The Sun revolves at a 7.25 degree angle just like the Earth. however, due to its imperfect rotation behavior, the sun tends to wobble, disrupting the internal core and making it highly unstable. The internal disruption eventually works its path to the outer surface and shoots out as a solar flare. Solar flares are little bits of the sun that launches out from the sun, giving off hazardous radiation and tremendous electrical power that go out into space like a bullet.

Just like how the earth has 4 seasons throughout the year, the sun goes through solar cycles taking 11 years to complete. The previous cycle was at its peak in 2001. every cycle has a stage when the flares are most powerful, often occurring close to the solar equator, known as the solar maximum, with the next massive one expected to take place in December 21, 2012 – a date predicted by the Mayan Calendar recently, the sun has been going through a long period of quiet solar activity as scientists have concluded that the sun is closing in on the final cycle. The quiet period alarmed NASA scientists and as they issued warnings that we will be seeing a seriously violent sun storm soon.

Impact to Earth

Many solar flares that hit earth were minor, however, small flares can still be threatening. for example, in 1989 a flare struck North America and wiped out many electric grids in the United States and Canada resulting in blackouts. Solar flares are also known to affect human life because a huge flare that’s predicted to strike in 2012 would completely take out satellites, telecommunications, computers, and GPS.

Important Solar Flare Impact in 2012

Alyson Hannigan looked happy as she talked on her cell phone while running errands in Los Angeles on Thursday. The actress, 37, already has a daughter, Satyana, with husband Alexis Denisof. her “How I Met your Mother” character is also pregnant.

Alessandra Ambrosio took her daughter Anja Mazur to Coldwater Park in Los Angeles Thursday where the mother and daughter enjoyed a playdate with a friend before buying ice cream. The Brazilian beauty gave birth to her first child in 2008.

Molly Sims was in a good mood as she left the Byron Tracey salon in Los Angeles on Thursday. The actress/model is pregnant with her first child who is reportedly due in June. she recently married film producer Scott Stuber.

Let’s not forget about Snooki! Is she or isn’t she? Earlier this year the “Jersey Shore” star denied pregnancy rumors, but she’s kept mum about recent reports that she’s expecting her first child with boyfriend Jionni LaValle. We spotted her leaving her Jersey City residence while filming “Snooki and JWoww vs. The World” earlier this week.

Check out photos of the pregnant stars…

Spotted: Pregnant Stars Alyson Hannigan, Alessandra Ambrosio & More In LA

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NBA: Russell Westbrook scored 24 points, Kevin Durant added 22 and the Oklahoma City Thunder scored the final eight points to escape with a 95-91 victory over the Dallas Mavericks at Oklahoma City, and run their home winning streak to 13 games.

Westbrook answered Dirk Nowitzki’s fourth 3-pointer of the final period by hitting one of his own from the right wing to get Oklahoma City within 91-90 with 2:25 remaining, and Dallas didn’t score again.

• Thompson big in Golden State victory: Monta Ellis scored 25 points and Klay Thompson (Washington State) added 18 to lead the Golden State Warriors in a 120-100 rout of the Wizards at Washington.

Notre Dame, UConn advance to final

Women’s Basketball: Natalie Novosel scored 18 points and Kayla McBride added 15 to help third-ranked Notre Dame beat no. 25 West Virginia 73-45 in the semifinals of the big East tournament at Hartford, Conn. Notre Dame will play no. 4 Connecticut in today’s championship game after the Huskies routed no. 13 St. John’s 74-43.

Penguins stay hot, win sixth straight

NHL: Zybnek Michalek and Chris Kunitz scored 3 minutes apart in the first period, and Marc-Andre Fleury made 36 saves as the Penguins beat the Phoenix Coyotes 2-1 in Pittsburgh, for their sixth straight victory.

Saints owner backing GM, head coach

NFL: New Orleans Saints owner Tom Benson isn’t backing off his support of his general manager, Mickey Loomis, and coach, Sean Payton, even as his team is accused by the NFL of maintaining a bounty program to injure opponents.

