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Logano passes Gordon on last lap, holds on for victory
Published 12:00 am Tuesday, April 8, 2014
FORT WORTH, Texas — Joey Logano had a big lead and was within a half-lap of taking the white flag at Texas.
The late caution and extra laps? They just made his victory Monday in the rain-delayed Sprint Cup race that much more exciting.
With a last-lap pass of Jeff Gordon in NASCAR's version of overtime, Logano became the seventh different winner in as many races this season, with new rules for the championship Chase putting an increased emphasis on winning.
Logano had a 2.2-second lead on teammate Brad Keselowski while closing on in the white flag that would have guaranteed no extra laps. Then came out the caution for debris on the track after Kurt Busch went into the wall.
"My heart dropped," Logano said.
"When you've got like 40-something laps after the last pit stop and a pretty sizeable lead, all you're thinking is where's the white flag, where's the white flag," he said. "Then you go into Turn 1, and you see the 41 up against the wall, please, no caution. … You get so mad that you can barely control yourself."
On the ensuing pit stop, Gordon took only two tires and exited first. Both Team Penske drivers took four tires, but Keselowski missed a chance to become the season's first two-time winner when he was penalized for speeding on pit road and finished 15th.
"I was just trying to get a little too much on pit road. … Tried a little too hard," Keselowski said. "We're in it for wins. We're not in it for second. Second or 15th is the same for us."
On a restart at lap 262, Logano quickly pulled his Ford away from the field and had a nearly 5-second lead before his last green-flag stop. After the green-white-checkered restart on lap 339, Logano went inside past Brian Vickers and quickly got behind Gordon's No. 24 Chevrolet that had only two fresh tires.
Heading onto the frontstretch, Logano went low and was able to get past Gordon going into the first turn.
"He crossed over and got into the back of me pretty good," said Gordon, who took over the points lead. "At that point, I was just thinking, I just want to finish. Looked out my mirror, those guys were racing hard being me. A great, great second-place finish for me."
Kyle Busch finished third, ahead of Brian Vickers and rookie Kyle Larson.
Logano, the only driver with top-five finishes in both Texas races last season, got his fourth career victory after leading 108 of 340 laps — six laps more than scheduled. Team Penske joined Stewart-Haas Racing as the only teams with multiple winners this season.
Dale Earnhardt Jr. finished last in a 43-car field for the first time in seven seasons after driving his car into the rain-saturated infield grass before it shot across the track and slammed into the wall in a fiery crash. He took the blame for the accident on lap 13 that also led to problems for Hendrick Motorsports teammate Jimmie Johnson.
Johnson had damage on the windshield and front left of his No. 48 car from mud and debris after the Earnhardt crash. Johnson was three laps down by time he got back in the race after his team worked on the car, and the defending Sprint Cup champion also had an issue with a right-side tire before finishing 25th.
"I just didn't know I was that close to the grass and made a mistake," said Earnhardt, who wasn't hurt in the crash. He later tweeted: "That wasn't fun. Sorry 2 the fans of the 88 team. Feel bad for my guys and the 48 team also. Made a mistake there that was costly for every1."
The race started with 10 caution laps to make sure the 11/2-mile high-banked track was dry and suitable for racing after all the rain Sunday that pushed the race back a day.
There were still jet dryers on the track during those laps, and the high-pressure air from those apparently affected the hood and roof flaps on several cars. Keselowski made four trips down pit road as his crew worked to secure his hood, but he still got to retake his front-row spot next to pole-sitter Tony Stewart for the full green-flag start on lap 11 after NASCAR put the cars in their original starting spots.
Stewart led three times for 74 laps, the first he has led this season, and wound up 10th.
Earnhardt hadn't had a last-place finish since the 2007 fall race at Phoenix, a span of 222 races. But he won the season-opening race at Daytona, and has three other top-three finishes in the first six races this year and arrived in Texas as the points leader.


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"Shara Vana Ya. My awareness is aligned with the universe. Every grateful moment makes me healthier."
The Loving Spirit triple wrap mala bracelet features gorgeous lavender Madagascar rose quartz gemstones along with Brazilian red garnet, sparking clear rhinestone crystals and a reversible silver pewter hummingbird charm to gently remind you to live softly, with love, with presence, connected to your heart center, grateful for each day.
Rose Quartz is the stone of unconditional love and infinite peace. The loving vibrations restore trust and harmony in all relationships. It is specially beneficial for the heart chakra, as it heals emotional wounds and teaches the true essence of love. It brings deep inner healing and immense self-love. Rose quartz draws off negative energy and replaces feelings of worry and anxiety with calmness and reassurance. If you have loved and lost, it will comfort your grief. It will attract (or deepen) love of all kinds, but most of all rose quartz inspires you to love yourself by encouraging self forgiveness, self acceptance and self worth. *Madagascar Rose Quartz is noted for its fine quality. It's known for its soft translucency, radiant inner glow and dusty lavender-rose hues. This high quality Madagascar rose quartz has a luminescent misty appearance and beautiful subtle luster.
Garnet is a powerfully energizing and regenerating gemstone. It revitalizes, purifies and balances energy, bringing serenity or passion as appropriate. It inspires love, passion, devotion and commitment. It enhances sexuality, sensuality, trust, warmth and intimacy in a relationship. If single, it attracts popularity and new lovers. Red Garnet also brings courage to a crisis situation that seemed hopeless. It stimulates confidence, encourages positive thoughts and controls self-anger and self-criticism.
The hummingbird is a symbol of endless insight and wisdom. The fluttering wings move in the pattern of an infinity symbol, which in itself is pure magic. These ethereal little beings often come to remind us of the infinite, never-ending love that Source (God) has for us. Hummingbird totems also teach us to be mindful of how we expend our own energy.
All Sacred Health Jewelry® is cleared with sage and infused with Shamanic Reiki Energy by Brenda Pharaoh, ETP, SC, HHP, ARP, RMT. DCA Gemologist and Board Certified Energy Therapy Practitioner, Spiritual Counselor, AADP Holistic Health Practitioner, Advanced (Shaman) Reiki Practitioner, Usui Reiki Master Teacher, Psychosynthesis Practitioner, Professional Medium.
Impeccable quality is extremely important to us. True high grade gemstones in the jewelry industry are rare and valuable, and as trained gemologists we know the difference. We only use natural AA-AAA crystals and gemstones, supreme quality charms and the finest designing materials for a flawless finish and a sophisticated, classy overall appearance.
Our mala bracelets are designed with fabric coated elastic cord that enable us to add tassels and create a soft comfortable fit on the wrist. Traditional Buddhist meditation malas are made with the same material and we feel that ancient ritual is important and sacred.
As with all luxury items you'll want to treat your mala beads with mindfulness and care. If your bracelet breaks we will repair it at no charge. Simply reach out to us and we will take care of you. *Please also consider the worldwide phenomenon that happens when a mala suddenly breaks. Crystals protect your energy field by absorbing negative energy. If they absorb too much energy the mala can burst apart. It is considered a Divine sign. You are being protected. Oftentimes you are being guided to choose new crystals as your vibration changes and shifts. A brochure with more information will be included with purchase.
Each mala includes a description of the therapeutic properties along with a pamphlet that explains the benefits of crystal healing, the value of Reiki infused gemstones, and our one-year limited warranty.
6mm natural gemstones, hand-laced on strong elastic stretch cord. One size fits most wrists, 6.5" circumference. We are happy to accommodate special size requests. Feel free to leave us a note in the messages section at checkout. There is no extra charge for custom sizing.
*Last photo features the Mystic Haze, Ecstasy, Sandalwood Triple Wrap (left hand) and the Sparking Intuition, Healthy Spirit Triple Wrap, Pura Vida Triple Wrap (right hand). Each sold separately.
*While crystals/vibrational therapies have been used historically to relieve symptoms, manifest desires and promote well-being, we of course cannot guarantee specific outcomes. They work by calibrating the energy field to a coherent frequency and are enhanced by intention. Individual results will vary.
Sacred Health® Exclusive Original Designs. All rights reserved. Our photos, bracelet names, descriptions and all written content may not be copied, duplicated or advertised without legal permission. Federally registered trademark.
©2016 Sacred Health Jewelry LLC
1-3 business days
Buyers are responsible for any customs and import taxes that may apply. I'm not responsible for delays due to customs.
Just contact me within: 7 days of delivery
Ship items back to me within: 14 days of delivery
Buyers are responsible for return shipping costs. If the item is not returned in its original condition, the buyer is responsible for any loss in value.
Please contact me if you have any problems with your order.
All of our designs, photos and written content are the exclusive personal property of Sacred Health Jewelry™. If you see our products and/or our photos being advertised online from other companies, they are plastic counterfeit copies, low grade replicas or phishing scams.
We currently hold the federal registered trademark for our name, and have copyrighted all of our designs, bracelets names and product descriptions. Copyright and trademark infringement will be prosecuted.
Authentic Sacred Health Jewelry™ is only available online at
sacredhealthjewelry.com and sacredhealthjewelry.etsy.com.
Crystal healing has been used for thousands of years. Each variety of crystal has a unique crystalline structure which causes it to resonate at a certain frequency. When held or worn against the body, each gem (depending on its internal structure) interacts with the human biofield differently and can magically move, absorb, focus, direct and diffuse energy within the body. An energy healer can then charge a crystal with the pattern of energy she chooses (like an electromagnetic current) to hold specific therapeutic vibrations. Brenda combines her strong energy with the ancient power of Reiki to magnify the natural healing properties of the gemstones. The result is a shift in the body's energy system, enabling well-being to flow.
Reiki is the ancient Japanese practice of balancing energy. When Reiki energy is infused into crystals, it magnifies the healing power. It 'charges' objects with protective, positive energy and increases the effectiveness of a crystal's natural healing vibration. Reiki infused jewelry can then be given as a gift to someone who needs a bit of a boost, or to yourself when you need an extra dose of healing and self-love.
It is often said that malas choose you. The first one that catches your eye is usually the one you're meant to have. It's truly that simple. Allow yourself to be drawn to the piece that speaks to you. You can also type any word into the search bar to describe your intention (confidence, strength, abundance, wealth, love, etc.) to see what pops up in that category.
A mala is sacred and it usually represents something different to each person. It can be a piece that inspires you, a reminder of an intention, a meditation tool, or simply a beautiful addition to your wardrobe. Whatever it means to you, embrace it. Roll around in it. Allow your inner wisdom to guide you in your choice. You will almost always call forth exactly what you need.
Yes absolutely! It's important to us that your bracelet fits comfortably around your wrist. When you place your order, kindly leave us a little note in the 'messages' section at checkout with your wrist size and we'll accommodate your request for no additional charge.
If your bracelet needs to be re-sized after you receive it, simply contact us with your request. We'll happily adjust it at our expense. All you pay is the shipping costs to and from your home. The U.S. shipping fee is currently $10.40 for USPS Priority Mail Shipping with tracking. Feel free to slip a check inside the package for $10.40 when you mail it back to us. International shipping will be determined per country. We'll remake your mala and ship it back to you asap!
Sacred Health™ has set the standard for luxurious high grade healing mala beads, wrapped with love from the artist. As with all luxury items of any kind, our jewelry requires a little extra mindfulness and care. Here are a few tips on how to keep them looking and feeling new:
1. Roll the beads gently over your hand onto your wrist instead of stretching the bracelet apart to put it on. 2. Keep them away from water, including salt water. 3. Remove them before applying lotions or sprays. 4. Try wearing them on your non-dominant hand to prevent accidental snagging. 5. Hold each bracelet over a stream of sage smoke if you've just been through something stressful to clear heavy energy. 6. Take them off before bedtime.
It is extremely important to us that you love your malas and get years of enjoyment from them! Of course stretch bracelets are not indestructible. They love being handled gently like any precious piece of art. They are not fond of rigorous wear, excessive stretching, or being submerged in water. Sometimes a bracelet will literally burst open from all the energy the stones have absorbed. Like anything else, with continued use, there is always a possibility your mala may come apart or need restringing. SHJ offers a one-year warranty on all purchases. Any broken piece will be repaired (and missing beads replaced) at our expense. All you pay is shipping (to and from). Yay! Simply email firstname.lastname@example.com to initiate a repair.
Crystal healing/vibrational therapies are not to be considered as a substitute for medical care. While crystals have been used historically to relieve symptoms and manifest desires, we of course cannot guarantee specific results. Our website is not to be considered as medical advise, diagnosis or treatment. All customer conversations relating to the emotional, mental & physical healing properties of crystals are from our own personal knowledge and intuition, as well as our education and research. Individual results will vary. In no event shall SHJ be held liable for any indirect, consequential, incidental or punitive damages related to the content, errors or omissions of this site. Mala beads are not suitable for young children.
We are so sorry you haven't received your package yet! We so wish we could control the whole shipping process, but unfortunately once we ship a package, it is out of our hands and in the hands of USPS. We would absolutely hand deliver it ourselves if we could.
USPS offers a tracking number on every order. It is found at the bottom of your shipping email confirmation, or via 'Purchases and Reviews' on your Etsy account. If for some reason USPS enters an update that is unclear, you can contact your local post office for more information. Unfortunately at this point, we know as much as you do. Returns are credited to your account, less shipping costs, if USPS forwards your package back to us.
Brenda is scheduling private energy therapy sessions / clairvoyant readings in Meridian, Idaho by appointment only. She does not offer phone services at this time. The current wait time 2+ years. To schedule a Shamanic Reiki energy therapy treatment and clairvoyant reading, please contact firstname.lastname@example.com for available dates/times.

