U.S. Entry Dead in the Water

U.S. Entry Dead in the Water
Change in Skippers Doesn't Help as BMW Oracle Is Eliminated by Luna Rossa

By Angus Phillips
Special to The Washington Post
Infrared sauna Hot tub Replica Rolex Rolex Replica Replica Louis Vuitton Louis Vuitton SmCo Temephos Etofenprox Prochloraz EpoxiconazoleMonday, May 21, 2007; Page E01

VALENCIA, Spain, May 20 -- It took five days for the wheels to come off the ultimate sailing machine, billionaire Larry Ellison's America's Cup challenger BMW Oracle. On the sixth day he yanked the driver. Now the once-heralded campaign is kaput.

Ellison sacked his skipper and chief executive Sunday in hopes the drastic change would reverse a downward spiral, but with Chris Dickson watching on TV and understudy Sten Mohr at the helm, the U.S. entry came up flat.

BMW Oracle, right, cannot maneuver its way past Luna Rossa. The Italian boat cruised to a 33-second victory for a 5-1 win in the best-of-nine format. (By Fernando Bustamante -- Associated Press)

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Swift Luna Rossa led at every mark of the 13-mile course in 10- to 15-knot Mediterranean sea breezes. When the 33-second drubbing was over, BMW Oracle was gone from the challenger semifinals with barely a fight. The 5-1 defeat in this best-of-nine series was worse than it looked. For the first time in modern Cup history, no U.S. entry will get as far as challenger finals.

On a brilliant, breezy day before a hundreds of spectator boats and thousands of spellbound onlookers, Luna Rossa charged off the line to a familiar early lead with slim, gray-black Oracle struggling astern.

It was a banner day for European sailors as Luna Rossa clinched its spot in the final of the Louis Vuitton Cup, which starts June 1, while hometown favorite Desafío Español staved off elimination, beating top-ranked Emirates Team New Zealand by 15 seconds. Their best-of-nine match resumes Tuesday, Kiwis leading 4-2.

Desafío and Luna Rossa came back to harbor to cheers, horns and flag-waving from a throng lining the channel. Spain and New Zealand had a fierce, tight race in which the Spanish lead never exceeded two boat lengths. The Spaniards held off every Kiwi effort to pass, but the significance of the day was the conclusion of Oracle's flop.

"I will write in the newspaper that Desafío lasted longer in this regatta than the Americans," said a stunned Spanish sportswriter watching from the press boat, "but I do not believe it."

Everyone had the Americans as a favorite to make the finals and a strong contender to get to the Cup match against Swiss Alinghi on June 23. "They made it look so easy against the lesser teams in the round robins," mused veteran Cup bowman Geordie Shaver. "They were walking through everybody. They had speed."

But a 17-3 record in preliminaries, including two wins over Luna Rossa, meant nothing. In six days of semifinals, Oracle never led at a turning mark and scored its lone victory on a fluky comeback on the last leg of the second race.

Sunday's bombshell, that Dickson was out, came moments before competitors left the dock. Dickson was Oracle's CEO and skipper from the outset three years ago and handled all details, from budget to crew selection to coordinating sail, rig and hull design. The combative New Fiberglass Fiberglass Mesh Fiberglass Mat wow powerleveling wow power leveling wow power leveling wow powerleveling a-bike bicycle Alnico SmCo Agrochem power cord Zealander ran a tight and secretive campaign that, with Ellison's deep pockets, lacked nothing. Some wondered if Dickson took too much responsibility.

What went wrong? Dickson's starts in the first five races were average at best and abysmal at worst. He was replaced after copping two penalties in Saturday's pre-start, knocking Oracle out of the race before it began. Starting behind in four of six races, the boat never showed the speed edge it needed to get out front, and Luna Rossa sailed flawlessly.

"We're very disappointed," Dickson said. "It's not the exit we hoped for. The reason for our departure is Luna Rossa excelled. They quietly built up and got stronger. My sincere congratulations. Well done, guys."

Oracle looked overmatched against Luna Rossa helmsman James Spithill, the youngest skipper in the fleet at 27. "We were outclassed in number of areas," Dickson said. "Luna Rossa improved upwind, downwind, with its sails, in starting. A month ago it was an edge to us. Today, if you listed 10 factors, eight or nine go to them. We were beaten by a better team."

Ellison, with two Cup campaigns behind him, has vowed to keep his team going. Whether Dickson will be included is unclear. Before semifinals started, Ellison called the 45-year-old skipper "the best there is" waving off suggestions the afterguard lacked chemistry and could crumble under stress. "We respect each other, we like each other. We can't implode," he said.

