Monday, January 01, 2007
#3 Michigan vs. #5 USC
- Michigan (11-1; 7-1 vs. Big 10); USC (10-2; 7-2 vs. Pac 10)
- USC leads the series 5-4-0
- Series Streak: USC has won last two
Record in Rose Bowl: 8-11
Record vs. USC in Rose Bowl: 2-5
First Game: January 1, 1902 (Michigan 49, Stanford 0)
Last Appearance: January 1, 2005 (Texas 38, Michigan 37)
Michigan's BCS Bowl History
Record in BCS Bowls: 1-2
Previous BCS Bowl Results:
January 1, 2000 - Orange Bowl (Michigan 35, Alabama 34, OT)
January 1, 2004 - Rose Bowl (Southern Cal 28, Michigan 14)
January 1, 2005 - Rose Bowl (Texas 38, Michigan 37)
Michigan Key Stats:
- U-M will go for its third 12-win season against USC.
- Woodley Wins Hendricks Award as Top Defensive End
- Woodley Wins 37th Annual Lombardi Award
- Former U.S. President, U-M Alum Gerald R. Ford Dies
AP: Preview
ESPN: Pressure Release
USC, Michigan look to take out frustration in Rose Bowl
Google News: U-M vs. USC
ESPN: Michigan Clubhouse
Yahoo!: Michigan Team Page
Detroit Free-Press: Michigan Team Page
Detroit News: Michigan Clubhouse
- Michigan is #3 in the BCS, #3 in the AP Poll, #3 in the USA Today Coaches' Poll and #3 in the Sagarin rankings
- Michigan has more wins that any football program in NCAA history, 860.
- Michigan has the highest winning percentage of any team in NCAA history 860-281-36 (.7465xxx).
- Michigan will play its 366th game (271-84-10, .75x) when ranked in the Top 10 in the AP Poll. They are 8-0 this year. They are 18-6-1 all-time when ranked #2 and 4-0 this year.
- Michigan ranks #1 all-time in composite AP final football polls (1936-2005)
- Michigan has 42 Big 10 titles which is the most conference titles of any NCAA school and is 456-164-18 (.73x) in Big 10 play.
- Michigan has the most weekly appearances in the AP poll, appearing 735 times since 1936.
- Michigan has led the nation in attendance 31 of the last 32 years
- Michigan has had 200 consecutive crowds of 100,000+ fan at "The Big House" - a streak started Nov. 8, 1975
- Michigan has compiled a 368-106-15 record (.768) at "The Big House"
- Michigan has appeared in 32 straight bowls, the longest current streak in NCAA history.
- 368 Michigan football games have been televised (248-112-8), which leads the NCAA.
- The Michigan football program is the only Big 10 team in any sport to win a conference title in each decade. It is the winningest overall athletic program in Big 10 Conference history
- Michigan has appeared in more Rose Bowls (20) than any other Big 10 Conference school
- Michigan has 11 national championships (5th all-time) to OSU's 7
- Michigan's five current NFL quarterback's are more than any other school in the country.
Lloyd Carr Stats
- Head coach Lloyd Carr has a career winning percentage of .76x (113-35), ranking him fifth among active Division I coaches.
- He is 41-7 (.841) against Big 10 foes at Michigan Stadium and 34-14 on the road. He has the best winning percentage (69-9 .885) of any U-M coach at Michigan Stadium.
- Coach Carr is 47-19 while ranked in the Top 10.
- Michigan has a 39-22 overall record against nationally ranked teams under Carr. They are 16-7 against Top 10 opponents; 8-3 against teams in the Top 5; 4-1 against No. 2 ranked teams; and 0-2 against opponents ranked #1. He is 4-4 against OSU teams ranked in the Top 10 and 1-3 against OSU at Ohio Stadium when U-M is ranked in the Top 10.
- He leads active Big 10 coaches with 75 conference wins, 75-21 (.78x), a mark he grabbed in 2003.
- Carr is 6-6 against OSU and 2-4 in Columbus.
- He is the 8th coach in conference history to claim five or more Big 10 championships.
- Big House Football
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- Michigan Sports Center
- Michigan Football Saturdays
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- Westsider Rider
Saturday, December 23, 2006
Bono to Receive Honorary Knighthood
As Bono is Irish he is not entitled to the 'Sir' title, as a British national would be, and he can receive the award in a ceremony in Dublin. The award is being granted for his services to music and for his activism.
