
Dwyane Wade had a message and a reminder for his teammate when it ended: “Congratulations, LeBron, you just won your first NBA Finals game.”
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Anthony Weiner has a richly-earned reputation as one of the most press savvy legislators on Capitol Hill, a smart, cocky, quick-witted quote machine who has become a favorite of television producers and built a sizable national following in the last few years.
The best that can be said, then, about the seven minutes he spent in front of reporters and television cameras late Tuesday afternoon is that his performance was totally and completely out of character.
Over and over, reporters asked him a basic, direct question: Did he send a lewd photograph to a female college student from his Twitter account or not? But Weiner -- the same man who became a national celebrity last year with a House floor rant against Republicans who refused to state clearly and simply whether they were for or against a bill -- steadfastly refused to provide an answer. Nor would he answer questions about why he hasn't asked police to investigate what he previously alleged was a hacking of his Twitter account or why he would be following a 20-year-old college student on Twitter.
For instance, here was his exchange with CNN's Dana Bash and another reporter at the start of the press conference:
Weiner: This was a prank that I’ve now been talking about for a couple of days. I’m not going to allow it to decide what I talk about for the next week or the next two weeks, and so I’m not going to be giving anything more about that today. I think I’ve been pretty responsive to you in the past.
Bash: You're here, which we appreciate. But you're not answering the questions. Can you just say why you haven’t asked law enforcement to investigate what you have said is a crime?
Weiner: If I was giving a speech to 45,000 people and someone in the back of the room threw a pie or yelled out an insult, would I spend the next two hours responding to that? No. I would get back..
Male reporter: This is not that situation. This is not that situation.i
Weiner: Well, why don't you do -- do you want to do the briefing? Do you want to do the briefing, sir?
Male reporter: You sent from your Twitter account -- a lewd photograph sent to a college student. Answer the question: Was it from you or not?
Weiner: Permit...do you guys want me to finish my answer?
Male reporter: Yes, this question: Did you send it or not?
Weiner: If I were giving a speech to 45,000 people and someone in the back of the room threw a pie or yelled out an insult, I would not spend the next two hours of my speech responding to that pie or that insult. I would return to what I want to talk about to the audience that I want to talk to...
Male reporter: All you have to do is say no to the question
Weiner: ...and that is what I intend to do this week.
Male reporter: All you have to do is say no to the question.
This evasiveness was notable, as was the lack of Weiner's trademark swagger. It was an uncharacteristically defensive performance that seemed to go on and on, with forced attempts at humor and awkward efforts to change the subject to ... Clarence Thomas. Politico's Maggie Haberman noted on Twitter that a "media savvy" non-Republican friend of hers likened it all to watching a Saw movie.
What, if anything, this all means remains unclear. All we know now is that a lewd image was apparently sent from Weiner's Twitter account over the weekend and that he has said his account was hacked (along with his Facebook page). But if he thought his appearance before the press would put the story to rest, it had the exact opposite effect. CNN played the entire seven-minute in primetime Tuesday night, and each New York network affiliate played the Weiner story prominently at the top of its 11 P.M. newscast. We can only imagine what the Post and the Daily News have in store for him in the morning.
Mike Ehrmann/ Getty Images - The NBA Finals represent a referendum on LeBron James’s progress as an all-time great NBA player.
Dwyane Wade had a message and a reminder for his teammate when it ended: “Congratulations, LeBron, you just won your first NBA Finals game.”
Either way, win or lose, hoist that big, beautiful gold ball in triumph or humbly bow his head in defeat, LeBron already owns these NBA Finals. They are his the way the 1991 Finals were Michael Jordan’s and the 2000 Finals belonged to Kobe Bryant and Shaquille O’Neal — the way the entire basketball community anxiously waited to see if the child stars had yet matured into championship adults.
The Heat was too defensive for Dirk Nowitzki and Dallas, and as white hankies rain down from the rafters of American Airlines Arena, Miami moved three wins away from Team Collusion’s stated goal.
Good sign for the Heat: Jose Barea, Jason Terry and Peja Stojakovic, who looked like a deer in headlights, missed 17 of the 21 shots they took. Dallas can’t win this without its bench outperforming Miami’s.
