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Germany's center-left opposition won a wafer-thin victory over Chancellor Angela Merkel's coalition in a major state election Sunday, dealing a setback as she seeks a third term at the helm of Europe's biggest economy later this year.
The opposition Social Democrats and Greens won a single-seat majority in the state legislature in Lower Saxony, ousting the coalition of Merkel's conservative Christian Democratic Union and the pro-market Free Democrats that has run the northwestern region for 10 years. The same parties form the national government.
The 58-year-old Merkel will seek another four-year term in a national parliamentary election expected in September. She and her party are riding high in national polls, but the opposition hoped the Lower Saxony vote would show she is vulnerable.
The outcome could boost what so far has been a sputtering campaign by Merkel's Social Democratic challenger, Peer Steinbrueck.
"This evening gives us real tailwind for the national election," said Katrin Goering-Eckardt, a leader of Steinbrueck's allies, the Greens. "We can and will manage to replace the (center-right) coalition."
However, the close outcome also underscores the possibility of a messy result in September, with no clear winner.
Before Sunday's election, the main question had been whether the Free Democrats, whose support has eroded badly since they joined Merkel's national government in 2009, would win the 5 percent needed to gain seats in the state legislature. Polls over recent months had suggested that they might not.
The Free Democrats won 9.9 percent of the vote, thanks to tactical voting by supporters of Merkel's conservatives. Many chose the smaller party so that the coalition's "good policies for solid budgets, safe jobs and good education could be continued," said the general secretary of Merkel's party, Hermann Groehe.
Despite the popularity of David McAllister, the state's CDU governor, that helped push down the conservatives' support to 36 percent from 42.5 percent in Lower Saxony's last election in 2008. They finished as the biggest single party but fell short of expectations.
The combination of the CDU and Free Democrats has now lost control of four states since the smaller party joined Merkel's government in 2009.
At national level, the alliance has developed a poor image, with the Free Democrats taking much of the blame for frequent government infighting. Merkel and her party, meanwhile, have been bolstered by a relatively robust economy, low unemployment and the chancellor's hard-nosed handling of Europe's debt crisis.
Sunday's vote may calm intense recent speculation over whether the Free Democrats will force out their embattled leader, Vice Chancellor Philipp Roesler, whose home state is Lower Saxony.
Roesler proclaimed Sunday "a great day" for his party.
Merkel also has profited so far from stumbles by Steinbrueck, a former finance minister who drew criticism in recent weeks for saying that the chancellor earns too little — adding to the controversy over his own high earnings from speeches.
His party improved a little on its feeble performance five years ago in Lower Saxony, polling 32.6 percent. Its allies, the Greens, made bigger gains, to 13.7 percent. That gave them 49 and 20 seats, respectively, in the state legislature in Hannover; the CDU took 54 and the Free Democrats 14.
Opposition leaders argued that their overall gains and the losses for the center-right showed that a change to a center-left government is possible in Berlin, despite unpromising recent polls.
Steinbrueck conceded that his recent troubles hadn't helped, though.
"I am well aware that there was no tailwind from Berlin, and I am also aware that I bear a certain share of responsibility for that," he told supporters. He said he felt "a certain amount of relief" at the result.
Two parties that have drained support from the center-left over recent years, the Left Party and the Pirate Party, failed to get enough votes Sunday to enter Lower Saxony's legislature.
A change of government in Lower Saxony will give opposition parties a majority in Parliament's upper house, which represents Germany's 16 states.
Though that has limited practical effect, it would enable the Social Democrats and Greens to showcase their plans for Germany by sending policy initiatives to the lower house — controlled by Merkel's coalition — on issues such as their call for a mandatory national minimum wage.
However, it remains to be seen whether they will be able to build up momentum and prevent Merkel keeping power — possibly by finding a new coalition partner.
With eight months left before the national vote, "so much can change that I'd just say we should be careful about projecting such results onto the national level," Lothar Probst, a political scientist at the University of Bremen, told Phoenix television.


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Pathophysiology and Molecular Pharmacology
Shedding Light on Inflammation
Why is it that when people gain weight, they become less healthy?
Scientists have long known that increased weight promotes not only diabetes but cardiovascular disease, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease and many other chronic conditions.
Investigators in Joslin's Section on Pathophysiology and Molecular Pharmacology study pathological mechanisms that may underlie all of these conditions. The researchers particularly seek to understand inflammation, an immune-system response that fights infection but may go awry in these chronic diseases.
Joslin's investigations in animal models have successfully detailed connections between obesity, inflammation and type 2 diabetes, and produced a leading anti-inflammatory approach for treating diabetes. The work has centered on the family of anti-inflammatory agents known as salicylates. One member of the family is salsalate, a generic drug that is chemically similar to aspirin but easier on the stomach.
In Phase II/III clinical trials done in close collaboration with Joslin's Section on Clinical, Behaviorial & Outcomes Research, salsalate has shown highly promising preliminary results in lowering blood glucose levels for patients with diabetes. J
oslin's basic research also has suggested that the drug may help to guard against cardiovascular disease, and that intriguing possibility is being assessed in a separate clinical trial. Joslin's ability to directly follow up results from animal studies with clinical trials, and then to bring findings from those trials back to tests in animal models, streamlines and empowers research efforts.
Scientists now are examining in more detail the mechanisms underlying anti-inflammatory agents such as salsalate. They also are looking at the early interactions between fat cells and white blood cells that may begin the march toward the onset of diabetes, as well as investigating the effects of weight gain in other types of tissues.
All these research projects seek to broaden and deepen our understanding of the connections between weight gain and chronic conditions—and to expand our arsenal of therapies for preventing and treating disease.
Pathophysiology & Molecular Pharmacology
Page last updated: October 28, 2016

subset: commoncrawl


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M. Eric Gershwin, chief of the Division of Rheumatology, Allergy and Clinical Immunology and the Jack and Donald Chi Professor of Medicine at UC Davis Health System, was named a Master of the American College of Rheumatology today at the 2011 American College of Rheumatology Annual Scientific Meeting in Chicago.
The designation of Master is conferred by the college's board of directors on members who are age 65 or older and who have made outstanding contributions to the field of rheumatology through scholarly achievement and/or service to their patients, students and profession. A total of 18 members were honored this year as Masters.
"Dr. Gershwin is an innovative thought leader in medicine who combines intellectual insights with compassionate patient care," said Claire Pomeroy, vice chancellor for human health sciences and dean of the school of medicine at UC Davis. "His seminal discoveries have transitioned our thinking about autoimmunity and are rapidly leading to new treatment models for a number of immune-mediated diseases."
Gershwin joined the UC Davis faculty in 1975 and, two years later, founded the Allergy and Clinical Immunology Program for pediatric and adult patients. Today, he leads a team of researchers and clinicians who offer the latest treatments for immune diseases of the liver, bowel, skeletal system and lungs -- including lupus, asthma and rheumatoid arthritis -- and who are actively investigating new treatment options in their labs.
Gershwin's own research focuses on primary biliary cirrhosis (PBC), which is characterized by progressive obstruction of the bile ducts of the liver. His investigations have clarified the pathology of PBC -- from its genetics to autoimmunity mechanisms -- and revealed new therapeutic targets for this devastating disease. While he advances science toward a cure, he also is involved with patient support groups and provides cutting-edge therapies in his clinic, which has become a destination for PBC patients nationwide.
Gershwin was the first to clone an autoantigen, a landmark outcome that dramatically enhanced understanding of all autoimmune disease, and he holds several patents for PBC autoantigens, recombinant cloned antigens and nonmethylene interrupted fatty acids used as immuno-modulators. He is internationally distinguished for his efforts. In addition to being a Master of the American College of Physicians, he has been recognized by the University of Athens in Greece, Japanese Society of Hepatology, University of Milan, Walter and Eliza Hall Institute for Medical Research in Australia and the International Congress of Autoimmunity in Portugal. He is editor-in-chief of the Journal of Autoimmunity, among the top 1 percent of quoted researchers in the life sciences and consistently included in Best Doctors in America.
The American College of Rheumatology is an international professional medical society that represents more than 8,000 rheumatologists and rheumatology health professionals around the world. The college's Annual Scientific Meeting is the premier meeting in rheumatology. For more information, visit www.rheumatology.org.
UC Davis Health System is improving lives and transforming health care by providing excellent patient care, conducting groundbreaking research, fostering innovative, interprofessional education and creating dynamic, productive partnerships with the community. The academic health system includes one of the country's best medical schools, a 645-bed acute-care teaching hospital, an 800-member physician's practice group and the new Betty Irene Moore School of Nursing. It is home to a National Cancer Institute-designated cancer center, an international neurodevelopmental institute, a stem cell institute and a comprehensive children's hospital. Other nationally prominent centers focus on advancing telemedicine, improving vascular care, eliminating health disparities and translating research findings into new treatments for patients. Together, they make UC Davis a hub of innovation that is transforming health for all. For more information, visit www.ucdmc.ucdavis.edu.


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News Slideshow: Information Governance Strategies in the Cloud
A November report from the Leadership Council for Information Advantage identifies four emerging conditions that can complicate the flow and value of information in hybrid (private/public) and public clouds. The report, titled "Creating Information Advantage in a Cloudy World: Intelligent Governance Strategies for Cloud Agility," provides seven governance best practices for organizations looking to offset some of the risks in enterprise cloud computing. These include: unchecked proliferation of incompatible cloud platforms and services; fragmentation of an enterprise's information architecture through isolated data and content within the clouds; escalating potential for vendor lock-in; and complex chains of custody for information management and security. The Leadership Council for Information Advantage is an advisory group convened in January 2010 by EMC, a developer and provider of information infrastructure and technology solutions. Council members include: William Awad Senior Vice President and Chief Technology Officer, The Hartford Financial Services Group; Dave Blue Senior Manager, Enterprise Data Services, The Boeing Company; Guy Chiarello CIO, JPMorgan Chase; John Chickering Vice President, Fidelity Investments; Dimitris Mavroyiannis General Manager - Group CIO, Eurobank EFG Group; Sanjay Mirchandani Senior Vice President and Chief Information Officer, EMC Corporation; Joe Solimando Senior Vice President, Global Operations and Technology, CIO, Disney Consumer Products; and Deirdre Woods Associate Dean and CIO, The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania. Here are the highlights of their recommendations for sound information governance practices in cloud environments.


