It's mid-December, which means it's TIME Magazine's Person of the Year time again. A few days ago, we learned that the public had overwhelmingly voted for Wikileaks honcho Julian Assange for the win. Depressingly, TIME's taken the safe option, opting for Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg, instead. Let's avoid the conspiracy theories, but dissect the choice, in The Long View... Nike Kobe Bryant Shoes TIME's Lev Grossman pontificates thuswise: In less than seven years, Zuckerberg wired together a twelfth of humanity into a single network, thereby creating a social entity almost twice as large as the U.S. If Facebook were a country it would be the third largest. ... It has turned into ... something that has changed the way human beings relate to one another on a species-wide scale. ... Facebook has merged with the social fabric of ... human life. ... It's a permanent fact of our global social reality. Basketball Shoes Oh for pity's sake. Mark Zuckerberg? Is this really your idea of the person who's had the biggest impact on the world this year? It sure as heck isn't mine. The people's choice was, overwhelmingly, Julian Assange. Assange got more votes than the next two highest candidates combined (Lady Gaga and the Prime Minister of Turkey, in case you were wondering). Zuckerberg ran a very distant 10th, with fewer than 5% of the number of votes cast for Assange. Dear TIME Magazine, what's the point of asking for votes, if you're going to go ahead and choose an unpopular choice? It's a simply juvenile defense to say, "TIME's editors who choose the actual Person of the Year reserve the right to disagree." And it's no use blaming the 4chan.org /b/tard Anonymous army for stuffing the votes. If you really thought that was the case, you should have disqualified Assange, rather than meekly naming him as runner up, alongside The Tea Party (a political movement that, by the way, is turning the U.S. into an international laughing stock). And why Zuckerberg in 2010? It's hardly a move demonstrating insight or foresight. Last year, or 2008, perhaps. But really, was 2010 the year of Facebook? Of course not: it was just riding the inevitable momentum built up in earlier years. Air Force Ones TIME has clearly demonstrated that it has zero understanding of how social networks work. TIME's Richard Stengel shows his blissful ignorance of this year's widespread criticism of Zuckerberg: In a sense, Zuckerberg and Assange are two sides of the same coin. Both express a desire for openness and transparency. While Assange attacks big institutions and governments through involuntary transparency ... Zuckerberg enables individuals to voluntarily share information with the idea of empowering them. Yeah, except this comparison completely ignores all the privacy panics that Facebook has received recently. Far from "enabling individuals to voluntarily share information," it seems that Facebook actively attempts to trick individuals into involuntarily sharing information. Did TIME cave in to political pressure? I neither know nor care. What I do know is that this year's choice is simply ludicrous. basketball shoes

Though many of her fellow liberals oppose the tax-cut deal negotiated between President Obama and congressional Republicans, Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) on Tuesday defended her support of the measure. UGG Boots Classic Cardy "The fact is, this bill will be a help to the middle class,'' said Boxer, who, during George W. Bush's presidency, assailed the 2001 and 2003 tax cuts as skewed toward the wealthy. She and fellow California Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein backed the $858-billion package now before the Senate, even though it would renew the tax rates to all income levels, including the highest earners. The measure could clear the Senate and go to the House by Tuesday night. "I voted for this bill because I think our economy continues to be in a fragile state when it comes to job growth,'' Boxer said on the Senate floor. Although California's diverse congressional delegation usually breaks along party lines, the tax-cut deal has split members of the same party. Lebron James 4.5 Republican Congressman John Campbell of Irvine, for example, has come out against the deal, even though most of his fellow Republicans are expected to support it. "It has a great deal of temporary spending in it, which may provide some short-lived GDP bump,'' he said. "But this growth will peter out when the spending does and leave us with nothing except a new and larger mountain of debt.'' Fellow Republican Rep. David Dreier of San Dimas, on the other hand, has said that he doesn't want to see anyone's income taxes go up Jan. 1 when the tax rates expire. Democratic Reps. Dennis Cardoza and Jim Costa, from the Central Valley, and Jane Harman of Venice have come out in support of the deal, even though many of their fellow Democrats have