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Gonorrhea is caused by a bacterium that is transmitted from an infected partner during sex. This can happen during oral, vaginal, or anal sex.
Risk Factors
Gonorrhea is most common among sexually active young adults. Other factors that increase your chances of getting gonorrhea include:
- Multiple sex partners
- Having sex without a condom
- A history of STDs
Most people who have gonorrhea do not have symptoms. If symptoms do occur, they may appear 1-14 days after exposure. In some cases, symptoms do not occur for up to a month.
Symptoms in men may include:
- Discharge from the penis
- Burning sensation while urinating
- Itching sensation in the urethra
Symptoms in women may include:
- Burning sensation while urinating
- Abnormal vaginal discharge
- Abdominal pain
- Unusual vaginal bleeding
Symptoms in men and women with rectal infections may include:
- Anal itching
- Soreness
- Bleeding
- Painful bowel movements
Gonorrhea can also cause serious health complications.
Complications in men include:
- Epididymitis —A painful swelling and inflammation of the testicles, which may lead to infertility.
- Urethritis —The inside of the urethra may become inflamed, which causes burning when passing urine. If scarring occurs, it may cause difficulty with passing urine, or block urine flow completely.
- Prostatitis —An inflammation of the prostate gland. Symptoms include pain in and around the groin and pelvis, or discomfort when urinating. It may also create flu-like symptoms, such as fever, chills, body aches, or fatigue.
Complications in women include:
- Pelvic inflammatory disease (PID)—A serious infection that can lead to infertility , even in women who never have symptoms. If symptoms do occur, they may include pelvic pain and pain with intercourse. PID causes scar tissue or may cause an abscess to form in the fallopian tubes.
- Infection in a newborn infant if the mother is infected during pregnancy.
|Female Reproductive System Organs
|Copyright © Nucleus Medical Media, Inc.
Untreated gonorrhea can cause severe infections in:
- Joints
- Brain
- Eyes
- Heart
You will be asked about your symptoms and medical history. A physical exam will be done. Diagnosis is based on tests.
Your bodily fluids may be tested. This can be done with:
- Urine tests
- Tests of genital fluid discharge
- Tests of oral fluids using a swab
You may have other STD tests done, such as chlamydia , syphilis, or HIV .
Gonorrhea is treated with antibiotics. Some strains of gonorrhea have developed resistance to certain antibiotics. You and your doctor will work together to find an antibiotic that is effective.
It is important to take all medication as prescribed. Also, all of your sexual partners should be tested and treated. Do not have sex until you and your partners have completed treatment and symptoms are gone.
To reduce your chances of getting gonorrhea, take these steps:
- Always use a latex condom during sexual activity.
- Have routine check-ups for STDs if you are a woman under the age of 25. Sexually active young men should consider screening, although there is no specific guideline.
- Have check-ups often if you have other risk factors for getting STDs.
- Have a monogamous relationship. Monogamous means only 1 sexual partner.


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Helping teens dodge risks on the road to adulthood.
Navigating the teenage years can be a treacherous experience for today's youth. As they cross the threshold from childhood into adolescence and beyond, young people confront innumerable obstacles, from the social pressures exerted by peers to the temptations of drugs, alcohol and sex.
At UC Davis, experts are joining forces to make that journey a safer one.
One promising program offers intervention counseling about alcohol abuse to teens while they are in the emergency room. On another front, an assistant professor of pediatrics is sounding the alarm about teen dating violence, an often hidden form of abuse that can have tragic consequences.
"When it comes to protecting young people and helping them make good decisions, everyone needs to be involved," says Dana Covington, a UC Davis Medical Center emergency room nurse who is manager of the alcoholcounseling program.
Curbing teens' drinking
UC Davis' Pediatric Trauma Center team launched an effort to curb teen drinking in December after noting a steady rise in the number of intoxicated patients ages 12 to 17. The number jumped from 69 in 2004 to 110 by 2007, an increase of nearly 60 percent.
Determined to address the trend, the trauma team applied for a grant from the state Office of Traffic Safety. Rewarded with $622,000 in funding, Helping teens dodge risks on the road to adulthood the team launched the Adolescent Screening and Brief Intervention Project. Emergency medicine physician James Holmes is the principal investigator for the study.
The program's concept is rooted in research showing that when intoxicated adults are in the emergency room, they experience a "teachable moment" that allows counselors to effectively discourage drinking and driving.
Behavioral improvements
Under the program, youth who arrive at the ER and who agree to participate are asked several questions about their drinking behavior. They receive a brochure about underage drinking and community resources. A trained nurse also conducts a 10-minute counseling session to discuss their blood alcohol level, the decisionmaking process that prompted them to drink, and whether they are motivated to change their behavior.
Teens in a control group are asked the same questions and receive the brochure, but do not undergo counseling. After three months, and then again after six months, the study team calls teens from both groups to inquire about their drinking behavior.
"What we hope is that the next time they open that beer, maybe it sounds a little different, and they pause to think about what we discussed in the ER," Covington says.
Is it really puppy love?
Tackling another challenging facet of teen life, UC Davis pediatrician Elizabeth Miller is working to illuminate the myriad and sometimes veiled dangers of adolescent relationship abuse. Miller says the phenomenon, also called teen dating violence, has been viewed by society as an almost harmless symptom of "puppy love."
The recent case involving singers Chris Brown and Rihanna underscores this point, Miller says. Allegations that Brown had beaten his girlfriend in his car were greeted with disbelief by some fans. They asserted that Brown was incapable of such an act, or that the abuse was understandable because the partners are young and immature.
"There's a dangerous tendency to minimize, and even excuse, this sort of abuse when it involves young people," Miller says. "In fact, the threats and violence can be intense, and it's horrendous how many girls have died at the hands of their partners."
Miller says "adolescent relationship violence" is characterized by a pattern of repeated acts that physically, sexually or emotionally abuse a member of a couple in which at least one partner is a minor. Unlike an isolated act of violence at a party between two strangers, it is distinguished by behaviors that aim to maintain power and control in a relationship.
Seeing the signs
A 15-year-old patient Miller treated at a community clinic in Boston sent the pediatrician down the path of addressing teen relationship violence.
Miller recalls that the girl came in for a pregnancy test, which was negative; she wasn't using any birth control.
Miller, a volunteer in the midst of her medical residency, assumed the patient's major need was for contraceptive information. Two weeks later, the girl was in the emergency room with a severe head injury, having been pushed down a flight of stairs by her boyfriend.
"I felt intensely responsible for what had happened to this girl," Miller says. "From then on, I have been driven by the need to make sure we, as clinicians, do everything we can not to miss signals of abuse."
Miller's signature work is rooted in a study of girls ages 15 to 20 conducted at five community clinics in Boston.
In interviews, one out of four girls with a history of abusive relationships reported that their partners were trying to get them pregnant by manipulating condom use, sabotaging birth control use and making explicit statements about wanting them to become pregnant. The study, published in the journal Ambulatory Pediatrics, was the first in general adolescent health literature to document the role of abusive partners in promoting teen pregnancy.
Health impact recognized
Miller says that health-care providers are beginning to understand that adolescent relationship violence can include controlling a partner's reproductive health, leading to unintended pregnancies.
"When I first started this work, one of my mentors doubted I would make a career out of it," Miller says. "But now there's a mind shift happening, and the recognition of how adolescent relationship violence relates to poor health is growing."
Miller's work is branching off in numerous directions. She is the principal investigator for a violence intervention program based in Planned Parenthood clinics throughout Northern California.
Targeting the other half of the relationship equation, she is lead researcher for a program called Coaching Boys into Men. That effort, begun in Iowa but soon to expand to Sacramento and beyond, trains coaches to work with high schoolaged male athletes to stop violence against women and girls.
4900 Broadway, Suite #1200
Sacramento, CA 95820
© 2009 UC Regents. All rights reserved.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Nice work! Enjoy the show!
Link Copied!
Hillary Clinton reveals details of 2016 election tell-all
Opening Sequence
Acting Pentagon chief not yet sure on wall funds
Islamic State's Syria territory faces collapse
Trump's choice for U.N. ambassador withdraws
McCarrick expelled from Catholic priesthood
More Venezuela aid arrives in Colombia
Nigeria presidential election postponed by a week
An autopsy of Amazon's dead New York HQ2 plan
Chicago PD seek follow-up with Jussie Smollett
Closing Sequence


