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Sunday, April 7, 2013

World powers and Iran start second day of nuclear talks

MANCHESTER, England, April 5 (Reuters) - Manchester City manager Roberto Mancini believes a lack of goals and maverick striker Mario Balotelli's departure to AC Milan in January has harmed the defence of their Premier League crown. Second-placed City are 15 points behind rivals Manchester United, whom they face at Old Trafford on Monday, and Mancini said last week the title race was over. "Mario scored 15 goals last season. This is the difference, the goals we did not score," Mancini told a news conference on Friday. ...

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/world-powers-iran-start-second-day-nuclear-talks-060435367.html

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NCAA Bracket 2013: Best Potential Individual Matchups in National Championship

Both Final Four matchups promise to be galvanizing, but I can't help but look forward.

The National Championship is simply on another level. You have hardcore fans unable to talk about anything else for the 24 hours leading up to the game. You have people who don't know anything about basketball watching intently. You probably have Floyd Mayweather laying down a $30 million bet.

The stage could not be any bigger or brighter.?

What tends to make these title games even more intriguing?if that's possible?is the individual matchups. Let's take a look at the best potential ones.?

Note: A link to a bracket can be found at the bottom of this page.

Peyton Siva/Russ Smith vs. Michael Carter-Williams/Brandon Triche

Siva and Smith are most effective when they are in attack mode. When the two lightning-fast guards are able to slice their way into the lane and score at the hoop, where they are both outstanding finishers, the Cardinals are nearly impossible to stop.?

Their ability to do that stems from Louisville's full-court, ball-hawking pressure defense. Turnovers allow the dynamic backcourt to get in transition in open space, and at that point, it's like trying to catch the Golden Snitch in a downpour. Too quick, too electric, too much space?easy route to the hoop.?

When the pace slows, and Louisville must operate out of the halfcourt, however, things change considerably?especially against Syracuse.?

Not only is it incredibly difficult to penetrate a 2-3 zone, but Michael Carter-Williams (6'6", arms like an orangutan) and Brandon Triche (6'4") offer unique, annoying length at the top of the three-point line.

In three games against the Orange this season, Siva is shooting 4-of-26 (15.4 percent) and Smith is connecting on just 15-of-37 (40.1 percent).

Rick Pitino's squad has looked unstoppable this tournament, but when his backcourt isn't producing offensively, his team becomes far more human. This is by far the most difficult matchup for the scintillating dual ball handlers.?

Carl Hall vs. Mitch McGary

Those not interested in a bloodbath need not apply.?

Carl Hall and Mitch McGary are two of the most physical players in America, let alone the Final Four.?

Hall is just 6'8", but at 238 pounds, he absolutely controls the paint. He is a force on the glass (6.9 rebounds per game), defends the rim extremely well (1.8 blocks) and epitomizes the Shockers' new slogan of "play angry."

McGary is a monster. At 6'10", 250 pounds, he obviously has the body to bully pretty much anyone, but he combines that with good?instincts and a junkyard-dog, never-quit mentality. In the tourney, he is averaging a gaudy 11.5 rebounds.

Big men don't always garner much attention, but these two physical warriors would make for a battle well worth the price of admission.?

What matchup do you most want to see?

Smith/Siva vs. Carter-Williams/Triche
Hall vs. McGary
Smith vs. Burke
A different one

Total votes: 0

Russ Smith vs. Trey Burke

These are the two most exciting guards in college basketball right now, and it would only be fitting to watch them go back and forth at each other for the national title.

We touched on Smith a bit, but probably not as much as he deserves. In four wins, the enigmatic guard is averaging 26.8 points on a white-hot 54.8 percent shooting and 3.3 steals per contest. He has been far and away the best player in the tournament.?

Burke isn't exactly lacking talent, either.?

The best player in college basketball is quietly having a poor shooting tournament (34.9 percent from the field), but his ability to conduct Michigan's powerful offensive attack and his propensity to hit the big shot has been the stuff of legends.

You know what, if Louisville and Michigan both advance, let's just clear the court and watch these two play one-on-one for 40 minutes. I wouldn't be mad at that.?Simply put, the electric playmaker is a winner.?

Link to?Printable?PDF

Link to?Live Bracket

Follow all the exciting NCAA tournament action with?March Madness Live.

