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.

Justin Bieber syphilis: anatomy of an Internet smear campaign

Justin Biber victim of smear campaign

First, singer Justin Bieber does not have syphilis. Bieber is the unfortunate victim of an Internet smear campaign that started with an ugly Facebook page created a month ago, and where the creator wrote they hoped Justin Bieber died of syphilis.

Why? Apparently, the maker of the Facebook page had nothing better to do and believed it was funny. It's not funny at all; to harass Bieber in this way is against the law.   Because Bieber's a public figure, more liberties can be taken than with a normal person; Bieber has to prove intent to commit malice, let alone find the person who did it. That's the price of fame.

Second, the ugly smear engineers apparently used a February TMZ.com blog post with the title "Justin Bieber's Sweet 16 -- Possible Risk of Death" as the basis for "evidence" of the claim. Then the Facebook page surfaced stating the awful wish, and then a Twitter hashtag was created on Sunday that was simply #syphilis, and that became a trending topic on Twitter.

From that, a flurry of blog posts surfaced, some reporting Bieber had it, most others not, and still other bloggers asking if the rumor was true. It's not and it's sick.

Media observers will point to the need for better news verification, but the blogsphere did its job in evaluating and then rejecting the information. Remember, this is a complicated set of developments that has no obvious single person at fault. Assigning blame is hard to do, but Justin's fans are in the process of doing it.

Does Justin Bieber have a defamation of character case?  Yes.  It's obvious the people who did this intended to harm him.  But because the Facebook page does not state Bieber has syphilis, rather says that they wish he got it, the maker of the page can't be successfully prosecuted for defamation.  

In the end, Justin Bieber's best and least expensive course is to let his legion of fans protect him, and let the whole deal blow over.   There are people who aren't happy unless they make someone they perceive as "more important" than they are unhappy.  Why this is, I do not know, but the growth of the Internet has given rise to the work of this kind of sick person.

True Blood Season 3 opener winner by Suzannah B. Troy

I just watched the season opener and it's a winner. I can't wait for next week to find out what happens. As usual the acting is super but as usual I can't stand the gore.

Of course there was a lot of nudity and no big surprises except the additions of werewolves,  an ever expanding cast of excellent actors and an improved story line.  The story telling has regained some humor which made the season opener  so much more fun.

A note on the nudity.  It seems like the returning cast knew they were going to spend a lot of time naked and devoted the off season to working out and dieting.   I regretted not working out today and eating all those chips and salsa before watching this new installment.  Why do I want to go eat more chips and salsa now?

Brian Buckner wrote this episode and Daniel Minahan directed.

Here is the HBO link with expanded site catering to the huge fan base.

I really could not handle the last few episodes of last season, mostly closing my eyes but wanting to find out how the season would end.

One of my favorite characters is the teenage vampire played by Deborah Ann Woll.  Being an a teenager for eternity is a true nightmare.   By the way Deborah, a red hair beauty is a New Yorker!


HBO even has a live conversation fans can join in right now....enjoy!


By the way for "Eric" fans, The New York Post has a piece on  Swedish Alex Skarsgard and his famous acting family.   I instantly adored his Dad the first time I ever saw him in a film...like father, like son.   He has some gorgeous brothers in the entertainment business as well.

Alan Ball continues to work his magic while addressing complex and politically issues he infuses in to the story line.

Season three  is going to be an exciting.  I hope not so gory although I hear otherwise and I hope some more humor and sweetness...

Angry, Violent, SF Luxor Cab Driver update

As readers of this space will recall, last week, Tuesday night, this video-blogger, after riding BART (San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit) to Embarcadero Station, encountered a cab driver who seemed quite upset that he got an African American passenger and not a white passenger.

When the cab driver realized I was the person who yelled "Hey taxi," after I got into the Luxor Cab #1046, CA License # 8L46060, the cab driver said "no it was the other guy." I said there was no other person who wanted a cab, and the person the cab driver pointed to wasn't the least interested in getting a cab; the White Guy in A Suit was texting on his iPhone.

Agitated, I said "I think you're just upset that it turned out to be this Black Guy and not that White Guy," to which, after turning on to Spear Street from Market Street, the cab driver said "Get out of the car." I activated my video camera; this is what happened:



As you can see, the cab driver committed an assault. Later in the week, I filed a complaint with the San Francisco Taxi Commission. My frank desire is to see that the cab driver is not allowed behind the wheel again. But what I did notice in the process of filing the complaint are two things, one bad and one good.

The bad is that if one does a search in Google, for " San Francisco Taxi Commission" the result that appears first has a "non-working" phone number, (415) 553-1447, according to the recording, which does not provide the new number. You have to do more searching to learn that the Taxi Commission is now a part of the San Francisco Transportation Authority.

The good news is once you do get the right number, 415-553-1115, the person who answers and takes your report is very patient and helpful. But again, the phone number is not one that's listed online; I found it completely by accident.

At first, I called 415-553-0123 at the San Francisco Police Department which is how I was directed to call 415-553-1115. The recording reports that the number belongs to Sgt. Charles Mahoney of The San Francisco Permits and Taxi Section, but on the weekdays, the number takes you to a person who can take your complaint.

Got that?

So the San Francisco Taxi Commission needs to change the webpage with the wrong number on it, and put the right number in its place.

The other small complaint I have is with YouTube account holder RatedR7180, who wrote:

zennie62...you act like a little bitch. i live in SF. my fist will introduce itself to your face once you start rolling that video. face it. you're a cry baby.

When I first saw the comment I thought he was saying he wanted to hit me. So, I visited his YouTube channel but there was no real name or photo. People like that don't think and can be a menace to society; if I were to have hit the cab driver, then I would have been at fault as well. I have neither the desire or time to get into meaningless fights with psychotics; I'd rather have the guy arrested.

Fortunately the vast majority of people who bothered to comment or send an email seem mentally stable. People like RatedR7180 seem to forget that if the authorities wanted to find them, they could. Just ask the guy who threatened House Speaker Pelosi.