text:
ING Direct Canada Looks Forward On Mobile
ING Direct Canada foresees a world where the mobile channel dominates consumers' interactions with their financial institution, and is preparing accordingly.
The bank has been working with Armonk, N.Y.-based IBM on several mobile banking services using IBM's MobileFirst suite of solutions.
Charaka Kithulegoda, CIO, ING Direct Canada
"People are using these devices for managing almost every part of their lives," says ING Direct Canada's CIO Charaka Kithulegoda. "The movement into managing the financial part of their lives has been a bit slower compared to retail, for example, but now they're starting to do it more and more in financial services as well."
ING Direct Canada is attempting to serve this shift in customer behavior in several ways. Firstly, Kithulegoda is quick to point to Orange Snapshot -- a mobile function that gives customers a complete view of all their accounts as well as bill payment and email money transfers in two clicks without a password -- as a rousing mobile success for the bank. Customers can register for Orange Snapshot through the bank's mobile app. In the two years the function has been available, Kithulegoda says about 80% of mobile banking customs have opted in for it.
More recently, the bank rolled out a service in the past nine months where customers can access account information within Facebook. Customers who opt-in to this app are able to view their account balances, history and pending transactions as well as receive account notifications as real time messages automatically pushed to them within Facebook. The bank plans to expand this application further to include transactions such as transfers, bill payments and email money transfers.
"In my opinion mobile banking and social have become intertwined with each other," explains Kithulegoda. "Facebook has, in its own right become a whole platform, it's not just a website anymore."
Kithulegoda says when it comes to any mobile service or function that "the primary consideration is security." However, he acknowledge that sometimes "security and convenience don't go together," as customer desire the ease-of-use of mobile apps but don't want to have to deal with an extensive log-in process.
In an attempt to solve that dilemma, ING Direct Canada is working on some newer mobile innovations currently being tested that may soon be rolled out to customers. Kithulegoda says the bank is running an internal pilot for voice-recognition authentication and is also exploring biometrics as a way for its customers to securely and conveniently log into mobile banking.
Biometrics and voice authentication "are very difficult to break," he notes. "My voice is my voice; it's difficult to duplicate that. There's still some technical cleanup we have to do, but it's looking very promising."
Ultimately, mobile banking is not just about creating cool apps, notes Kithulegoda, but serving the customer.
"You have to give the customers choice, whatever platform they want to interact with us, you have to give them that choice," he adds.
[See Also: The Future Of Mobile At Bank of America]
Bryan Yurcan is associate editor for Bank Systems and Technology. He has worked in various editorial capacities for newspapers and magazines for the past 8 years. After beginning his career as a municipal and courts reporter for daily newspapers in upstate New York, Bryan has ... View Full Bio

subset: commoncrawl


text:
For 15 years, an Icelandic teenager has been called her given name, Blaer Bjarkardottir, by everyone except government employees and other officials. That's because "Blaer" (reportedly Icelandic for "light breeze") isn't on a list of government-approved names for girls.
So, in school and at the bank, she is often addressed as "stulka" — "girl" — before she explains the situation.
Blaer, 15, is now suing the government with the help of her mother, Bjork Eidsdottir, who tells the AP that the name Blaer has been accepted by the Icelandic Naming Committee before, despite not being one of a reported 1,853 female names that are officially allowed.
"I had no idea that the name wasn't on the list, the famous list of names that you can choose from," Eidsdottir tells the AP.
The problem with "Blaer" seems to be two-fold: It's on a list of approved boys' names, and it takes a masculine article in the Icelandic language.
As Iceland Review reports, the review board has refused to budge, "even though Nobel Prize winning author Halldór Laxness [uses] it for a female character in one of his novels, Brekkukotsannáll ( The Fish Can Sing) in 1957."
With her mother's help, Blaer is now suing Iceland's interior minister, asking that the ruling against "Blaer" be set aside.
Iceland isn't alone in requiring a review of babies' names — in 2006, for example, an Italian couple was forbidden to name their son "Friday" (even though their son was born on a Sunday).
Some countries, such as France, have somewhat relaxed once-strict policies that required only government-approved names (many of which either appear in the Bible or are culturally entrenched).
Many nations still require baby names to indicate gender (Germany) or to be easily read by a computer scanner (China), as CNN reported in 2010.
And it remains common for many governments to give at least a cursory review, to ensure that the parents aren't potentially sabotaging their child by choosing a profane or demeaning name, or one that might otherwise be an unfair burden to the child.
Copyright 2020 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.


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Microsoft's popular collaboration platform gets a significant revamp with SharePoint 2013. Here's what you gain.
Once upon a time, back somewhere in the '00s, I worked for a company that had a simple SharePoint deployment. If memory serves, it didn't do a whole heck of a lot. It was essentially a document storage portal used sparingly, if not downright begrudgingly, by various departments -- part intranet, part file server, part rudimentary website. It was a tool you only used if you absolutely had to, one more likely to induce grumbling than productivity or efficiency. Although no doubt there were more sophisticated SharePoint environments out there, I also suspect I'm not alone in my early experiences.
Times have changed. SharePoint 2013 rings in another significant phase of the platform's continuing evolution. Suffice it to say, this is not the boring corporate intranet of yore.
The buzzwords are all here, with mobile and social leading the way. Microsoft has injected ample doses of both in SharePoint 2013. A variety of mobile-friendly changes enable better user experiences across devices, a must these days for multi-platform and bring-your-own-device environments. It's a potential boon for SharePoint admins who don't want to lose sleep over employee screen sizes, operating systems and other factors that can make the help desk's phone ring off the hook. On the social front, Microsoft wants to put a whole lot more "share" in SharePoint, strengthened by its 2012 purchase of Yammer. New tools such as Community Sites should go a long way toward better meeting modern expectations for social and collaboration interactions.
Of course, it's not just about social and mobile. Search is front and center. As Microsoft program manager Kate Dramstad pointed out in a blog post, "a great search experience is characterized by how easy it is for the user to quickly find what they are looking for." That seems to grow more true with each additional gigabyte of stored data we create, share and store. The hunt-and-peck methodology simply isn't a sustainable way to find the information and tools you need in most organizations these days.
SharePoint 2013 also embraces the modern app paradigm -- not entirely unlike how Windows 8 has app-ified the traditional Windows experience and ushered in Microsoft's first real app store. Developers can publish their apps to SharePoint's public store, or to corporate stores built specifically for the user communities they support. Microsoft is pushing its cloud app model here, although it supports a diverse set of development language and tools. And of course, the SharePoint store will include third-party apps for companies that don't want to be in the development business.
A host of publishing, design, legal and management enhancements are part of the newest release, too. Bottom line: SharePoint might still be many things to many people and organizations, but we can officially say goodbye to the snooze-inducing document portal.
Though there's still no formal date for the general release of SharePoint 2013 and the broader Office 2013 portfolio, Microsoft expects to make it widely available during the first quarter of this year. SharePoint 2013 already is available to volume license customers.
We should note something that might be easy to take for granted or otherwise overlook: There are both on-premises and cloud versions of SharePoint -- SharePoint Server and Office 365, respectively. Our focus here, unless noted, is on the server-based version, although there is obviously a lot of feature overlap between the two. For its part, Microsoft appears to recognize that different companies have different cloud strategies; it will continue to offer and support both server-based and online versions of SharePoint and other Office applications.
Are you planning to upgrade, or have you already started? What features and enhancements are you most excited about? Tell us in the comments.
About the Author(s)
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Job Description
The Patient Services Representative I (PSR I) represents the face of our company to patients who come to Quest Diagnostics, both as part of their health routine or for insights into life-defining health decisions. The PSR I draws quality blood samples from patients and prepares those specimens for lab testing while following established practices and procedures. The PSR I has direct contact with patients and creates an atmosphere of trust and confidence while explaining procedures to patients and drawing blood specimens in a skillful, safe and accurate manner. The PSR I will demonstrate Quest Leadership Behaviors while focusing on process excellence skills and sensitivity to confidentiality and accuracy to patient information. Successful applicants may be assigned to work in a doctor's office, a patient service center, in a house call environment, or as business needs dictate.
Job Accountabilities (Responsibilities)
1.Collect specimens according to established procedures. This includes, but not limited to: drug screens, biometric screening and insurance exams.
2.Administer oral solutions according to established training.
3.Research test/client information and confirm and verify all written and electronic orders by utilizing lab technology systems or directory of services.
4.Responsible for completing all data entry requirements accurately including data entry of patient registration; entry of test order from requisition or pulling order from database; managing Standing Orders.
5.Enter billing information and collect payments when required, including the safeguarding of assets and credit card information.
6.Data entry and processing specimens including: labeling, centrifuging, splitting, and freezing specimens as required by test order.
7.Perform departmental-related clerical duties when assigned such as data entry, inventory, stock supplies, and answer phones when needed.
8.Read, understand and comply with departmental policies, protocols and procedures: (i.e. Procedure Manuals, Safety Manual, Compliance Manual, Automobile Policies and Procedures, Employee Handbook, Quality Assurance Manual); and ensure that all staff members follow instructions.
9.Perform verification of patient demographic info / initials including patient signature post-venipuncture to verify tubes were labeled in their presence and that the name on the label is correct.
10.Assist with compilation and submission of monthly statistics and data.
11.Maintain all appropriate phlebotomy logs in a timely manner and based on frequency, such as maintenance logs and temperature logs.
12.Complete training courses and keep up-to-date with the latest phlebotomy techniques.
13.Travel to Territory Manager meeting if held off-site or off normal shift.
14.Participate on special projects and teams.
15.Stay up-to-date on company communications.
Job Requirements
1.Ability to provide quality, error free work in a fast-paced environment.
2.Ability to work independently with minimal on-site supervision.
3.Excellent phlebotomy skills to include pediatric and geriatric.
4.Flexible and available based on staffing needs, which includes weekends, holidays, on-call and overtime.
5.Committed to all Quest Diagnostics policies and procedures including company dress code, Employee Health & Safety, and Quest Diagnostics Everyday Excellence Guiding Principles.
6.Must have reliable transportation, valid driver license, and clean driving record, if applicable.
7.Must demonstrate superior customer focus; ability to communicate openly and transparently with peers, supervisors and patients; ability to accelerate and embrace change throughout Quest; and knowledge of our business.
Physical Requirements
1.Lift light to moderately heavy objects. The normal performance of duties may require lifting and carrying objects. Objects in the weight range of 1 to 15 pounds are lifted and carried frequently; objects in the weight range of 16 to 25 pounds are lifted and carried occasionally and objects in the weight range of 26 to 40 pounds are seldom lifted and carried. Objects exceeding 41 pounds are not to be lifted or carried without assistance.
2.Must be able to sit or stand for long periods of time; requires long hours of eye and hand coordination.
3.Must be able to perform repetitive tasks with dominant hand frequently to constantly throughout the day.
4.Position requires travel.
5.Extensive use of phone and PC.
6.Fine dexterity with hands/steadiness.
[All requirements are subject to possible modifications to reasonably accommodate individuals with disabilities. All duties and requirements are essential job functions.]
Required Education
1.High school diploma or equivalent.
2.Medical training: medical assistant or paramedic training preferred.
3.Phlebotomy certification preferred. Required in California, Nevada, and Washington.
Work Experience
1.One year phlebotomy experience preferred.
2.Customer service in a retail or service environment preferred.
3.Keyboard/data entry experience.
All requirements are subject to possible modifications to reasonably accommodate individuals with disabilities. Quest Diagnostics is an Equal Opportunity Employer: Women / Minorities / Veterans / Disabled / Sexual Orientation / Gender Identity / Citizenship.


