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Scott Mendelson: Twilight Saga: New Moon shatters single-day record with $72 million.

2009-11-22T02:20:17Z

Twilight Saga: New Moon grossed $72.7 million on its first full day of release. This is the biggest single day of all time, besting The Dark Knight's $67 million opening shot back in July of 2008. This is also $3 million more than Twilight grossed in its entire opening weekend. See, this is what happens when you cast Dakota Fanning! Gosh, remember when The Lost World shocked us over Memorial Day weekend of 1997 all by earning $26 million in one day and $72 million in a single weekend? Well, New Moon just grossed $26 million in just midnight and 3am showings, and it clocked $72 million in just the first 24 hours. Why do I feel like Tommy Lee Jones at the end of No Country For Old Men?

Were this any other franchise (and maybe Harry Potter), we'd presume that the $158 million Fri-Sun record set by The Dark Knight was pretty much toast. Alas, Twilight's previous opening weekend was the most front-loaded in history (it's still number two behind the Hannah Montana Movie). If we recall, the first Twilight opened with a $35 million Friday (about $7 million worth of midnight screenings) and a $69.6 million three-day take. That was a stunningly low 1.9x multiplier. Now sequels are more frontloaded than originals as a rule (has there ever been a sequel that had a less front-loaded opening weekend than its predecessor?), so one presumes that the best New Moon can hope for is another 1.9x weekend, which would equal about $138 million. That would make it the third-biggest opening weekend of all-time, behind The Dark Knight ($158 million), Spider-Man 3 ($151 million). Of course, any additional frontloading would probably knock it down below the $135 million opening sprint of Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Man's Chest, but above the $122 million weekend for Shrek the Third. But fear not Team Edward, Team Jacob, or Team Bella (or Team Dakota), it could do a pathetic 1.5x multiplier and still top the three-day $108 million Fri-Sun gross of Transfomers: Revenge of the Fallen, which would give it the biggest opening weekend of 2009. It is also guaranteed to claim the record for the biggest non-summer opening of all time. To paraphrase The Lost World: Congratulations, now you're Harry Potter.

The film grossed $26 million in midnight sneaks and $46 million in traditional Friday showtimes. Comparatively, The Dark Knight grossed $18 million in sneaks and $47 million in normal business hours. Over the last twenty years, there have been only three other pictures that have shattered the single-day record without claiming the opening weekend title. All were in the last five years, all of them opened on a Wednesday or a Thursday, and all of them were on the same pre-Memorial Day weekend. Star Wars Episode One: The Phantom Menace opened in 1999 on a Wednesday with a record $28 million, but ended up with a Fri-Sun take of $64 million (the five-day take was a then-record $105 million). Shrek 2 opened on a Wednesday in 2004 and made just $20 million in its first two days. However, the film exploded over its Fri-Sun portion, grossing $28 million on Friday, $34 million on Sunday, and a record $44 million right in between. Alas, its three-day take was $108 million and not enough to beat Spider-Man's $114 million. Now you know why I consider Shrek 2 to be an anomaly when discussing five-day openings, as it opened with a slightly higher Wednesday than Pokemon The Movie but ended up with a $129 million five-day gross. And, finally, in 2005, Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith opened on a Thursday to the first $50 million single day in history, but it's Fri-Sun portion was 'only' $108 million. Amusingly, its first actual three days - Thurs, Fri, Sat - actually grossed $123 million, more than Spider-Man's $114 million record at the time. But, should New Moon fail to surpass $158.4 million (and it probably will miss the mark, it has to achieve a 2.2x multiplier), it will be the first film in history to break the single-day record on a traditional Fri-Sun opening and not take the three-day title.

Still, let's not make this 'it won't break the opening weekend record' look like anything resembling failure. This adaptation of a popular young-adult book series just outgrossed The Golden Compass and The Spiderwick Chronicles in one day. It surpassed the opening weekend of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe in one day. It has a plausible chance of surpassing the entire domestic gross of Prince Caspian in three or four days. I'm not going to embarrass those involved with The Seeker: The Dark Is Rising by pulling up those numbers. On second thought... oh... $8.9 million... poor Susan Cooper. As far as franchises in the last ten years, it will have one of the biggest opening-weekend upswings from first film to second film in modern history. The biggest shot of pain has to be felt at Fox, where everyone knows full well that Avatar will be happy to gross $72 million over it's entire weekend. The record for a no-star, no major franchise opening is 300, with $70 million. If you don't count the bible as a prior franchise, then The Passion of the Christ wins at $83 million. Or if you count the bible and the cult comic book 300 as a prior source, then The Day After Tomorrow and 2012 win the day, with $68 million and $65 million respectively. Either way, Cameron's game-changer just got smashed by a $50 million gothic romance aimed at teen girls, the very audience that helped propel Titanic into the record books.

Ok, there will be more tomorrow when the weekend figures are released. In the meantime, let's also give props to Sandra Bullock, whose real-life drama The Blind Side took in $10 million yesterday. Before this year, Bullock had never had a $20 million opener in her life. Now it looks like she may have two $30 million openers just this year.

