Reporting from Seattle - The MLS Cup logo gleams from up high, freshly painted atop the Space Needle, along with the logos of the Galaxy and Real Salt Lake. It's a sign that the 14-year-old league's championship game has finally arrived in the Northwest; it will be played Sunday at Qwest Field between the aforementioned teams. It's also a sign that the "dog and pony shows" have hit town. Call it hokey. Call it a sales pitch. It's here. On Wednesday, for instance, when the M/V Tacoma lurched up to Pier 52, the ferry had on board former UCLA and Galaxy Air Jordan Shoes coach and current Seattle Sounders Coach Sigi Schmid, as well as former UCLA and U.S. national team winger and current Sounders technical director Chris Henderson. Wouldn't you know it, they were bringing the sterling silver Philip F. Anschutz championship trophy to Seattle -- not the way they would have preferred, of course, which would have been to win it. "MLS made a great decision in expanding to our region," said King County executive Dow Constantine, the obligatory politician on hand. "Here's a place where darn near every kid grows up playing soccer." Then, on Thursday, MLS Air Jordan 14 Commissioner Don Garber went online with the seattletimes.com and fielded questions from fans, telling the world that all was well with MLS and would be even better in the foreseeable future. "This season will forever be known as one of the key moments in the history of soccer in America," Garber said during the day. Finally, on Friday afternoon, Galaxy forward Alan Gordon and Real Salt Lake goalkeeper Chris Seitz were cajoled into Seattle's virtually unavoidable photo op -- tossing dead fish around at Pike Place Market. It's all about buzz and image. And Michael Jordan Shoes in Seattle, MLS had the soccer success story of the year, perhaps of the decade. So why not celebrate? Beneath the surface, of course, and not mentioned too loudly on a championship weekend, are a number of niggling little issues and a few not-so-little ones. MLS attendance, for example, was down 2% in 2009 to an average of 16,037, even though the Sounders averaged a league-high 30,897, even though Sunday's title game is a sellout, and even though Toronto FC has sold out every game in its three-year history. The reality check comes with the knowledge that the New England Revolution drew a paltry 7,416 for a home playoff game against the Chicago Fire, or that the defending league champion Columbus Crew drew only 10,109 for its home playoff game against Real Salt Lake. Then there is that old bugaboo, the MLS Players Union, long a thorn in the side of those team owners who prefer that their employees just do the work and accept what comes to them. The league's collective bargaining agreement with the union expires on Jan. 31. The union wants a number of things, not least of which is guaranteed contracts for its players. Talk of a strike causes Garber to bristle. "Any discussion about a strike or a work stoppage at this point is totally premature," the commissioner said Monday during his "state of the league" teleconference from MLS headquarters in New York. Garber admitted, however, that negotiations with the union would likely be "difficult." As difficult, in fact, as the San Jose Earthquakes, the Houston Dynamo and the Kansas City Wizards -- all former MLS champions -- are finding it to build their own stadiums.

Dell Inc.'s (DELL) fiscal third-quarter profit fell 54% as the downturn led to a double-digit drop in revenue, but the computer giant said it is seeing improving demand. Shares fell were down as much as 7.6% to $14.67 after-hours as the results fell short of expectations. More recently, Dell shares were off 6.1%, to $14.90. Nonetheless, Chairman and Chief Executive Michael Dell said, "We are seeing improvement in overall underlying IT demand Air Jordan Shoes that is continuing into the fourth quarter. The same is true with momentum in Dell's business," especially among corporate customers. And with the launch of Microsoft Corp.'s (MSFT) Windows 7, "we'll see a pretty powerful replacement cycle," Dell said on a conference call. "We remained biased toward expanding profitability." Dell Chief Financial Officer Brian Gladden, on another conference call, said the company saw some growth return to its largest Michael Jordan Shoes customer segments, in particular large enterprises and small to medium-sized businesses. And those improvements and others continued into its fiscal fourth-quarter. But lower average selling prices, especially of netbook computers, have weighed on Dell's profitability. And most of the overall growth in tech spending is being led by consumers, a customer type that Dell doesn't focus on as much as its rivals. Meanwhile, some of Dell's customers continue to delay upgrading their IT infrastructure despite some signs of recovery. There's also "significant work" remaining Air Jordan 8 before Dell will meet its goal of cutting $4 billion in costs, Gladden said. "There are some encouraging signs for us," he added. The No. 3 player behind Hewlett-Packard Co. (HPQ) and Acer Inc. (2353.TW, ACEIY) has been feeling the downturn longer than most companies, largely because the corporations that account for 80% of its revenue were among the first to cut back. Three months ago, Gladden said demand had stabilized but a significant uptick was unlikely until 2010. To deal with the slump in personal computers, Dell has been diversifying. Its biggest move was the $3.9 billion acquisition earlier this month of Perot Systems Corp., giving it a broader reach in the services business. Dell, which has said other deals aren't out of the question, is also moving into smartphones, one of the hottest areas in consumer electronics. For the quarter ended Oct. 31, the computer maker reported earnings of $337 million, or 17 cents a share, compared with $727 million, or 37 cents a share, a year earlier. The latest quarter included 5 cents in restructuring charges.

