SAN FRANCISCO — The San Francisco Giants finally put an end to a season that threatened to go into extra innings, bringing clarity to the National League playoff picture while dashing the hopes of the upstart San Diego Padres.After two failed chances at clinching the NL West title, the Giants secured their first division crown since 2003 with a 3-0 victory against the Padres behind Jonathan Sanchez's five scoreless innings and rally-igniting triple.Both the Giants and Padres would have been assured playoff spots if the Atlanta Braves had lost earlier in the day to the Philadelphia Phillies, but the Braves held on for an 8-7 win that put them in position to earn the wild card if San Diego lost.The Giants will host Atlanta in an NL Division Series opener Thursday. The Phillies will host the Cincinnati Reds in the other NLDS opener Wednesday."We don't want to be handed anything," said Giants closer Brian Wilson, who notched his major league-leading 48th save. "We don't want to know we're in the playoffs in the third inning. It's not as fun."The American League playoffs pairings were settled as well when the Boston Red Sox defeated the New York Yankees 8-4, denying them a chance to win the AL East. About an hour later, the Tampa Bay Rays earned the division championship outright when they edged the Kansas City Royals 3-2 in 12 innings.The Rays host the Texas Rangers in one AL Division Series beginning Wednesday. The Yankees, who lost eight of their last 11, open Wednesday at the Minnesota Twins."It would be stupid to say it doesn't matter how you finish," Yankees left-hander Andy Pettitte said. "We would have liked to get this thing done, but we didn't. The bottom line is, we're the world champs until someone knocks us off."Guidelines: You share in the USA TODAY community, so please keep your comments smart and civil. Don't attack other readers personally, and keep your language decent. Use the "Report Abuse" button to make a difference. Read more.
Thursday, October 7, 2010
What to expect from Google TV - Washington Post
Google TV - the Web giant's software package for finding and watching TV programming over the Internet and through traditional subscription services - looks less vaporous now. Just in time for introductions of Google TV-enabled hardware from Sony and Logitech, Google announced further details about the platform it launched in May.
A blog post and accompanying video advertise many of the usual online video and audio services: movies and TV shows from Netflix or Amazon's video-on-demand service, shorter clips from Google's own YouTube, Web radio from Pandora, photo browsing from Yahoo's Flickr, and so on.
But Google TV also will include a set of Web applications, some video-enhanced, from the NBA, CNBC and Twitter, among others. A "Fling" feature will let you toss the Web page or video you're viewing on a smartphone (presumbably one running Google's Android operating system) to Google TV. And early next year, Google TV will be able to run apps downloaded from Google's Android Market.
But note some video sites not listed: Hulu (coming to Roku's Web-media receivers and TiVo digital video recorders, to be followed by some HDTVs and Blu-ray players), Major League Baseball's MLB.tv (already on Roku and in Boxee's software) and ESPN3.com (unavailable on any Web-media box).
And, of course, Google TV won't be able to play movies or TV shows streamed or downloaded from Apple's iTunes Store. For those, you'll still need to hook up a computer to the TV or get just-updated Apple TV.
Future Google TV software updates could fill in some of those gaps and add other new features. One interesting possibility would be simple video calling.
For One Tea Party Candidate, Time to Temper the Message - New York Times
“I smile when I think of what we can do together in the Senate if the people send me,” Mr. Paul wrote.
Mr. DeMint related the note to the crowd of 300 people at the evening rally, in Erlanger. He said he himself smiled at the thought of “not just us two but eight or 10 senators” being elected and going up against the Republican establishment to push the Tea Party goal of limited government.
But Mr. DeMint’s smile may have vanished by morning. During a nationally televised debate on Fox News Sunday, Mr. Paul said that if he were elected to the Senate, he would support Senator Mitch McConnell, also from Kentucky, to keep his job as Republican leader.
Pressed to say whether he would choose him over Mr. DeMint, Mr. Paul said that he would vote for whomever Republicans chose as their leader and that he assumed it would be Mr. McConnell.
It was one more sign that no matter how devoted Mr. Paul is to Tea Party principles, he may be forced to yield periodically to some realities of the old-school politics that he denounces.
This also occurred last month, when Mr. McConnell set up a fund-raiser in Washington for Mr. Paul with several Republican senators who, like Mr. McConnell, had supported the $700 billion bank bailout in 2008; during the primary, Mr. Paul said he would not accept donations from anyone who had done so.
With the election just a month away, Mr. Paul’s wide lead in the polls over Jack Conway, his Democratic opponent, has narrowed, but he still appears ahead. And Mr. Paul may be acting a bit more cautiously these days to hold on to his lead, which is par for the course for many candidates after they emerge from a party primary and face the broader electorate.
“His approach has changed,” said Trey Grayson, the secretary of state, who lost in the primary to Mr. Paul. “He’s acting more like an incumbent. His tone is designed more for a general election audience and swing voters.”
But, Mr. Grayson quickly added, Mr. Paul still gets across his points. “He still, at the end of the day, talks about shrinking the size of the government,” Mr. Grayson said. “Those things haven’t changed, and that’s why he’s ahead in the polls.”
During the spring primary, Mr. Paul invariably opened his speeches by declaring that “a Tea Party tidal wave is coming.” His “randslide” win of the Republican nomination was the movement’s first major success on the national stage.
Now, his references to the Tea Party are fewer and farther between. On a trip last week through eastern Kentucky, the trademark yellow “Don’t Tread on Me” flags of the movement were gone. Mr. Paul did not sound his earlier battle cry that he would shut down Congress for a week if it failed to amend the Constitution to require a balanced budget. In fact, he did not mention the Tea Party at all.
Almost inconspicuous in a dark blue button-down shirt and cotton pants, Mr. Rand began his short speech in London by reciting in a soft voice the names of the other small towns he had just visited.
“I haven’t met one person on the entire trip who is in favor of President Obama or any of his policies,” he said. Even Democrats, he added, “realize that this is the most anti-Kentucky, anti-coal president we’ve ever had.”
He put in a slight dig at his opponent, Mr. Conway, whom he did not name and whom he rarely mentions, saying that the Democrat had once supported the cap-and-trade legislation, which is much loathed in this coal-producing state. “He was for it before he was agin’ it,” Mr. Paul, who is an ophthalmologist, said.
At Saturday’s rally, Mr. Paul did acknowledge the Tea Party — his campaign had bused in several dozen members of a contingent from northern Kentucky, who were having a convention nearby. Mr. Paul shared the stage with his father, Representative Ron Paul, the Texas Republican and 2008 presidential candidate, and with Mr. DeMint, and they were more overtly whipping up Tea Party sentiment.
The Conway strategy has been to cast Mr. Paul as out of the mainstream (in one advertisement, some seniors say he is “off the wall” and question “what planet” he is from). They also portray him as being unfamiliar with the state. Indeed, Mr. Paul focuses chiefly on national issues, like the debt and spending.
But Danny Briscoe, a Democratic consultant here who is not part of the Conway campaign, said this approach had not worked so far. Mr. Paul has “managed to appear normal,” Mr. Briscoe said, particularly with other controversial Tea Party-backed candidates, like Christine O’Donnell in Delaware, taking over the national stage.
Analysts here say the race appears to be Mr. Paul’s to lose. It seems he would have to make a blunder of gigantic proportions to alienate his supporters, and neither candidate appeared to make many in the debate on Sunday.
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