Scott Mendelson

Pavel Somov, Ph.D.: Cultivating a Healthy Relationship with Time

2009-11-22T01:50:55Z

Being Means Being in Time

A sense of being involves a degree of separateness from the rest of the world. After all, the verb "to exist" literally means to stand out. When you are present, your awareness of your own existence happens against the backdrop of time. Recall that time is really just perception of change, of processes, of movement, of information flow. So, to be, we have to experience ourselves as apart from all this flow. Being is a contrast between our subjective permanence and the objective impermanence of everything that is around us, between our (subjective) timelessness and the constant timing (changing) of reality outside of us. Like stillness, being exists in contrast with movement. When we experience ourselves, there is a feeling that while we are fundamentally the same from a moment to moment, the world outside of us is changing. We begin to be. We feel reborn. We pop out of the incessant stream of associative and conditioned thinking and mindless behavior. We reconnect with that immutable sense of am-ness. No longer lost in the world, we begin to experience ourselves in a relationship with it. We begin to register the experience. We remember that we are alive. We feel glad that we woke up and marvel at how time has slipped away. Thus, to be, we have to slow down enough to notice ourselves being in time.

Mindlessness Is a Lapse of Time

How often have you looked back at the past week and couldn't remember it? Sure, you can look through your daily planner and even come up with an alibi if you needed to. But don't all these memories seem void of that first-person experience of being there? It's as if you know you did this or that, but you don't have the memory of experiencing it. Mindlessness is a time lapse.

Timefulness of Mindfulness

The author James Austin, a neurologist, contrasts ordinary sitting with sitting in mediation (zazen). He notes that "ordinary" sitting, in retrospect, "shrinks the estimate of time." "[T]hirty seconds of real time contract so that they seem to last only twenty six seconds," whereas "during zazen, meditators tend to expand their estimates of time ... thirty seconds of real time now seem to last thirty seven seconds" (2001, 563). Why would that be? Meditators, unlike "ordinary" sitters, sit in a state of mindful observation of what is, paying attention, encoding more experience and thus getting more life out of the same thirty seconds than the rest of us. The more experience you pack into a period of time, the longer the period of time feels when you look back at it. Mindfulness is, thus, timefulness.

Timelessness of Mindfulness

Mindfulness is also timelessness. After you spend a whole day in mindless frenzy and look back, it feels like time slipped through your fingers. But while you are moving through this frenzied day, you are constantly checking time, racing and waiting, racing and waiting (on the kettle to boil, on the kids to get dressed, on the car in front of you to turn). This is the experience of time in the rat race: while you're in it, time races and drags; and when you look back, you wonder where the time has gone. If you are approaching the day with attention, mindfulness, and presence, you feel timeless as you move through your day. Timelessness isn't when time stops. Timelessness is when you stop paying attention to time. When you're mindfully engaged in reality, you ignore time; you are just doing what you're doing. And when you look back at the day, you see a long fruitful span of meaning and presence, full of encoded experiences. That's what I call a healthy relationship with time.

Pavel Somov, Ph.D. is the author of "Eating the Moment" (New Harbinger, 2008), "Present Perfect" (NH, 2010), and "The Lotus Effect" (NH, 2010). He is in private practice in Pittsburgh, PA. For more information visit www.eatingthemoment.com and sign up for Pavel Somov's monthly "Mindful-not-Mouthful" Newsletter

Michael Scott Funeral: Nearly 1,000 Friends And Family Mourn Former School Board President

2009-11-22T01:26:42Z

More than 1,000 friends, family members and colleagues gathered at Holy Family Church on the near west side today to remember Chicago School Board President Michael Scott.

Senate Votes To Debate Health Care Reform Bill

2009-11-22T01:23:53Z

WASHINGTON — Invoking the memory of Edward M. Kennedy, Democrats united Saturday night to push historic health care legislation past a key Senate hurdle over the opposition of Republicans eager to inflict a punishing defeat on President Barack Obama. There was not a vote to spare.

The 60-39 vote cleared the way for a bruising, full-scale debate beginning after Thanksgiving on the legislation, which is designed to extend coverage to roughly 31 million who lack it, crack down on insurance company practices that deny or dilute benefits and curtail the growth of spending on medical care nationally.

Watch Sens. Reid, Dodd, Harkin Discuss Today's Vote:

Watch the vote:

The spectator galleries were full for the unusual Saturday night showdown, and applause broke out briefly when the vote was announced. In a measure of the significance of the moment, senators sat quietly in their seats, standing only when they were called upon to vote.

In the final minutes of a daylong session, Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., accused Republicans of trying to stifle a historic debate the nation needed.

"Imagine if, instead of debating whether to abolish slavery, instead of debating whether giving women and minorities the right to vote, those who disagreed had muted discussion and killed any vote," he said.

The Republican leader, Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, said the vote was anything but procedural – casting it as a referendum on the bill itself, which he said would raise taxes, cut Medicare and create a "massive and unsustainable debt."

For all the drama, the result of the Saturday night showdown had been sealed a few hours earlier, when two final Democratic holdouts, Sens. Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, announced they would join in clearing the way for a full debate.

