Drawing Service Lines in the Sand

Drawing Service Lines in the Sand

Nicole Melch hits the ball over the 5-foot-10 net used in beach tennis during the Women's Pro Finals in Long Beach, N.Y

LONG BEACH, N.Y. — Put him on any other tennis court, clay, grass or hard, and Paul Whitesell would not draw a second look: racket in hand, cap turned backward, synthetic T-shirt, long white socks, pale sneakers.

The only difference is that his shoes are full of sand. Whitesell is a professional beach tennis player.

Ever since he caught his first glimpse of the sport in 2005 at Beach Tennis USA’s inaugural event in Charleston, S.C., Whitesell has been hooked. Like many players who flirted with tennis’s big time, he found in the beach game a way to stay competitive long after his playing career had been hamstrung by injuries.

“I can still play at a high level and not beat up my body as much,” said Whitesell, who recently won the beach tennis national title here with his playing partner, Chris Henderson. “This has been my saving grace.”

The sport is played by two-person teams on a space similar to a beach volleyball court with a 5-foot-10-inch-high net. It preserves most of the rules of tennis with a few modifications for sand and speed. For instance, there is no second serve, no advantage scoring, and a match consists of a single eight-game set.

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Lions Have Changed Everything So Far but the Mind-Set of Fans

ALLEN PARK, Mich. — When Jim Schwartz, the new coach of the Detroit Lions, quoted Shakespeare on the day he made the rookie Matthew Stafford his starting quarterback, his choice of source material was painfully appropriate.
“Hamlet.” A tragedy.

The Bard was probably not imagining 0-16 when he wrote about the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. But as the Lions prepare for their home opener Sunday against the Minnesota Vikings with one blowout loss to the New Orleans Saints already in their pockets, Schwartz, the progeny of ultracompetent football mentors like Jeff Fisher and Bill Belichick, has been plunged into an alternate universe, where the Lions have struggled for so long that one fan compared watching games to self-flagellation.

“We watch for the humor,” said Rob Mizgalski, 44, who lives in Warren, a suburb north of Detroit. “We love the first pass of the game being intercepted. There’s no anger. It’s beyond that. There is a point where you accept it, it’s like when you know the marriage is over. It makes life a lot easier.”

Schwartz swears nobody in his vast network of football friends told him he was crazy to take the Lions job; they told him it was a great opportunity. Now that he is here, he feels a responsibility to field a team in which the economy-battered city can take pride. During minicamp, he even took top rookies with him to sign autographs at a truck assembly plant in Dearborn, Mich. But Schwartz is also pragmatic enough to know there is nothing he can say, no billboard slogan persuasive enough, to change minds like Mizgalski’s until the Lions manage to win. Instead, Schwartz has changed just about everything else he could, focusing on his bottomless job: where to go when you’re starting, literally, from zero.

A new coaching staff was hired. Uniforms were redesigned. Weight machines were replaced by free weights. The seating chart of the locker room was rearranged. Parking spaces were assigned. The practice schedule was upended.

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Another Sex Dispute, but This Athlete Has Four Legs

Martha Maxine might seem like an ill-fitting name for a 5-year-old male horse, but there is an explanation. He used to be a she.
Martha Maxine will be among the favorites Saturday in the $125,000 Tony Maurello Stakes at Balmoral Park outside Chicago, the same harness racing track where he won the filly division of the same race a year ago. He will make his fourth start since tests determined the horse was intersex, with male sex chromosomes.

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Suzuki Gives Seattle Stunning Win

Nick Swisher can only watch from the wall as fans try to catch a walk off home run hit by the Mariners' Ichiro Suzuki in the ninth inning.

Ichiro Suzuki hit a two-run walk-off home run in the bottom of the ninth to lift the Mariners over the Yankees, spoiling a strong performance from Yankees starter A.J. Burnett.

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Russia’s Reaction on Missile Plan Leaves Iran Issue Hanging

President Obama’s decision to cancel an antimissile defense system in Eastern Europe earned a strong welcome from Russian leaders on Friday. Now, the question is whether Russia will do more to help prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons..

Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin, who had repeatedly assailed the antimissile system as a grievous threat to Russia’s security, called Mr. Obama’s decision “correct and brave.” President Dmitri A. Medvedev hinted that Russia would respond favorably to the decision to replace former President George W. Bush’s plan with a missile shield seen as less threatening to Moscow.

Still, neither leader offered any immediate indication that Russia would make specific concessions, especially on Iran, which has become a major stumbling block in relations between the countries. If Russia does not toughen its opposition to Iran’s nuclear program, analysts say, Mr. Obama may be vulnerable to criticism that he yielded to Russian complaints on the antimissile plan but received little in return.

“I hope our administration really thought this through and this was not about appeasing Russia, because I don’t think that justifies the decision,” said Riki Ellison, chairman of the Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance, a nonpartisan group that receives financing from defense contractors as well as private individuals who support missile defense.

The White House described the missile defense announcement as a response to changing Iranian capabilities, not as giving in to Russia, and said there was no quid pro quo. But the Obama administration needs support from Russia, which has veto power in the United Nations Security Council, in order to increase sanctions on Iran. American and European officials argue that Iran has carried out significant advances in recent months in developing a nuclear weapon.

Russia and China so far have resisted taking strong diplomatic steps or imposing tougher sanctions against Iran. Mr. Obama’s decision to remove one of the main irritants in relations between Washington and Moscow seems intended, in part, to alter that diplomatic equation and help increase the chances of addressing the impasse over Iran without resorting to military force.

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Despite Warning, Thousands Rally in Iran

BEIRUT, Lebanon — Tens of thousands of protesters chanted and carried banners through the heart of Tehran and other Iranian cities on Friday, hijacking a government-organized anti-Israel march and injecting new life into the country’s opposition movement.
The protests, held in defiance of warnings from the clerical and military elite, served as a public embarrassment to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who had hoped to showcase national unity just two weeks before he is set to meet Western leaders for talks on Iran's nuclear Program.

He used the annual rally for Jerusalem Day also known as Quds Day, to deliver a fiery anti-Israeli speech in which he called the Holocaust “a lie” and impugned the West again for its criticisms of Iran’s disputed June 12 presidential election.

But his efforts to recapture the stage were largely drowned out by a tumultuous day ofStreet Rallies , in which the three main opposition leaders marched with their followers for the first time in months. Flouting the official government message of support for militants, they chanted, “No to Gaza and Lebanon, I will give my life for Iran.”

Coming a day after President Obama announced a revised missile defense system that aims to check Iran’s military ambitions, the rallies underscored the continuing vitality of the domestic opposition movement, which has rejected the election as fraudulent and fiercely criticized the violence that followed it.

In a striking contrast with earlier rallies, the police often stood on the sidelines as protesters faced off against huge crowds of government supporters — many of them bused in from outside the cities — and chain-wielding basij militia members. There were reports of arrests in Tehran and the southern city of Shiraz, but no shootings or deaths, with the police apparently showing greater restraint than during earlier protests.

The protesters, ignoring stern official warnings not to use the annual pro-Palestinian rally as a pretext for demonstrations, showed up in large numbers wearing the trademark bright green color of the opposition.

When government men shouted “Death to Israel” through loudspeakers, protesters derisively chanted “Death to Russia” in response. Many opposition supporters are angry about Russia’s quick acceptance of Mr. Ahmadinejad’s electoral victory.

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PROCESSOR

An information processor or information processing system, as its name suggests, is a system (be it electrical, mechanical or biological) which takes information (a sequence of enumerated states) in one form and processes (transforms) it into another form, e.g. to statistics, by an algorithmic process.
An information processing system is made up of four basic parts, or sub-systems:
input processor storage output An object may be considered an information processor if it receives information from another object and in some manner changes the information before transmitting it. This broadly defined term can be used to describe every change which occurs in the universe. As an example, a falling rock could be considered an information processor due to the following observable facts:
First, information in the form of gravitational force from the earth serves as input to the system we call a rock. At a particular instant the rock is a specific distance from the surface of the earth traveling at a specific speed. Both the current distance and speed properties are also forms of information which for that instant only may be considered "stored" in the rock.
In the next instant, the distance of the rock from the earth has changed due to its motion under the influence of the Earth's gravity. Any time the properties of an object change a process has occurred meaning that a processor of some kind is at work. In addition, the rock's new position and increased speed is observed by us as it falls. These changing properties of the rock are its "output."
It could be argued that[weasel words] in this example both the rock and the earth are the information processing system being observed since both objects are changing the properties of each other over time. If information is not being processed no change would occur at all.

