mimblr.com

The final “American Idol” show of the season is always a shell game: Thirty seconds of information must be stretched to two hours of viewer engagement. The night’s rumored appearances by Britney Spears, Michael Jackson and Paul McCartney soon yielded to the reality of Bette Midler. (We love her, but, you know.)
Here’s a look inside the Nokia on finale night.
And so it begins: The judges make their grand entrance to the Paula-Randy tune, “Dance Like There’s No Tomorrow.” Some 7,000 people bark for Randy Jackson and scream for Paula Abdul. Of course, Simon Cowell.
Then the two Davids, dressed in white, bound onto the stage — and here we go!
With Ryan Seacrest’s announcement at the top of the show that one David received 56% of the vote, Dialidol.com watchers wondered whether they now knew who won.
The Nokia is about 100,000 times better for live performance than “Idol’s” former finale home. During breaks at the Kodak, the room would die.
Receptions: It’s hard to tell how Bryan Adams was greeted in the room since we were already standing for the top six men. It seemed like a muted greeting here in the loge. But in the special guest applause-o-meter, the collective gush over Seal is still No. 1.
Jordin Sparks, last year’s queen of “Idol,” took the stage and, awkwardly, did not get a standing ovation. Her effort to excite the crowd worked better toward the song’s end, when she appealed directly to the Jonas Brothers squealers. Carrie Underwood, on the other hand, commanded everyone’s attention instantly.
Bedlam: The top six boys are positioning themselves among the tweens in the pit. Insanity reigned for a moment. But back to normal now.
We will leave it to scholars to debate whether George Michael is in fact the most famous person in the world, or whatever the hype promised. But children did scream, “We love you, George!” as he left the stage.

latimes.com

Many have already pored over the ins and outs of a Democratic debate tailor-made for "Enquiring minds" earlier this week on ABC. Well guess who just happens to be coming to dinner…or This Week, this weekend?
Why none other than John McCain !
So in the spirit of seeing how all the candidates deal with "scandal," or just being queried about everyone they have associated with since that 6th grade teacher who crossed the street against a red light (do you denounce her Senator Obama ? Denounce and reject her!?! Or perhaps just reject?), here are some questions that John McCain should be asked on your show this weekend, Mr. Stephanopoulos (sorry, old habit from when I had you as a professor at Columbia ).
First a great list I came across, and then a few of my own I found in my research for my book The Real McCain . This list is from Perrspectives , a fantastic compilation, in my always humble opinion:
1. Do you agree with Pastor John Hagee that war with Iran is the fulfillment of biblical prophecy?
In February, you shared a stage with Pastor John Hagee and said you were "very proud" to have his endorsement. You also called the Reverend Rod Parsley, a man who said of Islam "America was founded, in part, with the intention of seeing this false religion destroyed", your "spiritual guide." Do you believe America's mission is to destroy Islam? Do you join Pastor Hagee in believing the United States must attack Iran to fulfill the biblical prophecy of Armageddon in Israel in which 144,000 Jews will be converted to Christianity and the rest killed? Is that why you joked about "bomb bomb Iran?" If not, why will you not renounce the support of Hagee and Parsley?

news.yahoo.com

WALNUT CREEK, Calif. - OREGON STATE senior infielder Lonnie Lechelt has been named the Pacific-10 Conference Baseball Player of the Week and STANFORD senior right-handed pitcher Erik Davis has been named Pitcher of the Week for April 14 - 20, Commissioner Tom Hansen announced today.
Lechelt, from Kennewick, Wash., was instrumental in Oregon State’s 2-1 series victory over No. 2 Arizona State. Lechelt batted .500 (5-for-10) and drove in seven runs on the strength of a double, triple and a home run. His slugging percentage finished at 1.100 while his on-base percentage was .545. The senior entered Friday night’s game as a reserve, and made his only at bat, it coming in the ninth, count. He tripled to left, scoring two runners, and bringing Oregon State to a 4-3 deficit - OSU won the game 6-4. On Saturday, Lechelt, starting at second base, hit a three-run home run in the fourth inning that gave OSU a 5-1 lead in a game the Beavers won 12-3. On the year, Lechelt is batting .326 with two home runs, two triples and 16 RBI.
Davis, from Mountain View, Calif., pitched an incredible fourth straight complete game in a 6-1 victory over UCLA on April 19. The outing was arguably Davis’ best of the four as he struck out a career-high and team season-high 13 batters, while walking just one and scattering seven hits. Davis struck out the final six hitters he faced in the contest and had a shutout going until the eighth when three consecutive singles and a wild pitch accounted for the lone UCLA run. Davis is now 4-0 with a 2.50 ERA and 35 strikeouts over 36.0 innings in his four Pac-10 outings.
The Player of the Week honor is the first of Lechelt’s career, and the 54th such honor for OSU. The Pitcher of the Week honor is the first for Davis, and the 73rd selection all-time for Stanford.

pac-10.org

NEW YORK: When Ronald Reagan first ran for president of the United States in 1980, he promised to cut taxes in what seemed, at the time, a magical way. Tax revenue would go up, not down, he said, as the economy boomed in response to lower rates.
Since then, supply-side economics, as it was called - first with derision but then as a label embraced by its supporters - has become a central tenet of Republican political and economic thinking in the country. The big supply-side tax cuts of the 1980s and the 2000s did not work as advertised, even supporters admit, but the concept has reappeared in this year's U.S. election campaign anyway, in an amended form.
“What really happens is that the economy grows more vigorously when you lower tax rates,” said Kevin Hassett, an adviser to the presumptive Republican nominee, John McCain, and the director of economic policy studies at the conservative American Enterprise Institute. “It is beyond the reach of economic science to explain precisely why that happens, but it does.”
But even with a growing economy, the promised boon in tax revenues never materialized.
Arthur Laffer, the famed proponent of supply-side economics, still holds that tax revenues “rise dramatically” when tax rates are cut. Yet in the 1980s, the initial era of supply-side tax cuts, per capita revenue from personal income taxes, adjusted for inflation, rose just 0.5 percent annually, according to the Office of Management and Budget.
That was far below the average annual increase of 6.3 percent in the eight years of the Clinton administration when tax rates at the high end of the income ladder were raised. Since 2002, with the Bush tax cuts in place, the annual per capita increase was 2.3 percent.
“If you are cutting taxes without offsetting the cuts through reductions in spending,” said Jason Furman, director of the Hamilton Project, a Democratic Party research operation, “then all you are doing is increasing the debt and postponing the taxes.”

iht.com