"It is clear to me that doing nothing is not an option," said Landrieu, who won $100 million in the legislation to help her state pay the costs of health care for the poor.

Lincoln, who faces a tough re-election next year, said the evening vote will "mark the beginning of consideration of this bill by the U.S. Senate, not the end."

Both stressed they were not committing in advance to vote for the bill that ultimately emerges from next month's debate.

Of particular contentiousness to moderates is a provision for the government to sell insurance in competition with private companies, subject to state approval – a part of Reid's bill expected to come under significant pressure as the debate unfolds.

Even so, their announcements marked a major victory for Reid and the White House in a year-end drive to enact the most sweeping changes to the nation's health care system in a half-century or more.

The legislation would require most Americans to carry insurance and provide subsidies to those who couldn't afford it. Large companies could incur costs if they did not provide coverage to their workforce. The insurance industry would come under significant new regulation under the bill, which would first ease and then ban the practice of denying coverage on the basis of pre-existing medical conditions.

Congressional budget analysts put the legislation's cost at $979 billion over a decade and said it would reduce deficits over the same period while extending coverage to 94 percent of the eligible population.

At its core, the legislation would create insurance exchanges beginning in 2014 where individuals, most of them lower income and uninsured, would shop for coverage. The bill sets aside hundreds of billions of dollars in tax credits to help those earning up to 400 percent of poverty, $88,200 for a family of four.

The House approved its version of the bill earlier this month on a near party line vote of 220-215, and Reid has said he wants the Senate to follow suit by year's end. Timing on any final compromise was unclear.

All 58 Senate Democrats and two independents voted to advance the bill. All 39 votes in opposition were cast by Republicans. GOP Sen. George Voinovich of Ohio was the only senator not to vote.

While timing made Landrieu and Lincoln the final two Democrats to announce their intentions, Sen. Paul Kirk of Massachusetts had a clear claim as the 60th vote.

Appointed to office this fall after the death of Kennedy, who championed health care issues for decades, Kirk said he spoke for those "who for so many years revered and loved and elected and re-elected (him) ... that I think they're all – they all, as we do, have him in our minds and our hearts tonight. ..."

Sen. Chris Dodd, D-Conn., echoed those sentiments later in the evening when he referred to Kennedy's "lifelong quest" for national health care and said "tonight and in the days to come we will pay him the highest compliment by fulfilling that" goal.

At a post-vote news conference, Reid said he had telephoned Kennedy's widow, Vicki, with the news.

In hours of debate before the Saturday evening vote, a few Republicans piled copies of the 2,0974-page bill on their desks while others criticized it as a government takeover of health care and worse.

"Move over, Bernie Madoff. Tip your hat to a trillion-dollar scam," said Sen. Kit Bond, R-Mo., likening the bill's supporters to the imprisoned investor who fleeced millions.

In her remarks, Landrieu said, "I've decided that there are enough significant reforms and safeguards in this bill to move forward, but much more work needs to be done." She also touted the $100 million included in the legislation to help her state cover its costs under Medicaid, the state-federal health care program for the poor.

Lincoln referred repeatedly to the political controversy surrounding the issue. She said $3.3 million has already been spent by outside groups advertising either for or against health care legislation, and said, "these outside groups seem to think that this is all about my re-election. I simply think they don't know me very well."

To finance the expanded coverage, Reid proposed higher taxes as well as cuts totaling hundreds of billions of dollars in projected Medicare payments. Hardest hit would be the private insurance Medicare plans, although providers such as home health agencies would also receive significantly less in future years than now estimated.

The bill raises payroll taxes on incomes over $200,000 for individuals and $250,000 for couples. Reid eased the impact of an earlier proposal to tax high-value insurance plans, which has emerged as one of the principal methods for restraining the growth in health costs.

The bill includes tax increases on insurance companies, medical device makers, patients electing to undergo cosmetic surgery and drugmakers.

___

Associated Press writer Donna Cassata contributed to this article.

Ole Miss Vs. LSU: Rebels Top Tigers, 25-23 (VIDEO)

2009-11-22T01:07:49Z

(AP) OXFORD, Miss. -- Dexter McCluster ran for 148 yards and passed for a touchdown, and Mississippi survived a last-ditch drive by 10th-ranked LSU for a 25-23 victory Saturday.

*** SCROLL DOWN FOR VIDEO ***

After recovering an onside kick, LSU's Jordan Jefferson heaved a pass to Terrance Tolliver that he caught at the Ole Miss 6 with one second left. The Tigers had no timeouts and didn't send the field goal unit onto the field, and the clock expired as they tried to spike the ball.

The win likely gives Ole Miss (8-3, 4-3) second place in the SEC West with a game left to play, and an edge over LSU (8-3, 4-3) when bowl invitations are handed out.

McCluster took a handoff, ran right, then pulled up and hit wide-open Shay Hodge with a 27-yard touchdown pass for the first completion of his career midway through the fourth quarter.

