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Welcome to the Mandatory Monday Ranking Files, a six-part series rating the best and worst units in the NFL. In this week's kickoff segment, we battle through the offensive lines.
If you are looking for safe, conventional selections, look elsewhere! The Mandatory Monday team (just me, actually) assembled the best analytic tools available for dissecting offensive line performance, made adjustments to account for a busy offseason and the development of prospects, and added heavy doses of scouting knowledge and horse sense. As a result, these are the best and worst offensive lines based on anticipated 2014 performance, not reputation.
Before we get to the rankings, a little housekeeping. Throughout this series, we will rank the Top Five, Bottom Five and a handful of teams in the middle Worth Mentioning. Why not all 32 teams? First, that takes a long time, and it is better to spend three paragraphs talking about a great line than to conserve energy for a few sentences about the 19th-best line. Second, the difference between the seventh and 17th-best offensive line (or any other unit) often amounts to little on the field and can be impossible to quantify in the offseason, but it can make for fightin' words in an article. Yes, dear editors, fightin' words lead to more page views, but these ratings will provide plenty of grist without being argumentative for their own sake.
Offensive lines are evaluated with a big boost from Football Outsiders' Adjusted Line Yards and Adjusted Sack Rate metrics. Both of these stats filter out lots of biases, like schedule strength (a big deal when evaluating NFC West teams) and outlier statistics that make a line look better or worse than it really is (like a pair of 80-yard runs that juice rushing totals, or a low sack total caused by a team that rarely has to throw). Other FO stats are sprinkled into the rankings, including Blown Blocks tabulated from game-by-game scouting. Major free-agent signings and departures, new draftees and 2013 rookies on the line also factor heavily into the calculations, as does the stability of the coaching staff: If a system has been in place for several years, the "ordinary" veteran starters in that system earn a little boost.
Finally, there is some dead reckoning. We all know some quarterbacks can make their offensive lines look great. Some schemes are more conducive to low or high sack totals than others. It's impossible to filter these forces out completely. But we can acknowledge them, study them, make the best possible judgments and reach a conclusion that, while a little controversial, makes a lot of sense when you push past your prejudices.
The Five Best Offensive Lines
1. Dallas Cowboys. Cowboys bashers can scoff if they like, but the team has a tremendous line. It all starts with Tyron Smith, one of the best offensive linemen in the NFL right now. Smith allowed just three sacks last year and is the best run-blocking left tackle in the league. Right tackle Doug Free is a solid run blocker who rarely makes mistakes in pass protection and has not missed a start in four years.
Smith is outstanding and Free is good, but the prospects are what bring this line to the next level. Travis Frederick had a fine rookie campaign and will start at center for the rest of the decade. Rookie Zack Martin moves over from collegiate tackle to give the Cowboys a massive, athletic, nearly game-ready guard to fill the line's biggest hole from last year. Martin is already counterproductively clobbering Cowboys defenders in minicamp, but gains on the offensive line always come at the expense of the defense in Dallas for some reason (see Frederick's early selection at the expense of a much-needed defender in the 2013 draft). That's a problem for a later series of articles.
As for the Cowboys bashers, bear with me … if Jason Garrett is a ninny and Tony Romo is a chokity-choke and Dez Bryant is a headcase and the running backs are all Lance Dunbar types that Jerry Jones fell in love with while eating caviar and barbecue in front of the 230-inch television on a Saturday afternoon, then how do the Cowboys average nearly 28 points per game? Somebody besides Jason Witten is doing something right. Five somebodies, to be precise.
2. New England Patriots. Often overlooked as just a beefy extension of Tom Brady's will and the Patriots Way, sometimes maligned by excellence-gorged Patriots fans who believe an electrified barbed-wire fence should be erected around His Infallibleship, the Patriots line quietly makes perennial 12-win seasons possible for a team that treats running backs like single-serving coffee pods.
At first glance, last year's Patriots line performance does not look that great. Brady was sacked more than in any season since 2001, and both center Ryan Wendell and left tackle Nate Solder made more than their shares of mistakes in pass protection. Take a deeper look, however, and you see that the Patriots interchanged four running backs but still rushed for over 2,000 yards, and that life in the Patriots passing game was harder than it has been in over a decade because of injuries and defections among the receivers. In a season of change, the line was a stabilizing factor.
Speaking of stability, Logan Mankins made his sixth Pro Bowl last year, while Dan Connolly enters his fifth season as a Patriots starter in the interior. Solder had some rough midseason games (Bengals and Jets, particularly) and suffered an end-of-year concussion, but he can be outstanding for long stretches, and Sebastian Vollmer is one of the best right tackles in the NFL when healthy. Wendell, the weakest link on the line, must find a better way to cope with Mo Wilkerson and Sheldon Richardson twice per year or he will face swift, stiff competition: Rookie Bryan Stork has the brains and toughness to make a quick move up the depth chart.
Depth is the Patriots line's secret weapon. Stork is a well-regarded prospect. Marcus Cannon is a massive super-sub who played well in place of Vollmer and others last year. Guard Josh Kline played mistake-free and opened some holes in a spot start last year, and rookies Cameron Fleming and Jon Halapio ensure depth-chart competition. Some teams may boast a more talented top five, but none can offer a more prepared and capable top eight.
3. New Orleans Saints. The Saints do not have an experienced center. That is a real problem, and it is the one thing keeping them from the top of this list, because everything else about their offensive line is aces.
Ben Grubbs and Jahri Evans are a pair of Pro Bowl guards in a system that requires guards to pull and molly-block in pass protection more than other teams. Right tackle Zach Strief has been in the system for eight years, reliably starting for the last three. Terron Armstead's "rookie lumps" consisted of one start against the Panthers. He allowed two sacks and false started twice, then settled down and played nearly mistake-free football through the playoffs. He is a top-talent prospect on the Sean Payton fast track.