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|East Bridgewater, Mass.
|High School:
|East Bridgewater
PERSONAL/HIGH SCHOOL Transferred from Assumption College (DII) after freshman year ... Four-year varsity soccer play at East Bridgewater High School ... Two-sport star (Soccer and Track & Field) ... Named a captain at East Bridgewater High School as a junior and senior … Led East Bridgewater High School to two South Shore League Titles … Recognized as a two-time South Shore League All-Star … Honored as a 2012 Eastern Massachusetts All-Star. Led the South Shore Select to a National Championship in 2008 and a runner-up finish in 2007 … Earned the U-16 and U-17 Scorpion Bowl Championship and U-17 MPS College Showcase Championships as part of the South Shore Select … Participated in the Massachusetts Olympic Development Program (ODP) in 2007 and 2008 … Born on May 16, 1994 ... Daughter of Debbie and John ... Has two siblings, Rianna and Jaemie ... Majoring in Economics.


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Where war began, new uprising brews
CONCORD — Farmers, muskets, and beer.
Maybe not the safest combination, yet this potent mix helped fuel the birth of the nation — and
launch a local ale onto the craft beer scene earlier this month.
Battle Road Brewing Co. tapped its 1775 Tavern Ale at Concord's Colonial Inn, and judging by the investors and reenactors in the room, the pale ale is a revolutionary success.
"We are super-excited about the name,'' said Paul Musow, a Lincoln Minuteman clad in a tricorner hat, britches, and wool coat while hoisting a frothy pint. "It connects people back to that time, and makes us feel a little less dorky.''
Revolutionary War reenactors may not be trending, but the Commonwealth's microbrew market is.
Last year, approximately 10 breweries opened in the state, and this year that number is expected to double, according to Kristen Sykes, executive director of the Massachusetts Brewers Guild, a nonprofit that supports the industry.
"It's similar to the local food movement and getting to know your farmer,'' she said. "This is the opportunity to get to know your brewer.''
Battle Road's founders, Scott Houghton and Jeremy Cross, started the company to meld their love of hops and history. "Beer did play a major role in the history of the world,'' said Cross, who was head brewer at Boston Beer Works, a brew pub near Fenway Park, and has been in the industry since 1996.
Houghton, who worked at the Salem Beer Works, long wanted his own craft brew.
Leaving the Beer Works company around the same time between 2007 and 2008, they spent the last four years raising funds and researching the trade. Like the Minutemen, they faced unexpected challenges. "Trying to start a business in the worst economy of our lifetime, there were a slew of obstacles in our way,'' said Cross, 40, of Stoughton.
Linking their beer to the 1775 skirmishes along the 5-mile stretch in Lexington, Lincoln, and Concord that launched the American Revolution wasn't one of them.
"We couldn't believe how many people come to this state for this history,'' said Houghton, who grew up in North Andover with a deep appreciation for Colonial America.
With a tricorner hat for a logo, and varieties in the works such as Barrett's Farmhouse Ale, Lexington Green IPA, and Midnight Rider Tavern Porter, the company identifies with the valor of the Minutemen.
"We are going to do our best to do right by the story,'' said Houghton.
Making a toast with a crisp ale in the 1716 inn, less than a mile from the site of "the shot heard 'round the world,'' was not lost on the spirited crowd. "British red coats walked right by this door,'' Houghton noted. "If they could have had a beer, the outcome would have been better.''
Tipping their hats, the Minutemen shouted "Huz-zah!'' "Huz-zah!'' and "To Battle Road!'' And emptied their glasses.
Because smart branding can only take you so far, "you have to have a great beer in the bottle,'' said Steve Slesar, a former co-owner of Boston Beer Works who attended the opening.
In the Battle Road Beer Co.'s short history, it appears its creators have both.
Its inaugural ale can be found in 100 stores from Agawam to Allston. According to its distributor, such volume in one week is robust.
"Craft beer is the hottest category in the liquor industry right now,'' said Baystate Wine and Spirits president Ed Gillooly. "They've had an outstanding debut.''
At Craft Beer Cellar in Belmont, where Battle Road is among 856 varieties available, the microbrew explosion has been welcome.
"We are seeing more beers locally than we ever have,'' said co-owner Suzanne Schalow. "Boston is a smoldering hotbed of activity right now. It's catching fire.''


