| PHOTO CREDIT: Paul Middlestaedt, pmiddlestaedt@stcloudtimes.com
St. Cloud Apollo will have to wait another season to get that elusive win over its South Side nemesis. Junior Grant Spanier and sophomore Blake Vogel had a goal and an assist each and junior Jared Maetche added two assists as St. Cloud Tech rode a balanced attack to a 5-2 victory over St. Cloud Apollo on Tuesday night at the Municipal Athletic Complex. The win completed the Tigers' sixth consecutive season sweep over the Eagles. "You know it's going to be tough every time against Tech," Apollo senior Jake Althaus said. "It's been so long since we've beaten them. We tried to come out and be that team to finally stop them, but we just came out flat." "It's always a huge game (with Apollo)," Tech senior Alex Coulter said. "A lot of us are friends off the ice, but as soon as the game starts, it's always on." Both sides came out flying early, with captivating back and forth play marking the game's first 90 seconds, but Tech quickly made their mark on the game with the first goal.
3-Blog Lounge
Esteban Loaiza was cruising through the top of the sixth, retiring the first two batters, when Craig Monroe lined a solid double to right-center. Enter Gomez, inserted into the DH slot by manager Jim Leyland because a right-hander was pitching and because the injury to Sean Casey caused several shifts in the Detroit lineup. The 28-year-old Gomez broke into professional ball with the Kansas City organization in 1997, and he's been kicking around the perimeter ever since. He had a cup of coffee with the 2002 Royals, a tall vanilla latte with the Royals again two years later, then a caramel frappuccino with last year's Tigers, the three stints totaling all of 55 at-bats. He got his first real taste of an entree this year, playing 62 games for Jim Leyland, and he managed to stroke his first big-league homer along the way -- a June 27 shot off Houston's Fernando Nieve in an interleague game.
Great Lakes challenge
Great Lakes congressmen walked a fine line this week in calling for a major national push to clean up the world's largest fresh water system. There was no mention of diverting water to other regions of the nation — nor should there be. It is critically important to the Great Lakes region, where economies struggle, to hang on to a natural resource that could mean everything to regional recovery and a better future. Wednesday's House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure hearings brought testimony and congressional commentary on the value of clean water in a world that is running out of that necessity as climate changes and water demands increase. But the strong arguments for funding water-quality cleanups in the lakes region also emphasize the need for the region to get its own act together.
Europe battling €100bn health fraud losses
The head of counter fraud within the NHS has told silicon.com Europe is losing tens of billions of euros each year to criminals but added that high-tech analysis and solutions are helping to turn the tide in favour of organisations such as his. Frauds by employees, patients and suppliers is rife, as is insurance fraud but Jim Gee, CEO of the NHS counter fraud and security management service, believes it is a war he can win in order to start redirecting recovered and prevented losses back into patient care. Gee told silicon.com: "Europe spends 1tr each year on healthcare provision and between three and 10 per cent of that will go astray." That equates to an unimaginable sum of between 30bn and 100bn per year. The only silver lining of such a shocking statistic said Gee is that it provides a starting point from which to begin improving matters.
Top police officer warns that nuclear attack is inevitable
He has been closely involved in co-ordinating the country's counter-terrorism response. He said: "An incident will continue for days and all the public will see is people dying without reason. What will we do when our children come home from school with blisters on their skin and their parents don't know what to do? "What happens if 10 deaths, 50 deaths, 100 deaths start occurring in an unconnected and random way all over the country? The public will be rightly and understandably terrified." Casualties caused by radiation, which most people don't understand, would trigger widespread "panic and fear", said Dickinson. And the response of the emergency services "would be chaotic" because of a shortage of resources. The police capability for dealing with the chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear threat - known as CBRN - needs to be increased, he argued.
Election 2008
They are the cowboy variety who don't like government telling them what to do with their land or their guns or their money. It's the home state of Dick Cheney and, save for a small liberal pocket in Jackson Hole, he's a statewide hero. So it's even more surprising to think that some tried-and-true Wyoming Republicans are considering voting for Democrats this year. It gets down to land -- apparently some ranchers haven't been to pleased about how big energy companies have been digging up their acreage in search of natural resources to help meet soaring demand. An editorial cartoonist from the Seattle PI drew up this cartoon that sums up this new political tension in Wyoming. Thought I'd pass it along for your viewing pleasure. Rachel Martin 9:57 AM ET | 01-21-2008 | permalink | comments (0) | e-mail post .
Somalia: Leader Returns Home
Thousands of Somalis were killed last year, many of them caught in the crossfire as Islamic insurgents battled government troops and their Ethiopian allies. An Islamic alliance gained control of Mogadishu and much of southern Somalia for the last half of 2006, until Ethiopian soldiers supporting the shaky U.N.-backed government ousted them. Analysts say that these mixed political signals in Mogadishu further confuse the public and remove their hopes for change and reconciliation after nearly two decade of anarchy and misery. For the first time in so long, the transitional government has someone seemingly willing to change the rules of the game, to sit down and talk with its opposition in a last ditch effort for peace its PM Nor Adde Regardless of the motivations, it is the best chance for Somalia to date.
|
