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MONDAY   7:30 pm Patriots @ Dolphins

SAN FRANCISCO — One more win.

That’s all that stands between the Giants and the National League West crown.

Pablo Sandoval, Andres Torres and Buster Posey each homered to give Madison Bumgarner his first career home win, as the Giants completed a three-game sweep of the D-backs with a 4-1 win Thursday afternoon at AT&T Park.

Posey’s two-run blast

00:00:42

9/30/10: Buster Posey extends the Giants’ lead with a two-run homer to left-center field

Tags: home run, Buster Posey, More From This Game, San Francisco Giants, hitting

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  Torres’ homer
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  Sandoval’s solo homer

The victory, San Francisco’s fourth straight, lowered the Giants’ magic number to clinching the NL West title to two. Any combination of Giants victories and Padres defeats totaling two will bring the division crown to San Francisco. The Padres hosted the Cubs on Thursday night before flying north for the weekend series at AT&T Park.

Regardless of what the Padres do Thursday, a Giants win Friday over San Diego would clinch them their first NL West title since 2003.

“It’s a good feeling. We’re in a good position,” Posey said. “You can’t really take anything for granted. We all know baseball’s a crazy game, so we’ve got to come out and stay focused [Friday].”

The Giants put themselves in such a position by taking care of business on Thursday, as Sandoval gave the team an early lead with a second-inning solo homer into McCovey Cove.

Sandoval’s homer held through the first three innings, as Bumgarner continued his spectacular September. The rookie left-hander didn’t dominate the D-backs as he did the Cubs in his last outing, but almost every time Arizona mounted a threat, Bumgarner got himself out of it.

In the second inning, Adam LaRoche led off with a double, but Bumgarner promptly struck out the next two batters before inducing an inning-ending groundout. In the third, the top of the D-backs’ order knocked out back-to-back one-out singles, but Bumgarner struck out Arizona’s Nos. 3 and 4 hitters, Kelly Johnson and Chris Young, with his patented slurve.

“This kid’s such a good competitor, great makeup,” Giants manager Bruce Bochy said of Bumgarner, who improved to 7-6 and lowered his ERA to 3.00. “His poise out there is beyond his years. He’s 21 years old and he’s in the middle of this, but the way he’s handled it says a lot of his makeup.”

The D-backs tied the score in the top of the fourth with a bases-loaded sacrifice fly, but Bumgarner escaped further damage and was able to earn the win thanks to Torres’ go-ahead homer off Arizona starter Barry Enright (6-7, 3.91 ERA) in the bottom of the fifth.

Bumgarner tossed only five innings but struck out seven in earning his first career win at AT&T Park in nine tries.

“It’s awesome. It’s not came easy,” Bumgarner said of the victory. “It wasn’t pretty, but it worked. It feels good to get it.”

The Giants extended their lead in the sixth on a two-run homer by Posey, his 17th of the season and seventh of September. It is the second time this season Posey has hit seven homers in a month — also accomplishing the feat in July — and ties him with Jack Clark (June 1977) for the most homers hit by a Giants rookie in a calendar month.

Now, the series that has been circled on the Giants’ and Padres’ calendars for the past two months has finally arrived. For the Padres, it’s win Friday or hinge their postseason hopes to a potential — but not so likely — Wild Card berth. For the Giants, it’s about putting the pesky Padres — against whom they are 5-10 this season — away as soon as possible.

“We’ve got to go out and go hard,” Bochy said. “Yeah, we’ve put ourselves in a good position. But we’ve got some games ahead of us. We’ve got to go out there and play hard every day.”

That mind-set is nothing new for the Giants, who have had to play that way for much of the past two months. As recent as Aug. 25, the Giants were 6 1/2 games behind the Padres. A little more than a month later, they’re the ones with the champagne on ice.

“In this last month it’s really been one game: One game you go out and give everything you’ve got for that one game and you worry about tomorrow the next day,” Posey said. “We’ve just got to keep doing that and good things should happen.”

Cash Kruth is an associate reporter for MLB.com. This story was not subject to the approval of Major League Baseball or its clubs.