Jefferson rallied the Tigers with a 25-yard touchdown pass to Rueben Randle with 1:17 left, but Cassius Vaughn broke up a 2-point conversion pass to preserve the Rebels' lead.

WATCH:

Wisconsin Vs. Northwestern: Wildcats Upset 17th-Ranked Badgers 33-31

2009-11-22T00:53:23Z

ASSOCIATED PRESS ARTICLE BY RICK GANO

EVANSTON, Ill. (AP) - Mike Kafka hit Andrew Brewer with two first-half touchdown passes and Brian Peters and Jordan Mabin made key defensive plays late as Northwestern beat No. 17 Wisconsin 33-31 on Saturday.

Northwestern (8-4, 5-3 Big Ten) improved its bowl positioning with its third straight victory. Fans swarmed Ryan Field after the victory, which wasn't clinched until Mabin intercepted Scott Tolzien with 42 seconds to go.

Stefan Demos kicked four field goals for the Wildcats.

Northwestern led 27-14 at the half behind Kafka, who finished with 326 yards, and Brewer, a former quarterback.

But Wisconsin's David Gilreath returned a punt 68 yards for a third-quarter TD to get the Badgers (8-3, 5-3) back in the game.

Tolzien found Garrett Graham wide open in the back of the end zone for a 13-yard pass with 10:45 to go, pulling the Badgers within 33-31 and setting the stage for a wild finish.

Wisconsin got the ball back three more times, trying to move into position for a field goal, but had turnovers on two of the possessions.

The Badgers got the ball back with eight minutes to go but had to punt. They stopped the Wildcats and, after a holding penalty, took possession again at their own 34 with 3:43 to go. After a third-down pass interference call kept the drive going, Northwestern's Quentin Davie upended Wisconsin's John Clay, causing a fumble that Peters recovered at the 41 with 1:44 left.

Northwestern had to punt again, and the Badgers got the ball back at their 20 with 42 seconds to go, before Mabin sealed the victory with his interception of a long pass.

Trailing 27-14 at the half, Wisconsin, the Big Ten's top rushing team, came out passing. Clay, the conference's leading rusher who was averaging 112 yards per game, finished with 100 on 23 carries. Tolzien completed 19 of 30 passes for 235 yards.

Kafka had his fifth 300-yard passing game of the season, going 26 of 40 for 326 yards.

The Wildcats used trickery to build the halftime lead. Kafka lateraled to leading receiver Zeke Markshausen, who then passed to a wide open Sidney Stewart. Stewart caught the ball at the 6 and then went to the end zone to complete the 38-yard play and cap a three-play, 80-yard drive -- Northwestern's second TD in a span of 2:21.

Northwestern added a 38-yard field goal by Demos with 34 seconds to go after Wisconsin stopped the Wildcats on third-and-1 at the 20.

Northwestern had gone up 17-14 when Brewer fully extended to catch Kafka's third-down pass in the end zone. His highlight reel reception was upheld by video review and set up by Stephen Simmons' 64-yard kickoff return.

Michael J. Panzner: Economists: Wrong Again

2009-11-22T00:39:48Z

As if they didn't cause enough damage by espousing theories that failed to account for the inefficiencies and irrationalities of the real world, many economists are advocating aggressive spend-and-borrow policies to revive the financial crisis-hit U.S. economy that reflect an astonishing degree of naïveté and ivory tower hubris.

In a word, the Keynesian Kool-Aid drinkers are saying that debt doesn't matter.

As I see it, there are plenty of reasons to challenge the apparent indifference of Paul Krugman, Dean Baker, James Kwak, and others to the parabolic rise in public debt, including the fact that the latest crisis, like many of those before it, stemmed from a similar complacency about the risks of unrestrained borrowing.

But as someone whose long experience in financial markets helped him to anticipate the kinds of earth-shattering developments most economists didn't see coming, I find the popular argument that current low yields on government bonds are a vote of confidence on current policies to be utterly ridiculous.

For one thing, long-term rates are being influenced to an extraordinary degree by the Federal Reserve, which has been supplying copious amounts of liquidity to the financial sector. With banks unwilling to channel those funds into loans for Main Street, this cheap financing is effectively underwriting their massive purchases of Treasury and other securities, distorting prices (and yields).

In addition, the Fed itself has been the biggest buyer of government bills, notes, and bonds during the past seven months as a result of the quantitative easing program it launched in March. In the second quarter of this year, for example, the Fed absorbed nearly half of all net Treasury issuance.

Overall, the Fed's balance sheet has more than doubled since the financial crisis began, which has undoubtedly kept a lid on yields across the credit spectrum. Meanwhile, the Fed's zero interest rate policy and the historical term structure of interest rates have likely anchored long-term yields at lower levels than they might otherwise be.

Treasury markets, in particular, have benefitted from safe haven buying in the wake of the crisis. But there are significant differences between the current episode and those that occurred before, including the fact that the latest upheaval has taken place against a backdrop of widespread global imbalances and extraordinary levels of public and private debt. Many assume that what worked before makes sense now, without really thinking things through.

