to life in prison — and the celebrations that greeted him in Libya sparked condemnation from the U.S. and British governments and some victims’ families.

The fury grew as he lived long past the time doctors had expected him to survive. U.S. senators including Robert Menedez and Frank Lautenberg, both New Jersey Democrats, and Charles Schumer, a Democrat from New York, called for an investigation into why he was set free.

“This man was a horrible man,” Schumer said Sunday in an interview with CNN. “It would have been better had he not died in freedom, but died in prison. That’s what he deserved, and i still believe that the Scottish government, perhaps with the participation of the British government, created a major injustice when they let him out.”

“The only legacy we have is in the memory of all those who were lost,” Schumer added. “…We have to just make sure we continue this battle against terrorism on airplanes. We made great progress and we have to keep it up.”

As rebels swept into Tripoli two years after al Megrahi’s release, politicians on both sides of the Atlantic called for him to be extradited, with the Americans demanding a trial in the United States, and British lawmakers saying he should return to prison in Scotland.

CNN Senior International Correspondent Nic Robertson tracked al Megrahi down last year at the palatial villa Moammar Gadhafi had built for him during his reign as Libyan leader. Al Megrahi was apparently in a coma and near death. His family said al Megrahi’s son and mother were trying to care for him with oxygen and an intravenous drip, but with no medical advice.

Al Megrahi’s death may make it impossible ever to get the full story behind the Lockerbie bombing.

2011: Convicted Lockerbie bomber says truth will eventually come out

In an interview with Reuters last October, al Megrahi said the truth will come out “one day, and hopefully in the near future.” He vowed that “new facts” would come to light.

When Washington and London accused him and Fhimah of responsibility for the attack, Libya refused at first to hand the men over. That prompted the United Nations Security Council in April 1992 to slap sanctions on the north African country, clamping down on arms sales and air travel.

The FBI put the two on its 10 Most Wanted Fugitives list — the only time officers of a foreign government have ever been named on the list, as far as the FBI knows, spokesman Ken Hoffman said.

Two years later, Libya floated the idea of trying the men in an international court, which the United States and Britain rejected.

In the summer of 1998, Libya made a fresh proposal: that the men face justice in the Netherlands under Scottish law.

By the end of the year, matters came to a head when Kofi Annan, then U.N. secretary-general, met Gadhafi in Tripoli. Ten days later, a U.S. Appeals Court ruled that the families of the 189 Americans killed in the bombing could sue Libya for its possible role in sponsoring in the attack.

Libya agreed the next day to let the men face trial.

They were handed over on April 5, 1999, to the United Nations, which suspended its sanctions the same day.

The handover helped break a long-running standoff between the United States and Libya.

Two months later, American and Libyan officials met face-to-face for the first time in 18 years, and al Megrahi and Fhimah made their first court appearance before the end of the year.

The trial lasted nine months. In 2001, al Megrahi was convicted of the murders after prosecutors dropped lesser charges, and was sentenced to life in prison, having to serve a minimum of 27 years. Scotland does not allow the death penalty.

Fhimah was found not guilty.

Al Megrahi always insisted he was innocent, and filed one appeal after another against his conviction. The first was rejected in 2002.

Relations between the United States and Libya improved swiftly.

Libya agreed in 2003 to pay $2.7 billion in compensation to the families of the bombing victims, though Gadhafi always remained cagey about admitting official Libyan involvement in the bombing.

For his part, al Megrahi continued to fight to clear his name.

In June 2007, the Scottish Criminal Cases Review Commission allowed am fresh appeal, ruling that it had uncovered new evidence and that al Megrahi “may have suffered a miscarriage of justice.”

Before the appeal could be heard, however, it emerged that al Megrahi had terminal prostate cancer.

Scottish Justice Secretary Kenny MacAskill ordered him freed on compassionate grounds in August 2009. MacAskill had authority over al Megrahi’s case because the convicted bomber was jailed in Scotland. Al Megrahi dropped his appeal when he was freed.

The release proved immediately controversial.

Some family members of Lockerbie victims complained that with the legal process ending when al Megrahi dropped his appeal, they would never know the full truth about the bombing.