subset: commoncrawl


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Lisbon Oak Single Dressing Table Mirror
The Lisbon light oak furniture range is constructed from Solid Oak with elements of veneers to improve overall look and stability. The furniture is then finished in a smooth light lacquer which gives a beautiful look and is easy to clean.
Lisbon oak single dressing table mirror.
This dressing table mirror is designed to complement the single and double pedestal dressing table.
Old Creamery Furniture company showrooms are located in Yeovil & Taunton, Somerset. Please check our store finder below for the most convenient store to view this furniture.
We offer a collection of goods service from our Yeovil furniture shop & warehouse, or from our Taunton furniture shop. On top of this we run a quick and efficient 2 man delivery and installation service to the room of your choice which is available throughout Somerset, Devon & Dorset. This area covers Exeter, Bristol & Bournemouth. Outside of this area we can still offer delivery, please contact us to discuss your requirements.
- Bedroom furniture
- Solid Oak Furniture
- Smooth Light Lacquer
Our best possible price is for collecting items from us. With our huge stock holding, if your chosen item is in stock, you can collect from us today. If this is not possible we can arrange delivery, with a charge based on your location.Product Features
Secure Online Payments
You can be assured that purchasing from us is safe. All of our card transactions are processed securely.


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From The Original Chelsea Boot Collection
Beatwear Original Chelsea Boot in Vintage Tan Leather
Premium Italian Calf Leather Finish Pull-on ankle bootTwin pull tabs & Elasticated gussetCentre seam & Contoured topRed Leather LiningHigh 2 inch Cuban Heel (approx. 5 cm)Leather SoleMade in Italy exclusively for Beatwear
Taken from the design of the flamenco boot with a high cuban heel. This was one of Beatwear's original boot styles, and is based on the original patterns and lasts from the 1960's. The Beatwear versions are tweaked a little and gives a more comfortable fit now than back then!
The Beatwear ORIGINAL CHELSEA range of boots are made on a European Last in Continental Italy.Sizes are given on the European size scale - from size 40 through to 48, including ½ sizes.Due to the style of the boots , Beatwear advise taking a half size bigger than your regular shoe size, a wider foot should take a full size bigger.
All Beatwear Clothing is discounted now as we are discontinuing the Beatwear Clothing Ranges. (NB. This does not affect the boots, Beatwear will still be continuing with its Boot Collections.)
Sale Clearance Items - mainland Europe requests for refunds/exchanges, on the discounted items, within 14 days of receipt of your item - will be subject to a 25% re-stock fee. This is to cover our subsidised shipping costs, transaction process fees, packing & wrapping materials and labour ... of which we are unable to re-coup!
Delivery: We use UK Mail, UK Royal Mail, DHL or UPS depending on where you are located. * please note - When UK Royal Mail is used it will take longer than UPS or DHL
This is a trackable or signed for service to ensure safe arrival of your parcel, usually both if available for your country.Where the item is out of stock we will contact you.
Please note : The delivery time schedule ( ie next day delivery/2-3 day delivery etc...) starts from when the product has left us and is on route with the courier to you, the customer - not necessarily from the date that the order is placed.We are a small family business therefore at busy periods there may be a delay on processing your order, so please bear with us!
Remember: always email us first if there is a problem with the fit of your Beatwear order and we will try and resolve it for you as painlessly as possible!
For accessories (ties, pocket squares & scaves etc...) single items purchased are charged at half the normal shipping rates and sent out with UK Royal Mail.If purchased in conjunction with footwear and/or clothing, the accessory will be tagged on without further shipping charges applied.


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New Mobile Payments Platform for EMV Cards
Small businesses will now be able to process EMV chip-and-pin card payments with their tablets and smartphones thanks to a new platform called SAIL EMV from VeriFone, a mobile payments solutions provider.
SAIL EMV can be plugged into an iOS or Android device and is the newest addition to VeriFone's existing suite of solutions for accepting EMV card payments with mobile devices that includes PAYware Mobile Enterprise hardware and VeriFone GlobalBay mobile software, the company said in a statement released today. The company also noted that the product will include payment adapters to meet strict security requirement and SDK's for integrating with iOS and Android. Mobile merchants accept payments with the solution through a standard mobile app, and the platform is being deployed in more than 100 countries, cording to VeriFone.
[See Related: Why More Banks Are Moving Toward EMV Adoption]
The platform also utilizes VeriFone's Point Gateway payment-as-a-service infrastructure that enables merchants to deploy multi-channel strategies across in-store, mobile retail and e-commerce. The infrastructure also aids in analytics for business strategy.
Jonathan Camhi has been an associate editor with Bank Systems & Technology since 2012. He previously worked as a freelance journalist in New York City covering politics, health and immigration, and has a master's degree from the City University of New York's Graduate School ... View Full Bio


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Project Pearl, a non-profit organization working in partnership with Forsyth County's department of Animal Control, is promoting the awareness of the wonderful cats at the Forsyth County Animal Shelter looking for new homes.
Throughout the month of November 2012 Project Pearl will pay for the spaying or neutering of any cat adopted from the Forsyth County Animal Shelter over the age of 6 months. If the cat is already spayed or neutered Project Pearl will sponsor $20.00 of the adoption fee.
Cats over 6 months of age
Cats over 6 months of age
Project Pearl was voted #1 Non-Profit in Winston Salem by the Winston Salem Journal's Readers Choice Awards. Since their efforts have begun, Forsyth County Animal Control has seen a record-breaking increase in adoptions – the highest re-homing (adoptions, transfers, redemptions) ever.
Forsyth County Animal Control is open for adoptions as follows:
Monday - Wednesday - Saturday: Noon until 5:00 PM
Tuesday - Thursday: Noon until 7:00 PM