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The lead story on KPHO-TV's evening news last April 1 had bombshell potential.
With a mug shot of a sullen-looking African-American man looming in the background, Channel 5's anchor opened the newscast with:
"It's a new face on the most notorious crime spree in Valley history. This is Terry Wayne Smith. He once spent time in prison with Michael Goudeau, Mark's brother.
Paul Rubin feature
"He lived near several of the Baseline Killer crime scenes. And he allegedly hinted to his family that he was involved in some of the murders linked to the case."
This was scary stuff.
Phoenix police had arrested Mark Goudeau on September 6, 2006 (his 42nd birthday), on charges of sexually assaulting two sisters at a park near 31st Avenue and Baseline Road. The attacks on the sisters, one of whom was six months pregnant, had occurred one year earlier.
Goudeau had been released from prison on parole in August 2004 after serving 13 years of a 21-year sentence for armed robbery, kidnapping, and aggravated assault (a rape charge was dismissed in return for Goudeau's guilty pleas.)
A county grand jury added 74 new charges in early 2007, indicting Goudeau in the murders of nine people, the sexual assaults of 20 women, and other violent crimes. Goudeau is eligible for the death sentence if convicted.
Authorities alleged Goudeau was the sole perpetrator of a vicious crime spree that (with the concurrent Serial Shooter case) had terrorized Valley residents for more than a year.
Now, Channel 5 was implying that Terry Smith might have been in cahoots with Mark Goudeau, if Goudeau even was involved at all.
"Not long after [Goudeau's arrest]," the anchor said, waving a wad of papers, "a Phoenix police officer wrote this 20-page report with information that pointed to Smith as a potential accomplice in some of those murders.
"According to several people inside the Phoenix Police Department, investigators swept the document under the rug because it could have given Goudeau an alibi."
That officer was Rusty Stuart, a veteran cop assigned to patrol an east Phoenix precinct where the Baseline Killer had struck several times.
Stuart did not respond to repeated requests for an interview for this story.
But his own voluminous writings and other public records show that, in spring 2006, Officer Stuart apparently convinced himself that Terry Wayne Smith — a seriously mentally ill transient — was the Baseline Killer.
Terry Smith is a career criminal who has had serious issues with women, is no stranger to violence, and was in the vicinity of some of the Baseline Killer crime scenes (though not when the murderer struck).
That description also fits the profile of several other men who became investigative leads during the hellish year that ended with Mark Goudeau's September 2006 arrest.
But actual evidence against Smith as the Baseline Killer (or co-conspirator) appears nonexistent.
What the evidence does show is that the killer/rapist was extremely cunning, a serial night crawler whose violent acts were followed by coolly efficient getaways.
If Goudeau was a serial night crawler, Terry Smith was a serial night brawler — a petty street criminal with alcohol and drug problems.
But Rusty Stuart's fixation on Smith didn't end with Goudeau's arrest on charges related to the sexual attacks on the two sisters.
Though no one has yet emerged to say, much less prove, that Goudeau and Smith ever met, Officer Stuart theorized after Goudeau's arrest that the two men were murderous co-conspirators.
Though detectives on the Baseline Killer task force were skeptical of Stuart's suppositions, they asked him to summarize his "evidence" against Terry Smith in writing.
Stuart did so in October 2006, a month after Goudeau's arrest, submitting a 20-page summary of his "findings," as well as a 166-page supplement (typed in only capital letters) that included maps, news clippings, police reports, and his own analysis of everything Smith-related.
"THE TOTALLITY [sic] OF ALL THESE FACTORS," the officer said, "SHOWS A CLEAR PICTURE OF VIOLENCE AGAINST THE CITIZENS OF PHOENIX AND ACTIONS CONSISTENT WITH THE BEHAVIOR OF SOME OF THE CASES ATTRIBUTED TO THE BASELINE KILLER."
A review of Stuart's report finds it rife with speculation, innuendo, leaps of logic, and factual inaccuracies.
That Stuart's effort eventually found a receptive audience with an uncritical news media, a virulently anti-Phoenix PD Web site, and Goudeau's defense team is part of this tangled yarn.
Another part is how the police department failed to stop a rogue patrol officer from conducting a parallel quasi-probe into his own handpicked serial murder suspect, Terry Wayne Smith.
This story also flows through the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association, the union for whom Rusty Stuart now is a representative.
PLEA President Mark Spencer makes no secret of his union's disdain for Public Safety Manager (formerly called Police Chief) Jack Harris and his policies.
Last March 30, Spencer wrote a "letter of concern" about the Baseline Killer investigation to kindred spirit Joe Arpaio. What Spencer expected the Maricopa County sheriff to do is uncertain, but the allegations were astounding.
He claimed that an unnamed police supervisor had "communicated to PLEA that there would be no surprise on their part if other Violent Crimes Bureau managers engaged in planting evidence [to frame Mark Goudeau]."
Spencer also alleged in his letter that "this same supervisor stated that when Violent Crimes Bureau management was presented on multiple occasions [by Rusty Stuart] with potentially exonerating evidence that may have had exculpatory value to Goudeau, the response from both a lieutenant and a sergeant was, 'Why would you want to give that nigger an alibi?'"
Forget the completely unsubstantiated allegations of racial epithets.
The big question is, to what "planted" evidence might this "manager" have been referring?
Was it the ring of preschool aide Tina Washington, one of the Baseline Killer's nine known murder victims?
Phoenix homicide Detective Mike Meislish (not a "manager") discovered the ring during the final search of Mark Goudeau's home, weeks after his arrest.
Did Meislish, among the state's most respected crime-scene detectives, plant the ring in one of Goudeau's shoes to ensure conviction?
New Times wrote about the Washington murder six weeks before Goudeau's arrest ("Fear Factor," July 27, 2006). The paper was present when one of the slain woman's sons told a detective about the custom-made ring, which he insisted she always wore.
But the ring was missing after Tina Washington was murdered on December 12, 2005.
Police had scoured area pawnshops for months afterward, hoping in vain to find the keepsake — and with it, an investigative lead.
Or maybe cops planted shell casings that linked many of the homicides to the same gun? (The murder weapon never has turned up.)
Or perhaps it was Mark Goudeau's DNA, which the state lab detected on some of his alleged victims, that these Phoenix cops lied about?
In the latter scenario, crime-scene specialists and hospital personnel (a nurse, in the case of the sisters sexually assaulted by Goudeau) really hadn't lifted genetic material matching Goudeau's from some of the Baseline Killer's victims.
The odds of Goudeau's defense team convincing even one juror of any of that are about as long as making them believe Jesus Christ was involved in the conspiracy.
Rusty Stuart recently claimed that Terry Wayne Smith confessed to him that he was "one of" the Baseline Killers.
That, according to Goudeau attorney Randall Craig, in a court document filed last November 4.
Like the Channel 5 story, Stuart's statement would've been a bombshell if only he or anyone else could've corroborated the supposed confession.
But Stuart didn't mention any such confession in his 2006 summary.
Instead, he wrote at the time, "IT IS CERTAINLY UNCLEAR WHETHER TERRY SMITH HAD ANY INVOLVEMENT IN ANY OF THE CASES ATTRIBUTED TO THE BASELINE KILLER.
"HOWEVER," Stuart continued, "[Smith] DEFINITELY HAS STRONG CONNECTIONS TO THE SUSPECTS IDENTIFIED AS BEING INVOLVED BY THE HOMICIDE TASK FORCE, AND STRONG EVIDENCE OF CRIMINAL ACTIVITY IN EACH AREA THE SUSPECTS HAVE STRUCK."
But what about the "confession?"
Terry Smith tells New Times in an interview from prison that he never confessed to Stuart about the Baseline Killer cases.
"I never even spoke to him about that Baseline dude," Smith said in the phone interview from the Arizona State Prison Complex-Lewis, where he is serving six years for punching a man.
"Personally, I think that Mark Goudeau is a very sick individual who should be put out of his misery for what he did to those poor women."
Rusty Stuart responded to a radio call on the evening of April 18, 2006.
A woman had complained that a man followed her inside the Home Depot at 36th Street and Thomas Road and, then, outside in the parking lot. The man was Terry Smith.
Stuart later wrote about the incident:
"UPON MY CONTACTING TERRY, HE WAS VERBALLY ABUSIVE AND APPEARED TO BE UNDER THE INFLUENCE OF DRUGS. TERRY WAS EXTREMELY UNCOOPERATIVE, REFUSED TO GIVE ANY ADDRESS WHERE HE LIVED, AND WAS ACTING IN A VERY AGGRESSIVE MANNER TOWARD MYSELF [and another officer]."
Smith's version to New Times: "I mother-fucked [Stuart] every which way, totally disrespected him, and he didn't like it. This is where it started. He said he was not going to forget me, and he didn't."
It was a tense time in the Valley. Police were convinced that two serial killers were at large, striking at random.
(The Serial Shooter turned out to be two men, Dale Hausner and Sam Dieteman, Mesa roommates who shot their victims from a car window with a shotgun or rifle. The pair killed eight people and wounded 17 during their rampage across the Valley from May 2005 until their August 2006 arrests. Hausner is now on death row, and Dieteman is serving a life sentence without parole.)
The other serial killer first had been dubbed the Baseline Rapist because of the location of his earliest identified crimes, sexual assaults near Baseline Road.
His was an utterly different modus operandi than that of the Serial Shooters — who killed and wounded at a distance from the safety of their car.
The man later recast in the spring of 2006 as the Baseline Killer grabbed women (mostly in Central and South Phoenix), often robbed them, sexually assaulted them, and then shot them to death.
Phoenix police convened two task forces in early 2006 to work the parallel serial-murder cases.
The detectives had to run down thousands of leads, analyze their databases, keep track of the increasing mounds of evidence, and break down the list of possible suspects.
It became clear after time that the Baseline Killer's main target area was near 32nd Street and Thomas Road.
That was just a few blocks from where Rusty Stuart first encountered transient Terry Wayne Smith at a Home Depot.
Stuart was no stranger to Phoenix's meanest streets.
Stuart, now 44, has been an officer since 1988. The onetime Iowa State University football player worked dozens of cases as a key member of the gang squad before returning to regular patrol in the mid-1990s.
In 2004, Stuart became the police department's point man in a program with a business/residential neighborhood association to rid the area around 32nd Street and Indian School Road of homeless street criminals.
Business owners and residents appreciated the officer's presence.
On March 14, 2006, a month before Terry Wayne Smith first clashed with Rusty Stuart, the Baseline Killer murdered two young employees of a Yoshi's restaurant at 24th Street and Indian School. The pair had left work together after closing.
Someone found George Chou's body the next morning in an alley near 32nd Street and Indian School Road. He had been shot in the head. (Court records show that, months later, a crime lab identified Chou's DNA profile on blood lifted from one of Mark Goudeau's shoes.)
Liliana Sanchez's body was in Chou's car behind a fast-food restaurant at 22nd Street and Indian School. She also had been fatally shot in the head. The young victim's shirt had been lifted above her stomach and her belt unbuckled.
Police confiscated two .380-caliber shell casings from the car, which turned out to be the exact make and caliber they'd found at other murder scenes attributed to the Baseline Killer.
Then on April 6, a man walking his dog behind his pool-supply business on 24th Street south of Thomas came upon the body of Kristin Gibbons tucked between his shop and a storage bin.
Like the other Baseline Killer victims, she had been shot in the head.
The evidence (phone calls and other information) showed that Gibbons probably had been killed a week earlier, on March 29.
Court records say DNA testing later revealed the woman's genetic profile in a spot of blood on a ski mask found during one of the searches of Mark Goudeau's home.
On May 1, 2006, a man wearing a Halloween mask approached a woman who had just left a check-cashing store near 32nd Street and Thomas.
He pointed a silver gun at her and demanded a ride after telling her that his "boy" had just left him after they'd ripped off a nearby supermarket (the robbery hadn't actually occurred).
The masked man forced the woman to drive to a secluded location, then ordered her to disrobe.
When she resisted, the man told her she was going to die, held the gun to her head and pulled the trigger.
Miraculously, it misfired.
The woman grabbed her keys, jumped out of her car, and fled to safety.
But the Baseline Killer wasn't finished.
On May 13, 2006, a tip from a Phoenix patrol officer to the Baseline Killer task force mentioned Terry Wayne Smith.
The officer (not Rusty Stuart) noted that police had questioned Smith several times around the target area of 32nd Street and Thomas, "where he was stalking women."
But Terry Smith's approach was altogether different from the Baseline Killer's.
Police field-interrogation reports, including Stuart's, depict Smith as drunken, drugged up, and dysfunctional.
Smith certainly could appear intimidating — even dangerous — on the streets where he hung out.
But the dark-skinned African-American (about 5-foot-7 and 185 pounds, according to police accounts) usually made little or no effort to flee after accosting someone. Nor did he try to disguise himself, as the Baseline Killer usually did.
The people who survived the Baseline Killer's attacks described a strong, athletic, light-skinned black man who often donned disguises — masks and wigs — and quickly slipped back into the night to evade capture.
In May 2006, task force Detective David Barnes looked into patrol cop Stuart's message about Terry Smith.
Barnes learned that Smith had been in jail when Baseline Killer victim Kristin Gibbons was murdered on March 29, 2006.
The detective then formally "excluded" Terry Wayne Smith as their serial killer.
Rusty Stuart didn't know any of that yet.
By then, he'd already started to learn everything he could about Terry Smith — including the long rap sheet, the repeated interactions with police here and in his native California.
Stuart uncovered three 1989 cases in San Bernardino, California, in which Smith, then a 16-year-old, had been an investigative lead.
The cases included a robbery-murder, an attempted murder, and a car theft, and Stuart said in his 2006 report that Smith had been a "suspect."
Officer Stuart said his information came from a San Bernardino detective with whom he had spoken.
Stuart wrote, "WHEN TERRY MOVED TO PHOENIX IN 1990, HIS VIOLENT CRIME SPREE CONTINUED HERE," referring to three arrests — two for aggravated assault and another for robbing a car wash at 40th Street and McDowell.
He also claimed Smith had been a suspect in a 1990 Phoenix homicide case.
(New Times reviewed a Phoenix police report of that case. Actually, a homicide detective learned during his investigation that the victim of the alleged murder still was alive. Instead of homicide charges, Smith and another man got busted for assault.)
For sure, Terry Smith has been in and out of prison — more in than out — since he was a teen.
"I am what they call a career criminal," the San Bernardino native tells New Times. "Lots of petty stuff — stealing cars and shit, taking shit from people. But I never killed no one, never."
Sometime in late spring 2006, Rusty Stuart approached members of the Baseline Killer task force about Terry Wayne Smith.
That October, Stuart would write: "I HAVE BEEN TOLD BY LIEUTENANT [Benny] PINA AND OTHER DETECTIVES FROM THE BASELINE KILLER TASK FORCE ON FOUR SEPARATE OCCASIONS [that] TERRY WAS NOT A SUSPECT AND HAD BEEN ELIMINATED AS A POSSIBLE SUSPECT IN THEIR INVESTIGATION BECAUSE THEY BELIEVE THEY CAN SHOW HE WAS IN JAIL AT THE TIME OF ONE OF THE MURDERS. HOWEVER, I WAS AWARE OF HIS BIZARRE AND CRIMINAL BACKGROUND."
Several members of the former task force tell New Times they were aware of Rusty Stuart's ongoing efforts, and that supervisors had urged (if not ordered) him to give it up.
But Stuart wouldn't let go — and apparently still hasn't, as will be shown later in this story.
The Baseline Killer didn't strike for almost two months after May 1, 2006, when his gun misfired during the attempted murder of the woman.
Then, on the early evening of June 29, Carmen Miranda was vacuuming her Ford Crown Victoria at a car wash at 29th Street and Thomas.
The mother of two was talking to a male friend on a cell phone. He later told police that he heard a man ask Miranda for change and then heard what sounded to him like a struggle.
A blurry videotape from a closed-circuit camera installed at the car wash showed the unidentifiable man pushing Miranda into her car and driving away in it.
Miranda's body was found two hours later in her car, parked about 100 yards away, behind a barbershop. She had been shot once in the head. Again, a .380-caliber shell casing was found on the floorboard.
The homicide marked the last-known criminal act of the Baseline Killer.
Mark Goudeau first came to the attention of the task force on July 14, 2006.
At first, it was just another tip among thousands. It came from a woman who said she had seen the widely disseminated composite sketch of the man believed to be the Baseline Killer. (Most people who lived in the Valley at the time will remember the sketch. It showed a black man in dreadlocks and a fisherman's hat.)
The woman told authorities that the man in the sketch was Mark Goudeau.
Hers was the extremely violent case that had landed Goudeau behind bars for 13 years of an original 21-year sentence.
Court records show that in 1990, authorities accused Goudeau of bashing the woman's head with a barbell and shotgun and raping her.
Goudeau plea-bargained those and other charges in an unrelated case (an armed robbery of a Phoenix supermarket) down to a reduced sentence.
Records show that a task force detective went with Goudeau's parole officer to a home on 28th Street and Pinchot Avenue, where Goudeau had been living with wife, Wendy, since his parole.
By foot, the residence is literally a minute or two from the site of Carmen Miranda's murder and easy walking distance from other Baseline Killer crimes.
The detective reported that Goudeau, a muscular construction worker with a sincere manner, had answered questions adequately.
Still, task force supervisors ordered surveillance on Goudeau because of his violent past and the proximity of his home to the Baseline Killer's target area.
In August 2006, Phoenix police finally sent DNA swabs from the 2005 sexual-assault case involving the two sisters to the state crime lab.
(The Phoenix PD's failure to deliver the swabs from its lab to the better-equipped Arizona Department of Public Safety facility in a timely manner was the subject late last year of "notice of claim" letters — a prelude to a lawsuit against Phoenix police — that a local attorney sent on behalf of the families of two Baseline Killer victims.)
A hospital nurse had collected the previously unidentified DNA from the breasts of the sisters shortly after the assaults.
The state soon ran the swabs through its Y-STR DNA testing system (Phoenix PD didn't utilize such a system). It's said to provide a more accurate reading of the DNA of males.
A state analyst determined that Mark Goudeau's DNA was on a swab taken from one of the sister's breasts (his DNA profile had been in the national database since his release from prison).
If accurate, that would prove Goudeau had been in physical contact with the young woman, a sure road to a conviction.
As all this was going on, Rusty Stuart stayed focused on Terry Wayne Smith.
He noted later that, on August 8, 2006, a Phoenix cop had responded to a call from a 7-Eleven clerk at 40th Street and Thomas. Smith suspiciously was standing in the dark on the side of the store for 30 minutes. He told the officer he was waiting for a girlfriend.
The next night, August 9, a different officer stopped Smith and another man (not Goudeau) for questioning after a frightened woman ran into a restaurant and called police, saying the pair were following and intimidating her.
As usual, an inebriated Smith stuck around for questioning. He was not arrested.
Two weeks after that, on the morning of August 23, a Phoenix officer interrogated Terry Smith at a gas station near 32nd Street and Thomas — ground zero for the Baseline Killer.
That officer wrote in his field report: "[Smith was] talking to self about shooting people."
Rusty Stuart would play up that comment in his report a few months later, as if the Baseline Killer would've been bragging loudly on the street about his exploits.
Police did arrest Smith the following day on a misdemeanor warrant, and he would stay locked up at the county jail until September 8.
That was two days after Mark Goudeau's stunning arrest on the sexual-assault charges involving the two sisters, and on a count of possessing crack cocaine (the cops found a usable amount of the drug after they pulled over Goudeau in his car).
No fool, Goudeau declined to speak with detectives after his arrest.
But the cops quietly were confident that physical and forensic evidence they still were amassing would prove that Mark Goudeau was the Baseline Killer.
Goudeau's arrest might have spelled an end to Rusty Stuart's not-so-magnificent obsession with Terry Wayne Smith.
It didn't.
Instead, Stuart soon morphed his theory, recasting Smith from a solo act to a new role as Goudeau's co-conspirator.
Smith himself provided an opening for the officer within hours after his release from jail on September 8.
That night, a drunken Smith got into a fight with an ex-girlfriend at the home of his mother, Renee, and threatened to kill everyone present, according to Stuart's account. (No charges were filed.)
Stuart soon got wind of the incident.
A week later, according to his October 2006 report, he showed up at Renee Smith's workplace and interviewed her.
No audiotape apparently exists of Stuart's interview of Renee Smith (who could not be located for this story).
But Stuart's 20-page summary includes his detailed recollection of the interview.
Stuart wrote that he didn't mention the Baseline Killer case to Mrs. Smith at first, telling her only that he knew about Terry's recent outburst at her far-west Phoenix home and feared for her and her family's safety.
He quoted Mrs. Smith as then asking, out of the blue, "YOU THINK HE IS THE BASELINE KILLER, DON'T YOU?"
She supposedly volunteered to the officer that she had wanted to call police a few times about her son's troubling behavior.
Stuart wrote that Mrs. Smith then told him Terry had insisted (at an unspecified point in time) that the Baseline Killer case involved two suspects, not one.
According to Stuart, Terry told his mother after he saw Mark Goudeau's face on television after his arrest, "Rape maybe; murder never."
Stuart said Renee Smith also told him that Terry "BRAGGED [at some unexplained point in time] TO ALL OF HIS FAMILY MEMBERS ABOUT HOW MANY PEOPLE HE HAS KILLED."
Stuart also made note of a bloody shirt that Terry reportedly wore to his mother's home about the time of Carmen Miranda's murder on June 29, 2006.
(The bloody shirt would become one of Stuart's major talking points in his effort to convince people that Terry Smith was involved in the Baseline Killer crimes. But the police reports depict the Miranda crime scene as a small amount of pooled, undisturbed blood on a car seat, where the killer shot her.)
Finally, Stuart recalled Renee Smith's telling him that her son described the voices "OF WOMEN SCREAMING AND BEING RAPED."
Officer Stuart phoned state prison officials soon after Mark Goudeau's arrest. He learned that, in early 2001, Smith had been incarcerated "IN THE SAME WING OF THE SAME [Tucson] FACILITY FOR APPROXIMATELY SIX MONTHS [with Michael Goudeau]."
Michael is the brother of Baseline Killer suspect Mark Goudeau.
Stuart suggested in his summary that Michael Goudeau might have introduced Smith to brother Mark after Smith left prison in 2005.
However, no evidence to link Terry Smith to the Goudeau family — especially to Mark — has yet emerged.
But to Officer Stuart, it all was adding up in the fall of 2006: Terry Wayne Smith surely was involved in the Baseline Killer case, no matter what the task force said.
The Baseline Killer task force learned later that day about Rusty Stuart's interview with Renee Smith.
A report by lead case agent Alex Femenia says a sergeant asked him to contact Stuart, which he did.
Femenia met with Stuart and Mrs. Smith at a police station, where he interviewed the woman.
According to Femenia's report, Mrs. Smith repeated to him some of what Rusty Stuart later put in his 20-page summary.
She also told Femenia there were papers at her home in which Terry wrote of his deep hatred of women. Femenia asked Smith's mother if she would show him the papers.
She agreed, and the trio — Stuart, Femenia, and Renee Smith — drove to her home.
As Mrs. Smith had said, the writings did include a litany of awful things her son had to say about women.
With Renee Smith's permission, Detective Femenia took the papers with him after the interview.
A month later, Rusty Stuart quoted some of Smith's more memorable passages in his summary to the task force.
Stuart remembered one passage that supposedly said, "SHOOT HER IN THE HEAD, THEN KISS HER ON THE LIPS."
Stuart wrote in his summary, "THIS IS SIGNIFICANT FOR OBVIOUS REASONS, BUT ALSO SUGGESTS PORTMORTEM ACTIVITY WHICH IS VERY DISTURBING TO THE SENCES [sic]."
But Rusty Stuart was mistaken if he figured the Renee Smith interviews and Terry Smith's unspecific written ramblings would turn the investigative tide in his favor.
Task force supervisors asked Stuart to compile his "findings" in a summary — the document that Channel 5 and other news outlets would latch onto a few years later.
In early November 2006, Phoenix police arrested Terry Wayne Smith on assault charges after he punched a man several times for no apparent reason near a bus stop.
The simple assault was increased to a felony after authorities learned that Smith's victim suffered from a neurological disorder that legally made him a "vulnerable adult."
The police officer who wrote up that latest case against Smith was Rusty Stuart.
Court records show that Smith's victim didn't need medical help after the assault and that he wasn't adamant that his attacker go to prison.
But a jury convicted Smith, who was facing up to 15 years because of his extensive criminal past.
Rusty Stuart sat next to the prosecutor during the trial, and Terry Smith concedes he verbally attacked the officer in court immediately after the verdict.
"His whole life turned into getting me for crimes I didn't commit," he says. "I'm a criminal. I admit it. But I ain't no Baseline Killer."
A judge sentenced Smith to six years in prison, a relatively light term. The career con will be eligible for parole next year.
But Smith's incarceration didn't mark the end of this story.
In 2007, the Phoenix Law Enforcement Association — the union that represents a majority of the agency's line officers — elected Mark Spencer as its new president.
Relations between PLEA and department brass soured almost overnight. Spencer repeatedly and publicly attacked Public Safety Manager Jack Harris, calling him (among other things) "soft" in dealing with undocumented immigrants.
Rusty Stuart had quit PLEA during a previous president's reign but rejoined soon after Spencer took over. Later, Stuart became a union representative.
By the end of 2008, Stuart's report to the task force had become legend in some police circles and on a Web site dedicated to bashing Phoenix police brass.
Life was about to seriously change for Rusty Stuart.
As 2009 began, Officer Stuart was enmeshed in a bitter divorce case.
His split from wife Michele, a private investigator, had been finalized in September 2008, but numerous issues lingered.
Why that is relevant to this story becomes obvious in light of what happened last May.
Stuart called police in Gilbert (where his ex-wife lives) to complain that Michele had violated a court order by not turning over certain work documents to him.
Gilbert Sergeant Sy Ray looked into it.
The documents included information on a computer thumb drive that Michele supposedly still had in her possession.
Ray's police report, dated May 11, 2009, says Rusty Stuart asked him to secure a search warrant from a judge that would allow Gilbert police to enter Michele's home to retrieve the thumb drive "and other valuable items."
But Sergeant Ray wrote that he had no reason to believe Michele had committed a crime and that his asking a judge for a warrant would be wrong.
Stuart called Ray back and mentioned Channel 5's recent story about Terry Wayne Smith. He told the sergeant "a report mentioned in that newscast is the document that is contained on the thumb drive."
According to Ray, Stuart expressed "why he felt certain management-level staff members are trying to hide information . . . He felt that the Phoenix Police Department had wronged him and another employee, and they were going to have to answer for it, and it's not good for them."
Sergeant Ray concluded, "Some of the statements/accusations made by Mr. Stuart did appear to be completely illogical and/or unrealistic."
Ray noted that Stuart had requested the search of his ex-wife's home almost immediately after he was served notice that she had filed an order of protection against him.
Stuart contested the order, and a hearing was set for May 26. He asked for a postponement, writing to the court, "There is also a very sensitive issue involving the Baseline Killer case in Phoenix. I am the officer who wrote the report now being investigated by the County Attorney's Office. This is a very politically charged issue in my city."
But Commissioner Wes Peterson held the hearing as scheduled and ruled that Rusty Stuart "has committed acts of domestic violence or may commit acts of domestic violence, specifically harassment and failure to comply with a specific [earlier] court order."
A few days later, Sy Ray spoke to Michele Stuart, who said she already had turned over a thumb drive (without any Baseline Killer information on it) and paperwork to Phoenix police.
According to Ray, "Mrs. Stuart made it very clear to me she was afraid Mr. Stuart would kill her if he continued to experience problems at work and with the divorce."
Ray also wrote that he was considering filing criminal misdemeanor charges against Rusty Stuart for violating a court order in his divorce case.
Last June 1, the Scottsdale Times published a story called "Unreasonable Doubt."
It regurgitated every bad thing that PLEA and Rusty Stuart were saying about the Phoenix Police Department's alleged "cover-up" in the Baseline Killer case.
Using Stuart's 2006 report as a template, the piece trumpeted Terry Wayne Smith as the possible serial killer or, at the least, a confederate of Mark Goudeau's.
On June 4, 2009, homicide detectives Mike Meislish and Alex Femenia drove to the state prison facility in Buckeye to obtain a obtain a DNA swab from Terry Wayne Smith. (Femenia has retired from the police department and now works as an investigator for the Maricopa County Attorney's Office.)
Prison officials had moved Smith into a protective-custody wing from the general population after the Channel 5 story aired and Smith had gotten death threats from other inmates.
"Killing someone don't matter on the yard," Smith tells New Times, "but those rapes and doing bad stuff to some kids like [the Baseline Killer] did — that shit don't go over at all. It ain't cool. That story on TV was like Rusty Stuart putting a hit out on me for something I didn't do."
Smith allowed Meislish to take the DNA sample.
Police records show that Meislish immediately delivered the swab to the state crime lab for comparison with all the DNA evidence in the Mark Goudeau serial-murder case.
"I knew exactly what they were going to find," Smith tells New Times. "Nothing."
He was right.
Meislish's report says, "No DNA or Y-STR DNA testing revealed any match with DNA profiles found on the victims."
But Meislish, who has assumed the role of Goudeau case agent since Detective Femenia's retirement, wasn't finished.
Police records show he requested the reports generated by the San Bernardino Police Department after the 1989 violent crimes that Rusty Stuart had linked to Smith as a supposed "suspect" in 2006.
Meislish said he spoke to the actual case agent, who told him "there is no evidence of any kind linking [Terry Wayne Smith] to either of the violent crimes."
At least in California, Terry Smith didn't have a cop, a TV station, and a newspaper painting him as a likely serial murderer.
Last August 4, Gilbert issued a criminal citation against Rusty Stuart for interfering with judicial proceedings in his divorce case. He has pleaded not guilty, and the case is pending.
Gilbert police records show that the department also has forwarded to town prosecutors another 15 misdemeanor counts against Stuart.
What might the Rusty Stuart report mean to Mark Goudeau, scheduled to go to trial July 6?
One of Goudeau's attorneys suggested in a November 4 court document that it could mean a lot.
"It was and is ripe with exculpatory information pertaining to Mark Goudeau's defense," Randall Craig wrote, referring to evidence potentially favorable to a defendant.
"Terry Wayne Smith himself told [Stuart] that he was 'one of the ones' who had been committing the offenses."
County prosecutors countered by saying, "Officer Stuart has absolutely no evidence to support his opinion that Terry Wayne Smith was at all involved in any way with the crimes for which [Goudeau] is charged."
Under the law, the defense will have to convince Judge Warren Granville that Smith may have a bona fide connection to the Baseline Killer case.
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If not, the judge is likely to keep Smith's name out of Mark Goudeau's trial.
As for Officer Stuart, he's still patrolling for the Phoenix Police Department.
And he still works closely with the Indian School Corridor Citywide Business and Homeowner's Association, which is how he got started on his fixation with Terry Wayne Smith in the first place.
In Officer Stuart's glowing annual work review last July 22, his supervisor wrote, "You have a wealth of knowledge when it comes to complex criminal investigations."