The British press, meanwhile, alleged the release was tied to oil deals with Libya.

British and Scottish officials denied the claim, and released more than 100 pages of previously secret documents to make their case.

The papers included a handwritten letter from al Megrahi to MacAskill, pleading to be allowed to see his family before he died, and continuing to proclaim his innocence.

The documents also showed that senior Libyan officials warned their Scottish and British counterparts it would be “catastrophic” for British-Libyan relations if al Megrahi died in prison.

When Al Megrahi returned to Libya on August 20, he was accompanied by Gadhafi’s son, Saif al-Islam.

The younger Gadhafi confirmed that Libya was “very angry” at British efforts to keep al Megrahi out of a separate prisoner transfer agreement, but said ultimately, the bomber was released for a different reason anyway.

It “was based on the compassionate grounds, not because of business deals,” he told CNN’s Nic Robertson in early September. “The guy is sick, seriously sick. He has cancer and because of that they made their decision and I think it was the right decision. Very simple.”

CNN’s Richard Allen Greene contributed to this report.

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Source Article from http://www.cnn.com/2012/05/20/world/africa/obit-lockerbie-bomber/?hpt=hp_t2

Facebook Flops: Look Out Below! – Barron’s

admin — Sun, 20 May 2012 18:23:05 +0000

After all the hype and anticipation, Facebook’s initial public offering turned out to be a disappointment that may bode poorly for investors in the company’s richly priced shares.

Facebook (ticker: FB) sold 421 million shares Thursday at $38 after bumping up the price range from the original $28 to $35 per share. The stock began trading above $42 Friday morning and came under pressure in the afternoon, spending much of the final half hour just above $38 before finishing at $38.23. (The stock traded as high as $44 in the private market in March.) Without reported support from the deal underwriters, the shares might have fallen below $38 in what would have been a big embarrassment for Facebook and Wall Street.

Enlarge Image

Courtesy of NASDAQ/Zef Nikolla

Zuckerberg kicks off trading.

The big question is whether the underwriters will continue to support the stock this week. (More on Facebook’s debut with small investors, at barrons.com.)

Many figured that Facebook would trade at $45 or higher given that the deal was said to be hugely oversubscribed. Yet “oversubscribed” deals aren’t always winners. Many institutional investors seek allocations of supposedly hot IPOs because they want to make money, not because they want to own the stocks. Access to hot IPOs is one way Wall Street rewards profitable clients. If the deals don’t trade well initially, institutions often sell quickly to lock in whatever profits they can. That might have been the case Friday as Facebook trading volume was heavy at 574 million shares—21.4% of the Nasdaq composite’s total volume.

It may turn out that Facebook ends up fizzling like General Motors (GM), which went public in a highly touted IPO in November 2010 at $33 and now trades at $21. The lack of a big “pop” in Facebook prompted a sell-off Friday in social-networking stocks like Zynga (ZNGA), Groupon (GRPN), and LinkedIn (LNKD) and contributed to an afternoon decline in the major averages.

Barron’s has been skeptical on Facebook, including an article last week (“Mad About Facebook!“). The shares still look overpriced based on profits and sales, especially given the company’s challenges in generating revenue from mobile users and doubts about the effectiveness of brand advertising on Facebook, which were highlighted by General Motors’ decision to stop using the site for such ads. Then there is slowing revenue growth, with first-quarter sales dropping below fourth-quarter levels.

“It’s exceedingly dangerous to pay a $100 billion valuation for a company that hasn’t figured out a way to make money,” says Aswath Damodaran, a professor at Stern Business School at New York University who has written critically online about the company and its corporate governance. He contrasts Facebook with Google (GOOG), which has a clear model based on online-search advertising. “Facebook doesn’t have an impossible valuation, but the odds don’t seem in its favor now,” Damodaran says.

Here’s what one veteran tech investor had to say Friday: “Like most IPOs in tech land, Facebook is geared toward enriching early investors and employees while sticking public investors with shares burdened with poor voting rights and high growth expectations.”