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In the Name of God, Most Gracious, Most Merciful
Sects in Islam (Submission to God alone)
The Quran condemns all sects. All sects in Islam, whether Sunni, Shias, Ahmaddis, Ismailli......etc have disagreements about hadith and sunnah attributed to the prophet. However, these same sects have no disagreements about the Quran.
It is sources of religious law, stories, conjecture, etc. outside the Quran which have created these sects. At the end of this article three "authentic" hadith have been produced about the last sermon of the prophet. The different versions/conjecture gave rise to sects.
Nation of Islam, a large political group for African American, although have achieved a great political gain for the African Americans in the USA, they produced their own sources other than the Quran and follow other sources besides the Quran for religious laws. This is completely codemned in the TRUE Islam. Many of the followers of the Nation of Islam however are more acceptable to the TRUE Islam (Submission) when they get exposed to it as most of them are well educated and intelligent. Like all the other sects as soon as the followers of the Nation of Islam decide to follow ONLY the word of God in the Quran for religious law and leave the words of man for political moves, they will find the truth and be guided. See our section about Hadith and Quran.
These sects of Islam ( Sunni, Shias, Ahmaddis, NOI....etc.) do exactly the same thing - they follow sources and religious scholars, instead of the Quran.
[6:159] Those who divide themselves into sects do not belong with you. Their judgment rests with GOD, then He will inform them of everything they had done.
[30:32] (Do not fall in idol worship,) like those who divide their religion into sects; each party rejoicing with what they have.
[42:14] Ironically, they broke up into sects only after the knowledge had come to them, due to jealousy and resentment among themselves. If it were not for a predetermined decision from your Lord to respite them for a definite interim, they would have been judged immediately. Indeed, the later generations who inherited the scripture are full of doubts.
The last sermon of the prophet witnessed by the thousands has three versions. The versions the references are listed below.
- I leave with you Quran and Sunnah Muwatta, 46/3
- I leave with you Quran and Ahl al-bayt Muslim 44/4, Nu2408; ibn hanbal 4/366; darimi 23/1, nu 3319.
- I leave you for the Quran alone you shall uphold it. Muslim 15/19, nu 1218; ibn Majah 25/84, Abu dawud 11/56.
Because the majority of the Muslims follow conjecture (hadith and sunnah) instead of Quran alone (17:46) as our Creator has commanded the "Muslims" are divided into sects. These sects are there because of differences and disagreements on Hadith rather than disagreements over the Quran.


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Wendell Potter remembers too. He was head of corporate communications for CIGNA at the time, and as such, it was his job to put the best possible spin on this story. To make the company that denied a teenage girl her last chance at life somehow look not evil. "Our deepest sympathies are with the Sarkisyan family" Potter wrote after Nataline's death. Sympathies so deep evidently, that a few months later CIGNA employees heckled and gave the finger to the dead girl's mother when she came to CIGNA's headquarters to talk about what happened.
I'm not kidding you. Employees of CIGNA gave the "fuck you" gesture to the mother of the girl they helped kill. If this Obamacare thing stands though, we might have heartless bureaucrats making life or death decisions about our healthcare. Can't have that.
Dealing with the Sarkisyan story broke Potter. He doesn't write about the heckling in his 2010 book Deadly Spin, An Insurance Company Insider Speaks Out On How Corporate PR Is Killing Health Care And Deceiving Americans, he does write about being relieved at the time that CIGNA wasn't mentioned by name in most of the headlines in the first wave of news stories and blog posts that followed Nataline's death, and he does tell of how the whole experience managed to finally awaken the long dormant humanity that was present in an insurance executive's soul. How a process that began the day he witnessed Americans desperate for medical treatment line up at a county fairground a day in advance of a charity health clinic...
The scene inside was surreal. I felt as if I'd stepped into a movie set or a war zone. Hundreds of people, many of them soaking wet from the rain that had been falling all morning, were waiting in lines that stretched out of view. As I walked around, I noticed that some of those lines led to barns and cinder block buildings with row after row of animal stalls, where doctors and nurses were treating patients. other people were being treated by dentists under open-sided tents. Many were lying on gurneys on rain soaked pavement. Except for curtains serving as makeshift doors on the animal stalls, there was little privacy...Dentists were pulling teeth and filling cavities, ...doctors and nurses were doing Pap smears and mammograms, surgeons were cutting out skin cancers.
...came to fruition when he had to become the point man for the company that denied a chance at life to a fully insured client. Wendell Potter quit his job, testified in front of a Senate Committee on how insurance companies "confuse their customers and dump the sick, all so they can satisfy their Wall Street investors", and he wrote this book Wendell Potter was broken, and he confessed.
He confessed to the ways you are manipulated by the modern corporate public relations machine. Ever wonder why so many people insist that the government "Keep their hands off my Medicare?" Why so many people continued to believe cigarettes and cancer weren't related even after being buried in an avalanche of evidence? After reading this, you'll have an inkling as to how people can be convinced to say and believe the absurd. You'll learn how the demise of the Clinton health care reform plan led to a significant factor in today's health care mess, the transformation of Blue Cross and Blue Shields from an association of non-profit health insurers into for-profit public stock companies. You'll find out that because of a law intended to protect retiree's pension plans, you have for all intents and purposes no right to sue your health insurer when it denies you care, even if it leaves you looking death square in the face. Like any confession, it is informative, educational, and a voyeuristic window into how things really work on the dark side.
It's also unsatisfying. It should feel better to have Wendell Potter on our side, able to bear witness to the truths we have been shouting from rooftops for so long, but I found the book depressing, merely reinforcing my belief that to be on the opposite side of money in a fight is to be a permanent underdog, no matter if truth is in your corner. For every Wendell Potter there are hundreds if not thousands just like he used to be, bought and paid for and kept in line with a river of dollars, while Wendell will spend the rest of his life with nothing but the meager power of truth on his side.
If you are the type that is interested in the truth though, then by all means give the book a read. Remember as you do though, Nataline Sarkisyan is still, and will always remain, in her grave.
Deadly Spin on Amazon.
On Barnes and Noble
Or find it at a library near you.
Share on :
Book Review Number 5. Remember When CIGNA Killed Nataline Sarkisyan?
Reviewed by malaria
Published :
Rating : 4.5
Published :
Rating : 4.5


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For the images in live preview, thanks to:
Updated to V.1.2 – Change log 15/09/2011
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My mood probably hasn't been helped by the nature of one of my book projects. This entails staring directly into an abyss of projections for the near future: climate change and a world four to six degrees hotter, peak oil and increasing resource scarcity, further economic upheaval and probable collapse, food shortages, flooding, population migrations, terrorism and resource warfare, and even disappearing bees. It's not comfortable material, but then that's my basic point. I'm developing some of the arguments made by Clive Hamilton in Requiem for a Species pertaining to the psychological inability of anatomically modern humans to adequately respond to these type of problems and threats (e.g. the psychology of denial, wishful thinking, blame shifting, misplaced optimism etc.) and conjoining this with evolutionary material (evolutionary overshoot and how successful, adaptive species can become maladaptive), philosophy (existential analysis, Speculative Realism and Schopenhauer) and some religious studies and theological material (specifically the manner in which many religions feed the psychology of wishful thinking and optimism). It's one of those projects that I feel I have to write, perhaps particularly because I have young children, but for any of you who have attended any recent climate change conferences, you probably know that it doesn't make for happy smiley people.
For those of you interested in political responses to climate change, you should check out John Michael Greer's review of David Shearman and Joseph Wayne Smith's recent book The Climate Change Challenge and the Failure of Democracy. Shearman and Smith develop the argument that liberal democracies are wholly incapable of responding to anthropogenic climate change and need to be replaced by some form of political authoritarianism that can enforce compliance with the necessary ecological principles. One of Greer's reasonable and particularly damning criticisms of this line of argument is that it does a huge disservice to climate change activists and the environmental movement. Targeting Shearman specifically, Greer notes:
Did it never occur to him that people who disagree with his views would read the book, and make abundant political hay out of it? They have, dear reader, and it's a safe bet that they will, as hostile reviews of The Climate Change Challenge and the Failure of Democracy are already showing up on conservative websites. To be fair, it would demand superhuman forbearance for them to steer clear of what is, all things considered, a climate denialist's wet dream: a book in which a significant figure on the other side 'fesses up to an authoritarian agenda extreme enough to support even the wildest accusations of the far right. Climate change activism is already reeling from a nearly unbroken sequence of body blows in the political arena, and an even more serious loss of public support; by the time the climate denialists finish working it over, using Shearman's book as a conveniently blunt instrument, there may not be much left of it.You can also find some discussion of the demand for direct, militant eco-activism over at Alex Smith's Radio Show Ecoshock , notably this week's Against Civilization interviews with filmmaker Franklin Lopez and deep green writer Derrick Jensen. I suspect that most readers of this blog will be rather critical of the cries for, and the practice of, increasingly aggressive eco-activism. It is, though, one of many understandable outcomes of the ecological, economic and socio-political (i.e. capitalist, neo-liberal) processes that we are "living" through. I have spoken on several occasions about the likelihood of there being a steady increase in the membership of nature religions, such as Paganism, Wicca, Shamanism, Druidry and animisms, as the level of ecological degradation intensifies in the coming years. I think that one can very confidently also predict that eco-activism and eco-militancy will significantly increase during the same period.