text:
Restaurant Search Engine | Find Restaurants Nearby
Claim Brixx & Barley, Long Beach, NY 11561 Restaurant Claim Form
Restaurant owners are required to provide proof of ownership before using advanced features on EveryRestaurantintheCity.com.
Please fax proof of your restaurant to 1(800) 881-3414 to activate your account, you can also upload your proof in pdf or jpg format using the document proof button below.
Acceptable forms of proof must include the Restaurant name and address, such as a copy of a utility bill or a health department certificate.
Upon receipt, your restaurant will be fully activated and you can begin using the advanced features on EveryRestaurantintheCity.com.
Before sending this request please: login or sign up
Welcome to Every Restaurant in the City!
Brixx & Barley, Long Beach, NY, 11561


text:
I made these for my official brownie tester and asked her opinion about them: she said they were really, really, good and eating them was like "biting into foam". Then I asked if these were better than her favorite brownies – she said she couldn't decide, because they were both delicious, despite being different in texture.
I guess that lack of decision making mojo runs in the family – I can't pick a favorite between Bill and Eric... ;)
Recipe from this book, but I was too lazy to type it and stole it from Mark's blog. :D
Tartine's brownies
from Tartine
¾ cup (170g) unsalted butter
455g (1 pound) bittersweet chocolate, coarsely chopped – I used 70% cocoa solids
5 large eggs
2 cups (350g) light brown sugar, packed*
½ teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
1 cup + 2 tablespoons (125g) all purpose flour
Preheat the oven to 180°C/350°F. Butter a 23x33cm (9x13in) glass baking dish with foil and butter the foil as well.
In a small saucepan or a microwaveable bowl, melt the butter over low heat. Remove from the heat/microwave and stir in the chocolate. If it's not fully melted, return over low heat for 10 seconds or microwave on low power for 15 second-intervals, stirring in between, until it is melted. Cool completely.
In the large bowl of an electric mixer, combine the eggs, sugar, salt, and vanilla. Beat on high speed for about 4-5 minutes, after which the batter will fall from the whisk in thick ribbons that slowly sinks into the surface. Fold the chocolate into the eggs with a rubber spatula. Sift the flour over the surface and fold in gently. Pour into the dish and smooth the top. Bake for 25 minutes (the top will slightly crack-- a cake tester won't be accurate for this one).
Let cool completely before cutting.
* I used 140g brown sugar + 125g demerara sugar
Makes 12 – I made 2/3 of the recipe above and used a square 20cm (8in) pan
Friday, October 15, 2010
Tartine's brownies
25 comments:
- lena said...
what a lovely blog!
- October 15, 2010
- Unknown said...
- October 15, 2010
- Unknown said...
They look so decadent, thanks for sharing.
- October 15, 2010
- Ploplop said...
Woooow! It looks so yummy! I want it!!!
- October 15, 2010
- steph- whisk/spoon said...
oh my! they do look incredibly airy yet gooey with chocolate!
- October 15, 2010
- Jennifer said...
These look so good! I love seeing other favorite brownie recipes!
- October 16, 2010
- Katie said...
These look gorgeous and very moist and squishy - just how I like them :)
- October 16, 2010
- Just Cake Girl said...
I just fell in love with your blog, your recipes and your pictures :))
- October 16, 2010
- Cool Chic Style Fashion said...
Delizioso !
- October 16, 2010
- Deeba PAB said...
Just gorgeous. Great looking brownies, and deliciously moist crumb. Love them!!
- October 16, 2010
I'm a sucker for a good brownie... and these look wonderful!
- October 16, 2010
- Kasey said...
I pretty much love everything Tartine (in addition to having their book, I live close to the actual bakery). I made these brownies last year and thought they were amazing..but not for the faint of heart! They are SUPER rich.
- October 16, 2010
- Kimberley said...
I am lucky enough to live in San Francisco; Tartine's brownies are ridiculous. Still, I really need to get that book!
- October 16, 2010
- Phuoc'n Delicious said...
When I was visiting SF, I had to visit the bakery and when I did I said to myself that I had to get the book. Luckily I have it and now I know that these brownies are kick-ass! I'm so going to give them a try, they look so good!
- October 17, 2010
THAT much chocolate? God just the idea of 455g of chocolate being melted into a brownie makes me hungry.
- October 17, 2010
- WendyinKK said...
Now you got me at that.
Really got me.
I'm definately trying out this recipe the next time I want to make brownies. - October 17, 2010
- Abby said...
Great minds think alike! While the paper isn't EXACTLY the same, look at this:
And it's a brownie post, too. - October 17, 2010
- Xiaolu @ 6 Bittersweets said...
You made a True Blood reference...you're awesome! :) And of course these look delicious.
- October 17, 2010
Beautiful decadent brownies...will definitely not be able to stop at only one!
Ronelle - October 18, 2010
- Patricia Scarpin said...
Lena, thank you for stopping by!
Cleare, thank you!
Jennifurla, thank YOU for commenting!
Ploplop, thank you for stopping by!
Steph, thank you! :D
Jen, thank you!
Katie, thank you! You are I are the same for brownies - I'm not into cakey kinds...
Just Cake girl, thank you! You are far too kind!
Stefania, grazie!
Deeba, thank you, sweetie!
Michelle, thank you! :D
Kasey, these rich, indeed! A glass of milk is mandatory. ;)
Thank you!
Kimberly, you are making me jealous! ;)
Phuoc'n Delicious, that book is full of great recipes, I need to bake more from it!
Thank you!
Sugarfirst, I'm laughing out loud with your comment! :D
Wendy, I hope you like them, sweetie!
Abby, and I commented on that! Did you see me there? ;)
Xiaolu, I'm a recent convert - will start watching the 2nd season DVDs this week! ;)
You are just sweet, my dear!
Ronelle, thank you! I sent them home with my sister, so I would stop at the first one. ;) - October 18, 2010
- La Cuisine d'Helene said...
I have this cookbook, I should make the brownies. What a beautiful picture.
- October 18, 2010
- Dani Does It! said...
I just made these, they were deliciousss!!! Thanks for posting :) I always love looking at your yummy treats and the recipes I've tried from your blog have not disappointed!
- November 07, 2010
I made these tonight! They were SO rich and yes totally like biting into foam!
- November 08, 2010
- Patricia Scarpin said...
Helene, you should! :D
Thank you!
Dani, thank YOU for letting me know how they turned out!
And how wonderful to know you've tried other recipes! :D
Jenny, thank you for letting me know! :D - November 10, 2010
- eatme_delicious said...
What perfect looking brownies!
- November 17, 2010


