text: In the Valiant Universe, even secrets have secrets. Have you heard the one about The Michelangelo Code? Inside a Masonic crypt beneath Wall Street, The 1% engineer a financial apocalypse that will save the dollar, but could destroy the world. Within the secret archives of the Vatican, The Spirituali shelter a secret that could crack history in half. And ? in a bar somewhere ? Archer & Armstrong are all that stands between the ancient conspiracy that binds these two group together. But can Archer survive a terrible betrayal from his own family ? and the shocking revelation of Armstrong's closest ally? Get ready for a spreadsheet shattering, kung fu gripping action epic that will set the Valiant Universe aflame!

subset: commoncrawl


text: The Encinitas Double Handle Widespread/Deck Mounted Bidet Faucet Set is made from premium material, its creating a heaven of serenity and seclusion that reveals elegance. Establish your own private retreat with design choices which reflect your personality and style. Starting with good old-fashioned craftsmanship featuring solid brass construction. Widespread/Deck Mounted installation 1/4 turn ceramic disc cartridge Vertical spray and rim flush Lever handle Anti-siphon atmospheric vacuum breaker diverter 1 1/4" all brass lift rod style pop-up drain assembly Over 30 decorative finishes Codes/Standards ASME A112.18.1/CSA B125.1 ADA compliant


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Todos os dias nós oferecemos aplicativos e jogos para Android licenciados GRATUITAMENTE que, caso contrário, você teria que comprar.
This giveaway offer has been expired. Morale - establishes spiritual state is now available on the regular basis.
App requires to read meaningful text with a natural voice in your native language for ~30 sec to establish your spiritual and psychological state.
The app establish method was created based on traditional Tibetan medicine method and Chakra theory.
In results app will show your spiritual state your good and bad spiritual qualities.
Good spiritual qualities:
• Endurance, patience, creativity, passion, life joy, empathetic, sensitivity, spontaneity, imagination, etc.
Bad spiritual qualities:
• Egoism, laziness, aggressiveness, jealousy, anger, depression, lack of trust, pessimism, running from reality, etc.
The meaningful text can be selected from these texts:
• Robert Frost "Leaves Compared With Flowers";
• Robert Frost "The Road Not Taken";
• Without text, choose your own meaningful text.
Do not forget to read meaningful text in your natural voice in native language.
How to use:
#1 Select text which you will read;
#2 Press Start button and start reading;
#3 After ~30 sec app will show results.
The app uses permissions to record audio and write data to device, it is needed to work properly.
Disclaimer: the app data and results is advisory in nature, so we are not responsible of the decisions and actions you have taken. Do not take the results as 100% real.
Health & Fitness
4.0 and up


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How to Keep Closing Costs Down
If you're a homebuyer trying to take advantage of the down market's opportunities, you might have scraped your pennies together to come up with the cash to close the deal like you haven't dug for pocket change since you came up short at the ice cream truck in the 5th grade. So what happens when -- horror of horrors -- you get almost to close of escrow and, surprise!, you're told that your interest rate or closing costs or even mortgage payment are higher than expected?
I Know the Feeling. Only the coolest of cucumbers wouldn't have at least a little freak-out in this situation. Receiving a higher-than-expected figure required to close feels like being hijacked -- no housejacked, as in, "you'll get your keys when you give us your money!" Unpleasant closing surprises incite anger ("that's not what I was told -- why didn't you tell me this sooner?!"), fear ("oh no, what happens if I can't come up with it?!"), desperation (how/where/from whom can I come up with it?!) and panic (Must. Scrape. Money. Up. Now!). Beyond the obvious disaster of possibly not being able to get your home, your deposit money might also be in jeopardy if you can't close.
Your Mindset Reset. Being told you need much more money than you expected in order to close escrow is infuriating at best, horrifying at worst. If you have the extra cash, it's hard not to look at it as a distasteful deed you can't get around and just fork it over. If you don't have the cash, it's hard not to beg, borrow and, well, we'll stop there -- in order to scrape it up. But instead of viewing the surprise shortage as a bill, first things first: look at it as a red flag. It might reflect legitimate expenses that caught you off-guard for some reason, but it could also reflect errors, typos or even shady business.
The whole point of the government-mandated closing statements you'll receive before closing, like the HUD-1 settlement statement, is to make your closing costs easy to review line-by-line and make errors or misrepresentations regarding your loan terms and costs easy for you to catch. So instead of giving in to your gut reaction of seeing a closing doc surprise as an unmitigated travesty, view it as an opportunity to catch errors and protect yourself from mortgage misrepresentations that could really hurt you (and your bank account and home equity) in the long run.
Your Drama-Free Real Estate Rx. If, right before close of escrow, you are told that your closing costs, interest rate or mortgage payment are significantly higher than you expected, mobilize -- and quick. Grab your good faith estimate and compare it with the estimated closing costs statement, line-by-line. Get your Realtor and mortgage broker involved to help find the discrepancy and determine whether it's a legitimate cost increase or a simple error.
If the issue driving up your costs is legitimate, get your whole team in motion to figure out if it can be negotiated down or if there are other ways you can cut costs (e.g., like asking your escrow holder to reduce or waive some fees or extending your escrow so that you can pay less prepaid interest and property taxes), then try to work it out. I've actually seen cash-to-close estimates drop by thousands of dollars after my mortgage broker and I run them through a 30-minute, hard-core line item review! Only after you're confident that all fees, rates and costs are accurate, legitimate and as low as they can go should you start to dig for those extra dimes -- and by then, perhaps you'll need less extra money than you thought!


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FS#189 - App Crashes, loses saved data
Opened by Vicki Trowler (VTrowler) - Wednesday, 11 April 2018, 13:21 GMT+1
DetailsI have used this app successfully in the past. Today, when creating a new project, I have the following issues:
I add resources, and save the file - the resources are there. I attempt to add a new task - the app crashes. Every time. I cannot add a new task. The saved file, when I restart the app, does not contain the resourced I had added and saved. |


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Hudson River School Art Trail, New York
Walk in the footsteps of the painters who created the first great American art movement.
From Cedar Grove, The Thomas Cole National Historic Site
The Hudson River School Art Trail is a three-mile historic theme trail is part of a larger network comprised of seven sites linking the home of Thomas Cole, founder of the Hudson River School, with painting sites that inspired the work of many artists in the nineteenth century. Thomas Cole's home is now a National Historic Landmark and today provides an orientation for your exploration of the Hudson River School Art Trail.
The home and workplace of Thomas Cole, founder of the Hudson River School of art, in Catskill, NY |
The Development of the Trail The Art Trail is currently in the initial stages of its development, which includes the creation of a brochure and web site with maps, driving and walking directions, and printed representations of the painted views to use as a comparison with today's actual views.
The Art Trail will include wayside interpretive signs including reproductions of paintings depicting that site as well as background information on the painting, the artist, and how the scene has been preserved. These wayside interpretive signs will serve as "captions on the landscape," enhancing the visitor's understanding about the Hudson River landscape and the art that it inspired.
The artist Thomas Cole made his first trip up the Hudson River to Catskill in 1825. The resulting paintings created a sensation in the nascent New York art world and launched the Hudson River School of art. These influential first paintings included a rendition of Kaaterskill Falls as well as South Lake, both of which are included in this Trail.
Frederic Church, Scene on Catskill Creek, 1847 |
As one example of the sites along the trail, the painting at left was painted by Frederic Church at Trail Site 3 on the Catskill Creek Just a few miles from his home, this scene inspired Thomas Cole so much, he painted it more than any other. "The painter of American scenery has indeed privileges superior to any other; all nature here is new to Art." -- Thomas Cole, Journal entry, 1835
A New Art Movement... for a New Nation
In the early years of the 19th century, the fledgling American nation was seeking a cultural identity apart from Europe and a style of art that it could call its own. A group of artists found the answer in the beauty and majesty of the natural world they encountered in the Hudson River Valley and created magnificent landscape paintings. This movement, the first in American art, became known as the Hudson River School.
The Hudson River School painters believed art to be an agent of moral and spiritual transformation. In large-scale canvases of dramatic vistas with atmospheric lighting, they sought to capture a sense of the divine, envisioning the pristine American landscape as a new Garden of Eden.
The Hudson River School Art Trail pays homage to both the creative and the historical significance of the Hudson River School painters. Their work created not only an American art genre, but also a deeper appreciation for the nation's natural wonders, laying the groundwork for the environmental conservation movement and National Park System.
The Hudson River School Art Trail enables you to walk in the footsteps of Thomas Cole, Frederic Church, Asher B. Durand, Jasper Cropsey, Sanford Gifford and other pioneering American landscape artists, and appreciate their work in an entirely new way. Most of the stops on the trail are within 15 miles of Cedar Grove, The Thomas Cole National Historic Site. Located in Catskill, New York, this was the home and studio of Thomas Cole, acknowledged founder of the movement. Wear comfortable shoes, open your eyes, and prepare to be inspired
Follow the Hudson River School Art Trail to the places that stimulated a distinctly American artistic identity. Seeing the sites on the Hudson River School Art Trail will be a memorable and rewarding experience, but be prepared to give it some time as the trail stops are located over a fairly wide area. Some of the stops are easy to get to by car, while others can be reached only on foot and range from an easy walk to a fairly strenuous hike. The Trail Map and Directions will help you to plan your visits to the sites you want to see.
Thomas Cole, Lake with Dead Trees (Catskill), 1825 (click painting to enlarge) |
Cedar Grove - Thomas Cole National Historic Site
The Main House and Studio are open by guided tours, which are offered Friday, Saturday & Sunday, 10 am to 4 pm, from early May through late October. The grounds are open free of cost, and a small fee is charged for the tour. For detailed information about hours, admission and group tours, log on to www.thomascole.org.
Olana State Historic Site
Tours of the house are offered daily (except Mondays), 10 am to 5 pm, April through November, and on weekends and by appointment from December through March. Reservations to tour the house are highly recommended. There is a small fee per car on weekends and holidays, and a year-round fee for the guided house tour. For more information, log on to www.olana.org or call 518-828-0135.
North-South Lake Area
Your hike may require the purchase of a day-use fee at the New York State DEC's North-South Lake Campground, which is open from early May through late October. For information during the camping season, call the campground office at 518-589-5058, or call the DEC Regional Office year-round at 518-357-2234.
The Hudson River School Art Trail is a project of the Thomas Cole National Historic Site, presented in partnership with Olana, the home and workplace of Frederic Church, and with the National Park Service Rivers & Trails program, with assistance from the Greene County Tourism Promotion Department. The Trail project is funded in part by a grant from the U.S. Department of Transportation, with special thanks to Congressman John Sweeney for his support.
For more information:
The Hudson River School Art Trail is a project of Cedar Grove, The Thomas Cole National Historic Site, Spring Street, Catskill, New York 12414
Phone (518) 943-7465
The National Recreation Trails Program
American Trails, P.O. Box 491797, Redding, CA 96049-1797 • (530) 547-2060 • Fax: (530) 547-2035 • [email protected] • www.AmericanTrails.org