Payton and Drew Brees can make pass protectors look better, but it's telling that Payton can plug Khiry Robinson types in behind this line and still get solid rushing performances. If only center Tim Lelito inspired more confidence. He allowed four sacks in a pair of starts at guard, and there is buzz that the Saints may sign 35-year old Jonathan Goodwin, the team's starter during the 2009 Super Bowl run, as insurance. Whoever starts at center gets to play between Grubbs, Evans and Brees; no one could ask for a better support network.
4. Detroit Lions. A not-so-surprising surprise entry on the list. The Lions allowed just 23 sacks last season; only the Broncos allowed fewer, and everyone knows Peyton Manning's pre-snap prairie geography lessons are much of the reason. The Lions line got a similar boost from a passing game built around sudden snap-throw plays, but that does not explain the team's prowess in short-yardage situations. The Lions finished third in Football Outsiders' Power Success metric, converting 76 percent of their third- or fourth-and-short or goal-to-go rushing attempts. This is a team that uses Reggie Bush as a featured runner, for heaven's sake!
OK, so bowling ball Joique Bell replaces Bush when it is time for the one-yard plunge; Bell is rugged, but he ain't Marshawn Lynch. The star of the Lions line is second-year guard Larry Warford. If it is possible for you to get excited about a young guard, then Warford excites you: He is already an error-free pass protector and effective run blocker. LaAdrian Waddle took over at right tackle during an injury crunch last year and would have earned Undrafted Rookie of the Year honors if there were such a thing. (Say, that's a swell idea; someone tweet at me in December and remind me to write an article giving an "award" to the best undrafted rookie of the year.) Dominic Raiola is nearing the end of the line -- 14 seasons in Detroit count 28,000 years against a sentence in purgatory -- but he is coming off another rock-solid season, and rookie Travis Swanson assures an orderly succession.
The left side of the Lions line is not as young or impressive, but Riley Reiff rebounded from a messy rookie year last season despite numerous aches and pains, and Rob Sims is durable and capable. New coach Jim Caldwell has brought out both the best (the Peyton Manning lines) and worst (last year's Ravens) in pass protection over the years, but given outstanding raw material and veterans who are already used to a three-wide, quick-passing base offense, he could make a very good line even better.
5. San Diego Chargers. Nick Hardwick has been around so long that he has workout shorts labeled "Los Angeles Chargers." Hardwick made the Pro Bowl in 2006, two coaching regimes ago, then the world forgot about him as the Chargers laid down dusty layers of awesome, awful and indifferent over the fossils of the Schottenheimer era. Hardwick snapped the football to his quarterback 1,075 times last year and allowed zero sacks while blowing just four total blocks. So it is time to do a little paleontology and unearth Hardwick's reputation.
King Dunlap is … good? I am sorry, but I spent many summer afternoons in Eagles camp, and it always looked like Andy Reid had erected a cell-phone tower on the line of scrimmage and slapped a No. 65 jersey on it. But yes, Dunlap was very good in 2013, as was free-agent pickup Chad Reinhart at guard. The Chargers allowed just 20 sacks as the result of blown blocks (as opposed to obvious coverage sacks or untouched blitzers), one of the lowest totals in the NFL, and anyone who watched them late in the season knows that their running game suddenly blossomed after years of wishful Ryan Mathews thinking. Mathews and the other runners were stuffed for no gain or a loss on just 12 percent of carries, the lowest rate in the NFL in 2013.
Our line rating system gives the Chargers a boost for second-year starter D.J. Fluker, even though Fluker is basically one of those slow-moving walls that video game characters easily dodge at this point in his career. On some plays, it looked like Philip Rivers just assumed that the defender would beat Fluker and avoided sacks by preplanning an escape. Fluker has potential to improve, and when he gets his paws on you, you are going backward. Jeromey Clary also had his troubles, and the Chargers drafted Notre Dame's Chris Watt as a contingency plan. But one thing you learn when analyzing modern offensive lines is that there are no Hogs or 1992 Cowboys right now. There are only lines with solid talent at several positions and schemes that put everyone in the best positions. The Chargers have both of those things.
Worth Mentioning
Top 10: Denver Broncos. Anytime you rate a Peyton Manning offensive line, you must remember that it is a Peyton Manning offensive line. No quarterback in NFL history, not even Dan Marino, has done more to make his lines look better, from solving problems with pre-snap audibles to releasing the ball quickly to using the space within the pocket the way Rembrandt used a canvas.
So the Broncos line looks great on the stat spreadsheets, and Ryan Clady's return from a foot injury gives them a Pro Bowl boost at the most important position. But reasons for skepticism knock the Broncos out of the top five: They lost Zane Beadles, and they are sliding several linemen into new positions to accommodate Clady's return and Beadles' departure. Plus, memories of the Super Bowl are still pretty fresh. The personnel is solid enough, but if the Broncos ever need their line to elevate Peyton Manning -- as opposed to vice versa -- they may be in for another rude shock like the one they felt in February.
Top 10: San Francisco 49ers. The Niners have two Pro Bowlers on their offensive line, have enjoyed stability along the line for years, and of course are in the NFC title game every year. So conventional wisdom should put their offensive line in the top five. There's only one problem: The 49ers line often looks terrible according to statistical analysis. The team's sack rate is high -- 39 sacks are a lot for a team that runs the ball constantly -- and the yards per carry are low when you filter out Colin Kaepernick's scrambles and options.
A little investigation reveals that 14 of the Niners sacks allowed last year were either coverage sacks or scrambles gone wrong. Blame the receivers for not getting open or Kaepernick for not seeing them if you like, but don't blame the linemen. As for the relatively low per-carry production, there are many extenuating circumstances, from constant NFC West battles to the number of times Frank Gore and Kendall Hunter plunge off tackle to protect fourth-quarter leads.