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Friday, March 30, 2012
brain dump
There are few universal truths in cycling. Every cyclist is unique or has unique priorities in some way or in many ways. What delights one person will be a source of disappointment for others, and vice versa. Anybody who's an absolutist about anything related to cycling needs more experience working in a neighborhood bike shop. Everything I write below is a matter of my opinion based on my own experience and observation. Others disagree, probably, based on experience or priorities that are different than mine.
No bike, no matter how well made, how well reviewed, or how expensive, is going to be perfect or even tolerable for you on any given day. If you own a number of bikes over the years, each one will teach you something. Your next bike might be better in some ways, and worse in other ways, than your current bike. That's why many cyclists own more than one, or even more than five or ten bicycles.
Don't think that boutique level components are significantly better performing than more mundane components. XTR (or Dura-Ace) might cost 5-10x as much as Deore (or Tiagra), but most of that extra cost represents a shiny finish, a few grams of weight, cachet with your buddies, and avoiding the regret of not having purchased "the best". With either top-shelf or entry-level parts, having things clean, lubed, and properly adjusted is far more important to smooth performance than whether or not the part is high-end. Don't buy a used up Dura-Ace derailleur on eBay to replace your mid-level 105 derailleur that still has plenty of life in it.
The really boutique level stuff, made by small production domestic manufacturers who have an impressive attention to detail, is often the best you can buy, and it'll certainly cost you a lot of dough. But even the "best" parts break or have defects sometimes. If your $400 hub shits the bed, it might be at least a month or a year of shipping back and forth and waiting for new parts before the manufacturer can impress you with its famous lifetime warranty. If, on the other hand, you kill a $40 Tiagra hub, which is unlikely, you can walk into any bike shop and be back on the road in a few days for a fraction of what the "best" hub would've set you back.
There are a lot of persistent notions dating to the 1970s "bike boom" (or earlier), that are probably out of date now.
The ongoing reverence for Campagnolo is an example of the previous point. Every time we have to work on a Campy-equipped bike turns into a nightmare of hit-or-miss compatibility issues and/or horrendous design decisions. Nonetheless, that brand seems to maintain an exclusive status because it has a storied history of being standard equipment on all the fanciest bikes 40 years ago.
Not every new cycling innovation improves the cycling experience in a meaningful way, and many justifiably flash in the pan, but some new stuff is genuinely better than what existed before. On balance, good quality bikes made in 2012 work a lot better than similar good quality bikes made in 1975. Plus, we have a helluva lot more variety now.
Pigeonholing various bikes into easily definable categories is about as sensible as pigeonholing various people into easily definable categories. There are so many different varieties of bicycles, and bicyclists, that it makes no sense to parse things so finely, unless you're in the marketing business and trying to define your product to your least knowledgeable consumer. A Surly Long Haul Trucker is a "touring bike", right? Or is it a "commuting bike"? Or a "trail bike"? Or a "Burley-pulling bike"? Our customers use their LHTs for all of the above, and more. If you ride it on roads, I'd say it's a "road bike", but that term has been co-opted by a very limited, but popular niche in the bike universe, and it only confuses people to apply that vague term to other bikes that get ridden on roads. I have a Cross-check, but I don't race 'cross, so calling it a "cross bike" is misleading. I ride it, and all my bikes, in a wide variety of places in a wide variety of situations. What my bikes do has more to do with me than with what category the bike fits into.
Bike fitting is mostly a matter of big adjustments based on factors that are obvious to anyone who has enough experience with bikes. A whole sub-industry of highly technological bike fitting procedures has sprung up on the understandable fear of having a horrible-fitting bike, to which all cyclists can relate. But 95% of fitting can be done by eyeball and addressing specific complaints of the cyclist in question, starting with getting a bike that's approximately the right size. That last 5%, which is done with video cameras and lasers and vector diagrams and computers and other widgetry, is more about squeezing out that last drop of efficiency than it is about alleviating physical discomfort.
The internet is an echo chamber, and there are a lot of people on there making claims with little first-hand experience or with odd agendas. I can't count the number of parts or bikes I've tried that are somewhere between mediocre and absolute garbage, but get rave reviews on the internet forums. It works like this, one person says "Part X is awesome," somewhere on the internet. On this recommendation, 10,000 people buy Part X and have poor to suboptimal results, but since the first guy, and now a growing number of others, said it was awesome, they assume the lackluster results must be a personal failure (or they lack experience to know good from bad), and, rather than admit to being too stupid (they think) to make the damned thing work right, they concur with this new favorable majority opinion, questionable as it may be. Sometimes, especially in the world of "retro" bikes, people get romantic about the way a certain component looks, but that's irrational among technical types, so they delude themselves (and others) into thinking high-performance is the motivation for the glowing recommendation. Bottom line: if you look to the internet for information, try to figure out who is blowing sunshine and who you can trust for the unvarnished truth. And even then you'll have to try stuff yourself, and make mistakes, and learn.
If you spend a lot of money on a bike, you might worry about it more than you would a less grandiose machine. If it's expensive or irreplaceable, you might baby the thing too much. You might only ride it on sunny days, and on smooth roads, and you might be a nervous wreck if you ever have to lock it anywhere. If this is true, then such an excellent bike limits you from the full enjoyment of cycling. Better to have a less precious bike that isn't so limiting. Bikes get dirty and dinged up, and once in awhile they get vandalized or stolen. These are unfortunate facts of bicycling life - you'll enjoy cycling more, I think, if you ride bikes that are nice, but won't make you cry if they get a scratch.
There's a popular notion that bikes are precision machines. Most bikes and components, especially the stuff people rode before the Japanese started sending us their bikes and parts in high volume in the 1980s, are pretty crude if you look close enough.
Your old Peugeot was probably brazed on a Friday afternoon by a guy who'd had three or four glasses of cognac with lunch, and absent-mindedly waved his torch over the lugs on the 18th frame of the day while he contemplated the upcoming weekend with his mademoiselle and more cognac. On every 20th or 50th or 100th frame, he forgot to braze an entire lug or he overheated the BB shell until it was brittle. Sure, it was "handmade", as swanky as that sounds, but on a mass-production basis, not by some old-world craftsman who put his name, and reputation, on every frame. Corners were cut and humans made mistakes. Quality control was variable or non-existent. Your new frame was welded by a robot that didn't care what time of day it was, or get sidetracked or intoxicated. If mistakes get made by the robot, it's on a batch basis, and obvious, and generally corrected before anybody outside the factory knows about it. Sure, the human element has some romance to it, but the robot is more predictable.
No bike is maintenance-free. If you don't enjoy doing bike maintenance, bring it to a good bike shop. It's probably cheaper than you fear, and you'll be thrilled with the results. Maintenance is unavoidable, even if you have an internal gear hub with enclosed belt-drive.
Bikes that are decked out with super fancy parts are not always great bikes. There's a bit of art to it, and spending a fortune only works if it's done well. A super expensive bike with glitzy parts will always get a ton of hits from the bobbleheads on flickr and people reflexively clicking the "like" button on facebook, but a more modest bike that is thoughtfully put together usually fails to generate excitement from anybody except the person who gets to ride it. I like the idea of a really nice bike in disguise.
Sometimes you have a magic ride on a bicycle. Some people are addicted to this, and want to recreate the feeling on every ride. "Chasing the dragon", as drug addicts sometimes call the pursuit of that feeling of the first high, is not going to be fruitful, except once in awhile, when it's least expected, and for no apparent reason that can be duplicated. You can't buy this experience, unfortunately. Sure, it's fun to put new tires or whatever on your bike, but soon, the effect fades and you have no choice but to escalate and buy more new shit for your bike. I see people who have geeked out every aspect of their bikes, down to the cable crimps, in pursuit of that one thing that will make the bike perfect. I hope they're having fun working on the bike, because the magic ride is elusive and has nothing to do with cable crimps.
23 comments:
- jim w said...
'Cable Crimps' sounds kind of like some sort of bike gang name. So does 'Brake Hoods' now that I think of it.
- March 31, 2012 at 4:17 AM
- Joe said...
Great post!!! You nailed it!!
- March 31, 2012 at 6:19 AM
- KM said...
Very well written. You have managed to capture much of the truth about cycling without coming across as another "cycling lifestyle" guru.
The industry already has enough of them, regurgitating the same old ideas with a slightly different spin, all in the name of marketing products. Companies like Rivendell are genius in their ability to create a different flavor of Kool Aid but in the end, its still just Kool Aid.
- March 31, 2012 at 7:54 AM
- hansgast said...
Your comment about having a bike that doesn't make you "afraid to lock it outside" is perfect. Even my best bike is "only" a thousand dollar bike, but I enjoy my $5 bike just as much - when it's lubed.
- March 31, 2012 at 1:36 PM
- Fonk said...
"Companies like Rivendell are genius in their ability to create a different flavor of Kool Aid but in the end, its still just Kool Aid."
Well said, KM.
- March 31, 2012 at 7:25 PM
Thanks, Jim.
- April 1, 2012 at 6:11 PM
- pdlamb said...
Your point about "chasing the dragon" reminded me I need to sign up for a ride up the dragon in a few months. This dragon is a twisting, winding, scenic, mountain road.
Seems like the way to get that "Wow!" experience is to get out and ride the bike. It's nice to look at a nice shiny bike for 5 seconds (or 5 minutes), but the part I want to talk about is where I went, what I saw, how the ride was. Even if I bought the most expensive bike available, someone else would have a shinier, newer trinket in a few months. While a few can appreciate and share it, nobody can take away the feeling of coming over a pass and seeing the mountains spread in front of you.
- April 2, 2012 at 6:22 AM
- Jim M. said...
Good thing you were taking the "economy of words" approach, or this entry might have gone long. Just kidding, of course -- excellent use of the term "suboptimal".
- April 2, 2012 at 7:34 AM
- Jim Thill said...
pdlamb: you're right! The point of these contraptions we call bicycles is to get out and ride: for transportation, for exercise, for sight-seeing, for a challenge, to blow off steam, or all of the above. One thing I've noticed is that whenever there's an opportunity to go out and have a quality cycling experience, a lot of cyclists I know have various real or imagined conflicts or other hang-ups that prevent them from doing it. Probably people are just too over-scheduled and too hung up on expectations of perfection.
- April 2, 2012 at 8:38 AM
- Tim said...
A common misconception: Robots weld frames.
Truth is, there are very few, if any robots welding bicycle frames, even in Asia. Most places that makes bikes down to even the $400 complete level are actually welded by hand. Its usually 10-15 different hands on a mass production line, with some of those hands doing quality control, but still hands none-the-less.
While I fully agree with your overall sentiment on mass production and/or small artisan craft - the truth is that robots don't weld bike frames, even at really big places like Giant.
- April 2, 2012 at 9:11 AM
- Gunnar Berg said...
Ja, you betcha, especially the part about about drinking the Kool-Aid.
- April 2, 2012 at 10:18 AM
- Jeff said...
I'm "this close" to not reading about bikes any more and instead only riding them :) Unless its Sheldon brown's site, or someones blog about an experience they had on the bike and not the bike it self.
I subscribe to a popular biking magazine that does not focus on racers, but often reviews all kinds of swanky steel steeds. Then it dawned on me... they're all the same. 2 triangles, some steel, some parts and different angles here and there. Meh so what.
Ride whatcha brung.
- April 2, 2012 at 12:59 PM
- Jim Thill said...
Tim: Point taken about the robots. I guess "robot" wasn't 100% literal anyway, more in reference to modern mass production and QA/QC processes.
- April 2, 2012 at 1:51 PM
- dean899 said...
i read this whole thing...went into deep thought...drank kool aid and then forgot to ride my bike.
- April 2, 2012 at 3:07 PM
- Jim Thill said...
I never actually mentioned kool-aid.
- April 2, 2012 at 8:45 PM
- jim w said...
For many interests there are several ways to exact enjoyment. Take music. Some people like to enjoy the sound of the music Those people will spend a lot of money fine tuning an audio system, spending lots more on the equipment than on the music, and listen only to recordings that highlight the realistic lifelike quality of there system.
Some people like the music, and will listen to as much of it as possible, regardless what the sound quality is.
Both are past times that can produce real joy and satisfaction. Both involve music as the means to that enjoyment. And yet they seem almost like two different languages.
I think bike ownership can be the similar. For some knowing that they own the best stuff possible is what makes them happy. The ride is important because it lets them enjoy the equipment.
And for others,the equipment is just a tool to let them enjoy the ride. Both work. It's why they make chocolate and vanilla ice cream.
- April 3, 2012 at 7:32 AM
- Jim Thill said...
I don't know much (anything) about audio equipment, but in the world of bikes and components, most brands have a hierarchy of quality (price). The urge to upgrade is there, and the underlying fear is that the less expensive stuff will be a major disappointment either through poor performance or a lack of durability (which will certainly strand the rider in a dangerous place). Being a connoisseur is one thing, and letting yourself be fear-driven by the obvious up-sell is another. In my experience, the ride experience on a well-considered $1200 bike is not necessarily less than that of a blinged-out $5000 bike.
- April 3, 2012 at 8:42 AM
Well put, Jim. For whatever reason, we seem to relish in specialization, getting the last bit of performance, having the absolutely-best-there-is parts, etc. Even the bike world is not exempt from rampant consumerism.
On tours, some of the happiest people I run into are wandering about on old MTBs and ancient 10 speeds, equipped with cheap racks and gear strapped on with bungie cords. They're enjoying the trip and the bike is simply the way to get there. Would a dedicated touring bike work better? Probably. Would it change the trip in any meaningful way? Doubtful.
- April 4, 2012 at 9:26 AM
Jim -
More so then any other sport, cycling requires the best possible equipment for the need. A simple and careful analysis of all variables - cost, weight, durability, cool factor, etc. is part of the bicycle spec process. This process includes exhaustive research of all available resources - local pro's, internet forums, bicycle publications, technical manuals and other experience based data points. A thorough understanding of all these inputs is the beginning of the distillation exercise. I find that a spreadsheet is an excellent way to analyze these variables. The line items come to life when they are thoughtfully organized in columns assigned to each attribute. I have found that the performance per dollar ratio is the most important of all considerations - to wit: Am I squeezing every gram of performance that each of my dollars is purchasing. I agree - this can sometimes be an agonizing process, but I believe you will delightful and satisfying outcome if you put in the hard work and do your homework. As far as brands go, Campagnolo will ALWAYS be king - their storied history is recognized the world over by the cognescenti and those in the know. Shimano will remain a solid player - their electronic shifting system is certainly the next big thing. Upstart SRAM will need to show that they have long term staying power before they get my stamp of approval - I will be curious if they have the engineering might to develop electronic shifting. Lastly, boutique brands are almost always the best choice - they are absolutely cool. Whether you'ré talking old skool Grafton or Cook Brothers Racing or the more contemporary brands - Paul's, White Brother's or Phil Wood, I highly recommend sparing no expense to earn your riding buddies respect and admiration. At the end of the day, there is a direct correlation to the amount of research based analysis as it relates to the success of the bike's eventual spec.
Do not spare any time or expense and you will be richly rewarded with a pleasant new bike experience - one that will have fond, lasting memories until your next bicycle purchase. One final frame material note: Carbon trumps Titanium trumps Steel trumps Aluminum.
Cheers! David
- April 5, 2012 at 3:26 PM
- FTMN said...
David - That's really funny! Very well written... you almost had me convinced. Too bad you didn't post sooner; you only missed April 1st by a few days!!
Unfortunately, I think there are a lot of people out there that have been so heavily influenced by the industry's marketing ploys they've actually created that sort of sad reality for themselves.
I mean seriously, spreadsheets! Hilarious!
- April 5, 2012 at 6:32 PM
- FTMN said...
P.S. - Great post Jim.
- April 5, 2012 at 6:33 PM
- Kokorozashi said...
Well said. I'm not great at the 'economy of words' approach, either (that or else my verbal economy is subject to terrible inflation), but I think you summed up some really important stuff pretty succinctly.
I have what is, in my opinion, a really nice road bike. Some purists would disagree -- it's 'just' an '06 Fuji Roubaix frame with 105 components and pretty nice Mavic clinchers; nothing most serious racers would write home about -- but it feels great and does everything I need it to do.
I ride it on the road, on the cobbles, in the grass, once in a while on dirt trails. I've ridden bikes with more cachet, lighter bikes, and bikes with much higher pricetags, and while some have offered a performance boost in one area or another, none of them have felt as good as my Fuji, so it's the best bike in the world for me.
I also have a cheap 'cross bike that I love (well, technically it's supposed to be my fiance's bike ;)). That bike goes literally everywhere (singeltrack, gravel roads, stream crossings, mud) and does the few things the Fuji can't (carrying groceries, mostly).
What I try to remember whenever anyone asks me what kind of bike they should buy is exactly what you're saying here -- that the perfect bike for me might not be the perfect bike for anyone else, and the most important factor is what's going to make someone ride and keep them riding. That where bikes are concerned names mean little and feel means everything. That the difference in performance between crap components and decent components and huge, but the difference between decent components and the high-grade stuff isn't necessarily worth the cost for many, maybe most of us.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts. It's good to hear a voice of reason out there in the wilderness.
- April 5, 2012 at 7:14 PM
- Shaun said...
Excellent post Jim! I can certainly relate to many of the points you've made. Especially where you wrote about a bike being too "precious". Well done!
- May 28, 2012 at 4:57 PM


