and their were a slough of PBUrsquos last night

Belgium said on Thursday it planned to start moving wounded children evacuated from Gaza by local aid groups to hospitals in the region as soon as Saturday, and was urging other EU countries to join its mission. The European Commission welcomed the Belgian plans, and would back any eventual EU-level mission, a spokesman said (Editing by Michael Roddy). Despite the one-sided score line, the Thanksgiving game in Dallas was not all bad news for Oakland. Yes, the Raiders were out-gained; yes, it wasn’t close; yes, it was another big loss following a victory, but there were certainly some plus points for this young Silver and Black team.On offense, Bruce Gradkowski looked after the ball, with no turnovers. Darren McFadden had 10 touches for 66 yards and is beginning to show flashes of the play-making ability the Raiders so badly need. Even Darrius Heyward-Bey got in on the act, scoring his first NFL touchdown.On Defense, Oakland showed some invention with Trevor Scott operating in the “Elephant” position, registering five solo tackles including two sacks. On 82 percent of plays (46 out of 56) the Raiders were excellent, giving up just 22 percent of the yardage (110 out of 494 yards).

This means that for 82 percent of plays (against an excellent Cowboys team) went for an average of just 2.39 yards per play.The problem is that the other 18 percent of plays (10 out of 56) went for 78 percent of the yardage (384 out of 494 yards). The addition of some power in the middle of this defense (nose tackle and middle linebacker) during free-agency could turn this from a patchy defense into a dominant one.Looking again at the roster, the Raiders now have 28 players who can form the backbone of a winning team: Offense: Bruce Gradkowski, Darren McFadden, Michael Bush, Justin Fargas, Chaz Schilens, Louis Murphy, Zach Miller, Mario Henderson, Robert Gallery, Cooper Carlisle, Samson Satele, and Cornell Green.Defense: Richard Seymour, Greg Ellis, Matt Shaughnessy, Gerard Warren, Tommy Kelly, Jay Richardson, Trevor Scott, Thomas Howard, Kirk Morrison, Nnamdi Asomugha, Chris Johnson, Tyvon Branch, and Michael Huff.Special Teams: Shane Lechler, Sebastian Janikowski and Jon Condo.The essential thing for Oakland is to not waste the last five games. The Raiders still need another 10 players, including Heyward-Bey, Mitchell, Russell and Myers to come to the party to enable them to finish the season with 38 “keepers” on the roster, which would be an excellent launch pad for 2010. Add five veterans through free agency, five rookies and five "projects" and there is no reason to believe the Raiders cannot be a winner next season.. Picture by Douglas PizacIf Harline Is Still Open…George Is Still Running!What a phenomenal game and end to the regular season. Yes, the game was sloppy at times for both teams and both sides of the ball, but I’m elated with the win.Max had a subpar performance, but will still be remembered as one of the BYU greats. Do his post game comments create a black cloud or mar his legacy as a great BYU quarterback Nope, I don’t believe so. During the radio show with 1280 last night we had many callers state that he is a spokesman and role model for the LDS church and now the church’s image is tarnished somehow by his statements and that those non members outside of Utah will view Mormon’s and the church in a bad light. People feel that ESPN is going to eat it up and expose the contradiction between what Bronco teaches within the program (flag bearer of religion etc..) and what actions and words are being displayed by his players. In my humble opinion… outside of Utah, people really don’t care about what Max said. They really don’t! I’ve called a number of good Non LDS football fans and asked them what they thought. All they said in summary was “What’s the big deal… he hates everything about his opponent, did he go overboard Sure but, that’s what rivalries are all about. The select vocal minorities that incite competition, but people outside of Utah will forget about this ever happening because it’s BYU vs Utah” Is the Church and Gospel tarnished by his comments Did he act very Christlike as a good BYU football player should in his post game interview No and no, but he will come out on Monday and explain why he said it and apologize because people make mistakes and we in turn forgive them for it. Mind you, I don’t think he should have said the second comment about the “University” in general. I thought if he would have just stuck to the football program he would have been just fine and dandy b/c it’s ok to hate your opponent, but he did make a blanket statement and he will have to apologize for it plain and simple.Moving on. We once again showed our lack of depth at offensive line. We weren’t able to protect Max very well and it showed. Anae did come out with a conservative game plan though. They wanted to give Max high percentage throws so as to not put him in risky situations. And give a lot of credit to Utah’s defense and their game plan. Every time they didn’t get pressure on Max their D line and linebackers were efficient in stopping their rush, getting in the passing lanes and breaking up passes a the line of scrimmage..

and their were a slough of PBU’s last night.Harvey had a great game and Tonga blocked well for him. It’s rare to see Tonga drop balls, but I’m still looking forward to seeing him in the NFL next year.Ashworth had two surprise drops in critical situations. This kid has hands like glue. I don’t think he ever dropped a pass in high school, but man he needed some stickem on those two plays.Defensively, I have mixed emotions. Roderick and Utah wanted to stretch the field from the beginning as I suspected. On 5 or 6 different occasions they had us beat vertically. Wynn luckily overthrew almost all of them…whew! What you didn’t really see though was our corners collisioning and sitting at about 8-10 yards. When you do this, it disrupts timing of the QB and the WR by a step or two. As a corner you can make contact with the WR down the field and deviate him from his original course while the ball is still in the QB’s hands. I use to do it all the time b/c it’s so effective. Both Bradley and Logan did this and deviated the WR’s course just enough to disrupt the timing of Wynn and his WR’s. But , what they didn’t do was collision and transition well enough to be in the WR’s hip pocket and therefore they were beat by 2-3 steps almost everytime.Our run defense looked decent especially in the first half. We gave up too many yards In the second half, but I it was great to see Jordan and Jan have great games!Cougar Nation! I love this rivalry and all that it entails. It was great to get a win and have bragging rights until next year. Lets go win a bowl game and gain momentum for next year.Criddle This article is also featured on Deep Shades of Blue. EL SEGUNDO, Calif.(Business Wire)DIRECTV issued the following statement today: We have been attempting tonegotiate in good faith with the owners of KXJB, (the Fargo-based CBS affiliate)but to date their carriage fee demands have been nothing short of outrageous.They have adopted an extremely intransigent and unreasonable position and bygiving in to their demands for a significant fee increase, we potentially placea financial burden on our customers, which we are not willing to do in thisdifficult economic climate. Though we did not want to take the station down,DIRECTV was notified by KXJB that it would have to stop broadcasting its signalat the end of the day today if we did not give in to their demands. We remainwilling to carry the channel while both parties negotiate in good faith.