been critical of it. Rep. Judy Chu (D-El Monte) has assailed the deal as "not a compromise'' but "a Republican wish list'' that is "fiscally and morally irresponsible.'' Though opposed to "unpaid-for tax cuts,'' Cardoza said, "I cannot in good conscience support a tax increase that would put our economy in further peril or lead to a 'double-dip' recession.'' Harman said in a statement that she has opposed extending the tax cuts to the very wealthy, but "politics is about the art of the possible.'' On the Senate floor Tuesday, Boxer said that though she opposed renewing the tax cuts for the highest earners and easing the inheritance tax for the wealthy, the measure would extend a number of tax cuts that benefit the middle class and unemployment benefits to more than 400,000 Californians at risk of losing aid at the end of the month. Basketball Shoes The bill includes a measure eagerly sought by Boxer and Feinstein to extend a clean-energy program that was part of the 2009 economic stimulus. But it also includes an extension of an ethanol tax credit that Feinstein has attacked as "fiscally indefensible.'' "Do I feel passionate that the people who earn over $1 million don't need a tax cut? You bet I do,'' Boxer said. "Anyone who thinks you won't have to pay the piper for these tax cuts is living in another world,'' she added, citing the federal budget deficit. "Of course we are. The question is, do we do it now or do we do it when this economy truly turns around?''Air Force Ones Mid

A high-stakes effort to remake the San Francisco Bay Delta, the West Coast’s largest estuary, is looking as fragile as the degraded delta itself these days. Four years into the effort, the distance between competing water constituencies has only been widening as self-imposed deadlines come and go. Farmers and cities in Southern California are pressing for a return to the abundant supply of water delivered through the 1,000-square-mile delta before a drought and legal rulings to protect endangered fish led to constraints two years ago. Environmentalists want ironclad guarantees that threatened fish like the minnow-size delta sme will not be wiped out for want of water. Women Air Max 95 The Bay Delta Conservation Plan, a federal and state initiative, would re-engineer the delta to make it safe for native species and would establish a framework for water distribution for the next 50 years. The delta, where California’s two largest rivers come together, supplies about one-quarter of the freshwater used by about 23 million Californians. The goals of the plan are to keep vegetables and fruit trees growing in the Central Valley, taps running in Southern California and native fish swimming in the Sacramento and San Joaquin Rivers and in the briny western reaches of the delta, which the rivers feed. But the Westlands Water District, which serves some of the wealthiest and most powerful agricultural interests, has pulled out of the negotiations, saying it doubts it will get the water deliveries it had expected. “The original purpose was to restore our water supply,” said Tom Birmingham, the general manager of the district, which snakes along the western edge of the Central Valley and serves 600 farms, according to its Web site. The route the water takes is not without risks. Because of 160 years of farming and the construction of 1,100 miles of levees, delta lands have sunk and are now 3 to 20 feet below sea level. Mindful of how Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans in 2005, planners are also focusing on the possibility that a big earthquake or storm could break crucial levees and allow saltwater from the bay to inundate the delta, which could shut off a large source of the freshwater supply for months. Among the proposed solutions to the environmental and engineering issues is a $13 billion tunnel that would tap into the Sacramento River farther upstream and divert water around the delta. The tunnel, which could be 33 feet in diameter and 33 miles long, would be designed to be more resilient to earthquakes. It could also eliminate the springtime problem of newly hatched young smelt being sucked into giant pumps south of the delta that pull the river water into the distribution system. Women Air Max 90 Another proposal calls for a canal system to serve the same purpose. And a third calls for installing gates to isolate one of the northernmost channels of the San Joaquin River, setting aside a permanent habitat for fish. Both Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, and the incoming Democratic governor-elect, Jerry Brown, support the twin goals of making the supply of water running through the delta reliable and protecting the species that have dwindled. As Spreck Rosekrans, a delta expert for the Environmental Defense Fund, said, “The reliability of our water systems is key to California’s economy.” But Mr. Birmingham said that no agency contracting for water from