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Waterford denies sober living house application
Waterford — After nearly five months of meetings, legal advice and independent research, members of the Zoning Board of Appeals on Wednesday denied an application to turn a vacant Rope Ferry Road nursing home into a sober living facility for 144 men.
The ruling on the application filed by the Stonington Institute came with a 5-0 vote, with member Joseph Fillippetti filling in as chairman. Chairman E. Peter Bendfelt was absent.
Members said they believed there was no hardship proved by the applicant and that the zoning board has no authority to create a use for the property that is not found in the town's zoning regulations.
Stonington Institute was seeking a use variance to the former nursing home property to allow the proposed sober living facility to operate in a residential zone.
The organization, also known as Stonington Behavioral Health Inc., has the option to file an appeal in federal court within 15 days. It could argue that by denying the proposed sober living facility, the zoning board violated two federal laws: the Fair Housing Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act.
Both federal laws allow individuals access to fair opportunities to live in supported housing environments in residential zones. The laws do not place a number on what constitutes a family or what constitutes a home.
"The applicants have existing properties within the community and surrounding communities that go along with our zoning regulations," member Catherine Newlin said. "They're of smaller scale, but with limitations that are permitted within our regulations. I don't see their hardship. I think it's more financial. There are other uses in R-40 that this building could be used for."
The property has sat vacant for two years, despite marketing efforts to sell it.
"The issues in this case have been difficult to decipher because there are really two applicants, the property owner and the business owner," member Joshua Friedman said. "The property owner is claiming a hardship, and I don't believe they've proven one. The business owner is asking us to change something that doesn't appear in the zoning regulations in the town of Waterford."
Finding another facility like the one proposed by Stonington Institute was a challenge for the zoning board, as there isn't a facility of its size and purpose in the country, Friedman said.
He said the ZBA doesn't have the "power to create a new zoning category."
Members of the zoning board have met twice in executive session with an additional lawyer to discuss the federal laws.
"The only concern is who's going to sue who," Bendfelt said. "There are members on the board that are afraid they can be individually sued, but we're ensured that the town has good enough insurance and that we won't be able to be sued individually, but I guess anything is possible."
Though he wasn't able to attend the meeting Wednesday evening, he said on Tuesday that he was leaning toward a "no" vote. He said the scale of the facility was "more like an institution or a boarding house" rather than a sober house.
"The federal law says we have to give reasonable consideration and the word 'reasonable' is always in there," Bendfelt said. "It (the law) doesn't say we have to approve anything. It just says we have to be reasonable, and I don't think 144 people is reasonable."
Catching up with a millennial baby with a peaceful name: Serenity now
Norwich utilities labor union withdraws complaints involving Bilda


