21 Aug 2010
by in Criticism And Theory Tags: bench, Increase, Press.
Increase Your Bench Press.
Increase Your Bench Press 50 Lbs In 10 Weeks With A Customized Work Out Program From Critical Bench.com.
Increase Your Bench Press.
Earn 60% on Critically-Acclaimed e-Book!
Recently featured in the popular Kirkus Discoveries book review newsletter! You will earn 60% on your sales of the e-book version of the inspirational classic “The Wealth in Questions: Audacious Insights in Success & Wealth” (.99).
Earn 60% on Critically-Acclaimed e-Book!
NEW Feminist Literary Theory And Criticism - Gilbert...
The Novel: An Anthology of Criticism and Theory 1900-20
10 Aug 2010
by in Uncategorized Tags: bench, commissioner roger goodell, ravens, risk awareness, westminster md
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell is a man with plenty on his mind, of course.
Leaning back with legs crossed while sitting in a green paisley bench aboard the 45-foot-long bus owned by John Madden, Goodell addressed a variety of the topics facing his league during an interview Wednesday with The associated Press:
— Negotiations for a new collective bargaining agreement (“We have a lot of work to do”).
— an 18-game regular season (“every day that you don’t have an agreement on a lot of those issues is one more day to prepare; it’s a lot of planning and a lot of preparation so it becomes more challenging”).
— Persuading players to agree to blood testing for human growth hormone (“it is about the integrity of the game”).
— Concussions and other on-field safety issues (“We want to make sure that everyone is aware of the risk. … Awareness is clearly at a high level”).
Rarely, though, was Goodell more animated during the 1-hour, 45-minute ride from Baltimore Ravens training camp in Westminster, Md., to Washington Redskins training camp in Ashburn, Va., than when one of the Madden Cruiser’s five televisions aired an update on the “will-he-retire-or-won’t-he?” Brett Favre saga.
“You see that report?” Goodell said, shifting forward and turning to Madden, who was seated across a diner-sized table cluttered with newspaper pages, black notebook binders and a coffee mug overflowing with pens.
Yes, Goodell is among the millions keeping tabs on the Minnesota Vikings quarterback.
“There is a lot of interest in whether he comes back,” Goodell said. “He’s a great player. People really admire the way he plays the game, so I understand” all the attention to the story.”
It’s the sort of thing Goodell insists fans are far more interested in than, say, the particulars of labour negotiations. he repeatedly refused to characterize the nature of those talks with the NFL Players Association. he declined to say whether he is optimistic or pessimistic that a deal can get done before the current contract expires in March.
Asked what he’d tell fans who want to know whether the NFL will have a full season in 2011, Goodell replied, “all I can tell anybody is we’re going to work our tail off to get something that works for everybody.”
NFL commissioner Roger Goodell, left, and former NFL coach John Madden, right, laugh while riding in his bus from the Baltimore Ravens football camp to the Washington Redskins camp, Wednesday, Aug. 4, 2010, in Maryland. (AP Photo/Rob Carr)
He frequently travels to training camps, but this is the first time he got a lift around the country from Madden, the former NFL coach and TV analyst who last flew on an airplane in 1979 and has been using a personal bus since the mid-1980s. Sleeping in the not-quite-queen-sized bed in the back of the bus — his gold-colored Hall of Fame jacket hanging in the bedroom closet in a black garment back with red lettering of a “Big & Tall” store — Madden set out from his California home on a 52-hour drive across the U.S. to pick up Goodell in new York.
Their five-camp road trip began Tuesday at the Philadelphia Eagles, continues Thursday at the Pittsburgh Steelers — where Goodell plans to meet with suspended quarterback Ben Roethlisberger — and wraps up Friday at the Cleveland Browns.
At each stop, Goodell meets with the entire team, then also chats with smaller groups of players.
“You get exposed to a lot of things,” Goodell said. “That’s what we wanted to see. We wanted to see what was going on.”
Madden waved those meaty hands of his in the air while that familiar voice described what he’s enjoying about the trip.
“Seeing players. The smell of it. The action,” he said. “It’s great for the commissioner because he’s so good with all of it. He’s good with the players. He’s so natural. That’s the thing that impresses me.”
Asked what topics players broach with him, Goodell declined to get into specifics or rank what the most popular issues are. he did mention player health and safety and “the right kind of labor agreement.”
Goodell’s most forceful statements Wednesday came with regard to testing for HGH, which is banned by the league — although players are not tested for it. he wants blood testing for that drug, something the players’ union long has opposed.
“It’s about making sure that we’re doing everything to protect our players and to protect the integrity of our game,” Goodell said.
