Future awards out of question?

Buster Olney posed an interesting question on Twitter and then in his column this morning:

If?Ryan Braun?is suspended for his positive drug test, will writers never again consider Braun for any award during his playing career? In other words, if he?s suspended 50 games this year, then passes all subsequent tests and hits 60 homers in 2015, would they leave him off their MVP ballot because of what transpired in 2011/2012?

To be clear: Olney has come out staunchly against the BBWAA reconsidering Braun?s award and is on record opposed to Hall of Fame voters turning themselves into the morality police. So in this I take that Olney would be decidedly against anyone treating Braun differently in the future for awards purposes.

But would they do such a thing?

My gut on this is no, Braun would not face some sort of defacto discipline from awards voters as a result of what looks like it will be a 50-game drug suspension in 2012. ?The biggest reason: the different voting pools for the Hall of Fame and the postseason awards.

Awards voters are active, working baseball writers. Primarily beat reporters who skew younger, smarter and more open-minded than the Hall of Fame electorate as a whole. As I?ve said before, I wish these men and women had the Hall of Fame vote to themselves too, but alas they don?t. ?Maybe I?m wrong about that. The awards electorate does not strike me as a body that would mete out some sort of moralistic justice against Braun. If he put up another MVP-worthy season I presume, absent any future PED questions, he?d get his plaque just like he did this year.

Bonus Braun stuff: ?There have been rumors floating around about what may have caused Braun?s positive test. It has been said by some that got a false-positive caused by a treatment he?s receiving for a ?private medical issue.? ?A rumor has started to spread about what the private medical issue is. ?I don?t like to get into fanning the flames on such rumors, but if there is some scientific or medical fact that we can throw into the mix to at least make such rumors more informed, that can?t be a bad thing.

To that end, I direct you to a blog post by long, long long-time reader Paul Sax ? who is a doctor and who is the Director of the Division of Infectious Diseases at Brigham and Women?s Hospital ? in which he talks about what could have led to Braun?s positive test and what it means for those rumors that are floating around. ?Upshot: if the rumors are right, Braun has a right to be pretty mad at his doctor.

Source: http://hardballtalk.nbcsports.com/2012/01/05/are-future-awards-out-of-the-question-for-ryan-braun/related/

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Barnes & Noble Ditch Publishing to Focus on eBooks and Tablets [Barnes And Noble]

Barnes & Noble have been in publishing since the 1970s, but in recent years they've been squaring up to Amazon in the world of digital reading. Now, they're selling off their paper publishing division to focus on tech. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/Y3wlQEQGA20/barnes--noble-ditch-publishing-to-focus-on-ebooks-and-tablets

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iPhone Bug Allows People to Peek Into Your Photos Without a Password [Apple]

There's a bug in Apple's iOS 5 that would allow anyone to look into your photos without using a password—users would only have to click on the camera button on your iPhone to access all the images. More »

Source: http://feeds.gawker.com/~r/gizmodo/full/~3/aBgdlEIpu-M/iphone-bug-allows-people-to-peek-into-your-photos-without-a-password

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NBCUniversal, developer scrap $750M studio (AP)

UNIVERSAL CITY, Calif. ? NBCUniversal and a developer have scrapped plans to build a $750 million office and TV broadcasting center in Southern California.

Thomas Properties Group announced Wednesday that it will no longer pursue the 1.5 million-square-foot studio complex in Universal City.

NBCUniversal was to anchor the development across the street from its Universal Studios lot. The new complex would have become the center of its West Coast TV news operations.

Instead, NBCUniversal will revamp 150,000 square feet of existing studio space. Opening next year, it will house the local bureaus of NBC News and Telemundo, and Los Angeles TV stations KNBC and KVEA.

The Los Angeles Times (http://lat.ms/yeG6Ay) says NBCUniversal paid Thomas $9 million to back out of the deal.

Source: http://us.rd.yahoo.com/dailynews/rss/tv/*http%3A//news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20120105/ap_en_tv/ca_nbcuniversal_studio_complex

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Oil down slightly amid improving US economy

Oil prices retreated toward $102 a barrel Wednesday as investors booked profits following big gains in the previous session when further evidence of an improving U.S. economy emerged and tensions in the Persian Gulf ratcheted higher.

By early afternoon in Europe, benchmark crude for February delivery was down 82 cents at $102.14 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. The contract jumped $4.13 to settle at $102.96 in New York on Tuesday.

In London, Brent crude was down 73 cents at $111.40 a barrel on the ICE Futures exchange.

Crude has jumped from $75 in October amid evidence the U.S. economy is slowly growing and may avoid recession this year. A closely-watched survey Tuesday found the U.S. manufacturing sector expanded at its fastest rate in six months in December. Separately, figures showed construction spending up by more than anticipated in November as builders spent more on single-family homes, apartments and remodeling projects.

Investors were also cheered by positive economic signs in Germany and China.

"We are seeing some profit taking after (Tuesday's) strong price moves," analysts from Sucden Financial in London said. "There's little direction from the muted tone in European financial markets whilst modest dollar strength is exerting a little pressure."

The euro fell to $1.2985 on Wednesday from $1.3056 late Tuesday in New York. A stronger dollar often weighs on crude by making the commodity a less attractive investment for traders holding other currencies.

Tensions between Iran and Western powers over the Middle Eastern country's nuclear program have supported oil prices in recent weeks too.