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|Dover Air Force Base
The story of the mishandling of military remains at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware became a national scandal last week after making news headlines all over the world.
|Ret. Gen John Abizaid
|Charles C. Carson Center
A panel has convened to investigate the claims that the Port Mortuary, located at Dover Air Force Base, incompetently handled the remains of at least 274 U.S. military personnel from November 2003 to May 2008. An oversight committee will be investigating "violations of rules and regulations, gross mismanagement, dishonesty and misconduct by individuals employed at Port Mortuary." (Port Mortuary moved to its new home in the Charles C. Carson Center in 2003 and has handled over 6,300 remains since that time.)
|Lt. Gen. Darrell D. Jones
The Air Force has admitted that the number of remains sent to a landfill in King George's County, Virginia during this 5-year period was vastly larger than originally released. The remains of American service men and women from Iraq and Afghanistan were cremated, taken to the landfill where they were burned, then dumped with medical waste and buried. Air Force deputy chief of staff for manpower, personnel and services, Lt. General Darrell D. Jones has stated that this was the common practice at the time.
But how does such a situation become "common practice?" When does it become acceptable to mishandle human remains?
|Family and Friends
|Graveside Services
Societies for over 200-thousand years have given dignified treatment to human remains. Respect for the dead is the number one reason. Burying human remains is a manner in which to show that respect or esteem for the deceased. Burial is also seen as a means of closure, an esteemed end to life as we know it, signifying a time to move on for family and friends.
|Hindu Cremation
|Body being cremated
Cremation is another socially acceptable manner for handling remains. In the U.S. it is illegal to cremate more than one body at a time in a retort, and the body must be placed in an approved container for the cremation process. After cremation, the ashes may be placed in an urn or other type of container and then be respectfully buried, scattered or given to the family.
Burial at sea is yet another manner that we use to respectfully deal with human remains. The deceased may be placed in a casket or enclosed in sailcloth, or their cremated ashes may be placed in an urn or scattered on the sea.
|Book: After We Die
According to Norman Cantor, author of AFTER WE DIE The Life and Times of the Human Cadaver, "a corpse maintains a "quasi-human status" granting it certain protected rights—both legal and moral. One of a corpse's purported rights is to have its predecessor's disposal choices upheld." Another cadaver right is to be treated with respect and dignity.
|Landfill garbage
|Prison Cemetery
What is not right or acceptable is to burn the remains and dump them in a landfill with other waste. Regardless of how this practice came about, the idea smacks of hypocrisy and abuse. Even our worst criminals who die in prison are treated with more respect than it appears our military personnel who died in the service of our country received at Port Mortuary.
|Trevor Dean
|Col Robert H. Edmondson
The story of this insolent situation originally broke last month. Air Force investigators reported that they were tipped off about "serious misconduct" and "gross mismanagement" concerning the handling of remains at the Dover base back in 2010 by civilian mortuary workers. According to the BBC News, three senior officials, Colonel Robert H. Edmondson, Edmondson's top civilian deputy, Trevor Dean, and director of the mortuary division at Dover, Quinton Keel, were demoted or moved to other departments. None of the three were fired.
|Gen Norton Schwartz
The current Air Force chief of staff, General Norton Schwartz decided last year that burial at sea would be a more dignified way to handle the remains of service personnel. (This has been one of the more accepted methods used by the military for many years.)
As a former reporter, I try hard to remain objective. But as an American citizen, I am stunned and outraged that such callous and offensive treatment would be allowed, explained away as "common practice" and viewed as an acceptable manner to handle the remains of our military personnel – of any person.
If these charges were levied against a privately held mortuary, the judgment would be swift and the penalties extensive. The fact that the Air Force chose to see this as acceptable for over five years leaves me wondering about our humanity. For if we do not have enough humanity to respect our dead, how are we to continue to respect the living?
~ Joy