In 2003 Bono was presented with the Legion D'Honneur by President Jacques Chirac on behalf of the French Government, for his contribution to music and his campaigning work. Also in recognition of his work promoting justice and equality, Bono was awarded the Time Person of the Year 2005, along with Bill and Melinda Gates.
British honours are granted by The Queen, on advice from the British Government and previous non-British recipients include Bill Gates, Placido Domingo, Rudolf Giuliani, Steven Spielberg and Simon Wiesenthal.
We understand that Bono is 'very flattered' to be honoured, particularly if the honour - like its French counterpart - opens doors for his long standing campaigning work against extreme poverty in Africa.
Friday, December 22, 2006
Monday, December 18, 2006
Book Review: U2 & Philosophy: How to Decipher an Atomic Band
What is also troubling about this book is that the majority of the authors make sweeping generalizations about U2's fans, the band themselves, and U2's music without offering any support...
This book is not designed for a casual U2 fan. It is also not designed for someone with no background in philosophy. For the U2 fan who has read every book available on the band and found John Waters' Race of Angels a tough read, you are in for a similar experience. You'll be challenged in many ways, but not in the ways a U2 fan would hope to be. I found myself questioning if some of the authors even listened to U2's music, or even if they were fans?
If the book's intention was to show me "how to decipher an atomic band," it left me wondering how on Earth the authors would think that Bono had Descartes, Derrida, Aristotle or Plato in mind whilst writing a lyric. I'm sure Bono's familiar with some of the philosophers, but to actually believe that Bono's writing of "Vertigo" was a direct correlation to the works of Aristotle is a tough pill to swallow.
Sunday, December 17, 2006
Letter from China: The sex industry is everywhere but nowhere
SHANGHAI: What's the fastest-growing industry in China? Mobile phones? Computer components? Toys? The last wouldn't be too far off, but not in the sense that the word toys is conventionally understood. Call them playthings.
Anecdotal evidence is the best one can do for a field such as this, but a bet could be placed on the sex industry. Yes, prostitution.
It is scarcely possible to walk for 10 minutes in any big Chinese city without coming across the sex trade in one of its many guises. Prostitutes work in most hotels, and are indeed employed by the hotels, including the state- owned ones. They work the streets, the clubs, and massage and sauna parlors, which range from monstrously gaudy to grimy holes in the wall.
They can be found in barber shops and beauty salons; sometimes they are the only people working in such establishments. And they are present — no, ubiquitous — at every class level of society, down to the poorest neighborhoods of Shanghai and the lowliest villages.
Numbers range all over the board, from the official estimates one sees from time to time of 3 million prostitutes nationwide, to U.S. State Department reports that have placed the figure at 10 million, to a Chinese economist, Yang Fan, who has estimated there are 20 million sex workers in the country, accounting for fully 6 percent of the country's gross domestic product.
Coming back to anecdotal impressions, it would not surprise this writer if all of these figures were low. Beyond the numbers, though, it is when one considers that before economic changes were introduced a quarter- century ago, there was essentially no open prostitution in China at all — none — that one is most astounded.
Ordinarily, a phenomenon that had grown so fast and become this vast would be grist for all manner of conversation, from the public health implications of near-universal prostitution, to the social causes of gender inequality, high unemployment and blossoming organized crime, just for a start. From there one might move on to a discussion of profound changes in social values to the need for legal reform.
One of the most basic notions in law is that an unenforceable law is a bad law. The existence of millions of prostitutes makes a mockery of China's legal code, whose formal banning of a deeply entrenched activity forces women into the hands of organized crime and furthers their vulnerability and marginalization.
Perhaps the most striking feature of China's booming prostitution industry, though, is how little ink is expended on it, how seldom its extent is even acknowledged.
In a relaxed moment the other day, a Chinese official made this startling confession: "I read the foreign press to learn about things that are happening in China. The Chinese press doesn't write about bad news."
When I moved to object to categorizing news as "good" or "bad," he waved me off, saying: "Don't worry. When there are problems, I think it is good to focus on them."
