pimblr.com

No, it’s not one of your favorite classic rock bands staging a reunion..and it’s not a special off-season game of the NFL’s Chargers, who do call this venue home…
What we are talking about here is an event on June 4 which is going to break a record set only last year, an all-time attendance record for any soccer match ever held in the local San Diego area.
The world’s number one ranked senior men’s team - ARGENTINA - is coming to Qualcomm, and they are bringing along their 2007 World Player of the Year runner-up, Lionel Messi.  They will be playing MEXICO in San Diego’s Mission Valley, on the same day, by the way that the USA will be in SPAIN for their own friendly.
All regular tickets have been sold out, and the anticipation is that additional seating made available over last year’s record breaking-crowd for MEXICO v VENEZUELA will set a new mark for attendance for soccer in the region.  The soccer configuration - with a wider playing surface than for the NFL, and other factors taken into  consideration - does mean there are fewer seats available than for a standard NFL game, but the place will be packed, and the rafters will be rocking…with a pro-Mexico local contingent.
Even though the audience will be overwhelmingly in favor of Mexico, Argentina are the team who dominate the match-up historically.  Messi, their true superstar who plays his club ball for Barcelona, placed second in the voting behind Kaka for last year’s FIFA World Footballer of the Year.  He is on the roster, as well as numerous other players well-known around the world.  Several of their top stars preparing for Wednesday hail from the 2008 Spanish League Champion club Real Madrid, and the Italian Serie A 2008 Champions Inter Milan.
The City of San Diego actually borders Mexico, so many ticketholders will be coming across, joining tailgaters and other spectators in an all-day celebratory atmosphere.

mvn.com

By JESSICA MINTZ – 1 day ago
SEATTLE (AP) — Microsoft Corp. is abandoning its effort to scan whole libraries and make their contents searchable, a sign it may be getting choosier about the fights it will pick with Google Inc.
The world’s largest software maker is under pressure to show it has a coherent strategy for turning around its unprofitable online business after its bid for Yahoo Inc., last valued at $47.5 billion, collapsed this month.
Digitizing books and archiving academic journals no longer fits with the company’s plan for its search operation, wrote Satya Nadella, senior vice president of Microsoft’s search and advertising group, in a blog post Friday.
Microsoft will take down two separate sites for searching the contents of books and academic journals next week, and Live Search will direct Web surfers looking for books to non-Microsoft sites, the company said.
Nadella said Microsoft will focus on “verticals with high commercial intent.”
“We believe the next generation of search is about the development of an underlying, sustainable business model for the search engine, consumer and content partner,” Nadella wrote.
At an advertising confab at Microsoft’s Redmond, Wash., headquarters this week, he demonstrated a new system that rewards customers with cash rebates for using Live Search to find and buy items on advertisers’ sites.
Microsoft entered the book-scanning business in 2005 by contributing material to the Open Content Alliance, an industry group conceived by the Internet Archive and Yahoo. In 2006, it unveiled its competing MSN book search site.
Unlike Google, whose decision to scan books still protected under copyright law has provoked multiple lawsuits, Microsoft stuck to scanning books with the permission of publishers or that were firmly in the public domain.
The company said it will give publishers digital copies of the 750,000 books and 80 million journal articles it has amassed.

ap.google.com

A while back, an Oromo friend forwarded to me an excellent paper, a theological rather than historical analysis of Waaqeffannaa, the genuine Oromo religion. The text was written by one of Oromia´s foremost intellectuals whose vast knowledge, academic methodology, sociopolitical approach, and spiritual values are a great advantage for the entire Oromo nation.
Mr. Getachew Chamadaa Nadhabaasaa´s text under the title ´Waaqeffannaa
Testimony of an Indigenous Religion of the African Past and Present´ had earlier been published in a forum, posted on Tuesday, August 31, 2004, 3:05 am, by Cancuu. Two brief enthusiastic comments had been added in Afaan Oromo without further discussion, although the text offers the possibility of extensive analysis, substantial commentaries, and rich exchange of ideas and viewpoints
In the beginning, I thought to republish the text integrally and then comment extensively; soon I realized that this would be counter-productive. My comments will go far beyond the limits of one or two articles, as Mr. Nadhabaasaa´s text covers a wide range of subjects from the possible origins of Waaqeffannaa, the Kushitic Antiquity and the Kushitic religions, the differences existing between Waaqeffannaa and the so-called ´three monotheisms´ (Judaism, Christianity, Islam), the essence of Monotheism, and the great cultural chasm that separates the Kushitic Oromo Ethiopians from the Semitic Amhara and Tigray Abyssinians to the interrelationship between religion, society and politics, the originality of the African Democracy, and the revelation of the reasons for which the English colonialists so deeply hated the Oromo nation and attempted to totally destroy it by using the Abyssinians. I do not mean that Mr. Nadhabaasaa´s text analyzes all these issues; however, his text sheds light on many points that inaugurate polarizations around, initiate a better understanding of, and instigate further research on, all the aforementioned issues.
In addition, Mr. Nadhabaasaa´s is a text of its own, outstanding, value that deserves distinct treatment and independent publication. I would even consider it as a turning point in the History of Waaqeffannaa, the subject that it describes! Very little has been published so far about the genuine, historical Oromo religion; even less has been published about the future of Waaqeffannaa, the challenges the historical Oromo religion currently faces, in what Waaqeffannaa is necessary to all the Oromos, and eventually other people as well, and how it can survive.