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Last month with St. Patrick's day I saw a lot of beef stew recipes and something else that caught my eye; a beef stew pie. A beef stew pie is pretty much like it sounds, beef stew that is baked in a pie. That's right, beef that is slowly braised until it is fall apart tender and full of flavour that is baked into light and flaky golden brown pastry…mmm… To make things even better the beef can be braised in Guinness. Not to stop there but you can also add some bacon and brown the meat and saute the vegetables in the bacon grease for even more flavour. I knew that I would have to make a steak and guinness pie long before this point but then I came across an adaptation of Jamie Olivers steak and Guinness pie on The Cutting Edge of Ordinary that also included cheddar cheese! I would not have thought to use cheddar cheese to a beef stew pot pie but as soon as I heard it I knew that I had to try it!
I modified the recipe a bit so that I would have just enough to fill my pie plate with beef stew. I decided to go with an actual pie crust as my pie crust skills could use a bit of work. The steak and guinness pie turned out amazing! The pie crust came out nice and golden brown and it was light and buttery and flaky both on the top and the bottom. After braising for three hours the beef stew was so full of flavour that it would have been wonderful all by itself but then it was wrapped with the pie pastry and topped with a layer of melted cheddar cheese and it was sublimely good! This was one of the best meals that I have had in a while! This recipe is definitely a keeper. I went with a classic pairing and served the beef and guinness pot pie with a side of peas.
Steak and Guinness Pie
- 4 slices bacon (sliced)
- 1 pound beef (cut into bite sized pieces)
- 1 onion (sliced)
- 2 stalks celery (sliced)
- 2 carrots (cut into bite sized pieces)
- 4 ounces mushrooms (quartered)
- 2 cloves garlic (chopped)
- 1 can Guinness
- 1 cup beef stock
- 1 tablespoon Worcestershire sauce
- 1 tablespoon thyme (chopped)
- 1 tablespoon rosemary (chopped)
- 1 bay leaf
- 2 pie crusts
- 1 cup cheddar cheese (grated)
- 1 egg
- 1 tablespoon water
- Cook the bacon and set aside leaving the grease in the pan.
- Add the beef and brown on all sides and set aside.
- Add the onions, carrots, celery and mushrooms and cook until the vegetables are tender, about 10-15 minutes.
- Add the garlic and cook for another minute.
- Add the guinness and deglaze the pan.
- Add the stock, bacon, beef, Worcestershire sauce, thyme, rosemary and bay leaf and bring to a boil.
- Reduce the heat and simmer, covered, until the beef is tender, about 2-3 hours.
- Place the first pie crust into the bottom of a pie plate and pour the beef stew in.
- Sprinkle the cheese over the beef stew and cover with the top pie crust.
- Mix the egg and water and brush it onto the top of the pie crust.
- Bake in a preheated 350 oven until golden brown on top, about 30-40 minutes.
Chicken Pot Pie
Irish Lamb Stew
Italian Style Beef Stew with Butternut Squash
Nikujaga (Japanese Beef Stew)
Guinness Braised Onion and Aged White Cheddar Quiche
Bangers and Colcannon with Guinness Onion Gravy
Corned Beef Poutine with Guinness Gravy
Steak and Guinness Stew with Irish White Cheddar Cauliflower Mash


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7125 Grand Montecito Pkwy. #110 Las Vegas, NV. 89149 702-838-8558 |
Our team of specialists and staff believe that informed patients are better equipped to make decisions regarding their health and well being. For your personal use, we have created an extensive patient library covering an array of educational topics. Browse through these diagnoses and treatments to learn more about topics of interest to you. Or, for a more comprehensive search of our entire Web site, enter your term(s) in the search bar provided.
As always, you can contact our office to answer any questions or concerns.
As always, you can contact our office to answer any questions or concerns.
Heel fissures is the term for cracking of the skin of the heels. This can be a painful condition that can cause bleeding. Open-backed sandals or shoes that allow more slippage around the heel while walking are often culprits that cause heel fissures. Skin conditions, such as eczema and psoriasis, can also lead to heel fissures. The skin thickens as a result of the friction. Wearing proper shoes and the use of deep skin moisturizers and lotions can reduce the dryness associated with the condition and allow the foot to heal.


text: If you have injured your elbow, start the recovery process by resting, icing, compressing, and elevating. Rest by taking a few days off from your sport. For easy cold therapy, use an elbow ice pack. Compress with a brace for your elbow injury: hyperextension, tennis elbow, golf elbow, or general elbow tendonitis. Lastly, elevate the injured area above your heart by keeping your arm above your head.


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I am a huge fan of cinnamon! A long time ago now I made a cinnamon quick bread and I while I was enjoying it I remember thinking that I wanted to try a yeast bread version. Before I got a chance to try it, things came up, I got distracted and I forgot… and here we are 3 years later and I finally remembered! Being unable to resist the calls of thick swirls of sugary cinnamon in a light and fluffy bread I had to make it right away!
After searching for recipes for a while I decided to go with this recipe for a cinnamon swirl bread from The Pioneer Woman . This recipe starts off as a pretty standard white bread recipe with a bit of extra sugar and then you add the swirls of cinnamon. Adding the cinnamon swirls is pretty easy with you simply rolling the dough out, sprinkling on the cinnamon and then rolling it up to form a log. The hardest part about this recipe is all all of the waiting, especially when the bread is in the oven filling your place with the those amazing fresh baked bread aromas.
The cinnamon swirl bread turned out amazingly well! It has a solid crusty outside and a light, soft, fluffy and moist inside. The cinnamon swirls turned out perfectly and the aroma of the cinnamon was exhilarating! As soon as the loaf had cooled down a bit, I got into it, cutting off a slice and slathering it with butter that started melting into it right away. It is seriously hard to beat that first bite of a still warm, freshly baked bread with melted butter and the cinnamon in this bread seriously takes it over the edge!
After that freshly baked bread euphoria wore off, I could not help but thinking that the sliced cinnamon swirl bread reminded me of cinnamon buns! With that thought I knew exactly what I was going to be having for breakfast the next morning, cinnamon bun bread. I made a simple cream cheese frosting and slathered it on some toasted slices of the cinnamon swirl bread. What an amazing way to start out the day!
Cinnamon Swirl Bread
A light, fluffy and moist bread with swirls of cinnamon.
- 1 cup milk
- 1/3 cup butter, salted
- 2 1/2 teaspoons active dry yeast
- 2 eggs
- 1/3 cup sugar
- 3-3 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 2 tablespoons butter, room temperature
- 1/3 cups sugar
- 2 tablespoons cinnamon
- 1/2 cup raisins and/or walnuts, optional
- 1 egg and milk
- 1 tablespoon milk
- Heat the milk in a small sauce pan over medium-low heat, melt the butter into it without boiling, remove from heat and let cool until it is luke warm
- Mix in the yeast and let sit for 10 minutes.
- Mix the eggs and sugar in a large bowl.
- Mix in the milk.
- Mix the flour and salt and beat half of it into the milk mixture until combined.
- Beat in the remaining flour until combined.
- Knead the dough until smooth, adding more flour if it is too sticky.
- Place the dough in a large greased bowl, cover and let it rise until it has doubled in size, about 2 hours. (Tip: Warm the bowl first by filling it with hot water and drying it out just before use.)
- Place the dough on a lightly floured surface and roll it out so that it is as wide as your baking pan and about 18 to 24 inches long.
- Spread the butter over the dough.
- Mix the sugar and cinnamon and sprinkle it over the dough.
- Roll the dough up into a log.
- Place the dough into a greased 9x5x3 inch loaf pan, cover and let it rise until it has doubled in size, about 2 hours.
- Mix the egg and milk and brush it over the top of the loaf.
- Bake the loaf in a preheated 350F/180C oven until golden brown on top, about 30-40 minutes.


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Class Central Tips
Investors tend to be their own worst enemies. In this third course, you will learn how to capitalize on understanding behavioral biases and irrational behavior in financial markets. You will start by learning about the various behavioral biases – mistakes that investors make and understand their reasons. You will learn how to recognize your own mistakes as well as others' and understand how these mistakes can affect investment decisions and financial markets. You will also explore how different preferences and investment horizons impact the optimal asset allocation choice.
After this course, you will be more effective in overcoming biases to do the wrong things at the wrong times and tailoring an investment strategy that is best suited on your or your client's profile and investment needs.


