The legendary New York Daily News columnist/cartoonist Bill Gallo passed away this Tuesday at the age of 88.
Boxing was the favorite sport of Gallo, who, amazingly was still contributing work to the tabloid he has worked at for an astonishing seven decades.

Gallo wrote a column after watching the Manny Pacquiao-Antonio Margarito clash last November and was dazzled and awed by the performance of Pacquiao.

Here are some excerpts from Gallo’s column three days after the fight in Dallas, Texas: “…As soon as the bout started, it was amazingly apparent that the difference in weight would have nothing to do with the outcome. Nor did the 4-inch height advantage Margarito had over this brash Philippine Piston. All right, are you getting a bit of the picture? You want more, like how good is he as a fighter? Here it is, and you can quote: This is one hell of a fighter, the likes of which I haven’t seen since Willie Pep and Sugar Ray Robinson. Yes, those two whom I’ve always regarded as the best ever.”

“By the second round, Pac already had figured out how to beat this big man, who had his right hand cocked to throw at an unprotected chin,”  Gallo wrote. “Never happened. Nearly every time Margarito threw that right, Pac, with his shifty, inventive head moves, eluded the punch – the same one Margarito had used to score 27 knockouts.”

“It seemed so natural for Pac – every time Margarito would miss, like a flash came two pumps of Pac’s right to Margarito’s jaw, followed by a nice left half-hook, half-uppercut. Those were the kind of moves Pep and Robby used to make. To the eyes of a fight buff, it was an artful and beautiful performance. Round by round, the slaughter continued.”

Gallo, an International Boxing Hall of Fame inductee and winner of the prestigious James J. Walker Award from the Boxing Writers Association of America, was ready to compare Pacquiao with great prizefighters from other generations:

“With every good – let’s make that, great – fighter there are always comparisons. It goes way back to Jack Dempsey: Was he as good or better than Joe Louis? Was Joe Louis better than Muhammad Ali or Rocky Marciano? Who really was the greatest? Was it Ali?”
“Some fight guys might say Ali, but most still won’t hand him that special title. The thing in boxing is that when the greats are compared, it always winds up in some kind of a fierce barroom argument.”

“So now we have a gym full of great lightweights – we’ll just stick with this division for now – to compare with Pacquiao. Take these: Is he as good or better than: Tony Canzoneri? My opinion – better. Barney Ross? Better. Roberto Duran? As good or even better. What about Henry Armstrong, who held three titles at the same time? Wasn’t he in the same class in throwing punches in multitudes? Didn’t Armstrong fight somewhat like Pacquiao?”

“My answer: No. They are different fighters. While Armstrong would bury his head into his opponent’s chest, firing lefts and rights to the body and head, Pacquiao is a thinking, deliberate puncher who rarely misses. I see Pac as the better fighter.”

Gallo, then, in his column, asked himself the toughest question of all – if Pacquiao is the best boxer his eyes have ever seen?

“I’m going to wind this up by asking myself this question: Okay, Mr. Boxing Man, are you telling me this Philippine Dynamo is the best you have ever seen? Yes, in a very long time. And he might just be the man who will eventually put boxing back in the upper deck of sports. Believe me, this kid who aspires to be big in Philippine politics, with his perpetual smile and special brand of punching ability, is indeed the goods.”

Source: boxinginsider

NEW YORK  – The National Hockey League was honored tonight as the Sports League of the Year by the SportsBusiness Journal and SportsBusiness Daily. The award was presented at a special ceremony held at the New York Marriott Marquis in Manhattan.

The NHL was recognized as part of the Sports Business Awards program, presented by Street & Smith’s SportsBusiness Journal and SportsBusiness Daily, the two leading publications on the business of sports. The Sports Business Awards recognize excellence and outstanding achievement in the sports industry for 2010.

"In 2010, more people than ever found more reasons than ever -- and more ways than ever -- to connect with our great game and our outstanding athletes," NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman said. "On behalf of the teams, the League staff and all who contributed to the achievement, the National Hockey League is pleased to accept this acknowledgement of a memorable year."

The NHL was chosen from five nominees for Sports League of the Year including, in alphabetical order, Major League Soccer, the National Basketball Association, the National Football League and the Ultimate Fighting Championship.

The Award caps an amazing year for the NHL, both on and off the ice. The League leveraged its big event and digital media strategy to achieve significant revenue growth for the fourth consecutive year, breaking records in TV ratings, merchandise sales and traffic to NHL.com.