Few offensive lines are asked to do more in the running game than the 49ers, who are constantly pulling, trapping and crisscrossing to power an intricate ground attack. So the 49ers definitely have the NFL's most unique offensive line. And there are plenty of reasons to include it in the top 10. But all of the punting and sputtering the 49ers do while their defense keeps opponents pinned to the turf provides enough skepticism to keep their line out of the top five.
On the Rise: Chicago Bears. No offensive line in the NFL improved more than the Bears line last season, and the emergences of two rookie starters (including Pro Bowl selection Kyle Long) pushed the Bears into the top 10, according to our system. The Bears were a pretty terrible short-yardage team, though backup running back Michael Bush was a big part of the problem, and left tackle Jermon Bushrod only looks like a great player after three years of gaping at J'Marcus the Cutler Killer Webb. But they can shoot up this list if Long and right tackle Jordan Mills keep developing and the transition from Roberto Garza to Brian De La Puente at center goes smoothly.
On the Rise: Tennessee Titans. No team in the NFL has an offensive line as far superior to the rest of the units on their team as the Titans. The rating system grades the Titans as a middle-of-the-pack line, but a spreadsheet can only do so much with such a unique set of circumstances. The Titans had an awful quarterback situation in 2013, and it won't be much better in 2014. Chris Johnson could take an afternoon's worth of five-yard holes and turn them into 19 one-yard plunges and one long touchdown, frazzling any effort to objectively analyze his blockers. And two-thirds of the Titans line talent falls into the "prospect" category: center Brian Schwenke, guard Chance Warmack and rookie Taylor Lewan.
Veterans Michael Roos and Andy Levitre anchor the left side, Schwenke and Warmack had encouraging rookie seasons and Michael Oher is on hand to battle Lewan at right tackle. Veteran super-sub in the middle Chris Spencer provides even more depth. Unfortunately, the backfield still consists of Jake Locker and rookies. If Locker suddenly looks great or Shonn Greene joins Bishop Sankey to rush for 2,000 yards, the only logical end-of-year conclusion will be that the Titans had the NFL's best offensive line in 2014.
From the Ashes: Miami Dolphins. A busy offseason kept the Dolphins out of the bottom five. Based on last year's results alone, they were the far worst offensive line on the list, but you probably knew that. Dolphins linemen blew 43 blocks that led to sacks last season; no other team suffered more than 34. Branden Albert and Ja'Wuan James don't make the Dolphins great, but they should be light years above terrible.
The Five Worst Offensive Lines
28. Pittsburgh Steelers. Maurkice Pouncey is back. Mike Munchak is the latest line-coach cook to try to stir the blocking broth, and he is a good one. Le'Veon Bell gives the Steelers a power runner who can make the most of what an offensive line offers him. The Steelers line looked much better in the second half of last season than the first half, so everything is fine, right?
Not quite. David DeCastro's development at guard has been slower than expected. Mike Adams has been developing in reverse. Marcus Gilbert, drafted as a left tackle, has become an injury- and penalty-prone (though not terrible) right tackle. Kelvin Beachum is now the left tackle, and while the former seventh-round pick is capable enough, he doesn't make anyone forget that he won his job because two bigger-reputation prospects lost theirs.
The Steelers offensive line finished near the middle of the analytical pack in 2013 due to second-half improvement, but the team needed a talent upgrade that the draft did not provide until the fifth round. Maybe Munchak is the missing puzzle piece: There is still time for a great coach to get the most out of DeCastro, Gilbert and Adams. Didn't we say the same thing last year about Jack Bicknell?
29. Buffalo Bills. Evaluating an offensive line playing in front of novice quarterbacks can be tricky. EJ Manuel took 28 sacks last year, but he was a rookie who barely played in training camp. Thad Lewis endured 18 sacks in just 157 pass attempts, but Lewis was an off-the-wire emergency replacement. Football Outsiders considers 17 of the sacks allowed by the Bills to be "coverage sacks," the most in the NFL. A few of those receivers were probably not as covered as inexperienced Manuel, Lewis and Jeff Tuel thought they were?
So why not take the Bills off the hook? Cordy Glenn, after all, is growing into one of the league's best tackles, a snarling hulk of a man who resembles Tyron Smith in many ways. But there are plenty of issues to Glenn's right. Center Eric Wood committed seven holds and 10 total penalties last season. Right tackle Chris Hairston has been suffering from a complex menu of foot and ankle injuries since 2012, so the team is likely to rely upon Erik Pears (adequate) and rookie Chris Kouandjio (another medical mystery case) unless Hairston can stop his slide into vaporware.
And then there is Chris Williams, the Ted McGinley of offensive linemen. The Bears, at their wishful-thinking worst, slid Williams from top left tackle prospect to right tackle to guard to backup center to Mike Tice golf caddie. The Rams then acquired Williams to ensure that Sam Bradford did not get any funny ideas about getting comfortable in the pocket. If you are planning to start Chris Williams, you need to do some better planning. The Bills have rookie Cyril Richardson in the fold, but the name "Chris Williams" atop a depth chart is reason enough to keep an offensive line near the bottom of any list.
30. Seattle Seahawks. The Seahawks will be camping in the top five for most of this series; don't expect a lot of drama when the secondary rankings come out in two weeks. But they have come by this lone appearance at the bottom honestly.
Don't believe it? Explain how a team with Marshawn Lynch and an option threat at quarterback finished dead last in the league in converting power situations: The Seahawks got the job done on just 49 percent of short-yardage and goal-to-go conversions. Explain how Russell Wilson got sacked 44 times, despite the fact that the Seahawks rarely faced the kind of pressure-passing situations that lead to easy sacks. Finally, take a look at the three-fifths of their line that are not named Max Unger or Russell Okung, and note that two regulars from last season are gone.