Enlarge Image

At $38, Facebook trades for 76 times projected 2012 profits of 50 cents a share and 89 times 2011 earnings. Online-search powerhouse Google looks like a much better value, trading at $600, or 14 times estimated 2012 profits.

As we wrote last week, Facebook shares probably discount a tripling in annual revenue, to $15 billion, in three years. It might have to reach $35 billion in revenue to produce a double in its shares. At $15 billion in sales, Facebook could earn $1.50 per share, assuming 40%-plus margins; at $30 billion in revenue, profits could total $3 per share.

The IPO amounts to a huge score for CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who seemed to get everything he wanted: a $100-plus billion market value, a personal net worth of nearly $20 billion and complete control. Early investors were eager sellers, accounting for 57% of the deal.

Investors, beware. There could be an enormous amount of stock for sale between now and year-end, when capital-gains taxes may rise, because lock-up restrictions on 1.8 billion shares expire between August and November. Existing holders paid an average of just $1 per share. Heavy sales could pressure the stock.

“Facebook is brazen about the fact that they don’t see any need for input from stockholders. In effect, they want my money but don’t want me to have any say in how the company is run,” Damodaran wrote earlier his year. It’s one thing to give such control to Warren Buffett, who has earned it over nearly 50 years at the helm of Berkshire Hathaway. It’s another to give unlimited power to a 28-year-old who has built an impressive business with over 900 million users worldwide, but hasn’t demonstrated yet the skills to run and profitably expand a major public company.

E-mail:
editors@barrons.com

Source Article from http://online.barrons.com/article/SB50001424053111904571704577410421435718852.html?mod=BOL_hpp_mag

Protesters begin biggest anti-NATO rally in Chicago – Reuters

admin — Sun, 20 May 2012 18:23:02 +0000

Sun May 20, 2012 1:59pm EDT

(Updates with protest gathering beginning, details)

* Protests not violent so far before summit

* Sunday expected to be biggest protest

* Festive atmosphere

By Mary Wisniewski

CHICAGO, May 20 (Reuters) – Thousands of protesters, some
dressed as clowns and others bearing anti-war signs, gathered on
Sunday in a lakefront park in the biggest test yet for Chicago
police trying to keep the peace as world leaders began meeting
for a two-day NATO summit.

Previous protests in the run-up to the summit Sunday and
Monday have been lively but peaceful, resulting in fewer than
two dozen arrests over the past six days, according to the
Chicago Police Department.

“I think we’re going to be able to handle it,” Police Chief
Garry McCarthy told reporters, adding the numbers of
demonstrators this week were fewer than many had expected.

Authorities said two more men were arrested in Chicago
earlier this week, bringing to five the number authorities have
detained on terrorism-related or bomb-making charges.

Three of those charged were plotting to attack President
Barack Obama’s campaign headquarters, police stations and other
targets, according to court documents. Defense lawyers said the
three were entrapped by police informants.

The computer hacking group Anonymous said it had brought
down the website for Chicago’s police department and another
city website to protest the summit. Officials said they were
working on the situation.

At the lakefront park, the festive crowd gathering on a hot
but breezy day, wielded signs reading “WAR = DEBT, “Billions for
jobs, not occupation” and “Peace is Matriotic, Love Your
Mother,” as a folk singer serenaded them.

Others carried large U.S. flags, some held upside down. At
least two circular groups of drummers were pounding away, and
dancers in pink and white robes chanted “Hari Krishna.” Occupy
Chicago anti-Wall Street protesters were made up as clowns and
streamed into the park.

The protesters are expected to hear from a lineup of
speakers decrying U.S. defense spending and economic inequality,
then trek 2-1/2 miles (4 km) along a prescribed route to near
the McCormick Place convention center where the summit delegates
are meeting, then hold a concluding rally.

VETERANS TO THROW MEDALS AWAY

A group of Iraq war veterans have pledged to toss their
medals over the security fence surrounding the summit site in a
symbolic protest. Matt Howard, a former U.S. Marine who served
in Iraq, said 50 veterans planned to throw away their medals.