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The B.C. Liberal opposition has selected its critics to respond to Premier John Horgan's new majority government, with interim leader Shirley Bond taking on a new role of seniors and long-term care.
Bond said Monday the 28-member official opposition is taking a team approach to the COVID-19 crisis, and will share the load with rookie Kelowna-Mission MLA Renee Merrifeld, who takes on the role of health critic. Former health critic Norm Letnick (Kelowna-Lake Country) becomes assistant deputy speaker.
"It's about leading by example," Bond said of her own role in releasing the lineup Nov. 30. "It's about the incredibly hard work that all of our critics will have to do, and I think it sends a signal about how important we think those issues are."
Peace River South MLA Mike Bernier is the new finance critic as incoming Finance Minister Selina Robinson prepares a budget to deal with the huge demands and deficits of the pandemic. Fraser-Nicola MLA Jackie Tegart replaces Bernier as education critic, as schools have their own struggles with carrying on while controlling the spread of coronavirus infection.
Skeena MLA Ellis Ross takes over as environment and climate change critic, and Kootenay East MLA Tom Shypitka is the critic for energy and mines as B.C. carries on pipeline construction and continuing greenhouse gas reduction efforts.
RELATED: Carole James stays on to advise John Horgan
RELATED: B.C. reverts to 'stand-alone' forests ministry
Vancouver-Langara MLA Michael Lee has a key critic role for transportation and infrastructure. B.C. is moving to the final stages of the Kicking Horse Pass portion of the Trans-Canada Highway, with that and other sections subject to the NDP government's union-restricted contracts. Horgan has told the new transportation minister, Rob Fleming, that that public construction model is to be used in future projects, as B.C. and Canada expect big infrastructure works to help the economy recover in the coming years.
Lee was one of the candidates who ran against Vancouver-Quilchena MLA Andrew Wilkinson for the leadership after Christy Clark resigned in 2017. The other contenders include Abbotsford West MLA Mike de Jong, who becomes attorney general critic, and Kamloops South Thompson MLA Todd Stone, critic for jobs, economic recovery and innovation.
Wilkinson is not assigned a specific portfolio. Bond said he has agreed to use his extensive experience as a minister and deputy minister to "support multiple critic roles" as the opposition takes on a 57-member NDP government caucus. A brief session is scheduled to start Dec. 7.
The full list of B.C. Liberal critics:
Advanced Education, Skills Training and Sport – Coralee Oakes
Agriculture and Food – Ian Paton
Attorney General – Mike de Jong
Citizens' Services – Bruce Banman
Children, Family Development and Child Care – Karin Kirkpatrick
Columbia Basin Initiatives – Doug Clovechok
Energy, Mines and Low Carbon Innovation – Tom Shypitka
Education – Jackie Tegart
Environment and Climate Change Strategy – Ellis Ross
Finance – Mike Bernier
Fisheries, Aquaculture and BC Ferries – Jordan Sturdy
Forests, Lands, & Natural Resources – John Rustad
Gender Equity, Accessibility & Inclusion – Stephanie Cadieux
Health – Renee Merrifield
Housing – Ben Stewart
Indigenous Relations and Reconciliation – Peter Milobar
Jobs, Economic Recovery and Innovation – Todd Stone
Labour – Greg Kyllo
Mental Health and Addictions – Trevor Halford
Municipal Affairs – Dan Ashton
Public Safety and Solicitor General – Mike Morris
Rural Development – Lorne Doerksen
Seniors Services & Long Term Care – Shirley Bond
Social Development and Poverty Reduction – Dan Davies
Tourism, Arts and Culture, and Anti-Racism Initiatives – Teresa Wat
Transportation, Infrastructure and TransLink – Michael Lee
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Jack Lousma
Jack Lousma is an American astronaut who was born on February 29. 1936, in Michigan. Before he became an astronaut, Lousma was a Marine pilot. He has logged over 4500 hours in several different aircraft.
Lousma became an astronaut in 1966. He has spent over 1608 hours in space on two spaceflights.
Lousma made his first spaceflight as the pilot of Skylab 3 in 1973. This mission was dedicated to medical research and Earth studies. His second spaceflight was made in 1982, on STS-3. This was the third test flight of the newly designed shuttle.
Lousma left NASA in 1983. He currently owns a company in Michigan.


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Keyrings: a multitude of promotional applications
It's true. Keyrings are great for corporate gifts, events or giveaways at shows. Have a business that deals with keys? Brand up a range of custom keyrings designed for your company, so clients can keep their keys together and organised! Putting on or exhibiting at an expo or trade show? Make sure you've got a keyring to go in your goody bag or as a stand freebie.
With a range of types, styles, colours and materials, our branded keyrings give you an endless possibility of options, and if you can't find a keyring that meets your requirements then get in touch - we're experts at finding the right product for your marketing campaign, however big or small. Being a budget promotional item, often bought in bulk, Fluid can source printed logo keyrings at a very competitive price, making them very effective low cost promotional product to promote your brand in the advertising or marketing industry.
Custom trolley coin keyrings
Trolley coins are still a very useful and versatile promotional item, popular with charity and for non-profit organisations (along with many other industry types). There are a wide variety of budget and premium options available, there's a great range of eco friendly printed keyrings too. Our branded trolley coin keyrings come with a variety of printing options, including laser engraving, full colour print, digital printing and pad printing.
Printing budget keyrings and keychains
A keyring is not just a keyring these days. Just keeping your keys together is so last year.
Fluid keyrings and keychains have a much wider variety of functions or uses, including lights, magnifiers, measuring tapes, whistles, spirit levels and bottle openers to name but a few. The ad loop keyring is a typical type of keyring which is very popular in the promotion industry, and being made of flexible plastic will mean it doesn't leave scratches or marks on any paintwork. On the whole, whatever keyring you are looking for - metal, plastic, leather or multi function - our team will be sure to help you find the perfect product for your marketing campaign.


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Lisa Hanawalt's comics are about horses and cats and genitals and things. Some of her less racy work has appeared in The New York Times. Here we talk about pitching TV shows, making minis and the depressing dangers of working from home. (Note: we are catching up with RiYL podcasts that have been previously published.)
RiYL: RSS |
iTunes |
Interested in sponsoring one of Boing Boing's podcasts? Visit Podlexing!


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Catastrophic flood results. In the January 2011 floods in the Lockyer Valley of south east Queensland, the flow of water in the normally quiet creek was somewhere between 100 and 200 km per hour (60-120mph). Enormous boulders some the size of 4 or 5 cars were literally picked up and moved, reports a University of Queensland research group (Gatton Lockyer and Brisbane Valley Star November 30th 2011, p22). The Gatton press reported "The boulders weren't just rolled along they were picked up, suspended in water, and moved kilometres. Water did in a day what should have taken hundreds of thousands of years….The erosion has also exposed a series of past riverbeds where major flooding has occurred before." Lockyer Valley Mayor, Steve Jones said, "this is a significant scientific find, but it also shows events like this are more common than we believe".
Editorial Comment: So even a single day in the life of planet Earth can be catastrophic. And a single event can be massive which means that when the researchers reported that the erosion was the equivalent of 100,000 years of erosion, they missed the point: time doesn't erode anything, a process does and when you have the right process you get the resulting effect without the time.
It's time to use geologists' logic against them. Most geologists, biologists and everyone else thinks in terms of Charles Lyell's "present is the key to the past" uniformitarianism, so they are blind to think about how a catastrophe on a big enough scale would actually explain much of the geology we see around us. But think about using "the present is the key to the past" in the following way: if one day's rain on one little mountain range, produced such erosion and shifted immense boulders kilometres, what would be the result of forty days and nights of rain combined with water exploding out of the fountains of the deep, along with any resulting tectonic plate movement followed by water savaging around the Earth for the next year? Now Noah's flood doesn't look that silly at all, does it? Suddenly all needed processes would have been available for massive continental scouring, post flood run-off with Grand Canyon events, massive life destruction, etc. without vast time spans at all. Never forget one important key: Time does nothing. Millions of years don't make life possible, and millions of years do not produce Grand Canyons. Only the right process produces life, and only the right process produces erosion events like the great unconformity or the Grand Canyon.
Funny the press would choose to report this January 2011 event in the following December. This editor has been actually using footage of this eroded creek bed since January in our presentations on evaluating Noah's Flood. We lead students to the Lockyer Valley quite often to do field trips, and we often venture up and down Murphy's Creek looking for fossils where the inland Tsunami took off, so we know what the area looked like before the one day catastrophic event, and we have plenty of photos of the area to compare before and after effects. (Ref. flood, cataclysm, Genesis)
Evidence News 7 December 2011