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Thank you for covering the important medical ethics and human rights issue of intersex ("Dr. Hook, "Boy, girl, or...? Leave intersex babies alone," April 7, 2005). There are several important expansions we would offer:
First, "intersex" is a general term used for a variety of conditions in which a person is born with a reproductive or sexual anatomy (internally, externally, or genetically) that doesn't seem to fit the typical definitions of female or male. This is different from having a feeling that your identity is different from most women (or men) as in the case of transgender.
Secondly, the statistic "five children a day" refers to the number of children each day in the United States who have their genitals surgically altered to more closely reflect arbitrary and unethical standards. For example, under the "standard of care" from the 1950s until our work started to have an effect, boys born with penises doctors considered small were made into girls– even though other doctors believed (and showed) they could be raised as boys. Still today, girls with clitorises their doctors think are "too big" find themselves in operating theatres with surgeons cutting away at their healthy genital tissue.
The Intersex Society of North America (isna.org), established by Cheryl Chase in 1993, is internationally recognized as the definitive source for all things intersex, and for being a life-saving portal for thousands of people desperate for answers and directions to "their tribe."
We give presentations at hospitals, help with medical school curricular development, and receive emails and phone calls from physicians and parents asking for our advice. We have persuaded hospitals around the world to examine their practices, to find out what has happened to former patients, and to be accountable for the sometimes poor effects of good intentions.
Alice DregerPresident, ISNAMichigan State UniversityEast Lansing, email@example.com


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"…In most places in the country, voting is looked upon as a right and a duty, but in Chicago it's a sport." – Dick Gregory
The #cf97ThirdKit polls are officially closed. While we are busy tallying the votes, here's a quick reminder of what will happen next:
- On Saturday, September 28, the Fire will host and recognize the five #cf97ThirdKit finalists at Toyota Park for the game vs. the Montreal Impact.
- On Tuesday, October 8, the Fire and Quaker will unveil the winning design at the Club's anniversary party, as well as on Chicago-Fire.com and the club's social media platforms.
Once the winning design is announced, the Club will work with Quaker and adidas to prepare a prototype for early 2014. After the prototype is reviewed and approved, the actual third kit will go into the adidas production cycle and is scheduled to make its debut for the Fire's Anniversary game in the fall of 2014.


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Yours, O Lord, is the greatness, the power and the glory, the victory and the majesty; for all that is in heaven and in earth is Yours; Yours is the kingdom, O Lord, and You are exalted as head over all.—1 Chronicles 29:11
Christianity today is man-centered, not God-centered. God is made to wait patiently, even respectfully, on the whims of men. The image of God currently popular is that of a distracted Father, struggling in heartbroken desperation to get people to accept a Saviour of whom they feel no need and in whom they have very little interest. To persuade these self-sufficient souls to respond to His generous offers God will do almost anything, even using salesmanship methods and talking down to them in the chummiest way imaginable. This view of things is, of course, a kind of religious romanticism which, while it often uses flattering and sometimes embarrassing terms in praise of God, manages nevertheless to make man the star of the show. Man: The Dwelling Place of God, p. 27
"Lord, take me to my knees this morning in worship. Then let me go to share with the world, or at least with anyone with whom I might have meaningful contact, a great and majestic God Who deserves their worship. Amen."
Reprinted from Tozer on Christian Leadership by A.W. Tozer, copyright © 2001 by Zur Ltd. Used by permission of WingSpread Publishers, a division of Zur Ltd.
Tozer on Christian Leadership is protected by copyright and may not be copied, reproduced, republished, uploaded, posted, translated, transmitted or distributed in any way.
Tozer on Christian Leadership was compiled by Ron Eggert.


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Every player reaches some kind of crossroads, and Magic forward Tobias Harris is looking both ways as he steps into the 2014-15 season.
Harris will get an idea how the Magic value him, perhaps before the regular season begins. The deadline for rookie-scale extensions — Harris is part of the 2011 class — is Oct. 31
Does he fit into Orlando's long-term plans or not?
He and the team can strike a new deal. The Magic also can still retain the ability to match any offer for Harris next summer if he becomes a restricted free agent.
"Obviously, I want to be here. ... I love the fans, the city of Orlando and the guys. Management knows I want to be...


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Adebayo Akinfenwa has been released from Northampton Town, following his second spell at Sixfields.
A firm fans favourite, Akinfenwa was among a total of seven players that will not receive offers to extend their contracts.
The man known as 'The Beast' is renowned for his strength throughout the game, with an appearance more akin to a body builder. With the ability to bench press 396lb he can ruffle the feathers of even the most reliable defenders.
He has led the line for the Cobblers' since 2011. He finished the season as top scorer, with an impressive 17 goals, which fired Northampton into the play-offs.
But Akinfenwa was surprisingly snubbed by manager Aidy Boothroyd in favour of the more mobile Clive Platt for the play-off final last weekend. Without the physical presence of Akinfenwa up front the Cobblers' limped to a 3-0 defeat at the hands of Bradford City.
Having often been told that he is 'too big to play football' and recently being mistaken for an NFL player, Akinfenwa has had his fair share of knock-backs in a journeyman career that has seen him turn out for 11 clubs, including a spell in Lithuanian football.
But the striker refused to be downbeat and posted the following comments on his Twitter account: "I want to thank the staff, players and especially the fans for making my time at NTFC memorable, it was special. I did not choose to leave but I whole heartily (sic) wish Northampton F.C all the very best in the future."
Although he lacks mobility Akinfenwa has a proven eye for goal and, with a league leaning towards physicality rather than skill, it is likely that 'Beast Mode' will be back flexing his muscles with a new club next season.
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On the 5th Day of Christmas: Tech Gifts Under $250
$250 bones! Now we're talking. Perhaps Christmas and birthday combined together for a mega gift when we were a kid to get the SNES. These gifts are real tech toys that we use everyday - from tablets and video game systems to coffee makers and smartphones. What would you ask for this Christmas for $250?
Apple iPhone 4S
$199 with free shipping
Apple says "It's the most amazing iPhone yet." Well, duh, it's the latest and greatest, so of course it's the best one yet. But seriously, this phone is pretty darn awesome. With a dual-core A5 processor this smartphone sizzles. The 8MP camera takes such great pictures we can finally ditch our point and shoot camera. iOS 5 brings iCloud for online file syncing and introduces Siri, your new personal assistant.
Amazon Kindle Fire
$199 with free shipping
Woowhee this thing is smoking with an estimated 6 million sold this quarter. Not too shabby as a legitimate iPad contender when
Nook Tablet
$249 with free shipping
Once again, if you prefer Barnes & Noble over Amazon, you can try the new Nook Tablet. B&N's full featured 7" touchscreen tablet has access to over 2.5 million books, magazines, comics, and childrens book. Access to e-mail, the internet, streaming video, and thousands of apps for under $250!
Keurig B-70 B70 Platinum Single-Cup Home Brewing System
Monday mornings suck, but they don't have to be without a freshly made coffee ready to go as soon as you wake up. This programmable coffee maker uses the Keurig K-Cup packages for easy one-touch single cup coffee. A 60-ounce water reservoir means you don't have to refill the machine every day as well. For those sick and tired of making a full pot of coffee, this is the easy to use coffee maker for you.
Sony Playstation 3
Sony's PS3 was the powerhouse video game system when it was first introduced among its competitors - the Microsoft Xbox 360 and Nintendo Wii. It's aging quite well with its strong processing power out-muscling the others as it ages. With the new Move motion sensor system you can dance around with the best of them among all the high end graphic games.
Microsoft Xbox 360
Microsoft's second foray into video game consoles was a smashing success, and now aging along with the others the Kinect motion capture system has captured the hearts and body moves of a new generation and type of gaming where your whole body is the controller! Jump up and move around for some holiday gaming fun. Look for special bundles with the Kinect that bring the price down to $250 or so as it was during Black Friday sales.
Nintendo Wii
$163.78 with Mario Kart Bundle
The Nintendo Wii started the whole get-your-butt-off-the-couch-and-get-involved-with-your-video-game trend. It's cheap too, at around $150 compared to $100 more for the PS3 or Xbox. Lots of the games are kid-friendly too so if you've got young ones in the household this is the perfect gaming system for them. Not that adults aren't allowed to have some silly fun as well. :)
iRobot Roomba 510 Vacuum Cleaning Robot
The Roomba isn't quite as sassy (or vocal) as Rosie the robotic maid from the Jetsons but it gets the job done when you really don't want to do it yourself. It bumps around your home and sucks up the dirt as you sit back and relax. Set the timer to run while you're gone so the sounds of cleaning are silence to your ears.
Evolution Robotics Mint 4200 Automatic Hard Floor Cleaner
$198 with free shipping
There have been many pretenders to the Roomba robotic vaccuum cleaning throne, but the Mint so far has been the only true challenger. To make things interesting, they focus on hardwood floors where the Roomba is the carpet king. Using cheap disposable micro fiber cloths (it even takes Swiffer sheets) you simply toss when you're done, there's no messy cleanup and emptying as with vaccuum cleaners.
Logitech Harmony One Universal Remote
$149.98 with free shipping
It's the Logitech Harmony One Remote To Rule Them All! With commands for over 5,000 brands and 225,000 devices, you'll find the programming codes for almost anything. An online setup process lets you easily set up an automated home theater no matter what equipment you've got.
The 12 Tech Days of Christmas at Unplggd
- On the 1st Day of Christmas: Tech Gifts Under $10
- On the 2nd Day of Christmas: Tech Gifts Under $25
- On the 3rd Day of Christmas: Tech Gifts Under $50
- On the 4th Day of Christmas: Tech Gifts Under $100
- On the 5th Day of Christmas: Tech Gifts Under $250
- On the 6th Day of Christmas: Tech Gifts Under $500
- On the 7th Day of Christmas: Tech Gifts Under $1,000
- On the 8th Day of Christmas: Tech Gifts Under $2,500
- On the 9th Day of Christmas: Tech Gifts Under $10,000
- On the 10th Day of Christmas: Tech Gifts Under $50,000
- On the 11th Day of Christmas: Tech Gifts Under $250,000
Apartment Therapy supports our readers with carefully chosen product recommendations to improve life at home. You support us through our independently chosen links, many of which earn us a commission.