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Estimated read time: 4-5 minutes
This archived news story is available only for your personal, non-commercial use. Information in the story may be outdated or superseded by additional information. Reading or replaying the story in its archived form does not constitute a republication of the story.
LOS ANGELES (AP) - Ashton Kutcher as Apple co-founder Steve Jobs and Amanda Seyfried as porn star Linda Lovelace are among the highlights at January's Sundance Film Festival.
Kutcher headlines director Joshua Michael Stern's "jOBS," one of 18 star-studded premieres announced Monday for Robert Redford's independent-cinema showcase. Chronicling 30 years in the life of the Apple mastermind who died last year, "jOBS" is the closing-night film at Sundance, which runs Jan. 17-27 in Park City, Utah.
Seyfried has the title role in Rob Epstein and Jeffrey Friedman's "Lovelace," a portrait of the adult-film actress who became an anti-porn crusader years after starring in the hardcore hit "Deep Throat."
The roles are dramatic departures for Kutcher, best-known for broad movie comedies and the TV sitcoms "That `70s Show" and "Two and a Half Men," and Seyfried, best-known for romances such as "Dear John" and "Mamma Mia!"
But dramatic departures often are what it's all about at Sundance, which presents films out of the mainstream that let top-name talent take a break from the Hollywood mold.
"A lot of these actors are looking to spread out of their comfort zones," said Sundance director John Cooper. "It's about doing something different for them."
The lineup of dramas, along with 11 documentaries also announced in the premiere section Monday, play outside the roster of 64 films unveiled last week for Sundance's U.S. and world-cinema competitions. Along with entries in the festival's midnight section and other programs also announced last week, Sundance will offer 115 feature-length films.
The dramatic premieres present a number of reunions among filmmakers and stars, including Richard Linklater's "Before Midnight," with co-writers Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy reprising the star-crossed romantic roles they played in 1995's "Before Sunrise" and 2004's "Before Sunset"; Jane Campion's "Top of the Lake," a six-hour mystery whose cast includes Holly Hunter, who won an Academy Award for the director's 1993 drama "The Piano"; Nat Faxon and Jim Rash's misfit teen tale "The Way, Way Back," featuring Steve Carell and Toni Collette, who co-starred in the 2006 Sundance premiere "Little Miss Sunshine"; and Michael Winterbottom's "The Look of Love," with his frequent star Steve Coogan as British porn baron Paul Raymond.
Other premiere highlights include "Don Jon's Addiction," with Joseph Gordon-Levitt making his directing debut and starring alongside Scarlett Johansson and Julianne Moore in the story of a modern Don Juan; George Tillman Jr.'s "The Inevitable Defeat of Mister and Pete," a tale of two boys in the Brooklyn housing projects whose cast includes "American Idol" alumni Jennifer Hudson and Jordin Sparks; Fredrik Bond's "The Necessary Death of Charlie Countryman," with Shia LaBeouf and Evan Rachel Wood in a romance between a man traveling abroad and a troubled Romanian beauty; Anne Fontaine's "Two Mothers," starring Naomi Watts and Robin Wright as friends who fall for each other's sons; and Naomi Finer's "Very Good Girls," featuring Dakota Fanning and Elizabeth Olsen as teens aiming to lose their virginity but who fall for the same guy.
Documentary premieres include Freida Mock's "Anita," examining the fallout from sexual-harassment charges brought by Anita Hill against U.S. Supreme Court nominee Clarence Thomas; Alex Gibney's "We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks," an analysis of the website that released classified government documents; and R.J. Cutler and Greg Finton's "The World According to Dick Cheney," a study of the former vice president and the power he wielded in George W. Bush's administration.
Also premiering at Sundance is Sebastian Junger's "Which Way Is the Front Line from Here? The Life and Time of Tim Hetherington," a portrait of photographer Hetherington's work in war zones around the world.
It will be a sorrowful return to Sundance for Junger, co-director with Hetherington on the Oscar-nominated "Restrepo," a portrait of a U.S. platoon in Afghanistan that won the top documentary prize at the 2010 festival. Hetherington was killed last year while covering the fighting between rebels and government forces in Libya.
"For me, it just adds another layer to the human cost of what that these guys are trying to expose," said festival programming director Trevor Goth. "I think it's going to be a very emotional moment at the festival."
(Copyright 2012 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)


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This was a renovation where they took off the whole back of a 2 story home and added 2 bedrooms and a laundry room upstairs and new kitchen, mudroom, family room and screened in porch downstairs.
During the buildout I posted about the paint colors, kitchen, lighting and wallpaper. You can find some of the before post here and here.
There are windows flanking the fireplace with storage cabinets underneath.
I used a simple valance which allows plenty of sunshine! A great place to keep a fern alive!
Some accessories on the other side.
Now you are going to die....here are pictures of the before sofa and chair. Since she still had young children she wanted to keep her furniture so we had the sofa and 2 chairs overhauled!
And here is the after....
Pretty amazing huh!
Here is a shot of the kitchen/dining area after the buildout but before the move in.
The after shot. Her original table and chairs. We did have the 2 parsons recovered.
Before shot of the kitchen
Pretty? The Pottery Barn barstools add some nice texture and are great with kids.
Dang it...never under estimate the power of a bowl of fruit!
I wasn't sure where I was going to put this old wooden corbel but the minute I placed it in this corner.... it added so much warmth to all of the white.
I have so much work to catch up on.....so today is going to be spent in the office. Many thanks for all of the positive comments on our Show Room. We had some pictures taken yesterday....can't wait to share. I really can't look at it anymore...in fact I told Lori that I have obsessed over it so much I almost hate it. Crazy huh?
Stay warm....


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Welcome to Dragon Cave! Dragon Cave is an online adoptables game. Collect eggs, raise them to adulthood, and then breed them to create interesting lineages. New dragons are added regularly!
Thunder Dragons are the masters of electricity. Their wings gather energy as they soar through the clouds, and when they clap their wings together they can create devastating arcs of lightning. They can stay airborne nearly indefinitely, landing only to sleep and breed; they catch their prey from the air and take moisture from the clouds. A thunder dragon's roar is considered to be an omen of misfortune.
Dragons are highly-intelligent reptilian creatures that—from a human perspective, at least—appear to live forever. Many different varieties of dragon exist, each with their own unique qualities, habitats, and behavior. Adolescence in dragons is usually marked by the growth of a hatchling's wings, although not all breeds of dragons grow wings and some breeds have other traits that indicate the beginning of maturation. In Galsreim, dragons and humans coexist peacefully.


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NEWTOWN, Conn. (AP) — A year later, inside the big house on Berkshire Road, dolls fill the shelves of a living room and flowers and rainbows decorate a kitchen window, next to a little girl's name: Avielle.
Outside, all around town, Christmas lights shimmer again. But so, too, do the 26 bronze stars that sit atop the local firehouse, one for each adult and child gunned down at a school one unimaginable day.
In so many ways, this is a place frozen in time. Ribbons of green — the Sandy Hook Elementary School color — stay tied to mailboxes and storefronts, just as a curly-haired girl smiles from a framed photograph that remains atop a mantel inside Jeremy Richman's century-old home.
People might assume the hurt that accompanies tragedy fades with time. But, says Richman, who last Dec. 14 lost his only child, "I miss Avielle more every day."
It's been a painful and frenetic year, for the Richmans and for all of Newtown. From horror came despair and, soon, attempts at moving beyond one of the nation's deadliest shootings. There were the logistics of recovery to tend to and decisions about whether to raze the school where so many perished.
The Labor Day parade marched on, and as foliage turned red and yellow, small survivors filed back into school with their parents' shaky assurances they would be safe.
Now, with winter on their doorstep once again, the people of Newtown are bracing for the day everyone here simply calls 12/14.
"For us, it's not an event. It's something we live with every single day of our lives," says Newtown First Selectman E. Patricia Llodra, who called together a panel of community leaders, mental health experts, clergy members and residents to consider what to do about the anniversary of the Sandy Hook shooting. To avoid drawing more media attention, they decided not to hold any formal remembrances.
"We can't change what happened to us," Llodra says, "but we have a choice in how we respond."
And so they will do what they've done for a year: balance trying to remember with wanting to forget, and help one another cope with seasons' worth of grief few outsiders can fathom.
On a frigid December night, only hours after Adam Lanza carried out his rampage, Llodra stood before a church overflowing with stunned townspeople. As some outside sang "Silent Night," she took the podium to address those gathered inside for a candlelight vigil.
"It will be in my head forever to look out at their faces and see how much they were wounded," she says.
From that day, through Christmas and the long winter, the families and the town endured immense grief, beginning with an unrelenting procession of funerals, as they grappled with the toll of the tragedy — 20 first-grade children and six educators gunned down in minutes by a troubled and socially isolated young man with a semi-automatic rifle.
Among the clergy members who counseled families that night in the Sandy Hook firehouse was Monsignor Robert Weiss, pastor of the St. Rose of Lima church, who tears up as he remembers the brother of a young victim asking whom he would play with since his sister had been killed.
Father Bob, as he is known in town, presided over the funerals for eight of the children. But his lowest moment came two days after the shooting, when he had to ask worshippers to leave halfway through a Mass because of a call from someone threatening to finish the job Lanza started.
"That's the moment that changed me," he says. "I mean, what is safe for us anymore?"
Llodra, a 71-year-old former high school teacher and grandmother, had been Newtown's top elected official for three years. She felt despondent herself, but she told the crowd at the vigil to put one foot in front of the other, and she steeled herself not to give in to emotion. She drew on lessons from the loss of her own child, a 44-year-old daughter who had died three years earlier, and the advice of officials from Littleton and Aurora, Colo., and Blacksburg, Va., who called to talk over how they had dealt with their own mass shootings.
She learned from them that there is no handbook, no one way to lead a town through tragedy.
"I used all of their advice in one way or another," she says. "It was to try to find a way to try not to get overwhelmed. It was to find a way to arm yourself with strength, because the emotional impacts are going to be huge."
Richman and his wife, Jennifer, were barely functional. And yet as they gathered with friends who offered support, an idea emerged on the day of 6-year-old Avielle's funeral for a way to channel their grief and try to prevent other such tragedies — a foundation to support research into the brain pathologies behind violence.
Other victims' families began pursuing their own advocacy projects, trying to create a legacy other than loss. Some immersed themselves in the push for new gun laws. Another group worked to find ways to make the country's schools safer. Still others tried to occupy themselves with charity work in memory of their loved ones.
For the Richmans, the chores of applying for the appropriate tax status and setting up a website for the Avielle Foundation became welcome distractions. Eventually, on Feb. 1, Richman returned to his research job at a pharmaceutical company. He still wasn't in a good place, but he had bills to pay. He assured his co-workers he wanted to talk about his daughter, and hear about their children, too. But it was clear to his colleagues that Richman was elsewhere.
"If I'm leading a meeting and I'm talking and suddenly I'm somewhere else, they'll pause and say, `Hey man, come on back.' And I'll come back," he recalls.
Spring brought some of the first steps toward reimagined lives, including a meeting to decide what to do with the school building.
About 25 chairs had been set out for the public at the May gathering, but more than three times that number of parents, teachers and others crowded in. While some argued that knocking down the school would be giving up too much to the gunman, teachers pleaded to not have to return to the site. A father said he wouldn't want his son going to school where his sister was slain.
A week later, a task force decided the building would be razed. Says Llodra, whose own three children attended the school in the 1970s, "It always was a school that was a happy place."
Work settled into more familiar routines for officials such as Newtown Police Chief Michael Kehoe, who worked seven days a week for months as his department helped watch over a town on edge. But his officers were still recovering, too. Those who responded to the shooting were shattered by what they saw and needed time off.
"You kind of always want to answer the question `why,' and there's not a lot of answers," Kehoe says. "But you have to work through that to understand that it's not because of you it happened, and you're not responsible for it and that you did the best that you could. And now you have many more responsibilities — to be resilient, to heal and recover."
For Richman, the spring brought bittersweet progress as he announced an advisory board for his foundation. An invitation to a White House event on mental health led to a meeting with President Barack Obama. Then the bombings at the Boston Marathon in April set him back by bringing up memories of the massacre.
He found some solace in running, working out in his shed and surrounding himself with friends, including other parents who lost their children at Sandy Hook. They began gathering occasionally on weekends to watch sports, and to remember.
"We have a lot of discussions, and that's the best therapy — talking to different people … about life and joy and how to enjoy life," he says. "We visit with Avie's friends and see how they're growing. That brings a lot of joy."
In October, as the leaves turned, fences with no-trespassing signs went up and work began on tearing Sandy Hook down. Within weeks, the school was rubble.
Some victims' parents joined a commission to begin considering ideas for a permanent memorial as the town focused more on trying to move forward.
Halloween displays went up as usual, but Weiss, the priest, was glad to see the themes were happy and less macabre than in years past. Still, the costumes and monsters made it a difficult time for some children, and Weiss counseled some for whom the nightmares returned.
The children who survived the attack still struggled to cope with the horrors they witnessed. Many even now cannot sleep unless they are in their parents' beds, and others won't go outside without holding somebody's hand. At Weiss' parochial school, there has been more emotion and more physical aggression.
Nobody in town can escape the stress, he says. Even everyday greetings have taken on a new meaning.
"When they look at me and say, `How are you,' I know what they are asking," he says. "They are asking something much deeper than how are you feeling. They are asking about everything that's going on here."
One late October afternoon found Richman at home, with his dog stretched out at his feet, delivering a lecture by webcast from a front room filled with his foundation's paperwork. As he addressed his audience, he discussed the levels of violence in America and the efforts of his foundation.
He touched briefly on the loss of his daughter, but had to wipe a tear away only once, when he said tomorrow's innovators will be the ones who today are playing in sandboxes.
Three days before Thanksgiving, investigators released their final report about what happened inside Sandy Hook. It shed no new light on the gunman's motives but dredged up the horrors of that awful December day. And a little more than a week before the one-year anniversary, the 911 calls made that morning were released.
Many victims' families are planning to be out of town on 12/14. Richman says he and his wife will be somewhere with friends.
"We just want to be thinking of Avielle and where she would have been at 7 instead of at 6," he says, "and hopefully what we can do to prevent somebody else from feeling that sadness."
Christmastime has returned to Newtown and, along Main Street, families have been putting a single electric candle in each front window of the mostly Colonial houses. On side streets, elaborate displays of colored lights twinkle. Wreaths are going up in businesses, and every evening more trees can be spotted in shops and homes.
A few days before the anniversary of the day that scarred them, townspeople plan to gather in a park at the foot of Main Street for the annual tree lighting ceremony. The event, to which hundreds of candle luminaries lead the way, is usually both fun and solemn, and surely will be again this year.
As always, a big crowd is expected as Newtown, in its way, takes another step forward.