Yes, injuries to Unger and Okung played a role last season. Yes, one of Wilson's few flaws is his tendency to run backward into sacks at the worst possible times (on the verge of field-goal range, especially). Until Michael Bowie, rookie Justin Britt and others take the number of leaks down from three to zero or one, the Seahawks line is their designated Achilles' heel.
31. Jacksonville Jaguars. Unlike the Seahawks, the Jaguars aren't just hipster slumming in the bottom five for a week; they live in this non-gentrified neighborhood. The rating system gives Luke Joeckel credit for expected improvement in 2014, and Zane Beadles tosses some loose change in their tin cup, but that's about it. The Jaguars are breaking in a young, unknown center, and someone named Austin Pasztor is atop their depth chart at right tackle. It is rare for me to see the name of a projected NFL starter and draw a complete blank, so congratulations Austin Pasztor!
The Jaguars averaged 3.3 yards per rush and allowed 50 sacks last year, so witnesses for their defense cannot turn to much statistical evidence. Terrible skill-position players hurt those figures, but the Jaguars enter 2014 with longtime Vikings backup Toby Gerhart at running back and Chad Henne babysitting rookie Blake Bortles at quarterback -- not exactly Peyton Manning and Edgerrin James when it comes to forgiving the sins of a bad line, in other words. Then again, with a Pasztor at right tackle, maybe the Jaguars line can do its own forgiving.
32. Baltimore Ravens. The logic for Ravens line optimism in 2014 works something like this: 1) Eugene Monroe was better than Bryant "distracted by shiny and bacon-covered objects" McKinnie, so therefore Monroe is great; 2) Ricky Wagner looked terrible the last time he tried to play tackle for more than a few snaps, but Ravens youngsters always look terrible until they suddenly look good; 3) Gary Kubiak always builds great lines, so a wave of the zone-blocking magic wand can make everything better (as Texans fans saw in 2013); and 4) Jeremy Zuttah? Jeremy Zuttah!
And now for some pessimism. Ravens running backs averaged 3.1 yards per carry last year. Rushers were stuffed for no gain or a loss on 26 percent of carries, the worst rate in the NFL last year. The Ravens also allowed 48 sacks, though in-depth analysis reveals that the run blocking was heavily exacerbating the pass protection issues: when it is always third-and-long, sack totals naturally increase. And of course, personnel changes were minimal.
Zone blocking can work wonders for run blocking, which can make the pass protection look better, and Kubiak is steeped in the scheme. Zuttah may help, Monroe really did come on strong in the second half and the Ravens developmental pipeline has a fine track record. But that is a lot of finger-crossing and first aid over an awfully big wound.
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Housecleaning Items
The tentative schedule for the Mandatory Monday Ranking File: defensive front sevens on June 9, secondaries on June 16, skill positions on June 23, special teams on June 30 and quarterbacks on July 7 for the ultimate back-from-vacation treat. Everything is subject to change on a whim.
Check back all week as the Sports on Earth NFL team begins OTAs (Offseason Talk & Analysis), a team-by-team look at how the transaction season went and what's left for each team as they approach training camp. The Atlanta Falcons kick things off today!
Finally, I am proud to announce and shameless plug the arrival of my new book: A Good Walkthrough Spoiled: the Best of Mike Tanier at Football Outsiders. It's an alternate history of the NFL at the dawn of the social-networking era, a 400-page rant about Donovan McNabb, Chad Ochocinco and Tim Tebow. Relive the biggest events of NFL history from 2005-2012 through parodies of Alan Moore, C.S. Lewis and Eminem. Available in print and on gadgets! Makes a great dads and grads gift!


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firehoze needed a new logo design and created a contest on 99designs.
A winner was selected from 173 designs submitted by 59 freelance designers.
Firehoze offers a community-generated catalog of video tutorials designed to give students a way to find the classroom help they need.
The company's name comes from the common phrase, "Drinking from the firehose" -- that uncomfortable phenomenon when a person feels they are trying to consume/learn more than they can absorb. We hope to aid those students finding themselves in academic crisis while at the same time benefiting and promoting the best tutors we can find.
We are currently in private beta and will be publicly launching later this Fall.
Our audience is mostly but not limited to college level students. They are comfortable with technology (social media networks, handheld devices, etc) and are familiar with online culture and entertainment.
overall tone:
- professional / semi-professional / clean / inclusive / friendly
- crisp and modern suggesting happiness and leading to a sense of rescue
- easily recognizable and differentiates us from others.
- It would be interesting, but not required, to somehow incorporate the concept of water
- the logo must include the word "Firehoze". (Please note the seventh letter is "z").
- capitalization of letters is optional - just use what you think looks best.
- the logo will be used in 2 form factors.
- these dimensions are approximate, but it's important that the Big and Small versions both have aspect ratios somewhere of between 2:1 and 4:1.
- big: (for our landing page) roughly 300x150px
- small (for interior pages): roughly 200x50px
- the big and small versions can be identical, but don't have to be.
These are ideas we had, but are certainly not requirements:
- we like blue and green colors
- important: the logo needs to look nice on both dark and light backgrounds
how we will use it:
- Mainly on the Web but also print/business-cards/letterhead, etc.
- PSD layered files (RGB)
- print file format - .ai (CMYK)
- no photography
- no ".com" in the logo
- don't steal
- Use original material. Transfer of intellectual property.
Have fun and good luck!
Find out how a design contest works or learn more about our logo design services.

subset: commoncrawl


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So far, I've not been too impressed by the design of the reissued Polaroid cameras. Perhaps they can work alongside designer Evan Jardee, who cooked up this glossy flip concept which looks more like a phone than an instant camera?
