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Tiger Woods amazes once again at Torrey Pines - "He’s good enough he can beat us on one leg"
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Just when you thought there was going to be one less thing to believe in – namely the invincibility of Tiger Woods with a lead in a major golf championship – along he comes to amaze once again.
He slid and bounced about a 15-footer into the side door on the 72nd and final hole to tie the tournament and force the playoff and it was a putt, a moment, that represented the highest kind of drama this sport has to offer. It was amazing stuff, really, and he has done it before and he surely will do it again and no one should ever be surprised when he performs miracles. But he keeps doing it and who isn’t constantly amazed, if only by the sheer volume?
"That man will crawl around if he has to play," Rocco Mediate said of Woods’s wounded knee, which dominated the TV talk and surely was making an impact on Woods, too, although he said the reason his tee shots, most of the day, kept sailing left was “just bad swings."
“He’s good enough he can beat us on one leg,’’ Stephen Ames had said about five hours earlier, when asked who would win. Ames then assumed the stork pose and swung away.
“He can stand up like this and still hit it – ding – 250 (yards) and beat us.’’ read more »
Drivers told to zip lips - NASCAR president Mike Helton says complaining is unfair to fans, who face costly gas, tough economy
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NASCAR is tired of hearing the negative message some of the stock car sport's driving stars have been sending to fans lately. Too many complaints about the new-generation car, bumpy racetracks and numerous other things, and not enough positive reinforcement for fans.
NASCAR president Mike Helton held a "mandatory" meeting yesterday morning for drivers and the team owners at Michigan International Speedway in Brooklyn. Things apparently reached a critical mass last week at Pocono, where it appeared nobody was happy about the rough track or the so-called Car of Tomorrow that is still being developed or the intense heat that had many drivers near exhaustion after a Pocono 500 that most believe shouldn't be longer than 400 miles.
After 14-day mission, 217 orbits, 5.7 million miles around the Earth, space shuttle Discovery softly touches down with 7 crew
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The U.S. space shuttle Discovery and its seven-member crew returned to earth Saturday after a successful two-week mission to the International Space Station. The shuttle safely touched down at 11:15 a.m. local time (1515 UTC) at the U.S. space agency's landing strip at the Kennedy Space Center in the southeastern state of Florida.
The mission's highlight was the delivery and installation of a new $1 billion Japanese science laboratory. The 11-meter long lab is now the largest module on the orbiting space station.
The Discovery crew also dropped off a new toilet pump to allow the Russian space station crew to fix their on board facilities. Discovery made 217 orbits and travelled 5.7 million miles around the Earth before it was given the green light to return home yesterday morning.
But on Friday Nasa engineers were forced to carry out last minute checks on the shuttle after astronauts spotted something floating away from their space ship. It turned out be a 12 inch metal clip from the rudder.
After four hours, the crew were told that its absence posed no danger for re-entry - during which temperatures around the shuttle can reach more than 2,500 degrees C.
Extensive checks are carried out on space shuttles before they begin re-entry after Columbia burned up as it entered the atmosphere, killing all seven crew on board, after foam panels in its heat shield were damaged during lift-off.
Commander Mark Kelly brought the shuttle safely back to Earth at 4.15pm (BST) yesterday afternoon through slightly cloudy skies. Television cameras were able to track the shuttle as it made its final approach, landed and deployed its brake parachute.
As Discovery came to a safe stop, Kelly said: "Great to be back." NASA officials described the landing as being as "smooth as it gets".
Astronauts also exchanged a member of the orbital outpost's permanent crew. American astronaut Greg Chamitoff remained on the space station for a six-month mission. He replaced U.S. astronaut Garrett Reisman who returned home after 95 days in space.
Reisman's wife, Simone Francis, was waiting at the Kennedy Space Center. Over the past week, Reisman described in quite romantic terms how much he missed her, calling her "my favourite Earthling".
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Images Courtesy of AP Photo/NASA, BBC News
Original Source: BBC News (with video), The Telegraph, and VOA News
June 12 - US Supreme Court delivers its third consecutive rebuff to Bush Administration's handling of detainees
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WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court on Thursday delivered its third consecutive rebuff to the Bush administration’s handling of the detainees at Guantánamo Bay, ruling 5 to 4 that the prisoners there have a constitutional right to go to federal court to challenge their continued detention.
The court declared unconstitutional a provision of the Military Commissions Act of 2006 that, at the administration’s behest, stripped the federal courts of jurisdiction to hear habeas corpus petitions from the detainees seeking to challenge their designation as enemy combatants.
Writing for the majority, Justice Anthony M. Kennedy said the truncated review procedure provided by a previous law, the Detainee Treatment Act of 2005, “falls short of being a constitutionally adequate substitute” because it failed to offer “the fundamental procedural protections of habeas corpus.”
Justice Kennedy declared: “The laws and Constitution are designed to survive, and remain in force, in extraordinary times.”
'Habeas corpus' (Latin: [We command] that you have the body) is the name of a legal action, or writ, through which a person can seek relief from unlawful detention of themselves or another person. The writ of habeas corpus has historically been an important instrument for the safeguarding of individual freedom against arbitrary state action. read more »
"Let's Just Wish Paul Newman Good Health": He and Woodward celebrated 50 years of marriage this year
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Is he or is he not ill? While sources make contradictory reports and we’re all left to wonder whether legendary Hollywood actor Paul Newman is indeed battling lung cancer at 82 or in fact “doing nicely,” as he has stated, let’s just wish him good health and many years to come.
Last year, Newman announced that, at 82, acting was just not the same and that he would retire. He said it was “pretty much a closed book” for him, as aging meant “you start to lose your memory, you start to lose your confidence, you start to lose your invention.”
He was still set to direct “Of Mice and Men,” a stage play of the John Steinbeck novella. Earlier this year, Newman cited unspecified health issues as he announced he would withdraw from the project.
The star’s career spans a remarkable five decades, has starred in movies such as “Hud,” “Cool Hand Luke,” “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid,” “The Verdict” and many others.
In recent years, he has starred in “Road to Perdition” opposite Tom Hanks, appeared in the HBO miniseries “Empire Falls” and lent his voice to an animated race car in the Disney/Pixar hit “Cars.”
He has also been involved in charity, raising more than $200 million from his Newman's Own brand of dressings, pasta sauces, popcorn and salsa. read more »
"Return to Our Roots" - Ron Paul's convention to rival GOP 2008
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The Texas congressman has tentatively reserved the Williams Arena at the University of Minnesota on Sept. 2, the second day of the Republican convention.
"We plan on having a large rally. We want it to be a celebration of Republican values and what the Republican Party has traditionally stood for," said Paul spokesman Jesse
Benton on Tuesday. Benton also said that Paul wants to send a message to the Republicans 'that we need to return to our roots' of limited government and personal responsibility.
Paul's campaign picked up substantial steam during the GOP primaries, when the libertarian leaning Texan raised about $35 million almost entirely online and garnered more than a million votes.
Paul secured at least 35 convention delegates, but Republican Party big-wigs are denying him a speaking slot and he has decided to stage his own convention.
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