“The bond between Sean and Mickey and Mr. Benson could not be stronger,” a team official told the Associated Press.

• Johnson signs extension with Bills: Buffalo Bills wide receiver Stevie Johnson has signed a contract extension. Terms were not disclosed.

Johnson 25, led the team with 76 receptions last season.

• Colts, Mathis come to terms: The Indianapolis Colts have agreed to terms on a new contract with Pro Bowl defensive end Robert Mathis. Details of the deal were not immediately available.

Dykstra sentenced to three years in prison

Baseball: Disgraced ex-New York Mets outfielder Lenny Dykstra was sentenced to three years in a California state prison after pleading no contest to grand theft auto and providing a false financial statement.

A Los Angeles County superior court judge Cynthia Ulfig sentenced Dykstra after refusing to allow him to withdraw his plea and said the scam to lease high-end automobiles from dealerships by providing fraudulent information and claiming credit through a phony business showed sophistication and extensive planning.

Dykstra, 49, has had a series of recent legal troubles and the prison sentence is part of a post-career downward spiral for the stocky slugger.

Japan upends U.S. women in rematch

Miscellany: Megumi Takase scored on a 6-yard header off Aya Miyama’s corner kick in the 84th minute to give the world champions a 1-0 soccer victory over the United States at Faro, Portugal, in a rematch of last year’s World Cup title game.

The Japanese advanced to a matchup against Germany in the Algarve Cup final.

• Petit leads Iditarod: Nicolas Petit from Girdwood, Alaska, is the early leader in the Iditarod Trail Sled Dog race.

The 32-year-old Petit was the first musher to reach the Finger Lake checkpoint, pulling in just before 5 a.m. Monday. the checkpoint is about 100 miles into the race.

The nearly thousand-mile sled dog race began Sunday for 66 mushers and their dog teams.

Thunder rally to victory over Mavericks

SAN FERNANDO, Calif. — Disgraced ex-New York Mets and Philadelphia Phillies outfielder Lenny Dykstra on Monday was sentenced to three years in a California state prison after pleading no contest to grand theft auto and providing a false financial statement.

Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Cynthia Ulfig sentenced Dykstra after refusing to allow him to withdraw his plea and said the scam to lease high-end automobiles from dealerships by providing fraudulent information and claiming credit through a phony business showed sophistication and extensive planning.

“He obviously didn’t have the money to get the vehicles,” Ulfig said. “His conduct was indeed criminal.”

Dykstra, 49, has had a series of recent legal troubles and the prison sentence is part of a post-career downward spiral for the stocky slugger known as “Nails” that has included a stint at a sober living facility.

In a rambling and impassioned plea for probation, Dykstra said he has tried to make amends for his past transgressions and said he would be cleared of any wrongdoing had his motion to withdraw his plea been granted.

“I’m doing everything in my power to be a better person,” he said.

Dykstra, wearing a gray suit with a blue shirt, was immediately remanded to custody as he walked into the court’s back room, hands in his pockets. Dykstra has earned nearly a year’s worth of credit toward his sentence for time already served.

Following the hearing, defense attorney Andrew Flier said Dykstra was singled out because he’s a celebrity.

“No way this wasn’t a probationary case,” Flier said. “To give him state prison is outrageous. I find it disgusting.”

Dykstra initially pleaded not guilty to 25 counts after police arrested him and found cocaine, Ecstasy and synthetic human growth hormone at his Los Angeles home last April. he changed his plea in October to no contest and in exchange prosecutors dropped 21 counts.

Prosecutors said Dykstra and his accountant, Robert Hymers, 27, provided information at two dealerships from a man they claimed was a co-signer but who had not authorized his name to be used. The leases were not approved.

However, at another auto dealer, Dykstra, Hymers and Christopher Gavanis, 30, a friend of Dykstra’s, were able to drive off with three cars by providing fraudulent information to the dealer. Hymers and Gavanis have entered no contest pleas as well and are awaiting sentencing.