I've got a couple of issues with it though. Firstly, it's unable to print photos without docking in a printer (albeit an equally stylish printer), and secondly it contains a flexible OLED screen for displaying photos on. Part of the charm of Polaroids is not really knowing what you're going to get when it prints out seconds after shooting, but with 10GB of imaginary memory, it becomes more of a concept camera than a concept Polaroid.
Nonetheless, it's a beautiful concept - I'll give the designer that. [Yanko Design]


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SINGAPORE - Olivia Munn's love for Wonder Woman may be no secret, but the actress doesn't think she'd be likely to play the superheroine on the big screen.
Olivia Munn would love to play Wonder Woman but doubts producers would select Asian-American
Heather Tan, The Associated Press
SINGAPORE – Olivia Munn's love for Wonder Woman may be no secret, but the actress doesn't think she'd be likely to play the superheroine on the big screen.
The Chinese-American Munn says she likely wouldn't be considered due to her heritage as well as competition from bigger-name actresses.
"It would be great, though, if the producers could make Wonder Woman an Asian-American, but that's probably not what they would do," Munn said. "I don't know a lot of Asian-American women who are getting great opportunities yet, and the other actresses (vying for the role) are probably really famous and Hollywood tends to go for the girls who are already in the big movies."
Munn has a fierce following among comic book fans thanks to her love for "geek culture" and regular appearances at San Diego's Comic-Con. The 33-year-old actress born in Oklahoma also has appeared in "Iron Man 2" and "Magic Mike."
While she gushed about feeling "strong and invincible" dressed up as Wonder Woman, she admitted discomfort in the costume, too. "I dressed up as Wonder Woman one year and that was my last; it's not comfortable to dress up in front of all those people," Munn said. "Costumes for superheroes; man or woman, are always very skimpy, so it's not something that you want to wear with a lot of people around you."
"But I love Wonder Woman as much as I love Batman but obviously a little bit more because she's such a strong female figure and there aren't that many strong female superheroes out there," she gushed.
She also carefully explained that the title of her book, "Suck it, Wonder Woman!: The Misadventures of a Hollywood Geek," was not her idea, but rather an editor's inspiration.
"I did not want to name it that, and I actually did not agree with it because I love Wonder Woman," Munn said. She continued, admitting "it worked out well because the name was so silly that it became memorable and helped my book sell so I stopped complaining about the name."
The self-professed "vigilante superhero" broke into a smile when told about fans wanting her to play Wonder Woman in an anticipated "Justice League" movie. Warner Bros. hasn't confirmed reports that a film was being slated for 2017 in which a medley of DC Comics superheroes — including Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman — come together to fight crime.
Munn was in Singapore on Tuesday to promote the season premiere of the HBO series "The Newsroom," where she plays financial journalist Sloan Sabbith.
She said she always dreamed of being an actress but that Hollywood dreams were not encouraged in her traditional Asian family, where her older sister practices law and her brother is an engineer. "I was never encouraged to go into acting, so I majored in journalism as I love telling stories, and I love doing it but the moment I had the opportunity to pursue acting, I took it," she said.
"Playing Sloan is really nice because in some way, my mom feels I am making good use of my journalism degree," she added with a laugh.


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Welcome to The Baptist Page! Our goal is to be a site for all Christians that provides Biblical reference materials, apologetics, witnessing, and Bible studies from a Baptist point of view, as well as entertainment and searching for a local Baptist church. Please email us if you experience any issues as you explore the site. Suggestions and comments are welcome!
Check out the daily cartoons on the humor page and the Christian videos page!
The Baptist Page.net is a part of the Infilled Network


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Strips of chicken breast in a buttermilk and rosemary batter
Mandeville Road, Northolt, Greater London, UB5 4LU 020 8422 2050
Getting together is great. Here at Harvester, we're making it easy for you to catch up with your family and friends with our three-course Easter weekend set menu from £16.99
T&C's: V = Made with vegetarian ingredients, VE = Made with vegan ingredients; however, some of our preparation and cooking methods could affect this. If you require more information please ask your server. *Contains alcohol. ‡ May contain cherry stones. Allergen Information: All our food is prepared in a kitchen where cross-contamination may occur and our menu descriptions do not include all ingredients. Full allergen information is available upon request. If you have a question, food allergy or intolerance, please let us know before placing your order. Any tips you're kind enough to give are kept by our team. All dishes are subject to availability


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(c) Pocumtuck Valley Memorial Association, Deerfield MA. All rights reserved.
Contact us for information about using this image.
There is currently no available "Beginner" label. The following is the default level label: The man partially hidden behind his horse is probably John Melnik and the girl opposite him is probably his daughter, Annie. The year was about 1906 or 1908; Annie would have been eight or ten years old The Melniks' home was on River Road in South Deerfield, Massachusetts, a property near the banks of the Connecticut River. John and Thekla Melnik emigrated from the province of Galicia in the Polish regions of Russia in 1898 with their two young sons, Nicholas (born 1890) and Henry (b. 1896). By 1910, the couple had had ten children, of whom only those three and another son, Andrew (b. 1897) had survived. Andrew had apparently been out of the country or away from Deerfield when the 1910 census was taken. The 1920 census enumerated him, along with his wife Julia, 20 years old and also from Galicia. It listed Andrew's birth place as "Brazil," implying the family may have had an unusual journey from Poland to America.
This photograph comes from the Howes Brothers collection of photographs. The Howes Brothers, based in Ashfield, Massachusetts, made more than 20,000 images of New England rural life from 1890 to around 1910, offering a glimpse into the lives of people rarely visible in history.
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Newly acquired Conor Gillaspie homered off Collin Balester in the sixth inning, helping the Chicago White Sox beat Texas 8-4 Wednesday and drop the Rangers to 0-5 in spring training.
Acquired Friday from San Francisco for minor league pitcher Jeff Soptic, Gillaspie had four RBIs Tuesday aghainst the Rangers.