On Sunday, he sacked the skipper he called "the boss." Now Dickson, Ellison and Oracle are gone, vanquished in a turn of fortunes that even a week ago, no one could have imagined.

Left in the first America's Cup in Europe are three European teams -- Luna Rossa, Desafío and Cupholder Alinghi, and one from New Zealand. The final chapters of this America's Cup will be written without Americans.

Big fight rings up pay-per-view records

Big fight rings up pay-per-view records
Thu May 10, 2007 2:11AM EDT
 
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More Entertainment News... Email This Article | Print This Article | Reprints[-] Text [+] By Paul J. Gough

NEW YORK (Hollywood Reporter) - The megahype surrounding the Floyd Mayweather Jr.-Oscar De La Hoya "battle for the ages" delivered for the boxers and HBO, with 2.15 million pay-per-view buys and $120 million in revenue making the bout the top event in PPV history.

HBO Sports said Wednesday that there were 1.2 million buys from cable and 925,000 from satellite homes for Saturday night's fight, which Mayweather won with a split decision. The totals are ahead of the previous PPV records of $106.9 million in revenue (for Lennox Lewis-Mike Tyson on June 8, 2002) and 1.99 million PPV buys (for Evander Holyfield-Tyson II on June 28, 1997).

"This puts to rest the claim that boxing is dying or that boxing's in trouble," said HBO Sports president Ross Greenburg, whose company along with promoter Golden Boy Promotions put into motion an unprecedented marketing effort for the fight. "This fight never would have materialized if boxing was dying. It's alive and well."

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It makes the "Golden Boy" De La Hoya gold in another way, too: He not only cleared an estimated $25 million for the fight, but he also becomes the highest-grossing boxing attraction in PPV history with $612 million in revenue generated from his 18 PPV fights.

HBO Sports isn't resting on its laurels. It has a busy postfight schedule, including a big Jermain Taylor-Cory Spinks bout in two weeks, plus another, albeit lesser, PPV matchup on June 9. And HBO will broadcast the De La Hoya-Mayweather fight, along with interviews with both fighters and more footage from its "De La Hoya-Mayweather 24/7" documentary series, on Saturday night.

"Now we just have to generate more fights like this and put '24/7s' on the air and instill new life into this sport," Greenburg said. "We've got our steppingstone now. We have our blueprint in how to create a big event."

But Greenburg, who has been cautious about PPV in lieu of building the sport, isn't sure when the next big event is going to be on PPV. It could be a rematch between De La Hoya and Mayweather, but that could take time.

"When you generate this much revenue, though, all the fighters have to do is look into their bank accounts," Greenburg said.  Continued...

Making a splash

Making a splash

   By: Charles Slat story updated March 10. 2007 11:46PM 
 
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- Evening News photos by VALERIE TOBIAS Final touches are going in at the nearly complete Splash Universe, a new water theme park near Cabela's in Dundee. Workers are scrambling to have the facility completed by the end of March. The 25,000-square-foot park, attached to Holiday Inn Express & Suites, is in the final stages of construction.
 
 
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Lake Erie and the River Raisin have been around for eons and long have been draws for tourists and outdoors enthusiasts, but the region soon will get a new watercourse called "RiverRun - Splash Universe," and it's indoors.

The indoor water park resort now is expected to open sometime during the last week of March at the Holiday Inn & Suites near Cabela's outdoor equipment store in Dundee. The resort includes a new bank of family-friendly rooms and a 25,000-square-foot indoor water park.

The park features an interactive play area, a flowing river ride, two double inner tube slides, a tot pool and family hot tub. A key feature of the park is a three-story play tower with fountains, water cannons and a giant "tipping bucket" that, following a warning bell, periodically dumps a 500-gallon cascade on revelers below.

It also has locker rooms, a snack area, and individual party rooms for birthdays, reunions, school and church group outings, or other types of gatherings. It includes an arcade, restaurants and a gift shop.
restaurants and a gift shop.

Planned by Valparaiso, Ind.-based Focus Development, Inc. and Focus Hospitality Services, LLC, RiverRun reflects the outdoor theme of the nearby Cabela's outdoor equipment store.

The Focus-owned hotel already was outdoor-themed before work began on the water park and an effort has been made to carry that theme throughout the water attraction.

William A. Knopp, sales and marketing director for the water park, said the complex is meant to provide fun for the whole family and be complementary to the nearby Cabela's store, which is among the state's biggest tourist draws. The water park is expected to draw about 130,000 visitors annually. Hiring has been under way in recent weeks to fill about 200 full- and part-time jobs, about half of which will be lifeguards.

