Topalov pulls a comeback in Sofia
By Macauley Peterson
SOFIA, BULGARIA The atmosphere was charged going into the final round at the M-Tel Masters yesterday. Thunderstorms battered the city all weekend, and all but one of the six grandmasters could have won the event with a last round win.
With a half point lead, Krishnan Sasikiran, the Indian number two, had the chance to be number one at M-Tel if he could hold a draw with black against Topalov, but the Bulgarian completed his resurgence with a nice piece sacrifice to win the game and leapfrog into clear first place. After a rocky start to the tournament, Topalov reversed his early losses in the second round-robin, much to the delight of the local fans, who applauded loudly after Sasikiran conceded defeat on Sunday evening. (More…)
I was “Live In Linares” in Spain two month ago. Now the M-Tel Masters is underway in Sofia, Bulgaria, and I teamed up with ChessVibes Peter Doggers to produce this short “intro” film:
Click To Play
Sofia, Bulgaria, May 13. GMs in order of appearance: Krishnan Sasikiran, Veselin Topalov, Gata Kamsky, Liviu-Dieter Nisipeanu, Shakhriyar Mamedyarov, Michael Adams.
Four years ago today, President Bush gave his infamous “mission accomplished” speech. I hope we can all laugh about it in a few decades, but for now, with Bush vetoing the war funding bill that might eventually end the war, it’s more important than ever that the President be thoroughly and utterly excoriated and his (lack of) foreign policy repudiated.
Meanwhile, if you missed the Bill Moyers documentary on the media’s role in the lead up to the Iraq invasion/occupation, it’s available online in its entirety, in five short “chapters.” I highly recommend it!
Despite profound questions over the failure to locate weapons of mass destruction and the increasing violence in Baghdad, many in the press confirmed the White House’s claim that the war was won. MSNBC’s Chris Matthews declared, “We’re all neo-cons now;” NPR’s Bob Edwards said, “The war in Iraq is essentially over;” and Fortune magazine’s Jeff Birnbaum said, “It is amazing how thorough the victory in Iraq really was in the broadest context.”
How did the mainstream press get it so wrong? How did the evidence disputing the existence of weapons of mass destruction and the link between Saddam Hussein to 9-11 continue to go largely unreported? “What the conservative media did was easy to fathom; they had been cheerleaders for the White House from the beginning and were simply continuing to rally the public behind the President ‚Äî no questions asked. How mainstream journalists suspended skepticism and scrutiny remains an issue of significance that the media has not satisfactorily explored,” says Moyers. “How the administration marketed the war to the American people has been well covered, but critical questions remain: How and why did the press buy it, and what does it say about the role of journalists in helping the public sort out fact from propaganda?”…
…In “Buying the War” Bill Moyers and producer Kathleen Hughes document the reporting of Walcott, Landay and Strobel, the Knight Ridder team that burrowed deep into the intelligence agencies to try and determine whether there was any evidence for the Bush Administration’s case for war.