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EPA fracking investigation in Wyoming revisited after objections, Validity of initial water sampling results confirmed by Scott K. Johnson, October 11, 2012, Arstechnica
In December of last year, Ars reported on a major EPA study in Pavillion, Wyoming that concluded hydraulic fracking operations there had contaminated the groundwater aquifer. While there wasn't a clear link to contamination detected in some shallow private water wells, EPA believed that the deeper contamination was very likely related to fracking. This determination came primarily from two deep monitoring wells that EPA had installed for the investigation.
Encana, the gas exploration company that owned the natural gas wells, disagreed vehemently. They asserted that EPA had drilled monitoring wells into a zone where gas was naturally present. As for the other compounds EPA detected in the wells, which were known to be components of fluids used during fracking, Encana said these were likely introduced into the aquifer during the drilling of the monitoring wells. EPA had foreseen this objection, and went to great lengths to avoid contaminating the monitoring wells, but Encana was not satisfied.
In the end, the EPA, the United States Geological Survey (USGS), the Wyoming Geological Survey, the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality, the Wyoming Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, and the Wyoming Water Development Office met to discuss these objections. They decided that the EPA and USGS would carefully re-sample the deep monitoring wells to verify the results EPA had gotten previously.
The USGS released their data (carefully avoiding any interpretation or conclusions) a couple weeks ago, and the EPA's report was made available Wednesday. Literally hundreds of samples were collected from the two deep monitoring wells (as well as several private wells that had previously been sampled) and submitted to a number of different laboratories. The analysis was extremely rigorous—testing multiple duplicate samples at separate labs with different techniques, etc.
Perhaps most importantly, for Encana's objections, the wells were samples were taken at multiple times during the pumping (or purging) of the well. Samples were taken early on, and then taken again (several times) later as the pumping continued. In addition, a number of geochemical properties were monitored continuously for changes during pumping, which would indicate differences between water in the well and water in the aquifer. If the contaminants were related to the materials used to install the well, you would expect to see them progressively diluted as the water sitting in the well was replaced several times over with water fresh out of the aquifer. No such effects were seen, and the results looked no different than the original samples presented in EPA's report last December. This shows a couple things: the concentrations are indeed representative of the groundwater in those locations, and the numbers they initially reported are accurate. It's important to note that, while natural gas was once again detected in the nearby private water wells, no other contaminants were detected. So while those wells may need to be vented to prevent explosive hazards in the homes, there don't appear to be any other health risks.
So what's next? Following a period for public comment, EPA's report (along with the new data), will finally go to the peer-review committee that must look it over before it's finalized. More information can be found on EPA's project page for Pavillion. [Emphasis added]


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So, what do you do with 25 cucumbers? Make pickles, of course. My sister passed this recipe on to me last year, which I've tweaked to my liking. They are so quick and easy to make. And so good, too!
Dill Refrigerator Pickles
In a 5 quart container (an ice cream bucket works well), place 4 heads of dill and 1 onion, sliced, in the bottom.
Slice (or cut into spears) enough cucumbers to fill the container. Set aside.
For the brine:
1/2 teaspoon alum
1 quart water
1 3/4 cups white vinegar
1/2 teaspoon red pepper flakes
1/2 head garlic, slice each piece in half
1/3 cup canning salt
1 teaspoon mustard seed
1/3 cup sugar
Mix brine ingredients in a medium saucepan and heat through. Pour over cucumbers and refrigerate.
Let pickles set for 24 hours before eating.
I've heard that they will keep in the refrigerator until Christmas, but we've never had them last that long. I've got a few too many pickle fans in the house for that to happen. :)
I grew beets again this year, even though I've never been a big fan. My husband likes them, (pickled) and I've always wanted to like them (mainly because they are such a great color!) but I never acquired a taste. Just last week my other sister offered me some 'non-pickled' beets (boiled and then served with a touch of butter and salt and pepper)...and you know what? They are soooo good! My kids love them, too! As crazy as it sounds, they taste kind of like sweet corn. Now, I'm trying to figure out how I've gone 37 years without trying boiled beets?! It seems pretty crazy to me! Oh well. I guess now I know. :)


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Places for First Name starts with BESSIE (0)
Welcome to the Branches of Mussar - a family genealogy that includes the Lipkin's descended from the great Rav Israel Salanter, the founder of the Mussar Movement.
Please send in any and all suggestions, corrections, additions. This website can be a wonderful resource for our family, both to learn about our past and to make connections now and into the future. We have family all over the world and in professions spanning scientists, educators, laborers, military, business, medicine, the arts and more! Need a mentor? There is almost certainly someone in the family in the field you're considering. Let's make connections and help keep our website up to date.


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Criteria: ACU Patches, known broadly as shoulder sleeve insignia (SSI), are embroidered patches used by major formations of the United States Army. Each formation has a unique formation patch, and the U.S. Army is unique among the Armed Services in that all soldiers are required to wear the patch of their headquarters as part of their military uniforms.
Shoulder sleeve insignia are most commonly worn on the upper left shoulders of all U.S. Army uniforms, though they can be placed on other locations, such as a combat helmet. Shoulder sleeve insignia worn on the upper right shoulders on Army uniforms denote former wartime service. These "combat patches" will not be worn on the new Army service uniform. Instead a 2-inch metal replica will be worn on the right breast pocket and is officially known as the Combat Service Identification Badge.
The subdued version created for the Army Combat Uniform is the version widely used in the field today. Since the Army-wide adoption of the ACU, SSI for the ACU have been developed. These SSI are primarily foliage green, light brown, and black, though a few patches also feature red and maroon colors for some details. Unlike previous patches, the ACU SSI are velcro, designed to attach to the velcro pockets on the shoulder of the uniform, instead of being sewn on. This makes them easier to remove and replace.
© 2024 USAMM. All Rights Reserved