federal or state projects “is going to spend billions of dollars on the implementation of a program that isn’t going to provide benefits to them.” While he did not specify what water deliveries would be adequate, Mr. Birmingham and other Westlands officials had expressed comfort with the option most closely studied, which could ensure that the district gets more than 70 percent of the maximum flows that it contracts for. Air Force Ones High In 2009, that flow was reduced to 10 percent of the contracted amount; a political outcry ensued. The district originally joined in the conservation effort partly to win exemptions from some provisions of the Endangered Species Act. The premise is that helping to create or restore habitat for a species can outweigh the harm imposed by another activity — in this case, transporting water south through the federal and state systems. The precise relationship between flows of river water and fish mortality is not clear. Still, environmentalists and fishermen note that the years of abundant water for farmers and Southern California cities corresponded to years when fish populations crashed — in the case of the smelt, almost to the vanishing point. (Judge Oliver W. Wanger of Federal District Court ruled Tuesday that the 2008 federal plan to protect the smelt was critically flawed and sent it back to the Fish and Wildlife Service for reconsideration.) The work on the Bay Delta Conservation Plan had nonetheless been moving in a direction favorable to Westlands interests for much of the past year, with most of the attention devoted to a set of flow-related criteria that would assure the district of supplies they considered sufficient. Then, federal and state biologists reported in September that those criteria could deprive the smelt of crucial water flow. ugg boots 2010

By Stephanie McKinny Coach Maggie Bag What the hell is the deal with all these stars going to jail? We all know Lil Wayne got caught up on weapons charges in July of 2007 and did his time recently, but did you know that Ja Rule got caught the same night for a similar incident? Shocking. Apparently, Ja made a guest appearance at one of Lil Wayne’s shows that night and both the dummies got caught… the same night… both with guns in their possession. Ja Rule’s just so happened to be loaded and within arm’s reach, ready to use if needed. Does Ja Rule even know how to use a gun? Anyway, dude pled guilty today in a Manhattan courtroom and the judge, for some reason, thought it both necessary and useful to tell the Murder, Inc. frontman this: Shox R3 Women “Because of your guilty plea here today, you’ll have a record of having committed a violent felony. This is a very serious matter.” Judge, don’t you know that sort of thing is street cred among these rappers and their big booty hoes? What is not so cool in Ja Rule’s book is probably the fact that he’ll have to spend an estimated two-year sentence in prison starting in February for his packing of la heat. So, what did we learn from this story, boys and girls? If you’re still worried about 50 Cent jumping out from unexpected corners at you, pack your heat the legal way. The End. Shox R2 Women

John Boehner is the second oldest, bossy with his three sisters and eight brothers. They lived in a small house, with only one bathroom. Shox NZ Women "You had to get along?" Stahl asked. "Yeah," Boehner's brother Bob replied. "There wasn't enough room to not get along!" John Boehner said. "You couldn't fight," Stahl remarked. "It wasn't like you could hide in another room somewhere," Boehner explained. "We didn't think it was unusual that we had 12," his brother Bob added. "Well, the only different between six or seven or 12, is that the chaos lasts longer!" Boehner said. The congressman told Stahl he goes to church every morning growing up. The Boehners were John Kennedy Democrats. But in the 1970s, when he bought a small business and made millions, in plastics, he was shocked at how taxes ate up so much of it and converted to his new political religion: Reagan Republicanism. In Congress, he was part of the Republican leadership until then-Speaker Newt Gingrich was forced out. Then, as he put it, he clawed and plotted his way back to becoming speaker. Shox 2011 Women Stahl: On election night, what made you sad, what got to you that night? Boehner: I was talking, trying to talk about the fact that I've been chasing the American Dream my whole career. There's some things that are very difficult to talk about. Family. Kids. I can't go to a school anymore. I used to go to a lot of schools. And you see all these little kids running around. Can't talk about it. Stahl: Why? Boehner: Making sure that these kids have a shot at the American Dream, like I did. It's important. Turns out his colleagues in Congress are familiar with his waterworks. He even chokes up over legislation. Stahl: Remember when Ed Muskie cried? Boehner: Oh yeah. Stahl: That wasn't good. Boehner: Wasn't good. That's alright. Listen… Shox 2010 Women Stahl: Are you trying not to? Boehner: No. What you see is what you get. I'm, I know who I am. I'm comfortable in my own skin. And everybody who knows me knows that I get emotional about certain things. So what kind of speaker will he be? Stahl: Newt Gingrich was quoted in the paper saying that you should look at the mistakes he made and learn lessons from that.Stahl: Give us a hint of the mistakes that you're gonna avoid. Boehner: Well, first and foremost, this is not going to be about me. Gingrich was flamboyant, Boehner is restrained. Gingrich was an ideologue; as a former businessman, Boehner's more of an establishment Republican. During the campaign he was lampooned in ads for playing too much golf with lobbyists. But he also has a record of reaching across the aisle to work on legislation with the Democrats. Stahl: Ted Kennedy. People are gonna be surprised to find out that you and Ted Kennedy were good friends. Boehner: We were really good friends. Stahl: Tell us about that. Boehner: He may have been this big liberal lion publicly, privately he was a regular guy. You could work with him. Work things out. Women Nike Shox

Although Lady Gaga is currently the biggest thing in music, there was a time when Gaga was just another opening act for various headline artists, including Natasha Bedingfield.Air Max Skyline In a recent interview with Naughty But Nice with Rob, Natasha Bedingfield talked about the early days of Lady Gaga when she was an opening act for Bedingfield. Natasha Bedingfield revealed that it was apparent back then that Lady Gaga would be successful. "She's amazing," said Bedingfield. "It was obvious to everyone even back them that she was going to be a huge star because she is so talented." While Steward is more the expection than the rule as far as knowing about Muschamp, they are all still playing catchup and trying to find out a little about the new Gators' coach. Air Max 95 "I've heard of him but I'm going to have to do a little more research on him," said Kelvin Benjamin, a four-star receiver from Belle Glades (Fla.) Central who was considering Florida before the Meyer resignation. "He's going to have to get his staff together and if they are still interested I can look forward to having more coaches come to my house." Perhaps Tampa (Fla.) Alonso four-star defensive end Anthony Chickillo, who talked with Meyer last week and had scheduled a visit this weekend before everything happened, summed it up for a lot of recruits: "I don't know much about coach Muschamp other than he was the Texas defensive coordinator. I don't know him as a person or how he will run the program. I look forward to meeting him and see if they are going to recruit me." Air Max 24-7

Mayor Michael Bloomberg denied he is quietly exploring the possibility of launching a White House bid, declaring Sunday there is "no way, no how" he would ever run. Air Jordan 13 "I'm not looking at the possibility of running," he said on NBC's "Meet the Press." The mayor said his supporters should "cease and desist" hyping the possibility in the media. "I want to go out being, having a reputation as a very good, maybe the greatest mayor ever." Air Jordan 12 He vowed to finish out his third term, which ends at 11:59:59 p.m. on Dec. 31, 2013. "I am not going to run for president," he insisted. "I've got a great job. I'm going to finish out my 1,100 and whatever number of days it is left to go." Hall gave up a 64-yard catch and run to Bucs rookie receiver Arrelious Benn in the first half, and looked as if he was trying to talk Benn to the ground rather than tackle him. I'm guessing Hall's role model growing up was Deion Sanders. Air Jordan 11 ? At different points this season, I've written stories on what's wrong with the games of both Mark Sanchez and Peyton Manning, and both quarterbacks immediately rebounded. I suppose Carson Palmer probably wants me to give him the same treatment about now, but somehow I don't think it will help. Palmer was dreadful again in the Bengals' loss, throwing three picks, including two for return touchdowns. The Bengals have now tied a team record with 10 losses in a row, and Palmer has 18 interceptions and the worst passer rating (78.1) in a full season since his rookie year of 2003.Delaying the use of the interest-rates and the exchange- rate tools may lead to “a painful correction at a later stage,” said Chang Jian, a Hong Kong-based chief China economist at Barclays Capital. She saw risks including asset bubbles. The Shanghai Composite Index of stocks has fallen 10 percent from a Nov. 8 high, extending this year’s loss to 13 percent, on concern tighter monetary policy will damp economic growth and profits. Investor reaction to the latest inflation number may be attenuated by the figure matching a report ahead of the release in the Economic Information Daily last week. Economists anticipate a 1 percentage point rise in the key lending and deposit rates by the end of next year, according to the median forecasts in a Bloomberg survey on Dec. 2. Gross domestic product will rise 9.2 percent in 2011, the median projection shows. UGG Boots Bailey Button