Source: http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1594375-ncaa-bracket-2013-best-potential-individual-matchups-in-national-championship

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Matisse in Norwegian museum was once Nazi loot

OSLO, Norway (AP) ? The family of a prominent Parisian art dealer is demanding that a Norwegian museum return an Henri Matisse painting seized by Nazis under the direction of Hermann Goering, in the latest dispute over art stolen from Jews during World War II.

The painting at the center of the dispute, Matisse's 1937 "Blue Dress in a Yellow Armchair," depicts a woman sitting in a living room. It has been among the highlights of the Henie Onstad Art Center near Oslo since the museum was established in 1968 through a donation by wealthy art collector Niels Onstad and his wife, Olympic figure-skating champion Sonja Henie.

Museum Director Tone Hansen said it had been unaware the painting was stolen by the Nazis until it was notified in 2012 by the London-based Art Loss Register, which tracks lost and stolen paintings.

She said Onstad bought the painting in "good faith" from the Galerie Henri Benezit in Paris in 1950. The Benezit gallery "has no record of collaborating with the Nazis, as many galleries did," she said in an interview.

Although the war ended almost 70 years ago, disputes over looted art have become increasingly common in recent years, in part because many records were lost, and in part because an international accord on returning such art was only struck in 1998.

But the case of the Matisse is somewhat different in that its former owner, Paul Rosenberg, was one of the most prominent art dealers in Paris before the war, which he survived by fleeing to New York. Art Loss Register Director Chris Marinello said the records in this case are unusually clear.

According to a biography published by New York's Museum of Modern Art, Rosenberg was one of the preeminent modern art dealers of his day, and personal friends with Picasso and Matisse, among others.

Art Registry documents show he purchased "Blue Dress" directly from the painter, having noted the purchase in 1937 and put it on display in the same year, Marinello said. After the war, Rosenberg re-established his business and sought to recover more than 400 works that had been taken by the Nazis.

Marinello showed The Associated Press documents that name the piece now on display in Norway as among those missing after the war.

He slammed the Henie Onstad art museum for "stonewalling."

"The evidence is overwhelming. They just don't want to resolve this," he said.

Paul Rosenberg died in 1959. His family has remained prominent, as his son Alexandre was a war hero and later began his own art dealership.

Among surviving family descendants are Anne Sinclair, the French journalist and ex-wife of former International Monetary Fund chief Dominique Strauss Kahn.

Another granddaughter, American lawyer Marianne Rosenberg, said Friday she didn't wish to antagonize the museum, but hoped that it would come to realize that it is wrong in every sense of the term.

The paintings seized from Paul Rosenberg and other Jewish victims of Nazi aggression were taken "under difficult conditions, in a cruel and unfair situation," she said in a telephone interview from her office in New York. "We honor my grandfather Paul's memory ... by doing what he would have done: we wish to recover that which we consider ours."

The lawyer representing the museum, Kyre Eggen, said it was significant that Onstad didn't know where the painting came from.

Under Norwegian law, if a person has had an item in good faith for more than 10 years, that person becomes the rightful owner, he said.

That argument runs against the Washington Conference Principles on Nazi-Confiscated Art, to which Norway is a party. The principles say that owners of looted art should take into account the difficulty that Jewish war survivors faced in reclaiming lost property after the Holocaust, and that owners of looted art should in all cases seek a fast and fair solution.

The Seattle Art Museum returned a Matisse to the Rosenberg family in 1999, after initially making similar arguments.

Eggen also argued that it is possible Rosenberg sold the painting himself between 1946 and 1950.

But Marianne Rosenberg rejected that possibility. Art Loss Register documents show Paul Rosenberg notifying French authorities the piece was missing in 1946, and his family again listing it as among missing pieces it was seeking in 1958.

"The Rosenberg family has since the end of the war assiduously and continuously sought the recovery of the paintings it lost," she said. "We have never sought to recover paintings not lost."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/matisse-norwegian-museum-once-nazi-loot-191439837.html

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Thursday, April 4, 2013

Lakers hang Shaq's No. 34 jersey in the rafters

LOS ANGELES (AP) ? When Shaquille O'Neal visited the Forum during the summer he joined the Los Angeles Lakers, general manager Jerry West encouraged him to look up at the retired jerseys hanging above the court.

"He said, 'You can be as great as these guys,'" O'Neal recalled.

West's prediction is finally official. Shaq joined Wilt Chamberlain, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, George Mikan, West and the rest of the Lakers' greats Tuesday night when the club retired his No. 34 jersey in a halftime ceremony.

