BP Gulf Oil Spill - why not oil eating bacteria? Gov. Crist must act

BP Gulf Oil Spill - why not oil eating bacteria? That's a question many have asked this blogger to "put out there" so here it is. There are manufactured types of bacteria developed to essentially "eat" oil.

In Internet research relevant to the British Petroleum Gulf Oil Spill, results show that a company called Osprey Biotechnics has announced they're ready to make large quantities of their product called Munox. Munox is a bacterial compound that can be used to consume, digest, and breakdown oil into water and carbon dioxide according to one blog report.

The Osprey Company website describes Munox in this way:

Munox significantly reduces FOG, BOD/TSS, COD, ammonia, nitrate, phenolic compounds, terpene-based and chlorinated solvents and petroleum hydrocarbons in a variety of industrial wastewater applications

But what's puzzling is why governments have been so slow to adopt the technology in a time of need. According to the same blog report, Florida Governor Charlie Crist called Osprey Biotechnics last Thursday, June 10th, but has not followed up as of this writing.

The sinister mind would say that Republican Governor Crist is stalling action to avoid helping Democratic President Barack Obama.

And what about Osprey Biotechnics? It's a Sarasota, Florida biotech company established in 1990 and with annual revenues of over $2 million. While this may seem like corporate opportunism, remember, we got into this because another company, BP, screwed up.

Gov. Crist should stop with the delays and formally bring Osprey Biotechnics in to solve the oil spill problem before it gets even worse.

Albany avoids shutdown by Suzannah B. Troy

1010 Wins reports, "The New York state legislature has passed governor Paterson's emergency spending bill averting a government shutdown. Watch my YouTube and learn my insights on why Albany politico's went out of their way to avoid a humiliating and historic shutdown.   I suggest another reason. Thug Pedro Espada with the help  Hiram Monserrate brought Albany to a humilating stand still which cost the tax payers a fortune.   Pedro Espada and Hiram Monserrate went to a Yankee game to celebrate their power play mugging for photographers like their lenses were cocaine....high on the attention and clearly incapable of understanding their action cost the tax payers a fortune....post appear to be stupid thugs. I have made a YouTube on more shady dealings....click here to see it and here is my latest on why Albany needed to prevent a shutdown besides the fact a shutdown might have caused a full out official depression.

Italy vs Paraguay: exciting World Cup Soccer game ends in 1-1 tie

A World Cup Soccer game for the ages had FIFA 29th ranked Paraguay scoring first and leading World Cup Defending Champion Italy 1 to 0 into halftime. That even as Italy had the time-of-possession advantage and who's players seemed faster to the ball. But Paraguay played with heart and hustle, assisted by a light rain that made play a bit slippery.

But then the rain went away and Italy turned it on in the second half, creating numerous scoring chances, but getting only one goal. It looked as if Italy could have ran away with the contest, but it failed to convert on its many goal chances in the second half.

Then, toward the end of the game, Paraguay did well just to keep Italy away from a possible go ahead score, hanging on to survive a 1-1 game.

Shocking World Cup Soccer Score: #29 Paraguay 1, #5 Italy 0, first half

Antolin Alcaraz of Paraguay

In a shocking FIFA World Cup Soccer score at the half, its #29 Paraguay 1, #5 Italy 0. While Italy has been faster to the ball, and has more time of possession 57 percent to 43 percent according to ESPN, Paraguay has played with more team work and hustle in the rain.

Paraguay's Antolín Alcaraz scored the first goal with a monster kick that sent the ball flying past Italy's Goalie Gianluigi Buffon and into the net.

Considering Italy played in Paraguay's part of the field most of the game, that Paraguay got the score was amazing. Simply, Paraguay took better advantage of their fewer opportunities.

Paraguay, the 29th ranked team, was expected to see Italy's cleats; not happening.

Still, its the first half of a great World Cup Soccer Game.

Watch it live at ESPN.com.

Jimmy Dean, sausage king, dead at 81 - John Draper

Jimmy Dean, of sausage and country western music fame, died of natural causes yesterday in his Varina, VA home.

His wife, Donna Meade Dean, told the Associated Press:

...that he had some health problems but was still functioning well, so his death came as a shock. She said he was eating in front of the television. She left the room for a time and came back and he was unresponsive. She said he was pronounced dead at 7:54 p.m.

Born to Ruth and George Otto Dean of Plainview, TX in 1928, he eventually dropped out of high school to join the US Air Force for a brief tour in the late '40s.  He later went on to country music fame.