text:
An up-to-date look at free software and its makers
Replace dictionaries and notepads with StarDict, the dictionary application, and RedNotebook, a combined notepad, diary, and calendar.
A trip abroad without a dictionary is almost unthinkable. Web surfers constantly encounter language barriers, and, even if you have a good command of other languages, you are bound to stumble over some expression you don't know. StarDict is a replacement for your huge collection of dictionaries.
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Linux Magazine content is made possible with support from readers like you. Please consider contributing when you've found an article to be beneficial.
Linux Servers Targeted by Akira Ransomware
A group of bad actors who have already extorted $42 million have their sights set on the Linux platform.
TUXEDO Computers Unveils Linux Laptop Featuring AMD Ryzen CPU
This latest release is the first laptop to include the new CPU from Ryzen and Linux preinstalled.
XZ Gets the All-Clear
The back door xz vulnerability has been officially reverted for Fedora 40 and versions 38 and 39 were never affected.
Canonical Collaborates with Qualcomm on New Venture
This new joint effort is geared toward bringing Ubuntu and Ubuntu Core to Qualcomm-powered devices.
Kodi 21.0 Open-Source Entertainment Hub Released
After a year of development, the award-winning Kodi cross-platform, media center software is now available with many new additions and improvements.
Linux Usage Increases in Two Key Areas
If market share is your thing, you'll be happy to know that Linux is on the rise in two areas that, if they keep climbing, could have serious meaning for Linux's future.
Vulnerability Discovered in xz Libraries
An urgent alert for Fedora 40 has been posted and users should pay attention.
Canonical Bumps LTS Support to 12 years
If you're worried that your Ubuntu LTS release won't be supported long enough to last, Canonical has a surprise for you in the form of 12 years of security coverage.
Fedora 40 Beta Released Soon
With the official release of Fedora 40 coming in April, it's almost time to download the beta and see what's new.
New Pentesting Distribution to Compete with Kali Linux
SnoopGod is now available for your testing needs


text:
*~+++ALEXIS MACKENZIE is showing
b.1979 ~ san francisco ~ alexisanne.com
Finding beauty in the grotesque.
Working at a frame shop, reading, daydreaming, enjoying San Francisco
Quality appreciation - always an abundance of wonderful discoveries and amazing support for artists.
at the opening for my solo show at Cafe Royale, until midnight. Then I'll be coming over to Minna to have a drink or two and say hi.
Animations of my work - I'd like to be more of a storyteller, to develop the narrative tangents in my collages. more larger-scale works. curatorial projects. and a new pair of scissors.
I laughed and laughed with a friend.
< Prev | Next > |


text:
Mississippi River level still expected to drop
Published 10:57 am Thursday, December 13, 2012
ST. LOUIS — Water levels on the drought-plagued Mississippi River are expected to keep dropping over the next several weeks, according to a new forecast Wednesday that comes amid worries that barge traffic soon could be squeezed along a key stretch of the vital shipping corridor.
The latest outlook by National Weather Service hydrologists shows the river at St. Louis falling to about 9 feet deep by Dec. 30 — a day later than earlier predicted — and by a half foot more by Jan. 9, barring significant rainfall. The Coast Guard has said further restrictions on barge traffic are likely if the river's depth dips to 9 feet.
The river depth in St. Louis as of Wednesday was about 12 feet.
Months of drought have left water levels up to 20 feet below normal along a 180-mile stretch of the river from St. Louis to Cairo, Ill. The problem was worsened last month when the Army Corps of Engineers cut the outflow from an upper Missouri River dam by two-thirds, meaning far less Missouri River water flows into the Mississippi.
Barges on the Mississippi already are carrying lighter and more frequent loads, and some operators said they'll halt shipping if they face more restrictions from reduced water levels.
Barge industry trade groups said a prolonged stoppage of shipping on the Mississippi could have an economic impact reaching into the billions of dollars, with the movement of agricultural products, coal, petroleum and other goods reliant on river for transit.
Complicating matters are two rock pinnacles impinging on barge traffic on the river south of St. Louis.
U.S. Sen. Roy Blunt, a Missouri Republican, said Tuesday the corps could have crews beginning to blast the pinnacles as early as next week — two months ahead of schedule — in what would be an important step in helping keep the shipping channel open, though it remains unclear how long such work might take.
The corps hasn't publicly discussed the matter this week, and a national spokesman for the agency told The Associated Press on Wednesday he was trying to sort out the timing of the pinnacle-removal effort.
The corps removed many rock pinnacles in the southern Illinois area more than two decades ago. Sonar wasn't as advanced in the late 1980s and new technology recently revealed formations the agency missed near the southern Illinois towns of Thebes and Grand Tower.
The Coast Guard has said it does not expect to close the river. But Tom Allegretti, president and CEO of American Waterways Operators trade group, said any additional restrictions on barges will leave the river "as good as closed."
"This is still very much a crisis situation," said the group's Ann McCulloch.


text:
While the University's fiscal outlook has benefited from better than expected returns on its endowment and the implementation of cost-savings measures, Princeton will need to continue with its two-year plan of budget reductions to protect its core programs, according to President Shirley M. Tilghman.
"We still face significant challenges, but we have made excellent progress this past year and we are doing everything we can to emerge from this period with renewed strength and vitality," she wrote in a letter e-mailed to the University community Sept. 29. "The University is weathering this economic storm with its commitment to excellence in teaching and research intact, thanks to the dedication and hard work of the entire campus and alumni community. For that I am deeply grateful."
This past April, the University embarked on a two-year plan to reduce its operating budget by $170 million. At that time, the endowment, which provides almost 50 percent of Princeton's operating revenue, was expected to decline in value by 30 percent by June 30, the end of the fiscal year.
The return on the endowment during the 2008-09 academic year actually was down 23.7 percent, according to a report Princeton University Investment Co. (PRINCO) President Andrew Golden presented to the Board of Trustees last weekend. As of June 30, the value of the endowment was $12.6 billion, a decline of $3.7 billion from the June 30, 2008, value of $16.3 billion.
"This value reflects the year's returns and the addition of new gifts, but unlike most years it does not reflect cash withdrawals for spending from the endowment," wrote Tilghman, who particularly noted the alumni, parents and friends whose contributions to this year's Annual Giving campaign were the third largest in University history.
"To preserve the long-term purchasing power of the endowment," she added, "we chose not to transfer funds from the endowment to the operating budget last spring. Instead, working capital for operating expenses was provided by a combination of other resources, including proceeds from a taxable bond offering last January. That has proved to be a wise and prudent decision, given the recent recovery in the markets."
Because of PRINCO's success at maximizing returns on the funds it has available to invest, the endowment's 10-year annualized rate of return is approximately 9.7 percent (compared to the MSCI All Country Index of 0.2 percent) -- even after factoring in last year's steep decline. This figure puts Princeton in the top three or four of the 40 largest endowments in terms of long-term performance. Over a 22-year period, PRINCO's annualized rate of return on its investments is 11.8 percent.
"… Universities that employed a more conservative approach to investing may have had losses that were significantly lower than ours last year, but they also had much lower annualized returns over the last 10 years," Tilghman wrote. "Had we adopted a more traditional approach, our endowment would be about half its current size and we would not have been able to lead the country in eliminating loans for students on financial aid; we would not have been able to expand the size of our student body to make a Princeton education available for more students; nor would we be able to make the critical investments we currently make in the research and teaching missions of the University."
She pointed out that even after successive 8 percent reductions in endowment spending this year and next, the payout per unit of endowment in the 2011 fiscal year still will be more than 37 percent above the 2006 fiscal year payout.
In addition to instituting the endowment spending reductions, the University's budget plan included freezing all salaries this year, with the exception of modest increases for the lowest-paid faculty and staff; halting all capital projects that were not already under way; and slowing down the recruitment of new faculty and staff.
"Our budgetary challenges were heightened by decisions to set this year's increase in tuition and fees at the lowest level since 1966 and to increase the budget for undergraduate financial aid by 13 percent so that we could continue to meet the full need of every undergraduate who qualifies for aid without requiring loans," she wrote. "We also increased the budget for graduate student stipends."
Tilghman said that through the hard work of many individuals, the savings target of $88 million for the current academic year has been achieved. University administrators and staff members are working to identify the additional $82 million that must be eliminated from the 2011 fiscal year budget.
One source will be the Voluntary Incentivized Retirement Program (VIRP) offered this summer to staff members. A total of 145 of the 460 who were eligible are taking advantage of the program, with many retiring by Oct. 16, 2009, and all by June 30, 2010. She said that this outcome will not eliminate the need for layoffs this fall.
"The number will be less than it would have been without the successful VIRP and the vacancy savings achieved by our managers over the last six months, and significantly less than the number of layoffs that have been necessary at some of our peer institutions," she wrote. "While some of the VIRP retirements result in savings as positions are left vacant or redeployed, others create vacancies that we will be filling, and to the extent possible we will try to fill at least some of these positions with staff members who will be affected by the layoffs."
Looking ahead, Tilghman said the University "will still be spending more than is prudent for the long-term well-being of the University."
"Several years ago the trustees adopted a policy of spending between 4 and 5.75 percent of the total value of the endowment each year, a band that would guarantee that current and future Princetonians benefit equally from the endowment's resources," she wrote. "This year our spending rate is 6.04 percent, which is outside the band. A return to the middle of the band will require some combination of two factors: more positive investment returns than we have projected and/or an annual increase in endowment spending beyond FY11 that is lower than the 5 percent annual increases that are anticipated under our established policy."
Because of the magnitude of this challenge, Tilghman said it is possible that there will need to be additional budget cuts in the 2012 fiscal year.
This is the third letter Tilghman has issued since the first of the year on the University's fiscal situation; the others were in January and in April. She and other members of the administration also have regularly participated in meetings with a variety of constituencies to discuss the budget and related issues. The next "town hall meeting" for students, faculty and staff is set for 9 to 11 a.m. Tuesday, Oct. 6, in Richardson Auditorium, Alexander Hall.
Two additional town hall meetings for students also are planned in the coming weeks. A town hall for graduate students is set for 6 p.m. Wednesday, Sept. 30, in 127 Corwin Hall. A town hall for undergraduate students is set for 8:30 p.m. Monday, Oct. 12, in McCosh 10.
The budget also is on the agenda for the meeting of the Council of the Princeton University Community at 4:30 Monday, Oct. 5, in 101 McCormick Hall.