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JOHNSON CITY, Tenn. (Jan. 22, 2010) - Senior Zachlynn Blackburn (Tazewell, Va.) made the most of her final Niswonger Invitational, as the standout thrower set a new ETSU record in the weight throw on Friday afternoon inside the ETSU/MSHA Athletic Center. Overall, the Bucs came away with a strong showing on day one of the meet.
Blackburn, who all ready owned the record prior to the meet, finished third in the event with her heave of 55-07.75 (16.96m). The Tazewell, Va. native added over four inches to her previous lifetime best, which was 55-03.50.
"Zachlynn had a strong showing for us in the weight throw today," added associate track and field coach Michelle Byrne. "She loves throwing in this building with all the support she gets. Zachlynn has been the backbone of our women's throwing team for a while now, and today it was great to see her throw a personal best. I know Coach (Meg) Stone has worked hard with Zachlynn leading up to this event and it all paid off this afternoon."
Meanwhile, on the track, junior Mike James (Palm Bay, Fla.) advanced his way into the finals of the 60m hurdles. James, who won his heat with a time of 8.21, finished fifth overall in the prelims on Friday morning. The junior hurdler will now try to win the final at 5:25 p.m. on Saturday.
Senior sprinter Duronal Monal (Belle Glade, Fla.) had a bittersweet day on the track. After a false start knocked him out of the prelims of the 60m, Monal came away with a qualifying time in the 200m. Monal advanced to Saturday's final with a time of 21.68.
"It was unfortunate to see Duronal false start in the 60m," commented Byrne. "That being said, I thought he ran well in the 200m. His first 20 was extremely quick, and then, I thought he tightened up a bit at the end. However, this is a strong field so it was good to see him make tomorrow's final."
As James and Monal were qualifying for the finals in their respective events, junior runner Jasmine Ingram (Frederick, Md.) was doing the same in the women's 400m. Ingram, who all ready set a new school mark in the event last weekend at Virginia Tech (55.99), cruised past the competition in her heat as her time of 56.27 was a full second faster than her nearest runner.
"Jasmine is a very talented and strong runner," said Byrne. "She has worked very hard in practice lately, and today we saw that show on the track. She was very relaxed out there, which allowed her to get into a better rhythm."
Other ETSU notables include Quentin Greenlee (Morristown, Tenn.), Robert Purcell (Raeford, N.C.) and Tim O'Dell (Ormond Beach, Fla.). Greenlee, who was making his first appearance in the 200m since injuring his knee a year ago, won his heat with a time of 21.95. Meanwhile, Purcell and O'Dell both clocked season bests in the 400m. Purcell won his heat, finishing in 50.49, while O'Dell turned in a time of 50.59.
Day two of the Niswonger Invitational kicks off with the men's and women's 5000m run at 8 a.m. on Saturday.
For more information on Buccaneer track and field, visit www.ETSUBucs.com.