Although generally invisible in polite society, two very different kinds of prostitution have managed to work their way into China's national consciousness in the last few weeks, and they speak volumes about a huge and yawning class divide here.
At the end of November, officials in Shenzhen, the southern boomtown, got the bright idea of reviving the Cultural Revolution for the purposes of temporarily cracking down on its prostitutes.
This came to pass as a face-preserving measure after a regional television station broke with decorum by mentioning the existence of this industry in a city famous throughout Asia for its sex trade.
To send the message that Shenzhen was actually a clean and proper place, the police dressed several dozen prostitutes in identical yellow smocks and marched them through the streets of Futian district, to be shamed by a jeering crowd and have their names and hometowns announced to all.
A few weeks earlier, beginning with the still unfolding political corruption scandal in Shanghai, Chinese newspaper readers were treated to stories detailing the sex lives of public officials, including the city's party leader, Chen Liangyu, who is said to have maintained 11 "mistresses."
The quotation marks are warranted because in its apparently most common, high-level Chinese form, such relationships are typically as money- based as an hour with a sauna girl, only more elaborately contractual, sometimes including the frequency of sex, and are, of course, incomparably more lucrative.
Soon, Chinese blogs and Internet forums were competing to reveal the details — albeit rumored details — of public officials and their kept women from one end of the country to the other.
In parts of Africa, another region of the world where such practices are rife, these women are known as "second offices." Journalists who work on that continent learn that one usually reliable gauge of corruption is the flamboyance with which politicians bring new women aboard.
For a long time, the late leader of Zaire, Mobutu Sese Seko, was a dubious champion in such matters, establishing families with both his wife and her identical twin, among many other liaisons.
China's governing class may have something even on Mobutu, though. According to press reports, when he was caught up in a corruption scandal in 2000, the head of the Jiangsu Province Construction Bureau, Xu Qiyao, was found to have had relations with over 100 women, including a mother and her daughter. Lin Longfei, the former Communist Party secretary of Zhouning County, in Fujian Province, reportedly kept 22 mistresses simultaneously and held a banquet for them all in May 2002.
The mistresses of officials don't get dragged through the streets. Indeed, their easy path to wealth is envied by many. Low and high, there is degradation for all women, though, in this commerce, and nowhere so much as in the silence that surrounds it.
E-mail: pagetwo@iht.com
Friday, December 15, 2006
Rumsfeld Honored at Pentagon, Bids Farewell
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Thursday, December 14, 2006
Dictatorships & Double Standards, by Jeane Kirkpatrick
Why the New Right Lost February 1977
U.S. Security & Latin America January 1981
How the PLO Was Legitimized July 1989
LAMAR HUNT: 1932-2006
| Chiefs owner Lamar Hunt dies | |||
 Hunt's Chiefs won Super Bowl IV. (AP) | Kansas City owner Lamar Hunt, who came up with the term "Super Bowl," died Wednesday night from prostate cancer. He was 74. Story  Reaction: Remembered as an innovator Snapshot: The man through the years | ||
Stories
• Pioneering Chiefs owner Lamar Hunt dies at 74
• Clayton: Hunt always had common touch
• Luksa: Humble Hunt never afraid to think big
• Dell'Apa: Hunt a quiet pioneer of U.S. soccer
• Thoughts and reactions on Lamar Hunt
Video
• Lamar Hunt passes away at age 74 
Timeline
• Lamar Hunt through the years
Wednesday, December 13, 2006
The Power of the Press
BY PETER R. KANN
Wednesday, December 13, 2006 12:01 a.m. EST
Thomas Jefferson, a better president than we've had in a very long time, penned a line back in 1787: "Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without government, I would not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter." By 1807, in his seventh year as president and after seven years of being subjected to severe press criticism, he wrote: "I deplore the putrid state into which our newspapers have passed, and the malignity, the vulgarity and the mendacious spirit of those who write them."
You'll be relieved to know that Jefferson did remain true to his primary principle: "The press," he concluded, "is an evil for which there is no remedy. Liberty depends upon freedom of the press and that cannot be limited without being lost." He was right then, and we are right now, to prefer a free press, however flawed, to any controlled alternative. Still, as we watched CNN flashing its pre-election logos each day--"Broken Borders," "Broken Government," "Broken Politics," Broken Everything--I can't help thinking the media, too, is in need of some mending.