americanchronicle.com

Through various means during World War II, some Jewish people found ways of going into hiding to avoid the Nazis’ death sentence, and there were also those who were able to escape from their grip. Some were completely on their own whereas others received varying amounts of assistance from people they knew or strangers.
About 10,000 children were able to find refuge in Great Britain through the Kindertransport, which is a German word meaning “transportation of children.” During the transports, which were held from December of 1938 to September of 1939, children left their parents to eventually live in foster homes.
Fresh Meadows resident Ellen Alexander, who was born in Berlin in 1929, went on the Kindertransport with her older sister Ursula. As a 10-year-old, she considered it a big adventure. She and her sister stayed with a couple previously unknown to the family throughout the duration of the war.
Another way that some of the Jews tried to escape the horrors going on in their home countries was by obtaining passage on ships to go to other countries. Known as “ships to nowhere,” they faced many problems, including poor conditions and overcrowding. Many of the ships were denied entry into various ports of call and many lives were lost on these ships.
Esther Katz, now a resident of Hillcrest, was only three and a half when she and her mother boarded the Navemar en route to the United States. Although the boat was built with just a two dozen passenger cabins, it instead held over 1,200 during the voyage. Katz said that her mother was sick the entire time and that, as a child, she was preoccupied with making friends. When they got off the Navemar, they were met by Katz’s father and settled in New York City.
“This was one of the last boats that left Germany,” Katz said. “It was luck, a miracle.”

queenscourier.com

The latest study of the economic impact of sports in Southern California is scheduled to be released today by the L.A. Sports Council and the Chamber of Commerce.
Sports contribute to the economy in so many wonderful ways, I worry that even experts could miss some. A few reminders:
$30,000 to flat-screen television salesmen, cell-phone service providers and clothing stores on behalf of O.J.Mayo.
$45,000 to airlines for flight switches by UCLA fans coming home early from the Final Four.
$743,000 to auto-body shops for repairs made necessary by fender-benders at exits from Dodger Stadium parking lot.
$8 million to builders of architectural scale models of proposed Los Angeles-area football stadiums.
$378,000 in TV satellite rental fees to assist live coverage of Kobe Bryant demands, denials and clarifications.
$14,796,000 to injury-rehab facilities for treatment of Clippers players.
$1.3 million from Andruw Jones for a season’s worth of Jumbo Jacks with cheese.
$249 million to tattoo parlors and hair stylists from David Beckham.
$24.9 million to tattoo removers from parents whose kids emulate David Beckham.
$76,000 in co-payments to HMO urgent-care facilities from patients requiring extractions of four-inch splinters picked up from Coliseum seats.
$6 million for extra fuel for traffic helicopters reporting on congestion stemming from major events at the Rose Bowl.
$1.7 million from Yhency Brazoban for a season’s worth of Jumbo Jacks with cheese and give me one of your large strawberry shakes.
$13,427 in postage to forward mysterious packages still arriving at Dodger Stadium for Paul Lo Duca and Eric Gagne.
$660 million from Dallas Cowboys players to “in-room entertainers” during training camp in Oxnard.
$2.5 million from Jonathan Broxton for a season’s worth of Jumbo Jacks with cheese and give me one of your large strawberry shakes and while you’re at it make it another Jumbo Jack with cheese.

dailynews.com

The Indian Premier League started off with a bang on the cricket ground, but it has failed to live up to the expectations. It started off with a rather unusual domain name registration of www.iplt20.com and www.t20.com. The URL www.indianpremierleague.com was not available earlier, but now it seems to have been bought over to redirect to the www.iplt20.com site. IPL was conceptualized on the lines of European football leagues and the American football league and was looking at catering to and raking moolah through the fans spread across the cricketing nations of the world. However, the site has failed miserably to cater to the the Indian and global fan following.
A quick look at the English Premier League and National Football League websites will tell us that IPL is taking things too far by putting up flash ads on its website. As if the money generated by the league teams is not enough, IPL website is cluttered with the online advertisements and an irritating video promoting the league. The EPL and NFL websites have never seen any commercial advertisements beyond the sponsor logos. The basic structure of a league site should involve the scorecards, links to the websites of different teams, opinions of experts, statistics, team standings and headlines section all arranged in a structured manner. But surprisingly, on opening the page, all one can view is a black screen (loading the flash video of promo) covering half the screen, and the two prominent logos. (BCCI and a big ad directing the viewer to the site of NetlinkBlue -  the developer and maintenance provider of the site!!) The teams logos are visible on the top, but appear small as compared to BCCI - as if telling the viewers clearly who the boss is!!
One scroll down and you are greeted with one-third screen full of advertisement banner on one side (more money) and tabs of headlines and expert-opinion on the other. The middle part has again a team-tracker, which can be avoided as the team logos are already present on the top. A separate page describing all teams (profile, stats, pictures, scorecards, management etc) can be designed with an easy search option.