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The Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation has just concluded its annual summit in Honolulu, once President Obama's home turf. It will probably be most remembered for the traffic jams it created in the Waikiki Beach area, to the consternation of residents and tourists alike.
APEC's continuing existence is a puzzle to many, for APEC's record of irrelevance is rivaled by few other international forums. It was not always so. I still remember the early 1990s, when APEC was one of the key battlegrounds against neoliberalism and free trade. The Uruguay Round of negotiations was stalled, and President Bill Clinton proposed and pushed for the Asia Pacific Free Trade Area as a U.S.-centered trading bloc that would counter the European Union if the Uruguay Round failed.
That first effort to create an APEC FTA failed, when the Osaka Summit in 1995 affirmed that liberalization would be carried out "voluntarily, flexibly, and in a non-binding fashion," a position that had been pushed by key ASEAN countries along with Japan.
How Neoliberalism Ravaged the Asia Pacific
The Asia Pacific free trade area might have failed, but it was but one of the weapons that the ascendant neoliberal establishment deployed to pry open the Asian economies to free trade and the unrestricted flow of capital. Working via the International Monetary Fund (IMF), Washington pressured Asian economies to remove controls on capital flows to enable Wall Street speculators to have a piece of the so-called "Asian Miracle." The Southeast Asian economies agreed to the IMF prescription, and $100 billion in speculative capital flowed into East Asia in the period 1994-1997. This massive infusion of dollars led to overinvestment in real estate and the stock market, and when profits collapsed, the speculators panicked and fled. Some $100 billion left the region in just a few weeks in the summer of 1997, bringing down the economies of Thailand, Philippines, Korea, Malaysia, and Indonesia. Only those countries that did not follow the IMF advice to liberalize their capital accounts — notably China — did not go under.
In the midst of the crisis, the United States backed an IMF stabilization plan to provide the Asian governments with billions of dollars to satisfy their creditors in return for their agreement to implement austerity programs, which ultimately made the situation worse and plunged many economies into recession. At their deepest moment of crisis, Washington took advantage of the situation to force Thailand, Indonesia, and Korea to liberalize many of their laws on trade, capital movement, and investment.
These opportunistic moves left such a bad taste among citizens and governments in the region that countries built up multibillion-dollar reserves to thwart future efforts by speculators to target their currencies. For all intents, it froze any further initiatives at trade liberalization as well as economic cooperation within APEC. Both Asian governments and their citizens remarked bitterly that the last thing they got from the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation was cooperation from the United States.
APEC and the U.S. "War on Terror"
In the next few years, the United States again demanded cooperation from the Asian countries. But this time, it stressed political and military cooperation in the so-called "War on Terror." The APEC Summit in Shanghai in November 2001 emphasized political instead of economic objectives, with APEC governments endorsing a U.S.-crafted communiqué condemning the September 11 terrorist attacks and pledging "to strengthen international cooperation at all levels in combating terrorism in a comprehensive manner."
Most of the APEC countries, however, confined their support mainly to rhetorical denunciations of terrorism, except for the Philippines. The administration of Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo welcomed U.S. Special Forces' participation in military actions against Islamic fundamentalists in the Southern Philippines, for which the country's status was upgraded—some would say downgraded—into a "major non-NATO ally." The U.S. role has worsened rather than improved the situation in the South.
Today's Geoeconomic Rivalry
In recent years, Washington has renewed its drive to create a pan-Pacific free trade area under its leadership. This time, the project is called the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), and in addition to the United States, participants in the negotiations include Brunei, Chile, New Zealand, Singapore, Peru, Australia, Vietnam, and Malaysia. The objective of the original agreement was to reduce all trade tariffs to zero by the year 2015. It now aims to be a comprehensive agreement covering all the main pillars of a free trade agreement, including trade in goods, rules of origin, trade remedies, sanitary and phytosanitary standards , technical barriers to trade, trade in services, intellectual property, government procurement, and competition policy. It is what analysts describe as "WTO-plus," meaning it hews more stringently to free trade and intellectual property rules than the WTO.
The intent of the free trade push is the same as in the 1990s, but it is being pursued in a new context. First of all, like the Doha Round of the WTO, the TPP is seen by Washington as one method by which it can revive its economy from the state of stagnation to which it has been brought by the financial crisis. Second, its TPP push is a defensive reaction to China's major successes in its economic diplomacy in the region, particularly the forging of the China-ASEAN Agreement of 2002 (CAFTA – not to be confused with DR-CAFTA in the Western hemisphere), which took effect at the beginning of last year.
Touted as the world's biggest Free Trade Area, CAFTA is billed as having 1.7 billion consumers, with a combined gross domestic product of $2 trillion and total trade of $1.3 trillion. Under the agreement, trade between China and six ASEAN countries of Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, Thailand, and Singapore has become duty-free for more than 7,000 products. By 2015, the newer ASEAN countries, Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia, and Myanmar, will join the zero-tariff arrangement.
Like the case of the United States and the TPP, CAFTA is likely to favor the hegemonic power and its economic elite. Thus, beneath the surface goodwill of the APEC summits, the world's largest and second-largest economies are maneuvering to achieve economic hegemony in the world's most dynamic region. China is ahead, not simply because it was able to forge a wide-reaching trade agreement, but also because over the last 20 years, it has been able to integrate the rest of East Asia into its economy. Other East Asian countries supply the raw materials and components that foreign and Chinese manufacturers in China put together into finished products for export to the United States and Europe.
Of course, at present the dynamics of competition are moderated by the so-called complementary relationship between the world's largest economies, with China's export-oriented manufacturing base continuing to depend on the U.S. market and the United States continuing to depend on credit from China. But with China realizing it must cultivate other markets and the United States trying to achieve predominance in Asia-Pacific markets in order to rebuild its eroded export capacity, competition will increasingly dominate the relationship.
Geopolitical Jockeying
Even as their geoeconomic rivalry worsens, the geopolitical jockeying between the two powers has intensified. Ever since its offensive across the Pacific in the Second World War, the United States has maintained its forces in the Western Pacific. Over time, Washington has come to consider the ocean an American lake policed by the U.S. Pacific Command based in Honolulu. Unlike in Europe, Washington has preferred to deal with crises in the region not through multilateral mechanisms like the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, but unilaterally, by deploying the Navy and sending in the marines. Indeed, the Southeast Asian countries' effort to make the ASEAN Regional Forum a multilateral mechanism for settling regional disputes failed because the United States was so busy undermining it.
Today, the big question people are asking in Southeast Asia is, has China shed the low-profile military posture that Deng Xiaoping advocated so that the country could focus on economic development? There are disturbing indications that it has, and that it is following the unilateralist course pioneered by the United States.
This is most evident in the dispute over the Spratly Islands in the West Philippine Sea (formerly the South China Sea). China has not only rejected a multilateral settlement of conflicting territorial claims, which is the only viable way of addressing the issue when there are six different claimants. To widespread consternation and anger, it has claimed the whole West Philippine Sea as its own, right up to the 12-mile territorial limit of countries like Vietnam and the Philippines. And in case there was any doubt about Beijing's unilateral mood in setting the issue, the Global Times, an influential Communist Party mouthpiece, recently warned Vietnam and the Philippines thus: "If these countries don't want to change their ways with China, they will need to mentally prepare for the sounds of cannons. We need to be ready for that, as it may be the only way for the disputes in the sea to be resolved." Does this statement reflect official thinking, or is it saber rattling to support a diplomatic stance? Either way, it reflects a view that is hostile to multilateralism.
Of course, don't make the mistake of thinking that China's military power is in any way at par regionally with that of the United States. China is probably decades away from coming close to regional parity. Its recent launching of an aircraft carrier bought from Ukraine (purportedly for use as a casino) is hardly, as the Economist put it, a symbol of Chinese "prowess." The creation of a carrier battle-group and mastery of its combat tactics are years away, and the Chinese know it. But what is important here is the symbolism. With its launch of a carrier, China has signaled its neighbors and the world of its intention to become a naval power, even if that status will take a few decades to attain.
Toward a Truly Relevant Multilateral Association
Ever since the APEC Trans-Pacific Free Trade Area initiative failed in the mid-1990s, APEC has served mainly as a bully pulpit for the United States to promote its economic and political objectives, while other members have professed to see it as a useful forum for dialogue. What is clear to many analysts is that it has ended up as a club with no clear direction or function. To address the many critical problems that the Asia Pacific region faces today, APEC is next to useless. At no other time has the region been in such need of an effective non-partisan multilateral association.
What are the key issues that must be addressed today by such a body?
As discussed above, there is the threat of the smaller economies being caught in the middle of the geoeconomic rivalry between the United States and China. We need a multilateral body that would assure the smaller countries and less developed economies of the region, including the Pacific Island economies, the space in which they can develop their strategies of sustainable development, free from the deadly dynamics of free trade and finance capital.
Geopolitical rivalry between the United States and China appears to be the trend. A truly non-partisan multilateral body would act to contain this threat in cooperation with the United Nations instead of serving as a forum for saber-rattling and browbeating governments, as APEC has been for the United States. At the same time, it could serve as a mechanism for the peaceful resolution of disputes, of which there are a number in the region — some of which have erupted into hostilities, like the Preah Vihear Temple conflict between Thailand and Cambodia. APEC has been too U.S.-oriented to serve this purpose, and the ASEAN Regional Forum has lacked broad-based legitimacy. The most critical conflicts that such a peace-building body should address are the continuously volatile situation in the Korean peninsula and the territorial disputes in the West Philippine Sea.
A third area that cries out to be addressed by a non-partisan pan-Pacific body is the very advanced environmental crisis in the APEC area. Despite its oft-stated commitment to deal with climate change, APEC has not dared to nudge the United States and China, the world's two biggest greenhouse gas emitters, toward a mandatory agreement to reduce their emissions.
Yet climate change has become very pronounced in the APEC region. In the last year alone, extreme weather events have ravaged APEC members Russia, China, Australia, Laos, Cambodia, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Thailand. As everyone watching television knows, the great city of Bangkok is being besieged by floodwaters from the wettest monsoon ever.
Let's face it. When it comes to climate change and other environmental crises sweeping the region, such as deforestation, overfishing, and the alarming loss of biodiversity, APEC has been next to useless.
A fourth problem that a non-partisan multilateral body must address is the condition of migrant workers. Waves of migrant workers now regularly cross borders in the APEC region, from Indonesia to Malaysia, from the Philippines to Singapore and Hong Kong, from China to Japan and the United States. A great many of these labor migrants are not documented, thus subjecting them to abuse by labor traffickers and severe exploitation in their host economies. Even when they have papers, migrant workers often do not enjoy many of the rights to which other workers are entitled. And most face the fundamental inequity of contributing their labor to the host economy year in and year out and not being able to settle there.
A fifth problem throughout the APEC region is the dismal condition of indigenous peoples. From the Maori of Aotearoa to the people of West Papua who are struggling for independence to the Hawai'i maoli, indigenous, aboriginal peoples are treated as second-class citizens. APEC has been totally irrelevant to the needs and demands of these people.
In sum, there are great problems in the region that cry out for solutions from a truly non-partisan, multilateral association of states, one that is not under the thumb of hegemonic powers, that serves as a constructive forum for member states at par with one another and where civil society is also given representation.
The work of establishing such a body will most likely fall on the smaller states, working with a vibrant civil society that now cooperates across borders. More than ever, as governments falter or turn inwards or scale down their ambitions, the voice, vision, and intervention of civil society are needed to create a regional association that really serves the interest of the pan-Pacific community.
Walden Bello is a member of the Philippine House of Representatives, president of the Freedom from Debt Coalition, and a senior analyst of the Bangkok-based Focus on the Global South. He is a columnist for Foreign Policy In Focus and the author of The Food War.