Vietnam War veteran Ron McSheffery, 61, said, “I’m in total
support of stopping NATO and stopping the slaughter of innocent
civilians. If we took the money we spent on bombs and put it
into green energy, we wouldn’t need to keep the sea lanes open”
for oil transport.

The Coalition Against NATO-G8, the group behind Sunday’s
parade, has said it hopes as many as 10,000 people will show
their opposition to the war in Afghanistan by participating in
the march.

“Sunday will be the day the protesters get closest to the
summit, and it will be the day we see the largest number of
protesters,” said Jeff Cramer, a federal former prosecutor who
now runs the Chicago office of the global security consultancy
Kroll International.

“There are certainly going to be arrests and maybe a scuffle
or two. I would be surprised if there weren’t.”

Fears that violence would erupt have so far proved unfounded
as police have absorbed torrents of verbal abuse screamed at
them by some protesters. Experts credited the low arrest numbers
to restraint by both police and protesters.

McCarthy, the police chief, said at the beginning of the
week that his goal was to “extract” those protesters who were
provocative and let others demonstrate peacefully.

“They’re dealing with individuals that are showing signs of
aggression. But they’re allowing people expressing their
opposition to policies to do so,” said Arnette Heintze, a former
Secret Service agent who is now CEO of Hillard Heintze, a
security firm that advised the NATO host committee.

Obama and representatives from some 60 countries are to
discuss the war in Afghanistan and other international security
issues.

(Additional reporting by Ann Saphir, Kyle Peterson, Nick Carey,
and Eric Johnson; Writing by Andrew Stern; Editing by Greg
McCune and Cynthia Osterman)

Source Article from http://www.reuters.com/article/2012/05/20/nato-summit-protests-idUSL1E8GK2M620120520

Kristen Wiig’s Teary Saturday Night Live ‘Graduation’ – People Magazine

admin — Sun, 20 May 2012 18:07:29 +0000

For once, Saturday Night Live didn’t go for laughs, instead ending its season with tears and hugs Saturday night.

In a surprise – and surprisingly emotional – send-off, cast members appeared to bid goodbye to key player Kristen Wiig. The Bridesmaids star’s departure has long been rumored, but has yet to be confirmed by NBC.

Still, the farewell sentiment seemed clear: After host Mick Jagger introduced a class of “graduates,” Wiig took the stage. Then one by one, her SNL costars joined her, each for a brief dance while musical guest Arcade Fire serenaded her with “She’s a Rainbow” and “Ruby Tuesday.”

Last to take a tearful Wiig for a spin: her boss, SNL producer Lorne Michaels.

Pals Amy Poehler and Jon Hamm also joined the final chorus, along with the SNL cast.

Wiig isn’t the only one rumored to be leaving Studio 8H: Speculation has circulated that Jason Sudeikis and Andy Samberg will also be moving on.

NBC has not commented on any possible departures. But in last night’s sequel to Samberg’s earlier viral hit “Lazy Sunday,” the song concluded: “On these New York streets I hone my fake rap penmanship / That’s how it began, and that’s how I’m-a finish it.”

Source Article from http://www.people.com/people/article/0,,20597204,00.html

1. Durant Delivers Every Way In Game 4 – ESPN

admin — Sun, 20 May 2012 17:17:58 +0000

LOS ANGELES — Kevin Durant is the most valuable player in these playoffs.

Ordinarily it would be foolish to make sweeping generalizations based on one day in one building … but with half the remaining NBA participants in action inside Staples Center on Saturday, I’m confident in these proclamations: The San Antonio Spurs are the best team, and Oklahoma City’s Durant is the best player.

You can’t ask a guy to do more to deliver a playoff victory than Durant did down the stretch in the Thunder’s 103-100 Game 4 victory that gave them a 3-1 lead in the series against the Lakers. He guarded Kobe Bryant while Bryant was in the process of missing eight of nine fourth-quarter shots (that doesn’t count the meaningless last-second shot that went in). For the game, Bryant shot 0-for-4 with Durant guarding him.