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One of my pet peeves is when someone goes on and on about how they are a music lover, music is their hobby, how much they just enjoy and love music, and then you ask them what they like:
"Oh, I love it all. I listen to everything. Except country and rap. And I'm not too fond of classical music. And Lady Gaga's a hack with no talent."
Hah, I caught you, you freakin' poser. A good song is a good song. Period. I personally caught you yesterday humming that Britney Spears tune. Don't worry - I realize she's not on your regular rotation.
But hey, if it speaks to you musically, who cares who wrote it or performed it or what genre label it's been slapped with? One of my good friends had to hide his Barry Manilow obsession from his own friends for most of his adolescent life. If your friends really give a crap, maybe you need to find some new ones. Or change the subject.
Bottom line: If you don't reach beyond your current iPod catalog, you're missing out on the joy of discovering something new and exciting. Even if it's only new and exciting to you. You're all that matters anyway, right?
So to jump-start your journey into the relatively safe unknown, I present to you five popular songs, in no particular order, that you are likely to have never heard before. Maybe it's because of your age. Maybe it's because your radio is stuck on one station. All are planted firmly in what you might call the rock/pop/alternative genre, so as not to scare anyone away with anything too "weird" - heaven forbid.
And if you have a song or two to add to this list, please, please share it in the comment section below. Or feel free to disagree. This is how we bond.
Nik Kershaw - The Riddle
This is the tune that inspired me to make this list, and it happens to have an interesting backstory as well.
It seems that British musician Nik Kershaw was demoing his newest album for his agent, into which he no doubt poured his blood, sweat and tears for what seemed like a decade. To which the agent responded something like this:
"That's nice. But…uh…where are the hit songs? I'm just not feeling it. Got anything else?"
This pissed Mr. Kershaw off enough so that, within the hour, he ran up to his room with his guitar and came up with this little ditty.
I came across this song onstage, while I watched from the sidelines as some Japanese high school students performed a bizarre drama they had written about a teacher and a vampire. It culminated (as all drama should) in a dance number to this song.
Though it sounded a little dated, I assumed it was a fairly new tune that never made it to U.S. shores. I was shocked to find it reached #3 on the charts in the UK in 1984. As a child of the 80's, I couldn't believe this one slipped by me all these years.
Now imagine my mounting excitement when I discovered it also has the coolest video ever:
So what's the answer to the riddle? There was intense speculation at the time - people stopping Nik on the street, constant questions in interviews, lots of fan mail. His label fanned the flames with radio promos to give prizes to people who submitted the best interpretations. They got bags of submissions with elaborate explanations.
Turns out that, in the haste of writing his hit song, he'd just made up some temporary nonsense words to go along with the music. Recording his album, time ran out for him to come up with anything better, so he just went with what he had and called it "The Riddle."
Poor Nik felt so guilty about all the fuss that it took him decades to come clean. Let that be a lesson to all you songwriters out there.
Incidentally, a dance remix by an Italian DJ sold over a million copies in Germany and France in 2000.
Alice Cooper - Might As Well Be On Mars
Alice Cooper is arguably one of the most influential, pervasive and successful rock musicians. You may know him as the father of "shock rock," but you may not realize he's dipped his toe into several genres - even recording a couple New Wave albums in the 80s. This guy used to go out drinking with John Lennon, Ringo Starr, Micky Dolenz, Bernie Taupin, and Keith Moon.
Remarkably, he's never done drugs, but alcohol almost killed him and he was in and out of rehab throughout the late-70s and early-80s. This mellow-but-powerful ballad comes out of left field on Hey Stoopid, one of his post-rehab albums (and a killer album it is, too). The sheer power of the complicated - almost orchestral - music combines with the desperation and sadness of the lyrics to slowly build emotion and mold one of the most romantic rock songs ever recorded.
Just listen and try to convince yourself you've never felt like this in your life.
The Coop continues to rock, and the original Alice Cooper band was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame last year. I'm sure the length and complexity of this song kept it off the radio, but it deserves to be on everyone's top-ten list of love ballads. Or so my wife tells me.
BONUS: With July 4 coming up, I can't resist pointing also sending you to the goofy I Love America, from Alice's more out-there album, Dada.
Dream Theater - Erotomania
This group belongs on the "Top 5 Bands You've Never Heard" list, so I struggle to find the right Dream Theater song to put on here.
Their fans tend to be intense, serious musicians in their own right. If you've never heard Dream Theater before, imagine a group of classically trained musicians behind electric guitars standing in front of the world's most complicated drum set who insist on never settling into a straight 4/4 time.
Their albums are hard rock and high concept, with a strong thematic thrust throughout. The first song will introduce a variety of musical themes that will be revisited and explored more deeply in subsequent songs. As such, each song is a movement and the album is more like a symphony, which is most satisfying to listen to from beginning to end.
In the era of where music is now sold by the song, the properly structured album has become all but extinct. Thank goodness someone is keeping the faith.
"Erotomania" is an instrumental-only piece midway through Awake, which pulls together elements of some of the earlier songs while setting you up for what is to come. If you appreciate musicality, complexity and technical proficiency, I guarantee you're going to love this.
And brace yourself for the fugue-like guitar solo starting around 4:35...
Did I count six strings on that bass?
If you want to hear more, a great album to get started on is the highly successful Images and Words - "Pull Me Under" (the first track) still gets a decent amount of air play. The band has been labeled progressive metal, which is a perfect example of how slapping a label on a band is stupid.
Barenaked Ladies - Hello City
Every music fan has their "I was into that group before they were popular" story. The Barenaked Ladies is mine. 'Nuff said about that.
BNL gets lots of airplay now and has a fan base far beyond Canada, but their 1992 debut album Gordon is still their best overall. If you're looking for an album where nearly every song is gold, this is it. It's the source of the now ever-popular "If I Had $1,000,000" but I'm going with something more under-appreciated here.
Despite its upbeat, easygoing tempo, "Hello City" manages to strike a moody and somewhat melancholy tone at the same time with both words and music. I close my eyes and picture myself zooming through the alternately bustling and quiet neighborhoods of New York or downtown Toronto in the dark of night - where the sky is black and calm but a million bright lights are fighting against it and a certain crowd is still not ready to sleep. That's my crowd.
I personally feel that the 'Ladies have entered a bit of a rut lately, where they've settled into a particular style and expectation, losing a lot of the musical playfulness that set them apart a couple decades ago. I think they'll find it again, if they're looking for it.
Cowboy Mouth - How Do You Tell Someone
When I was in college, I directed a full-length film that I shot with a bunch of friends over the summer all over Kirksville. It's called "Dumping Jenny," and the premise is that a guy (Tom) and his friends wake up after a drunken stupor and have to piece together what happened the night before, which somehow involved him finally dumping his obsessive girlfriend Jenny, who they now cannot find.
This was well before "The Hangover" and "Dude, Where's My Car?" so I feel like we broke some ground at the time.
Anyway, I was looking for someone to score the music for the film and our boom operator had an obsession of his own - following a band called Cowboy Mouth to as many shows as he can. He had this idea that their song, "Jenny Says," would be ideal for our movie if we could just get the band's permission.
So he got to know the sound guy at one of the shows. Through the course of their conversation, it turned out that one of the band members, John Thomas Griffith, was interested in scoring films. After some discussion, Griff agreed to score my movie for the experience, only to be paid if we net wild riches. Which we didn't.
But it was a fun ride and he did a great job scoring the movie, sending me pieces here and there while the band was traveling on the road. It turned out that "Jenny Says" didn't really fit in anywhere, but we used a couple of their songs in the film, including this one that was just perfect for one of our two musical montages.
There are a couple recordings of "How Do You Tell Someone" out there. You MUST listen to THIS ONE from the album Easy:
This song never gets old. A band could easily ride into sellout crowds at packed stadiums on the coattails of a song like this.
I cannot say enough about Cowboy Mouth. It's one of those sad stories of a band that deserves to be more popular than they are. They have all the pieces in place: mass appeal, a catalogue of catchy tunes with great hooks, and one of the most energetic and uplifting shows you'll ever have the pleasure of attending. They push the drum set to the edge of the stage and their lead drummer - who is built like a football player - sings lead on most of their tunes, pumps up the crowd, and, oh yeah, manages to drum like hell too.
And so it goes.