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It is perversely ironic that we Americans, even those who profess opposition to war, generally glorify the people who fight our wars. In contrast, we usually treat conscientious objectors with undisguised disdain. They are, in the minds of many, malingerers, shirkers, cowards, even traitors, not models of principled rectitude and courage.
Not until the day comes when conscientious objectors are seen to be contributing to society rather than evading sacrifice will they be accorded acceptance and respect. And only then will the possibility of discrediting and eliminating war as a preferred instrument of statecraft become a realizable ideal. The path to that end lies in the legitimization and institutionalization of selective conscientious objection: the currently unaccepted right of those in uniform to formally express their objection to, and refusal to serve in, particular wars.
At present, such selective opposition is proscribed by law. The legal provision covering conscientious objection, found in the Military Selective Service Act, reads: "Nothing contained in this title...shall be construed to require any person to be subject to combatant training and service in the armed forces of the United States who, by reason of religious training and belief, is conscientiously opposed to participation in war in any form."
The key phrase "war in any form" is further clarified in Pentagon policy: "An individual who desires to choose the war in which he or she will participate is not a Conscientious Objector under the law. The individual's objection must be to all wars rather than a specific war." Thus, an individual opposed to serving in a particular war—one badly conceived or wrongfully conducted for instance—must, in order to be honorably discharged or assigned to noncombatant duties, demonstrate convincingly that he/she opposes all war, or be willing to face dire consequences (court-martial and possibly prison), or take more drastic action—like deserting, going absent without leave, missing troop movement or disobeying an order. For someone not opposed to all war (especially wars of necessity) and otherwise willing to serve this country in uniform, the current situation poses an intractable dilemma that argues for legalizing selective conscientious objection.
Reasons for a New Law
The need for selective objection is rooted first in the fact that the machinery of war in this country is seriously broken. All recent U.S. presidents have sought to expand and exercise their war-making powers at the expense of Congresses that consistently have favored political and ideological loyalties over their constitutional duty to check and balance executive excess. Congresses have gone to extraordinary lengths to avoid the politically risky responsibility for declaring wars and then for ending them. And the Supreme Court, abjuring its prerogative for judicial review, has resolutely refused to rule on the legality of particular wars. Thus the constitutional superstructure meant to tether the dogs of war provides precious little protection to those in uniform, the pawns of war.
The need for selective objection also rests on the contractual relationship between military personnel, the government and society. The written contract governing the men and women in uniform is their oath of office, which binds adherents to support unreservedly and defend the Constitution and obligates them to obey the lawful orders of the president and other superior officers. All in uniform therefore give dutiful, silent obedience and tacitly accept restrictions on individual rights in return for lawful, constitutional behavior by those above them in the chain of command.
But there also is a tacit social contract of mutual rights, obligations and expectations. This unwritten contract implies that in return for giving dutiful obedience and giving up certain rights, military personnel have a right to expect and receive from their superiors behavior that is not only constitutional and legal, but also ethical, competent and accountable. Where government (including the military chain of command) fails on any of these counts, the contract, and with it the reciprocal obligation for dutiful obedience and forgone rights, is broken.
Two other factors underscore the need for selective objection. Most notably, contemporary wars are no longer wars of necessity; they are, without exception, wars of choice. Yet conscientious objection is predicated on the unexamined notion that the wars we fight are wars of necessity, involving a one-way relationship of government rights and individual obligations. When wars of choice are the norm, however, when survival is not at stake and emergency conditions do not prevail, the reverse of this relationship is called for: one in which government is obligated to act responsibly and competently, while individuals in uniform retain the right not to serve (or honor their commitment) when government fails to meet its obligations.
Another factor underscoring the need for selective conscientious objection is, counterintuitively, America's volunteer military. Historically, conscientious objection has been tolerated principally because of its relationship to conscription. Some would argue that conscientious objection does not and should not apply to volunteers who have joined the military of their own volition, eyes wide open, knowing full well what to expect. Of all people, they should be willing to forsake certain rights, defer unquestioningly to higher authority and face the ultimate sacrifice.
It is instructive, however, to remind ourselves that Title 10 of the United States Code specifies the mission of the U.S. Army as not simply to wage war, but to be "capable...of preserving the peace and security, and providing for the defense, of the United States." Arguably, therefore, the law is on the side of those in uniform who volunteer to defend their country as a matter of necessity, not to fight wars of choice wrongly undertaken or wrongfully prosecuted.
Purposes It Would Serve
Selective conscientious objection would serve three major purposes. First, it would protect military personnel by according them the most fundamental right any party to a social contract deserves: the right to withdraw from that contract (or seek redress) if the other party—the government in general, the military in particular—breaks or fails to honor it.
Second, it would serve, in the absence of conscription, as a much-needed internal moral compass for U.S. war-making. Ideally, conscription serves this purpose by creating stakeholders throughout society—especially among elites otherwise disinclined to serve or have their offspring serve—who are willing to scrutinize and restrain the use of military force. But since conscription seems destined to remain a vestige of America's past, selective objection would be a surrogate, the presumption being that legalizing the practice would embolden those in uniform—war's ultimate stakeholders—who object to wrongful and wrong-headed wars to express their opposition formally. At some point, a critical mass of such internal opposition might be reached that would force lawmakers and society to take notice and act.
Third, selective objection would place a premium on deliberative reason, rather than religious (or religious-like) belief, and thereby serve the embedded aim of producing individuals in uniform who are civically engaged and civically competent, not simply true-believing followers of religious or ideological dogma.
If ever there was a time to put a system of selective conscientious objection in place, it is now. Otherwise, individuals of conscience who are courageous enough to step outside the obedient herd will continue to attract undeserved opprobrium, war will persist as our eternal lot, and we will have only our own silent indifference to blame.


