VANCOUVER, Wash., Oct. 1 /PRNewswire/ -- MyDomain, the Internet Domain Name and Web Hosting powerhouse, announces the launch of a national multimillion dollar TV campaign to support its Start Your Dream Business website for $1 promotion. The one of a kind deal gives customers use of a domain they choose and all the tools needed to quickly publish and launch a website for $1. Because this groundbreaking offer is like nothing out there, MyDomain is kicking off a national cable advertising campaign to ensure that people across the country can take advantage of this unique program.

Beginning on October 1, 2007, MyDomain plans to run its Start Your Dream Business commercials on Bravo, CNBC, the Discovery Channel, MSNBC, Discovery Times, The Movie Channel, SCI-FI, Soap Network, SPIKE TV, and USA.

Moniker.com to Hold Premium Domain Name Auction at PubCon Las Vegas ...

POMPANO BEACH, Fla., Nov. 29 /PRNewswire/ -- Moniker, the first and only provider of Domain Asset Management(TM) services, today announced that it will be hosting the first live and online auctions of premium domain names during PubCon Las Vegas 2007, the Search Engine & Internet Marketing Conference, on Wednesday, December 5 at the Las Vegas Convention Center. PubCon Las Vegas 2007 runs December 4 through December 7, 2007 and is the premiere educational conference and industry trade show programmed specifically for web professionals and website owners.

"Moniker.com is excited to bring its premiere live and online domain name auctions to PubCon Las Vegas 2007," said Monte Cahn, co founder and CEO of Moniker.com.

Braves' last visit to "Dodgertown"

Hideo Nomo (Royals), Chan Ho Park (Dodgers), Shawn Estes (Padres), Glendon Rusch (Padres), Scott Elarton (Indians).

Who Has What It Takes to Be Commander-in-Chief?

The presumed recipient of highly compartmented briefings profiling our most secret intelligence, Clinton is far too gifted to have misunderstood that we are at a historical tipping point where victory or a particularly bloody and ignominious defeat looms as an equal possibility.

While she talks a good game about such verities as caring for wounded soldiers and their families, these are easy touchdowns. More fundamentally, Clinton has tied her presidential ambitions to the defeatist MoveOn.org wing of her party. Any flag officer contemplating the prospect of serving under her command can do so only after recalling the icy contempt with which she sneered that the Senate testimony of Gen.

German shares lower as strong euro; high oil prices, Wall Street weigh

Siemens was off 1.44 eur or 1.68 pct at 84.03 after traders said disappointing results at the joint Fujitsu Siemens Computers Holding BV could raise questions about an extension of the joint venture.

More on a Hillary Comeback

With the help of thegreenpapers.com the invaluable Green Papers, I made some calculations in a best-case scenario for Hillary Clinton in the Wisconsin, Ohio, and Texas primaries. I assumed that Clinton won statewide in each case, and that Obama carried only congressional districts (or in Texas, state Senate districts) dominated by upscale white voters and/or black voters. This is an especially optimistic assumption in Wisconsin, where Clinton currently trails Obama by 4 or 5 percent in public polls. The results are as follows: a 44-30 delegate edge in Wisconsin, an 83-58 delegate edge in Ohio, and an 82-41 delegate edge in Texas. Overall this is an 80-delegate advantage, based (again I emphasize) on optimistic assumptions.

This would be enough to erase the current 58-delegate edge Obama has in total delegates according to Real Clear Politics.

Local Notices and Information

Lenten Fish Fry will be held every Friday, starting this Friday 8 February, from 5:00 pm to 8:00 pm, until Friday 21 March at the St Ignatius Catholic School Cafeteria. Served with fries, coleslaw and festival. Adults: $10; Children: $6. All proceeds toward World Youth Day in Sydney, Australia in July.

St Ignatius Catholic Community Fish Fry The St Ignatius Catholic Community wishes to inform the public that their annual Lenten Fish Fry will be held every Friday, starting this Friday 8 February, from 5:00 pm to 8:00 pm, until Friday 21 March at the St Ignatius Catholic School Cafeteria. Served with fries, coleslaw and festival. Adults: $10; Children: $6. All proceeds toward World Youth Day in Sydney, Australia in July. New Paintings at the Wharf Posters International Fine Art & Princess Cruise Lines artist & former Cayman resident Lois Brezinski presents new paintings on "Oil & Water" at the Wharf on Saturday 9 February (one night only) from 6:00 – 10:00 pm.

Brasch Words

Told the Rocky Mountain News, 'If I can help people focus on preparedness, how to be better prepared in their homes and better prepared in their businesses - because that goes straight to the bottom line - then I hope I can help the country in some way.' Now, that's altruism. He's a real patriot. Will probably make more from consulting than he ever did on the federal payroll. Even has a fancy office in Washington, D.C."

That fancy office, I learned, was in the high-rent posh office suite of Joe M. Allbaugh, who ran President George W. Bush's first campaign for the White House. For his loyalty, but certainly with almost no knowledge of emergency management, Allbaugh became Mr. Bush's first FEMA director before he resigned to become a consultant and lobbyist.