"I just wish Dr. Buss was here to see this, to enjoy this joyous occasion," O'Neal said of Lakers owner Jerry Buss, who died in February. "I always hoped and prayed it would come. It was a dream come true."

Although O'Neal rarely finds himself speechless, he's thrilled to receive the honor he first imagined back in 1996 when he chose the Lakers. O'Neal's yellow jersey with white numerals was unveiled to a standing ovation, hanging next to Magic Johnson's No. 32.

"It gets me real emotional," O'Neal said before the game. "Growing up in Newark, New Jersey, and my father teaching me about the game, always mentioning Wilt Chamberlain and Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, and telling me when I was a young medium juvenile delinquent that, 'If you do things right, son, maybe one day you can be as great as those guys.'"

There's no longer any doubt O'Neal ranks among the greatest centers in basketball history. The NBA's sixth-leading career scorer played eight of his 19 seasons with the Lakers, winning three championships and reaching four NBA finals during his basketball prime.

Although O'Neal began his career in Orlando and played for four more teams after leaving Los Angeles, the 15-time All-Star says he considers Los Angeles his NBA home.

"I did most of my damage here, won most of my championships here, had most of my fun here," he said. "Even though I got one in Miami, it was fun, but we had three great ones here, three in a row. If I'm good enough to get into the Hall of Fame, I'll definitely go in as a Laker."

Kobe Bryant was in the locker room during halftime of the Lakers' game against Dallas, but he filmed a video tribute to kick off O'Neal's ceremony, calling him "the most gifted physical specimen I've ever seen play this game.

"What you've meant to the city has been absolutely historical, what we've done together," Bryant added. "I know you've played for other organizations, but you'll always be truly remembered for playing for one."

O'Neal's eight years alongside Bryant are among the most tumultuous and successful times in the team's history. They overcame initial struggles to win three straight titles from 2000-02 with the arrival of coach Phil Jackson, who returned to Staples on Tuesday for O'Neal's ceremony.

O'Neal and Bryant eventually split in 2004 after numerous personal and professional clashes, and their verbal sparring continued through Bryant's fifth championship in 2010. O'Neal insists any feud is long squashed, chalking it all up to posturing and mutual motivation.

"We've talked a lot since our playing days," O'Neal said. "There's two different kinds of dislike. There's an athletic dislike, and there's a real dislike. We never had a real dislike. We had a million good times and a thousand bad times. ... If I had it all over to do again, would I do it different? Probably not."

Jackson got his own attention while attending what was likely his first Lakers game since walking away from the club in 2011 ? and the sellout crowd clearly would rather see him back in the seat currently occupied by Mike D'Antoni. Jackson sat in the second row next to his fiancee, Jeanie Buss, and received several "We Want Phil!" chants of increasing intensity during the ceremony.

"I want to thank you for your dedication and your leadership and the hard work that you put in," Jackson said to O'Neal.

Although he retired in 2011, O'Neal still is making an imprint on the Lakers ? specifically on the psyche of Dwight Howard, their new franchise center.

O'Neal's pointed criticism of Howard in his new job as a television pundit has been an intriguing subplot to the latest Lakers big man's rough debut season. O'Neal didn't back off Howard on his special night, saying Howard should try to average 28 points and 10 rebounds per game if he hopes to be taken seriously as an elite center.

"We don't really have a relationship, but I'm just doing to him what the others did to me," O'Neal said of Howard, recalling Abdul-Jabbar calling him "an OK player" before he had any rings.

"I think it was Kareem's challenge to me to step it up," O'Neal added. "I'm not criticizing (Howard). I'm just issuing a challenge. I think I have the right to say, 'You have to average 28-10 in order to get a championship.' I just see a kid with a lot of talent."

When asked if he empathized with Howard's struggles to get healthy after offseason back surgery, O'Neal said: "My father was a military drill sergeant, and his motto was, 'If you can walk, you can play.' I wish there was a time I was injury-free when I played. I empathize with his pain, but no pain, no gain. He has the potential to be one of the greatest big men ever, but he has to want it."

O'Neal's celebration included profuse thanks to the Buss family, several former coaches and Lakers employees. He name-checked nearly everybody who worked for the Lakers during his eight-year tenure, even extending a detailed thanks to former assistant coach Bill Bertka.