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The new group rejects the "war on drugs" model. It agrees that we don't want to lock people up for casual marijuana use — or even stigmatize them with an arrest record. But what we do want to do is send a clear message: Marijuana use is a bad choice.
There are many excellent reasons to avoid marijuana. Marijuana use damages brain development in young people. Heavy users become socially isolated and perform worse in school and at work. Marijuana smoke harms the lungs. A growing body of evidence suggests that marijuana can trigger psychotic symptoms that otherwise would have remained latent.
It's possible to imagine a marijuana rule that tries to respond precisely to such risk factors as happen to be known by the current state of science. Such a rule might say: "You shouldn't use marijuana until you are over 25, or after your brain has ceased to develop, whichever comes first. You shouldn't use marijuana if you are predisposed to certain mental illnesses (most of which we can't yet diagnose in advance). Be aware that about one-sixth of users will become chronically dependent on marijuana, and as a result will suffer a serious degradation of life outcomes. As yet, we have no sure idea at what dosage marijuana will impair your ability to drive safely, or how long the impairment will last. Be as careful as you can, within the limits of our present knowledge!"
Yet as a parent of three, two exiting adolescence and one entering, I've found that the argument that makes the biggest impression is: "Marijuana is illegal. Stay away." I think many other parents have found the same thing.
When we write social rules, we always need to consider: Who are we writing rules for? Some people can cope with complexity. Others need clarity. Some people will snap back from an early mistake. Others will never recover.
"Just say no" is an easy rule to follow. "It depends on individual risk factors, many of them unknowable in advance" — that rule is not so easy.
Over the past three decades, and in area after area of social life, Americans have replaced simple rules that anybody can follow with complex rules that baffle large numbers of people.
Consider, for example, the home mortgage. Once the mortgage was a very simple product. Put 20% down, then sign up for a fixed schedule of payments over the next 30 years. In the space of a single generation, these 30-year fixed-rate amortizing mortgages turned what had been a nation of renters into a nation of homeowners.
For more sophisticated buyers, however, the standard mortgage was a big nuisance. For them, bankers developed more flexible products: no money down, no documentation, interest-only, adjustable rate. These products met genuine needs. But as they diffused down-market, they became traps for people who did not understand the risks they were accepting.
Consider how we finance higher education. Once, state governments subsidized their universities to offer a low tuition fee to all comers. Fee increases at private universities were constrained by the lower fees at the public institutions: Duke can raise its price only so high above the University of North Carolina. The universities soon realized, however, that by setting their tuition fees low, they were forgoing revenues that might be collected from the most affluent students. Universities rapidly raised their tuition fees, then offered discounts and aid to students in need.
But while anybody could understand a $500 per semester tuition bill, the new system of rebates confuses the very people who most need help.
A few days before Christmas, Jason DeParle of The New York Times reported a depressing example of the toll modern financial aid exacts upon students from less sophisticated backgrounds. He told the story of three bright girls from poor families who had recently tried — and failed — to gain college degrees. One of them was admitted to Emory, a prestigious school with a full-ticket price of $50,000, but one that grants very generous financial aid — if the student can figure out how to make the financial aid work for her.
The trouble was that students who most need aid are often precisely those who have nobody around them who has ever successfully navigated a complicated bureaucratic institution like a university financial aid office.
"Though Emory sent weekly e-mails — 17 of them, along with an invitation to a program for minority students — they went to a school account she had not learned to check," DeParle wrote.
"Angelica reported that her mother made $35,000 a year and paid about half of that in rent. With her housing costs so high, Emory assumed the family had extra money and assigned … an income of $51,000. … (Angelica) discovered what had happened only recently."
Unable to cope with the school's e-mail system or to decrypt its rules for imputing family income, Angelica finally dropped out of Emory, burdened by $61,000 in student debt.
In 1943, Vice President Henry Wallace published a book celebrating the coming "century of the common man." That century did not last very long. We have transitioned instead into the era of the clever man and clever woman. We have revised our institutions, our programs, our rules in ways that offer profitable new chances to those with cultural know-how — and that inflict disastrous consequences on those who are overwhelmed by a world of ever-more-abundant and ever-more-risky choices.
We're not going to uninvent the no-money-down loan. Universities that receive applications from all over the planet cannot finance themselves like an old-fashioned state land-grant college. But we need to recognize that modern life is becoming steadily more dangerous for people prone to make bad choices.
At a time when they need more help than ever to climb the ladder, marijuana legalization kicks them back down the ladder. The goal of public policy should not be to punish vulnerable kids for making life-wrecking mistakes. The goal of public policy should be to protect (to the extent we can) the vulnerable from making life-wrecking mistakes in the first place.
There's a trade-off, yes, and it takes the form of denying less vulnerable people easy access to a pleasure they believe they can safely use. But they are likely deluding themselves about how well they are managing their drug use. And even if they are not deluded — if they really are so capable and effective — then surely they can see that society has already been massively re-engineered for their benefit already. Surely, enough is enough?


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Google diving into 3D mapping of oceans
New feature will allow users to "fly" through oceans and seas and view high-resolution images of the underwater topography, researchers say.
We've got Google Earth and Google Sky. Next up will be a map of the world below sea level--Google Ocean.
The company has assembled an advisory group of oceanography experts, and in December invited researchers from institutions around the world to the Mountain View, Calif., Googleplex. There, they discussed plans for creating a 3D oceanographic map, according to sources familiar with the matter.
The tool--for now called Google Ocean, the sources say, though that name could change--is expected to be similar to other 3D online mapping applications. People will be able to see the underwater topography, called bathymetry; search for particular spots or attractions; and navigate through the digital environment by zooming and panning. (The tool, however, is not to be confused with the "Google Ocean" project by France-based Magic Instinct Software that uses Google Earth as a visualization tool for marine data.)
Asked to comment on Google Ocean, a Google spokeswoman said the company had "nothing to announce right now."
Oceanography researchers, however, say such a tool would be incredibly useful.
"There is no real terrain or depth model for the ocean in Google Earth," said Tim Haverland, a geospatial application developer at the Fisheries Service of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). "You can't get in a submarine and in essence fly through the water and explore ocean canyons yet."
Google Ocean will feature a basic layer that shows the depth of the sea floor and will serve as a spatial framework for additional data, sources said, adding that Google plans to try to fill in some areas of the map with high-resolution images for more detail.
Additional data will be displayed as overlying layers that depict phenomena like weather patterns, currents, temperatures, shipwrecks, coral reefs, and algae blooms, much like the National Park Service and NASA provide additional data for Google Earth and Google Sky.
"Google will basically just provide the field and then everyone will come flocking to it," predicted Stephen P. Miller, head of the Geological Data Center at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography. "There will be peer pressure to encourage people to get their data out there."
While satellite imagery has the entire globe covered, as well as a good amount of known outer space, much less is known about the bodies of water that cover about 70 percent of the planet. Only a small percentage of the sea floor has been mapped in detail by sonar.
"It would take about 100 ship years to map the oceans at high resolution," said Dave Sandwell, a professor of geophysics at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography.
Sandwell speculated that Google will get at least some of the basic sea floor data from Scripps'
To bring more clarity to the sea floor, Sandwell and others said, Google will likely use high-resolution grids from oceanographic institutions showing the depths of select areas of the seas and paste them in. Data for those grids, which cover a very small portion of the sea floor, are created by ships using multibeam sonar.
One possible source for Google Ocean data are detailed "tiles" from multibeam and predicted topography compiled by the Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory (LDEO) of Columbia University. Tiles are high-resolution sun-shaded images as well as digital elevation models covering the entire global ocean that allow for interactivity similar to Google Earth, where you can get different views by zooming in and out and by tilting the planet's surface.
"Our application gets data from databases over the Internet without the user having to know the name of the database or how to connect to it. Google could talk to our databases," said William B. F. Ryan, an earth and environmental studies professor at Columbia's LDEO.
Ryan cautioned that "Google would have to put the tiles on their servers because their public of millions would bring the servers at Columbia University to their knees."
On top of the depth map, and in addition to the select high-resolution tiled areas, there will likely be various layers of specialized data from different sources. For example, NOAA already has made public visual information for Google Earth related to sea hotspots around coral reefs, Gulf of Mexico marine debris, surface temperatures and wave heights in the Great Lakes, and shipwrecks.
In addition to the "wow factor" Google Ocean will no doubt have for amateur oceanographers, marine enthusiasts, and anyone fascinated by the movie
"We hope that one of the outcomes of Google Ocean will be an understanding of how much remains to be explored," said Miller of Scripps. "We know far more about the surface of Mars from a few weeks of radar surveying in orbit than we know of the bottom of the ocean after two centuries."