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Below is the first of a series of blogs about the Lipscomb track and field/cross country teams' mission to Jamaica. 42 student-athletes are on the trip.
Don't Forget Your Passport
Day one: 10pm, Morant Bay Villa, Morant Bay, St. Thomas, Jamaica
In our regular lives, most days wind up being pretty much the same.
However, today is not like tomorrow. This is because today is December 28, the last day this week that you'll be woken up by an iPhone plugged to a charger plugged to a wall in a dorm in Nashville, Tennessee, where you have everything you need. The more of today passes, the further you will get from your iPhone and the closer you will get to the reality that God is working in places that you've never even seen.
Today ends in Morant Bay, Jamaica. But there are a few things that you need to do first.
Today you need to wake up. This part is important, probably the second most important thing you will do today. So you wake up, incredibly early and incredibly grateful. As always, you are completely overwhelmed because there is the spreadsheet and there next to your little name is more than a thousand dollars of belief in you. Even at two in the morning with a little bit of drool still on your pillow this is evident. Whether or not you will ever love on enough kids or build enough anything to deserve that amount of belief, there is nothing to do now but accept it.
Once you're mostly conscious, you need to do the most important thing that you will do today.
Don't forget your passport.
If you're one of the forty-two Lipscomb Track and Field members and mentors on the trip, you will get a flat tire today. If you're another, you will have a ticket mishap. But these things tend to happen, just like we tend to move on from them, and the next thing you know, it's don't forget your passport and you're piled into a van. Just don't forget your passport and you're piled into a plane. Just don't forget your passport and you're piled into a new van, zip code, country, world.
In this world, you can still walk a crosswalk and plug things in (assuming you wouldn't rather unplug completely). Sometimes you can walk on a sidewalk, and sometimes you can't. You can shower with hot water, drink from drinking fountains, talk on a cell phone, you can drive on the left side of the road up mountains and past the ocean, past towns of cinder buildings and towns of not much at all. In this world, you can see things and (if we're honest) smell things that you wouldn't usually. And whether you like it or not, these are all parts of the big broken world that God has sent you into. Assuming that you haven't forgotten your passport. (Like I said, probably the most important thing that you do today.)
The passport is important because in missions, there isn't much secret to who you are and where you come from. Of course, although at first you needed your passport because you weren't getting on the plane without it, right about now, our trip leader Coach Mason is fixing to take up your passport for another reason: the only thing worse than forgetting your passport on the way to Jamaica is forgetting it on the way home. See, that little blue book is not only your ticket to Jamaica, it's also the only thing standing between your short-term mission and a very long-term mission. Meanwhile, it's your reminder that this isn't your culture, our country, or your world. That the things you are here to do come with an expiration date.
That today is not like tomorrow.
Quote of the day, Caleb Love: We're just getting started.


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A SYDNEY sex worker who earned $7000 a week has avoided jail on drug supply charges after a judge found it "not unreasonable" she needed the illicit substances to escape the horrors of the industry.
Police found Cherie Mollica in a parked car on the side of the road in Sydney on March 2016 and a search revealed a bag with a syringe, a large stained glass bottle, a small bag of white crystals and a wallet with almost $8000 in cash.
Almost a litre of liquid GBL, 970ml, was found in the bottle and the crystals tested positive for 1.385g of methamphetamine. GBL, which is sometimes known as "coma in a bottle", converts into better known drug GHB when dissolved in the body.
The 29-year-old admitted the drugs and cash were hers - but denied she was a drug dealer, insisting to detectives she only supplied to a friend and the rest was hers to help cope with her job as a sex worker.
She told police she only ever supplied drugs to one person, a friend who was in the car with her on the day of her arrest.
At a previous hearing Mollica - who is now working in a sales role - told the court the money had not come from the sale of drugs.
She said she consumed "a large amount of drugs" and earned a "large" amount of cash from her sex work. Mollica also said she had been admitted to hospital after overdosing on drugs on one occasion and was rebuilding her life away from drugs and sex work.
She told the hearing she lied during a police interview because she was "nervous and didn't want to get in trouble".
A sex worker also gave evidence at the hearing to say she and Mollica could earn up to $7000 in a week and sometimes "a lot more".
Acting Judge Anthony Garling told the Sydney District Court on Thursday Mollica had pleaded guilty at an early opportunity and did not dispute the items found in her car. What was in dispute was the police facts.
He said he struggled with parts of Mollica's account, noting the combination of drugs, cash and certain text messages on her mobile phone were "consistent with drug supply".
However, Mollica's evidence of how she obtained the money was a "perfectly believable explanation" and the Crown "had not reached the required level" to prove the drugs were for supply rather than her own use.
He said Mollica "lived a life" that allowed her to earn a lot of money and it was "not unreasonable to suggest she needed drugs to get on with her life".
Despite that, he told the court she had pleaded guilty to "serious offences".
The judge said Mollica had voluntarily entered rehabilitation and was living with her parents. He was confident she was free of drugs at the moment, but noted he couldn't be sure she would stay that way.
"Hopefully she will not (return to drugs). When she is drug-free her life is much better," Judge Garling said. A letter tendered to the court by Mollica's mother said she was a different person when she was not using drugs.
There were gasps from the public gallery, where Mollica's parents and several young women sat, when Judge Garling said he was satisfied the sentence should be two years' jail, before adding: "I'm of the view it should be suspended."
Speaking directly to Mollica he said: "Young lady, do you understand you have sentenced to two years' jail?"
When she said yes, he told her she was on a good behaviour bond for two years.
"Don't touch drugs of any type for any reason," Judge Garling warned. "Don't think you have had a slap on the hand. It's up to you to stay out of court."
Mollica, who was represented by lawyer Sam Macedone, was hugged by her parents and friends when she sentencing was over.
On the charge of supply GBL he sentenced her two years' jail, suspended, and on the possession of methamphetamine she was fined $500.
Mollica's name was dragged into a case last year involving a Gold Coast man, Matthew Delander, who was facing charges over allegedly firing his gun as he drove his $200,000 Mercedes Benz on Helensvale Rd, at Oxenford in September 2015.
According to court documents, Mollica filmed it on her iPhone, with police alleging her distinctive hot pink-painted fingernails were captured clearly.
She was never charged over that incident.


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AUDIO: GLEE Takes on Sara Bareilles, Nelly & More!
On this week's episode of GLEE, the Glee club puts together a calendar photo shoot to raise money as they head into Regionals. Meanwhile, Rachel wins a part in a student art film, but the role poses a moral dilemma. Check out full tracks from the episode below, which includes 'Love Song,' 'Torn,' 'This Is the New Year,' 'Centerfold/Hot In Here,' 'Let Me Love You,' and 'A Thousand Years.'
Glee is a musical comedy about a group of eager and ambitious students who strive to outshine their singing competition to win Nationals while navigating the cruel halls of McKinley High. Since its debut, Glee has become a bona fide cultural phenomenon, received prestigious honors including the Golden Globe and Peabody Award and singlehandedly made Glee clubs cool again.
In addition to the regular cast, Glee has featured guest appearances by a wide range of talented performers, including Kate Hudson, Sarah Jessica Parker, Gwyneth Paltrow (who won the 2011 Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actress in a Comedy Series), Carol Burnett, Kathy Griffin, Cheyenne Jackson, John Stamos, Britney Spears, Kristin Chenoweth, Idina Menzel, Jonathan Groff, Molly Shannon, Olivia Newton-John and Neil Patrick Harris, who won a 2010 Emmy Award for Outstanding Guest Actor in a Comedy Series for his work on the show.
Click Here to Watch the Video!


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Nobel Prize-winning economist Robert Shiller said Tuesday that home-price growth is likely to slow down this year, with demand hit by declining affordability, among other factors.
Mortgage rates have climbed from ultra-low levels in 2012, dampening some buyer interest, Shiller said. The average rate for a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage hit a record low of 3.31% in November 2012, and has since increased by more than 1 full percentage point, according to federally controlled mortgage buyer Freddie Mac /quotes/zigman/226335/delayed /quotes/nls/fmcc FMCC .
"[Rates] are still low, but I think [the rise] has offset a bit of the wild enthusiasm to buy a house that a lot of people felt in 2012," Shiller said.
Also, buyers' expectations about how much their homes could appreciate has been falling, he added.
"We are just losing our general sense of optimism about housing," Shiller said.
Shiller spoke after a Tuesday morning report showed that the pace of U.S. home-price growth slowed down at the end of 2013. Still, 2013 saw the fastest price growth for a calendar year since 2005, according to the S&P/Case-Shiller home-price index that tracks 20 cities.
"Home prices will probably go up this year, but not like they've been," Shiller said. "It's going to slow down."
Home-price growth in 2014 could be slowed by a number of factors, in addition to declining affordability hitting demand. If inventories rise as more sellers become willing and able to place their homes on the market, that could cut upward pressure on prices. Slow job growth may also hurt demand, as could new mortgage rules for would-be buyers and lenders.
–Ruth Mantell
Follow Ruth on Twitter @RuthMantell
Follow the Capitol Report blog on Twitter @CapitolReport
Check out these Capitol Report posts:
'Window closing' for housing-reform bill this year, mortgage bankers group chief says
Why sellers aren't listing their homes even though prices are jumping


