The Netherlands were the surprise beneficiary of FIFA’s late decision to abandon the principles of the 2002, 2006 World Cup draw’s seeding formula.

In those cycles, FIFA assigned weights to the two preceding World Cup finishes along with the end-of-year FIFA World Rankings from the last three years.

Today, when announcing the eight seeded teams that will be draw into separate groups for World Cup 2010, FIFA disclosed that the only factor in this year’s seeding was the October 2009 FIFA World Ranking.  The top seven nations from that last will join host nation South Africa as seeds for Friday’s draw. Read the full story

The CIA built one of its secret European prisons inside an exclusive riding academy outside Vilnius, Lithuania, a current Lithuanian government official and a former U.S. intelligence official told ABC News this week.

Where affluent Lithuanians once rode show horses and sipped coffee at a café, the CIA installed a concrete structure where it could use harsh tactics to interrogate up to eight suspected al-Qaeda terrorists at a time.

“The activities in that prison were illegal,” said human rights researcher John Sifton. “They included various forms of torture, including sleep deprivation, forced standing, painful stress positions.” Read the full story

The American Medical Assn. changes its policy to promote clinical research and development of cannabis-based medicines and alternative delivery methods.

The American Medical Assn. on Tuesday urged the federal government to reconsider its classification of marijuana as a dangerous drug with no accepted medical use, a significant shift that puts the prestigious group behind calls for more research.

The nation’s largest physicians organization, with about 250,000 member doctors, the AMA has maintained since 1997 that marijuana should remain a Schedule I controlled substance, the most restrictive category, which also includes heroin and LSD.

In changing its policy, the group said its goal was to clear the way to conduct clinical research, develop cannabis-based medicines and devise alternative ways to deliver the drug.

“Despite more than 30 years of clinical research, only a small number of randomized, controlled trials have been conducted on smoked cannabis,” said Dr. Edward Langston, an AMA board member, noting that the limited number of studies was “insufficient to satisfy the current standards for a prescription drug product.” Read the full story

Cairo – At least 14 people were killed and 24 others injured in a collision between two trains on Saturday in Giza district southwest of the Egyptian capital, witnesses told AFP.

A security services official said: “The two trains collided at Al-Ayyat, in Giza. There are deaths and injuries.”

“The trains were travelling on the same track. One ran into the other as they headed towards Upper Egypt,” the official said. Read the full story

Hello, one and all. Allow me to introduce myself: My name is Dennis, a 26-year-old from Houston, Texas. This, in short, is my basketball blog … where I will discuss almost anything and everything in regard to the great game of hoops.

I have been involved in basketball since I was very young, playing in youth leagues before serving as a statistician and public address announcer for my high school basketball team before continuing to play recreationally, be it through leagues or intramurals.

Since 2002, I have written for various Web sites. I interned with the Houston Rockets, as a content writer for the organization’s Web site, and for the past three years, I have covered NCAA Division II college hoops for a newspaper in South Texas.

Anyway, that’s the short of it. This blog is for everything hoops, and we’ll see where it takes us from there. Hope y’all enjoy!

The Rio de Janeiro Olympics 2016 games are sure to be a great time for everyone involved. When the Rio de Janeiro Olympics 2016 games were announced, there was celebration all over the streets of this Brazilian city.

The Rio de Janeiro Olympics 2016 games come as a surprise to many that assumed that President Barack Obama, Michelle Obama and Oprah would be able to sway the IOC (International Olympic Committee) to select Chicago as the 2016 Olympic Games venue. Read the full story

COLUMN: Get used to losing during college football season
Luke Atkinson/The Daily
Tuesday, September 29, 2009

There is a new craze sweeping college football, and as much as it is hated by hardcore fans who live week-to-week depending how their team performs, it may be here to stay.

Read the full story

Clearly you can see in this more recently released video a line of demo charges going off vertically on the right middle of the building. Note the charges start going off and only then does the building start to collapse with them. And I say this to any who will insist that the “structural failure” caused these effects. Nuh uh, no way in hell.

Something went off inside that building, in a line, just like demo charges!

From the Financial Times (FT.com) Read the full story

Bryon Russell has a message for Michael Jordan: Whenever you’re ready, I’ll be waiting in California – in my basketball shorts.

“I’ll play his a— right now,” Russell told Yahoo! Sports. “This is a call-out for him to come play me. He can come out here in his private jet and come play. He’s got millions of dollars. He can pay for the jet. He can meet me at the Recreation Center in Calabasas. Read the full story

1 – Project X-Ray

In the early years of American involvement in WWII, a plan was conceived by a Pennsylvanian dental surgeon to strap tiny incendiary devices to bats and drop them by the thousands over Japanese cities. The bats—able to carry nearly three times their own body weight—would fly under the cover of night and take roost in traditional, highly-flammable wood and paper Japanese houses. As dawn approached, timers on the devices would ignite the “bat bombs” and entire cities would burn to the ground without the loss of life accompanied by, say, an atomic attack. The project was slowed by many complications and was ultimately shut down in 1944 because the bats would not be ready for combat until 1945. Read the full story