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I was awakened by a phone call from a good friend. His opening words were, "Man, am I glad to hear your voice!"My instant response to that is usually, "Oh %$#@! Who bought the farm this time?"He said, "There was a fatal Mustang accident at Camarillo this morning and I'm happy to hear you weren't flying it."So was I!I will describe the events that led to the accident, the accident itself, what I believe to be the reasons for it, and what pilots can do to avoid similar accidents, including my reasoning for a slightly different "style" of go-around.
The Event
John McKittrick, age 42, had something around 1,700 hours of flying time, including a few hours of dual in a North American T-6 in Northern California, and he had a high-peformance tail-wheel endorsement from someone in Santa Paula. He owned and flew his own King Air.He bought a gorgeous, dual-control Mustang ("Lou IV"), fresh out of major rework by Paul Besterveld, a local pilot and entrepreneur who specializes in Mustang refurbishment, mostly as a labor of love, otherwise known as a hobby. Paul offered 20 hours of free dual in his own Harvard (a Canadian version of the North American AT-6) as part of the deal. Paul was rightly concerned that the new owner should get adequate training. McKittrick did not take advantage of that very generous offer, for he had already arranged for dual instruction in his new Mustang from Matt Jackson, a famous Reno Race pilot and a Warbird entrepreneur based in Van Nuys. He is well-qualified to instruct in the Mustang.
Is It Safe?
Now, let me say right up-front that I find all this reasonable enough. I have no trouble with the concept in general. Military pilots went into combat with the Mustang with less total time, and there were no dual-control Mustangs in those early days. I firmly believe that a talented pilot can do this safely enough with 500 hours, or even less, with proper training. On the other hand, I've seen too many pilots with more money than brains kill themselves in airplanes that are beyond their abilities. That doesn't appear to be the case this time. While I think McKittrick would have been better off to take the T-6 time offered, I can understand his eagerness to fly his new toy and get his training in the airplane he wanted to fly. With Matt in the back seat, it was a reasonable operation. Definitely not as safe as taking lessons in a 172, but given that someone wants to fly a Mustang, it's a good way to do it. The insurance company demanded at least 25 hours of dual instruction before he would be insured for solo flight, and they went well beyond that.(Gone are the days when just about anyone could buy a warbird and go fly without insurance, or with just liability insurance. Hull insurance is now required right along with liability, and I'm told the premiums are roughly 4% of the value.)At the other end of the scale, an experienced warbird pilot can familiarize himself with the Mustang cockpit, read the manual, and go fly it safely with no training at all, for it is among the easiest of the warbirds to fly. Since dual-control Mustangs are fairly hard to find, most did it just that way in days gone by. But most of those pilots were well-seasoned, with time in many different types. They had "salt," mostly. Today's crop of pilots seems to me to be excessively book-oriented, slaves to the regulations, and quick to cite "policy" and "SOP." Flying comes with an infinite set of variables, and most of them are not covered in writing.While the Mustang is a pussycat in many ways, it does have at least one very nasty tendency in common with all the big-engined fighters, and that is control at low airspeed and high power. This "feature" killed a lot of pilots in the military, and continues to do so today. This accident is almost certainly just one more example.The training was indeed accomplished and, by all reports, McKittrick did very well during 31.5 hours of dual instruction with 64 landings. Matt has stated to me that it was "15 hours too much," but insurance requirements dictated more, and McKittrick himself had a great attitude, not pushing for solo at all.
Time for Solo
On a lovely Sunday morning, the two of them flew to the Camarillo airport, which is perfect for this sort of thing. They taxied to the CAF ramp, where Matt advised the tower that he was releasing a pilot on his first solo in the Mustang, and he climbed out, telling McKittrick to make one pattern and taxi back. This is the normal procedure, which allows a de-brief and comments.Matt told me that the takeoff was fine, but that McKittrick snatched the gear up very, very quickly, which he considered odd, for he had not taught him that show-off stunt, used only in airshows when a roll after takeoff is intended. Matt made a mental note to de-brief the point.The pattern was normal, but Matt noted that, when turning final, McKittrick increased RPM to somewhere around the "book value" of 3,000, contrary to the 2,700 that Matt teaches. (The difference in sound is very distinctive). McKittrick had commented to Matt that morning that he had again reviewed the manual, which calls for 3,000.Otherwise, the approach and landing were all fine, ending with a normal wheel landing with the tail slightly low, just as he was taught, and "by the book." Perfect, except that it sounded like he did not fully close the throttle to idle, even after touchdown. That is normally done in the flare or slightly before, but some pilots will touch down with a little power when flying a new airplane. Not a bad technique to "cheat" a little, but it is a bad, bad habit if used all the time.After rolling along for perhaps 100 feet (a second or two), Matt noticed the tail come up a bit, perhaps to "pin" the aircraft to the ground. One local Mustang pilot theorized that the tail may have come up unexpectedly because Matt was no longer in the back seat. Matt is a very large man, and the back seat is aft of the CG, so this may or may not be a valid comment. I wonder if perhaps McKittrick felt the tail might be on the way up more quickly than he expected, with the nose coming down, and feared a prop strike? This probably was not a problem, but there is no way of knowing what he was thinking in the excitement of his first Mustang solo. The small amount of power he was still getting would also have made the controls more effective than he was used to at that point, perhaps exaggerating his pitch inputs.At that point, he jerked the stick back abruptly, with the tail wheel striking the ground hard enough to make an audible bang. This placed the airplane in a perfect attitude for flight, and since there was just enough speed left (and a touch of power), the airplane lifted off again, attaining a height of 10 feet or more. The normal recovery for this would be to hold or regain the three-point attitude, allow the aircraft to settle, then pull the stick fully back to make a three-point landing. A tiny shot of power would have been appropriate to blow a little air over the wings, create a little lift, and cushion the landing. That would be a perfectly normal bounce recovery, which McKittrick had done many, many times with Matt in back.For whatever reason, McKittrick jammed on full power, absolutely the worst thing he could have done, in my opinion. The airplane pitched to a very nose-high attitude, rolled to the left in the classic "torque roll" and hit the ground almost fully inverted, killing the pilot instantly. There was no fire.The NTSB and FAA reportedly investigated the accident the same day, and since all rules were complied with, all paperwork was in order, and no one else was hurt, with no "collateral damage," the case was closed within hours, and will most likely be ruled some variation of "pilot error."That's probably true, but I think there's more to it. I would say, "Pilot error caused by half a century of improper training in the go-around maneuver."
The Usual Procedure
The nearly-universal training for go-arounds is:
- Full power, as quickly as possible ("balls to the wall");
- Pitch up to some angle that will give maximum climb (angle or rate);
- Retract flaps when able; and
- Retract gear when "positive rate" is attained.
I have previously written about go-arounds in Baby on the Runway. That column adequately covered items 2, 3 and 4 above, but I did not cover item 1 as well as I should have. The column was written with the average GA (General Aviation) airplane in mind, and also for jets, and with that in mind, I stand by it. It was not particularly relevant for high-powered warbirds,
Prop Lever(s) Forward?
Conventional wisdom suggests that the prop control should be fully forward (full high RPM, a.k.a., low pitch, a.k.a., fine pitch) for landing, with widely differing advice on just when to do that. Some will do it well before entering the traffic pattern (noisy!), some will suggest in the pattern somewhere, and a lot of the warbird pilots strongly state that it should be pushed fully forward no later than on short final. All have strong opinions, and typically, many consider "their way" to be the only correct way. Any way will work, provided the pilot knows the airplane, and what to do, but I don't think this is even close to the best way.I have disagreed with that for more than 40 years, and I do not do it myself. I have been guilty of tolerating the procedure when instructing others, because it has become so strongly ingrained in the fraternity that it's just not worth the hassle to try and change more than 50 years of hard-core training, poor checklists, and group-think. I've also faithfully pushed the prop forward for landing when receiving instruction, or on the check rides I've taken, because some would consider it a "bust" not to do so, and few will listen to "logic" that is contrary to well-entrenched "conventional wisdom."In recent years, leaving the prop set for cruise all the way through the landing and rollout has gained some favor, and I've been suggesting it as a better way. For one thing, it is quieter for the neighbors.With high-powered airplanes at low airspeed, pushing the prop forward for the landing is a deadly, dangerous habit, and that habit probably helped to kill many pilots. I'm sure McKittrick received instruction in low-speed/ high-powered flight, and had been told many times to be gentle with power at low airspeed. All of us who fly these magnificent old airplanes know the danger, and most of us have scared ourselves a time or two getting a little too frisky with the throttle when it is hooked to somewhere around 2000 horsepower. There are at least three situations that will trap the new warbird pilot, and even a few experienced pilots have been killed when they forgot in the heat of the moment, reverting to instinct.The first trap is getting a bit too low and slow on the base-to-final turn. Very insidious, very deadly in any aircraft. Impossible to demonstrate or train for it, the only training is to stay out of that situation.The second is the last-second go-around that is entirely unexpected. This can be, and should be, a major training item, and McKittrick had a lot of these.The third is unexpectedly becoming airborne again after landing, either from a sudden gust of wind, or a bounce, or (as in this case) getting the nose too high after touchdown.Any of these will rattle the pilot, even more so in a strange airplane, and far more so in a very high-performance thrill-ride like the Mustang. There is an incredible adrenaline rush under these conditions. In these situations, when something unexpected happens, pilots will instinctively revert to the way they were trained from their student pilot days, and simply go "balls to the wall," with a gut feeling of "Oh, %$#@!, let's get out of here!"That's the last mistake they'll ever make, and things will go so bad, so fast, they'll never even know it. We need to change that instinct, I think.This is not limited to warbirds. My Bonanza with the Robertson STOL kit will fly so slowly that, at full power, it takes absolutely full right rudder, and a fair amount of right-wing roll control (there are no ailerons) to hold it straight. I'm a little surprised the FAA certificated it. When I upgraded from the 285-hp IO-520 to the 300-hp IO-550, it got a little worse, and I will not haul it off the ground at minimum speed. I'm sure there are other examples like this in the GA fleet. Some of the "hot" little experimentals like the Lancair IV-P show this tendency, so it's not as rare as you might think.A brief refresher on this important subject may be in order here, and then I'll get back to the accident, and go-arounds in general.
Four Forces
There are at least four "forces" that cause this problem. All four produce a left turn/roll/yaw tendency in aircraft with the prop turning clockwise (viewed from behind). Of course, the British, bless them, make engines that turn the other way, and those airplanes turn/yaw/roll to the right.I will limit my comments in this column to the clockwise-turning prop airplanes, unless otherwise noted.
First, There Is Torque
The word "torque" is often misused to mean the total effect of all four forces. In normal conversation this may be useful, but keep in mind that it is a misuse.In reality, torque is a simple reaction to the engine pouring all that power into the prop, and it is a pure roll force. Open the hood of your car and race the engine a little. You'll see the engine try to roll in the opposite direction from rotation, and quite vigorously. All that motion is from the horsepower accelerating the crankshaft one way, with the reaction twisting the engine the other way.In the airplane, if 2,000 hp is turning the prop one way, that same 2,000 hp is trying to roll the airplane the other way ("equal and opposite reaction"). In most GA aircraft, this force is not very significant because the horsepower is (relatively) low, the wings are relatively long (good leverage), and roll control is generally pretty effective. The effects from this force are mostly lost within the other forces. But in something like the Bearcat, the power is much higher, the torque is correspondingly greater, and the wings are shorter, giving less leverage. I assure you, the roll is there, and it's very noticeable. Left tires wear out much sooner on the Bear, and most pilots start the takeoff roll with full right aileron, regardless of other factors. It just feels better. Without that, it really feels like the airplane will lift the right gear right off the ground, and roll it over on the runway. It probably won't, but I'd rather not give it a chance.
Gyroscopic Force
You can demonstrate gyroscopic force by lifting one wheel of a bicycle clear of the ground, and having someone spin it. Try tilting the bike left and right, and you'll feel the gyroscopic effect. This effect is 90 degrees to the input, and proportional to the mass of the spinning object, the rotational speed and the effort put into changing the plane of rotation. It's very powerful on the bike wheel, even at low RPM. The force is immense when a pilot changes the plane of rotation of the prop by lifting the tail, and it causes pure yaw. This one is most noticeable on the Mustang because everyone seems to raise the tail to a near-level attitude on takeoff. Raising the tail quickly translates to a sharp left yaw as the tail comes up. I'm aware of one "expert" who insists on lifting the tail all the way to a nose-down attitude, a really dumb move. If the tail is lifted a bit slowly, no problem. But if someone lifts the tail prematurely, and too quickly, he'll be heading for the buckwheat to his left before he knows it. Best in all the high-powered airplanes is to just lift the tail a little, and slowly, perhaps half-way to the level attitude, and let the airplane fly off. Many who fly the Bearcat simply make three-point takeoffs, and this works because the airplane accelerates so quickly. With this technique, there is no gyroscopic effect to speak of, because the pilot is not trying to change the plane of rotation of a 1,000-pound, 12-foot flywheel turning at well over 1,000 RPM. Besides, anywhere near a level attitude in the Bearcat on the runway is likely to result in a prop strike.
At low airspeeds and high angles of attack (of the wing), the descending prop blade has a much greater angle of attack than the rising blade, creating much more "lift," which translates into more "forward pull" on the right half of the disk, or pure left yaw. As the airplane picks up speed, and the tail comes up (taildragger), the left-pulling force from p-factor is reduced. On the other hand, the nosedragger has very little p-factor while accelerating on the runway in a level attitude, but the effect will increase as the nose comes up to flying attitude.
"Swirl" Factor
Props impart a clockwise swirling motion to the slipstream, which corkscrews its way around the airplane. When this spiraling slipstream hits the vertical fin and rudder, it will be pushing against the left side, tending to yaw the airplane left. The part of the slipstream that passes under the tail finds nothing to push, so there is no opposing yaw effect. Personally, I'm a little doubtful this one has much effect, but I mention it for completeness. I cannot recall ever seeing good data, or real evidence, supporting this theory.
Aircraft Design
There have been many tricks to counter these effects. The Bearcat is the most modern prop fighter, and Grumman knew all the tricks by the time it was designed (too late to fly in WWII). I understand the engine is canted something like six degrees to the right and two degrees down, nicely reducing the "left pull" so common to the rest of the fleet.Most aircraft have a vertical stabilizer that is mounted to the fuselage with the leading edge canted, but that is for efficiency in cruise, not so much for control on takeoff.Mustang pilots usually pre-set six degrees of right rudder trim for takeoff, in the badly mistaken belief it will help to control the airplane on takeoff. It does not, it actually reduces the maximum available effectiveness of the rudder. It does create a lighter feel in the rudder, which is a horse of another color entirely. If I'm taking off in a left crosswind, I'll set left trim, which means I'll have to push harder with my right foot, but I'll have more "available rudder." Why the right trim, then? It's simply a good preset position for the climb portion of flight. By the time the aircraft is cleaned up, the power is reduced a bit, and the speed is 160 knots or so, the rudder trim will be perfect.(As a side note, it is generally not correct to say "degrees" when setting trim tabs. They are usually simple arbitrary marks near the knob or handle. Some are further marked with numbers for easy reference. Mustangs may be one exception: They are definitely marked with numbers and the degree symbol. I have not measured the actual deflection with a protractor.)The Spitfire is an interesting airplane, and not just because the prop turns "the other way." All of the above effects make this airplane turn/roll/yaw to the right. There is so much power available in the Mk XIV that the pilot runs out of rudder control at slow speeds during takeoff before attaining full power. It's actually possible in this airplane to apply power until the rudder hits the stop, then control the airplane left and right by changing the power. More power, it goes right, less power, it goes left. As the speed increases, more power can be applied, probably attaining full power right around liftoff. Update: Aug. 10, 2007 — A number of alert readers have taken me to task over the prop rotation on the Spitfire. The one I'm most familiar with is the Griffon-powered Mk. XIV, which does does turn counter-clockwise (as seen from behind). The Merlin-powered Spitfire props (the vast majority) turn clockwise.(Another side note: If the pilot has to think about which rudder pedal to push on takeoff, or how much, he's dead meat. The feet need to move instinctively, without conscious thought, "as needed." At most, the thought process will be "Gee, this feels funny," while barreling down the runway. With a few takeoffs, it won't feel funny anymore.)Some aircraft (like most Mustangs) have a locking tailwheel that locks to the rudder when the control stick is not fully forward. This gives the pilot a very positive "tailwheel steering" during taxi with the stick neutral or back, and this is also helpful early in the takeoff. Some T-6s also have this locking system. But it can also bite, as when trying to hold the tail up during landing (bad technique). That last inch or two of forward stick movement also unlocks the tailwheel, and there will be very little directional control when the tail touches down.Tailwheels that lock straight fore and aft do not help with control (contrary to common belief). The system is merely to keep the tailwheel from shimmying, and to keep the assembly straight as it retracts. Many airplanes have no locking tailwheel at all, and pilots will not notice any difference in directional control. I've even heard rumors that if pilots forget to lock the tailwheel on aircraft so equipped, they won't even know it. Not that I've ever done that myself. Of course not.Most of the fighters can handle full power early in the takeoff roll, provided the pilot is aggressive with the rudder, but in all the high-powered aircraft, it's best to be gentle with the power. It's easier on all those moving parts in the engine, too. By being gentle with the power, the pilot buys precious time to react to the changing forces leading him astray.All the above claptrap aside, it comes down to this: If you apply too much power too quickly, you need to be very fast and aggressive with the flight controls, and in some cases, there simply may not be enough control available. It is extremely difficult and dangerous to train for this close to the ground, and most training is to stay away from that area. McKittrick probably had full flaps or nearly full flaps down (properly so), and this would have allowed the airplane to still be flying at an even slower speed, which further reduced flight control effectiveness. The little bit of power he kept on would have made this even worse, allowing a slower airspeed before the stall. "Pouring on the coal," a perfectly natural thing to do in light of GA training in general, made the situation impossible, and even applying full control-deflection wouldn't have been enough.Let me belabor this. Matt Jackson certainly gave him instruction on applying full power suddenly, and how to control it. He certainly gave him instruction on recovery from bounced landings, either a small shot of power to "cushion" the next touchdown, or gently adding power for the "go." Heck, no one can do that many landings in any airplane without bouncing! What he could not train for is the sequence of events peculiar to this event. A bit of power still left on, the airplane unexpectedly rising into the air again at a very low airspeed, adrenaline at full flow, and perhaps a thought process of "I'm running out of runway!" Add to this the fact that it was all unexpected, right out of the blue. Recovery from that would have taken a very gentle application of power and a delicate touch on the controls, perhaps even deliberately "skipping" (deliberately bouncing) the next touchdown while the power was still coming up for a go-around.Once the airplane was high in the air, with the extreme nose-up attitude reported, nothing could have saved the airplane. Crashing straight ahead might have saved the pilot.
Better Go-Arounds
Now, finally, back to the subject of how we can do better go-arounds, and reduce these risks.First, let me say that we in the aviation community have a terrible tendency to work out some "universal method" that works best for the new student pilot in a Cherokee, and we use that forevermore without thinking much about it. Much of what we "know" comes from the massive flight training effort in World War II, when the goals and dynamics were very different. We then tend to apply that to all situations, in all aircraft, with all pilots. It's called "primacy," because, "You learn best what you learn first." That's fine for good habits, good techniques and good procedures, but can be lousy otherwise. The classic go-around is one example, in my opinion. If you're the "one size fits all" type, you probably won't like the rest of this column.
Don't Trim for Landing
Don't get in the habit of trimming for the landing. It may look cool, and it may help in the flare if you have a really weak left arm. You may even convince yourself that it helps you make better landings, but it's a killer in some airplanes on the go-around. Most airplanes will pitch up all by themselves when power is applied, some pitch up really hard. Having excessive nose-up trim makes this much worse, and may well make the airplane unflyable. If you experiment with your airplane, and find this effect benign, please don't fall into the trap of doing it because it works. Someday you may fly a different airplane in which it doesn't. Stay off the trim once over the airport boundary at the latest.
Flaps Don't Have to be Down Full
Think about the use of flaps. Just because there is a position marked "FULL" doesn't mean you should use it. Flaps don't have a major effect on some or even most GA aircraft, and most will land better (and just as short) with half flaps, or even none at all. Partial flaps will usually allow a slightly more nose-up attitude at touchdown, which may be beneficial on airplanes that tend to land on the nosewheel first (Comanches, Mooneys). There is probably no good reason to use flaps at all on any ILS approach in small GA aircraft. Some may say it makes the airplane more stable, but in reality, it simply feels different. Once you become accustomed to not using flaps for the ILS, the "feel" will be just fine. You won't need them for the landing either — all ILS runways are more than adequate for a flapless landing. Take a look at the stalling speed of your aircraft with and without flaps, you may be surprised at how small the difference is. Try it different ways, enough times to get over the "strangeness factor," and see how the airplane flies. Landing with less flap will make speed control a bit more important, but it decomplexifies the go-around. (I know that's not a proper word, but I like it, and it's my column.)(The legendary Paul Soderlind disagreed with Boeing so strongly on the use of 40-degrees of flaps on the 727 that he had all the Northwest 727 flap lever tracks bolted to prevent extension beyond 30 degrees. It didn't change the landing requirements more than a couple of hundred feet, and got away from a number of bad things. He's gone now, and I miss him a lot. We used to get into some real shouting matches in email, which we both loved.)Learn to slow down for the touchdown, and plan for the touchdown 100 or 200 feet beyond the threshold. (Never aim for the end; you'll stub your toe, one day.) I ask you, how many accidents have you heard of where the airplane stalled short of the runway? Now, how many have you heard of where the landing was "hot and long," and the airplane went off the far end of the runway? The big-iron pilots are terrible at this, with a really lousy record, sometimes on nice long runways. Why? Because we're all landing too fast. Pick your point on the runway, and put the airplane there, at the proper speed, which is just above the stall in most GA airplanes. A bit faster in jets, but well under Vref. The throttle should be fully closed at or before touchdown. A touch of power in a strange airplane, or after a long layoff, is a good method of "cheating," but it's a very, very poor habit to use it all the time.
At Last, The Prop (And My Point)
Seems such a small thing, but this really makes a difference: I suggest that you do not make a habit of pushing the prop all the way forward for the landing. In fact, I cannot think of a reason to do it at all, unless you're much too fast on final, and need the drag … when a go-around is more appropriate, anyway.Is "prop forward" needed for the go-around? No! If you leave the prop set for some sort-of cruise RPM, you're all set to return to cruise manifold pressure, and that's more than enough power to arrest the descent and start the go-around process in just about all cases, except anemic airplanes at high elevations (where full throttle won't kill you anyway).Key point; With the prop set for lower RPM, if you do panic and jam on full throttle (as McKittrick did), the low RPM will not let you get anywhere near full power, although it will probably give you more than you need. This means you will not get the "torque roll" so strongly in high-powered airplanes, and you will not get the strong nose-up pitch we see in so many airplanes, especially when trimmed too much. It won't scare passengers nearly as much, either, for it makes a very gentle transition from a normal approach angle to the go-around.Gentle transitions are good. The usual go-around (from decades of training and lack of practice) are all too often a slam-bang, semi-botched maneuver. Let's slow it down, folks! None of us do them enough to get away with "quick!"If you get "too much" manifold pressure with low RPM, it won't hurt a thing for a short time, even in "delicate" engines like the big Merlins. It takes time for the engine to heat up enough to produce detonation, the big fear. An overboost for 10 to 30 seconds isn't going to hurt a thing, in my opinion. The detonation many fear is at power settings well beyond any sane limits. (Full throttle — at the physical stop — in the normal Mustang is 61 inches at 3,100 RPM, and the Reno racers run 120 inches or more, and 3,600 RPM, and probably in detonation all the time.)Matt taught McKittrick to use only 2,700 RPM in the pattern and for the landing, for some or all of the reasons above. And he taught the use of only 46 inches of manifold pressure for go-arounds and climb, also to get a more benign response. We'll never know why McKittrick chose to use 3,000 RPM for the fatal landing, and probably full power. Perhaps he felt "The Book Knows Best," and decided that, since it was his airplane, and he was now in command, he'd follow the book. Matt's no dummy, and he's got several thousand hours in these airplanes, much of it under "demanding" conditions, to say the least.
The New Procedure
My suggested go-around in any airplane, in all but the most difficult conditions:Add throttle gently. At a minimum, you want enough to stop the descent, fly level, and maintain speed. You should probably limit yourself to roughly cruise power for that initial power setting in most airplanes. No need to be exact, no need to even look at the manifold pressure, just shove in "enough" by feel.Fly level. Do not allow climb for a few seconds, until the airplane and your mental condition have stabilized and caught up. If you are not descending, and not losing speed, you're in fine shape. Take your time; this is the point where most pilots get rushed and botch the whole process. There is no hurry. You will almost certainly need to push on the yoke to hold level flight in almost all airplanes, and in some you will need to push hard. Re-trim as needed, while you evaluate whether you need more power.(For those who use "canned" power settings for approaches, remember the very small difference in MP between "level flight" and "normal descent?" Three inches or so? You don't need much to stop the descent!)With this modest addition of power, you won't get nearly as much pitch up, or need the trim change you would if you'd gone to full power. This is a good thing. If you do need more power, push the prop control forward gently, then add throttle as needed.When the power is set to your satisfaction (enough to produce at least level flight, or perhaps a little acceleration or climb), pull the flaps up to the normal takeoff position while still flying level, or perhaps starting a very slight climb if the airspeed is coming up. If you've done the above, you will not need to "milk" them up; just select the position, and adjust pitch as needed as they come up to maintain the level flight, or begin the climb. As the drag goes away, the speed will come up faster, and you'll be right back in the normal situation you see right after takeoff. No rush, no fuss, no scared passengers, no rattled pilots. Do not allow climb until you have the speed, and the flaps up or coming up. Do not go for the insane Vx or Vy speeds — they are much too slow.Leave the gear alone until you're sure you will not contact the runway. The timing for retraction is up to you. I do it fairly early, but some like to leave it down for a time. Do not make the common mistake of rushing to get the gear up; it's the least important item of all. Besides, you want it down in case you do happen to touch down.Finally, if you do a last-second go-around, a "skip" or a "bounce" is perfectly acceptable, and is not cause for a "bust" on a check ride, or criticism at all. Perfectly normal. Of course if you do a missed approach from 200 feet and bounce your wheels on the runway, you've done something wrong!To summarize, the procedure becomes:
- Add enough power to stop the descent and maintain speed;
- Catch your breath, re-trim as needed, evaluate power, add more if needed;
- Flaps up, pitch to maintain altitude for a few seconds (do not climb);
- Add more power if needed, and begin the climb;
- Gear up when no contact with the runway will occur.
If you allow yourself to get rushed, you will botch it. Any pilot will.Slow it down, take your time … and be careful, up there!
More from AVweb's Pelican is available here.


