2010 FIFA World Cup Searches Pour on Google

Google is the world’s widely used search engine, has recently released details about popular World Cup-related searches on the internet.

The final 16 qualifying matches, contentious and controversial calls, and results were very popular search topics.

Google revealed that Switzerland’s success over Spain and New Zealand’s performance against Italy drew plenty of traffic and irregularities.

During the launch of the tournament, “striker” was the most popular position in soccer. On the other hand, “goalkeeper” soon caught up and is now leading after England’s goalkeeper Rob Green let a ball slide past him during their opening match against the United States (US).

Some related topics to the World Cup also experienced interchange surges include lile “vuvuzela” and Shakira’s 2010 World Cup song.

Where Wealth Makes People Happiest

Perhaps all of us are like to think the reasons for seeking wealth are universal. Humans, characteristically, like to be at ease, like to have power and like to have the preferences and freedoms offered by lots of material and money. Yet it turns out there are some regional distinctions in the meaning of wealth around the world.

Freshly releases this morning from Barclay’s Wealth and Ledbury Research, found out that the emerging-market rich view wealth very differently from the older-money Europeans and the slightly less nouveaux Americans.

The study evaluated 2,000 people from 20 countries with invertible assets of $1.5 million or more. Both of them shared some common themes: a gigantic majority of rich people from all regions concord that wealth enables them to buy the best products and that wealth gives them freedom of choice in their life. The majority also agreed that wealth is a prize for hard work. But the differences are more appealing:

Respect – more likely 40% and 47% of Asians and Latin Americans say wealth allows them to get respect from friends and family. While only 28% of Europeans and 38% of Americans said respect was a byproduct of wealth.

Charity - about three-quarters of respondents in the U.S. and Latin America said wealth enabled them to give to charity. That compares with 57% in Europe and 66% in Asia.

Happiness – two thirds of the Europeans and Americans said wealth made them happy. But it had a better happiness affect in emerging markets, with 76% of Asians and Latin Americans saying wealth made them blissful.

Role Model – half or less than half of Americans and Europeans said that wealthy "set an important example to others to be successful." That compares with 71% of Latin Americans and 61% of Asians.

Spending - Wealthy Europeans are far more likely to spend their cash on travel and interior decorating. Latin Americans seem to put the maximum spending priority on education, while the U.S. surges above the rest in philanthropy.

There are several things into the differences. Clearly, the US has a more formalized and tax-favorable system of philanthropy than the rest of the world. In other words Americans are the most generous.

Moreover, the global financial crisis may have blemished the picture of the wealthy - yet amongst the wealthy. And to end with, the longer a country has wealth, the less it craves the attention and respect wealth brings.

US Senate Voice Concerns Over Facebook Privacy

Last Tuesday four US senators conveyed their concerns to Facebook over current changes to the social network that they say compromise the confidentiality of its more than 400 million users.

In a letter to Mark Zuckerberg Facebook’s co-founder and chief executives, US senators stated that they were concerned that personal information of Facebook users is being made available to third party websites.

Furthermore, Facebook should make sharing personal information an "opt-in" procedure in which a user specifically gives permission for data to be shared.

"Even though we are gratified that Facebook let users to opt-out of sharing private data, many users are unconscious of this option and, besides, find it complicated and confusing to navigate," the senators added.

"Beforehand, Facebook lets third-party advertisers to stock up profile data for 24 hours," they said. "We are concerned that current changes allow that data to be stored indefinitely.

"We believe that Facebook should reverse this policy, or at a lowest require users to decide on in to allowing third parties to store data for more than 24 hours."

Facebook's vice president of global communications, marketing and public policy, Elliot Schrage, send a letter to Senator Schumer that stated online privacy is "something Facebook takes very seriously."

"Facebook is planed to give people the tools to manage their information online and our highest priority is to keep and build the confidence of the more than 400 million people who use our service," Schrage said.

The main function of these new products and features are to enhance personalization and uphold social activity across the Internet while continuing to give users unparalleled control over what information they share, when they want to share it, and with whom," Elliot Schrage added.

Holy Man Arrested Over Sex Scandal

Hindu holy man with thousand of followers all over India and abroad have been arrested by the police after video footage come out last month allegedly showing him frolicking with two women.

Late on Wednesday, Nithyananda Swami, whose devotees include politicians and movie stars, was arrested in the resort town of Shimla in northern India.

Swami, the head of Dhyanapeetam, or "knowledge center," was strained to resign last month after the video that was purportedly shot in his center outside the southern city of Bangalore.

The leaked video aired by news channels caused the angered of the hundreds of his devotees and ransacked his center and tore down his posters, forcing him to go into hiding.

The 32-year-old holy man, who denied any links to the women and said the tapes were doctored, is being look into for rape, cheating and criminal conspiracy, police said.

The last few months have been terrible for India's self-styled holy men with police arresting a swami for running a brothel which involves air stewardesses and college students, while charging another with kidnapping a minor.

Self-claimed holy man Nithyananda Swami has spiritual centers in United States and the Europe and he also runs free medical centers and supplies food to the poor.

Christina Hendricks Named Americas Best Looking Woman

Christina Hendricks has been hailed as America's best-looking woman in an Esquire cover article, however, there's more than meets the eye with this one.

To begin with, even if the article appears in a men's magazine, the fiery "Mad Men" star won the best-looking title via a poll of over 10,000 women. Hendricks snitch 30 percent of the votes that were cast, beating out even Megan Fox, who got 14 percent of the votes, and Victoria's Secret model Adriana Lima, who got 17 percent. Megan Fox was last year's title-holder in Esquire's annual issue dedicated to the fairer sex.