Ulfig noted Dykstra wasn’t dissuaded the first two times with the scam and “hit a home run” the third time. those cars, Flier argued, were later returned and only depreciated in value.

In arguing for the maximum four-year sentence, Deputy District Attorney Alexander Karkanen said Dykstra has used his charm and celebrity status to get what he wants and has never been accountable for his actions.

“I’m glad Lenny Dykstra has been held responsible for his behavior,” Karkanen said outside of court. “This is a first for him.”

Dykstra, a left-handed hitting center fielder, was one of baseball’s premier leadoff hitters during much of his 12-year career (1985-96).

A .285 career hitter, Dykstra helped the Mets to their classic seven-game World Series win over the Boston Red Sox in 1986, and keyed the Phillies’ drive to the 1993 World Series, which they lost, four games to two, to the Toronto Blue Jays.

The three-time all-star finished second in the National League MVP voting in 1993, when he hit .305 and led the league in hits (194), runs (143) and walks (129).

Dykstra batted .320 with six home runs, 11 RBI and 13 runs in the two World Series. In 32 postseason games overall, Dykstra had a .321 batting average with 10 homers, 19 RBI and 27 runs. 

Dykstra still faces federal bankruptcy charges and is scheduled to stand trial this summer. he filed for bankruptcy a few years ago, claiming he owed more than $31 million and had only $50,000 in assets. Federal prosecutors said that after filing, Dykstra hid, sold or destroyed more than $400,000 worth of items from the $18.5 million mansion without permission of a bankruptcy trustee.

Dykstra also has pleaded not guilty to indecent exposure charges for allegedly exposing himself to women he met on Craigslist.

Dykstra said he didn’t deserve to be put in jail on trumped-up charges and said he wasn’t able to go to the funeral of his mother who died while he was incarcerated awaiting trial. he noted that he chose to go into a drug rehab center, volunteers his time with a college baseball team and has paid nearly $20 million in taxes.

“I do have remorse for some of the things I’ve done,” he said. “But because I wasn’t a perfect person am I a criminal? Everyone wants to make me out to be a monster.”

– Most of the information in this report is from the associated Press

Lenny Dykstra, former Mets and Phillies star, gets 3-year prison sentence for grand theft auto

IDG News Service — The disclosure Tuesday by U.S. authorities that Sabu, the former leader of prominent hacker group LulzSec, is a 28-year-old man from New York City named Hector Xavier Monsegur, corresponds with much of the information released about him by rival hackers in the past.

Sabu had been secretly arrested by the FBI last year and has since allegedly acted as an informant for the authorities, according to court papers in the case. The whole law enforcement operation resulted in the arrest of five more alleged hackers linked to LulzSec and Anonymous.

Back in June 2011, a few weeks before LulzSec decided to disband, several rival hacker crews like TeaMp0isoN (Team Poison), lone hacktivists like th3j35t3r (The Jester) and other Internet users unhappy with the group’s actions, launched a virtual war against its members.

LulzSec’s enemies engaged in an activity known in the hacker community as doxing, which consists of gathering personal information about an online user and publishing it online with the goal of exposing his real identity.

One of the first information dumps targeting LulzSec members was done by a group called the A-Team, and while the information later proved largely incomplete and bogus, the details about Sabu in particular appear spot on.

A-Team claimed that Sabu was a Puerto Rican man named Hector Xavier Montsegur who was living in New York. The group said that this information matched archived whois data for prvt.org, a domain name believed to be owned by Sabu, that has since been anonymized.

According to the A-Team, some of the online aliases used by Sabu were 548U, hectic_les and leon, the last of which is mentioned by the authorities in Montsegur’s unsealed indictment.

A separate Sabu dox report posted by an anonymous user on Pastebin on June 21 last year, traces Montsegur’s alleged online activity to as far back as 2003. It claimed that he was involved in several software and security-related projects over the years under the aliases Xavier Kaotico and Xavier de Leon — another fake identity mentioned in his indictment.