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As a kid i was was taught to use the blood knot.
One of my fishing mates taught me the centauri knot. Use it for hooks and line joins.
With a set of scales we found the line busted below stated line strength with the blood knot - above the stated line strength with the centauri.
Seems to work OK with braid or braid nylon joins.
easy to do in the dark make the loops big and you can do it by feel.
all of the above tried up to 40 lb line strength, dunno if it still applies above that.
By far the easiest and best method in my opinion is this. You watch the FG knot video that Nomad charters put out. BUT.... stop viewing at 1:45. Up until 1:45 shows you the easiest method to loop the line. Then you just do 2 hitches over the braid and mono and another 2 hitches over the braid on its own. And I dont bother about doing 30 loops. waste of time in my opinion. 10 (5 each) way is all you need. Follow this and you can do it very quickly. I am get to break this knot on a fishing. biggest GT so far 27kg.
I'm finding this knot a little difficult , I'm tying 5kg leader onto 3 kg braid, instead of wrapping around evenly it seems to end up in a bunch..
Mate I put the rod in a holder to keep the braid but just as importantly I put my foot on the leader spool so it is tight, holding it loose will probably cause your issue. The first couple of turns you do need to pinch the knot to stop it rolling over after that it will go well.
Yeah I like this knot and been using it for tuna the last 3 seasons. I have only tied them in the shed and similar to others attach the end of the braid to something (a vice in my case) and put the rod in a rod holder and have it fairly tight but with the rod tip able to flex.
Anyone know why it's called and FG knot? Is it because it's very good
Click "like this post" if ya reckon my dog is cute!!!!
Three-fourths of the Earth's surface is water, and one-fourth is land. It is quite clear that the good Lord intended us to spend triple the amount of time fishing as taking care of the lawn. ~Chuck Clark
Haha that's what I was thinking dignity :-)
I sorta did my own variation at the time but turns out it was the same as in this video.
This is by far the easiest method of tying an FG knot that I have come across. No need to for contortion or trying to keep lines tight.
I'm with you mate I tie this on the boat in 1 min it's very easy
happy days ahead summer is coming