LeBron had a nice line — 24 points, 9 rebounds and 5 assists to 1 turnover, even if he didn’t score in the fourth quarter until the game was decided.
Now here comes the double-edged sword for LeBron the next two weeks: He needs to close or the criticism won’t cease.
A great, young player only is afforded so many years to grow up and become king before the derision becomes more damning than “The Decision.”
Michael needed a grueling seven seasons to win it all. Kobe needed just four to win a title, but that’s mainly because he had Shaq, who before he won was eviscerated as a B-movie-making, hip-hopping lug more interested in studio time than court time.
When the Lakers won, the wait was over — not just for Shaq and Kobe, but for a league patiently biding its time before another star-laden team could help fill the void left by Michael’s Bulls.
Let’s be clear: A victory by LeBron and his Super Friends is important for David Stern’s NBA, almost as important as it is for the Heat and its 26-year-old supernova. Indeed, as the ball left LeBron’s hand at the end of the third quarter Tuesday night, deep on the right wing behind the three-point line, the league needed that swish almost as much as he did.
Of course this is also about whether the Mavericks can win a title in the Dirk Nowitzki era — whether Dirk and Jason Kidd will join Elgin Baylor, Patrick Ewing, Karl Malone, John Stockton and Charles Barkley as some of the greatest players to never celebrate an NBA championship.
But mostly this is about LeBron. Four years after his last appearance in the championship round, the next two weeks represent a referendum on his progress as an all-time great player. It’s easy to measure.
The Heat wins and he is ready to take Kobe’s place as the most necessary, must-see player in pro basketball. Miami loses, and LeBron is 0-2 in the Finals with two different teams. Completing his eighth season without a title, he would also have been in the league one year longer than when Michael won his first title. Jordan had two championships at the completion of his eighth season.
By Sophie Schillaci
May 22, 2011 10:12 PM ET
After an electric performance from Rihanna and Britney Spears to kick off Sunday night's show and followed later by a duet between Far East Movement and Snoop Dogg, the Billboard Music Awards kept the collaborations coming with an inspired set from Mary J. Blige and Lil Wayne.
Entering the stage on a post-apocalyptic street corner set, with light poles down and and the street in ruins, Blige belted out "Someone to Love Me (Naked)" from her upcoming record, "My Life II: The Journey Continues."
The "Queen of R&B" was at the top of her game, giving a diva-esque performance as she paced about the stage, looking stunning in a long white overcoat and dangling golden earrings.
As expected, Weezy joined Blige onstage halfway through, with a Lakers cap atop his head. Though a small portion of Wayne's verse was censored during the TV broadcast, the crowd immediately in front of the performers seemed to catch the full effect quite well.
Afterward, the "Lollipop" rapper sat down on the stairs behind Blige, leading the audience in a chorus of claps while the diva brought the song home. And though Wayne was all smiles following the performance, Blige put an accent on the thrilling set with a defiant stare into the crowd before embracing Wayne.
The performance added to a continuing evening of live performances and award recipients at the BBMAs, airing on ABC from the MGM Grand Arena in Las Vegas. Taio Cruz, Nicki Minaj, Britney Spears performed at the show, while Rihanna won an award for Top Female Artist and U2 was honored with a special Touring Award.
Bin Laden praises Arab uprisings and calls on followers to help in bringing down more "tyrants" in the Muslim world. Last Modified: 19 May 2011 02:45 | ||
Al-Qaeda have released a posthumous audio recording by Osama bin Laden in which the group's late leader praised revolutions sweeping the Arab world. In the audio posted on Islamist websites on Thursday, bin Laden called on his followers to help efforts to bring down more "tyrants" in the Muslim world. Bin Laden, who was killed in a US raid on May 2 in Pakistan, called on al-Qaeda supporters to "set up an operations room that follows up events and works in parallel ... to save the people that are struggling to bring down their tyrants". Al-Qaeda said bin Laden had recorded the message a week before his death. The audio was included in an Internet video lasting more than 12 minutes. In the audio, a voice which appears to be bin Laden's referred to the wave of revolutions which began in the Maghreb region of North Africa. 'Winds of change' "The sun of the revolution has risen from the Maghreb. The light of the revolution came from Tunisia. It has given the nation tranquility and made the faces of the people happy." Tunisia's president was overthrown in January, followed by Egyptian leader Hosni Mubarak after mass protests centred on Cairo's Tahrir Square. "Tunisia was the first but swiftly the knights of Egypt have taken a spark from the free people of Tunisia to Tahrir Square," said bin Laden, adding: "It has made the rulers worried." He predicted that the winds of change would blow over the entire Muslim world. "I think that the winds of change will blow over the entire Muslim world, with permission from Allah. "A delay may cause the opportunity to be lost, and carrying it out before the right time will increase the number of casualties," bin Laden says in the audio message. |
An underwater volcano exploded near Tonga in the South Pacific to stunning effect this week. The pictures of gas and steam erupting out of the surface of the water captivated the world.