Allbaugh bestowed the nation's disaster response upon his college buddy Michael Brown.

Cape & Islands News

Think about the cluelessness of Brunelle's comments. Only 25 percent of the town's registered voters took part in approving the agreement with the Wampanoags. As has been meticulously and widely documented, turnout was held down because of the midsummer heat and humidity, which kept elderly residents and people with health problems away. People who had to work or who couldn't find child care were kept away, too. As for people leaving, well, town officials all but told people to leave by staging a disgraceful signing ceremony with the Wampanoags as soon as the agreement was approved, but before the casino itself was put to a vote. That action in itself ought to be the subject of a legal challenge on the grounds that it was a ruse aimed at making people think the meeting was over. Even so, the vote to reject the casino was a legal (if non-binding) vote on a warrant article properly put before town meeting.

Florida's FDN Communications Chooses Calix

FDN Communications, a 250,000-line CLEC based in Florida, has selected the Calix C7 multiservice access platform (MSAP) to help transform its network in the face of a changing regulatory environment and accelerating consumer expectations. FDN Communications will initially deploy the Calix C7 in its 170 central office collocations.

Founded in 1998, FDN Communications currently provides a full suite of voice and data services to over 70,000 business and residential customers and has more than 250,000 access lines. In addition, FDN provides web hosting, collocation, and application services throughout its operating footprint in the Southeast US.

Calix said that with UNE-P (unbundled network elementplatform) availability and pricing being changed in line with FCC regulatory modifications, CLECs everywhere are looking for multiservice access platforms that maximize the range of services that can be delivered and provide greater network flexibility.