MoD/BAE Systems – This handout photo from the Ministry of Defence shows the Taranis, an unmanned jet capable of striking …

LONDON (AFP) – An unmanned jet capable of striking long-range targets has been dubbed the “combat aircraft of the future” by the

Ministry of Defence.

The

Taranis — named after the Celtic god of thunder — was unveiled at a ceremony at BAE Systems in Warton, Lancashire, on Monday.

The £142.5 million prototype is the size of a

light aircraft and has been equipped with stealth technology to make it virtually undetectable.

In a press release, the MoD described the Taranis as “a prototype unmanned combat aircraft of the future.”

It is built to carry out intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance missions while its crew stays safely on the ground and can control the aircraft from anywhere in the world.

The unmanned

fighter jet can also carry bombs and missiles and, if the trials prove successful, the MoD said it should “ultimately be capable of striking targets at long range, even in another continent.”

The current generation of propeller-driven drones — such as the Predator and Reaper — are capable of carrying missiles, but these unmanned planes can only be used in areas where the military has air dominance, such as Iraq and

Afghanistan.

The

first flight trials are due to start next year.

“Taranis is a truly trailblazing project,” said Minister for International Security Strategy

Gerald Howarth.

“The first of its kind in the UK, it reflects the best of our nation’s

advanced design and technology skills and is a leading programme on the global stage.”

The Taranis was created by the MOD in partnership with BAE Systems, Rolls-Royce,

QinetiQ and GE Aviation.

“Taranis has been three-and-a-half years in the making and is the product of more than a million man-hours,” said Nigel Whitehead, group managing director of BAE Systems’ Programmes and Support business.

“It represents a significant step forward in this country’s fast-jet capability.

“This technology is key to sustaining a strong industrial base and to maintain the UK’s leading position as a centre for engineering excellence and innovation.”

By: Pete Thomas, GrindTV.com

Not even Shaquille O’Neal, if he knew the slightest thing about skateboarding, could handle the world’s largest skateboard by himself.

The over-sized but otherwise realistic contraption is 36 feet 7 inches long, nearly nine feet wide and weighs 3,800 pounds.

It requires a group of people to successfully ride and even then it’s usually a short and precarious journey that results in a highly comical wipeout.

So it was predictable that when California Skateparks owner and board co-designer Joe Ciaglia recently tried to give the WLS a solo-whirl down a grassy knoll, he was forced to bail from and nearly trampled by an out-of-control unit that flipped in a wild crash farther down the hill.

What might also have been predictable was that the madcap episode would end up on YouTube and be witnessed by more than a million people.

Rock- Highway to Hell by AC/DC                                                  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N_5kv8QeBBc

Rap- Shut It Down by Pitbull Feat Akon                                     http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gqCFZvU33WU

Raggae- No Woman No Cry by Bob Marly                                 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gdGmTd_9qt0

by Jaron and the Long Road to Love             http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFJu8DCH_b0

Rap- Break Your Heart by Taio Cruz                                                              http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y_SI2EDM6Lo

Rock- You Found Me by The Fray                                                                  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFg_8u87zT0

Raggae- I Shot the Sheriff by Bob Marly                                                      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e90vHbEh3GA

Read more: http://blogs.kansascity.com/crime_scene/2010/04/police-searching-ku-building-for-gunman-.html#ixzz0mcoVErsW

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NORFOLK

The political fallout from a massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico struck Virginia hard Thursday.

At a public meeting in Norfolk, environmentalists argued that the accident illustrates why drilling off the Virginia coast should be rejected.

“A spill even a fraction of the one in the Gulf would devastate our coastal environment,” said Eileen Levandoski, Hampton Roads director of the Sierra Club, an environmental group.

In Richmond, meanwhile, Gov. Bob McDonnell urged that oil and natural-gas drilling at least 50 miles off Virginia continue moving forward as outlined last month by President Barack Obama.

“What you don’t want to do, obviously, is every time you have an incident in a coal mine or if an airplane were to go down, we certainly don’t say, ‘Well, let’s stop flying,’ ” McDonnell told reporters at a news conference. “What we do as Americans is find out what went wrong and how can we do things better.”