Here at Wired Science, we love volcanoes — so we decided to use the Tongan eruption to round up some of our favorite volcano eruption pics and present them as big. Above, you can see Mt. Cleveland in Alaska erupting on May 23, 2006 as photographed by NASA’s Earth Observatory .
Next up is the glorious explosion, below, of Mt. Pinatubo in the Philippines back in 1991. Credit: USGS
Mt. St. Helens, located about 50 miles north of Portland, Oregon in southern Washington state, experienced the most catastrophic eruption of recent memory. In 1980, the mountain literally blew its top. In one day, Mt. St. Helens lost more than 1,000 feet of elevation. Photo: USGS.
Here we see an aerial photograph of the August 3, 2008 eruption plume from Okmok Volcano.
Credit: Alaska Volcano Observatory/UAF-GI.
This underwater volcano, Brimstone Pit, was caught erupting by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Submarine Ring of Fire program. You can see the same volcano erupting in the video below. "If we were observing this type of eruptive activity on land we would have to run for our lives!" the researchers note. "At Brimstone Pit the pressure of [1837 feet] of water over the site reduces the power of the explosive bursts."
The Tavurvur volcano in Papua New Guinea experienced a major eruption in 1994. Though it forced the evacuation of most of the area, it wasn’t nearly as bad as a 1937 eruption, which killed over 500 people. Credit: USGS
The Kamchatka province is a highly geologically active area in far Eastern Russia, near Sarah Palin’s house. On March 29, 2007, the peninsula’s Shiveluch Volcano erupted, sending an ash cloud more than 30,000 feet into the air. NASA’s Earth Observatory caught the action.
Mt. Stromboli, located on an Italian island, is famous for its fountain-like eruptions, as captured by Wolfgang Beyer. It’s one of the few volcanoes that exists in a state of permanent (and thankfully) moderate eruption. It’s been bubbling for more than 2,000 years.
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By Rich Smith | More Articles
May 2, 2011 | Comments (0)
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Around the globe, there was great rejoicing over the demise of Osama bin Laden Sunday -- but for investors in Boeing (NYSE: BA ) and Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT ) , the news was bittersweet. Just days earlier, Pakistani neighbor and Kashmir contender India -- delivered bad news to both companies: They're out of the running India's $10 billion fighter jet contract.
For four years now, America's two defense juggernauts vied with Sweden's Saab, Russia's UAC, France's Dassault, and Europe's EADS for the right to rebuild India's aging air force. Last week, India's Ministry announced it was short listing Dassault and EADS, and giving Boeing and Lockheed the boot.
It's not all bad news. Boeing, along with partners Northrop Grumman (NYSE: NOC ) and Raytheon (NYSE: RTN ) still has a profitable contract to supply the subcontinent with P-8A Poseidon sub-hunters. Lockheed's still set to sell India a half-dozen odd C130 transports. But today, those contracts look like consolation prizes next to the big, $10 billion grand prize -- which is going to somebody else.
Can Lockheed and Boeing turn investors' frowns upside with new contract wins elsewhere? Bet on it -- and keep track of those wins as they come in. Add either stock (or both!) to your watchlist today.
Who's got the best deals in aerospace stocks? Fool Rising Star Anand Chokkavelu, that's who. Read all about his latest picks here.
In a government-wide review, the President is asking officials to offer entrepreneurs special treatment, including extended compliance deadlines and total tax exemptions.
Newscom
A New Tone: President Barack Obama today announced a plan to ease the burden of government red tape on companies.