At its best news informs and enlightens the citizens of a free society and thereby safeguards and strengthens our democracy. At its worst--dishonest, unfair, irresponsible--the media has potential to erode the public trust on which its own success depends and to corrode the democratic system of which it is so indispensably a part. So, let me touch on 10 current trends in the mass media that ought to disturb us.
The blurring of the lines between journalism and entertainment. Journalism that puts too high a priority on entertaining is almost destined to distort and mislead. Compounding this confusion is a diffusing definition of "journalist." When political operatives moonlight at moderating news shows, when people alternate between being political editors and political consultants, when celebrity newspeople pocket $20,000 fees speaking at corporate conventions while criticizing congressman for conflicts of interest--we jumble public perceptions of newspeople as well as news.
The blurring of lines between news and opinion. Newspapers have a format that helps maintain the distinction. The Internet, TV and most magazines have neither that format nor that tradition. The result is a blending of news and views. The two are not ingredients to mix together for a tastier meal, they are different courses. Part of the problem here lies in fashionable new philosophies that argue there are no basic values of right and wrong, that news is merely a matter of views. It's a dangerous philosophy for our society and a dagger at the heart of genuine journalism.
The blending of news and advertising, sponsorships or other commercial relationships. The resulting porridges may be called "advertorials" or "infomercials"; they may be special sections masquerading as news, news pages driven by commercial interests, or Web pages where everything somehow is selling something. Without clear distinctions between news and advertising, readers or viewers lose confidence in the veracity of a news medium. And advertisers lose the business benefit of an environment of trust.
The problems and pitfalls inherent in pack journalism. Individually, most reporters are decent, dedicated, fair-minded people. But the press, en masse, tends to lose its common sense and its sense of fairness and independence and what we see all too often is the spectacle of a pack of hounds in pursuit of a quarry. We frequently see this phenomenon in political reporting, where the faintest whiff of scandal, or even of weakness, can send the pack in pursuit. At its worst, the pack, not finding a real problem, proclaims the "perception" of one and this perception becomes self-fulfilling.
The issue of conflict and context. On most issues most Americans are not on polar extremes. On abortion, for example, most seek a sensible center. Where is that center reflected in media coverage that mainly portrays rabid feminists or irate pro-life activists? Balance is not achieved by the talk show format of two extremists yelling at each other. And how many of us recognize our own communities from their depiction on local TV news shows--a nonstop montage of mayhem, murder, rape, arson, child molestation and more?
The exaggerated tendency toward pessimism. Just look back a few years over much of the media coverage of "American competitiveness." All those news magazine covers on the coming "Japanese Century." And along with it, all the pessimism about the ability of U.S. industry to compete globally. It was nonsense. Similarly, it's one thing--and an appropriate one--for the press to probe particular instances of political corruption. It's quite another thing to jump to the cynical conclusion that our political process, and all politicians, are corrupted--that "they all do it." They don't, and they aren't. Skepticism and criticism are essential to the media's role; reflexive pessimism is not.
The growing media fascination with the bizarre, the perverse and the pathological--John Mark Karr journalism. Such so-called journalism helps instantly legitimize crackpot ideas, deviant behavior, or alleged victimization in our society. My point is not to argue for "good news" vs. "bad news," but to ask whether much of this amounts to news at all?
Social orthodoxy, or political correctness. These are reflected in a media whose job is not to parrot prevailing fashions, but to question, probe and thereby challenge them. Businessmen are not, by definition, greedy, and environmentalists, by definition, saintly. Third World poverty is not, by definition, a result of overpopulation as opposed to inane economic policies. And so on.
The media's short attention span. As the press hops from Baghdad to Beirut, Natalee Holloway to Valerie Plame, Super Bowls to Super Tuesdays, it justifiably can blame some combination of the nature of the news and the short attention span of the public. The public, meanwhile, bombarded and bewildered can blame a fickle and shallow press. There are too many instant celebrities. Too many two-day crises. Too many "defining moments" from people in search of instant history. In a world where everything is considered critical, nothing needs to be taken very seriously.