Oprah Winfrey may not be a lesbian -- but the chick who's gonna play the talk show host in a brand new sex tape sure is.Just as soon as the real Oprah wiped away her tears of endearment for her bestest non-lesbianic gal pal Gayle King during a Barbara Walters interview this week ... Hustler had already locked down a couple of O and G not-really-lookalikes for a XXX re-imagining of their friendship. Coach New Arrivals FYI -- the chick on the left (Misty Stone) is playing Oprah ... and the one on the right (Bella Moretti) is Gayle. The XXX flick -- entitled "Untrue Hollywood Stories: Oprah" -- is being released in January -- which sucks ... because it would have made one hell of a stocking stuff her. Coach Maggie Bag Dewar says the city is being led by an administration that is finally grasping its plight, a crucial first step to real change. “At long last in Detroit, the attention is turning to the realization we’re not going to fill the place up again with development,” she says. What kinds of incentives Bing will introduce to entice people to move are not determined, says spokesman Dan Lijana. But the greatest appeal for relocation for residents is a renewed sense of community, he says, especially for people living on the outskirts of the city where the next neighbor may be blocks away. Besides launching public forums in January to collect citizen feedback, the city is talking with philanthropic organizations, business leaders, and banks “to find creative solutions” to consolidate neighborhoods and strengthen Detroit's economic base, Mr. Lijana says. “At this point we’re just relatively early in this process, but we’re certainly looking at doing things different than they were done in the past,” he says. On Friday morning, even as the attacks continued, the key charts had returned to their typical levels, signaling that PayPal's defensive layers were successfully deflecting unwanted traffic, said Mr. Barrett, who has been working 18 to 20 hours a day this week. Both Visa and MasterCard were skittish about saying why the attacks hobbled their sites more than PayPal and Amazon, or what they are doing now to prevent such a disruption from occurring again. Shox R3 Women

Flaming rocks will soon begin hurtling toward the Earth with the arrival of the annual Geminid meteor shower, one of the biggest of the year. Shox R2 Women The peak of the week-long shower will come just before dawn on Tuesday, but the shooting stars will also be visible across the world late in the weekend, says Rebecca Johnson, editor of StarDate magazine from the McDonald Observatory near Fort Davis, Texas. Where skies are clear, the viewing will be best "before dawn on Tuesday. It starts to get light an hour before sunrise, so any time before that is going to be a good time to look," she says. Those who'd rather stay up late than get up early might want to wait until the moon sets around midnight on each of those nights during the shower. "You can still see meteors when the moon is up but it will be better when the moon has set," says Johnson. The peak will hit Tuesday morning at 6 a.m. Eastern time, 5 a.m. Central, 4 a.m. Mountain and 3 Pacific, says Johnson. Shox OZ Women "If you're brave enough to brave the frigid Arctic cold that's prevailing in most of the eastern part of the country, that's when you'll see them," says Bill Cooke, an astronomer at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center, in Huntsville, Ala. Meteor showers can be unpredictable in the number of fiery paths they sketch across the sky, but the Geminids are known as one of the most reliably consistent. They're expected to generate between 60 to 80 meteors an hour, "about one a minute," says Cooke. Meteors of course aren't falling stars. In the case of the Geminid shower, they're tiny pieces of debris breaking off an asteroid called 3200 Phaethon as it orbits the sun. Although the shower was first seen in the 1860s, the asteroid wasn't discovered until 1983. Though the Geminids do carry a whiff of mystery. Most well-known meteor showers, such as the Perseids and the Leonids, come from comets, which are "big, dirty snowballs," in Cooke's words. When they get near the sun, the heat turns the ice into gas, freeing some of that dirt, which is then pulled into Earth's orbit and falls through the atmosphere. As it burns up, it creates the brilliant streaks we see as meteors. But the Geminds come not from a comet but an asteroid, "a big hunk of rock," says Cooke, so exactly why it's got so much material trailing behind it to burn up in our atmosphere is unclear.Even if it is a clump of rock bits, which is one kind of asteroid, the Geminids are