Jackson Projected As A Solid Second Running Back

t's been a rough three weeks for St. Louis Rams RB, who likely hit rock bottom of a disappointing stretch last week vs. the Niners when he rushed for 19 yards on 10 carries. His production will almost assuredly tick up from that in Week 14, but will it be enough to warrant a placement in a starting spot in fantasy?


According to numberFire.com, the answer is yes. numberFire has Jackson projected as the No. 20 overall running back for the week, making him at least a solid flex option in any standard fantasy league, if not an outright RB2. The Seahawks rush defense is very solid, coming in at 11th in the NFL at 103.5 yards per game, so maybe Jackson's projection says less about him and more about the other potential running back options out there.

With N.B.A. Apparently Wanting More, the Clippers Halt Talks for Paul

LOS ANGELES — The hunt for Chris Paul, also known as the journey to nowhere, was back where it started on Monday, when the Los Angeles Clippers broke off talks about acquiring him.
In the four days since Commissioner David Stern vetoed a three-way deal that would have sent Paul to the Los Angeles Lakers from the New Orleans Hornets, there have been two sets of talks. They have involved 4 teams, at least 11 players, and the N.B.A. vice presidents Stu Jackson and Joel Litvin, who are essentially acting as general managers for the Hornets, a team owned by the league.


The outcome: No deals yet. Paul remains in the Hornets’ training camp.


That leaves Stern, in a dual role as commissioner and de facto New Orleans owner, obliged to keep his staff — now effectively the Hornets’ staff — looking for a deal as Paul’s free-agent clock ticks.


The unusual situation started when the league took over the Hornets last December, buying out the distressed owner George Shinn.


At the time, Phil Jackson, then the coach of the Lakers, and a longtime critic of the league office, raised the issue, noting Paul’s impending free agency.


“When Chris says he has to be traded, how’s that going to go?” Jackson asked. “Someone’s going to have to make a very nonjudgmental decision that’s not going to irritate anyone else in the league.”


The league took over effective control in these new talks, and Hornets General Manager Dell Demps, who made the doomed deal with the Lakers, has been reduced to passing proposals back and forth between the Clippers and N.B.A. officials.


The Clippers were ready to give up their star guard Eric Gordon, center Chris Kaman and Minnesota’s unprotected No. 1 pick in the June draft.


But at the end of negotiations between the Clippers and the N.B.A. officials, it seemed the Clippers would also have to give up two more young players, Eric Bledsoe and Al-Farouq Aminu. To the league’s surprise, Los Angeles would not part with Bledsoe.


Instead, the Clippers claimed the former Knick Chauncey Billups off waivers, perhaps in anticipation of ultimately trading a point guard or two.


Adding to the whirlwind of nonactivity, the Orlando Magic, who have said they would take offers accommodating Dwight Howard’s demand to be traded, went back to saying they will do all they can to keep him.


“We have to continue to do what’s right for this organization to win a championship, and the first piece of that is keeping Dwight,” the Magic chief executive, Alex Martins, said at the team’s practice site in Orlando.


“And we’re doing everything we can to ensure that we do that. Our fans need to make sure that we show him the love.”


Howard went back to his “I love Orlando” mantra, however qualified.


“I love this city and there’s no place I’d rather be than Orlando,” he said. “I just want to make sure that we have the right things here so we can win a championship. And I’m all about change. If you’re willing to change and willing do what it takes to win, then you’ve got me.


“You only get one time around the track. There’s no reset button. You don’t want to miss out on any opportunity to win. You’ve got to do what it takes to win.”


Howard and Paul have spurned extension offers, alerting the Hornets and the Magic to the risk of being left with nothing if they let their stars walk away next summer.


Paul has given the Hornets three teams he is willing to go to.


¶ The Knicks, his original favorite, no longer have the maximum slot they were expecting to have last season, when Paul joked about forming a new big three with Amar’e Stoudemire and Carmelo Anthony, in a toast at Anthony’s wedding.


¶ The Lakers, Paul’s second choice, made an offer, but were shot down by Stern on Thursday. They tried to rework the three-team deal with the Hornets and the Rockets, but suddenly dropped out. Talks between the Lakers and the Magic were brief and came to nothing.


¶ And the Clippers, No. 3 on Paul’s list, had their deal fall through Monday.


Everyone can start over from the beginning on Tuesday.

gi joe retaliation trailer

While no one was expecting Shakespeare, the first G.I. Joe movie back in 2009 was largely derided as a moronic action-fest with a couple of decent set pieces and a duff script. So the sequel has a lot to improve upon. Based on the first trailer for Retaliation, it seems they’ve decided to try to make things right by adding a healthy dollop of Team Bring It.
Mr The Rock is all over this initial promo, which, while it also allows Joe veteran Channing Tatum and franchise newcomers Bruce Willis and Adrianne Palicki a few lines (plus clearly eeevil president Jonathan Pryce), is heavy on the Dwayne Johnson action.