"The only regrets I have are missing 200 games and missing 5,000 free throws," O'Neal said. "Other than that, I had fun, did it my way. Made a lot of friends, made a lot of enemies. It was all fun."

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/lakers-hang-shaqs-no-34-jersey-rafters-025400218--spt.html

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Monday, April 1, 2013

For Mammoth Lakes weatherman, always a climate of learning

MAMMOTH LAKES, Calif. ? Howard Sheckter was a painfully shy 10-year-old when he found his calling in a Glendora hailstorm.

As lightning and thunder crackled all around him, he looked up and felt chunks of ice bounce off his cheeks.

The experience ignited an obsession.

FOR THE RECORD:
An earlier version of this article misspelled Sheckter's name as Schecter.

"My mother's telephone bills were huge because I was calling the weather service 10 times a day," said Sheckter, now 62. "One day, my mother called the operator and asked, 'What number is this?' The operator said, 'It's the weather service. You must have a weatherman in the family.'"

She did, and her son's fascination only grew. Sheckter taught himself meteorology, and through it the withdrawn, nerdy boy found a way to relate to the world ? and for the world to relate to him.

For the last three decades, the lanky real estate agent has doubled as the weather sage of the eastern Sierra, with forecasts presented daily on his Mammoth Weather website and on KMMT, KIBS and KRHV radio. His predictions trigger flurries of excitement or anxiety in the Mammoth Mountain ski resort, which draws about 1.3 million skiers a year.

Sheckter is still quite shy. But when he's talking about the weather, as they say around here, you can't shut Howard up. His forecasts can be spellbinding and numbingly complex.

"When there's a storm coming in, Howard gets real excited and tends to go on about oscillations, flows and millibars," Stacy Powell, news director at KMMT in Mammoth Lakes, said with a laugh. "So, I break in and ask the question keeping our listening audience at the edges of their seats: Howard, is it going to snow or not?"

On a recent weekday, Sheckter sat in a small home office, his desk covered with computer screens filled with isobars ? those squiggly concentric circles that encircle high- and low-pressure areas.

With animated expressions and rapid-fire explanations, he spoke of meteorological challenges ahead. It's springtime in the eastern Sierra, he explained, and the warmer temperatures, rain and melting snow mean that the ski season is coming to an end in a town where skiing and related operations employ nearly half of the area's 7,500 residents.

Business owners were praying for a few more forecasts of snow in March and April.

"I can feel the pressure," he said, poring over satellite photos, data from weather stations and three decades' worth of personal records. "The business community up here thrives on snow."

Sheckter tries to lighten the technical load in his forecasts with corny jokes, some of them borrowed from Bill Keene, the late Los Angeles traffic and weather reporter who peppered his bulletins with cheesy puns such as: "The temperature is going lower than a snake's vest button."

But trying to suss out the bottom line from his forecasts ? is it going to snow or not? ? requires patience and concentration.

"The fact is, nobody knows what the hell Howard is talking about most of the time ? and I find that totally charming," mused George Shirk, managing editor of Mammoth Times/Mammoth Sierra magazine. "It's endearing to listen to him ramble on about how an isometric low system bulging over Iceland and breaking down over the Azores signals a certain weather pattern just over the horizon."

Sheckter has been studying local weather patterns since he moved to Mammoth Lakes in 1978 and landed a job as a boot fitter in a sporting goods store. The owner of that store nicknamed him "Dr. Howard" because Sheckter spent his lunch hours drawing isobars on a chalkboard.

He's been known as "Dr. Howard" ever since. Today, his forecasts help snowplow companies determine how many days they can expect to remain working, and how much the town should allocate for road maintenance. They are also used to predict when the region's 26 black bears will be coming out of winter hibernation.

"Howard has his finger on the pulse," said Steve Searles, a wildlife specialist who has gained a national reputation as a bear whisperer, someone who can deal with problem bears without killing them. "Around here, if the subject is weather, sure as heck someone will pipe up, 'What does Howard have to say?'"

That was not an easy question to answer on March 20, the first day of spring.

"A high-pressure block near Greenland has been correlated with a drier winter for California," Sheckter mumbled to himself, scanning data streaming over multiple computer screens. "However, this pattern is forecasted to break down over the next week to 10 days, allowing the possibility of storminess to return.