Paul Konerko hit a two-run homer against left-hander Robbie Ross, and 24-year-old right-hander Simon Castro allowed one hit in three scoreless innings for the win. Chicago (3-0-2) is unbeaten through its first five exhibition games for the first time since moving spring training from Florida to Arizona for 1998.
Alexi Ogando, back in the Texas rotation this year after spending 2012 in the bullpen, was the loser. He allowed a pair of unearned runs and three hits in two innings.
(Copyright 2013 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.)


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by Wendy Gordon, LM, CPM, MPH, Midwives Alliance Division of Research
Today, midwife and researcher, Wendy Gordon, LM, CPM, MPH, Midwives Alliance Division of Research, takes a look at the recent article in the American Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology that shared the authors' view of the appropriate professional response from obstetricians when counseling and discussing home birth with patients. Was this article based on good science? Accurate and accepted studies? Did the authors selectively choose their sources and ignore other research that may have supported a different viewpoint? Wendy shares information and research that invites consideration and discussion of the validity of the authors' opinion. – Sharon Muza, Community Manager.
Recently, an article in the American Journal of Obstetrics & Gynecology pled with obstetricians to not support planned home birth in any way, and even suggested that those who do "should be subject to peer review and justifiably incur professional liability and sanction from state medical boards" (1). In their strongly worded opinion, the authors (the first two of whom are, curiously, members of the journal's Advisory Board, and four of whom are also board members of the International Society of Fetus as a Patient) make their case that physicians should provide evidence-based information to women that planned home birth is not safe, that reports of patient satisfaction are overrated, that it's actually not cost-effective, and that a pregnant woman has a moral duty to her fetus to give up her autonomy to her doctor's judgment on this issue. Let's take a look at the basis for these recommendations.
Although there are many high-quality studies of home birth on which Chervenak et al. could have based their opinions, they led with the ACOG statement (2) that rests on the findings of the Wax et al. meta-analysis (3), which relied heavily on a study that included unplanned home births in its findings of neonatal mortality rates (4). Many strong critiques of the Wax analysis have been published (5-11), including an unbiased look from someone who has no stake in the home birth debate. The authors cited several more poor-quality studies, as well as 52 citations of commentaries, opinions and anecdotes (some even pulled from the popular media) to build their "evidence" basis. They conveniently ignored the large and growing body of literature that continues to show that planned home birth with qualified and experienced midwives holds no greater risk of perinatal mortality than birth in the hospital, and in fact results in far fewer interventions and lower risk of maternal and perinatal morbidity.
Here are some of the high-quality studies that Chervenak et al. did not cite in developing their opinion of the "professional responsibility response":
- two systematic reviews (12-13) and a meta-analysis (14) of home and birth center safety studies that all show that there is no greater perinatal risk for planned, attended home births than for hospital births, and significantly fewer interventions;
- the only large-scale, high-quality study of Certified Professional Midwives (CPMs) in the U.S. that described intrapartum and neonatal death rates as similar to other studies of low-risk home and hospital births (15);
- other high-quality U.S. studies that show no difference in perinatal mortality between planned home and hospital births (16-18);
- several high-quality Canadian studies confirming no difference in the rates of perinatal death between planned home and hospital birth with much lower rates of both interventions and adverse outcomes (19-21);
- a huge Dutch study of over half a million births that shows no difference in perinatal mortality rates or NICU admissions between planned home and hospital births (22);
- another Dutch study that shows no difference in perinatal mortality and lower risk of interventions and other adverse outcomes, particularly for multips (23);
- large, high-quality U.K. studies that show no difference in perinatal mortality rates and lower risk of both interventions and adverse outcomes (24-25); and
- a German study that shows no difference in rates of perinatal mortality and lower risk of interventions and adverse outcomes (26).
The authors then go on to discount the evidence of higher satisfaction among women choosing to deliver at home, as well as the cost-effectiveness of doing so, while presenting absolutely no evidence to the contrary. The authors reference a study in the Netherlands where the transport rate from home to hospital is over twice that in the U.S. (and where Chervenak et al. took greatliberties in interpreting the results on patient satisfaction) and a U.K. study where the costs of home and hospital birth are virtually equivalent. While consistent, this approach to selectively reviewing the evidence and generalizing the findings to the U.S. maternity care system is disingenuous and deliberately misleading to American obstetricians and their patients. A Washington State study of Medicaid patients planning a home birth with Licensed Midwives showed a savings of nearly $3 million, including the increased cost of those who transferred care and/or site of delivery (27). This analysis did not attempt to account for the vast cost reductions of potentially avoided interventions, including cesareans and their complications, which would make the case for the cost-effectiveness of midwifery-led care in Washington State even stronger. It is puzzling that Chervenak et al. did not cite this study, which is recent, took place in the U.S., was conducted by unbiased health-economics consultants, and directly addresses one of their four concerns.
The authors' main argument against the proven cost-effectiveness of planned home birth is that "the lifetime costs of supporting the neurologically disabled children who will result from planned home birth" have not been factored in, nor have the supposedly increased rates of death. If one accepts the conclusions of the enormous body of literature that finds no difference in perinatal mortality rates or other adverse outcomes between planned, midwife-attended home births and hospital births, then the pursuit of this line of reasoning is a non-starter.
The U.S. continues to lag behind many other high- and low-resource countries in accepting the evidence of the vast benefits of midwifery care. The U.K.'s National Health Service has encouraged women to plan home births with midwives for several years; the Netherlands has always acknowledged midwives as the primary care provider in the childbearing year; New Zealand's system similarly places midwives at the forefront of maternity and newborn care; Japan has a long tradition of midwifery-led care. Most recently, British Columbia Health Minister MacDiarmid, accepting the evidence of safety, patient satisfaction and cost-effectiveness, has announced government support for women with low-risk pregnancies to plan a home birth, including support for physicians to become appropriately trained to attend home births (28). But the medical associations of the U.S. continue to erect barriers to the type of interprofessional collaboration that has resulted in the excellent outcomes of these other countries. The Chervenak et al. article is clearly intended to be yet another of those barriers.