Durant came up with his second big steal of the series, this time when Pau Gasol ignored an open shot and made a pass that disappointed Mike Brown and infuriated Bryant. He hit a baseline jumper to tie the game and a 3-pointer to put the Thunder up for good with 13.7 seconds remaining.

We’re watching the evolution before our eyes. From scorer to clutch scorer to all-around performer. So thorough were his contributions that his two big shots weren’t the first thing his teammates and coach noticed about his performance.

“Kevin’s defense at the end,” was Thunder coach Scott Brooks’ initial mention of him.

And Derek Fisher, who has been on the court with some of the game’s greatest players in the most important games over the past 12 years, said: “To me one of the most impressive things today was his rebound numbers [13 of 'em] and the way he fought defensively. He guarded Pau Gasol for 5-10 minutes, he guarded Kobe for 5-10 minutes, he guarded [Metta] World Peace for 10-15 minutes. He’s willing to do everything.”

Most of all, he’s willing to take the clutch shots. That’s where we place the most value, what we debate and analyze and devote entire segments of TV sports shows to, the clutch shots. The sportstalkosphere has become so prevalent that Durant admitted that when he lofted that final 3-pointer, while the ball was in the midst of his typical high-arching trajectory, he was worrying about the ramifications if it missed.

“I was thinking, ‘If this doesn’t go in, it’s going to be a terrible shot,’” Durant said. “They’re going to criticize me all night.”

You still have to take them, though, which is what Kobe has steadfastly maintained this series, whether he was sinking free throws all night the way he did in Game 3 or coming up short in the fourth quarter, as he did in Games 2 and 4. Bryant zinged Gasol on Saturday night for his lack of aggressiveness (no shots, no rebounds in the fourth quarter), and felt no need to apologize for the way the offense stalled and the Lakers’ 13-point lead evaporated after he returned in the fourth quarter with the Lakers while he was left to launch high-arching shots over Durant late in the shot clock.

Meanwhile, Russell Westbrook was going tete-a-tete with Kobe and then some, scoring nine consecutive points for the Thunder in the fourth quarter and 38 overall. But when he came up with the ball after the Lakers narrowly avoided a shot-clock violation, he slowed things down and looked for Durant on the left block, against Bryant.

“He’s the best scorer in the game,” Westbrook said. “He’s proven it all season long. He has the confidence in the closing minute in the fourth quarter.

“My job as the point guard is to let him finish it off.”

And so Durant did, with a lovely spin and a baseline jumper, on the opposite side from where he hit his winning shot in Game 2.
That tied it. Kendrick Perkins put back a Westbrook miss to give the Thunder their first lead. And after two Bryant free throws, Durant drove home that killer 3-pointer, brining his point total to 31, giving him 10 makes in 18 field goal attempts.

“That’s who Kevin is,” Fisher said. “He’s one of those special players that we get the privilege of seeing come through our league.”

And right now, in the time that matters the most, no one is performing better.

Dimes past: May 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18

Source Article from http://espn.go.com/nba/dailydime/_/page/dime-120519/daily-dime

Priscilla Chan: New doctor turned Mrs. Zuckerberg – CNN

admin — Sun, 20 May 2012 17:17:55 +0000

(CNN) — She likes Target, the Food Network and sun-dried tomatoes. She loves taking pictures of her dog Beast, and admits to checking her phone “every five seconds.”

Priscilla Chan vaulted into the spotlight on Saturday when it was revealed she had married longtime boyfriend Mark Zuckerberg — billionaire and Facebook founder. The wedding, according to media reports, came within days of Chan’s graduation from medical school at the University of California, San Francisco.

The two met more than nine years ago while both were studying at Harvard. In a 2005 Harvard Crimson story about Zuckerberg leaving the university, he is quoted as asking Chan, identified as a “passing friend,” “Hey, Priscilla, do you want a job at the Facebook?”

“I’d love a job at Facebook,” she responds while “offering him a Twizzler.”

But Chan, who graduated from Harvard as a biology major in 2007, never worked for Facebook.