text:
Chapter 10
An angel ministers to Cornelius—Peter, in a vision, is commanded to take the gospel to the Gentiles—The gospel is taught by witnesses—The Holy Ghost falls upon the Gentiles.
1 There was a certain man in Cæsarea called Cornelius, a centurion of the band called the Italian band,
2 A devout man, and one that feared God with all his house, which gave much aalms to the people, and prayed to God alway.
3 He saw in a avision bevidently about the ninth hour of the day an cangel of God coming in to him, and saying unto him, Cornelius.
4 And when he looked on him, he was afraid, and said, What is it, Lord? And he said unto him, Thy prayers and thine alms are come up for a memorial before God.
5 And now send men to Joppa, and call for one Simon, whose surname is Peter:
6 He lodgeth with one Simon a tanner, whose house is by the sea side: he shall tell thee what thou oughtest to do.
7 And when the angel which spake unto Cornelius was departed, he called two of his household servants, and a devout soldier of them that waited on him continually;
8 And when he had declared all these things unto them, he sent them to Joppa.
9 ¶ On the morrow, as they went on their journey, and drew nigh unto the city, Peter went up upon the ahousetop to pray about the sixth hour:
10 And he became very hungry, and would have eaten: but while they made ready, he fell into a atrance,
11 And saw aheaven opened, and a certain vessel descending unto him, as it had been a great sheet bknit at the four corners, and let down to the earth:
12 Wherein were all manner of fourfooted beasts of the earth, and wild beasts, and creeping things, and fowls of the air.
13 And there came a voice to him, Rise, Peter; kill, and eat.
14 But Peter said, Not so, Lord; for I have never eaten any thing that is common or aunclean.
15 And the voice spake unto him again the second time, What God hath acleansed, that call not thou bcommon.
16 This was done thrice: and the vessel was received up again into heaven.
17 Now while Peter doubted in himself what this vision which he had seen should mean, behold, the men which were sent from Cornelius had made inquiry for Simon's house, and stood before the gate,
18 And called, and asked whether Simon, which was surnamed Peter, were lodged there.
19 ¶ While Peter thought on the vision, the aSpirit said unto him, Behold, three men seek thee.
20 Arise therefore, and get thee down, and ago with them, doubting nothing: for I have sent them.
21 Then Peter went down to the men which were sent unto him from Cornelius; and said, Behold, I am he whom ye seek: what is the cause wherefore ye are come?
22 And they said, Cornelius the centurion, a just man, and one that feareth God, and of good report among all the nation of the Jews, was awarned from God by an holy angel to send for thee into his house, and to hear words of thee.
23 Then called he them in, and lodged them. And on the morrow Peter went away with them, and certain brethren from Joppa accompanied him.
24 And the morrow after they entered into Cæsarea. And Cornelius waited for them, and had called together his kinsmen and near friends.
25 And as Peter was coming in, Cornelius met him, and fell down at his feet, and worshipped him.
26 But Peter took him up, saying, Stand up; I myself also am a aman.
27 And as he talked with him, he went in, and found many that were come together.
28 And he said unto them, Ye know how that it is an unlawful thing for a man that is a Jew to keep company, or come unto one of another nation; but God hath shewed me that I should not call any man acommon or bunclean.
29 Therefore came I unto you without gainsaying, as soon as I was sent for: I ask therefore for what intent ye have sent for me?
30 And Cornelius said, Four days ago I was afasting until this hour; and at the ninth hour I prayed in my house, and, behold, a bman stood before me in bright clothing,
31 And said, Cornelius, thy prayer is heard, and thine alms are had in remembrance in the sight of God.
32 Send therefore to Joppa, and call hither Simon, whose surname is Peter; he is lodged in the house of one Simon a tanner by the sea side: who, when he cometh, shall speak unto thee.
33 Immediately therefore I sent to thee; and thou hast well done that thou art come. Now therefore are we all here present before God, to hear all things that are commanded thee of God.
34 ¶ Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no arespecter of persons:
35 But in every anation he that bfeareth him, and cworketh drighteousness, is eaccepted with him.
36 The aword which God sent unto the children of Israel, preaching peace by Jesus Christ: (he is Lord of all:)
37 That word, I say, ye know, which was published throughout all Judæa, and began from Galilee, after the baptism which John preached;
38 How God aanointed Jesus of Nazareth with the bHoly Ghost and with power: who went about doing good, and healing all that were coppressed of the devil; for dGod was with him.
39 And we are awitnesses of all things which he did both in the land of the Jews, and in Jerusalem; whom they slew and hanged on a tree:
40 Him God araised up the third day, and bshewed him openly;
41 aNot to all the people, but unto witnesses chosen before of God, even to us, who did eat and drink with him after he rose from the dead.
42 And he commanded us to apreach unto the people, and to testify that it is he which was bordained of God to be the cJudge of quick and dead.
43 To him give all the prophets awitness, that through his bname whosoever cbelieveth in him shall receive dremission of sins.
44 ¶ While Peter yet spake these words, the Holy Ghost fell on all them which heard the word.
45 And they of the circumcision which believed were astonished, as many as came with Peter, because that on the aGentiles also was poured out the bgift of the Holy Ghost.
46 For they heard them speak with atongues, and magnify God. Then answered Peter,
47 Can any man forbid water, that these should not be baptized, which have received the aHoly Ghost as well as we?
48 And he commanded them to be abaptized in the name of the Lord. Then prayed they him to tarry certain days.


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Forty years of working hard to create the World's Cycling Capital and, it seems, we're throwing it all away. All over the world the bicycle is booming. Sales are up in the most unusual places after 'The Summer of the Bicycle', the oil crisis and the global economic meltdown in 2008. Even in Holland, where everyone owns a bike already, many companies are reporting increases in sales. Some of the larger companies are up 15%.
If we look at Denmark, the numbers for bicycle sales in 2007 are not reassuring. According to the industry organisation for bike retailers - Danske Cykelhandlere - the numbers are expected to be down 5%.
When I spoke with them the man tried to brush off the negative numbers by saying that Denmark has had a few years with high sales increases so a fall wasn't a problem. However, many other countries have experienced increases over the past few years, too, so there goes that theory. When pressed about bike helmets, he quoted word for word the same rhetoric as the Road Safety Council and the Danish Cyclists Federation. It was like hearing the same answering machine message again and again. They've prepared their spin well. Denmark, like everywhere else, was affected in 2008 by a period with sky-high petrol prices and then the global financial crisis left its mark on the country as well. Car sales - both new and used - have plummeted. It is prime time for people to ditch their car and hop onto their bikes or to invest in a new one, as we've seen all over the industrialised world. We have the bicycle infrastructure in place, so you wouldn't think it was an issue at all. What has gone wrong in Denmark?There is only one difference between Denmark and the rest of Europe in 2008. Intense bicycle helmet promotion campaigns have washed across the nation, initiated by the Danish Road Safety Council and the black sheep of the European cycling community, the Danish Cyclists Federation.
They have done so despite the fact that, at best, the scientfic jury remains out on bicycle helmets. Despite the fact that bike organisations all over Europe continue fighting against bike helmet promotion and legislation. Despite the warnings about how promoting bicycle helmets reduces the numbers of cyclists because of this uneccessary branding of cycling as dangerous. The latter has been heard loud and clear in numerous studies and papers and not least from the European Council of Ministers of Transports [ECMT] who stated in their 2004 report National Policies to Promote Cycling that:
"PROMISING, a research project commissioned by the European Union and coordinated by the SWOV Institute for Road Safety Research (2001), suggests that from the point of view of restrictiveness, even the official promotion of helmets may have negative consequences for bicycle use, and that to prevent helmets having a negative effect on the use of bicycles, the best approach is to leave the promotion of helmet wear to manufacturers and shopkeepers.
[The ECMT is a council on which all the National Ministers of Transport in the EU sit.]It is interesting, and frightening, to note that the bicycle helmet campaigns run by the Road Safety Council and the Danish Cyclists' Federation do not feature science as a firm foundation. It is a textbook example of rhetoric and propaganda used to manipulate an unsuspecting population that has no knowledge of, or experience with, bicycle helmets, unlike many other countries where they've at least had a debate. Welcome to the Culture of Fear.
The Road Safety Council, on their website, do not inform the Danish people about the wide variety of scientific studies available on bicycle helmets in order for them to make up their own mind - which should be the case in a personal matter like bicycle helmets. They merely quote a single report from the Norwegian Institute of Transport Economics [TØI], from 2002. They don't mention the report from 2007, from the same TØI, that is much more sceptical of helmets.
It reminds me all too much of one Colin Powell, sitting in the UN, showing off his "proof" that Iraq was in possession of weapons of mass destruction. Our own right-wing prime minister bought THAT hype. Nevermind all the experts that said this wasn't the case. Or just think of the scientists that George Bush pulled out of his hat who refused to acknowledge that global warming was caused by humans. Despite the international scientific community's position that it was. Or rather is.
When you don't provide documentation and only rely on slogans and rhetoric, you are lying and you are no better than any other movement that exists solely on propaganda. Danes cycle 30% less now than they did in 1990. The number of children driven to kindergarten or school has risen by 200%. If we still cycled that lost 30%, we could save 1500 lives a year in this country. [It's worth mentioning that the cycling rates in Copenhagen are much higher than these sad, national statistics.] Together with Holland, Denmark is the safest country in the world in which to ride a bicycle. Why aren't we broadcasting THIS fact to our citizens? If we wish to reduce cyclist injuries, we should tackle the problem. Cars. Cars injure cyclists and cars kill them. Restricting this killing and maiming should be the goal instead of promoting bicycle helmets which are only designed to protect the head from non-life threatening injuries in solo accidents under 20 km/h. I'm not a betting man but I'm ready with a bet.2008 was a legendary year for cycling in Copenhagen. Thanks to our City's Bicycle Office and not least our Mayor in charge of the traffic department, Klaus Bondam, we have had a fantastic array of visionary bicycle projects put into play.
- Among other initatives: at 117 intersections the stop lines for cars have been pulled back five metres, creating more visibility and security for cyclists.
- One of our main arteries and the busiest bike lane in the nation - Nørrebrogade - has been more or less closed off to cars, with an increase of 15% in the number of cyclists.
- We have expanded the wildly successful Green Wave to other main arteries leading to the city centre.
All of these things are the most progressive moves towards increasing cycling in Copenhagen since the first physically separated bike lanes 25 years ago.
The City of Copenhagen's biannual Bicycle Report is due out in April, I believe. The City has established goals for cycling. They want to increase the percentage of cyclists in the city from 36% to 50% by 2015. It also wants to increase the percentage of cyclists who feel safe and secure in the traffic from the 58% in 2006 to 80% in 2015. With all the great projects in this city throughout 2008, we should expect a positive jump in these numbers.
Here's my bet. Because of the intense bicycle helmet propanganda in 2008: - the percentage of cyclists in Copenhagen - 37% - will not rise. It will either fall or remain unchanged. If I'm wrong, I'll wear a purple helmet for a month. Readers in the UK will know what I mean by purple helmet. If I'm right... we'll that's up to anyone who decides to take the bet.It's sad that we have no group or organisation in Denmark who are working for promoting cycling positively - well, apart from Copenhagenize.com and Copenhagen Cycle Chic and The Slow Bicycle Movement. We should get the Dutch Fietsersbond to outsource their knowledge, vision and respect for science and open an office here.
Cykelhjelm - Don't Get Scared, Get the Facts from Colville Andersen on Vimeo. If you consider the fact that there is no place in the world where bicycle helmet usage has resulted in lower head injury levels, it's unlikely that it will happen here. Instead, we're fueling the car-centric fire and waging a religious crusade against a large percentage of our population who choose a safe, healthy, life-extending, disease-preventing transport option. I hope that those of you out there in a position to influence will learn from these mistakes. And everyone who fancies it is welcome to support Cykelhjelm.org's Facebook group Cykelhjelm.org - In Defence of Danish Bike Culture - which is in Danish - here. More on helmets from Copenhagenize.com: The Culture of Fear - Cykelhjelm Society - Helmets for Pedestrians and Motorists - Helmets or Health? - Cycle Helmets and Other Religious Symbols - Clever Dutch and Arrogant Danes


