Posted in Others
Wigan got their bid to finish top of Super League back on course last night, against a Hull side who were a pale imitation of the one that beat their neighbours so memorably eight days earlier.
With Shaun Wane in charge during Michael Maguire's period of compassionate leave, the Warriors rarely looked back after they had taken an early 12-point lead. It was all a little too easy, especially down the vulnerable right-hand side of Hull's defence, where Wigan repeatedly made inroads. "This week has been a tough week, but the lads responded," said Wane. "I could tell that they were ready to rip into someone and they've done that tonight."
Hull's coach Richard Agar said: "We've got to be a whole lot better because they've got a very ruthless streak to them. Some of our individual errors heaped pressure on us."
Pat Richards led the way with 26 points, from his seven goals and a hat-trick of tries, to take his season total to 24, while Sam Tomkins and Liam Farrell chipped in with two apiece. It was an antidote to any suggestion that Wigan are losing their way in pursuit of the League Leaders' Shield, but in truth they had little to beat.
It always looked like an interesting time for these two sides to play each other. Wigan were still stinging from their defeat by Warrington a week earlier, while Hull's victory in the Humberside derby the night before that had come at a price, with Richard Whiting and Mark Calderwood added to their long-term injury list.
It took 12 minutes before Wigan went into the lead, but when they did it was by virtue of quick back-to-back tries. Hull put themselves under pressure when Lee Radford was penalised for holding down Sam Tomkins and, from that attack, Paul Deacon kicked for Pat Richards to score in the corner, despite Craig Hall's tackle.
From the restart Wigan went back again, Liam Farrell tumbling over the try-line after good work by George Carmont and Richards. With Richards' first two goals, Wigan were already well in command.
Richard Horne did ask a series of questions of the league leaders' defence, but answers were always forthcoming. One of Hull's more promising moments came when Kirk Yeaman slipped a clever pass to Willie Manu but that too came to nothing. By contrast, Wigan were clinical and they increased their lead with another rapid double-strike. Sean O'Loughlin's pass looked suspect, but Darrell Goulding was credited, like Richards, with his 23rd try of the season. Then Richards fielded Sam Tomkins' kick and returned it to him for a fourth try.
Wigan started the second half with the same players doing the damage, Richards kicking infield for Tomkins to touch down. Goulding had to be helped off after a high tackle from Yeaman that showed all too clearly Hull's desperation, but surprisingly brought no card for the culprit.
Harrison Hansen then laid on another for Richards down that same wide-open right flank, after Jordan Tansey had clumsily helped Deacon's kick over the dead-ball line.
Hull looked drained as their visitors turned on the style after that, with Sam Moa's bullocking run a rare bright moment. Even that was soon overshadowed by Sam Tomkins' run and reverse pass to give Farrell his second.
Richards completed his hat-trick from a looping pass from Paul Deacon and made it seven goals from eight from the touchline. By then, Hull were offering little more than target practice.
Hull: Tansey; Hall, Turner, Yeaman, Briscoe; Horne, Berrigan; Dowes, Haughton, Radford, Lauaki, Manu, Washbrook. Substitutes used: Moa, Cusack, Burnett, Nicklas.
Wigan: S.Tomkins; Goulding, Gleeson, Carmont, Richards; Deacon, Leuluai, Prescott, Riddell, Coley, Farrell, J.Tomkins, O'Loughlin. Substitutes used: Tuson, Paleaasina, Fielden, Hansen.
driver from www.independent.co.uk
Posted in Others
Hillary Clinton was in Hanoi yesterday, where Vietnam's Deputy Prime Minister, Pham Gia Khiem, presented her with a portrait of her and her daughter Chelsea wearing traditional Vietnamese conical hats called non la. After the ultra-tasteful Obama/Cameron exchange of an Ed Ruscha for a piece by "former hoodie" Ben Eine, this painting, with its puce and gold frame, marks a return to a more familiar sort of international gift swap: the "is-he-taking-the-piss?" present.