On August 17, around the time when Montsegur is said to have started working with the FBI as a cooperating witness, another Sabu doxing project was started on a blog. It listed the hacker’s known email addresses, including many that contain Sabu, Xavier and Monsegur in their names.

The project concluded that Sabu lives in New York City, is a NY Giants fan and even includes a picture of him grabbed from a MySpace profile.

LulzSec Leader'S Digital Trail Led Rival Hackers and Possibly FBI to Him

With the Republican National Convention still over five months away, today could prove to be the most pivotal moment yet for the Republican presidential candidates vying for their party’s nomination. Super Tuesday, as you’ve no doubt heard the punditry refer to today’s primaries, represents the biggest piñata of delegates so far in the party’s primary race. Many pots will be stirring today as ten different states in four different time zones go to the polls to cast their votes in order to determine which candidate shall receive the delegates from their respective states.

To help keep track of today’s busy election activity, Google has launched an interactive map of the United States that will help the country follow the results as they come in. the map contains election information about each of the fifty states as provided by the Associated Press, whom Google partnered with in order to compile the data for each state.

The map shows the results of primary elections and caucuses that have already happened, the real-time results of states’ primary contests as they’re announced by the Associated Press (which should be useful as results come in this evening), and the date of future primaries of states yet to vote.

While other major news outlets like the New York Times or CNN have provided similar information-rich interactive maps to allow people to follow election results, this is Google’s first foray into political landscaping. as the presidential election moves beyond the primary stage and into the general election this fall, expect more updates and, I’d imagine, more Google integration to the election map to make it stand out.

Follow Super Tuesday Results With Google’s New Interactive Election Map

• ESPN NFL Insider John Clayton covers the punishment for the Saints’ illegal bounty system, Drew Brees, DeSean Jackson, Matt Forte, Matt Flynn, Vincent Jackson, Peyton Manning and more. Clayton says Gregg Williams could receive a lifetime ban from the league. Clayton

• ESPN NFL analyst Marcellus Wiley says that you must accept the violent culture of football as a player. Wiley also weighs in on whether Roger Goodell can eliminate illegal bounty systems, Gregg Williams’ punishment and more. Wiley

• ESPN CBB analyst Dick Vitale dishes on the Saints’ illegal bounty system, which teams deserve to be No. 1 seeds in the NCAA tournament, whether Drexel should get an at-large bid, North Carolina’s win at Duke, Anthony Davis and more. Vitale

• ESPN MLB Insider Jayson Stark talks about Ryan Howard’s status, potential issues created by the changes to the postseason, the Mets’ future and more. Stark

• Greeny and Golic look ahead to the Ravens’ offseason in “Two-A-Days.” what should Baltimore expect from Joe Flacco in 2012? Two-A-Days »

• Greeny and Golic preview the 49ers’ offseason in “Two-A-Days.” How can San Francisco upgrade at WR? Two-A-Days »

• Greeny and Golic continue to discuss the Saints’ illegal bounty system, how NFL players react to big hits and more. the guys also share their thoughts on comments from Eli Manning, Steve Young, Mike Ditka and Tedy Bruschi. Listen

-Check out today’s podcast for more Mike & Mike. Listen

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Looks like Halloween might have come early for MTV’s wildly popular reality show, JerseyShore. Looks like Snooki put aside her partying ways for a few hours to take the other Guidettes for a shopping excursion at a kinky adult store in Seaside Heights, new Jersey. The gals were spotted around the shop oohing and aahing over the hundreds of saucy, sexy costumes.

There choices in costumes confirmed a well-known fact in Jersey girl fashion; the more skin showing, the better. Jenny Jwwow Farley, the resident body, strutted her stuff around the X-rated boutique in a black leather dominatrix outfit which so fits her ready-to-rumble personality. Newest housemate, Deena Cortese, showed off her tummy tats in a pink Playboy bunny costume, showing she’s ready to keep up with the other girl’s antics. and, as for Snookie, she led the team in an ultra-mini baseball costume emblazoner with the name Hustler. Apparently, the pint-sized Snooki loved her new sexy costume so much that she decided to wear it back the party house – over-the-knee tube socks, high heels and all (we know the bump-it has to be hiding under the baseball cap).