"If the upper wind flow at 10,000 feet has a lot of moisture and moves from the southwest," he added with a smile, "I predict that the storms that arrive around the end of March and early April will produce more precipitation. In fact, I'm banking on it."

louis.sahagun@latimes.com

Source: http://feeds.latimes.com/~r/latimes/news/science/~3/U7nBQkg5nxs/la-me-mammoth-weatherman-20130331,0,1783344.story

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Where do you stand on fracking?

Few topics in the energy sector generate more debate than the relative merits and demerits of fracking, Stuebi writes.?

By Richard T. Stuebi,?Guest blogger / March 29, 2013

A drilling rig is set up near a barn in Springville, Pa., to tap gas from the giant Marcellus Shale gas field. It?s up to us as engaged citizens to ensure that the powers-that-be fully hold accountable those who participate in fracking activities, Stuebi writes.

Alex Brandon/AP/File

Enlarge

In the energy sector, there are few topics that generate more debate today than the relative merits/demerits of fracking.? To see just how strongly-held yet evenly-divided opinion is, check out this?online debate?moderated by?The Economist?and sponsored by?Statoil (NYSE: STO).

Skip to next paragraph Cleantech Blog

A premier site for commentary on clean tech, energy, and the green economy, Cleantech Blog is edited by longtime clean-tech industry investor and executive Neal Dikeman of Jane Capital Partners LLC, and venture capitalist and industry analyst Richard Stuebi. For more clean-tech news and analysis, click?here.

North Korea: What happens if Kim Jong-un acts on his threats?

In the event that the 'bellicose rhetoric' of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un turns into something more serious, the opening hours of conflict could be 'pretty ugly,' defense analysts warn.

By Anna Mulrine,?Staff writer / March 29, 2013

North Korean leader Kim Jong-un speaks during a meeting of information workers of the whole army at the April 25 House of Culture in Pyongyang, March 28, 2013.

KCNA/REUTERS

Enlarge

Veteran North Korea watchers, citing what they see as increasingly troubling signs coming from the dictatorial regime, are voicing concerns that its new young leader, Kim Jong-un, could do something ill-advised, even start a war.

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On Friday North Korea renewed what the U.S. has condemned as its ?bellicose rhetoric,? saying Kim had ordered the nation?s missile forces to prepare to strike the United States and South Korea.

In response to the prospect of North Korea following through on this and other marginally less dire threats, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said Thursday that the US military ?will unequivocally defend, and [is] unequivocally committed to the alliance with, South Korea.?

But if hostilities were in fact to erupt, how might they play out?

Some former US Special Operations Forces and longtime Korea defense analysts have their own thoughts on what an ?unequivocal? US military response could look like, including how US troops would be deployed in the event of a lethal first strike on US and allied military forces by North Korea ? precisely the sort of move Mr. Kim has been threatening to make.

What would such a first North Korean move resemble? It might involve small-scale infiltrations using mini-submarines, assassination attempts, ?maybe shooting someone on the DMZ [demilitarized zone] or missile tests that fly too close over Japan,? says Patrick Cronin, senior director of the Asia-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security.

This might be done ?to show he?s in charge, he won?t be intimidated, or because he?s truly desperate,? Dr. Cronin says.

In the past, most such provocations generally have been met with international condemnation and strengthened sanctions.

Should Kim choose to do ?something even more outlandish,? the US military and South Korean response would be more dire, he adds.

One of the scenarios that most concerns US defense analysts, for example, involves North Korea?s estimated 500,000 to 700,000 rounds of artillery aimed at Seoul, says retired Brig. Gen. Russell Howard, former commander of the 1st Special Forces Group, which has an Asia focus.?

Should Kim decide to begin firing them, he says, ?in the first few hours of the conflict, it would be pretty ugly.?

At the same time, North Korea could begin ?swarming? its sizable contingent of 600,000 Special Operations commandos, adds Mr. Howard, now the director of the Terrorism, Research, and Education Program at the Monterey Institute of International Studies.?

Source: http://rss.csmonitor.com/~r/feeds/csm/~3/D76sqSBE_6o/North-Korea-What-happens-if-Kim-Jong-un-acts-on-his-threats

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Sunday, April 7, 2013

What matchup do you most want to see?

What matchup do you most want to see?

Smith/Siva vs. Carter-Williams/Triche

Hall vs. McGary

Smith vs. Burke

A different one

Thursday, April 4, 2013

Monday, April 1, 2013

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