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Inflammation is correctly blamed as one of the root causes of both acute and chronic pain—and more. Not only does chronic inflammation underlie disorders such as rheumatoid arthritis, inflammatory bowel disease, and other autoimmune diseases, it has also been implicated in the pathogenesis of cancer, chronic heart failure, and neurological disorders such as Parkinson's and Alzheimer's diseases. These conditions affect millions, and carry high health-care and socioeconomic costs. And yet, inflammation is an important physiological response that jump-starts tissue repair and more carefully tunes immune reactions. Without it, we could not fight off infection or heal from injury. Why and how does this powerful ally turn into a foe?
A patient who had consulted us earlier about other problems came in complaining of swelling in her right hand, accompanied by incessant pain that left her unable to move her arm very much. An otherwise healthy 47-year-old,...
Her doctors finally arrived at a diagnosis of complex regional pain syndrome and she began a multicomponent pain treatment program. Treatment included very specific physical and cognitive therapies that resulted in a 90 percent restoration of hand function and a reduction in pain. Today, complex regional pain syndrome is thought to be initiated by an unusually strong and long-lasting inflammatory reaction to trauma, although its treatment is not always so successful.
Although not all cases of chronic pain involve inflammation, the majority do. Therapy options for chronic pain are complicated because of the ongoing nature of the symptom.
In chronic pain, the inflammatory factors are never completely cleared from the system.
While the causes of chronic pain are many and diverse, the pervasive effect it has on a patient's life—including inability to work, anxiety, depression, and even post-traumatic stress disorder—is universal. Opiates such as morphine are considered among the best medications for relieving pain, but they carry a risk of tolerance and addiction, especially with long-term use. Many doctors thus prefer to prescribe anti-inflammatory drugs such as cyclooxygenase (COX) inhibitors. COX inhibitors, like aspirin or ibuprofen, however, can cause gastrointestinal bleeding and kidney damage when used at high doses, and selective COX-2 inhibitors such as Vioxx have been shown to increase the risk of cardiovascular disease. In addition, these drugs are most effective for mild and moderate pain; they have a "ceiling" beyond which taking more provides no more relief.
One difference between acute inflammation and the persistent inflammation that leads to chronic pain, is that in the latter, the inflammatory factors are never completely cleared from the system. Recent research has revealed that the clearing of these inflammatory factors is an active process rather than a passive one that simply occurs over time. This insight offers the possibility that we might be able to harness resolution factors that clear inflammation and use them to ameliorate the pain that accompanies chronic inflammation.
Reducing inflammation
In 2000, while looking for bioactive molecules derived from the metabolism of omega-3 fatty acids, Charlie Serhan's laboratory at Brigham and Women's Hospital at Harvard Medical School discovered a compound that naturally reduces inflammation after an acute reaction.[1. C.N. Serhan et al., "Resolvins: a family of bioactive products of omega-3 fatty acid transformation circuits initiated by aspirin treatment that counter proinflammation signals," J Exp Med, 196:1025-37, 2002.],[2. C.N. Serhan "Systems approach to inflammation resolution: identification of novel anti-inflammatory and pro-resolving mediators," J Thromb Haemost, 7 (Suppl 1):44-48, 2009.] Omega-3 fatty acids, which can be found in foods such as fish and flaxseed oil, include eicosapentaenoic acid (EPA) and docosahexaenoic acid (DHA). These two fatty acids have long been known to have beneficial effects in reducing the risk of several diseases, including atherosclerosis, asthma, heart disease, and cancer. The American Heart Association even recommends the consumption of fish rich in omega-3 fatty acids for cardiovascular disease prevention. However, it was not known whether omega-3 fatty acids actively reduced inflammation. The problem was confounded by the fact that many studies investigating the effects included patients who were also taking aspirin, making it difficult to tease apart the anti-inflammatory contribution of each. The Serhan laboratory set out to analyze the interaction of EPA and DHA with aspirin and to identify molecular components derived from the fatty acids.
First, they analyzed the composition of lipid-based compounds that were present in tissues during the resolution of acute inflammation in the mouse. Mice produced fatty acid metabolites that the investigators dubbed "resolvins" for their ability to reduce the inflammatory reaction. Although these compounds appeared to clear the inflammation, the process was different from active suppression of the immune system. The resolvins did not hinder immune cell action; rather, they reduced the inflammatory activity of specific populations of cells and blocked their production of pro-inflammatory chemokines, while increasing the action of immune cells that clear dead tissue.
Serhan's team also showed that these resolving molecules were naturally derived from omega-3 fatty acids—and that aspirin enhanced this conversion. When they then administered the resolvins to animal models of acute and chronic inflammation such as peritonitis, colitis, or asthma, they saw an accelerated return to homeostasis.
The study demonstrated how aspirin could increase the production of the body's own natural inflammation mediators by catalyzing the metabolism of the touted omega-3 fatty acids into chemical forms that diminish inflammation. In addition, it appeared that these newly discovered mediators permitted the aggressive acute inflammation stage to occur, which is so physiologically important, before then subduing the reaction and returning the body to homeostasis. But it was not yet clear whether the reduction in inflammation would also reduce pain.
Inflammation includes a number of processes, not all of which are associated with pain. For example, while systemic infections, like the flu or a cold, spur strong inflammatory reactions, they are only occasionally associated with pain. Pain only occurs when inflammatory cytokines are released near nociceptive, or damage-signaling, nerve fibers. Damaged tissues release their contents during injury or inflammation, flooding the surrounding tissues with prostaglandins (PGs) and bradykinin, which activate the secretion of histamines. Together, these chemicals make blood vessels leaky enough to permit immune cells to enter the damaged tissue from the circulation, releasing PGs creating the swelling that is a cardinal symptom of inflammation. When this process occurs in richly innervated tissues, the inflammatory mediators also cause nearby nociceptors to fire, conveying the sensation of pain.
Resolving the pain
Given that resolvins are derived from omega-3 fatty acids—that is, from essential nutritional factors—and that they are endogenous anti-inflammatory substances, it seemed a likely hypothesis that they would also have an effect on inflammation-related pain. In 2010, the lab of Ru-Rong Ji at Brigham and Women's Hospital in Boston, in collaboration with Serhan, explored this question.[3. Z.Z. Xu et al., "Resolvins RvE1 and RvD1 attenuate inflammatory pain via central and peripheral actions," Nat Med, 16:592-97, 2010.]
Using an animal model of pain, investigators injected the paws of mice with formalin, which produces two phases of pain: an immediate reaction, relayed by the peripheral nerves; and a delayed-onset reaction, mediated by inflammation and by spinal cord neurons.3The first phase is characterized by mice licking the injected foot for about five minutes after injection. Then, after a lag of 20–30 minutes, the second phase begins with another bout of foot licking. The researchers administered two different resolvin (Rv) molecules, RvD1 and RvE1, to test their ability to reduce this pain behavior, and found both molecules to be effective when injected either into the paw or directly into the spinal canal. They noted that RvE1 diminished swelling and reduced markers of the inflammatory response, and that, compared to either morphine or COX-2 inhibitors, a much lower dose of the resolvin effectively halted pain behavior. Interestingly, only the second phase of pain behavior—mediated by spinal cord mechanisms that are often associated with chronic pain—was attenuated, indicating that RvE1 and RvD1 were likely acting via a receptor known as ChemR23, a G protein–coupled receptor found on nociceptive neurons in the dorsal root ganglia and the dorsal horn of the spinal cord. These neurons also express the transient receptor potential vanilloid 1 (TRPV1), which is the receptor for the inflammation-producing irritant found in chili pepper, capsaicin. In living mice, RvE1 was able to block the pain induced by capsaicin.
The same researchers looked at another model of inflammatory pain induced by the injection of carrageenan, which also initiates two phases of pain, but is thought to more closely mimic standard muscle pain than the formalin model. When the mice were given RvE1 or RvD1 in the hindpaw before a carrageenan injection, the pretreatment markedly reduced inflammation: the mice showed diminished swelling, fewer immune effector cells called neutrophils infiltrating the damaged tissue, and a reduced level of pro-inflammatory cytokines. Just like morphine, RvE1 did not dull the ability to sense "normal" pain. In other words, the mice did not experience numbing, but rather a more specific alleviation of the pathologic pain associated with inflammation.
Recently, researchers have begun to investigate whether chronic persistent pain might be the result of a learning response in neurons of the spine. Neurons change shape when they are actively involved in learning, both in terms of the number of physical connections between cells and the number of receptors at the synapses of those connections. Researchers have proposed that when pain persists, the neuronal connections relaying that pain strengthen, making it easier to transmit the response—thus lowering the threshold at which something feels painful.
To test whether resolvins might prevent the formation of this learned pain reaction in the spine, researchers took slices of mouse spinal cord and tested how the transmission between neurons changed in the presence and absence of resolvins. Resolvins blocked an increase in the action of tumor necrosis factor-alpha (TNF-a)—a cytokine thought to increase the frequency of synaptic transmission, and thus possibly the likelihood of forming a "pain memory"—without blocking the normal levels of transmission. Then, the authors showed that RvE1 also inhibited glutamate release—required for some types of neuronal learning—by a pathway dependent on the extracellular signal-regulated kinase (ERK). Additionally, RvE1 changed the activity of the glutamate N-methyl-D-aspartic acid receptor (NMDAR), also via the ERK pathway, supporting the concept that blocking the ERK pathway could be a promising therapeutic target for the treatment of pain.
Since the publication of the first paper by Ji and colleagues describing the analgesic effect of resolvins, others have followed. These new studies described positive effects in other pain models, and have uncovered additional mechanisms by which resolvins can diminish pain. For example, RvD1 was shown to reduce, prevent, and transiently attenuate pain associated with operation trauma in a rat model.[4. L. Huang et al., "Enduring prevention and transient reduction of postoperative pain by intrathecal resolvin D1," Pain, 152:557-65, 2011.] In this study, an oversensitivity to pain, in which a touch that is normally benign feels painful, was reduced or prevented by 20 to 40 nanograms of RvD1 injected into the spinal cord up to 2 days after the surgical trauma. However, if RvD1 was given on postoperative day 9 or 17, the reversal of pain was only transient and incomplete.
In a model of pain that mimics inflammatory arthritis in rats, RvD1 reduced an increased sensitivity to pain. The effect was partially mediated by a decrease in TNF-a and interleukin-1ß—cytokines that drive inflammation and are also thought to increase pain hypersensitivity in the central nervous system.[5. J.F. Lima-Garcia et al., "The precursor of resolvin D series and aspirin-triggered resolvin D1 display anti-hyperalgesic properties in adjuvant-induced arthritis in rats," Br J Pharmacol, 164:278-93, 2011.] In this model, systemic injection, rather than spinal administration, of the resolvins was shown to be effective, providing a much more feasible clinical application, as spinal injections themselves are associated with significant pain. Furthermore, in cell culture, RvD1 inhibited other members of the TRP family of receptors.[6. S. Bang et al., "Resolvin D1 attenuates activation of sensory transient receptor potential channels leading to multiple anti-nociception," Br J Pharmacol, 161:707-20, 2010.] Subsequent in vivo experiments demonstrated that injecting RvD1 under the skin was sufficient to attenuate pain caused by direct activation of these TRP receptors in the mouse.
A clearer picture for the future
From the animal data summarized above, it appears that resolvins may be ideal candidates for novel analgesics. Because they are derived from lipid molecules normally produced in the body, resolvins counteract inflammation in a physiological way. Their precursors, the omega-3 fatty acids, have been tested with some success in treating pain conditions,[7. G.D. Ko, "Omega-3 fatty acids for neuropathic pain: case series," Clin J Pain, 26:168-72, 2010.] although a recent meta-analysis did not show a definitive effect. However, resolvins appear to show effects at concentrations about 10,000 times lower than effective doses of omega-3 fatty acids—an advantage for drug development.
Intriguingly, one of the mechanisms that Ji and colleagues identified for the analgesic action of the resolvins is that they block various TRP receptors (particularly TRPV1) indirectly by blocking the TRPV1-dependent release of glutamate.3 This is particularly interesting insomuch as it may provide a better avenue for blocking TRPV. In fact, recently developed TRPV1 antagonists that have been tested in humans resulted in serious side effects such as high fever. The reason for this side effect is most likely that TRPV1 not only conveys information about pain, but also about temperature. Complete blockade of this receptor, therefore, would also block information about fever from reaching the brain, which would be unable to respond by initiating cooling mechanisms such as sweating. Since resolvins block glutamate rather than directly acting on TRPV1, they might avoid such life-threatening side effects.
Side effects of blocking TRP might be reduced even more with the use of resolvins that act specifically on certain TRP receptors, as recently demonstrated in vitro and in vivo with RvD1, which appears to be specific for TRPV3. This receptor specificity may potentially pave the way to a more tailored treatment for individual pain symptoms such as thermal or mechanical pain hypersensitivity. A further potential advantage of resolvins is that they may have a dual function as both an analgesic and an inflammatory disease-modifying drug. In fact, a number of molecules with this potential have already been investigated, including nerve growth factor and its antagonists in the treatment of nerve lesions, neuropathic pain, or osteoarthritis; erythropoietin in diabetic neuropathy; and cytokine inhibitors in rheumatoid arthritis.[8. R. Nixon et al.,"The efficacy of inhibiting tumour necrosis factor alpha and interleukin 1 in patients with rheumatoid arthritis: a meta-analysis and adjusted indirect comparisons," Rheumatology, 46:1140-47, 2007.] Unfortunately, of these, currently only the cytokine inhibitors have made it to clinical application.
The challenge now, as it is for every promising molecule at the preclinical stage of investigation, will be to develop resolvins into a clinically applicable form. Many of the experimental applications have been via spinal injection, which would limit the use in humans. As drugs, these molecules would need to be stable—so that they could be taken orally, for example—and long-acting. Because they act on the immune system, they might have unwanted side effects, which will need to be investigated further. In addition, although the results reported by Ji and others are impressive and reasonable, the size of the effect on pain behavior in the animals is moderate. Other analgesic drugs, which had even stronger effects than the resolvins in animal models, have failed in human clinical trials because their impact was not sufficiently different from that of placebos. The reason might be that human pain still differs significantly from even the best and most elaborate animal pain models. With all these caveats, testing resolvins in clinical trials will be the best way to determine if alleviating chronic low-grade inflammation, a factor underlying not only pathogenic pain but diseases ranging from cancer to obesity, could reduce morbidity and mortality.
Claudia Sommer is at the University of Würzburg, in Germany, and Frank Birklein is at the University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz.
This article is adapted from a review in F1000 Medicine Reports, DOI:10.3410/M3-19 (open access at http://f1000.com/reports/m/3/19/).