The plot this time around borrows a page from Mission: Impossible, with the Joes framed as an international menace and the White House under the control of Cobra. With most of the team wiped out thanks to the corrupt machinations of the infiltrated government (and a handy excuse to kill off most of the cast from the last film off screen), it’s up to Tatum’s Duke, Johnson’s Roadblock and the rest of the survivors to take back their country. How do they do that? With guns and swords and vehicles and sexy dresses and holding their breath in deep water holes as bullets fly in, of course!

With Zombieland’s Rhett Reese and Paul Wernick on script duties, we were hoping for something better for director John M Chu (who last visited Justin Bieber: Never Say Never upon the world) to work with. So far, the trailer doesn’t give loads of hope, as it mostly seems to be another round of standard action. The cliff-face scrap looks fun, though. And as Fast Five proved, many things can be made better by including The Rock.

Boots will meet asses when G.I. Joe: Retaliation hits the ground on June 22.

Seahawks pull away for 30-13 victory over Rams

SEATTLE --Doug Baldwin picked a national stage to remind the rest of the NFL what they passed up in last April's draft.


Baldwin, an undrafted rookie out of Stanford, blocked a first-quarter punt that was returned by Michael Robinson 17 yards for a touchdown, then caught a 29-yard TD pass from Tarvaris Jackson in the third quarter as the Seattle Seahawks pulled away for a 30-13 win over the staggering St. Louis Rams on Monday night.

Seattle (6-7) won for the fourth time in five games and kept alive its slim hopes for reaching the postseason. The Seahawks likely would need to win out to potentially make the playoffs a reality, but they're at least back in the conversation after a 2-6 start.

Marshawn Lynch topped 100 yards rushing for the fifth time in the last six games, finishing with 115 on 23 carries. He scored a touchdown in his ninth straight game on a 16-yard run with 2:57 left to put away Seattle's 13th win in its last 14 games against the Rams.

Seahawks fans threw bags of Skittles into the end zone as Lynch celebrated his ninth rushing touchdown this season, and he tied a franchise record with nine consecutive games with a TD.

Baldwin finished with seven catches for 93 yards and Steven Hauschka was 3 of 4 on field goal attempts for the Seahawks.

Sam Bradford started for St. Louis (2-11) despite a high left ankle sprain that's bothered him for nearly two months and forced him to miss last week's game at San Francisco. Bradford barely practiced this week and it showed as he was rusty and made poor decisions. Bradford was 12 of 29 for 193 yards, was intercepted by Brandon Browner on the first play of the second half and nearly picked off on a handful of other throws.

Steven Jackson had 50 yards rushing on 11 carries by halftime, including dashes of 11 yards twice and 10 yards once. He was limited to just 42 yards on 15 carries when the teams met a few weeks ago and the Rams were trying to exploit the Seahawks' secondary.

This time, Jackson disappeared in the second half -- aside from a 50-yard catch-and-run on a screen pass -- and finished with 63 yards rushing on 20 carries. He stood on the sidelines with his legs crossed during a goal-line possession in the fourth quarter while Cadillac Williams got the first crack at scoring

The Rams eventually ran five plays from the 1 without Jackson touching the ball -- thanks to a taunting penalty on Seattle's Richard Sherman. Jackson finally got a carry on a second third-and-goal and scored, but only after screaming on the sideline.

Jackson's score pulled the Rams within 23-13, but the outcome was already decided.

Baldwin's influence on the game was evident from the start, when he took a pitch from Leon Washington on a kickoff reverse and returned it beyond the 40. Seattle was later forced to punt, but it was Baldwin racing from the outside to down the punt at the Rams 6.

Then he made the biggest of his three fine special teams plays.

Coming almost entirely unblocked off the right end, Baldwin took a punt off the foot of Donnie Jones. The bounding ball hopped up into the arms of Robinson, who went the final 17 yards for an early 7-0 Seahawks lead.

Aside from a few receptions, Baldwin was mostly quiet until late in the third quarter. He snagged a 22-yard reception across the middle to convert a third-and-11 near midfield. On the next play, Baldwin faked going inside and broke to the sideline, losing Darian Stewart in coverage. Tarvaris Jackson found Baldwin and he got just inside the pylon to give the Seahawks a 14-point lead.