His energy adviser, Maureen Matsen, delivered a similar message at the meeting in Norfolk, where officials from the federal Minerals Management Service were accepting public comments on proposed seismic research in advance of possible oil and gas drilling off Virginia, North Carolina and elsewhere on the Outer Continental Shelf of the Atlantic Ocean.

Matsen called the Gulf spill “tragic,” then added, “but we cannot let this setback deter us from pursuing this offshore industry off the coast of Virginia.”

While debate about the spill dominated the meeting, such comments were not germane to the matter at hand – developing an environmental impact study of what seismic testing might do to the mid-Atlantic and South Atlantic, said Casey Rowe, a Minerals Management Service coordinator.

That study, Rowe said, will focus on how different testing techniques might affect coastal environments, commercial fishing, deep-water creatures, dolphins, whales, sea turtles, military training and archaeological sites, among other factors. The study should be completed by mid-2012, he said.

Seismic research, if permitted, is supposed to provide scientific information not gathered in almost 30 years about how much oil, gas and other resources may lie at the bottom of the Atlantic.

However, as Rowe pointed out, the research might not be ready when the federal government decides whether to let energy companies bid for oil and gas leases off the Virginia coast, as proposed to take place next year or in early 2012.

In that case, he said, the leasing might go ahead with old data collected in the 1970s.

About 100 people attended an afternoon meeting at the Hilton Norfolk Airport hotel. A second meeting was scheduled Thursday night.

Opponents of offshore drilling outnumbered supporters. Most critics wore lapel stickers that read, “Wrong for Virginia.”

Matt Walker, representing the Outer Banks Surfrider Foundation, said he opposes seismic testing as well as offshore drilling.

Jobs and revenue on North Carolina’s Outer Banks “all come from a clean beach,” Walker said. “We hear a lot of, ‘Oh, don’t worry, don’t worry.’ But now, look what happened in the Gulf.”

Mike Ward, Virginia director of the American Petroleum Council, described the Gulf spill as “the rarest of industrial accidents.”

He urged seismic research begin as soon as possible.

“We need to find out where the oil and natural gas is located,” Ward said. “Is it oil? Is it gas? Is it both? Is it neither?”

Staff writer Julian Walker contributed to this report.

Scott Harper, (757) 446-2340 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting              (757) 446-2340      end_of_the_skype_highlighting, scott.harper@pilotonline.com

It’s an absolute Fashion Ump no-no, but President Obama had no problems playing both sides of the aisle on Monday afternoon. Though custom dictated he wear a Washington Nationals jacket while throwing out the season’s first pitch at Nationals Park, you can see that Obama once again donned a sartorial shoutout to his hometown Chicago White Sox.

After jogging out to the mound before the Nats-Phillies game with his head uncovered, Obama toed the rubber, pulled his familiar Sox cap from his glove and tugged it tight over his head. The crowd sounded momentarily conflicted over the president’s pledge of allegiance, but still cheered once Obama went into his windup.

The pitch sailed high to Ryan Zimmerman’s(notes) left for a ball — insert political joke here — so Obama is now working a 2-0 count when it comes to presidential first pitches. He bounced one to Albert Pujols(notes) while wearing a White Sox jacket before last year’s All-Star Game.

Obama’s appearance was meant to commemorate the 100th anniversary of William Howard Taft’s first presidential pitch before a Washington Senators-Philadelphia A’s game in 1910. 

Here’s what the president told Nats broadcasters afterward: 

“The truth is that I never played organized baseball. While I love watching it, my skills are not where they need to be.” 

Hey, at least he’s honest. His delivery is nowhere near as smooth as his jumpshot.

Check out the video:

Photos: Obama’s first pitch

Your PC is probably too cramped or crowded. Some ways to fix this is to delete some useless files or applications. Also, when this happened to me, I deleted my screensaver, which was a picture of Florida, and replaced it with a blank screen. I used gray so it didnt drain the battery on my Laptop.

If you have Windows Vista, they acually had a recall a couple months back. They came out with “Windows 7,” which all the bugs of Vista were fixed and they also added cool stuff on Windows 7. Windows 7 is available at best buy for about $80. A little pricey but worth it. Keeping Vista risks the chances of useful files being harmed, PC being hacked, and programss being randomly deleted.

Hope this helped!
JACOB