“We think it’s important to have HGH testing, to make sure we ensure that we can take performance-enhancing substances out of the game. unfortunately, the only way to test for that, on any reliable basis right now, is through blood testing,” he said. “and if your objective is to take it out of the game, that’s the only way to do it. … That’s why we proposed it.”
At his stops in Maryland and Virginia on Wednesday, Goodell spoke about Roethlisberger (“he is doing what he’s been asked to do — and frankly more”), Redskins defensive lineman Albert Haynesworth (“Albert wants to play football and he wants to get out there and he needs to be able to do that, but he needs to get himself in proper shape to be able to do that”), and labor issues such as the possibility of a rookie wage scale (“The system is broken and we’ve got to fix it”).
Goodell said he’d like to do this sort of bus tour again. The Madden Cruiser certainly has its perks, including the granite kitchen counter crowded with cookies, chips and pretzels, fruit and other snacks, let alone what resides in the fully stocked refrigerator.
Then there’s respite from the heat. The temperature topped 90 Wednesday, but that was tough to tell thanks to the full-blast air conditioning monitored by a bus thermostat set to 60 degrees.
Goodell did have to make one concession to his host.
“someone asked what I like to eat, and my assistant said I have a salad for lunch every day. So they got me a salad with salmon on it, which I have frequently, and (Madden) said, ‘We don’t normally have that on this bus. Needless to say, I did not eat it. We had some good turkey sandwiches.“’
Noted Madden: “Never in the history of the bus have we had a salad.”
On the bus with John Madden and Roger Goodell – The Globe and Mail
19 Jul 2010
by in Uncategorized Tags: bench, game, mike lamb, mlb
By Joe Frisaro / MLB.com
MIAMI — Bryan Petersen’s role won’t be that of a traditional left-handed bat off the bench. instead he will be more of a situational player who will pinch-hit, pinch-run or be used in double switches.
The Marlins recalled the 24-year-old outfielder from Triple-A new Orleans on Sunday to fill the roster spot vacated when Mike Lamb was designated for assignment after Saturday’s game.
This is Petersen’s third stint with the Marlins this season. he is 1-for-16 in the big leagues after batting .259 for the Zephyrs.
“He’s a very solid defender. he will help us in every phase of the game — as a hit-and-runner hitter, as a defender,” manager Edwin Rodriguez said. “He will help us. I don’t think he will be starting any time soon, but who knows, depending on the pitcher.”
Earlier this season, when Rodriguez was managing in new Orleans, he occasionally used Petersen off the bench to get him used to the fourth-outfield role in the big leagues.
“I told him I would use him once in a while in the middle of the game, to get used to that role,” Rodriguez said. “He had plenty of at-bats in Triple-A. he should be all right.” Coghlan to rest sore back three or four days
MIAMI — for at least three or four days, the Marlins will be without the services of Chris Coghlan. If the 25-year-old left fielder’s back doesn’t respond by then, a stint on the disabled list is a possibility.
“We’re going the next two or three days with prescriptions, and we’ll see how he reacts to them,” manager Edwin Rodriguez said.
Rodriguez didn’t rule out sending Coghlan to the DL.
“It could be,” he said. “That’s always a possibility if after three days it’s the same and the inflammation doesn’t go away.”
Coghlan is in the middle of an 0-for-16 slump, and his swing wasn’t right when he struck out while facing Washington’s Livan Hernandez in the fifth inning on Saturday. Emilio Bonifacio replaced Coghlan in left field and will fill in at leadoff while Coghlan is out.
At least twice this season, Coghlan jarred his back while making diving plays in the outfield. On Friday night he made a leaping catch to rob Ryan Zimmerman of extra bases, and on April 13, against the Reds, he landed hard on the warning track while making a diving grab. he missed three games after that.
“He won’t pull himself out of the lineup, which is good,” Rodriguez said. “I think with experience he will learn that he will hurt the team more [by playing hurt].”
“I hope to be out there Tuesday, but I have to see how my body responds,” said Coghlan, who noted that his lower back was tight on Sunday. “I’m not going to go out there and not be able to contribute to the team or hurt the team. I’ve got to be smart.”
Coghlan asked Rodriguez after Saturday’s game why he had been lifted.
“He came into my office yesterday and asked me why I took him out. [I said], ‘It was obvious. you were hurt,’ ” Rodriguez said. “I just wanted to make sure it wasn’t because he was [0-for-16]. I was thinking about that, too.
“His last swing, when he came in, I asked him if he was all right. that last swing wasn’t him.”