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Malta: Risk Assessment
Country Risk Rating
Business Climate Rating
- At the crossroads of the eastern and western Mediterranean regions
- Eurozone membership
- Public and external accounts in surplus
- Public debt held by residents
- Tourism (2 million visitors a year for 430,000 inhabitants) and port activities
- Low taxation
- Productive, English-speaking, and growing workforce
- Inadequate higher education provision, shortage of highly qualified workers, R&D, and innovation
- Road infrastructure still inadequate
- Small, isolated country resulting in close relationship between public authorities and business
- Slow legal process, favoritism, corruption
- Potential impact of EU adoption of a consolidated, common tax base for companies
- Potential impact of Brexit on number of visitors from the United Kingdom (29%)
Current Trends
Growth Still Strong
As in 2017, growth will be driven by internal demand. Private consumption (50% of GDP) will benefit from good labor market performance as well as higher wages due to the scarcity of labor. Moreover, household incomes will benefit from the indexation of wages to inflation (Cost of Living Allowance or COLA). Public investment will be sustained by ongoing road works, construction of tourist or education facilities and social housing. Investment is expected to profit from the start of operations at the Malta Development Bank, which, alongside the financing of major infrastructures, also has to finance SMEs. Exports of electronic, electrical and optical components, the archipelago's main manufacturing output, as well as generic medicines and seafood products, should benefit from the upturn in the European economy. Tourism (27% of GDP and 27.8% of jobs in 2016 including related activities) will continue to benefit from Malta's competitiveness (price/quality ratio, security and health conditions) compared with other Mediterranean destinations for European visitors, in particular from the UK and Italy (29% and 11% of spending respectively). Income from online gaming (e.g. poker) via the Internet and digital TV, and from database management is rising. Finally, port activity is benefitting fully from the country's optimal position at the crossroads of Mediterranean routes and especially its position half-way between the Suez Canal and Gibraltar. The contribution of trade in goods and services (290% of GDP) is expected to remain positive.
Consolidated Public Accounts
Fiscal consolidation has not been a top priority for the Labor party, back in power under the leadership of Prime Minister Joseph Muscat since 2013 (re-elected with 37 out of 67 seats in the early elections of June 2017, triggered by allegations of corruption against the Prime Minister) after fifteen years of rule by the center-right National Party. However, a budget responsibility law was passed in 2014 and the public accounts posted a surplus as early as 2016. The improvement is down to strong growth, structural measures like improved tax collection, and tax hikes on tobacco, construction material, and other products. The surplus is expected to drop in 2018 due to the impact of the new collective wage agreement in the public sector and the introduction of a basic pension. Moreover, the income from the Individual Investor program allowing any foreigner with more than a year's residence to claim Maltese nationality by contributing EUR 675,000 and owning a residence worth EUR 350,000 for five years can vary. Finally a new bailout for the national airline, Air Malta, cannot be excluded. The primary surplus (excluding debt interest) and growth help bring down the considerable level of public debt (to which should be added the State guarantee for publicly-owned enterprises representing 10% of GDP), which is held by residents, specifically the local banks.
The trade deficit is broadly offset by the services surplus
Despite huge deficit in the trade in goods (19% of GDP in 2017), due to the shortage of energy resources, poorly diversified manufacturing output and the strong import component of consumer goods, the country runs a current account surplus. This due to the positive balance on services associated with tourism, online electronic gaming and the duty-free port at Marsaxlokk. This port is used for the transshipment of cargoes from high-tonnage vessels to smaller vessels suited for smaller capacity Mediterranean ports and vice versa. The port of Valetta retains the other port operations.
A Large Offshore Financial Center
The banking sector manages assets equivalent to 468% of GDP and contributes about 15% to public revenues. The truly local banks, chiefly Bank of Valletta, HSBC and Mediterranean Bank manage assets representing 245% of GDP. They hold a third of sovereign debt and are very involved in mortgage loans to households, which are rising as houses become more expensive. The lack of competition ensures good profits, even if non-performing loans represent 10% of the portfolio of loans to non-financial companies. The other share of the assets (223% of GDP and falling) is held by subsidiaries of foreign, especially the UK, German and Turkish, groups looking for advantageous tax arrangements. They operate with non-resident resources, invest only abroad and employ few local staff. Their services, and also online games, database management and the citizenship acquisition program are under closer surveillance in a context marked by allegations of corruption against the whole political class.


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Sensing the upswing in audience preferences for mythologicals and epics, Amrita TV is about to launch the mega serial,
Om Namah Shivaya in Malayalam.
The show is slotted as a weekday evening fare from June 2 .Filmed as a sweeping epic using stylistic sets and a large cast with period costumes,the serial is an engaging recreation of the stories and values embodied in the life and times of Lord Siva.
Om Namah Shivaya is directed by Dheeraj Kumar and set to music by Sharang Dev.
Amrita TV continues to experiment with various genres attuned to audience tastes. Popular mythologicals which are tastefully made with value-based storylines have become good vehicles for wholesome family entertainment, engaging both the young and old--and hence the space for more in this genre.
Tuesday, July 5, 2011
Om namah shivay
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A lot has been happening but it seems like progress is SLOW. And Sydney's birthday is a little more than a week away. It's clear we won't make it with a running car for her birthday, especially since we're headed to Charleston for a vacation and eclipse viewing.
First up are wheels. It's time for the car to leave the lift so that we can work on the interior and wiring. Needs wheels to do that so I bolted on a set of the Chump Cobra knockoffs which have the same common offset and backspacing as most all 17" factory Ford wheels (~5.95" backspace, 24mm offset). The problem is that on the front, with the SN95 LCA, the wheel sticks out about 1/2" outside the fender. A lot of camber can barely tuck it up under the fender.
So, either I use some asymmetric wheels (rear fits fit with normal wheels) or I go back to a fox arm. I'm going with the fox arm, which means we have to fab up a new pair of arms with weight jackers and press the bushings I want to use into the arms. At least we'll have a spare set of LCAs for the SN95 race cars. I've already sand blasted the fox arms and we've taken the existing suspension off the car.
How long as it been since you've seen a round air filter? Long time for me and it brought back a lot of memories of working on older Fords.
I forgot to put some detail in on the radiator and fan. There I bought a fox 3 core ally radiator and I wanted to use an electric fan, specifically a Ford OEM fan. We've got a lot of e fans lying around so I chose a SN95 94-95 style fan as it fit really well on the radiator. All we had to do was fab up some ally supports and weld them to the radiator. I suck at ally welding but we were able to get it done well enough to work for the setup. Most of the fan weight is carried by the fan lip resting on the bottom of the radiator, but even without that the mounts are sturdy although not pretty.
Since electrics are going in I needed a battery in place to fabricate the heavy current harnesses. I've got that in place now and it's tidy, down to the starter, grounds, and some feeds for the fuse panel.
First job was to locate the Ron Francis fuse panel. That was done by fabbing up a few cardboard templates and trying them in various locations in the car up behind the dash and where the panel would still be accessible.
Once we had a good location we fabbed the mount from steel and installed rivnuts in it that we could use to bolt the fuse panel to the mount.
And this is mocked up again with the mount and panel where it will live.
On other fronts, I secured a set of SVO seats that are in decent shape. They need to be recovered but at least I've got the basics in place, complete with manual pump up bladders for lumbar that work well. The gray will match the interior quite well.
The dash is starting to get attention too. We had it down for mocking up of the fuse panel mounts and it's time for dash repair to happen.
And on the ordering parts front I got a 17" spare tire. I hadn't thought about that aspect of the car until I read it on the forum, that is, with the larger Cobra brakes you need a special spare that will clear them. Found one in great shape for a fair price.