The IPO of social-network LinkedIn will be priced Thursday. And when the shares start trading, a chorus of pundits will point to the stock price and howl that it is proof that we're in the middle of a new tech bubble.

Please.

LinkedIn's stock may well trade at a high multiple, and, like other high-multiple stocks, it will certainly carry a lot of risk. But there's a big difference between a high-multiple growth stock with downside risk and a "bubble."

LinkedIn is an established company. It generated nearly $250 million of revenue last year, and it should do more than $400 million this year. It has three strong revenue streams: consumer premium subscriptions, corporate recruiting subscriptions, and advertising. It earns money. And it has a huge growth opportunity. These reasons and others are why many institutional investors are lining up to buy the stock.

If LinkedIn's stock is priced in the current projected range--$42-$45 a share--the company will have a valuation of just north of $4 billion. That's about 10-times this year's projected revenue.

Is 10-times revenue a high multiple? Sure it's a high multiple. But it's also a multiple that, depending on LinkedIn's growth over the next couple of years, could be well-deserved.

Obviously conservative investors shouldn't buy LinkedIn's stock, just as they shouldn't buy any high-risk stocks. But screaming "bubble!" just because the Internet boom has produced another company that is worth a lot is ludicrous. It will be a "bubble" again when dozens of crappy companies with no businesses are going public at monstrous valuations --the way they did back at the end of the 1990s.

In Morris, the Bulls would get a guy who could relive Derrick Rose and provide some much-needed scoring off the bench. He has an uncanny knack to break defenses down off the dribble and kick to the open man for the threes.

That sounds like an ideal compliment to Kyle Korver coming off the bench for the Bulls.

NEW YORK — Haggard and unshaven after a weekend in jail, the chief of the International Monetary Fund was denied release on bail Monday on charges of trying to rape a hotel maid as allegations of other, similar attacks by Dominique Strauss-Kahn began to emerge.

In France, a lawyer for a novelist said the writer is likely to file a criminal complaint accusing Strauss-Kahn of sexually assaulting her nine years ago. A French lawmaker accused him of attacking other maids in previous stays at the same luxury hotel. And in New York, prosecutors said they are working to verify reports of at least one other case, which they suggested was overseas.

Strauss-Kahn's weekend arrest rocked the financial world as the IMF grapples with the European debt crisis, and upended French presidential politics. Strauss-Kahn, a member of France's Socialist party, was widely considered the strongest potential challenger next year to President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Making his first appearance on the sex charges, a grim-looking Strauss-Kahn stood slumped before a judge in a dark raincoat and open-collared shirt. The 62-year-old, silver-haired Strauss-Kahn said nothing as a lawyer professed his innocence and strove in vain to get him released on bail.

The judge ruled against him after prosecutors warned that the wealthy banker might flee to France and put himself beyond the reach of U.S. law like the filmmaker Roman Polanski.

"This battle has just begun," defense attorney Benjamin Brafman told scores of reporters outside the courthouse, adding that Strauss-Kahn might appeal the bail denial.

Strauss-Kahn is accused of attacking a maid who had gone in to clean his penthouse suite Saturday afternoon at a luxury hotel near Times Square. He is charged with attempted rape, sex abuse, a criminal sex act, unlawful imprisonment and forcible touching. The most serious charge carries five to 25 years in prison.

Strauss-Kahn, who has headed the international lending agency since 2007, was in New York on personal business and was paying his own way, so he cannot claim diplomatic immunity, the IMF said. He could seek that protection only if he were conducting official business, spokesman William Murray said. The agency's executive board met informally Monday for a report on the charges against Strauss-Kahn, its managing director.

The French newspaper Le Monde, citing people close to Strauss-Kahn, said he had reserved the $3,000-a-night suite at the Sofitel hotel for one night for a quick trip to have lunch with his daughter, who is studying in New York.

He grabbed her breasts, tried to pull down her pantyhose, grabbed at her crotch and forced her to perform oral sex on him during the encounter at about noon, according to a court complaint. She ultimately broke free, escaped the room and told hotel staffers what had happened, authorities said. She was treated at a hospital for minor injuries.

"The victim provided a very powerful and detailed account of the violent sexual assault," Assistant District Attorney John "Ardie" McConnell said. He added that forensic evidence may support her account. Strauss-Kahn voluntarily submitted to a forensic examination Sunday night.