Relief corps improving under Rodriguez
MIAMI — As Minor Leaguers, they had success, so manager Edwin Rodriguez figured it was only a matter of time before they saw results at the big league level.
A number of Florida relievers previously pitched for Rodriguez in the Minor Leagues. In fact, five of the seven in the bullpen, either this year or last, had Rodriguez as their manager. The only two who didn’t are Jhan Marinez and Leo Nunez.
“When I got here, a lot of the guys I knew,” Rodriguez said. “I know how much talent they have.”
To bring out the best in the ‘pen, Rodriguez is placing his relievers in positions to succeed. If that means going batter to batter, he does it. He’s shown that with how he’s used lefty Taylor Tankersley, who has allowed one hit in 21 at-bats against left-handed batters this year.
Thus far the bullpen is seeing positive results. In fact, since Rodriguez replaced Fredi Gonzalez on June 23, the relievers have a combined 3.10 ERA, having allowed 21 earned runs in 61 innings. they have struck out 53 and walked 19 over that span.
In Saturday’s 2-0 win over the Nationals, the bullpen picked up three scoreless innings to help Josh Johnson improve to 10-3.
For much of the first half, the bullpen was a trouble spot, and the overall numbers are still reflecting those early difficulties. The relief corps has a 4.30 ERA, 11th in the National League.
Before Saturday’s game, Rodriguez had a team meeting in which he and pitching coach Randy St. Claire praised the relievers for their improvement.
“We had a meeting before batting practice, and I pointed out that I was very pleased with the way the bullpen has responded lately,” Rodriguez said. “We’ve been more consistent with guys throwing strikes coming out of the bullpen.”
Fielding miscues noted by Rodriguez
MIAMI — a couple of misplayed fly balls in Saturday’s 2-0 win over the Nationals didn’t go unnoticed by manager Edwin Rodriguez.
The team didn’t take any extra fielding practice before Sunday’s game, but look for some more work on Monday.
“No communication,” Rodriguez said.
One play was an Ivan Rodriguez pop foul in the eighth inning that dropped between third baseman Jorge Cantu and catcher Ronny Paulino.
Cantu was playing deep at third and had a long run, and Paulino ran toward third, but both hesitated and the ball fell between them. Rodriguez noted that pitcher Clay Hensley could have done more by communicating to either player.
“That’s fundamentals,” Rodriguez said. “In the big leagues, everybody should be involved. Even the pitcher should have yelled.”
Then, in the ninth inning, Nationals pinch-hitter Cristian Guzman lifted a fly ball to short left field. Hanley Ramirez raced out as Emilio Bonifacio sprinted in. both shied away and the ball fell for a single.
What is encouraging is that in both cases, the pitchers overcame the mistakes and got out of the innings without any damage.
Joe Frisaro is a reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.
<a href="http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20100718&content_id=12361022¬ebook_id=12361044&vkey=notebook_fla&fext=.jsp&c_id=flatag:news.google.com,2005:cluster=http://mlb.mlb.com/news/article.jsp?ymd=20100718″>Petersen called up, will be situational player
13 Jul 2010
by in Uncategorized Tags: bench, david ortiz, miguel tejada, toilet
I have Ortiz on my bench and have been waiting for him to get something started, but it doesn't look good.
Tejada was just dropped and I have Reyes on the DL. Should I give up on Ortiz and pick up Tejada, or wait it out until Reyes is healthy and keep Ortiz just in case?
YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSS! you'd be crazy not too. I dropped Ortiz two weeks ago. He's in the toilet…
Most definitely pick him up. He is helping my team right now with Bartlett on the DL. Ortiz is not going to turn it around this year and help anyone due to he has no scary batters around him to help him get good pitching.
is this person giving up on the season? Giving Tejada up right now is just stupid.
Should I drop David Ortiz and pick up Miguel Tejada?
28 Jun 2010
by in Uncategorized Tags: bench, infancy, innovations, justice stevens
In April, the Supreme Court’s most senior justice, John Paul Stevens, announced his retirement. Since then, hundreds of articles have been written about his career and his legacy. while most articles focus on “hot button” issues such as flag burning, terrorism, and affirmative action, Stevens’s tech policy record has largely been ignored.
When Justice Stevens joined the court, many of the technologies we now take for granted—the PC, packet-switched networks, home video recording—were in their infancy. during his 35-year tenure on the bench, Stevens penned decisions that laid the foundation for the tremendous innovations that followed in each of these areas.