Q&A: Michael Cohen, MLS Broadcast Guru

Because we had been the company that produced it for so long, they all value our input. Nobody comes in and says, ‘Sorry, thanks a lot. Take a seat. This is how it’s going to be done now.’ They don't do that. They respect the fact that the people in our division understand how to produce soccer on television, and have done so at high levels. USSoccerPlayers: There just was a change in the ESPN announcing team. Do decisions like that have to be made in concert with you, or can you tell them what to do? Are there situations where you can veto them? Cohen: In any true partnership, things are discussed, and we have very definite input. But I don't think anybody mandates anything. And ultimately, any network you do business with does have final say over the announcer selections.USSoccerPlayers: You were talking about working with people who are experienced in producing soccer. How do you balance the expectations of the casual American fan, who is used to a specific way of watching sports on television, with those of an American soccer fan?Cohen: There’s a natural maturation of what’s happened in our broadcasts. Over the last 12 years, we’ve all realized that maybe we shouldn’t spend our energy on trying to rein in the ‘casual fan’ on our MLS broadcasts. The telecasts are going to be designed not to shut out the average sports fan, but a little more to the point where we are going to go towards the soccer fan.USSoccerPlayers: What about the differences between the way games are broadcast here and overseas?Cohen: If you walked into a truck in Europe, and I have many times, each cameraman is, in a sense, his own director. Not only did they grow up with the sport, but they've been working with the sport in a technical capacity for a very long time. We didn't have that. So we could have a top-notch director and producer, but if the technical people don't understand the game, you're going to have issues.When I first started with the league in 1996, I would walk into a truck and get tape guys and camera guys that didn't understand soccer. The league made a big commitment back then on the regional and national broadcasts to cultivate a core group of technical people that understand how to do the game. Now there are people who have been doing this for 12 years. It's the same thing with producers, directors and play-by-play guys. We’d have people who weren’t doing hockey or volleyball that night, so they’d do soccer. Now we have people who are dedicated to soccer, and understand the intricacies of the game. You don’t have to have as many seminars and discuss what offside is. As far as the analysts go, we said back in 1996 that it was going to be a good day when we develop our own Tim McCarvers, who came from the field and are now in the booth, having trained at a regional level, and are now doing the network games. We saw some guys who were friendly to the media and looked good on camera and talked well. These were the guys we ultimately wanted to see in the chair as our future analysts. USSoccerPlayers: On the reverse side, when I started watching the Premiership, it was one guy in the booth. Now he's paired with an ex-player. And on Sunday, I was watching the Chelsea vs Liverpool match, and they tried to go to a sideline reporter, but there was a technical issue. So you’ve had to look to other countries to see how the game should be shot, but they’ve some American elements to theirs.Cohen: I'm glad you brought that up. Just to be clear, in no way were ever arrogant in our production schemes. At the same time, we did have to understand that we are trying to market and promote a game a little more aggressively here. I don't like to use the term ‘Americanization,’ but we are sensitive to things that they don't have to be in Europe. Sometimes we get in trouble because of that, but in most cases I think we're doing the right thing. I'll give you a couple of examples.In 1996, our director Doug Wren, who is one of the top directors in sports, had this vision of bringing more cameras down to field level so that when the ball went out of bounds, we could shoot the faces and the jerseys to build this brand, and try to turn these guys into stars. We got a little bit of grief for that. There were people involved with the league who were fans of the international game that said, ‘That's not how it's done. And that low camera is blocking 15 seats.’ We were in 60,000-seat stadiums in most cases, and we didn't care that we were blocking 15 seats because we weren't filling them anyway. But if you watch the 1998 World Cup in France, there were more low cameras on the field than there ever were before. So we weren't going to be afraid to be aggressive, and in some cases, that was maybe copied. If you look at the history of television, Roone Arledge at ABC Sports had a goal for sports television to give you a 50-yard line seat. Then, in the sixties and seventies, that changed to not only giving you the best seat in the house, but also to get you into the game. So we walked that line of alienating standard coverage, while introducing the kind of coverage we felt we needed to advance and market the sport in this country.The other example started in 1999, when the first soccer-specific stadium opened in Columbus. The Hunt Group gave us a blank piece of paper and asked us where we wanted to put cameras. We didn't want to be at 60-65 feet, which is FIFA's standard play-by-play camera coverage. We wanted to get the game down to 40-50 feet. We are starting to do that in every stadium we build now. Again, the purists came after us, saying that’s not how it’s done in Europe. But now, Chelsea is putting the new main play-by-play camera position at Stamford Bridge at just over 20 feet. Allianz Arena in Germany just sent me a DVD comparing their camera positions at the 2006 World Cup, which was close to 70 feet, to what they're using for Bayern Munich, which is 35-40 feet. It just makes sense to make the game more intimate. The days of seeing 22 dots on the screen are done. You can’t do that if you’re trying to market a sport.USSoccerPlayers: What factors determine which games are nationally telecast?Cohen: It’s a concerted effort between the networks and one of the executives here, Brad Pursel, who works on the schedule. We take into consideration the network needs, which are key match-ups and key cities. We also want to keep a lid on the number of network exclusive exposures a team can have, which is 12. We do that so they can still maintain a regional network relationship, which is extremely important in our league. As long as we can provide our teams 18 regional broadcasts for them to go off and sell to their affiliates, then that’s the limitation.USSoccerPlayers: It does seem, though, that there is an emphasis on Los Angeles and Chicago, which is understandable because you want to showcase Beckham and Blanco. But are you worried about Beckham Overload, meaning that the desire to showcase one of the biggest soccer stars in the world overshadows not only the other teams in the league, but also the other 21 players on the field?Cohen: There are two different issues. The first is overexposure. We want the biggest audience we can possibly get. At the same time, we want to promote our league. So if having 12 Galaxy exposures on national television is going to garner our biggest audiences, that’s a positive. If you go back to what NBC used to do with the Chicago Bulls, they had a camera following Michael Jordan around for the whole game. So ESPN had a Beckham-cam so they could show an isolation replay of him. Once you're in the broadcast, it becomes this balance of having a major worldwide star, and broadcasting a soccer game.USSoccerPlayers: What if LA has another bad season because they’ve given so much money to three players that they can’t improve the squad? You run the risk of losing the audience, because you've scheduled so many of their games.Cohen: In a perfect situation, we’d have flexibility in our schedule. Maybe that will come down the road when we have all the stadiums under our control. Then, if we have something scheduled in September or October, then we can make that switch. Of course we want to see all of our players gain exposure on our broadcasts, not just one player. But we respect the network’s ability and desire to garner ratings.USSoccerPlayers: It seems every year, there’s a little something new on the telecasts, like the yellow offside line. Is there anything new in store for 2008?Cohen: In Fox’s pre-game shows, which we’re thrilled with, there will be an increase of locker room shots and pre-game interviews. The studio show they did was a tremendous asset to the league. It gave fans the ability to go inside the game. Building on that success is something Fox is able to do.With ESPN, we’re happy with the selection of JP Dellacamera and John Harkes because they’re giving the game back to the fan. This year, they’re going to add super slo-mo cameras, which helps enhance the game coverage. When you see foot movement, ball movement, and great saves in super slo-mo, it’s probably the single biggest enhancement that we should be focused on throughout our broadcast. Over 12 years, you play with overhead cameras and animations, and ultimately it comes down to how you best cover the game. And we’re all in agreement that the more super slo-mo cameras you have, the better.ESPN is also going to introduce a player tracking system by a company called Sportsvision to do a virtual 180-degree re-creation of the play. This was the ‘synthetic video’ that you saw at the US-Mexico game. It’s a good tool because it doesn’t cut away from the game action. But for analysis purposes at halftime or post-game, you’ll see the play in a cool way. It goes back to the fact that we’re not trying to break away from the game, ever. We’re just trying to improve how the game is covered.USSoccerPlayers: Although you've worked with MLS since the league began in 1996, according to your bio, your background isn’t in soccer. How did you wind up working in soccer?Cohen: I liked the sport. My career started at ESPN in the mid-80s. So whenever I could, I would try to get assigned to a soccer game, which was limited to a college game here and there. I also loved international events, having worked the Olympics for NBC and CBS between 1990 and 1996. I also loved branding stuff, having worked on the first X-Games for ESPN. So the culmination of being able to launch a new property, work on an international game, and the fact that it was soccer -- it just came together when the network was looking for someone to produce the first game on ESPN in 1996. Dave Lifton is a freelance writer and a regular contributor to USSoccerPlayers.