Government bond prices have also been been pressured lower by a structural shift in asset allocation preferences. A step-change jump in financial market volatility, greater economic uncertainty, and growing pressure among insurers and financial institutions to better hedge long-term liabilities have stirred an impulsive burst of buying of long-term bonds that likely won't be sustained at the same pace for long.

Yet even in the absence of such influences, the view among economists that financial markets reflect the wisdom of crowds, especially in regard to current policies and the economic outlook, is a supposition that is dubious at best in light of what we've seen in recent years.

I wonder, for example, what credit markets were signalling in the spring of 2007, when risk spreads were at all-time lows, while risk -- as evidenced by extremes in leverage and speculation and a bursting housing bubble -- was at an all-time high? And when global equity markets were hitting record highs in October of that year, what exactly were they telling us about the state of the world economy?

In my view, whatever predictive ability markets once had has been steadily eroded by years of monetary recklessness, a cultural shift away from long-term investing towards short-term trading and speculation, and the shrinking share of market participants -- read professionals -- who actually understand the fundamentals that matter.

So, to those economists who keep insisting that the large and growing obligations our government is committing us to in the name of saving or increasing jobs -- a theory that hasn't quite panned out yet, as it happens -- don't matter because markets are signalling otherwise, I say one thing.

Bunk.

Clips' Broadcasters Suspended For Borat Remarks

2009-11-22T00:38:50Z

LOS ANGELES — Clippers longtime play-by-play announcer Ralph Lawler and color analyst Michael Smith were suspended one game by the Fox Sports Prime Ticket cable network for their comments about Memphis center Hamed Haddadi.

Lawler and Smith made their off-the-cuff comments about the Iranian-born center during Wednesday night's telecast from Memphis. The on-air banter offended a viewer who e-mailed Fox to complain.

The duo did not work Friday's night telecast against the Denver Nuggets at Staples Center. Michael Eaves and Don MacLean, who regularly serve as halftime and postgame analysts on the Clippers telecasts, substituted for Lawler and Smith at courtside.

"That's unfortunate. It was pretty strange not seeing them there," Clippers point guard Baron Davis said after the 106-99 victory. "Ralph and Mike are very classy guys, and they didn't do it to hurt anyone.

"A lot of times when you're commenting on games, it's a source of entertainment. And a lot of times, people may take offense. But the viewers need to understand that it's entertainment, and people are entitled to their opinion. I stand by Ralph and Mike because they're great guys and they only want to support and help everybody in the league."

Lawler, 71, is in his 31st season doing Clippers games, and Smith is in his 12th. Lawler has surpassed 2,400 regular season and playoff Clippers broadcasts in his career, according to the team's Web site.

"We regret the remarks made by Clippers announcers Michael Smith and Ralph Lawler during Wednesday's telecast," Fox said in a statement about 2 1/2 hours before the game. "While we believe that Michael and Ralph did not intend their exchange to be offensive, the comments were inappropriate.

"We extend our apologies to Hamed Haddadi of the Memphis Grizzlies and to anyone who was offended. We have addressed the situation with Michael and Ralph and have taken appropriate action."

The Clippers did not comment.

The transcript of the conversation between Lawler and Smith, which occurred late in the game, was printed on the Los Angeles Times' Web site:

Smith: "Look who's in."

Lawler: "Hamed Haddadi. Where's he from?"

Smith: "He's the first Iranian to play in the NBA." (Smith pronounced Iranian as "Eye-ranian," a pronunciation that offended the viewer who complained.)

Lawler: "There aren't any Iranian players in the NBA," repeating Smith's mispronunciation.

Smith: "He's the only one."

Lawler: "He's from Iran?"

Smith: "I guess so."

Lawler: "That Iran?"

Smith: "Yes."

Lawler: "The real Iran?"

Smith: "Yes."

Lawler: "Wow. Haddadi that's H-A-D-D-A-D-I."

Smith: "You're sure it's not Borat's older brother?"

Smith: "If they ever make a movie about Haddadi, I'm going to get Sacha Baron Cohen to play the part."

Lawler: "Here's Haddadi. Nice little back-door pass. I guess those Iranians can pass the ball."

Smith: "Especially the post players.

Lawler: "I don't know about their guards."

Notre Dame Vs. UConn: Connecticut Triumphs 33-30 In Double Overtime

2009-11-22T00:35:41Z

SOUTH BEND, Ind. — After a string of stinging losses, the Connecticut Huskies finally won one for their slain teammate.

Coach Randy Edsall called the Huskies' double-overtime victory against Notre Dame the program's "best win."

On the other side, Charlie Weis was left to try to explain another jarring loss on senior day and wonder if it will be his last game at Notre Dame stadium as Fighting Irish coach.

Andre Dixon scored on a 4-yard touchdown run in the second overtime to give the Huskies a 33-30 victory, their first since cornerback Jasper Howard was stabbed to death last month.

"Jazz this is for you," Edsall said, referring to Howard by his nickname. "Best win we have ever had."

Edsall said beating the Irish (6-5) was big, but getting the first win after the death of Howard was much bigger.