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(1) The Fort Hood Massacre was a terrorist attack.
(2) Abdullah supports attacks like the Fort Hood Massacre.
(3) Therefore, Abdullah supports terrorist attacks.
Of course, if anyone objects to (1) or (2), my conclusion will not follow. Most of us, however, hold that the Fort Hood Massacre was a terrorist attack. Indeed, even the ultra-dhimmi Obama Administration now admits this. The only question, then, is whether Abdullah supports attacks like the Fort Hood Massacre. Here we can read his own words, written shortly after the shooting. (Read his words carefully, for he has riddled the comments section with claims such as "I did not justify the Fort Hood Incident in the first place" and "I have clearly stated my opinions about the matter, that I DO NOT SUPPORT the actions of the Foot Hood massacre.")
Hi guys,
Firstly, no one says that Muslims should 'rise up to kills all americans' - READ THE FULLY QUOTE "Muslims should stand up and fight the aggressor and that we should not be in the war in the first place."
Which I believe in too - which means military targets are viable during war, but NO CIVILIAN TARGETS (and before you mention civilians on the Army base - they are just a sad accident of war- much like the 1000's of dead Iraqi and afghan civilians right?).
I'm sorry guys, but it is time for you to admit when you are wrong to condemn - soldiers go to fight in wars, and in that incident, soldiers got killed - big deal!
Yeah so it happened on american soil, so what, american pilots and drone controllers will track down the enemies of the USA to their very homes and shoot a missle through its living room, despite their family being there or not. I guess the motto of the story is, do unto others, as you would have done unto you". Perhaps your christians should look at this incident, as a 'judgement of God' upon the wicked american army.
p.s. One thing I have noticed, for people who profess to love everyone, most of you are full of hate (your emotions are hateful, whether or not your tongue issues peaceful platitudes - repent now to the only God 'the Father').
Notice what Abdullah believes: (i) Muslims should fight the American aggressors; (ii) military targets are viable during war; (iii) the civilians killed during the Fort Hood Massacre were "just a sad accident of war." His response to American soldiers being killed by a Muslim was, to quote him, "big deal."
This is obviously a defense of the Fort Hood Massacre. And since we regard the Fort Hood Massacre as a terrorist attack, we can only conclude that Abdullah supports what we regard as terrorism.
Nevertheless, Muslims in the West generally don't like being associated with terrorism, so Abdullah has tried to escape the obvious meaning of his words. He sent me the following paragraph to clarify his views for readers:
"The reason I am upset that you personally condemn the attack at Fort Hood, is for no other reason except that I am dismayed at the double standards I believe, have been displayed in the comments and mentallity of the individuals who write on this blog. If an individal, who attests to be Muslim, criminally kills civilians; you all condemn it (which we all would agree), but when a U.S. soldier kills civilians you do not highlight it here, or explain it as accidental. Furthermore, when a U.S marine kills an Iraqi or Afghan fighter, EVEN IN THEIR OWN HOMES, you reply that this is all fair in war, or that they deserved it because they are enemies of the U.S. BUT when a Muslim soldier kills U.S. soldiers for the same reasons, irrespective of the location, you cry foul and call such attacks 'Terrorist attacks' (to which you include insurgent attacks on military assets in Iraq and Afganistan too). It would seem that the Muslim cannot fight except that it is called Terrorism, and the American/Christian cannot fight except that it is called a just war. In regards the Fort Hood incident, I do not condone it, since although in principle soldiers were the target, the individual who perpetrated the attacks did so from a position of trust (i.e. he gave his oath to help the U.S. army initially with sincerity), which is not allowed in Islam (I can explain why separately), furthermore, it is deeply regrettible that civilians got caught in the fire, and I condemn all deliberate killing of civilians. Therefore, according to my adopted Islamic opinions, I do not condone the attack from the Islamic perspective, but I do feel that yourselves are acting hypocritically according to your own criteria, for condemning it."
Here Abdullah tries to pretend that he was only pointing out an inconsistency on our part. But this simply will not do. Abdullah specifically said he believes that military targets are viable during war. Since he agrees with attacks on American military bases, he obviously wasn't merely discussing our inconsistency.
Both passages from Abdullah attempt to show that, since America is at war in Afghanistan and Iraq, attacks against U.S. military targets (such as Fort Hood) are viable. But this exposes Abdullah's true views. Major Nidal Malik Hasan is neither an Afghani nor an Iraqi. American soldiers are fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq because there are wars there. But Hasan is an American soldier. Thus, if Abdullah views Hasan's attack as justified by the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, he must believe that the United States is at war with Islam (for this is the only connection between Hasan and Afghanistan/Iraq). But if the United States is at war with Islam, then any Muslim is justified in attacking U.S. military bases right here in the United States.
Abdullah tries to get around this by saying that Hasan was wrong for pledging his allegiance to the U.S. and then fighting against the U.S. Thus, according to Abdullah's defense, it is wrong, immoral, and contrary to the teachings of Islam for a person to feign allegiance to a group in order to attack them. But here Abdullah can only defend himself by condemning Muhammad! Let's consider a few passages from the Hadith and Sira literature.
Sahih al-Bukhari 4037--Allah's Messenger said, "Who will kill Ka'b bin Al-Ashraf who has hurt Allah and His Messenger?" Thereupon Muhammad bin Maslama got up saying, "O Allah's Messenger! Would you like that I kill him?" The Prophet said, "Yes." Muhammad bin Maslama said, "Then allow me to say a thing (i.e. to deceive Ka'b)." The Prophet said, "You may say it."
Ibn Ishaq, p. 367--The apostle said . . . "Who will rid me of Ibnu'l-Ashraf?" Muhammad b. Maslama, brother of the B. Abdu'l-Ashahal, said, "I will deal with him for you, O apostle of God, I will kill him." He said, "Do so if you can." So Muhammad b. Maslama returned and waited for three days without food or drink, apart from what was absolutely necessary. When the apostle was told of this he summoned him and asked him why he had given up eating and drinking. He replied that he had given him an undertaking and he did not know whether he could fulfill it. The apostle said, "All that is incumbent upon you is that you should try." He said, "O apostle of God, we shall have to tell lies." He answered, "Say what you like, for you are free in the matter."
As the story continues, we find Muslims (with the approval of Muhammad) pretending to be friends with Ka'b, until he trusts them. Once he trusts them, they brutally stab him to death. (They also chop off his head and bring it to Muhammad.)
What does this mean? It means that Muhammad allowed his followers to pretend to be friendly towards an enemy in an effort to win the enemy's trust, so that Muslims could successfully kill that enemy.
A similar event occurred during the Battle of the Trench. Nu'aym b. Mas'ud was from the tribes allied against Muhammad, but he converted to Islam. When he came to Muhammad, he was told: "You are only one man among us, so go and awake distrust among the enemy to draw them off us if you can, for war is deceit." Nu'aym then pretended to be loyal to the tribes allied against Muhammad, and he used their trust to turn them against one another.
None of this is surprising, of course. In the Hadith, we read:
Sahih al-Bukhari 3029--Allah's Messenger named: "War: Deceit."
Sahih al-Bukhari 3030--The Prophet said: "War is deceit."
In Sahih Muslim 6303, we read that Muslims are permitted to lie for several reasons: "in battle, for bringing reconciliation amongst persons and the narration of the words of the husband to his wife, and the narration of the words of a wife to her husband (in a twisted form in order to bring reconciliation between them)."
Here Abdullah may object by pointing out that Hasan took an oath to protect America. But oaths are easily broken in Islam:
Sahih al-Bukhari 5518--Muhammad said: "By Allah, and if Allah will, if I take an oath and later find something else better than that, then I do what is better and expiate my oath."
What does all of this mean? The only way for Abdullah to pretend that Islam condemns the Fort Hood Massacre was to claim that Islam would not allow a Muslim to lie in order to infiltrate an enemy camp. But in making this claim, Abdullah has condemned Muhammad and the early Muslim community!
Abdullah's comments are simply indefensible. He obviously defended the Fort Hood Massacre and specifically said that he supports attacks against military targets. Now he claims that he said no such thing, and this is clearly an attempt to deceive us. Perhaps this is why he's employing new tactics in his effort to avoid accountability. His latest tactic is to threaten "Legal Jihad," for he states, "David Wood accused me of supporting Terrorism (something my Legal counsel has advised of his culpability on)."
So he's talking to his lawyer about my culpability! He's also threatened to blacklist me from future events with MDI (as if I'd ever give in to threats like this) if I don't back off. Well, Abdullah obviously defended the Fort Hood Massacre, which means that I'm only guilty of telling the truth. And I suppose this blog post gives a good indication of my thoughts on his demand that I back off or risk blacklisting.
I'll conclude with some advice to Abdullah.
(1) Be careful of what you say, for you might regret it later.
(2) If you say something embarrassing, admit it, apologize, and move on.
(3) Don't try to reinterpret your own words in order to deceive people about your obvious meaning.
(4) When someone points out something you've said, don't threaten them.
(5) Don't attack people that you're supposedly trying to reconcile with.
(6) Don't use your own misunderstandings of Christian scripture to attack Christians to whom you should be apologizing.