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iRig Mic: the first handheld microphone for iPhone
iRig Mic: the first handheld microphone for iPhone
Ideal for singers and vocalists, perfect for speeches, great for instruments, performances and any other sound sources.
Quality vocal and audio recordings anywhere for your iPhone, iPod touch and iPad
IK Multimedia have already began to bring you a multitude of iPhone/Pad/Touch accessories with their Amplitube iRig for guitarists, iKlip for iPad users and now they give all you aspiring vocalist and recording artists the first quality handheld condenser microphone for all your vocal and mobile sound needs.
iRig Mic
This highly unidirectional condenser-electret microphone capsule provides quality recording, in both close mic and long distance mic conditions, and real-time monitoring with its dual mini-jack connector.
Handheld performance or Handsfree?
You can use the iRig Mic like any other microphone for a handheld performance...but you can also have the best of both worlds as it can be mounted on any mic stand, leaving the iOS device free for app operation. It's three-level gain switch makes the iMic instantly adjustable for any sound pressure condition - from soft speaking to loud playing and it's ruggest metal body is road-ready for the mobile musician.
The Apps
iRig Mic comes with VovalLive free, IK's new real time effects processor app suite for the singer and vocalist, iRig Recorder, the new free audio recording app from IK Multimedia and AmpliTube free - the best seller app for guitar players and songwriters. iRig Mic also works with a multitude of other vocal and audio recording or processing apps for the iOS platform.
Singers and songwriters will have a suite of 5 dedicated real-time vocal effects (pitch correction, choir harmonizer, voice doubler, vocal morpher and de-esser) plus 7 effects tailored to vocal processing (reverb, EQ, compressor, delay, envelope filter, chorus, phazer) that can be combined on a 3-processor vocal rig chain. VocaLive also includes dozens of presets to help you get up and running in seconds.
With the VocaLive app you can record (single or multi-track), sing along with your iPod song library (with voice cancel included), and warm up with the included vocal tools giving you the most complete, portable vocal solution.
Pre-order the iRig Mic now for just £49.99


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I don't know about you, but I never put my baby to bed with a butcher knife. I did, however, co-sleep with both of my sons when they were babies, which, if I follow the logic of the new PSAs from the City of Milwaukee's Health Department, means that I endangered them in an equivalent manner to tucking them in with a cleaver. Huh?
Plus: Ask Dr. Sears: Is Co-Sleeping a SIDS Danger?
Plus: What You Should Know About SIDS
Indeed, parents across the country have responded to the latest ads from the City of Milwaukee's Safe Sleep Awareness Campaign with ire, with many taking offense to the insinuation that parents who co-sleep are risking their babies' lives via accidental suffocation. And that's because many (most?) of us who co-sleep with our children do so with forethought; it's not a case of passing out drunk on the couch with your baby tucked next to you (a definite no-no for a variety of reasons). Instead, we follow safer co-sleeping guidelines, like not smoking or drinking, and removing pillows and comforters from the area (sometimes even removing our partners from the bed as well).
Plus: Study: Breastfeeding May Lower SIDS Risk
Plus: AAP Recommends Against Use of Crib Bumpers
In my case, while we successfully used a co-sleeper bassinet with our first son, my second son couldn't sleep if he wasn't tucked, literally, into the crook of my arm or my armpit. For me, that meant that I naturally slept rather lightly—alert to his breathing and sighs and movements—but my son and I were both able to sleep (which didn't happen when I tried to put him to sleep in a crib or co-sleeper). And we all know how desperate new parents are for sleep.
Plus: Co-Sleeping for Single Moms
There's no question that the City of Milwaukee has succeeded in getting folks talking about co-sleeping. And so from that standpoint, maybe this ad campaign is a win—but maybe it should have had a different objective, perhaps to teach how to co-sleep safely. Because the reality of it is that lots of parents are going to continue to sleep with their babies, regardless of what Milwaukee's Health Department or the American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) has to say on the matter (for the record, the latter recommends room-sharing, not bed-sharing). Maybe it's because of convenience, because they can't afford a crib (although in this case, the City of Milwaukee offers a number to call to receive one free of charge), because they enjoy it, or because reputable parenting experts like Dr. William Sears recommend it.
Plus: Why Are Babies Still Dying from SIDS?
What's your reaction to these ads? Did you find the campaign offensive?


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Comfy Cooking: Armchairs in the Kitchen
How would you like to sink down into a comfortable, cushy armchair in the midst of a cooking marathon? How about if that armchair was right next to the stove or the kitchen table? We expect to see armchairs in living rooms and bedrooms, but the kitchen is more unusual—although not unheard of, as you can see from the photos above. What do you think? Is this a great idea, or a cleaning job waiting to happen?
Related: Take a Seat: Stools and Chairs in the Kitchen
(Images: 1. Emily Gilbert for Design*Sponge; 2. Kitchen Clarity; 3. Covet Garden; 4. Fiona and David Cadzow for Design*Sponge; 5. ASID Virginia)


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Indiana's Presidential Electors to Formally Elect President and Vice President Monday
Contact: Jim Gavin
Indiana Secretary of State Todd Rokita to preside over 49th meeting of the Indiana Assembly of Presidential Electors
(Indianapolis) – Indiana's eleven presidential electors will officially cast their votes for president and vice president of the United States when they meet in the Indiana House of Representatives Chamber on the third floor of the Indiana Statehouse on Monday, December 15 at 10:00 a.m.
Indiana Secretary of State Todd Rokita, whose statutory duties include presiding at the Indiana Assembly of Presidential Electors, will call the meeting to order at 10:00 a.m. Federal law requires that the meeting of electors be held on the first Monday after the second Wednesday in December of a presidential election year. Electors represent the party and the candidates selected by popular vote in Indiana on Election Day.
"The unique process by which we select our leaders sets us apart as Americans," said Secretary Rokita. "Monday will be a powerful demonstration of how we come together through this process to preserve the strength of our republic. It will be my honor to again lead this historic, solemn event."
During the meeting, Secretary Rokita will call the roll of electors and alternates. Indiana Supreme Court Justice Robert Rucker will administer their oath. Secretary Rokita and his Election Division will then oversee the balloting and tabulation and announcement of the votes.
Additional information about the Electoral College in Indiana, including historical and statutory information, is available on the Secretary of State Web page click here.
Seating and viewing areas will be reserved for credentialed media at the front of the House Chamber as well as in the balcony.
Media Contact: Jim Gavin: 317.233.8655 or email@example.com.


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The Federal Elections Commission (FEC) is charged with enforcing federal campaign finance laws. Even before the Supreme Court gutted more than sixty years' of rules in the Citizens United v. FEC decision, the FEC regularly failed to do its job. The FEC is a politicized and paralyzed agency that lacks the leadership needed to regulate our elections fairly. President Obama's appointees for the FEC have been blocked in a Senate confirmation standoff. It's time for a change at the FEC.
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By: Dr Lynda Kelly, Category: Museullaneous, Date: 29 Apr 2010
This is a blog post from November 2007 about our e-Kids' College that was on my old blog. I have reproduced it here as people have been asking for it!
e-Kids' College: Thursday November 2007
It's an exciting day for us here at the Museum. Around 24 students from schools across NSW are attending the second of our Kids' Colleges. This one is looking at digital technologies, how young people are using the web and to explore how e-learning relate to museums and young people. I'll attempt to blog as we go with my impressions so this may be a long and fragmented post ...
Morning Session
We asked students what is it like to learn using computers and digital technologies and what do they think about the web, their responses:
Next we went on a visit – one to the Palaeontology collection and one to the Museum's search and discover area. We were curious to find out how objects in the Museum could be made more interesting by supplementing them through digital technologies. All ideas were great and really useful. Some from my group were:
We also got them to complete a survey with ten of their friends before they came here. As part of this they also completed the sentence: Not being able to access the web is like not being able to ... What they said can be found here.
The final activity we did this morning was to think about websites by looking at a site called ShowMe. This got a really bad review unfortunately and they felt that the site was developed by older people who weren't in touch with them ... Since they didn't like it we asked them to show us what sites they did like. Two sites from my group were FreeRice, where you learn about vocabulary/words while contributing to a good cause. They loved the colours and clean design of that site too. The other was MiniClip Games, for storing games which they felt was really well-organised, easy to find the games and fun as well.
One thing that struck me as they talked was that they felt the Museum's site was the place where we should store our content, videos, images and so on, not necessarily YouTube, Flickr and other places. They felt we should separate ourselves from what they perceive as fun sites – I'm not sure about this myself and is something that I'll be exploring further.
Afternoon session
What we did this afternoon was for the students to interview some of the Museum's scientists about what they do and their personal and professional interests. Mark and Amanda fielded many questions about their work and how they got interested in their field of work.
There were some really provocative and interesting questions from the students. One lovely one was How do we know what people know and what people don't know? Mark answered that by reminding us that all the answers aren't always to be found on the internet and that there are really cool books that you can use too. They also asked What was the most interesting thing they had discovered? Mark discovered a new species of wallaby, and Amanda's friend also discovered a new species of fish. Other questions were: What is the most weirdest and wackiest thing you've ever done in your job? Any scary experiences? Where's the most interesting place you've been to? Thanks Mark and Amanda, I know I learned more about you two who I usually see every day! Now I understand more about your passions and why you got into doing what you do. Amanda reminded us to hang in there as it may take some time to get some paid work. Vieeos of Mark and Amanda are here.
The discussions have been really productive, some ideas that emerged at the end were that they:
The day finished with us going on a tour of an area that the Museum is thinking about turning into a new media space. And after that we thanked them, gave each school a certificate and finished!
Thanks so much for all your efforts as we now have a goldmine of information we can use when developing our new website and other digital technologies.