Tarvaris Jackson wasn't his best, but didn't need to be against the Rams. He went 21 of 32 for 224 yards and connected with nine receivers.

Lynch, the focus of most of the attention after his 148-yard, two-touchdown performance against Philadelphia, never broke off a big run, but grinded his way to another 100-yard performance. He capped his night with his ninth rushing TD of the season, breaking tackles on his way to the end zone, then getting pelted with Seahawks fans chucking bags of candy, knowing Lynch's affinity for Skittles.

Seattle topped 100 yards rushing for the sixth straight game, accomplishing that feat for the first time in the same regular season since 1996. It came behind an offensive line that lost its third starter for the season a week ago when Russell Okung went down with a torn pectoral muscle.

Hauschka also hit field goals of 23, 42 and 48 yards. Josh Brown connected from 46 and 29 yards for the Rams

Clips claim Chauncey Billups off waivers

The Los Angeles Clippers did manage to acquire a point guard even after the collapse of their trade for Chris Paul by unexpectedly claiming Chauncey Billups off waivers.
The league's 30 teams were notified shortly after 6 p.m. ET on Monday that the Clippers had lodged the winning waiver bid for Billups, who was released Friday by the New York Knicks through the amnesty clause in the NBA's new labor agreement.

One source with knowledge of the deal told ESPN.com that the Clippers' winning bid to land Billups in the waiver auction was just over $2 million, meaning that the Knicks will still have to pay out the remaining balance of nearly $12 million from Billups' $14.2 million salary this season.

Had no team claimed him, Billups would have become an unrestricted free agent, sure to attract the interest of contenders such as the Miami Heat, Dallas Mavericks and the Los Angeles Lakers. ESPN.com reported earlier Monday that Dwight Howard also planned to lobby Billups to come to Orlando if he decided to stay with the Magic.

But the Clippers ignored the recent threats by Billups and agent Andy Miller that the 35-year-old would retire if he was claimed by a team he didn't want to join, giving their roster a veteran boost along with the recent signing of Caron Butler to a three-year deal worth $24 million.

"Chauncey is a warrior. He's a player. This is a similar situation -- we had this in the best year we had here -- with Sam Cassell. He got traded away from a place he was really comfortable in," Clippers general manager Neil Olshey said. "All we said was, 'Come in with an open mind. Give us a chance. Look at our culture, look at who we were.' The next year Sam becomes the Messiah, got us to the second round of the playoffs, signed a two-year deal for $14 million dollars and finished his career. It's not unlike that.

"There's going to be some work to do. I think Chauncey would've liked to control the process, but unfortunately we have to do what's best for our team. I think once he gets here and sees the resources we have, meets the guys and sees what kind of team we have, hopefully we can do the same thing with him as we were able to do with Sam and Marcus Camby."

Olshey, in a sitdown with local reporters shortly before the Billups news became public, explained that L.A. intended to use its remaining salary-cap space before matching the Golden State Warriors' four-year, $43 million offer sheet to restricted free agent DeAndre Jordan.

The Clippers then went out and did exactly what Olshey hinted at, claiming Billups and then matching the offer to Jordan. NBA rules dictate that the Clippers can't trade Billups this season after claiming him, so he can only play for L.A. if he plays in the NBA season unless he is released.

"There are some sequential transactions that have to happen first," Olshey said when asked whether the team would match Jordan's offer sheet. "We've still got $3.5 million in cap room and before we give up that flexibility we have to exhaust every opportunity that we have to use the remaining cap room we have.

"But I would expect DeAndre to be here smiling and being goofy and doing skits with Blake at some point at media day (Tuesday)."

The Charlotte Bobcats and New Jersey Nets were among the teams that flirted with making bids, along with the Clippers, despite Billups' threats of retirement if he was not allowed to pass through waivers and become an unrestricted free agent.

"If I get claimed by a team I don't want to play for, I would absolutely consider retirement," Billups said Saturday to ESPNNewYork.com's Ian O'Connor. "The game's been really good to me and I don't want anyone to feel bad for me. I've made a lot of money and I've saved most of it. I don't need the money now. I want to be able to play for something, a championship, and I want to be able to have my own destiny in my hands. If I don't, then retiring might have to be a decision I make."

The Knicks released Billups on Friday through the amnesty clause, needing to shed his $14.2 million expiring salary from the books to have sufficient salary-cap space to complete the sign-and-trade acquisition of Tyson Chandler. The reality is that a failure to join his new team, once claimed, would have jeopardized Billups' ability to collect the $14.2 million, which he remains entitled to from the Knicks even after they let him go.