On Tuesday, Iran ended 10 days of naval maneuvers and warned the U.S. military to stay out of the Persian Gulf. Iran has threatened to close the key oil passageway Strait of Hormuz as possible retaliation to new U.S. economic sanctions. The U.S. has said it will not tolerate such a move.

"Current global economic activity and oil market fundamentals do not justify today's elevated price levels," said energy analyst Richard Soultanian at NUS Consulting. However, "it's clear that the (Iran) situation will not resolve itself quickly and markets will be driven largely by headline risk and not fundamentals for the foreseeable future."

Investors will also be monitoring fresh information on U.S. stockpiles of crude and refined products.

Data for the week ending Dec. 30 is expected to show a draw of 450,000 barrels in crude oil stocks and a build of 1.5 million barrels in gasoline stocks, according to a survey of analysts by Platts, the energy information arm of McGraw-Hill Cos.

The American Petroleum Institute will release its report on oil stocks later Wednesday, while the report from the Energy Department's Energy Information Administration ? the market benchmark ? will be out on Thursday.

In other Nymex trading, heating oil lost 0.1 cent at $3.0372 per gallon and gasoline futures fell 1.34 cents to little changed at $2.7352 per gallon. Natural gas futures were up 4.6 cents to $3.039 per 1,000 cubic feet.

___

Alex Kennedy in Singapore contributed to this report.

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/f70471f764144b2fab526d39972d37b3/Article_2012-01-04-Oil%20Prices/id-54959620e06a42e4aee8602c20060129

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Senegalese singer N'dour makes presidential run

DAKAR?? Senegalese world music star Youssou N'dour said he will stand in next month's presidential elections, mounting a high-profile challenge to the West African state's veteran leader Abdoulaye Wade.

N'dour has been a vocal critic of President Wade who is hoping to extend his 11-year rule by getting re-elected in February against a field of about a dozen rivals.

"I am a candidate. I will engage in the presidential race," N'dour said in a broadcast late on Monday on his own TFM (Television Futurs Medias) radio and television station.

N'dour has widely criticized what he calls the profligate spending of the Wade leadership in a country where formal employment is scarce and average income per head is $3 a day.

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N'dour enjoys huge popularity in Senegal for his music, which helped expose the country's unique "Mbalax" drumming and singing styles to the mainstream, but it remains unclear if he will be able to translate his fame into votes.

"For a long time, men and women have demonstrated their optimism, dreaming of a new Senegal," he said on Monday. "They have, in various ways, called for my candidacy in the February presidential race. I listened. I heard."

"It is true that I do not have a university education, but the presidency is not something you go to school for," he said.

N'dour, who has also broken into the North American and European charts and collaborated with Neneh Cherry on the international hit "7 Seconds," announced in November he was canceling concert dates to focus on politics.

The Feb. 26 poll has been dominated by a noisy constitutional row over whether Wade, 85, has the right to stand for a third term in a country that prides itself on a record of peaceful leadership changes.

Story: Aretha Franklin is engaged to longtime friend

The revised Senegalese constitution limits presidential terms to two, but Wade argues that this should not apply to his first term starting in 2000, as this pre-dated the amendment.

Simmering resentment over Wade's leadership boiled over in June when Wade proposed new electoral rules that his critics said would have made it easier for him to win the poll and eventually hand power over to his son.

Protesters, also enraged by chronic power cuts, clashed with riot police in the capital Dakar leaving more than 100 wounded and forcing the president to back down.

An opponent of Wade was detained last week on suspicion of involvement in a fatal shooting, underlining tensions ahead of the poll.

Copyright 2012 Thomson Reuters. Click for restrictions.

Source: http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/45855296/ns/today-entertainment/

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How Cosmic Rays Can Image the Throat of an Active Volcano [Video]

Features | More Science

Cosmic-ray muons that pass through Mount Vesuvius could reveal the interior structure, potentially indicating when the deadly volcano will next erupt. A video from NOVA

By Philip Yam ?| January 2, 2012?|

MOUNT VESUVIUS, the volcano that buried Pompeii, threatens Naples. Image: Courtesy of Pastorius/Wikimedia Commons

The volcano that buried Pompeii in A.D. 79 still rumbles deep down. Last erupting in 1944, Mount Vesuvius poses an ever-present threat to the Italian populations around Naples. Whether the volcano will erupt in Pompeiian proportions again is a question that preoccupies scientists monitoring it, as they hope to predict when Vesuvius will blow and provide adequate warning time.

One way to gauge the magnitude of an impending volcanic eruption is to determine the size of its "throat"?the internal tube through which magma travels upward to the surface. The larger the tube, the bigger the eruption is likely to be.

Hiroyuki Tanaka of the University of Tokyo reasoned that the throat could be "x-rayed" with energetic muons produced in cosmic-ray showers. The number of muons passing through the volcano would depend on the density of intervening rock, so measuring the number of muons passing through various parts of the volcano could yield a crude, 3-D view of the interior.

This clip from "Deadliest Volcanoes," by PBS's NOVA, provides a look at muon imaging. The entire NOVA program explores the threats from volcanoes around the world, including the supervolcano below Yellowstone National Park and the eruption threat in the U.S. Pacific Northwest. It airs on Wednesday, January 4, at 9 P.M. on PBS.

Watch Sneak Peak: Deadliest Volcanoes on PBS. See more from NOVA.

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Source: http://rss.sciam.com/click.phdo?i=4d73abc147c1fbc1d987fae24c0015a3

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