If you are starting to think about what sexy costume you’d like to wear this year for Halloween, just keep watching the JerseyShore girls for inspiration. Costume Machine can help you find thousands of sexy costumes to purchase on the Internet, from sexy brands like Leg Avenue, Playboy, and others. be as naught or as nice as you’d like with a range of sexy costumes including French Maid costumes, Beer Girl costumes, sexy storybook characters, hospital hotties and more.

Snookie Goes Shopping For Sexy Costumes

Nick Cannon has praised his wife Mariah Carey as “awesome”.

The America’s got Talent presenter – who was recently diagnosed with an auto-immune disease which sees his immune system attack healthy cells, tissue and organs – explained he has dubbed the Hero hitmaker “Dr Carey” because of her “nurturing” personality.

He said: “She’s awesome. She’s so nurturing. I call her Dr Carey. she just takes care of me and makes sure I’m eating what I’m supposed to be eating.

“she made me an egg-white sandwich before I left the house this morning. Those are the things I have to be eating now, no more bacon. she takes care of me.”

Nick – who has 11-month-old twins Moroccan and Monroe with Mariah – admitted his children are his “motivation” for living a healthy life.

In an interview with good Morning America, he added: “In the hospital, that’s the first thing that comes to your mind. I have to be around for my children and I have to be healthy for my children, so they’re the motivation for the whole thing.

“I scared a lot of people. I scared myself.”

Nick is now under strict doctor’s orders to get plenty of rest and eat healthily.

He explained: “I have been ordered to sleep at least six hours a night. they say rest is probably the best medicine. I’m dealing with it.

“the diet is the worst part. I can’t have any fast food anymore… no Happy Meals, nothing.” – Bang Showbiz

Cannon inspired by ‘awesome’ wife

Selection Sunday for the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament takes place on March 11.

It’s an exciting time for major college basketball power houses, such as Kentucky, Syracuse, Duke and North Carolina, as well as Cinderella dreams, such as Butler, which shocked the collegiate sports world by making it to the NCAA championship game for two straight years.

“March Madness” has become a national entertainment phenomenon that transcends sports.  In countless companies across the U.S., there will be office pools in which sports fans, as well as people who know very little about NCAA basketball, will participate. it is estimated that nearly 60 million Americans will participate in pools this year, resulting in billions of dollars in lost productivity, as workers will analyze their brackets, constantly check the scores of daytime contests, and discuss their prognostications with their office colleagues. 

The NCAA Tournament attracts hardcore college sports fans and casual viewers in the same way that the Super Bowl does. That’s why CBS and Turner negotiated a $10.8 billion contract for broadcast rights over 14 years. big money is involved.  Schools that win make more of it.

Not being among the 64 teams in the tournament can result in a coach’s pink slip. An early exit from the tournament can also be a death knell. Head coaches whose teams win big during the regular season but come up short in March are coaches whose days can be numbered. Losses in an early round cost programs lots of money. since the players can’t be fired, the coach often takes the fall. it may not be fair, but inevitably someone pays for failing.

Conversely, coaches whose teams perform better than expected often look for greener pastures when they become hot properties. Surely Brad Stevens, who put Butler Bulldogs on the map, and Shaka Smart, who brought Virginia Commonwealth to the Final Four last year and has led them to a 27-6 record so far this year, will be approached by schools looking to turn around their programs. Both coaches have recently signed long and lucrative contract extensions, but college coaching contracts do not always run their full course.

For many sports fans, March Madness is the most exciting time of the year. when the month ends, the April coaching merry-go-round will begin. It’s a rite of spring; but before all of that happens, there will surely be a lot of exciting games to watch. 

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NCAA March Madness 2012 Analysis: Money and the Coaching Merry-Go-Round