His first hit was "Bummin' Around" in 1953, but he is best known for his 1961 chart topper "Big Bad John."  Such big names as Patsy Cline and Roy Clark got their start with Dean.

He had an extensive television career including his skits on The Muppet Show with Rowlf the Dog and his own ABC variety series, The Jimmy Dean Show.  I used to love those skits as a kid.

In 1969, he and his brother Don founded the Jimmy Dean Sausage Company (ahahaha that's a sausage link), which was acquired by Consolidated Foods (later renamed Sara Lee Corporation) in 1984.  I loved that sausage as a kid too.  Put a link on a popsicle stick, dip it in pancake batter, fry it, and then dip it in maple syrup.  Om nom nom nom.

He is survived by his wife, three children and two granddaughters.

World Cup Score on Google News: Blogs 1,000, Old Media zip

World Cup Score on Google News: Blogs 1,000, Old Media zip? Read on...

One quiet revolution on Google News and Google Trends and sparked by World Cup Soccer interest is the thousands of web pages on World Cup Soccer on blogs you've never heard of that pop up on the news side of Google Trends.

Google Trends is a sub-product of Google News, the Google online product that lists and aggregates news from news sites and blog sites each second. Last year, by observation, Google News favored traditional news organizations with websites. But, starting last fall, and continuing at an increasing rate, standard blog content has made its way over to Google News and on the news side of Google Trends.

Google Trends results have been divided into two sections: news on the left and blogs on the right. It was easy to tell the difference as news sites like The Washington Post showed up on the left and blogs on the right. But as of The 2010 World Cup all that changed.

Googling "World Cup live streaming" produced a number of websites never seen before by this blogger, like BigNewsBiz (a press release) or NewsBoll, or Flash Briefings and Fishabble, or Daily World Trends, all blogs and all in the main Google News area.

In other words, their content is not relegated to the "blog" area. Personally, this is a good thing.

It's good because it means that Google understands something this blogger has talked to execs there about: the need to "unlock" Google News and make blogs more a part of the standard news cycle.

I openly stated to Google that doing this was the only way to change the culture of traditional news organizations and force them to become more "tech" than journalist. That is, to learn Internet webpage engineering and develop an interest in coding for web pages and for search systems. Also, for the organizations to become more a part of the tech culture.

While "unlocking" Google News will certainly cause a decrease in online revenue from traffic to conventional news sites, the development will make them stronger in the end. The days of news companies like News Corporation and Rupert Murdoch threatening to pull their content from Google are over. Such an action only harms Rupert Murdoch, not Google.

The World Cup Soccer games show that; finding traditional news sites in some searches is like trying to find a needle in a haystack. But then, when one Googled "World Cup live", the San Francisco Chronicle blog stood at the top of the search result in Google News and on the first page as of this writing at 8 AM PDT.

That was my doing.

Stay tuned.

2010 World Cup live streaming: Netherlands beats Denmark 2-0

2010 World Cup live streaming at ESPN Soccernet here!

In 2010 FIFA World World Cup live streaming news, The Netherlands beat Denmark 2-0. The The Netherlands, which reportedly were supposed to be the best attacking team in the 2010 World Cup (eh, did anyone see Germany?), defeated Denmark in part on a wild play that saw Demark's defender Simon Poulsen score The Netherlands goal due to a deflection off his head and from teammate Daniel Agger.

The wild play occurred in the 46th minute of play.

The Netherlands went up on Denmark 2-0 in the 84th minute when their player Dirk Kuyt got a rebound in from close range.

Japan v Cameroon

Japan plays Cameroon in a game that starts at 7 AM PDT. Africa's current success in The World Cup places additional pressure on a Cameroon team looking to make up for not qualifying in 2006. It's the 19th ranked Cameroonian team against 45th ranked Japan.

World Champion Italy plays Paraguay live today

Italy, the 2006 World Cup Champion, opens play against Paraguay live today, Monday, in Group F play at 11:30 PDT.

USC Football sanctions: some donors point to Mike Garrett and Pete Carroll

In the wake of the NCAA's sanctions against USC for alleged violations in its football and basketball programs, and as USC's athletic administration led by USC Athletic Director Mike Garrett, digs in, circles the wagons, and prepares for an appeal, some USC donors who talked to this blogger are not pleased at all with the situation, and are using it to speak their displeasure with not just USC's Garrett, but former USC Football Coach Pete Carroll.