In the centerpiece of the AJOG article, Chervenak cites himself an astounding 15 times in justifying why the rights of a pregnant woman to make autonomous decisions for herself and her baby should be relegated to her doctor's judgment of what's right for the "fetus as a patient," grounded firmly, of course, in the aforementioned "evidence." In an astonishing disregard for shared decision-making and informed choice, Chervenak et al. state that "in a professional relationship, the physician's integrity justifiably limits the woman's rights by limiting the scope of clinically reasonable alternatives." The authors' repeated and unusual use of the word "recrudescence" when referring to home birth, which reveals their perception of the choice as a disease or disorder, and their stubborn contempt for high-quality evidence if it disproves their opinion, exposes their intent and certainly calls into question their "integrity."
"Professional responsibility" demands that we dare to examine the evidence that does not agree with our personal beliefs. It requires that we allow the volumes of high-quality evidence to seep into our analysis of reality and into our presentation of true informed choice to our patients. "Professional responsibility" demands that we examine and disclose our own personal, religious or anecdotal beliefs that may bias our interpretation and presentation of the research. And it requires that we refuse to cloak those personal beliefs as "evidence" and "integrity" and by so doing avoid an abuse of power in relationship with our patients.
1. Chervenak F. A., McCullough L. B., Brent R. L., Levene M. I., & Arabin B. (2012) Planned home birth: the professional responsibility response. Am J Obstet Gynecol, Nov 13. doi:10.1016/j.ajog.2012.10.002. [Epub ahead of print].
2. American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists. (2011). Committee Opinion no. 476. Committee on Obstetric Practice. Planned home birth. Obstet Gynecol, 117(2, part 1), 425-8.
3. Wax J. R., Lucas F. L., Lamont M., Pinette M. G., Cartin A., & Blackstone J. (2010). Maternal and newborn outcomes in planned home birth vs. planned hospital births: a metaanalysis.Am J Obstet Gynecol, 203(3):243.e1–243.e8. doi:10.1016/j.ajog.2010.05.028
4. Pang J. W., Heffelfinger J. D., Huang G. J., Benedetti T. J., & Weiss N. S. (2002). Outcomes of planned home births in Washington state: 1989-1996. Obstet Gynecol, 100(2):253-9. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0029-7844(02)02074-4
5. Carl M. A., Janssen P. A., Vedam S., Hutton E. K., & de Jonge A. (2011). Planned home vs hospital birth: A meta-analysis gone wrong. Medscape Ob/Gyn & Wom Health. Retrieved from http://www2.cfpc.ca/local/user/files/%7B1E683014-14EB-489F-99CE-B5A2185A6FC5%7D/Medscape%20%20Wax%20Critique%20-%20Michal,%20Janssen,%20Vedam,%20Hutton,%20de%20Jonge.pdf
6. Gyte G., Newburn M., & Macfarlane A. (2010). Critique of a meta-analysis by Wax and colleagues which has claimed that there is a three-times greater risk of neonatal death among babies without congenital anomalies planned to be born at home. National Childbirth Trust. Retrieved from http://www.scribd.com/doc/34065092/Critique-of-a-metaanalysis-by-Wax
7. Keirse M. J. (2010). Home birth: Gone away, gone astray, and here to stay. Birth, 37(4):341-46.
8. Hayden E. C. (2011). Home birth study investigated. Nature [Epub]. doi:10.1038/news.2011.162.
9. American College of Nurse Midwives. (2010). ACNM expresses concerns regarding recent AJOGpublication on home birth. [Epub]. Retrieved from http://www.midwife.org/documents/ACNMstatementonAJOG2010.pdf.
10. Romano A. (2010). Meta-analysis: the wrong tool (wielded improperly). Retrieved from https://www.scienceandsensibility.org/blog/meta-analysis-the-wrong-tool-wielded-improperly.
11. Dekker R. & Lee K. S. (2012). The Wax home birth meta-analysis: an outsider's critique. Retrieved from https://www.scienceandsensibility.org/blog/the-wax-home-birth-meta-analysis-an-outsiders-critique.
12. Olsen O. & Clausen J. A. (2012). Planned hospital birth versus planned home birth. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, Issue 9. Art. No.: CD000352. doi: 10.1002/14651858.CD000352.pub2.
13. Leslie M. S. & Romano A. (2007). Appendix: Birth can safely take place at home and in birthing centers. J Perinat Educ, 16(Suppl 1):81S-88S. doi:10.1624/105812407X173236
14. Olsen O. (1997). Meta-analysis of the safety of home birth. Birth, 24(1):4-13; discussion 14-6.
15. Johnson K. C. & Daviss B-A. (2005). Outcomes of planned home births with certified professional midwives: large prospective study in North America. BMJ, 330:1416. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.330.7505.1416
16. Cawthon L. (1996). Planned home births: outcomes among Medicaid women in Washington State. Olympia,WA: Washington Department of Social and Health Services. Retrieved from http://www.dshs.wa.gov/pdf/ms/rda/research/7/93.pdf.
17. Murphy P. A. & Fullerton J. (1998). Outcomes of intended home births in nurse-midwifery practice: a prospective descriptive study. Obstet Gynecol, 92(3):461-70.
18. Anderson R. E. & Murphy P.A. (1995). Outcomes of 11,788 planned home births attended by certified nurse-midwives: A retrospective descriptive study. J Nurse Midwifery, 40(6):483-92.
19. Janssen P. A., Saxell L., Page L. A., Klein M. C., Liston R. M. & Lee S.K. (2009). Outcomes of planned home births with registered midwife versus planned hospital birth with midwife or physician. CMAJ, 181(6):377-83.