Dubiously and more interestingly the photo that appears on the cover of the magazine looks a little unusual from the hot redhead who has garnered almost as much attention for her looks as she has for her performance on the AMC television show.

The accompanying photo that spread out looks a bit more like the Hendricks we know and love. She looks sizzling and hot in a desert shoot, basic-cable's favorite secretary poses next to an abandoned trailer, crawls across the sand, and bites into a juicy slice of watermelon.

Hendricks' stretch comes with a personal letter speak to to all men. As well to discussing her disgust of Facebook and love of Scotch, Hendricks lays out pointers for behaving around women: "There are better words than gorgeous, radiant, for an instance. It's an underused word even a special word. 'You are radiant, charming, smoldering,
invigorating, attractive, and fetching."

The full-bosomed beauty undoubtedly doesn't shy away from discussing her signature figure either: "We also remember everything you say about our bodies, be it good or bad. It doesn't matter if it's just a compliment nor could be just a comment. Those things you say are store away in the steel box, and we remember these things precisely. We bear in mind what you were wearing and the street corner you were standing on when you said it."

One can't help but marvel where Hendricks was standing when the women of America paid her and her body the highest accolade of all.

The Science Of Romance

Head off this idea that being fall in love is as much a biological happening as it is a behavioral happening, can we also explain "falling out of love" as in biological concepts as well? For some falling in love is a biological/chemical process within the brain and involves having just the right sum of receptors for adequate transduction by this biological/chemical process. Do we then use this same representation to talk about people falling out of love?

One professor says that falling out of love is a result of the parties involved becoming fed up with the relationship, that the parties involved found each other and trapped with each other because each one found something unique and novel about the other person and after some time, the novelty goes away, tediousness arises, and falling out of love becomes predictable.

Even though this explanation makes much sense to me, I still wondered what the changeable degrees of brain activity over this course of time would tell us about a biological reasoning for falling out of love.

Also I found out that it is extremely interesting to talk about the different sections of the brain that were both activated and deactivated when one sees his/her loved one. Most fascinatingly to me, both the amygdala and the pre-frontal cortex region are deactivated. The amygdala is the sub-cortical region of the brain that controlling our sense of fear and possibly sadness as well.

This does make sense; when I glimpse someone that I am in love with, I never approach him with fear. On the other hand, the pre-frontal cortex controls a lot of our planning, decision-making, and basic overall rational thinking. Unfortunately this was deactivated!

Speaking with this, have there been many court cases in the past, or current, that have used this biological model as a means for a defendant beseeching not guilty by reason of madness in a murder trial? I wonder.

Top 10 Highest Paid Sports Teams In The World

New York Yankees came out on top globally of a new study of all the world’s professional sports
teams in terms of salary. United States is well represented as well. Seven American teams were
belonging at the top 10, six of which qualified for the playoffs last year. In fact, nine out of 10 of
the teams on the list that qualified for the playoffs of their respective leagues.

The top 10 list is courtesy by the Annual Review of Global Sports Strategies, as published by
sportingintelligence.com. Amount of dollar was given as an approximation of the average annual
salary of a first-team player on the team.

1. New York Yankees -- Major League Baseball (USA) - $7,000,000

Some critics say the Yankees buy championships. And yet the

2009 World Series title was the teams first since the year 2000,

in spite of the fact that George Steinbrenner's crew has outspent

other Major League teams every year since then. The gap

between the Yankees payroll and that of the second-highest Major League Baseball team (app.

$70 million) was more than the overall payroll of 11 other clubs.

2. Real Madrid - La Liga (ESP) - $6,333,591

In the year 2009, Real Madrid paid a $120 million transfer fee to

British powerhouse Manchester United for the rights to Cristiano

Ronaldo. It was part of a summer spending wild activity which

saw Real deal out more than $250 million in salary and fees.

3. Barcelona - La Liga (ESP) - $6,082,940

Spending a little bet less than Real Madrid didn't seem to hurt

Barca last year. Behind FIFA World Player of the Year Lionel

Messi, Barcelona also won La Liga and the UEFA Champions

League.

4. Chelsea -- English Premier League (GBR) - $5,361,957

Recently Chelsea spending as led to two FA Cup titles in the

past three years but the club is still looking for its first Premier

League title since 2006. Saturday's match up with first-place

Manchester United will help decide this year's championship.


5. Dallas Mavericks - National Basketball Association (USA) - $5,315,097

Recently Mark Cuban's roosters are qualified for the playoffs for

the 10th straight season. If not for an unfortunate collapse in the

2007 finals, Dirk Nowitzki and the rest of the Mav’s would have a

title too.

6. Los Angeles Lakers - NBA (USA) - $5,098,920

Kobe Bryant and the rest of the Lakers are one of three teams on

this list to have won a title in 2009.


7. Detroit Pistons - NBA (USA) - $4,995,573

Having the third-highest payroll in the NBA didn't help the Motor

City’s team get over .500 last seasons. The Detroit Pistons team

did sneak into the playoffs though but were promptly swept by

the next team on our list.

8. Cleveland Cavaliers -NBA (USA) - $4,940,707

Cleveland currently holds the best record in the NBA, but fans just

as concerned with what will happen in the coming July when King

James becomes a free agent. If the King re-signs with his

hometown club, look for Cleveland to stay on this list for the better part of the next decade.

9. Boston Celtics - NBA (USA) - $4,885,055

The nucleus of the Celtics is aging quickly, but Boston fans can't

mind too much. The club got a title out of this team in 2008.


10. New York Knicks - NBA (USA) - $4,881,952

The 2009 Knicks weren't as much of a disaster as other recent

editions (the 32 wins were nine more than NY had the year

before), but it's never good when a team's highest paid player is

more known for sitting on the bench in street clothes and making

bizarre rants on the Internet.