text: Dairy Care Initiative Rapidly Being Adopted July 18, 2011 08:29 PM Tweet TAGS: Marketing, Overseas December 18, 2014 By MILK Editors Email Nearly 50% of U.S. milk supply now under FARM umbrella. Source: National Milk Producers Federation Today's consumers want to know that the food they purchase is safe, wholesome, nutritious, and produced with integrity. U.S. milk producers are demonstrating that commitment by enrolling at a rapid pace in the National Dairy FARM Program: Farmers Assuring Responsible Management (FARM). In fact, since enrollment began in September 2010, 45% of the nation's milk supply now comes from farmers, cooperatives, and proprietary processors implementing the FARM program. Voluntary and open to all producers, FARM is a national dairy animal care, third-party verified program designed to demonstrate dairy farmers' commitment to outstanding animal care and a quality milk supply. Independent dairy producers, proprietary processors, and cooperatives are quickly coming on board.   "Telling this story is essential at a time when consumers want to know how their food is produced," said John Miles, Land O'Lakes FARM implementation leader. "The FARM program helps us reach out to customers, consumers, and the entire marketing chain. It sends a strong message that Land O'Lakes member producers work hard caring for their animals and producing quality milk." FARM was created by the National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF), along with support from Dairy Management, Inc. FARM provides thorough animal care education for producers, on-farm evaluations, and objective third-party verification, giving customers and consumers the assurances they deserve. "Dairy farmers are passionate about the care they provide to their animals and have an excellent track record of responsible management practices," said Jamie Jonker, Vice President of Scientific and Regulatory Affairs at NMPF. "This program quantifies that passion and allows them to speak with one voice as they market nationally and internationally. The pace of participation has surpassed our expectations." Developed in partnership with producers, veterinarians, and animal care experts, FARM is a comprehensive program that incorporates the latest innovations in animal care from birth to marketing. Participating producers are provided comprehensive training materials and undergo an on-farm evaluation conducted by a trained veterinarian, extension educator, co-op field staff member, or other FARM-trained professional. Evaluators then provide a status report and, if necessary, recommendations for improvement. To protect the integrity and credibility of the program, a certain number of participating dairy farms will be randomly selected for objective third-party verification. Validus, an Iowa-based certified auditing company with more than 10 years of experience verifying on-farm animal care, has been selected to conduct all third-party evaluations and will begin that process this summer. In addition to Land O'Lakes, participating cooperatives and proprietary producers include Agri-Mark, Inc., Hilmar Cheese Company, Foremost Farms USA, and Maryland and Virginia Milk Producers (MDVA) Cooperative. "In today's society we have to prove that animal care is important to all dairy farmers in a manner that our neighbors and customers can understand and respect. The best solution is FARM," said Kevin Satterwhite, a dairy farmer and MDVA member from Newberry, S.C., who is an active participant in the FARM program. A complete list of participants and all training materials in both English and Spanish can be found at www.nationaldairyfarm.com. The National Milk Producers Federation, based in Arlington, VA, develops and carries out policies that advance the well being of dairy producers and the cooperatives they own. The members of NMPF's 31 cooperatives produce the majority of the U.S. milk supply, making NMPF the voice of more than 40,000 dairy producers on Capitol Hill and with government agencies. Dairy Management Inc., based in Rosemont, IL, is the domestic and international planning and management organization that builds demand for dairy products on behalf of America's 60,000-plus dairy producers. DMI works with state and regional dairy promotion organizations to integrate marketing, promotion, advertising, public relations, nutrition education, and nutrition, product and technology research programs. Back to news


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America's Roadblock to Peace in the Middle East
By Andrew Wilson
Secretary of State John Kerry has worked indefatigably for some five months now to steer Israel and Palestine toward a peace agreement, but progress has been sluggish at best and stagnant at worst. As evidence of the slow pace of the talks, chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat recently signaled that he would be willing to extend negotiations beyond the designted 9-month period. The extension was subject to an April 29th deadline where the two parties could sign, "an initial framework agreement," that would, "specify the borders, percentage of land swaps, security arrangements, Jerusalem status, refugees," and other core issues. Although Erekat has since retracted this idea, he is to be commended for his flexibility. Still, considering that in earlier rounds of negotiations, notably between Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in 2007, the two sides had made substantial progress, the slow pace of the current talks deserves closer scrutiny.
Who benefits most from dragging out the talks? Not the Palestinian Authority (PA). The PA is eager for the negotiations to succeed in establishing a bona fide state of Palestine. Delays in the talks serve to harm President Mahmoud Abbas's credibility, in the face of continual challenges from Hamas for the allegiance of the Palestinian people. Abbas has staked his government on the promise of attaining Palestinian statehood by negotiations and diplomacy, and any sign that he is failing to deliver on that promise will strengthen the extremists in Hamas who have argued for years that Israel cannot be trusted as a negotiating partner and independence can be gained only through armed struggle.
On the other hand, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu could well see benefit in stalling. His governing coalition includes a large bloc of pro-settler Knesset members in the Likud Party and in Naftali Bennett's Jewish Home Party who advocate that Israel summarily annexed much of the West Bank, a territory they refer to as, "Judea and Samaria." In their view, the major Palestinian population centers should become small enclaves within Israel, tightly patrolled by the IDF.
Although Netanyahu does not publicly support their position, their strength in the coalition can be measured by the announcements of new settlements at every turn in the negotiating process. Every time there is a prisoner release, Defense Minister Moshe Ya'alon, a strong proponent of settlements, has issued permits for construction of hundreds of new housing units east of the Green Line. One can surmise that these pro-settler members of Netanyahu's coalition would not be promoting new settlement construction if they expected that in five months Israel would sign a peace agreement having borders that placed many of those settlements within Palestine.
But what is Netanyahu's view? Only a few days before Ya'alon's most recent announcement of new settlement construction, Netanyahu had huddled with the members of his cabinet and, in an effort to cement a unified front, told them "he cannot accept repeated insubordination in the coalition." One can assume that Netanyahu does not view Ya'alon to be insubordinate.
Despite Netanyahu's public support for Kerry's efforts to negotiate an agreement, it often seems that he would rather avoid that outcome. His way of managing the situation could be to drag the talks out as long as possible. To satisfy the United States he appears to cooperate with the April 29th deadline for an agreement, only to steer matters to a limited framework that leaves many details unresolved. That way, the negotiations will drag on at least through September 2014, long enough to forestall the Palestinians from going to the UN and mounting their bid for statehood during the 2014-2015 session. This will effectively push the "peace process" into 2015.
What would be gained by prolonging the process in this way? Netanyahu may be gambling that as time goes by the Palestinians will lose patience and initiate a new intifada with violent attacks, which will diminish any sympathy the world community now holds for the long-suffering Palestinians. Then there will be some teeth to Israel's perpetual argument that the Palestinians cannot be trusted to have their own state. Meanwhile, the new settlements will become established as "facts on the ground."
Behind Netanyahu's reluctance to grant the Palestinians a state is fear, fear born of the Jewish experience in the Holocaust and reinforced in Israel's fight for independence in 1948 that the world will always be against the Jewish people. Netanyahu learned this point of view under the tutelage of his father Ben-Zion. It is this attitude, that Arabs are not to be trusted and Israelis live in a rough neighborhood with no one to rely on but themselves, that it gave impetus in the 1970s and 1980s to a systematic program of settlement construction throughout the West Bank, justified in the name of national security. But a fortress mentality is only of limited usefulness; every fortress in history has fallen to the ground sooner or later, the 40-plus years of Israel's military dominance notwithstanding.
It is good to be reminded that there is more to Israel than settlement blocs, religious and Zionist fundamentalists and muscular right-wing politics. The small country is comprised of organized labor, African immigrants, disillusioned young people who have taken to the streets, academics who teach at world-class universities and professionals who are struggling to maintain their middle-class status in a shrinking economy: that Israel is as much Tel Aviv as Jerusalem. There are Israeli leaders who speak for these populations: Yair Lapid, Tzipi Livni and the newly elected Labor head Isaac Herzog. These leaders are looking for a warm peace, cemented by the human ties of trade and economic development that can bring prosperity to a free Palestine. They can see Israel and Palestine standing together in alignment with moderate Arab states in the fight against Islamic extremism, believing that Israel can do better by opening its hands to its Arab cousins, the descendants of Ishmael and of the same father, Abraham.
One would have hoped that by now, Israelis and Palestinians who sincerely want a peace agreement to work would be setting up all sorts of informal bilateral meetings in order to build trust and confidence between the two sides. This sort of communication would help to overcome fear bred from suspicion, which escalate in the absence of dialogue and direct contact. Discussions about the details including border issues (including security policies), transportation routes, and the legal rights of Israeli settlers who find their homes under Palestinian sovereignty are key to a successful agreement.Instead, the current Israeli government has been dragging its feet. If it stays true to form, it will make every effort to frustrate a final agreement. In this regard, talk of reaching only a "framework agreement" by April 29 may serve to open the door to further delaying tactics. It is entirely possible that Israel will attempt to insert language into the framework agreement that in its imprecision creates a welter of conflicting interpretations, making further negotiations extremely challenging. And it is predictable that Israel will use settlement building as a lever to extract additional concessions from the Palestinians.
Secretary of State Kerry should be advised not to indulge Israel in this matter. He must avoid the temptation to play into Israel's hands. He should not sell the Palestinians on a false agenda, one that instead of bringing peace will cement and perpetuate Israeli dominance. Sooner or later the Palestinians will see the futility of their position, and the consequences will blow up in Kerry's face and bloody America's nose before the Arab world. To avoid this unfortunate outcome, Kerry needs to demonstrate to the Arab world that he is taking their viewpoint into account by holding Netanyahu's feet to the fire and reminding him that the United States expects nothing less of Israel than to negotiate in good faith.
Andrew Wilson is the Director of Scriptural Research and Professor of Scriptural Studies at the Unification Theological Seminary and a co-author of the Citizens Proposal for a Border between Israel and Palestine.
[Photo courtesy of Compfight.]


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Kuga, German-Russian Christmas Cooking
Electronic mail message from Edna Boardman, Minot, North Dakota
When I taught in a country school my first year of teaching, I lived with some ethnic Russians named Kalamaha. Mrs. Kalamaha made a cheese torte to die for. It had homemade cottage cheese and a few million calories. I'll see if I can find the recipe. She also made wonderful homemade bread, and packed great fat sandwiches for me each day. Mr. Kalamaha was thin as a rail (rural cliche), so maybe he was on one of those all fat and meat diets that is supposed to make you thin if it doesn't gum up your arteries and kill you first (see third sentence above).