* David Cameron is keen to give businesspeople ambassadorial roles, in the hope of reforming British foreign policy around "commercial and business interests". I contacted some senior business figures to sound them out about representing their nation abroad. The response was lukewarm, though Jon Moulton, the boss of private equity firm Better Capital, said: "I'd like to nominate a few of my business colleagues to be sent to such exciting places as Kyrgyzstan." Hilary Devey, best known as The Business Inspector on Five, enthused: "I would jump at the chance to be a British ambassador to Iraq, Sierra Leone, or Afghanistan." Unfortunately, Sir Richard Branson was too busy kite-surfing in the Caribbean to take my call.
* Barbara, Lady Black of No-Fixed-Abode, was dragged to the depths of loneliness by her husband Conrad's incarceration. In a recent column for the Canadian weekly magazine Maclean's, she recalls pondering a Lena Horne lyric one solitary evening at the couple's cavernous Florida mansion: "Stormy weather, since my man and I ain't together". Horne, Lady Black explained, "came to Toronto and sang that at the Prince George Hotel, which belonged to my first husband's parents." (Lord Black is her fourth.) Her reverie was interrupted by the buzzer: a man claiming to be a census-taker was at the gate. He skidaddled upon hearing the barks of her Hungarian Kuvasz hounds, but she had already informed him, not entirely truthfully: "I'm not a US resident... I'm just visiting." Now that Lord Black has been told not to leave the country, her visit may last longer than expected.
* Our sometime correspondent from the Cotswolds, Crispin Mount, writes to tell me of another scandal perpetrated by his local "bumbling shire Tories". Cotswold District Council has been rewarding its public-sector workers with chocolates in return for switching their computers off at night. Naturally, this is seen as an environmental initiative, so the cash spent on the sweets comes out of the council's sustainability budget. "What is most galling," poor Crispin laments, "is that if I want to be 'green' the very same council will charge me £30 per annum for a green waste service. Can I have a chocolate if I close my bin lid? No – just a bloody fixed-penalty notice if I don't."
* Eat, Pray, Love is the bestselling memoir by US author Elizabeth Gilbert, who, after divorcing her husband, Michael Cooper, spent a year globetrotting, in the process finding herself and, eventually, a second husband. A promised companion volume by Cooper, however, will not now be materialising. Cooper had planned to publish his own side of the divorce story – entitled Displaced – with Hyperion books. But, he told the New York Post, the publisher wanted him to "push the book in a more controversial direction, something I was unwilling to do... I set out to write about how, in the wake of a devastating and unexpected divorce, I slowly rebuilt my life by redoubling my already decades-long commitment to humanitarian relief and human rights work." Sounds like a riot.
driver from www.independent.co.uk
Posted in Others
Now in its third season, History Channel's buy-and-sell reality series, Pawn Stars (Monday, 10/9c), is hotter than a stolen diamond ring. With help from hock-eyed pawnbroker Rick Harrison—who runs the family business with his pop and son—we got the lowdown on the guys. Corey Harrison Corey is the resident pop-culture expert. "The other day, John Mayer wanted to go out to lunch to talk watches and I didn't know who he was and I thought, 'Corey would know!'" says Rick of his son. "But Corey's very business-minded, too." Rick Harrison Don't try to pawn off a forgery on Rick. He can spot a counterfeit before a customer walks in the door. "It's amazing some of the stuff they fake nowadays," he says. His trick for spotting a faux watch? "With Rolex, there are no factory seconds. They are perfect. On a fake, there will always be something wrong." Richard "THE OLD MAN" Harrison Richard drives a hard bargain and is an expert in the shiny stuff. "He always bought and sold gold, and taught me about it when I was a kid," says Rick of his dad. "In 1981, he went broke in San Diego and moved the whole family to Las Vegas, where he opened up a small secondhand store. We just learned as we went."
driver from www.tvguide.com
Posted in Others
Republicans are no longer denying the scientific basis for global warming. That's good news for those of us who have grown accustomed to the continued existence of things like polar sea ice, various forms of life, and Miami. The bad news is that Republicans, having seen the light, have fallen back on the possibly even more annoying stance of simply refusing to do anything about the problem.