many hundreds of years old so those bits should have long since been lost "and yet (they are) still throwing stuff off. It's a weird meteor shower," Cooke says. It's also somewhat controversial in that some astronomers believe 3200 Phaeton to be a dead comet, a former snowball that's lost all its ice, and some believe it was just rock all along. Nike Air Jordans But what's producing the meteor showers hardly matters considering how lovely they are. For those who can't make it out Tuesday morning, the meteors will be visible for two days before the peak and a day or two afterwards, just not as plentiful. It's "a great shower that many people never see" because they come during cold weather, says Cooke. "The Perseids get all the press. It's much nicer to be out on a warm August night then to be freezing your rear in December." Cheap Jordans

The Angels look out of their league during the winter meetings as the big-spending franchises acquire premium players. But GM Tony Reagins says it won't change the way the Angels do business. The Angels are looking more and more like the teenager who has to sit at the kids' table for the holiday meal while teams like the New York Yankees and Boston Red Sox are at the grown-ups' table enjoying the feast. Kids Classic Short They couldn't hang with the big boys again this winter, swinging and missing at their top free-agent target when outfielder Carl Crawford agreed to terms on a seven-year, $142-million deal with Boston on Wednesday. Since the big-splash signings of Vladimir Guerrero, Bartolo Colon and Kelvim Escobar before 2004, the Angels have become perennial bridesmaids, coming up short in negotiations for Mark Teixeira, CC Sabathia, John Lackey, Chone Figgins and Paul Konerko and in trade talks for Roy Halladay and Miguel Cabrera. Their biggest and, perhaps, only victory in recent years: A five-year, $90-million deal to acquire Torii Hunter in November 2007. But despite a volatile marketplace in which the cost of premium free agents soars (seven years and $126 million for Jayson Werth?), General Manager Tony Reagins said, almost defiantly, that the Angels won't change how they conduct business. "We'll probably be on this side of things in the future, like a lot of clubs who have had players go in other directions," he said before leaving the winter meetings Thursday. "It's not unique. It happens every year. Air Jordan 9 "What we do is we evaluate a player's skill set, assign a dollar value to him, both in years and average annual value, and the level [of contract offer] we're comfortable with. Once it exceeds that, we have to make a decision one way or another. Most of the time, it's a decision we're very comfortable with." But how can the Angels expect to sign the best free agents when they seem unwilling to overpay, the way the Red Sox and Yankees often do, or the way the Washington Nationals did with Werth? "I think it's pretty simple," Reagins said. "We're in the business of evaluating players. Just because something might change the market value of a player doesn't automatically mean you have to go do something you're not comfortable with." Reagins wouldn't discuss details of the Crawford talks. According to a major league source, the Angels' guaranteed offer to Crawford was for six years and $108 million. But another source familiar with the negotiations, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitive nature of such talks, said the Angels added a seventh-year vesting option that would have pushed the deal closer to $126 million. The former Tampa Bay star, this source said, signed with Boston because he wanted to remain in the American League East.Air Jordan 8 That probably won't mollify fans who are venting on message boards about the Angels' failure to land the best free agents, anger that won't be assuaged by Reagins' assertion that last week's signing of reliever Hisanori Takahashi was "significant." There is a perception that owner Arte Moreno has unlimited financial resources. And Moreno, despite a 2011 payroll that already sits at about $127 million, told The Times after a disappointing 80-82 season that he was "angry, disappointed, and would spend whatever it took to return to the playoffs." But that only fuels the vitriol of fans after the Angels failed to sign Crawford. "To our fans, we're committed to winning," Reagins said. "We're going to play baseball hard every day. Free agency is part of the process. Our commitment is to our fans. We're going to put a championship-caliber team on the field and keep moving forward." That means intensifying their pursuit of free-agent third baseman Adrian Beltre, who is seeking a deal in the five-year, $75-million range, and possibly closer Rafael Soriano. They are also expected to step up their efforts to lure pitcher Cliff Lee, who reportedly has a seven-year, $140-million offer from the Yankees and is being hotly pursued by the Texas Rangers. Air Jordan 7