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Power of Suggestion
The amazing influence of unconscious cues is among the most fascinating discoveries of our time—that is, if it's true
By Tom Bartlett
New Haven, Conn.
Along with personal upheaval, including a lengthy child-custody battle, [Yale social psychologist John Bargh] has coped with what amounts to an assault on his life's work, the research that pushed him into prominence, the studies that Malcolm Gladwell called "fascinating" and Daniel Kahneman deemed "classic."
What was once widely praised is now being pilloried in some quarters as emblematic of the shoddiness and shallowness of social psychology. When Bargh responded to one such salvo with a couple of sarcastic blog posts, he was ridiculed as going on a "one-man rampage." He took the posts down and regrets writing them, but his frustration and sadness at how he's been treated remain.
Psychology may be simultaneously at the highest and lowest point in its history. Right now its niftiest findings are routinely simplified and repackaged for a mass audience; if you wish to publish a best seller sans bloodsucking or light bondage, you would be well advised to match a few dozen psychological papers with relatable anecdotes and a grabby, one-word title. That isn't true across the board. ... But a social psychologist with a sexy theory has star potential. In the last decade or so, researchers have made astonishing discoveries about the role of consciousness, the reasons for human behavior, the motivations for why we do what we do. This stuff is anything but incremental.
At the same time, psychology has been beset with scandal and doubt. Formerly high-flying researchers like Diederik Stapel, Marc Hauser, and Dirk Smeesters saw their careers implode after allegations that they had cooked their results and managed to slip them past the supposedly watchful eyes of peer reviewers.
Psychology isn't the only field with fakers, but it has its share. Plus there's the so-called file-drawer problem, that is, the tendency for researchers to publish their singular successes and ignore their multiple failures, making a fluke look like a breakthrough. Fairly or not, social psychologists are perceived to be less rigorous in their methods, generally not replicating their own or one another's work, instead pressing on toward the next headline-making outcome.
Much of the criticism has been directed at priming. The definitions get dicey here because the term can refer to a range of phenomena, some of which are grounded in decades of solid evidence—like the "anchoring effect," which happens, for instance, when a store lists a competitor's inflated price next to its own to make you think you're getting a bargain. That works. The studies that raise eyebrows are mostly in an area known as behavioral or goal priming, research that demonstrates how subliminal prompts can make you do all manner of crazy things. A warm mug makes you friendlier. The American flag makes you vote Republican. Fast-food logos make you impatient.
A small group of skeptical psychologists—let's call them the Replicators—have been trying to reproduce some of the most popular priming effects in their own labs.
What have they found? Mostly that they can't get those results. The studies don't check out. Something is wrong. And because he is undoubtedly the biggest name in the field, the Replicators have paid special attention to John Bargh and the study that started it all.
... When the walking times of the two groups were compared, the Florida-knits-alone subjects walked, on average, more slowly than the control group. Words on a page made them act old.
It's a cute finding. But the more you think about it, the more serious it starts to seem. What if we are constantly being influenced by subtle, unnoticed cues? If "Florida" makes you sluggish, could "cheetah" make you fleet of foot? Forget walking speeds. Is our environment making us meaner or more creative or stupider without our realizing it? We like to think we're steering the ship of self, but what if we're actually getting blown about by ghostly gusts?
Advertisers, from John Wanamaker onward, sure as heck hope they are blowing you about by ghostly gusts.
John Bargh and his co-authors, Mark Chen and Lara Burrows, performed that experiment in 1990 or 1991. They didn't publish it until 1996. Why sit on such a fascinating result? For starters, they wanted to do it again, which they did. They also wanted to perform similar experiments with different cues. One of those other experiments tested subjects to see if they were more hostile when primed with an African-American face. They were. (The subjects were not African-American.) ...
Since that study was published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, it has been cited more than 2,000 times. Though other researchers did similar work at around the same time, and even before, it was that paper that sparked the priming era. Its authors knew, even before it was published, that the paper was likely to catch fire. They wrote: "The implications for many social psychological phenomena ... would appear to be considerable."
Translation: This is a huge deal.
... The last year has been tough for Bargh. Professionally, the nadir probably came in January, when a failed replication of the famous elderly-walking study was published in the journal PLoS ONE. It was not the first failed replication, but this one stung. In the experiment, the researchers had tried to mirror Bargh's methods with an important exception: Rather than stopwatches, they used automatic timing devices with infrared sensors to eliminate any potential bias. The words didn't make subjects act old. They tried the experiment again with stopwatches and added a twist: They told those operating the stopwatches which subjects were expected to walk slowly. Then it worked. The title of their paper tells the story: "Behavioral Priming: It's All in the Mind, but Whose Mind?"
I come out of the objective side of marketing research. We collected hard data from supermarket checkout scanners on what people were actually buying with their own money. Obviously, we were biased, but we always told clients that the subjective side of research -- phone surveys, focus groups, etc. -- was rife with unconscious bias. Both the researchers and the subjects were good at picking up and passing on clues about what the client wants to hear, and thus tended to produce results backing up whatever you want. That's fine for waging office politics struggles, but if you want to know what consumers really will do with their own money, you have to come to us. That was our pitch, and it was pretty persuasive (for awhile, at least).
The paper annoyed Bargh. He thought the researchers didn't faithfully follow his methods section, despite their claims that they did. But what really set him off was a blog post that explained the results. The post, on the blog Not Exactly Rocket Science, compared what happened in the experiment to the notorious case of Clever Hans, the horse that could supposedly count. It was thought that Hans was a whiz with figures, stomping a hoof in response to mathematical queries. In reality, the horse was picking up on body language from its handler. Bargh was the deluded horse handler in this scenario.
... Harold Pashler wouldn't. Pashler, a professor of psychology at the University of California at San Diego, is the most prolific of the Replicators.
I've met Hal. He's a good guy.
He started trying priming experiments about four years ago because, he says, "I wanted to see these effects for myself." That's a diplomatic way of saying he thought they were fishy. He's tried more than a dozen so far, including the elderly-walking study. He's never been able to achieve the same results. Not once.
This fall, Daniel Kahneman, the Nobel Prize-winning psychologist, sent an e-mail to a small group of psychologists, including Bargh, warning of a "train wreck looming" in the field because of doubts surrounding priming research. He was blunt: "I believe that you should collectively do something about this mess. To deal effectively with the doubts you should acknowledge their existence and confront them straight on, because a posture of defiant denial is self-defeating," he wrote.
... One possible explanation for why these studies continually and bewilderingly fail to replicate is that they have hidden moderators, sensitive conditions that make them a challenge to pull off. Pashler argues that the studies never suggest that. He wrote in that same e-mail: "So from our reading of the literature, it is not clear why the results should be subtle or fragile." ...
The skepticism about priming, says Shanks, isn't limited to those who have committed themselves to reperforming these experiments. It's not only the Replicators. "I think more people in academic psychology than you would imagine appreciate the historical implausibility of these findings, and it's just that those are the opinions that they have over the water fountain," he says. "They're not the opinions that get into the journalism."
Like all the skeptics I spoke with, Shanks believes the worst is yet to come for priming, predicting that "over the next two or three years you're going to see an avalanche of failed replications published." The avalanche may come sooner than that. There are failed replications in press at the moment and many more that have been completed (Shanks's paper on the professor prime is in press at PLoS ONE). A couple of researchers I spoke with didn't want to talk about their results until they had been peer reviewed, but their preliminary results are not encouraging.
... In the e-mail discussion spurred by Kahneman's call to action, Dijksterhuis laid out a number of possible explanations for why skeptics were coming up empty when they attempted priming studies. Cultural differences, for example.
Studying prejudice in the Netherlands is different from studying it in the United States. Certain subjects are not susceptible to certain primes, particularly a subject who is unusually self-aware. In an interview, he offered another, less charitable possibility. "It could be that they are bad experimenters," he says. "They may turn out failures to replicate that have been shown by 15 or 20 people already. It basically shows that it's something with them, and it's something going on in their labs."
Okay, but I've never seen this explanation offered: successful priming studies stop replicating after awhile because they basically aren't science. At least not in the sense of having discovered something that will work forever.
Instead, to the extent that they ever did really work, they are exercises in marketing. Or, to be generous, art.
And, art wears off.
The power of a work of art to prime emotions and actions changes over time. Perhaps, initially, the audience isn't ready for it, then it begins to impact a few sensitive fellow artists, and they begin to create other works in its manner and talk it up, and then it become widely popular. Over time, though, boredom sets in and people look for new priming stimuli.
For a lucky few old art works (e.g., the great Impressionist paintings), vast networks exist to market them by helping audiences get back into the proper mindset to appreciate the old art (E.g., "Monet was a rebel, up against The Establishment! So, putting this pretty picture of flowers up on your wall shows everybody that you are an edgy outsider, too!").
So, let's assume for a moment that Bargh's success in the early 1990s at getting college students to walk slow wasn't just fraud or data mining for a random effect among many effects. He really was priming early 1990s college students into walking slow for a few seconds.
Is that so amazing?
Other artists and marketers in the early 1990s were priming sizable numbers of college students into wearing flannel lumberjack shirts or dancing the Macarena or voting for Ross Perot, all of which seem, from the perspective of 2013, a lot more amazing.
Overall, it's really not that hard to prime young people to do things. They are always looking around for clues about what's cool to do.
But it's hard to keep them doing the same thing over and over. The Macarena isn't cool anymore, so it would be harder to replicate today an event in which young people are successfully primed to do the Macarena.
So, in the best case scenario, priming isn't science, it's art or marketing.