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The first major survey of three decades of Zarina Bhimji's highly emotive work and the premiere of her new film, Yellow Patch, opens at Whitechapel Gallery, London, in January.
There are unseen lines that cross the earth, lines that make little concession to land or water but are owed and owing to both, through industry and habitation. Changes to these naturally accrue over time, and it is triangulations of these lines, wrought between the subcontinent and Britain that meet vicariously in the films, installations, drawings, material accumulations and photographic works of Zarina Bhimji. These are showing in their most extensive and expanded form in a retrospective at the Whitechapel Gallery that marks 30 years of significant artistic production.
Shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 2007, it was only in 2002 that Bhimji had her first foray into a medium with which she is now firmly associated, as well as highly acclaimed. The piece was Out of Blue (2002) shot in colour on 16mm film stock. Running at 24 minutes and 25 seconds it was commissioned and produced for dOCUMENTA 11 (2002), where it was one of a series of film works that addressed population dispersions through varying contexts of modern diaspora. Amongst these works were Ulrike Ottinger's Southeast Passage (2002), a reversal of Eastern European migration routes, Chantal Akerman's From The Other Side (2002), following the border crossings of illegal Mexican immigrants to America, and Isaac Julien's Paradise Omeros (2002), an unpacking of Afro-Caribbean identity following trans-Atlantic migration.
Out of Blue (which is presented at the Whitechapel) is a defining work for Bhimji; not simply because it is her first work in film and connects to the subject to her own personal history, but also because it presents an affecting visual language of differences between images through its adoption of structural methodologies of image and sound. Bhimji was born in Uganda to Indian parents. In 1974, when she was aged 10, her family – her parents, herself and her sister – left abruptly, forced from their country and their home by political circumstance. Their departure was the result of events that occurred two years earlier in 1972 when Idi Amin assumed military control of Uganda via a coup within a country besieged by civil war. Almost immediately after taking power Amin declared that British Asians were no longer Ugandan citizens and had 90 days to leave the country. Three days later this was revised to all Asians. A population that had largely settled in Uganda through British colonial requirements for skilled labour in Eastern African countries had been displaced and had lost nationality. Like many others Bhimji's family travelled to England. And it was not until she began the preparatory work for Out of Blue that she returned to her country of birth.
While other works such as She Loved to Breathe – Pure Silence (1987) (showing at Whitechapel) date further back in time it is Out of Blue that acts as a direct counterpart to the newest work in the exhibition Yellow Patch (2011). The first part of a two-part work, it is being shown for the first time at Whitechapel (as well as being shown simultaneously at The New Art Gallery Walsall). Consistent to Bhimji's evocative, textural and emotionally charged cinematic language, Yellow Patch is a lyrical exposure of architectures, territories, hinterlands, refuges and palaces that touch on or mark the lines of journeys foregrounding the migration and interfacing of peoples, cultures, lands and languages caught by the milieu of the British colonial subcontinent of the late 19th and early 20th century. "It is largely a forgotten history, yet one that continues to affect thousands of people," explains Whitechapel curator Achim Borchardt-Hume, commenting on the divisive tensions that British colonial rule created and the often brutal actions that marked their closures. Yellow Patch discloses a precedent history to that of Out of Blue, a step back in time that examines the situation before the event (of 1972) and the stark and brutal displacement that Bhimji experienced at first hand. People are absent from Yellow Patch, as is narration – the sound is rich and layered – and, as with Out of Blue, it is the traces and residual markings owed to people through places, through the monuments and outputs by which they choose to describe themselves, that Bhimji turns to as her referent and guide for her camera lens. While minds betray memories, there are tacit forensic truths that remain. Witnessed, these outstrip the distortions of memories. Such truths and differences of truth are what Bhimji seeks, and they are the images she presents us with and, by so doing, draws our attention to. To this end Bhimji does not seek to extract factual narrative through conventional storytelling, but moreover to expose it to the framework of storytelling. And it is precisely such exposures that provide Bhimji's works with contexts and readings that surpass the specificity of their starting points. As such her works do not seek to tighten, but instead to loosen, the bond between an image and its referent. Or as Achim Borchardt-Hume explains: "As films evolve in time, they inevitably convey a narrative. What is important in Bhimji's case is that although this narrative develops against the backdrop of the historic triangle of India, Africa and Britain it does not seek to convey one fixed story but to make room for multiple narratives." This further proposes that "meaning does not exhaust itself in the depiction of the story." Here it becomes clear that the voice that resonates within and across the works is not a voice of return or backward glance but instead a voice attuned and attentive to its own present, to the moment of its making, contingent to the echoes, traces and scars that make and mark it.
Bhimji's works stretch through film to photography and beyond. Many of these are presented as installations, with works occasionally connected by diverse forms of material. She Loved to Breathe – Pure Silence combines photographs with a floor of chilli powder and turmeric, while elsewhere rarely seen photographs and research drawings for films are shown for the first time. "It felt important to give an overview of Bhimji's work and how it has developed," explains Achim Borchardt-Hume, "despite the critical acclaim that the work has garnered over the years, and the fact that it is now in the collections of major museums, much of it has not been shown in London for some time, with some earlier works seen even more rarely."
Intrinsic to Bhimji's works are the histories that motivate them or in many cases serve as direct catalysts, whether through photography, film or other constructed media. The echoes and traces that forge the roots of such works raise complex questions of representation, of what the terms are for this when their underpinning narratives are deep-rooted and sensitively charged.
To this end Bhimji's works are perhaps indebted to things that are at some level beyond or outside of representation, either through the trauma of actual events or a displacement of time that renders the factual inert. The intensive landscapes that recur through Bhimji's films simply support, as the writer and broadcaster and fellow Ugandan Asian Yasmin Alibhai-Brown argues, the "conventional" viewpoint held by Ugandan Asians of an "imploded paradise" But it is here that the visual language adopted by Bhimji also draws on the romanticised languages of Western visual arts and literature; of ruins and poetic prose, more so than other popularised or altogether alternative forms. Borchardt-Hume says about Out of Blue: "Perhaps the most surprising thing is the beauty of the landscape, which seems more indebted to the traditions of European landscape painting than falling into the trap of stereotypical depictions of Africa." By locating the visual image language within such a frame Bhimji not only addresses her (Western) audience directly, but also makes transparent the structural limitations of her project, encoding the emptiness of the works as time-based separations mediated by indexical traces that document, but only from the point of the moment at which they are made.
In questioning what can be represented in his book The Future of the Image (2003), the French philosopher, Jacques Rancière, turns to ideas of the unrepresentable and draws on literary examples, taking as his starting point Robert Antelme's book, The Human Race (1947), and its prose description of living conditions in Nazi concentration camps. He notes that the style of Antelme's writing documents the circumstance to great affect, using short, factually descriptive sentences with no embellishment. Rancière writes that it is "the experience of a life reduced to its most basic aspects, stripped of any horizon of expectations, and merely connecting simple actions and perceptions one after the other." He goes on to write that while the language structure is entirely true to the circumstance of Antelme's experience, it is also the language structure of Albert Camus' book The Outsider (1942) and moreover that the same language structure appears in passages written by Gustave Flaubert that date to the mid 19th century. What Rancière argues from this is that the "language that conveys this (Antelme's experience) is in no way specific to it."
In a related way it could be argued that the visual language of slow panning and exquisitely composed images is a stylistic convention that while entirely true to Bhimji's experience is likewise not specific to it. One need only to look to works by artists such as Philippe Parreno, Jane and Louise Wilson, and Darren Almond and works such as In the Between (Landscape) (2006) by Darren Almond, Gamma (1999) by Jane and Louise Wilson, and June 8 1969 (2009) by Philippe Parreno to see this. What this discloses is the level to which this stylistic language of image and audio speaks both of the complex "unrepresentable" aspects of narrative that underpin Bhimji's works, and at the same time does not cast limitation to further expanded readings of those images. This double aspect of image is noted by Achim Borchardt-Hume when he writes of Yellow Patch: "While the film evolves against a particular background its meaning does not exhaust itself in the depiction of this story."
It is interesting that, in describing the language structure that connects these writers, Rancière identifies it as "reduced to its most basic elements." Even simply as words these can be used without alteration to describe the forms of the images that Bhimji presents within her films. This slowing of image draws reference to the structural filmmakers of the 1960s and 1970s and works such as Michael Snow's seminal Wavelength (1966-1967) that epitomise this restraint and ethic. The film is a single shot of an empty warehouse, animated solely by the continuous alteration of the zoom lens which takes 45 minutes and gives the film its duration. Light describes and re-describes the room while a sine wave provides the audio track moving from its lowest to its highest point. Michael Snow wrote of the work that he was trying "to make a definitive statement of pure film space and time, a balancing of 'illusion' and 'fact', all about seeing." It is a related truth of seeing, a language of incremental difference, which emerges through the works of Bhimji. And it was the early films of Henri Chomette, Cinq Minutes du Cinema Pur (1925-26) and Jeux de reflets et de vitesse (1923-25), that first drew film from away representational narrative in order to reach purer outcomes outside of drama and documentary.
A final aspect of slowness intrinsic to Bhimji's works is the actual time of physical change within the landscapes and spaces that she has filmed. This slow pacing has allowed Bhimji to engage with her subjects in the present – a present filled with trace marks – without having to necessarily turn to documented or other formats. This slowness of change has preserved not just the open landscapes that Bhimji has filmed but also many of the structures and architectures that occupy them, despite the fact that they may be in demise or disrepair. The clarity of mapping is perhaps best articulated by Yasmin Alibhai-Brown, who, writing in 2003 when Out of Blue was shown at Tate, noted: "The landscape is still fresh for those driven from it. As the camera strokes its way softly across the beauty, three decades of distance vanish." Bhimji's practice is one of stripping back content and with it representation, until only the faintest of lines are visible; lines that cross the earth and each other.
Zarina Bhimji opened at Whitechapel Gallery on 19 January and continued until 9 March 2012. www.whitechapelgallery.org
Charles Danby