For example, Stevens penned the 1978 decision that shielded the software industry from the patent system in its formative years. In 1984, Hollywood’s effort to ban the VCR failed by just one Supreme Court vote; Stevens wrote the majority opinion. and in 1997, he wrote the majority opinion striking down the worst provisions of the Communications Decency Act and ensuring that the Internet would have robust First Amendment protections.
Indeed, Justice Stevens probably deserves more credit than any other justice for the innovations of the last three decades. and given how central those technologies have become to the American economy, Stevens’ tech policy work may prove one of his most enduring legacies. In this feature, we review Justice Stevens’s tech policy decisions and salute the justice who helped make possible DRM-free media devices, uncensored Internet connections, free software, and much more.
The Supreme Court’s cryptographer
John Paul Stevens was born in 1920 to a wealthy Chicago family. Stevens attended the University of Chicago, graduating in 1941. On December 6—the day before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor—Stevens enrolled in the Navy’s correspondence course on cryptography. Stevens spent the war in a Navy bunker in Hawaii, doing traffic analysis in an effort to determine the location of Japanese ships. He was an English major, not a mathematician, but he proved to have a knack for cryptographic work.
After the war, Stevens enrolled at Northwestern University Law School, graduating at the top of his class and earning a clerkship with Justice Wiley Rutledge. He then returned to his native Chicago and built a successful law practice. His high-profile prosecution of a corruption case involving the Illinois Supreme Court attracted the attention of President Richard Nixon, who appointed him to a federal appeals court in 1970. Five years later, President Ford named Stevens as his first and only Supreme Court nominee.
Early in his tenure, Stevens was regularly described as a centrist—a “wild card” whose votes rarely fell along ideological lines. But as the court became increasingly conservative, Justice Stevens drifted to the left. By the late 1990s, hardly anyone was describing him as a centrist. instead, he was being described as the leader of the court’s “liberal wing”; his seniority meant that he got to decide who would write the opinion for his side when he found himself opposite the chief justice, which was often.
Fighting software patents
The court’s ideologically polarized 5-4 decisions get a lot of press, but there are many areas of law that don’t break down along predictable partisan lines. Tech policy is one of them. Technology issues tend to be so new that the debate hasn’t yet gelled into a familiar left-right split. Justice Stevens, who always resisted voting along strict ideological lines, emerged as a leading voice in the court’s tech policy decisions.
One question the Supreme Court first tackled in the 1970s was whether software could be eligible for patent protection. the Supreme Court considered three different cases about the patentability of software during the period. Stevens was not yet on the Supreme Court when it rejected its first software patent in 1972, but he took an active interest in the subject when the issue reached the court a second time in 1978.
In that case, he penned the court’s strongest statement against software patents. Writing for a six-member majority, Stevens ruled that appending a trivial “post-solution activity”—in this case, updating the “alarm limit” of a chemical process—does not render an otherwise-unpatentable software algorithm eligible for patent protection.
Stevens warned that the majority opinion would emasculate the court’s software patent jurisprudence and create confusion about what was eligible for patent protection. and indeed, that’s exactly what happened.
The court considered software patents once again in 1981, and this time Justice Stevens found himself on the losing side of a 5-4 vote. the majority’s opinion didn’t formally endorse software patents, but it did allow a patent on a software-controlled rubber-curing process. In a strongly worded dissent, Stevens warned that the majority opinion would emasculate the court’s software patent jurisprudence and create confusion about what was eligible for patent protection.
And indeed, that’s exactly what happened. as we documented in last year’s feature on software patents, the appeals court in charge of patent issues gradually dismantled the traditional limits on patents in the software industry during the 1980s and 1990s.
Justice Stevens wasn’t able to save us from software patents, but he gave the early software industry much-needed breathing room. Software patents were still relatively rare when Richard Stallman began his work on the GNU system in 1984. Similarly, Tim Berners-Lee was able to make the World Wide Web an open standard relatively unencumbered by patents in 1991. Of course, the Web would eventually face a slew of patent lawsuits, but the relatively restrictive rules on patents that prevailed until the mid-1990s gave the Web time to mature (and attract major corporate backers) before it encountered serious legal problems.
Similarly, Apple’s famous “look and feel” lawsuit against Microsoft might have gone very differently if Apple had had a large arsenal of software patents to go along with its shaky “interface copyright” claims. the relatively free market that prevailed in the PC industry during the 1980s stands in contrast to the explosion of patent litigation that has occurred in the cell phone market in recent years, with virtually every smart phone vendor involved in multiple patent lawsuits.