Brafman said defense lawyers believe the forensic evidence "will not be consistent with a forcible encounter." Defense lawyers wouldn't elaborate, but Brafman said "there are significant issues that were already found" that make it "quite likely that he will be ultimately be exonerated."

Prosecutors asked the judge to hold Strauss-Kahn without bail, noting that he lives in France, is wealthy, has an international job and was arrested on a Paris-bound plane at Kennedy Airport. He had left the Sofitel hotel before police arrived, leaving his cellphone behind, and appeared hurried on surveillance recordings, authorities said.

At one point, Strauss-Kahn called the hotel "in a panic" about the phone, a law enforcement official said Monday.

Hotel security officers hadn't found a phone. But they were instructed by NYPD investigators to set a trap by informing him they had it and asking where they could get it to him, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because the investigation had not been completed.

Strauss-Kahn told them he was about to board a flight – unknowingly tipping off authorities to his whereabouts, the official said.

Prosecutors said they couldn't force Strauss-Kahn's return from France if he went there.

"He would be living openly and notoriously in France, just like Roman Polanski," said Chief Assistant District Attorney Daniel Alonso, referring to the film director long sought by California authorities for sentencing in a 1977 child sex case. Swiss police arrested him in 2009, but he was freed last year when Switzerland declined to extradite him to the United States.

Defense lawyers suggested bail be set at $1 million and promised that the IMF managing director would remain in New York City. His lawyers said Strauss-Kahn wasn't trying to elude police Saturday: The IMF head rushed out of the hotel at about 12:30 p.m. to get to a lunch date with a family member, then caught a flight for which he had long had a ticket, according to Brafman and fellow defense lawyer William W. Taylor.

"This is not a case of someone who commits a crime, runs to the airport and jumps on the first available plane," Brafman said.

Still, Criminal Court Judge Melissa C. Jackson, who was an assistant district attorney in Brooklyn for nearly 22 years before being appointed to Manhattan Criminal Court in 2003, said the fact that Strauss-Kahn was on a plane when arrested "raises some concerns." She ordered him jailed at least until a court proceeding on Friday.

Strauss-Khan will be held in protective custody in the city's Rikers Island jail because of his high profile, said city Correction Department spokesman Stephen Morello. Unlike some inmates, who share 50-bed barracks, Strauss-Kahn will have a single-bed cell and eat all his meals alone there. Also, when he is outside his cell, he will have a guard escort.

Strauss-Kahn makes an annual tax-free salary as head of the IMF of $420,930, plus an annual "scale of living" allowance of $75,350, according to a 2007 IMF press release.

According to the 2000 biography "Les Vies Cachees de DSK" by Vincent Giret and Veronique Le Billon, Strauss-Kahn's wife, Anne Sinclair, was one of France's highest-paid TV journalists before she gave up her job to avoid a possible conflict of interest when her husband became a government minister in 1997. The biography says Sinclair is also a wealthy heiress, whose grandfather Paul Rosenberg was a prominent modern art dealer before the Second World War.

French newspapers have inventoried the couple's real estate holdings, which reportedly include a six-room apartment in Paris' chic 16th arrondissement; a 240-square-meter apartment on the luxurious Place des Vosges; a home in Marrakech, and a house in Washington.

Meanwhile, a lawyer for 31-year-old French novelist Tristane Banon said she will probably file a complaint alleging Strauss-Kahn sexually attacked her in 2002. Lawyer David Koubbi told French radio RTL that Banon hadn't pressed her claim earlier because of "pressures" but would do so now because "she knows she'll be taken seriously."

The Associated Press is identifying Banon as an alleged victim of sexual assault because she has gone public with her account.

Banon's mother, Anne Mansouret, a regional Socialist official in Normandy, said she had advised her daughter at the time against pursuing her claim.

A French lawmaker from a rival political party also alleged, without offering evidence, that Strauss-Kahn had victimized several maids during past stays at the Sofitel near Times Square.

The hotel issued a statement calling conservative lawmaker Michel Debre's claims "baseless and defamatory." Sofitel management "has had no knowledge of any previous attempted aggressions," the hotel said, adding that it had set up a hotline for workers to report incidents more than a year ago.

McConnell, the assistant district attorney, said in court Monday that New York authorities are working to verify at least one other case of "conduct similar to the conduct alleged." When the judge asked whether the potential other incident occurred in the United States, McConnell said he "believed that was abroad."

Strauss-Kahn's lawyers said they had no immediate response to the allegations emerging from overseas.