One donor who's met Carroll several times, has had a major role in giving to the USC program, and has been a visitor to the USC Football practices on several occasions said on Sunday "I could just walk into the practices and no one asked who I was. I could have had a $1,000 cash and no one would know."

The USC donor says that while Pete Carroll claimed disappointment with the NCAA action, and lack of knowledge of how the actions that were the focus of the punishment could have happened, on some level it was hard to see how he could not know or have some idea that something was going on with Reggie Bush. After all, he was the head coach. "This puts a cloud over everything that's happened in the past," my USC donor friend said.

Another USC Donor friend, in a conversation Saturday in San Francisco's Marina District, said "I think Mike Garrett should go" but focused more on their dislike for Garrett's style rather than any substantive argument. Still, it's clear the NCAA sanctions against USC have given Mike Carrett's enemies reason to strike, and they're doing so.

Mike Garrett, for his part, is fighting back, according to ESPN's Diamond Leung. In a blog, Diamond Leung noted that Garrett "had this to say when I approached him before the start of the event: “No comment. Don’t bother me. The world is great.” Then Leung noted "While walking away with associates, he (Garrett) said, 'Don’t talk to that guy. He’s the press.'"

Mike Ornstein

Garrett's best action is openness - with his friends, his enemies, and the press. It's not fair that Garrett's left to fight the USC battle alone while Pete Carroll escapes scot free. The word that's coming in here is that Mike Ornstein (currently working with 49ers Legend Joe Montana), may have been asked by Pete Carroll to work with his football program.

The possible smoking gun rests in the USC Public Infractions Report that you can download here and which reads in part:

There was information in the record that the former head football coach encouraged sports marketer A to hire student-athletes as interns. A current NFLPA certified agent ("sports agent B") is the chairman of a sports agency and a colleague of sports marketer A. He reported that the former head football coach asked sports marketer A to consider hiring football student-athletes as interns in his agency. Sports agent B reported:

(Sports marketer A) was like, „yeah, here's (the former head football coach) and the year before, he, he's tryin' to get me to hire, you know, three players, you know.‟

...How many players, I don't even know, maybe he tried to get him to hire ten....but it was totally agreed upon between (the former head football coach) and (sports marketer A) that there was an internship program for that summer. That's all I do know.

At the hearing, the former head coach denied that he asked sports marketer A to hire football student-athletes as interns, although he acknowledged that he knew sports marketer A and that he (sports marketer A) had "something about his past the years before that had gone wrong . . . (and) it was related to the NFL.”

[Note: At the hearing the institution's general counsel reported that, in 1995, sports marketer A had "pleaded guilty to mail fraud for defrauding the NFL."]

The "sports marketer" referred to is Mike Ornstein, as revealed in a 2007 SPORTS by BROOKS blog post.  Mike told this blogger he was working on behalf of Joe Montana on the Red Carpet of The 2010 NFL Draft in this video at the 26 second mark:



In retrospect, it did not occur to me to ask Mike about the USC issue at the time and until three hour later after the NFL Draft started when it fully dawned on me that Mike Ornstein was the Mike Ornstein. But then, there were a number of "seasoned sports journalists" there, who didn't ask him any questions at all; I asked about sports marketing in this economic climate.

I digress.  Seattle Seahawks Head Coach Pete Carroll should come out and say what he knows, because its clear he knows something and time will reveal what that is.  By not saying anything, Pete Carroll places Mike Ornstein in the position of being able to "out" Carroll if he wants to.   If Ornstein denies that Carroll asked him to participate in the football program, the question is "If not Pete, then who did?"  

This story gets more complicated with every turn.

Jimmy Dean dies at 81 | Jimmy Dean Sausage was excellent

Sadly, Jimmy Dean passed away Sunday evening in Varina, Virginia at 81 years of age. Media accounts, like the one at CNN.com, focused most on his legendary songs like Big Bad John, and barely note the sausage that bears his name, Jimmy Dean Sausage.

But as a kid, all I ever wanted for breakfast with my scrambled eggs and cheese (which my Mom made to perfection) was Jimmy Dean Sausage. I'm serious, and this is not a sponsored endorsement. Jimmy Dean Sausages were bigger, beefier, and yummier than any other kind of sausage. I could actually smell the difference.

I never knew that Jimmy Dean was a singer of anything until after I'd developed a love for Jimmy Dean Sausage.

Jimmy Dean, RIP.