The high court took a renewed interest in patent issues when John Roberts was elevated to Chief Justice, but the court hasn’t squarely addressed the software patent issue. the closest they came was in today’s Bilski decision, in which the majority handed down a narrow ruling that invalidated the specific patent at issue in the case but declined to articulate a clear standard for patent eligibility.
Justice Stevens declined to join the majority decision and instead filed a separate concurrence that argued for stricter limits on patentability. He was joined by three other justices, suggesting that despite the court’s unanimity on the narrow issue of Bilski’s patent, the court remains sharply divided on the broader question of what is eligible for patent protection.
Saving private recording
A consistent theme of Justice Stevens’ technology policy work is that it’s up to Congress, not the courts, to extend the law to new technologies. He argued that the courts shouldn’t expand patent protection to software unless Congress explicitly authorizes such an extension. and he made a similar argument about copyright law in what was arguably the most important tech policy decision of the 20th century, Sony v. Universal.
In that 1984 case, the Supreme Court came just one vote short of banning the Betamax VCR on the grounds that taping television shows off the air was an infringement of copyright. Justice Stevens wrote for a 5-4 majority that “time shifting”—the practice of recording shows for later viewing—was a fair use under copyright law. Stevens concluded that manufacturers were not liable for their customers’ infringement if their devices were capable of “substantial non-infringing use.” He noted that Congress was free to amend copyright law to give Hollywood control over VCR technology, but concluded that the courts shouldn’t do so unilaterally.
This has become a bedrock principle for the consumer electronics industry, allowing it to develop innovative new products without undue fear of copyright liability. Indeed, when the first MP3 players came on the market, the recording industry reacted much as Hollywood had two decades earlier: they sued, seeking to drive the new devices out of the market. In 1999, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals court drew an analogy to Justice Stevens’ arguments about “time shifting,” holding that the users of MP3 players were engaging in an analogous process of “space shifting” when they ripped their CD collections to MP3 format. the market would look very different today if the courts had given the recording industry veto power over digital music players.
Farewell, Stevens: the Supreme Court loses its cryptographer
26 Jun 2010
by in Uncategorized Tags: bench, central coast, hiddink, leeds united, michael beauchamp, world cup squad
MICHAEL Beauchamp's time on the World Cup stage has finally arrived.
A surprise member of the Socceroos squad at Germany 2006, the lanky defender has had to bide his time.
Then Socceroos coach Guus Hiddink never had any intention of using Beauchamp, who was plucked from the relative obscurity of Gosford-based A-League club Central Coast Mariners.
He watched from the bench during the Socceroos’ memorable four-match German adventure.
But, seemingly being groomed as Craig Moore’s successor in the heart of Australia’s defence, Beauchamp moved on loan to German club FC Nurnberg immediately after the World Cup and the following year represented the Socceroos at the Asian Cup.
However, rather than kick on, Beauchamp struggled. Despite being eventually bought by Nurnberg, he was soon after sold to Danish club Aalborg. That was also a short stint, and the Sydney product last year join United Arab Emirates club Al-Jazira.
Beauchamp had also fallen off the Socceroos map, with Leeds United defender Patrick Kisnorbo expected to have provided cover for Moore and skipper Lucas Neill in Australia’s 2010 World Cup squad.
But then Beauchamp’s luck turned. Kisnorbo ruptured his achilles tendon, ending his chances of going to South Africa, while Beauchamp finally enjoyed a run of first-team football with Al-Jazira at the back end of the 2009-10 season.
Suddenly, Socceroos coach Pim Verbeek came calling.
Named in a provisional 31-man World Cup squad last month, Beauchamp’s stocks further rose when he performed admirably after replacing Moore at half-time in Australia’s come-from-behind 2-1 friendly win over new Zealand at the MCG on may 24.
His place in Verbeek’s final 23-man squad was then assured, and his name was mentioned for a starting spot in Australia’s best XI ahead of Moore.
But Verbeek stuck with the 34-year-old former Brisbane Roar captain for the Socceroos’ opening two Group D matches.
After a less than convincing performance in Australia’s disastrous 4-0 loss to Germany, Moore repaid his coach’s faith with a stellar display in Saturday’s 1-1 draw with Ghana.
However, yellow cards in both matches has cost Moore his spot in the Socceroos side for tomorrow morning’s must-win clash against Serbia in Nelspruit.
Beauchamp, now 29 and returning to the A-League next season to play for Melbourne Heart, looms as the logical replacement, with his 191cm frame likely to be required in Australia’s attempt to nullify Serbia’s 202cm giant forward Nikola Zigic.
"He’s still a big boy, but we’ll see how we go against him," an excited Beauchamp said.
Michael Beauchamp finally gets his Cup chance
RSS
