2010 World Cup Online

Mitt, The Incidental Candidate

admin — Sun, 20 May 2012 05:13:08 +0000

WASHINGTON — He barely speaks in his own first general-election ad. On the top floor of his Boston campaign headquarters, the most visible poster is one of his dad’s. His party’s leaders in Congress, the states and the lobbying world don’t bow to him, or mention him much, even as they make moves that can’t help but define his agenda for him. Arguably the key person in his campaign is Republican kingpin Karl Rove, but Rove doesn’t work there.

And this is just the way Mitt Romney and his team like it. Romney is the incidental candidate in an incidental campaign. He’s a bland, blunt instrument, but only an instrument, in a wider crusade dedicated to one goal: ousting President Barack Obama and reversing whatever policy victories he has won.

Goofy or creepy when off script, burdened by an ideologically muddled record and a penchant for privacy in his business and religious life, Romney has chosen to focus on everyone but himself and to surrender his campaign to a larger conservative effort.

Three magic nights in Munich

admin — Sat, 19 May 2012 13:25:03 +0000

With Bayern Munich and Chelsea set to contest the 2012 UEFA Champions League final in Munich on Saturday, FIFA.com remembers the three previous finals which were held in the German city.
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Europe Austerity Backlash Holds Lesson For Romney: Focus On Growth

admin — Sat, 19 May 2012 05:12:05 +0000

WASHINGTON -– Austerity is out. Growth is in. And Mitt Romney’s campaign has taken notice.

Politicians in Europe and in President Barack Obama’s administration can’t get enough of the G word these days. “Growth must be a priority, at the same time as we put in place some fiscal compact to improve our finances,” said the new French President Francois Hollande, during a visit with Obama in the Oval Office on Friday.

Hollande defeated incumbent Nicolas Sarkozy earlier this month, riding a backlash in France against programs that have sought to reduce sovereign debt by cutting government spending. Voters in Greece have rebelled even more fiercely against cuts to government jobs and benefits, placing their country on the verge of an exit from the European Union and a potential collapse.

Luiz: We’re strong enough to cope

admin — Fri, 18 May 2012 13:24:02 +0000

David Luiz tells FIFA.com that Chelsea have the squad to cope with suspensions and injuries they have for the UEFA Champions League final against Bayern Munich, with he and Gary Cahill likely to be fit to bolster their defence.
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Van Cliburn Art, Jewels Fetch $4.3 Million In Christie’s Auction

admin — Fri, 18 May 2012 05:11:04 +0000

NEW YORK — Art, jewelry and furnishings collected by the pianist Van Cliburn has fetched over $4.3 million at an auction in New York City.

Christie’s auction house says Thursday’s sale featured more than 150 items including English furniture, Russian art, silver and jewels.

More to life than Messi and Ronaldo

admin — Thu, 17 May 2012 13:23:03 +0000

While the remarkable scoring feats of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo have dominated attention, plenty of other players have been racking up the goals this season. FIFA.com looks at some of the most prolific.
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Superflares, Like Solar Flares But Far Bigger, Fired Off By Sun-Like Stars

admin — Thu, 17 May 2012 05:10:05 +0000

By: Charles Q. Choi
Published: 05/16/2012 01:22 PM EDT on SPACE.com

Stars like our sun can release "superflares," explosions of up to 10,000 times more energy than the solar flares seen from our sun, researchers say.

However, it looks unlikely that our sun currently has superflares, scientists added.

Astronomers have previously detected superflares from a variety of star types, which release bursts that have 10 to 10,000 times more energy than the largest solar flare ever detected from our sun. Scientists wanted to know how common these outbursts might be from stars like the sun — those with masses and temperatures similar to our star. Even normal solar flares can damage satellites, endanger astronauts and wreak havoc on electrical grids on Earth, suggesting that superflares might be catastrophic to life on Earth.

Until now, few superflares have been detected from sunlike stars. This rarity has hampered detailed analysis of what might cause them to happen. Now, with NASA’s Kepler planet-hunting satellite, researchers have a way to analyze many sunlike stars at once. The scientists monitored about 83,000 sunlike stars over 120 days and detected365 superflares from 148 of the stars, each lasting one to 12 hours.

Slowly rotating solar-type stars were responsible for only 101 of the superflares seen in the sample. This suggests that slowly whirling stars like our sun have superflares much less often than rapidly spinning ones. [Video: No Chance of Superflares Destroying Earth in 2012]

Somewhat regular fluctuations in the brightness of the superflaring stars hints they all possess large starspots, much larger than the sunspots seen on our sun. This suggests they are caused by magnetic activity of the stars, just as solar flares are linked with sunspots and solar magnetic activity. Rapidly spinning stars are expected to experience more magnetic activity than slower-whirling ones, which likely explains why they have more superflares.

Scientists had thought superflares of sunlike stars were caused by magnetic interactions between the stars and so-called hot Jupiters — gas giant planets orbiting extraordinarily near their stars, at a tenth or less of the distance of Mercury from our sun. However, the researchers found that no hot Jupiters were discovered around any of the superflaring stars they studied, suggesting that superflares from sunlike stars are actually only rarely linked with hot Jupiters.

On average, sunlike stars appear to release superflares 100 times stronger than any known solar flare about once every 800 years, and flares 1,000 times stronger than solar flares about every 5,000 years, researchers estimated. Still, that might not mean that a superflare 100 times stronger than any known solar flare really happens every 800 years — for instance, a sunlike star might release 100 superflares in 10 years, but then no more for another 79,990 years, which would still produce the same average, said study lead author Hiroyuki Maehara, an astronomer at Kyoto University in Japan.

The researchers noted there is no historical record of superflares from our sun in the past 2,000 years, and strong evidence indicates that there has not been one in the past billion years. "Most superflare stars have large starspots, but the present sun does not," Maehara explained. "Further studies are necessary to understand why and how such large starspots are formed on solar-type stars, and whether our sun can produce superflares."

To know whether superflares happen on the sun, "we need detailed observations — for example, high-resolution spectroscopy — of superflare stars, which allow us to know whether superflare stars are really similar to our sun," Maehara told SPACE.com.

The scientists detailed their findings online May 16 in the journal Nature.

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Ferdinand absent as Hodgson names squad

admin — Wed, 16 May 2012 13:22:03 +0000

Manchester United defender Rio Ferdinand will not feature at UEFA EURO 2012 after he was left out of manager Roy Hodgson’s 23-man England squad, which was announced on Wednesday.
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Spurs Beat Clippers In Game 1, 108-92: Tim Duncan’s Double-Double Leads San Antonio

admin — Wed, 16 May 2012 05:09:07 +0000

SAN ANTONIO — Tim Duncan had 26 points and 10 rebounds and the San Antonio Spurs, recharged after a weeklong layoff, wore down the busy Los Angeles Clippers to win Game 1 of their Western Conference semifinals series, 108-92 on Tuesday night.

Playing for the sixth time in 11 days, Los Angeles gave San Antonio its toughest first half of the playoffs before fading fast. And unlike their stunning Game 1 comeback at Memphis in the first round, the Clippers didn’t have the wind this time.

Hampden poetry in motion from Zizou

admin — Tue, 15 May 2012 13:21:06 +0000

On the tenth anniversary of Real Madrid’s meeting with Bayer Leverkusen in the UEFA Champions League final, FIFA.com recalls how a tight contest was settled by one of the most breathtaking goals in football history.
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