Instead, the Braintree, Massachusetts, native worked as a fourth- and fifth-grade science teacher at The Harker School in San Jose, California, following her graduation. On Facebook, she described her job as “hanging out with the little ones and trying to explain how the world works.”

She left the school in June 2008 and entered medical school, according to Facebook. “Learning to be a doctor,” she noted on her page.

On the UCSF web site, Chan is quoted along with other students on the school. “I was attracted by the faculty’s honesty and warmth and the curriculum’s inter-disciplinary approach,” she said. “San Francisco’s quirkiness and diversity sealed the deal.”

Chan graduated from Harvard in 2007. A picture posted on another of her Facebook pages shows her in a cap and gown next to Zuckerberg, who was wearing his trademark hoodie.

In another picture from 2007, Chan writes she is with Zuckerberg at the White House Correspondents’ Dinner, noting, “My date was wearing shoes!”

In March 2011, the couple adopted Beast — and, of course, set up a Facebook page for him.

“I am a Puli, which is a type of Hungarian sheepdog,” according to Beast’s page. “I live in Palo Alto with Mark and Cilla. I like cuddling and herding things.”

On his page, Beast is shown lying on Chan’s computer keyboard as she looks at the screen; peering into the fridge for a snack; and describing his “favorite thing in the world … pooping on Mark’s white rug.”

Beast is also shown on Chan’s page, which had been updated as of Sunday to show her married to Zuckerberg.

However, her pages also show a keen sense of humor. She writes that she “loves cooking and soft things” and enjoys diet A&W. “I am a simple creature,” she writes.

One with the power to help change the world: Zuckerberg told ABC News this month that dinner table conversations with Chan helped him formulate an organ-donation initiative on Facebook.

“She’s going to be a pediatrician, so our dinner conversations are often about Facebook and the kids that she’s meeting,” he said. Chan told him, he added, of patients “getting sicker as they don’t have the organ that they need.”

According to her Facebook page, Chan speaks English, Spanish and Cantonese. Zuckerberg told ABC that Chan inspired him to try to learn Mandarin Chinese in one year. The venture wasn’t very successful, he said, but he picked up enough to talk with Chan’s elderly grandmother.

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Facebook Flops: Look Out Below! – Barron’s

admin — Sun, 20 May 2012 17:17:52 +0000

After all the hype and anticipation, Facebook’s initial public offering turned out to be a disappointment that may bode poorly for investors in the company’s richly priced shares.

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Courtesy of NASDAQ/Zef Nikolla

Zuckerberg kicks off trading.

The big question is whether the underwriters will continue to support the stock this week. (More on Facebook’s debut with small investors, at barrons.com.)

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Lockerbie bomber Megrahi dies in Libya – Los Angeles Times

admin — Sun, 20 May 2012 17:17:50 +0000

With both Kadafi and Megrahi now dead, it is unlikely that a clearer picture will emerge around the details and planning of an attack that stunned the world and left debris scattered across Scotland.

“I am an innocent man,” Megrahi, the only person convicted in the case, said in his last interview, published in several British papers in December. “I am about to die and I ask now to be left in peace with my family.”

Many relatives of the Pan Am 103 victims still feel justice has been denied.

“Fine. He deserved to die,” Susan Cohen of Cape May Court House, N.J., whose daughter Theodora died in the attack, told CNN. “He was a mass murderer. I feel no pity around him. He got to die with his family around him. My daughter, at age 20, died a brutal, horrible death.”

Megrahi exemplified “the classic case that no matter how heinous the crime, that justice can be bought,” Victoria Cummock of Miami, whose husband, John, was on the plane, told the cable network.

“His death is a relief,” she added. “Finally Megrahi will be judged by the highest of authorities — our maker, his maker.”

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– Jeffrey Fleishman

Photo: A file photograph dated Sept. 9, 2009, shows convicted Lockerbie PanAm airline bomber Abdel Baset Megrahi, in a wheelchair, visited by a delegation of African parliamentarians in Libya’s Tripoli Central Hospital. Credit: Sabri Elmhedwi / European Pressphoto Agency.

Source Article from http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/world_now/2012/05/lockerbie-bomber-dies-in-libya.html