The matter of power. The press is at least partially responsible for greater public skepticism toward traditional institutions in America. But the truth, not lost on our public, is that the press is a large and powerful institution, too: "60 Minutes" is more powerful than almost all of the subjects it exposes. This newspaper, arguably, has more influence on national economic policy than do most corporations. Networks are owned by giant industrial corporations, magazines by entertainment conglomerates, and most newspapers by national chains. Given these realties, we cannot plausibly pretend to be a David out there smiting Goliaths and expect the public to believe it.
Mr. Kann, a Pulitzer-winning journalist, is chairman of Dow Jones.Tuesday, December 12, 2006
Monday, December 11, 2006
Here's why Davey belongs in Cooperstown
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 | FRANK KIMMEL/Post file photo |
| Dave Concepcion's defense made up for shortcomings of the Big Red Machine. | |
It's past time to put Concepción in Hall, by Marty Brennanman
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 | ENQUIRER FILE |
| Reds icon Dave Concepción tips his hat after being introduced during end-of-game ceremonies after the final Reds game at Cinergy Field on Sept 22, 2002. | |
The US counter-terror nerve centre
| By Frank Gardner Security correspondent, BBC News |
In a Washington suburb, I am on a journey. No address, no postcode.
Just the phone number of a US government official known only as "T".
After months of requests, he has granted us permission to visit one of America's newest and most secret establishments: the National Counterterrorism Center, the NCTC.
It is a nondescript building, but inside is the beating heart of America's counter-terrorism nerve centre.
"This is where we maintain a 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week operational watch in the counter-terrorism intelligence community and monitor situational awareness in the world of CT [counter-terrorism]," says Vice Admiral Don Loren, one of the watch officers in the Operations Room.
The Operations Room is a large open-plan chamber filled with desks and computer terminals.
But today it is almost empty. Because we are media, all the undercover agents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the National Security Agency and the Central Intelligence Agency who would normally sit here have been moved out of sight.
But up on the wall is a giant plasma screen showing every plane approaching the United States.
"Right now, you're looking at the Eastern Seaboard air corridor, and we use that to monitor events of special interest and to keep an eye should there be any reports of what we call no-fly activity," Vice Adm Loren says.
A "no-fly" means a plane with a passenger suspicious enough that the flight can even get turned back over the mid-Atlantic.
In everyone's minds is the thought: "9/11, never again."
Enormous data flow
The NCTC is also intended to remedy the sort of information blockages that led to 9/11.
When it was set up two years ago, they brought in the "imagineers" from Hollywood - experts on sharing information.
The data flow here is enormous: more than 6,000 reports come through every day from satellite, electronic and human intelligence sources.
When an incident happens, a "terror line" is created to pass the information to everyone who needs it.
Central to all this is the Briefing Room, where screens rise up like something out of a James Bond film.
This is the nerve centre of the US-led global "war on terror".
It is here in this room, three times a day, every day, that America's specialists in counter-terrorism gather to share information.
It brings in 16 agencies like the FBI, the CIA, Homeland Security as well as the White House, and has been described as a "stock exchange" for counter-terrorism intelligence.
The man in charge is almost unknown, yet he has one of the most sensitive jobs in the world.
Vice Admiral Scott Redd gives the president America's war plan on fighting terrorism.
"Before 9/11, agencies didn't talk to each other, now all counter terrorism information comes into NCTC," Vice Adm Redd says.
"We take that, we've created an electronic library, we have over six million pieces of CT info that can be accessed by over 6,000 counter-terrorism analysts around the world.
"So bringing that together has been very significant." 
But I put it to Vice Adm Redd that although America itself had not been attacked since 9/11, al-Qaeda-inspired terrorism appears to be as active as ever.
Did America's strategy go any deeper than tackling the symptoms?
"Obviously you want to stop an attack, but you don't want to stop an attack just in the nick of time," the NCTC director replied.
"You want to go after, you sort of work your way back, ultimately all the way back to the radicalisation/recruitment phase, proselytisation, with things like travel, the finances which underpin it, training, leadership, planning, typically more travel and then everything up to and including stopping the attacks."
The NCTC has 400,000 names in its database here.
It has five watch teams working 12-hour shifts and a vast electronic library.
But of course, despite all the technology and resources, none of this is guaranteed to stop terrorism.
Senior officials here admitted that this war could last another 40 years or more, and there will be defeats along the way.