In France, defenders of Strauss-Kahn, a former finance minister who had topped the polls as a possible candidate in presidential elections next year, said they suspected he was the victim of a smear campaign.

The 187-nation IMF provides emergency loans to countries in severe distress and tries to maintain global financial stability.

Source : AOL

Microsoft hasn't exactly set the market ablaze with Surface, but Pioneer still wants its share of the extremely limited action. The company's Surface competitor, the WWS-DT101 Discussion Table, we spotted back in December is finally coming to market this July... in Japan anyway. Up top is a 52-inch, 1920 × 1080, multitouch glass slab powered by a Core i7 processor and 6GB of RAM. On the software side you're looking at Windows 7 and a proprietary interface called SCHEDA that has the ability to wirelessly pull content from laptops, tablets, smartphones and cameras. It also has a built-in scanner for quickly turning dead tree documents into manipulatable "cards," and teleconferencing capabilities. There's no set price, but we expect it fall in the same range as Surface -- somewhere between unafforable and unreasonable.

As the Treasury Department announced its collecting more tax revenue but still not enough to reduce the federal budget deficit below $1.4 trillion for the year, President Obama is meeting with congressional Democrats to develop a long-term approach to cutting the deficit.

The get-together Wednesday on White House grounds with the entire Democratic caucus is the first of two gatherings the president has called as talks stall over where to find compromise in reducing the budget. Obama is scheduled to meet Thursday with congressional Republicans.

Obama's involvement adds a sense of urgency to the discussions as the clock ticks for Congress to increase the nation's credit line before defaulting on its debt. The Aug. 2 deadline to increase the debt limit has been pushed back already by Treasury Secretary Tim Geithner, who shifted around resources to prevent the U.S. from hitting its debt ceiling and potentially losing its global credit rating. 

Vice President Biden had been the administration's point man on budget talks and on several occasions had huddled with negotiators from the House and Senate to find ways to reduce spending by identifying domestic programs that both sides agree can be cut.

But after meeting with congressional negotiators for two hours on Tuesday, Biden said the top House and Senate leaders may have to get involved to close any deal.

Obama spokesman Jay Carney said Biden's call for backup is not a sign of exasperation. But as both sides say they don't want to play games with the debt ceiling, the two remain very far apart on how to stop the debt spiral. 

The president isn't ready to abandon a "balanced approach" that presumably would include both spending cuts and tax increases, Carney said, and wants everyone to share the prosperity and the burden associated with long-term debt. 

Democrats insist that any burden-sharing should start with an end to tax subsidies for the nation's five largest oil companies. They also reject Republican Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan's fixes to Medicare and Medicaid, which they say is unduly harsh on seniors and the poor.

The oil companies "are enjoying far greater profits than we've seen in more recent years and, in fact, they're continuing to take advantage of this tax break to the tune of over $2 billion a year," said House Democratic Caucus Vice Chairman Xavier Becerra. "At the same time Republicans say that seniors in America must see their health care costs rise under Medicare because as they say, the country is broke. America is not broke. Its priorities just aren't in order."

"The Republican budget that passed the House was a totally lopsided approach. It was anything but a balanced approach," added Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md. "It did not ask for any type of shared sacrifice. In fact, what it did, as my colleagues have said, was say to seniors, we're going to end the Medicare guarantee and we're going to say you've got to go into the private insurance market where costs will rise very rapidly, and by the way seniors, you've got to eat those additional costs."

For their part, Republicans are opposed to any tax increases and are demanding steep spending cuts before holding a vote on increasing the debt limit. 

"The point we're making is, look, the debt ceiling will have to be raised and we have to cut spending. It's pretty simple. You really can't tax your way out of this problem. We're saying for a dollar of debt increase, we got to cut a dollar of spending," Ryan, R-Wis., told Fox News on Wednesday,

"The Democrats have been unable to present a budget because the big spenders in their caucus cannot support a plan that gets the job done and that the American people will support," said Sen. Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., chairman of the Senate Budget Committee. 

"American families should not be punished for the sins of Washington. According to the (Congressional Budget Office), we are going to spend $45 trillion over the next 10 years. Reports suggest that the Senate Democrat plan ... will cut, or save, just $2 trillion," Sessions said.

Republicans say they want "trillions, not billions" cut from the spending side of the ledger. That means if the $14.3 trillion debt ceiling is increased by $2 trillion, as it was last year, spending cuts of the same amount would have to be included.