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UPDATE: Inclement weather closures on Feb. 11-13 forced the postponement of campus visits by Terry dean candidates Annette Ranft and Timothy Smunt. Their campus visits have been rescheduled for Feb. 18-20 for Dr. Smunt and Feb. 21 for Dr. Ranft to complete her schedule of meetings. Updated schedules for the candidates are linked below.
Four finalists for the position of dean of the University of Georgia Terry College of Business will visit campus in February to meet with members of the campus community.
A committee chaired by Alan Dorsey, dean of the Franklin College of Arts and Sciences, conducted a national search to identify the finalists and was assisted by the search firm Korn/Ferry International.
Each finalist will make a public presentation from 9:30–10:30 a.m. in the Richard B. Russell Building Special Collection Libraries Auditorium (room 271). The finalists and the dates of their presentations are:
- Chuck Williams , dean and professor of management at the Butler University College of Business, Feb. 6;
- Annette Ranft , associate dean for academic affairs and Reagan Professor of Business at the University of Tennessee–Knoxville College of Business Administration, Feb. 10;
- Robert Hoyt , head of the department of insurance, legal studies and real estate, and Dudley L. Moore Jr. Chair of Insurance at the Terry College, Feb. 17; and
- Timothy Smunt , Sheldon B. Lubar Dean and professor of supply chain and operations management at the University of Wisconsin–Milwaukee Lubar School of Business, Feb. 19.
Founded in 1912 as the School of Commerce, the Terry College is the flagship business school in Georgia and the oldest in the South. It enrolls nearly 3,200 students in undergraduate, master's and doctoral programs in Athens and at UGA campuses in Atlanta, Gwinnett and Griffin. It includes seven academic departments and offers executive programs as well as certificate programs in actuarial science, leadership advancement, legal studies and music business. The Terry College has more than 150 faculty members as well as units such as the Selig Center for Economic Growth that are engaged in research and outreach that strengthen the business community in Georgia and beyond.


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What's hiding under the sea?
Damian Christie and Simon Pound talk to Dr Mark Morrison from NIWA about the 42 day voyage around New Zealand's seas documenting what's going down on the ocean floor. Apparently fish go to sleep at night. Awesome.
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Bill Ward cannot listen to the new Black Sabbath album as doing so is 'too painful'.
The drummer, ousted from the band's current reunion tour and the recording of 13 due to a contract dispute, told Rock Cellar: "The only thing I've heard from 13 is maybe forty seconds of the first song. Then I turned it off. I just said, 'I can't listen to this any more.'
"I haven't heard anything off that album, and to be quite honest I don't care to either. It's too painful. I wish them all the luck - well, they don't need luck, but I wish them all the best in the world. But I can't listen to it; it's too close to home. If I want to rip my guts out I'll put it on.
"It tears me up. Even as I'm talking now I'm not far away from a tear. I had to follow my heart under the most difficult circumstances."
Sabbath's world tour hits the UK in December.


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AUGUSTA, Ga. – Guan Tianlang played a practice round at Augusta National with Ben Crenshaw on Monday. He has a round set up for Tuesday with Tom Watson, and he wants to play the Par 3 Tournament with Nick Faldo.
Can't he play with someone his own age? Not at this Masters.
Guan is a 14-year-old from China, the youngest to ever play in the Masters and the youngest player at any major in 148 years. He qualified by winning the Asia Pacific Amateur last fall, and now gets a crack at the best in the game.
The teenager has been in Augusta the last few weeks and has played the course about six times. Guan wants to enjoy himself this week and hit good shots, even though plenty of people will be watching.