"You've got to understand what this team has gone through," he said. "A couple of close games, and then you lose a teammate, you lose a brother, you lose a son, and you're trying so hard to honor him by winning on the field. We hadn't done that."

Edsall said the Huskies will send the game ball to Howard's mother, Joanglia, stepfather, Henry Williams, and the rest of his family in Miami. The Huskies (5-5) had lost three straight painfully close games since Howard was killed.

"We ended up just making the tough plays at the end that we hadn't been able to make in some of earlier games," Edsall said.

The loss was the third straight for Notre Dame (6-5) and will add to the mounting calls for Weis to be fired. Weis declined to talk about that after the game, saying it wasn't the time.

"Today's not the day for me to reflect on things like that. I mean today's the day for me to be worrying about those guys, those 33 guys," he said, referring to seniors on the roster. "I really feel absolutely miserable for those 33 guys. ... I'll worry about me tomorrow. But I think today I should be worrying about them."

Notre Dame was upset last season by Syracuse in the final home game of a 7-6 season.

"It just hurt," linebacker Brian Smith said. "A lot of seniors lost their last game at Notre Dame Stadium. It's supposed to be a memorable day for them and now it's not for the right reason."

Senior tackle Sam Young, who made his school record 49th straight start, walked out to midfield dressed in a suit after the game and stood there by himself for a while.

The Irish led 14-0 early in the second quarter but didn't score another touchdown until the first overtime, a change from recent losses when they fell behind and rallies fell short.

Edsall said the win wasn't an upset.

"We knew we could come out here and win if we just went and executed and did the things that our God-given ability would allow us to do," he said.

Jordan Todman ran for 130 yards on 26 carries, including a 43-yard TD run for UConn. He also added a 96-yard kickoff return for a TD. Dixon rushed for 114 yards on 20 carries.

"Since everything happened to Jazz, we haven't won one for him. This was our chance to get that one for Jazz," Dixon said.

This loss was Notre Dame's fifth loss by a touchdown or less this season.

Jimmy Clausen was 30 of 45 passing for 329 yards for Notre Dame. Golden Tate had nine catches for 123 yards and Michael Floyd had eight catches for 104 yards. Tate set school records for catches in a season (83) and season yardage (1,295) with a 39-yard catch in the first quarter that helped set up Notre Dame's first score.

While it was Dixon who scored the game-winner, Todman did the most damage. He cut the lead to 14-7 when he made four Irish defenders miss on a long touchdown run in the second quarter. Then when the Irish moved ahead 17-10, he tied it seconds later when he returned the kickoff for a touchdown, racing up the middle, cutting left and going untouched into the end zone.

The Huskies took their first lead when former Notre Dame quarterback Zach Frazer threw an 11-yard touchdown pass to Kashif Moore to make it 27-20. But the Irish tied the game when Clausen threw a fade to Floyd for a 4-yard TD.

Frazer, who transferred to UConn after finishing fourth in a four-man competition to replace Brady Quinn in the spring of 2007, was 12 of 25 passing for 141 yards and an interception. Frazer said the win was big for him.

"It means a lot to me and it means a lot to this university," he said. "We won this one for Jazz."

The loss drops Weis' career record to 35-26, a .573 winning percentage. That's worse than the .583 winning percentage of his two predecessors, Tyrone Willingham and Bob Davie.

The Irish, who usually run out of the tunnel at Notre Dame Stadium, walked out with linked arms led by the team captains and Weis, a show of support by the players.

"It was just us being behind coach Weis 110 percent" Clausen said. "He's leading the program and we just wanted to show our support."

Senator Debbie Stabenow Tells Benjamin French's Story During Senate Debate

2009-11-22T00:07:45Z

In the debate Saturday about whether to debate the Democratic health care reform bill in the Senate, Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.) capped her comments on health care reform with brief profiles of two real people who need the system to change. One was 12-year-old Benjamin French, the subject of a recent story from HuffPost Investigative Fund:

Benjamin French was born with his right arm missing below the elbow. In his 12 years, he has been fitted with seven prostheses. His most recent replacement will cost nearly $30,000 and his doctor says he will soon grow out of it.
But, according to his insurance company, the boy is ineligible for further coverage of prosthetic devices because he has already spent his lifetime maximum benefit.

Watch Sen. Stabenow Tell Benjamin's Story On Senate Floor:

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Christal Smith: Happy (Homeless) Anniversary

2009-11-21T23:43:00Z

There I was at CVS trying to find a Hallmark sentiment to convey to my new friends Mary and Larry what an inspiration their ten year marriage has been to me.

Larry and Mary were the quintessential California fairy tale couple-- tanned and toned with stunning good looks, a gorgeous tow-headed two year old, and lots of love evident for each other. But cards celebrating a successful marriage have an awful way of gravitating towards mention of a "happy home." Like this one:

May the love in your hearts mirror the laughter in your home.

Or my favorite:

Marriage is
Vacuuming carpets and hammering nails.
It's balancing checkbooks and paying off bills
it's cleaning the windows and mopping up spills.

I wouldn't have been so sensitive to the nearly ubiquitous overlap between marriage and home except that Larry and Mary are currently homeless.