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Justin Bieber: 'I'm Not Perfect. I Make Bad Decisions Sometimes'
There's something to be said for admitting and being aware of your flaws, and that's exactly what Justin Bieber is. In a chat with Sweden's TV4, the world's most famous teen admitted that he makes mistakes and chalks it up to growing up and part of the learning process. Smart kid, huh? Either that or he is media trained incredibly well.
In his chat, the self-aware and assured Biebs said, "There's a lot of people who look up to me and I'm not always going to be perfect. But at the end of the day, I'm 18 and sometimes you gotta make bad decisions to learn from them." It's a smart thing for him to realize. He knows people consider him a role model, but that doesn't make him flawless or responsible for others, especially if he messes up in the spotlight.
He continued, "I'm not perfect. I make bad decisions sometimes."
We all make decisions that we either regret or look back upon as not so wise. The Biebs is still a young man who has a lot to learn and it's refreshing that he understands his position as a role model and his limitations as a human being.
His father Jeremy is with him during the interview — the camera pans to him on the bed, smiling — and that's when the Biebs says family means everything to him. He beams about taking his baby brother and sister to Disney World for the first time, something he himself didn't get to do as an underprivileged kid.
Watch Justin Bieber's TV4 Interview in Sweden


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Electronic Drums Buying Guide
Just before Christmas, our Electronic Drums vs Acoustic Drum guide where we touched on the main differences between the two. In this series we'll take a look into the history of electronic drums and answer some key questions you need to consider when buying an electric drum kit; why you should choose an electronic drum kit over an acoustic; which drum kit is right for me? How do electronic drums work? What are drum monitor systems and what are the different pads in electronic drum kits for? Whether you are a complete beginner or a well established professional there are many variables to consider when purchasing a set of drums. Our ranges of drum sets cater to every different type of drummer and to every different skill level.
When electronic drums first surfaced in the 1980's their playability was nowhere near as good as that of their acoustic predecessors. The rubber pads used to trigger the drum sounds were very hard and playing them for a long period of time could actually cause quite a lot of pain to the user. The rebound from the pads was also nothing like playing an acoustic drum set, so the skill level of most drummers using electronic kits dropped drastically. This led to electronic drums not being taken seriously in the drumming community. In recent years though, electronic drum manufacturers such as Alesis, Roland and Yamaha have strived to mimic the feel of acoustic drums, and with great success. The rubber style pads used on electronic kits feel 100% better than when we first encountered them in the 80's and with the development of the new "mesh style" heads most drummers say that they can't find any difference between the feel of an acoustic drum head and the feel of electronic drums using mesh heads.
Why choose an electronic drum kit?
The main reason for most drummers to choose electric over acoustic is the noise factor. On an acoustic kit there are sound deadening options such as silencer pads and the use of brushes, but both of these do affect the sound of the kit and the rebound off the drum head. With today's electronic kits you can play pretty much silently by simply plugging your headphones into the sound module so the only noise created is that of the sticks hitting the pads. This way you get the full sound of the kit you are using without compromising on the rebound or feel of the drums.
When using an acoustic kit you are limited to what sound you can get out of it. There are options with tuning the drums slightly differently but in essence the kit you have bought is always going to sound like that kit. Electronic drums use a sound module to create a multitude of different drum sounds. Often referred to as the brain of the kit the sound module will come with lots of pre-programmed drum kits in it so while one minute you can be playing a heavy rock kit, at the touch of a button you can switch it to a jazz kit or even an electro voice kit. Some sound modules allow you to mix and match each different drum sound thus creating "user kits". Other sound modules go further still in their diversity of sounds. For example the sound module that comes with the 2box drum it 5 actually allows you to upload your own sounds into the module which gives the user endless options for creativity.
Acoustic kits take up a lot of space and unpacking and repacking them each time you use them is not very realistic. An equivalent electronic kit takes up much less space and most can be folded away with relative ease.
How do electronic drums work?
Each drum or cymbal pad on an electronic kit is linked to the brain by something called a trigger. These triggers are simply sensors that are activated when the surface they touch are struck by the drumstick. Pads and mesh heads used on electronic drums now can be single or dual trigger. Single trigger means the pad makes one noise no matter where or how hard you strike it. Dual trigger means that the sound produced by the head will be different depending on where you hit it or how hard you hit it. The rims of the drum heads are also usually active so when you strike them they will create a rim shot effect just like that on an acoustic kit. As soon as the trigger detects a strike it sends a message to the brain which in turn creates the respective drum sound and sends it to the monitoring system. This might sound like there should be a lag time between the user striking the pad and the sound being created through the monitor but in reality with today's modern triggering methods it is near impossible for the human ear to detect any kind of lag time.
Which kit is right for me?
If you are a beginner, then you might want to start off with one of our basic kits. Alesis have a fantastic array of kits ranging from basic budget kits to professional studio kits. The Alesis DM6 USB Express kit for example is very quick to set up and has 108 great sounding modern drum, cymbal and percussion sounds to create up to 15 total drum kits for the user! Our Dolphin Music exclusive DM6 bundle gives you all the accessories you need to get started.Click to see the full Alesis range
One of the biggest players in the electronic drum market is Roland who also has a large array of kits on offer that cover everything from the absolute beginner to the high end professional. The Roland TD-1K V-Drums Electronic Kit is a compact, and affordable kit that sounds fantastic but costs less than £400, making it one of the best beginners drum kits today. In comparison the Roland TD-30K V-Pro Kit for a little more than £3000 is aimed more at the high end professional. The TD-30 sound module is loaded with hundreds of expressive and diverse sounds at the touch of a button. Its fully tuneable mesh pads not only feel just like the real thing but are a lot more hardwearing than acoustic drum heads.
Click to see the full Roland range
The Yamaha DTX400K uses voices from its big brother and sisters in the professional range of DTX kits - DTX900/700/500 and DTX-MULTI 12 - each kit has extremely high sound quality with "Accent Articulation" for dynamic instruments that change sound characteristics according to your hit velocity.
Click here to see the Yamaha range
Roland are back in 2012 with the latest addition to their popular V-Drums range. The Roland HD-3 V Drums Lite is the powerful yet compact addition to the V Drum family. The HD3 V Drums Lite is the follow up to the hugely popular HD-1 V Drums Lite. Like its predecessor it has the smallest of footprints but the largest of sounds for the price. It is a very compact yet versatile setup. The HD-3's simplicity of use is again second to none and is equipped with an external cd or mp3 player input so the user can actually jam along with their favourite songs all for little more than £500. Click to see the full Roland range
Drum Monitor Systems
For an electronic drum kit to produce a sound the brain needs to be connected to some kind of amplifier. Amplifiers or monitor systems are specifically designed to create the tones needed for the instrument they are made for. In the same way you wouldn't hook a guitar up to a bass amp and vice versa, an electronic drum kit needs a system designed for its specific range of tones. Most electronic drum manufacturers will also make monitor systems sometimes designed for a specific kit or range of kits. But the most important factor is that the system is designed to amplify drums. Drum monitors are often wedge shaped so they can sit on the floor but face up towards the drummer. The reason for this is so the drummer can have the drum monitor close with the sound being projected directly to them so it can be heard in live and practice situations with a full band.Click here to view electronic drum monitor systems & accessories
Looking for some information on Acoustic Drums? Want to know what the differences between acoustic and electric are? What's the best beginner kit to buy and why? Keep your eyes peeled...we'll soon have our acoustic drum guide up for you.
Related Products
Roland TD-1KV V-Drums Electronic Kit
A drum kit that can deliver an incredible range of sounds, unbeatable build quality and acoustic feel for drummers that are just starting out. As part of the V-Drum family you get pro features and practice aids that can take you to the highest level. An acoustic drum kit needs to be set up to play a specific style of…
Web Price:519.00
Availability:in stock
Roland TD-1K V-Drums Electronic Kit
An electronic drum kit that delivers the quality and flexibility of it's big brothers, at a cost that suits anyone learning to play. This means professional features and the tools you need to get playing to the best of your ability. Get the sound of acoustic kits, famous drum machines and more without hogging the spare room. An acoustic drum…
Web Price:399.00
Availability:in stock


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Meniscus Audio has kindly provided this forum for the recently released Windows Passive Crossover Designer (WinPCD), the Windows version of Jeff Bagby's popular Excel spreadsheet, PCD.
WinPCD is a Windows application that runs on the .NET 4.0 framework. It should run without issue on Windows XP Service Pack 3 and Windows 7. It may run on Windows 8, but that has not been tested.
WinPCD v1.000 will open as a full window on a 1280 x 1024 screen. The next version has some significant changes to the user interface that should make it more useful on smaller screens as found on laptops and those PCs with more than one monitor.
The latest information with a link to the download page can be found at the link below.
I hope you'll try it out and let us know what you think, what you like and what you don't like.