Posted in Others
Coal seemed to satisfy the demand, and it fueled the earliest power stations (which were set up at the end of the nineteenth century by Edison himself) .As more power plants con-structed throughout the country, the reliance on coal increased.Since the First World War,coalfired power plants have accounted for about half of the electricity produced in the United States each year.In 1986 such plants had a combined generating capacity of 289,000 megawatts (jJliBi) and con-sumed 83 percent of the nearly 900 million tons of coal mined in the coun-try that year.Given the uncertainty in the future growth of nuclear power and in the supply of oil and natural gas, coal-fired power plants could well pro-vide up 70 percent of the electric power in the United States by the end of the century.
Yet, in spite of the fact that coal has long been a source of electricity and may remain one for many years (coal represents about 80 percent of U-nited States fossil-fuel reserves), it has actually never been the most desir¬able fossil fuel for power plants.Coal contains less energy per unit of weight than natural gas or oiljit is difficult to transport , and it is associated with a host of environmental issues, among them acid rain.Since the late 1960's problems of emission control and waste disposal have sharply reduced the appeal of coal-fired power plants.The cost of ameliorating^ Bfc If )these envi-ronmental problems , along with the rising cost of building a facility as large and complex as a coal-fired power plant, have also made such plants less at-tractive from a purely economic perspective.
Changes in the technological base of coal-fired power plants could re-store their attractiveness , however. Whereas some of these changes are evolu-tionary and are intended mainly to increase the productivity of existing plants , completely new technologies for burning coal cleanly are also being developed.
Posted in Others
Richard Satava, program manager for advanced medical technologies, has been a driving force in bringing virtual reality to medicine, where computers create a "virtual" or simulated environment for surgeons and other medical practitioners ( /Rik^ ).
"With virtual reality we'll be able to put a surgeon in every trench," said Satava. He envisaged a time when soldiers who are wounded fighting o-verseas are put in mobile surgical units equipped with computers. The computers would transmit images of the soldiers to surgeons back in the U.S. The surgeons would look at the soldier through virtual reality helmets (5fer^) that contain a small screen displaying the image of the wound. The doctors would guide robotic instruments in the battlefield mobile surgical u-nit that operate on the soldier.
Although Satava's vision may be years away from standard operating procedure, scientists are progressing toward virtual reality surgery. Engi¬neers at an international organization in California are developing a tele-operating device. As surgeons watch a three -dimensional image of the surgery, they move instruments that are connected to a computer, which passes their movements to robotic instruments that perform the surgery. The computer provides, feedback to the surgeon on force, textures, and sound.
These technological wonders may not yet be part of the community hospi¬tal setting but increasingly some of the machinery is finding its way into civil¬ian medicine. At Wayne State University Medical School, surgeon Lucia Zamorano takes images of the brain from computerized scans and uses a com¬puter program to produce a 3-D image. She can then maneuver the 3-D image on the computer screen to map the shortest, least invasive surgical path to the tumor (WiH). Zamorano is also using technology that attaches a probe to surgi¬cal instruments so that she can track their positions. While cutting away a tu¬mor deep in the brain, she watches the movement of her surgical tools in a computer graphics image of the patient's brain taken before surgery.
During these procedures — operations that are done through small cuts in the body in which a miniature camera and surgical tools are maneu-vered — surgeons are wearing 3-D glasses for a better view. And they are commanding robot surgeons to cut away tissue more accurately than human surgeons can.
Satava says, "We are in the midst of a fundamental change in the field of medicine. "
Posted in Others
It seems simple enough to distinguish between the organism and the surrounding environment and to separate forces acting on an organism into those that are internal and biological and those that are external and environmental. But in actual practice this system breaks down in many ways, because the organism and the environment are constantly interacting so that the environment is modified by the organism and vice versa
It the case of man, the difficulties with the environmental concept are even more complicated because we have to deal with man as an animal and with man as a bearer (•^^ ;£-) of culture. If we look at man as an animal and try to analyze the environmental forces that are acting on the organism, we find that we have to deal with things like climate, soil, plants, and such-like factors common to all biological situations; but we also find, always, very important environmental influences that we can only class as "cultural", which modify the physical and biological factors. But man, as we know him, is always a bearer of culture; and if we study human nature, we find that it, in return, is modified by the environmental factors of slimate and geography. We thus easily get into great difficulties from the necessity of viewing Dulture, at one moment, as a part of the man and, at another moment, as a part of the
snvironment.