HOUSTON, Nov 8 (Reuters) - U.S. oil companies were shutting production on Sunday as they evacuated workers from the Gulf of Mexico ahead of Hurricane Ida, which is forecast to roar across the offshore oil patch Monday before making landfall on Tuesday. BP Plc, one the Gulf's largestAir Jordan 2 oil producers, said on Sunday some of its production was shut and nonessential workers were evacuated from Ida's forecast path. The company does not disclose amounts of shut production. Marathon Oil Corp had shut its Ewing Bank production platform after evacuating workers, a spokeswoman said on Sunday. The Ewing Bank platform can produce 11,700 barrels of oil and 10.5 Air Jordan Shoes million cubic feet of natural gas a day. The Louisiana Offshore Oil Port, or LOOP, which takes in an average of 1 million barrels of foreign crude from cargo ships daily, stopped offloading tankers shortly after noon CST Sunday (1800 GMT) due to deteriorating sea conditions, according to a spokeswoman. Air Jordan 9Exxon Mobil Corp said it preparing for possible shutdowns ahead of heavy weather at offshore and onshore Gulf of Mexico locations including its Mobile Bay, Alabama, natural gas field. Oil companies began lifting workers off of platforms in the eastern and central Gulf of Mexico on Saturday, said a helicopter company executive. "We've had a very busy day," said Jim Shugart, executive vice president of marketing for ERA Helicopters of Lake Charles, Louisiana. "We expect tomorrow to be pretty busy if the weather gives us a shot to complete what we're doing," Shugart said. "We started Saturday. They've been flying all day. Can't put a number on it. I would think like 30 or 40 helicopters." Hurricane Ida was packing 100 mile-per-hour (161 kph) winds on Sunday, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center, which rated it a Category 2 storm on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale.

Kristen Stewart knows that her rumored romance with New Moon costar Robert Pattinson gets fans worked into a tizzy – and that's exactly why Air Jordan 14 she's not giving up the goods on their relationship. "I probably would've answered [the romance question] if people hadn't made such a big deal about it," she tells Entertainment Weekly. "But I'm not going to give the fiending an answer." The actress, whose star has risen Air Jordan 15 dramatically with her role as Bella Swan in the Twilight series, says she doesn't buy the idea that because she's famous, she has to give up her private life. "I know that people are really funny about 'Well, you chose to be an actor, why don’t you just [expletive] give your whole life away?! Can I have your firstborn child?,' " she says. Stewart, 19, figures that no matter what she says, tongues will still wag. "I've thought about this a lot," she tells the magazine. "There's no answer Michael Jordan Shoes that's not going to tip you one way or the other. Think about every hypothetical situation: 'Okay, we are. We aren't. I’m a lesbian.'" She adds: "I'm just trying to keep something. If people started asking me if I was dating Taylor [Lautner], I'd be like 'F--- off!’ I would answer the exact same way."

It's relatively small by Washington standards, but the Obama administration's $4.35 billion carrot for schools is already leading Air Jordan 21 states to adopt a handful of key reforms. Tucked into the $110 billion federal stimulus slated for education, a comparatively tiny grant known as the Race to the Top requires that states that want the Air Jordan 22 money must commit to closing historic achievement gaps and getting more kids into college – but they also must show that they're attending to a few nitty-gritty details that President Obama and Education Secretary Arne Duncan believe are important, including: •Tying teacher and principal pay – and school assignments – to student test scores. •Adopting internationally benchmarked academic standards. •Turning around their lowest-performing schools. •Building long-term student tracking systems. Air Jordan 23 •Loosening legal caps on the number of charter schools that states allow each year.