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Bishop Ireton's troubles continued this week, with road losses to regionally ranked Paul VI Catholic and Gonzaga teams.
The Cardinals faced down a No. 4-ranked Paul VI squad Saturday only to see the Panthers emerge with an 83-61 victory. The loss came despite junior Louis Khouri's heroic efforts to keep the Cardinals in contention. The 6-foot-1 guard put up 24 points against the perennial powerhouse.
Ireton fared little better against top-ranked Gonzaga on Tuesday. Though Khouri was limited to just four points, teammate Da'von Wiley racked up 20 for the struggling squad.
Still, it wasn't enough to overcome Gonzaga — the Cardinals lost 80-59.
The 10-9 Cardinals, 2-7 in the WCAC, hit the road again Friday to take on Carroll before facing St. Anselm's on Saturday night.


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Treatment and Cure:
Two Very Different Things
First lets understand the difference between 'treatment' and 'cure'. From Dictionary.com:
treat·ment definition
Pron: /ˈtrēt-mənt/
The application of medicines, surgery, psychotherapy, etc, to a patient or to a disease or symptomcure definition
Pron: [kyoor]
Successful remedial treatment; restoration to healthSo treatment means trying to do something about it.
Cure means the problem is gone.This page is about both.
As you research how to overcome fear of robbers here and elsewhere just keep in mind that not all treatments are cures and with phobias very few treatments offered are an effective cure.
Exposure Therapy
If you suspect that you have a phobia, start by talking with your doctor who can recommend a therapist. You'll likely be treated with exposure therapy for your phobia, although your therapist may also recommend additional treatments.
Exposure therapy is a form of cognitive-behavioral therapy. It involves putting yourself into increasingly stressful scenarios involving your particular phobia and overcoming your fear with new learning. The process usually has five steps:
Evaluation. You describe your fear to your therapist and recall anything in your past that may have contributed to it.
Feedback. Your therapist offers an evaluation of your phobia and proposes a treatment plan.
Develop fear hierarchy. You and your therapist create a list of scenarios involving your fear, each more intense than the last.
Exposure. You begin exposing yourself to the items on the list, starting with the least frightening situation. You start to realize that panic lessens within a few minutes of encountering your fear.
Building. As you become comfortable at each stage, you move on to increasingly difficult situations.
The good news is that exposure therapy is eventually successful in many people with phobias, but it means finding a therapist who can be trusted to lead a scelerophobe through some extremely difficult situations. Using additional cognitive-behavioral therapy techniques can help. For example, a therapist can help a client realize that their thoughts about bad men or burglars are distorted and teach them to think more realistically. He or she may also teach deep breathing or relaxation exercises to help reduce the fear.
Why We Don't Like Exposure Therapy
- Going through fearful situation after fearful situation is cruel and unnecessary, we believe
- It risks making things worse – your mind thinks bad men or burglars = fear, why give it a lot more evidence to support that mistake?
Self-help really means do-it-yourself and could be anything from choosing a home study program to extreme exposure therapy. There's no single self-help solution – but there is a philosphy we think is helpful: taking resposibility for your own cure, whatever method you choose.
Why We Offer Self Help
Whatever anybody says the truth is that you are the only person who can cure your fear of robbers. Any cure – that is any solution that eliminates the problem, rather than just masking it or making it better, by definition involves breaking the mental ties between bad men or burglars and your flight-or-fight responses.
Vanquish Fear & Anxiety for Fear of Robbers is very effective at guiding you through a system of surprisingly enjoyable, yet powerful processes for breaking those mental ties.
Talk Therapy
If self-help techniques haven't worked, talk to your GP. You may need professional help from a psychiatrist (a doctor who specializes in mental health conditions) or other therapist. For many people, the best treatment for phobias is behavioral therapy.
There's different kinds of talk and of course the effectiveness of any therapy is critically dependent on who you are working with.
Your GP may refer you to a psychiatrist (another doctor who specializes in mental health conditions).
Certainly most psychiatrists are considered qualified to work with fear of robbers and some specialize in treating phobias. Generally though the process is slow and often the results are poor, because as dedicated and skilled as most psychiatrists are, their training does not include the most effective methods for dealing with serious fears.
Why We Offer A Kind of Talk Therapy
Our practice consists of a small team focussed completely on dealing with serious fears and phobias. The processes on the Vanquish Fear & Anxiety program are extremely effective. In fact in the program CTRN President Seymour Segnit is taking you through several of the most powerful and effective processes used by our team when working with our VIP clients.
Some clients want and need direct one-on-one help and guidance – that's The VIP Fear of Robbers Program.
VIP is ideal for scelerophobic individuals who:
- Have a very severe case of fear of robbers
- Need to overcome the problem urgently
- Work better one-on-one than by themselves
Behavioral Therapy
Behavioral therapy involves one-to-one sessions with a therapist trained in treating phobias. The principle of this approach involves exposure and a gradual desensitization to scelerophobia. During the sessions, you learn to tolerate the anxiety triggered by exposure with the help of relaxation techniques.
The amount of exposure is gradually increased during your sessions. For example, the early sessions might involve only imagining or looking at photographs of bad men or burglars. (We won't go any further because to do so would risk inducing the problem.)
Your therapist might ask you to work on your thoughts about what's going on. For example, when the anxiety associated with phobia begins, and you feel dizzy, you may automatically become alarmed and think you are in danger. Your therapist helps you to replace this with a more realistic thought such as "It's just dizziness and I'm going to be OK".
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy
For some people cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) is an option. This involves exercises to alter the inappropriate patterns of thinking you have developed and the behavior that stems from them.
According to a pamphlet from the American Psychiatric Association here's what you can expect from a qualified therapist - if you "carefully follow the outlined treatment plan".
• Noticeable improvement in 10 to 20 weeks.
• A tremendous improvement within one year.
Why We Don't Like Behavioral Therapies
Its up there in the first line: 'gradual desensitization'. We believe that being sensitive is pretty important, and that anyway the premise of desensitization is wrong. The problem is not the 'sensing' it is the patterns of thought that are triggered after the sensing of the bad men or burglars! And why learn to 'tolerate the anxiety' when you can simply be rid of it altogether?
Changing those thought patterns – the self-talk, the movies-in-the-mind etc – is the key to getting rid of fear of robbers. And when you are free of all those unwanted emotions, you will actually be more sensitive, not less.
We also think that a noticeable improvement in 10-20 weeks and tremendous improvement within a year is very slow going, when modern techniques can eliminate almost any phobia within days, sometimes even less.
Medicines are increasingly used to treat even mild cases. Any doctor can prescribe a range of medicines and drug options for fear of bad men or burglars (follow that link for our dedicated page).
Why We Don't Like Drugs & Medication
It seems so easy to pop a pill, but you can only ever mask the symptoms and get temporary relief this way.
Why risk the side effects for a temporary mask, when a fast and permanent cure is available?
The Bottom Line
There's plenty of therapies out there, but few cures.
Remember a scelerophobia cure means eliminating fear of robbers so it now feels as if it was never there.
Whatever you do, choose wisely.
Next Action
- Get One on One Help:
The VIP Program for Fear of Robbers- Get the Home Study Program:
Vanquish Fear & Anxiety for Fear of Robbers
Or learn more about Fear of Robbers:


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Okay, so you may recall how the creationist asstards at the "Institute for Creation Research" (snicker, giggle) couldn't get approval from the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board for their proposal to offer an online master's degree in science education, right? There is a very obvious and excellent reason for this: they're a bunch of pseudoscience-peddling frauds, motivated not by a desire to expand humanity's scientific understanding of the world but by a desperate and childish need to protect their precious bronze-age fantasies about an invisible magic sky daddy who's going to give them presents if they're good little boys and girls.
Well, this being Texas, home to quite a few childish idiots of that stripe, the ICR has found a friend in idiot representative Leo Berman, who demonstrates his brilliant scientific acumen with such sagacious statements as "Personally, I don't believe in evolution. I don't believe I came from a salamander that came out of a pond." Berman has you'll love this proposed legislation to exempt the ICR from the Coordinating Board's requirements, effectively granting them privileges no other educational body has.
What a great life you have when you're a Christian. Rules don't apply to you! And if the facts don't back up your ideologies, why, just legislate your need to provide those facts away!
But hey, the Texan anti-science onslaught doesn't end there. The aptly named Wayne Christian has proposed the sweeping HB 4224, which, in the words of the TFN, "would open the door to teaching public school students almost any cockamamie concept that any crackpot wants to portray as 'science,' regardless of what mainstream scientists and school administrators have to say about it." This is just another one of those weaselly-worded bogus "academic freedom" bills, which declares that "no student in any public school or institution shall be penalized in any way because he or she subscribes to a particular position on scientific theories or hypotheses..." In other words, if Little Johnny Inbred wants to answer a question on a science test to the effect that covalent bonds are the result of angels holding hands, his teacher couldn't "penalize" him by marking the answer wrong.
I often ask myself, is there no depth of sleaze and dishonesty to which creationist fools won't stoop? And the answer is always no. Remember, they do what they do not because knowledge captivates them, but because they're afraid for their immortal souls.
But...don't be so quick to console yourself that this behavior is the desperate last-ditch flailing of a movement whose race is run and whose horse broke its leg long ago. This kind of stupidity needs to be slammed harder and harder, each time it comes up. Nothing less than the future of an entire generation of minds, let alone America's scientific and economic standing on the global stage, is at risk. These sad, debased little people can live in the 18th century all they like, if it's what keeps their fears at bay. They just have no business dragging those of us moving forward into the 21st century down into their mire with them.


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JPMorgan Slashes CEO Dimon's Bonus Due to 'Whale' Trade
JPMorgan Chase & Co's board of directors cut Chief Executive Jamie Dimon's annual bonus in half, citing the company's $6.2 billion "London Whale" trading loss, the company said on Wednesday.
Dimon's pay was slashed even though JPMorgan, the largest U.S. bank, said fourth-quarter net income jumped 53 percent, and earnings for 2012 set a record. The fourth-quarter results were helped by increased mortgage lending profits and a decline in the costs for bad loans.
The board said the bank's strong results were a key reason to give Dimon a bonus, but the London trading losses cut into his compensation.
"As chief executive officer, Mr. Dimon bears ultimate responsibility for the failures that led to the losses in the Chief Investment Office," the bank said in a securities filing.
Dimon's pay for 2012 was $11.5 million, the company said in the filing, including a salary of $1.5 million and a bonus of $10 million. In 2011 Dimon was paid $23 million, including the same salary and a bonus of $21.5 million.
Dimon told reporters on a conference call he "respects" the board's decision.
The trading loss, which was suffered primarily in the second quarter of 2012, has been a major embarrassment for the company.
It is known for the "London Whale" nickname that hedge fund traders gave to JPMorgan trader Bruno Iksil, for the large positions he established from London for the Chief Investment Office. The trade, made with credit derivatives, became too big for the company to exit easily.
The report of the bank's management task force, released on Wednesday, primarily assigns blame for the trading losses to the failure of three executives beneath Dimon: Ina Drew, the former chief investment officer; Barry Zubrow, the former risk chief; and Douglas Braunstein, the former chief financial officer.
Drew failed to properly oversee the trades that led to the losses, Zubrow failed to properly set up the risk function in the Chief Investment Office, and Braunstein was responsible for a weakness in financial controls, the report said.
But Dimon was not without blame either, according to the task force.
"(He) could have better tested his reliance on what he was told," the task force said, while also praising him for responding "forcefully" when he learned of the problem.
While Dimon said Wednesday the Whale position was close to being a "non-issue" from a trading standpoint, regulators were still probing what happened. He also acknowledged the trade caused another modest loss in the fourth quarter, though he declined to say how much.
Fourth-quarter net income rose to $5.69 billion, or $1.39 a share, from $3.73 billion, or 90 cents a share, a year earlier. Results for both periods included special items.
Baird analyst David George said JPMorgan's results should compare favorably to peers and other brokers. Goldman Sachs Group Inc, the fifth largest U.S. bank by assets, also posted stronger profits on Wednesday.
JPMorgan's revenue from mortgage production, excluding losses on repurchases of past loans, increased 51 percent to $1.6 billion.
JPMorgan, like Wells Fargo & Co, which is the nation's largest home lender, has benefited from being a middleman in the U.S. Federal Reserve's drive to channel inexpensive money to borrowers to support the housing market and the economy. Revenue from making home loans has eased the squeeze on bank profit margins that has come with low interest rates.
The provision for credit losses plunged 70 percent to $656 million.
"We continued to see favorable credit conditions across our wholesale loan portfolios and strong credit performance in our credit card portfolio," Dimon said in a statement.
On a conference call, Dimon said the first quarter of 2013 was "probably okay" for the mortgage business. As the mortgage refinancing boom runs its course, some worry that lending for new purchases will not rise fast enough to offset the decline.
JPMorgan shares fell 1.2 percent to $45.80 in early trading. The stock has more than recovered all of the $26 billion in market value it lost in the first two weeks after the company acknowledged the Whale trade. Dimon said share buybacks were still a good deal at current prices.
"All in, we think it's a good quarter for JPM, and underscores their solid earnings power," Nomura analyst Glenn Schorr said in a note to clients. "Solid earnings progression, capital build & return and reasonable valuation should make '13 another good year in the stock."
Copyright 2012 by Reuters. All rights reserved.


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Fed tells JPMorgan, Goldman to Improve Capital Plans
In a blow to two major Wall Street banks, the Federal Reserve told Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan Chase that they must fix flaws in how they determine capital payouts to shareholders, but still approved their plans for share buybacks and dividends.
The Fed said JPMorgan and Goldman would have to submit new plans by the end of the third quarter. A senior central bank official declined to identify specific problems.
In the second phase of the Fed's annual stress tests of the 18 largest U.S. banks, the regulator said on Thursday that it had approved 14 firms' capital plans without any strings attached.
The Fed vetoed submissions by BB&T Corp and Ally Financial.
The results show the Fed is keeping a tight leash on the nation's big banks five years after the U.S. financial crisis.
The annual testing has become a key tool for regulators to ensure that banks are not eating too much into their capital cushions, by examining how banks would weather a hypothetical major market shock.
Last week, in the first set of stress test results, the Fed said that without their planned capital distributions, major U.S. banks overall had enough capital to withstand a severe economic downturn.
Ally Financial was the only bank last week that failed to meet the minimum hurdle of a 5 percent capital buffer in the Fed's test, which assumed a spike in unemployment to 12.1 percent and a 50 percent drop in share prices.
The Fed also uses the tests to determine whether banks are in a position to pay out dividends or buy back shares.
The tests have become a source of tension between banks and the Fed. Some banks last week released results of their own tests, calculated using the same scenarios the Fed used.
Many banks scored themselves higher than the Fed did.The Fed reprimanded JPMorgan and Goldman based on "qualitative" concerns, not their capital ratios. That could confuse investors, said Ernie Patrikis, a former New York Fed official who is now a partner at the law firm White & Case.
"It's a strange public process because to us it all looks kosher, but the Fed is saying, 'No, it's not kosher because we know more than you do about the numbers,'" Patrikis said.
In after-market trading, shares of Goldman Sachs and JPMorgan fell 2 percent, while BB&T shares fell 3.1 percent.
The Fed said JPMorgan and Goldman Sachs each had "weaknesses in its capital plan or capital planning process that were significant enough to require immediate attention, even though those weaknesses do not undermine the quantitative results of the stress tests."
Tom Day, senior director of stress testing and capital planning at Moody's Analytics, foresaw few problems for the two Wall Street banks. "I don't expect that Goldman and JP will have anything but approval when they resubmit," he said.
The two can move forward with any plans for dividends or share buybacks, but they will have to submit new plans to the Fed at the end of the third quarter. If the Fed deems those plans insufficient, it could order the banks to halt any new capital distributions, the senior Fed official said.
"We are pleased to continue to have the flexibility to return capital to shareholders," Goldman Chief Executive Lloyd Blankfein said in a statement. The company said it would resubmit its capital plan with enhancements by the end of the third quarter.
"JPMorgan Chase is fully committed to meeting all of the Fed's requirements," CEO Jamie Dimon said in a statement.