I met Mary and Larry three months ago when I was researching a story on the hidden homeless living here in Los Angeles.

These are people with middle class backgrounds and high paying jobs who got sucker punched by the economic downturn and found themselves literally on the streets. In Larry and Mary's case they lost their jobs in construction and real estate respectively. After years of double incomes, flipping houses and acquiring the accouterments of the successful turn of the century power couple, the journey from a house in Santa Barbara with a white picket fence and a BMW to friends' couches to a homeless shelter was surprisingly swift. They never thought it could happen to them.

With a home no longer in the picture, the struggle to maintain a fairy tale marriage becomes its own epic odyssey.

Thanks in large part to a unique shelter that allowed them to live together with their child for the next year and offers financial workshops, marriage counseling and the tools necessary to start over, Larry and Mary will make it.

Now they appreciate every little thing in their lives and take nothing for granted. Larry is slowly but surely getting more contract jobs and Mary just got a seasonal job at Macys. But most importantly they have each other. The fact that they stayed together through it all speaks volumes about the true meaning of "for richer or poorer." It also explains why it was impossible to find something commercially available that would celebrate that.

Homeless families are the fastest growing segment of the homeless population.
See more of Mary and Larry's story:

Nate Robinson's Wrong Basket VIDEO: Shot Infuriates Coach Mike D'Antoni

2009-11-21T23:29:06Z

With half a second left on the clock in the first quarter of today's Knicks-Nets game in New Jersey, the Knicks had to get a shot off quickly. But guard Nate Robinson decided to wait until the buzzer sounded and then shot at his team's own basket. The ball sunk through the net for a meaningless basket, but it infuriated Knicks coach Mike D'Antoni, who can be seen yelling at Robinson. Although New York managed to beat the hapless (and winless) Nets, the Knicks are mired in their own disastrous start as well. The victory brought them to a measly 3-9.

WATCH:

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Daley's Skin Getting Thinner Under Media Glare

2009-11-21T23:27:38Z

Mayor Daley's decision to blame the media for Oprah Winfrey's career-altering choice to pull the plug on her syndicated talk show after her 25th season is preposterous. But it's also incredibly revealing.

Esther Wojcicki: Creative Commons In 2009: The Accomplishments In Promoting Worldwide Sharing

2009-11-21T23:19:02Z

Education is the pathway out of poverty and Creative Commons (CC) licensing makes it possible to share educational materials (and all creative works) online for free. Their impact worldwide is significant. The licenses allow for legal sharing of text, video, photos, audio, art, music online using one of six free licenses.

The annual Creative Commons (CC) campaign is now in full swing and WhippleHill is providing a matching grant for every dollar donated. Please consider donating, even small amounts!

Here are some of the important changes that have taken place in 2009 with the help of Creative Commons, a non-profit licensing structure.

CC helps expand sharing in the Middle East CC's presence in the Middle East is growing fast. The first Arabic licenses launch in Jordan in November 2009. Early in 2009, Al Jazeera Network announced a Creative Commons Repository, the world's first repository of broadcast-quality video footage released under the Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution (CC By 3.0) license, available at http://cc.aljazeera.net. In March, the first Creative Commons Arab world meeting was held at Al Jazeera's annual Media Forum, and Al Jazeera has also now integrated CC licensing on its Al Jazeera Blogs site: http://blogs.aljazeera.net/

United States Government expands the use of CC licenses

Creative Commons has found a fitting and prominent place in the public sector worldwide. Not only was President Barack Obama's campaign site, Change.gov, licensed under Creative Commons license, but all third party content on Whitehouse.gov, the official Web site of the U.S. administration, is licensed under CC-BY. Aneesh Chopra, the US Government's Chief Technology Officer, recently spoke on CNET about his thoughts on copyright, and proceeded to endorse the Creative Commons approach to licensing creative works.

Creative Commons New Zealand reported that their national government released an open access and licensing framework draft (NZGOAL) for public feedback. The framework will enable greater access to many public sector works by encouraging the New Zealand State Services agencies to license material for reuse on liberal terms, and recommend Creative Commons as an important tool in this process. Meanwhile in Australia, the Government 2.0 Taskforce announced the MashupAustralia contest asking people to show what can be done with open public sector information. To help people get started, 59 datasets from more than 15 different government bodies have been released under CC licences (usually Attribution). Full story:

Launch of CC Zero - no rights reserved

Earlier this year we rolled out CC0 (read "CC Zero"), a universal waiver that may be used by anyone wishing to permanently surrender the copyright and database rights they may have in a work, thereby placing it as nearly as possible into the public domain; essentially, it is a "no rights reserved" option. CC0 is universal in form and may be used throughout the world for any kind of content. CC0 was endorsed this year in an opinion piece in Nature, the international weekly journal on science; the article addresses post-publication sharing of tools and explicitly recommends open sharing and the use of CC0 to put data in the public domain. WisconsinView (part of AmericaView), which supports access and use of imagery collections through education, workforce development, and research, is making available all of its more than 6 Terabytes of imagery data under the new CC0 Protocol More on CC Zero Launch:

GreenXchange - a project of Creative Commons, Nike and Best Buy
Earlier this year Creative Commons, in collaboration with Nike and Best Buy, announced a new project - GreenXchange - exploring how the digital commons can help holders of patents collaborate for sustainability. GreenXchange is hosted inside Science Commons.
GreenXchange draws on the experience of Creative Commons in creating "some rights reserved" regimes for artists, musicians, scientists, and educators, but also on the hard-won successes of patent "commons" projects like the Linux Patent Commons, the BIOS project, FreePatentsOnline and the Eco-Patent Commons. video over at Science

Wikipedia Officially Converts to Creative Commons License (CC BY-SA)
The entire English Wikipedia and other Wikimedia sites are now licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Share Alike license (CC BY-SA), following a community vote and approval by the Wikimedia Foundation board members. The outreach effort to non-Wikimedia wikis to take advantage of this migration opportunity is ongoing, and one very important milestone was reached June 19, when most wikis hosted by Wikia (there are thousands) converted to CC BY-SA.

Google and Yahoo integrate CC licensingYahoo and Google have both officially launched the ability to filter search results using Creative Commons licenses inside their Image Search tool. It is now easy to restrict your Image Search results to find images that have been tagged with our licenses, so that you can find content from across the web to share, use, and even modify. Google also now has a program to enable rights holders to make their Creative Commons-licensed books available for the public to download, use, remix, and share via Google Books. The new initiative makes it easy for participants in Google Books' Partner Program to mark their books with one of the six Creative Commons licenses (or the CC0 waiver).

Launch of New Resources for Open Education: OpenEd, DiscoverEd, Inside OER OpenEd is a new open education community site, hosted at http://opened.creativecommons.org. DiscoverEd is an education search engine prototype that is now up and running at http://discovered.creativecommons.org. It is designed to provide scalable search and discovery for educational resources on the web, but is still in a very experimental phase. Inside OER is a full suite of interviews with movers and shakers in the open education world, all available at http://learn.creativecommons.org/projects/inside-oer.

Defining Noncommercial Report Published Almost one year ago we launched a study of how people understand "noncommercial use." The study, generously supported by The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, included in-depth interviews and two waves of in-person and online focus groups and online questionnaires. The last included a random sample of U.S. (geographic restriction mandated by resource constraints) internet users and in an extended form, open questionnaires promoted via our blog. The resulting Defining Noncommercial study report and raw data are now published, released under a CC Attribution (CC BY) license and CC0 public domain waiver respectively.

Launch of CC Case Studies Project With upwards of 150 million CC-licensed works published from every corner of the world, no single use case can tell the whole story. Creators and users come to CC for different reasons, and for many, CC solves different problems. With the Creative Commons Case Studies 2009, we're trying to capture the diversity of CC creators and content by building a resource that inspires new works and informs free culture. We're collecting cases big and small on our re-launched Case Studies wiki, an online portal to upload and discover documentation about CC-licensed projects.

Ridley Scott to Use CC license (BY-SA) for Blade Runner Web Series
Ridley Scott, the famed SciFi director of the classic Blade Runner will be producing a new web series based on the film, released under our free copyleft license, Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA). The series is initially slated for web release with the possibility of television syndication, and will be a project by Ag8.

Sarah Holewinski: Bad Math in Afghanistan: Deaths vs. Compensation

2009-11-21T23:00:00Z

Nobody's manning the calculator at NATO.

This year is on track to be the deadliest for Afghan civilians since the war began in 2001. Yet Oxfam just reported that of the 700 Afghans they interviewed just 1% received any compensation or apology for the harm done to them.

War never delivers clean numbers. But no matter how you look at these, something doesn't add up.

International forces acknowledge that civilians are key to their mission but still haven't figured out a coordinated way to help Afghan war victims. Just months ago, General McChrystal specifically endorsed a collective policy of compensation in his 60-day assessment of the Afghan war, but NATO is still dragging its heels.

To break this down into real terms: If your home is accidentally bombed by a Coalition airstrike, you may get compensation for the loss of property. But you likely won't. If your son is shot at a checkpoint by, say, a European, you may get some money. You may even get more than if your house was destroyed. Or you may get nothing at all.

Is this really the right way to respect the population? To win them over?

Some states like the U.S., Canada and Australia are relatively good about offering compensation when Afghans are caught in their crossfire, and are getting better about not making knee-jerk denials following tragic incidents. But the international coalition includes 26 NATO, 10 partner and 2 non-NATO countries. Taken together, their efforts to address civilian suffering are horribly scattered -- ad hoc, slow and under-used to the point that most Afghan civilians receive nothing for their losses.

The fact remains there is no coordinated system or even uniform guidelines for addressing civilian harm among international forces. Survivor's pleas for apologies, investigations and assistance have been largely met with silence. That's a big missed opportunity for respecting and establishing stability among the Afghan population.

There's a big NATO gathering coming up in early December, where all of the big decision makers will gather in Brussels to discuss Afghanistan.

How about finally addressing the human cost of this war for Afghans?