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Hong-Chih Kuo (0-0) vs. Edinson Volquez (2-0).
COMMENTS: Orel says it's all about momentum, but I say it's simply about survival. The Dodgers are 0-3 vs. the NL East and 5-7 vs. the NL West, but we the one division we can beat is the NL Central (3-1). In our last game against the NL Central until May 9 (Astros), it would be nice to grab one more victory against the Reds today.
Kuo's tight pitch count and 33-pitch first inning gave him the early hook last Tuesday, disqualifying him for the victory (which was wrapped up with a bow for Esteban Loiaza and his five-inning relief appearance). He needs to be more efficient tonight against the Reds. Volquez sports a 1.17 ERA though he is also said to get deep into counts.
Which Dodgers offense will show up today?
UPDATE: Tonight's lineup: Gnomar stays in the three-hole, and Jones won't have much time to march toward Mendoza (details in the comments).


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(Most recent update: 12:50 p.m. ET.)
Saying that "foolish mistakes were made by people trying to be more efficient in their workload selection," the outgoing head of the Internal Revenue Service told Congress on Friday that he and the agency want to apologize for the targeting of some conservative groups during the 2012 campaign cycle.
"I do not believe that partisanship motivated" the actions by IRS personnel, Steven Miller told the House Ways and Means Committee shortly after the hearing began.
Miller was forced to submit his resignation this week as the White House took steps to respond to a mushrooming scandal. During his testimony, Miller said he had not been involved in the decisions that led to conservative groups' applications for tax-exempt status getting extra scrutiny. Asked why he agreed to resign, Miller said: "As the acting commissioner, what happens in the IRS — whether I was personally involved or not — stops at my desk. I should be held accountable."
When the committee opened its first hearing into the scandal at the IRS, there was bipartisan anger over the agency's actions.
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., decried the "systematic abuse" and said Congress had not just been misled by IRS officials, but had been lied to about such practices.
The committee's ranking Democrat, Rep. Sander Levin of Michigan, said the IRS had "completely failed the American people" and displayed "total disregard" of Congress' oversight responsibilities.
About an hour into the hearing, Republican Rep. Kevin Brady of Texas asked "is this still America?" and whether the federal government has become "drunk on power." Democrats, while expressing shock over the agency's actions, also made several references to the man who headed the IRS until last November, Douglas Shulman, who was an appointee of Republican President George W. Bush. Their point: The targeting happened while a GOP-appointee was in charge.
Later in the morning, in response to questions from Republican Rep. Peter Roskam of Illinois, Miller confirmed that he and a deputy, Lois Lerner, planned for her to be asked a question at a conference on May 10. She would then reveal that IRS personnel had singled out some conservative groups for extra scrutiny. That's how the story surfaced.
Throughout the morning, Miller pushed back at accusations that he had misled Congress in the past by not telling lawmakers about what was happening. "I did not mislead Congress or the American people," he said. "I answered the questions that were asked" during oversight hearings in recent years.
He told Roskam that the IRS had not previously notified the Ways and Means Committee about what was happening — even though lawmakers had been asking questions about reports of conservative groups being targeted — because agency officials wanted to wait for the results of an inspector general's report.
Once the report was done, Miller told Roskam, "we called to try to get on the [committee's] calender."
"Is that all you got?" asked an incredulous Roskam.
"It's the truth," Miller responded.
In the early afternoon, Rep. Tom Reed of New York summed up the reaction he and his fellow Republicans had to Miller's testimony as of that hour. "This is offensive," said Reed. "It's the 'IRS targetinggate.' " If he had been Miller's boss, Reed said, "you would have been fired on the spot" as soon as the IRS's actions were made public.
The hearing ended just before 12:50 p.m. ET.
Related post: It's True: 'Mistakes Were Made' Is The King Of Non-Apologies.
Our original post — "Congress Due To Grill Ousted IRS Chief:"
Steven Miller, who this week was forced to submit his resignation as acting commissioner of the Internal Revenue Service, is due at a House Ways and Means Committee hearing Friday morning at which he'll be questioned about the agency's targeting of conservative groups during the 2012 campaign cycle.
The hearing is due to begin at 9 a.m. ET. It will be webcast by the committee and by C-SPAN. We'll watch for news and update.
Treasury Secretary Jack Lew asked for, and accepted, Miller's resignation on Wednesday. Late Thursday afternoon, the White House announced that Office of Management and Budget Controller Daniel Werfel would be replacing Miller.
The news broke last Friday that the IRS had admitted that some of its personnel looked for words such as "tea party" and "patriots" on organizations' applications for tax-exempt status. If those words appeared, the groups' applications were given extra scrutiny and action on their requests was delayed. A Treasury Department inspector general's report concludes that "ineffective management" allowed "inappropriate criteria" to be used during the processing of such groups' requests.
Related posts from It's All Politics:
-- Some Lawmakers Want Big-Budget Groups Included In IRS Debate.
-- 10 Things We Learned From the IRS Inspector General Report.
-- Exactly What Did The IRS Want To Know?
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