Planning for the water park took into account that it should appeal to both youngsters and adults, according to Mr. Knopp. For example, it not only has a hot tub for kids, a separate larger hot tub for families and adults is in a corner removed from the water play area.

The play area includes a coursing "ripplin' river" inner tube run that meanders around the floor of the theme park. A staircase leads park-goers to its two large water slides, which squiggle back and forth on their routes to the pool. One is an open slide. The other is an enclosed tube that exits and then re-enters the building as part of its route.

An enclosed restaurant overlooking the water play area will provide casual fare and alcoholic beverages. A lower level concession stand just off the play area will serve pizza and other munchies.

The park also will feature a first-floor electronic games arcade with 60 games, according to Mr. Knopp.

Patrons will be able to purchase RFID (radio frequency identification) wristbands loaded with values representing machine tokens so they need merely swipe a wristband over each machine's scanner in order to play.

Although many water park resorts are available to hotel guests only, RiverRun provides full and half-day passes to the general public, not just those staying at the resort. Group packages for parties or other gatherings also are available.

The non-guest passes for regional residents - which includes most residents of Monroe County - is $19.95 for a full-day pass and $14.95 for half-day passes. The half-day passes generally start later in the afternoon and run to closing.

The Splash Universe concept is making its debut in Dundee, but Focus also is creating WanaWaves, a second water park resort in Shipshewana, Ind., with a theme that reflects the style and "personality" of that Amish community.

The company intendwow powerleveling wow power leveling wow power leveling Rolex Replica Rolex Rolex Replica Infrared sauna hot tub Replica Rolex Rolex Replica Louis Vuitton Olmesartan Telmisartan Cilostazol Mitiglinide Nateglinide Glimepiride Faropenem Sodium pepsin Gastric Mucin Pregabalin Hypericin Pancreatin Amlodipine Chondroitin Sulfates to open similar parks elsewhere and also is licensing the concept.

"We've developed and assembled an entire realm of proprietary systems, programs, and strategies to craft a distinct Splash Universe brand," said Jerald Good, president, Focus Development Inc.
 

Prayers and perseverance, the Asian tsunami remembered

Prayers and perseverance, the Asian tsunami remembered
Reuters, The Associated PressPublished: December 26, 2006
 
ACEH, Indonesia: Thousands of people joined in Indonesia's largest- ever tsunami drill on Tuesday as nations across Asia remembered the moment two years ago when devastating waves crashed into coastlines and killed 230,000 people.

Elsewhere in the region, survivors and mourners visited mass graves, lit candles along beaches, observed two minutes of silence and erected warning towers in hopes of saving lives in the future.

But as Thai authorities prepared to open a cemetery for unidentified tsunami victims, foreign donors claimed that nearly $1 million intended for DNA sampling and other testing appears to have been misused.

A magnitude 9.0 earthquake struck off Indonesia's Sumatra Island on Dec. 26, 2004, and spawned monster waves that fanned out across the Indian Ocean at jetliner speeds, killing people in a dozen countries and leaving millions homeless.

On a bright Sunday morning at a mosque in Ulee Lheue, Aceh, the worst- hit Indonesian province, an imam, Usman Dodi, told worshippers the tsunami was a religious warning. "Please forgive the people who have left us for their wrongdoing," Imam Usman prayed, returning to a sermon some religious leaders preached after a disaster that killed 169,000 people in northern Sumatra and left half a million homeless.

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 Entire villages were swept out to sea in Indonesia and Sri Lanka, luxury resorts and fishing communities submerged in Thailand and thousands of homes destroyed in southern India — where commemorations were small and subdued.

"I cannot forget the events of two years ago, it feels like they happened just yesterday," said an Aceh resident, Zaldi Setiawan.

Like many other Acehnese, he prayed Tuesday at mass graves where tens of thousands of people were buried after the disaster, remembering his two children that were ripped from his hands by the waves. "I can still imagine their faces," he said.

In stark contrast to Aceh, where the disaster led to a landmark peace settlement of a three-decade insurgency, commemorations in rebel-held areas of Sri Lanka were muted.

A resurgence in Sri Lanka's two-decade civil has forced thousands of Tamils, including tsunami survivors, to flee homes and camps for the second time in two years.

"There isn't much to show for by way of reconstruction," said a Western aid official involved in the tsunami relief. "There isn't much to commemorate when you have barely moved an inch.

"The tsunami could have been a turning point in the conflict, if both parties had agreed on an aid-sharing pact. Instead, it has now become another point of division."