"This is a different vehicle to acquire a player," Olshey said. "We're the first ones to do it (winning an amnesty auction) and I think there's a little uncertainty with everybody on how the process is going to work. All I know is this is another great addition to our roster. He's a perfect complement to how we play, he's a classy guy who's a veteran and a leader. He shoots the ball, he's won championships. He's going to be a great fit with our guys."

Miller said his client raised the possibility of retirement after news broke that the Knicks were close to an agreement with Chandler. Billups also didn't want to leave Denver last February when he was shipped to New York in the Carmelo Anthony trade.

"Chauncey's pissed off, but he's not pissed at the Knicks," Miller said. "He understands it's a business and they have to do what they have to do.

"But he's in a very frustrated state of mind because this has happened to him twice now. The way the league is structured, if you're a hot name and teams have interest in you, you have the ability to manufacture mass hysteria, and guys like Chauncey who put in years of high-level leadership, production, and service get lost."

Miller said numerous teams have expressed interest in Billups but that the five-time All-Star, as of the weekend, had not yet begun to sift through the options.

"It would be a complete waste of time right now," Miller said, "because it's been a very trying time for Chauncey.

"He enjoyed the city life in New York and had no gripes about his time there. But if he's picked up in a situation he doesn't want, maybe he retires, or he retires for one year, I don't know. If he can't choose his destiny and he's only there for 66 games, I think he'd much rather stay at home until the season is over."

Said Heat forward Chris Bosh about how much Miami wanted the 2004 NBA Finals MVP: "Yes, I would like to see Chauncey. Any player with his talent, leadership, his capability on the court. He's Mr. Big Shot. He has that name for a reason.

"I remember watching him with the Pistons back when they won it all. I think he fits here. With that said, we can't get too ahead of ourselves. We have to move on with what we have, and if that happens, that would be great. If it doesn't, we still expect to be a good team."

Marc Stein is a senior NBA writer for ESPN.com. ESPNLosAngeles.com's Ramona Shelburne and ESPN.com's Tom Haberstroh contributed to this report.

lunar eclipse singapore today

Lunar Eclipse Singapore: lunar eclipse of 2011 visible over Singapore tonight. The moon will be at maximum eclipse at 10.31 pm and totality will end at 10.57 pm.
Lunar Eclipse in the Evening of 10 Dec 2011: The total lunar eclipse is visible just after sunset.The eclipse sequence ( 10 Dec 2011 – Singapore Time) is as shown:
7.31 pm – Start of Penumbra Eclipse.
8.45 pm – Start of Umbra Partial Phase.
10.05 pm – Start of Total Eclipse.
10.31 pm – Maximum Eclipse.
10.57 pm – End of Total Eclipse.
12.18 am – End of Umbra Partial Eclipse.
1.31 am – End of Penumbra Eclipse.
TASOS will hold the Total Lunar Eclipse Observation at Labrador Park (at the Berlayer Beacon facing Sentosa). The observation will start from 7.45pm and end about midnight. TASOS will setup telescopes and binoculars for the eclipse observation.

Giants Vs Cowboys Final Score

Dallas led New York 34-22 with 3:30 remaining in the game but squandered the lead falling 37-34 and dropping behind the Giants in the NFC playoff race. Dan Bailey's 46 yard field goal attempt with just six seconds remaining was blocked sealing the victory for New York. 

New York entered the fourth quarter leading 22-20 but would surrender fourteen straight points to the Cowboys. First, Tony Romo found Miles Austin on a six yard pass to retake the lead at 27-22. Later in the quarter, Romo found Dez Bryant all alone for a 52 yard scoring strike that made the score 32-22.

After that the Giants went to work marching 80 yards in just 2:27 seconds resulting in an Eli Manning to Jake Ballard eight yard touchdown reception. New York retook the lead on their next possession with a 58 yard drive capped off by a Brandon Jacobs one-yard run. D.J. Ware punched in the two-point conversion and the Giants led 37-34.

Dallas and Tony Romo weren't finished as they flew back down the field and got Bailey in position for the game-tying attempt with just six seconds remaining. Before Dallas could snap the ball, New York successfully called a time out just prior to the Cowboys snapping the ball. Bailey's attempt after the whistle was good but was for naught. His next attempt was blocked giving the Cowboys a very disappointing loss.

Tony Romo finished 21 of 31 for 321 yards and four touchdowns. Felix Jones stepped in for the injured DeMarco Murray and rushed for 106 yards. Laurent Robinson led all Dallas receivers with four catches for 137 yards.

Eli Manning had a huge day going 27 of 47 for 400 yards with two touchdowns and one interception. Brandon Jacobs ran for 101 yards and two scores while Hakeem Nicks caught seven passes for 154 yards.