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Tendulkar wants top spot for India to mark 20 years

Tendulkar wants top spot for India to mark 20 years

Sachin Tendulkar is hoping he can mark his 20 years in international cricket by leading India to become the world's top ranked one-day team.
The premier batsman made his India debut as a 16-year-old against Pakistan in November 1989, since setting many batting records, including test and one-day aggregates and hundreds.
India enter the ICC Champions Trophy in South Africa starting next week as strong contenders after staying unbeaten in one-day series over the past one year.
India is third in the ODI rankings, just one rating point behind world champions Australia and South Africa going into the premier eight-team event starting on Tuesday.
"We definitely have the ability, the spirit, the desire, the hunger to get there (number one team)," the 36-year-old former skipper told the CNN-IBN channel on Friday.
"Playing cricket for India means the world to me. I grew up dreaming about playing cricket for India. I am living my dream."
Tendulkar underlined his continued desire to excel, scoring his 44th one-day hundred last week to set up a tri-series final win over hosts Sri Lanka in Colombo.
"It is going to be a challenging season, a lot of cricket," he said. "I wish we had more test cricket, we only have three test matches this season."
India's best performance in the Champions Trophy was finishing as joint winners in 2002 alongside hosts Sri Lanka .

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Bombs kill Canadian, US troops in Afghanistan

Bombs kill Canadian, US troops in Afghanistan

A U.S. service member and a Canadian soldier died in separate roadside bomb explosions in southern Afghanistan, officials said Friday, announcing new deaths from a day that claimed the lives of a total of nine international troops.
The American and Canadian died Thursday, the same day a car bomber killed six Italian troops in a brazen attack in the heavily guarded capital of Kabul. A NATO soldier also died Thursday of wounds from an earlier attack, adding to the toll in the deadliest year yet for the international forces in Afghanistan.
The resurgent Taliban has increased attacks sharply this year ahead of last month's presidential election and with the arrival of 21,000 more American troops. The Islamist extremists run a shadow government in the south and launch guerrilla attacks elsewhere.
U.S. military spokeswoman Capt. Elizabeth Mathias said the American died when his patrol struck a bomb planted in the road. She did not provide his name.
Canadian Brig. Gen. Jonathan Vance said Pvt. Jonathan Couturier, 23, was killed as he returned from a mission to root out Taliban weapons caches in the southern province of Kandahar.
Bombs planted in and around roads are one of the main weapons used by the insurgents, now accounting for the majority of U.S. and NATO casualties.
After Thursday's car bomb in Kabul, Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi said it would be best for international troops to leave Afghanistan soon. It was Italy's deadliest day yet in the conflict, but Afghans fared far worse in the explosion: 10 died and more than 50 were wounded.
The bomb left a crater about three feet (one meter) deep and nearly twice as wide. On Friday, Afghan men in traditional tunics peered into the blackened pit in the road — a major thoroughfare connecting the airport to the capital — and mourned the deaths of neighbors and relatives.
Ghulam Sakhi said the two storekeepers on each side of his carpentry workshop were among those killed in the fourth major attack in the capital in five weeks.
This year has been the deadliest for American and NATO troops since the 2001 invasion to oust the Taliban for sheltering al-Qaida leaders who plotted the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks in the U.S. Violence has been particularly harsh in the south, where thousands of U.S. troops have deployed to bolster the Canadian and British-led operations in the Taliban heartland.
The U.S. and NATO have a record number of troops in Afghanistan — nearly 100,000 in total — and the top commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley McChrystal, is likely to soon request thousands more

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Iran reformist attacked; Ahmadinejad slams Israel

Iran reformist attacked; Ahmadinejad slams Israel

TEHRAN, Iran — Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad lashed out at Israel and the West saying Friday the Holocaust was a lie and a pretext for occupying Palestinian lands, while hard-liners attacked a reformist cleric who was marching with the opposition at an anti-government rally in Tehran.

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