thaindian.com

Geoffrey Hampson doesn’t know much of the rules of cricket. But, as the CEO of the Vancouver-based Live Current Media group, he pulled off a major coup by upstaging many mainstream media companies and bagging a $50 million (Rs 200 crore) contract to host the IPL’s online content.
“I don’t understand the sport completely but I do have some good tutors,” the 50-year old Hampson said on a lighter note when asked how he got interested in his company’s biggest ever single deal.
“I’m picking up the basics of the game and have some people of Indian descent in the company to help me understand the nuances,” he told the Hindustan Times in a phone interview. Until Thursday, the 22-employee company was unknown in India. It was quite a surprise when the IPL and the LCM announced they had inked a 10-year-deal on online content.
The LCM will manage and run two websites to generate revenue, IPLT20.com and BCCI.tv. The IPLT20.com was launched on Friday.
According to the LCM, now fans from around the world can have complete access to the 44-day long season. The site offers access to official league content including audio-visual content, photographs, live scoreboards and summaries, match results, Fantasy Cricket, player interviews, profiles, schedules, statistics, ticketing and fan interaction through polls, contests and newsletters.
As per the terms of the deal, LCM will make a guaranteed payment of $5m a year — $3m for the BCCI and a separate $2m for the IPL — for the online rights. After that, revenue will be shared between the partners based on advertising, sponsorship and merchandise sales through the two websites.
It will be a social networking site revolving around the cricket sport. It would also have a fantasy cricket application for Facebook. The video footage and pictures of the IPL fixtures will be for sale on the website, however no live streaming of games will be offered.

hindustantimes.com

Apr 11 2008 by Gavin Allen, South Wales Echo
WHEN Frank Sinatra requested the words The Best Is Yet To Come as his epitaph, this probably wasn’t what he had in mind. David Leveaux, the man who has helped resurrect an icon, tells Gavin Allen why… and how.
NEW technological advances bring the next generation of entertainment to South Wales next week – and the future is Frank Sinatra.
Ol’ Blue Eyes has been resurrected via “live” film footage in a show called Sinatra, and will perform across a series of 20ft video screens at Cardiff International Arena backed by a troupe of live dancers and a live 20-piece orchestra.
Doctoring film footage to create a “new” show by a dead performer raises some ethical questions and after the show’s debut at the London Palladium last year The Guardian’s Michael Billington called it “glitzy necrophilia”.
The show’s director, David Leveaux, is clearly annoyed when that criticism is raised.
“That is just ridiculous,” hissed the respected 50-year-old. “If that’s the case then he shouldn’t ever watch a Laurence Olivier film again, or listen to music by Elvis.”
If Leveaux was more cavalier about the production I’d be more likely to agree with Billington’s criticism, but Leveaux is a five-time Tony Award-nominated veteran and he has clearly thought about his involvement.
Significantly Sinatra’s family are behind the production, which came about when a previously unreleased 35mm film of Sinatra – one he had commissioned of himself – was discovered in the family vaults.
It was first aired during a Sinatra celebration at Radio City Music Hall, New York, in 2003 and soon after Leveaux was approached by the show’s producers to see if he could fashion a live production from the film; Leveaux believed he could.
Sinatra quickly paid back a chunk of its massive £5m budget with a record-breaking run at the Palladium and its current UK tour is proving very popular because, according to Leveaux, the show received the financial backing it needed.

icwales.icnetwork.co.uk

Wednesday night YouNewsTV users helped CBS 5 document the lunar eclipse.
Bryon Rexford shot video of the moon from outside a school in Fredonia.He’s been shooting events and says he is most fascinated by the weather.
Another entry came from Shawn O’Neil in Oswego. He uploaded several pictures to YouNewsTV.
Click the video link to see Michael Benny’s full report on how YouNewsTV users helped CBS 5 document this lunar eclipse.
Portions may also be copyrighted by the Associated Press and/or CBS. WTVH is an Equal Employment Opportunity Company.

wtvh.com

Click on the link below the photo for the LIVE ball-by-ball scorecard!
Gilchrist capped his last appearance at the WACA in Perth with a superb 118 but got little support from his team mates as Australia crumbled to be all out for 236.
Michael Clarke made 43 and Ricky Ponting and Mike Hussey chipped in with 25 each but none of the remaining seven batsmen made it to double figures.
Lasith Malinga was the standout bowler for the Sri Lankans, capturing four wickets for 47 runs with his unusual round-arm action, while Nuwan Kulasekera claimed two scalps.
Gilchrist announced last month he was retiring from international cricket after the tri-series but was determined to make a big impression in his last match at the WACA.
With his family watching from the stands, Gilchrist tore into Sri Lanka’s bowlers with a brutal but controlled display, hitting nine boundaries and three sixes.
He brought up his 16th one-day international hundred off 117 balls before eventually falling to Malinga while trying to increase the scoring rate.
Gilchrist’s departure triggered a batting collapse and the Australians lost their last six wickets for just 30 runs to be all out in the last over.

uk.eurosport.yahoo.com