Temple bells chimed to mark the exact time the first wave crashed ashore, and all cars and trucks came to a standstill for two minutes. Looking to the future, the first of 100 warning towers was erected on a beach.

The tsunami drill on Indonesia's resort island of Bali — which involved warnings sent from the capital to radios along the beach — was as much about raising awareness as testing technology to mobilize people. Sirens wailed as crowds, many of them schoolchildren, briskly walked inland from the shore, accompanied by Indonesia's minister of research and technology and a handful of foreign tourists.

"The biggest challenge is working with the people to make them aware," said Harald Spahn, a German geologist who is helping Indonesia set up its alert network. "It is a really complex job that many people underestimate."

In Thailand, ceremonies were held along the Andaman coast with Buddhist prayers to remember more than 8,200 killed, many of them foreign vacationers.

The 2004 tsunami generated an unprecedented outpouring of generosity, with donor pledges reaching some $13.6 billion, but many of those made homeless complain they are stuck with poorly built structures that leak, are termite-infested or are located in flood zones.

Corruption has also marred the process, with several nongovernmental organizations forced to delay projects or rebuild homes after contractors and suppliers ran off with the funds.

Thailand faced fresh questions about possible graft on Tuesday. Seven Western nations sent a letter to Thai police saying up to 60 percent of the $1.6 million set aside to help identify the dead appeared to have been misused.

The money may have gone toward travel and other miscellaneous costs, an unnamed U.S. diplomat was quoted as saying in the English-language daily The Nation, calling for an investigation. $@

MedImpact Study Compares Single- vs. Multiple-Pill Regimen Combinations to Better Manage Cardiovascu

MedImpact Study Compares Single- vs. Multiple-Pill Regimen Combinations to Better Manage Cardiovascular Risk
Findings provide insight to physicians about drug therapies that may improve drug compliance, lower risk and better manage health care costs

SAN DIEGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--MedImpact, the nation’s largest pharmacy benefit management (PBM) company that does not sell drugs, today announced it has completed a research study assessing compliance rates for a single-pill fixed-dose combination versus two-pill combinations in patients with multiple cardiovascular risks. Results showed that adherence (also known as compliance) rates were significantly higher for the single-pill option. Research highlights were presented at the 21st Scientific Meeting of the International Society of Hypertension (ISH) in Fukuoka, Japan on October 17, 2006 and the Scientific Sessions of the American Heart Association (AHA) in Chicago, IL on November 12, 2006. The University of Southern California, Yale University and Pfizer were collaborators on the study.

“Adherence rates and percentage of patients achieving adherence with a single-pill combination of an antihypertensive and a cholesterol-lowering agent were superior to various multi-pill combination therapies,” said Dr. Louis Brunetti, medical director for MedImpact. “Since the study indicates greater adherence for the single pill, physicians now have valuable information to help them select a drug therapy that may yield better results for their patients who need treatment for both hypertension and high cholesterol.”

High blood pressure and high cholesterol each increase the risk for heart attack and stroke. When a person has both conditions, the risk is even greater. Drug therapies that manage hypertension and cholesterol reduce this risk, but many patients are not adherent with these drug treatments. Studies compared adherence rates for one single-pill (Caduet, amlodipine + atorvastatin) combination as well as four different two-pill combinations of similar agents in the general population and a senior (65+ years of age) population.

Research findings showed that patients using the single-pill were as much as three times as likely to be adherent while taking the therapy than were patients using two-pill combination therapies, and were as much as 36 percent less likely to discontinue their drug treatment among the general population. In addition, results were consistent among seniors, where patients were 25 to 225 percent more likely to be adherent to therapy. These results are significant because they may improve patient adherence, lower risk of heart attack or stroke, and better manage overall health care costs.

“Our commitment to research, such as this adherence/compliance study, is just another example of how MedImpact strives to provide information that can contribute to improved clinical outcomes, increased satisfaction for our clients and their members, and lower cost of care,” said Dr. Brunetti. “The authors and contributors of the MedImpact study, along with colleagues at USC, Yale University and Pfizer, are to be commended for this high quality study that delivers meaningful results for physicians, patients, and payors.”

About MedImpact Healthcare Systems, Inc.

MedImpact Healthcare Systems, Inc., based in San Diego, California, was founded in 1989. The company currently services 27 million members nationwide with clients that include Fortune 500 corporations, unions, managed care organizations, insurance carriers, third-party administrators, as well as local, state and federal employee programs. MedImpact bases its success on delivering innovative products and services designed to lower overall client cost while increasing member satisfaction and quality of care.