Posted in Others
Thus many are convinced their dreams are prophetic (Wmffi) because a few have come true; they neglect or fail to notice the many that have not.
Consider also the belief that "the phone always rings when I'm in the shower." If it does ring while you are in the shower, the event will stand out and be remembered. If it doesn't ring, that nonevent probably won't even register (STEP^) .
People want to see order, pattern and meaning in the world. Consider, for example, the common belief that things like personal misfortunes, plane crashes, and deaths " happen in threes." Such beliefs stem from the tendency of people to allow the third event to define the time period. If three plane crashes occur in a month, then the period of time that counts as their " happening together" is one month; if three crashes occur in a year, the period of time is stretched. Flexible end points reinforce such beliefs.
We also tend to believe what we want to believe. A majority of people think they are more intelligent, more fair-minded and more skilled behind the wheel of an automobile than the average person. Part of the reason we view ourselves so favorably is that we use criteria that work to our advantage. As economist Thomas Schelling explains, " Everybody ranks himself high in qualities he values; careful drivers give weight to care, skilled drivers give weight to skill, and those who are polite give weight to courtesy." This way everyone ranks high on his own scale.
Perhaps the most important mental habit we can learn is to be cautious (iSfill-ft) in drawing conclusions. The "evidence" of everyday life is sometimes misleading.
Posted in Others
They probably came about just to five children something to do.
In the ancient world, as is today, most boys played with some kinds of toys and most girls with another. In societies where social roles are rigidly determined, boys pattern their play after the activities of their fathers and girls after the tasks of their mothers. This is true because boys and girls are being prepared, even in play, to step into the roles and responsibilities of the adult world.
What is remarkable about the history of toys is not so much how they changed over the centuries but how much they have remained the same. The changes have been mostly in terms of craftsmanship, mechanics, and technology. It is the universality of toys with regard to their development in all part of the world and their persistence to the present that is amazing. In Egypt, the Americas, China, Japan and among the Arctic (db^S&^l) peoples, generally the same kinds of toys appeared. Variations depended on local customs and ways of life because toys imitate their surroundings. Nearly every civilization had dolls, little weapons, toy soldiers, tiny animals and vehicles.
Because toys can be generally regarded as a kind of art form, they have not been subject to technological leaps that characterize inventions for adult use. The progress from the wheel to the oxcart to the automobile is a direct line of ascent (iftii?). The progress from a rattle ($T/jlt£)used by a baby in 3000 BC to one used by an infant today, however, is not characterized by inventiveness. Each rattle is the product of the artistic tastes of the times and subject to the limitations of available materials.
Posted in Others
Many argue that it is an effective deterrent to murder, while others maintain there is no convincing evidence that the death penalty reduces the number of murders.
The principal argument advanced by those opposed to the death penalty, basically, is that it is cruel and inhuman punishment, that it is the mark of a brutal society, and finally that it is of questionable effectiveness as a deterrent to crime anyway.
In our opinion, the death penalty is a necessary evil. Throughout recorded history there have always been these extreme individuals in every society who were capable of terribly violent crimes such as murder. But some are more extreme than others.
For example, it is one thing to take the life of another in a fit of blind rage, but quite another to coldly plot and carry out the murder of one or more people in the style of a butcher. Thus, murder, like all other crimes, is a matter of relative degree. While it could be argued with some conviction that the criminal in the first instance should be merely isolated from society, such should not be the fate of the latter type murderer.
The value of the death penalty as a deterrent to crime may be open to debate. But the overwhelming majority of citizens believe that the death penalty protects them. Their belief is reinforced by evidence which shows that the death penalty deters murder. For example, from 1954 to 1963, when the death penalty was consistently imposed in California, the murder rate remained between three and four murders for each 100,000 population. Since 1964 the death penalty has been imposed only once, and the murder rate has risen to 10.4 murders for each 100, 000 population. The sharp climb in the state's murder rate, which began when executions stopped, is no coincidence. It is convincing evidence that the death penalty does deter many murderers. If the bill reestablishing the death penalty is vetoed, innocent people will be murdered—some whose lives may have been saved if the death penalty were in effect. This is literally a life or death matter. The lives of thousands of innocent people must be protected.