20. Hutton E. K., Reitsma A.H. & Kaufman K. (2009). Outcomes associated with planned home and planned hospital births in low-risk women attended by midwives in Ontario, Canada, 2003-2006: A retrospective cohort study. Birth, 36(3):180-89.
21. Janssen P. A., Lee S. K., Ryan E. M., Etches D. J., Farquharson D. F., Peacock D. & Klein M. C. (2002). Outcomes of planned home births versus planned hospital births after regulation of midwifery in British Columbia. CMAJ, 166(3):315-23.
22. de Jonge A., van der Goes B. Y., Ravelli A. C., Amelink-Verburg M. P., Mol B. W., Nijhuis J. G., Bennebroek Gravenhorst J. & Buitendijk S. E. (2009). Perinatal mortality and morbidity in a nationwide cohort of 529,688 low-risk planned home and hospital births. BJOG, 116(9):1177-84. DOI: 10.1111/j.1471-0528.2009.02175.x.
23. Wiegers T. A., Keirse M. J., van der Zee J. & Berghs G. A. (1996). Outcome of planned home and planned hospital births in low risk pregnancies: prospective study in midwifery practices in the Netherlands. BMJ, 313(7068):1309-13
24. Chamberlain G., Wraight A. & Crowley P. (eds.). (1997). Home births – The report of the 1994 confidential enquiry by the National Birthday Trust Fund. Cranforth, UK: Parthenon Publishing.
25. Northern Region Perinatal Mortality Survey Coordinating Group. (1996). Collaborative survey of perinatal loss in planned and unplanned home births. BMJ, 313(7068):1306-09. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.313.7068.1306.
26. Ackermann-Liebrich U., Voegeli T., Gunter-Witt K., Kunz I., Zullig M., Schindler C., Maurer M. & Zurich Study Team. (1996). Home versus hospital deliveries: follow up study of matched pairs for procedures and outcome. BMJ, 313(7068):1313-18. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/bmj.313.7068.1313.
27. Health Management Associates. (2007). Midwifery licensure and discipline program in Washington State: economic costs and benefits. Retrieved from http://www.washingtonmidwives.org/documents/Midwifery_Cost_Study_10-31-07.pdf.
28. Dedyna K. (2012, Nov 3). B.C. minister among first to support home births. Times Colonist. Retrieved from http://www.canada.com/minister+among+first+support+home+births/7494815/story.html.
About Wendy Gordon
Wendy Gordon, LM, CPM, MPH is a midwife, mother and educator in the Seattle area. She helped to build a busy, blended homebirth practice of nurse-midwives and direct-entry midwives in Portland, Oregon for eight years before recently transitioning to Seattle. She is a Coordinating Council member of the Midwives Alliance Division of Research, a board member of the Association of Midwifery Educators, and teaches at the Bastyr University Department of Midwifery.


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|Join hundreds of other Developers and InfoSec professionals for Training, Sessions and Community at our first conference of 2019
[AppSec Tel Aviv, May 26-30th]
Tiger User Manual
- 1 Managing Projects
- 2 Managing Targets
- 3 Managing Tests
- 4 Managing Alerts
- 5 Managing Test Parameters
- 6 Testing a Test
- 7 Running Your Project
- 8 Viewing, Printing and Exporting Project Results
Managing Projects
What is a Tiger Project?
Tiger project is a logical grouping of test targets and tests to be performed as a whole. Each Tiger project consists of zero or more targets, each containing zero or more tests (although projects without any targets and tests are not very meaningful).
Starting a New Project
A blank project is created automatically when you start Tiger. If you need to create a project based on a project template, or simply another blank project, do this:
- To create a project based on a project template, from the File menu, select New.
- To create a blank project, click the New button on the toolbar, or press Ctrl+N. Alternatively, from the File menu, select New and choose the "Blank Project" template.
Opening an Existing Project
To open an existing project, either
- Click the Open toolbar button, or
- From the File menu, select Open
Tiger projects have the .tgp file extension.
Saving Your Project
To save your project, either
- Click the Save toolbar button, or
- From the File menu, select Save (to save the project using its current file name and location) or Save As (to save the project under a new name and/or at a new location)
Saving Your Project as a Project Template
You can also save your project as a template. That way, you and other users can quickly create new projects based on your project. After your template is imported (currently, there is no GUI for this, just place your .tgpt file in the Project Templates subfolder), it will appear in the New Project dialog (displayed when you select New from the File menu, or press Ctrl+N) and new projects can easily be created based on it.
Note: Typically, users will want to run the same tests, but not on the same servers as you did in your project, so it's a good idea to clear the Path properties of your project targets before saving the project as a template.
Tiger currently ships with the Tiger ASP.NET Module template, which contains tests for some well known ASP.NET 2.0 vulnerabilites.
Figure: The New Project dialog box
Managing Targets
What is a Tiger Target?
Tiger target is a web site or virtual directory upon which tests are to be performed. Each target contains zero or more tests to be performed. Essentially, target is defined by its path (a http or https prefixed URL, without the document name, query and fragment. If needed, all of those can be provided at the test level).
Each project can contain multiple targets, and each target can contain multiple tests.
Adding a Target
You can add targets to your project by
- Selecting Add Target from the Project menu
- Right-clicking the project node in the Project Explorer, and selecting Add Target from the shortcut menu that appears.
Configuring a Target
The Path property of the target object must be set to a valid http or https scheme URL of the web site or virtual directory containing tests to be executed. Otherwise, you won't be able to run the project.
Additionally, the Tests collection should contain one or more Test objects. Although technically possible, creating a target with no associated tests does not make much sense (unless, of course, you plan to add tests later).
Deleting a Target
To delete a target from your project, right-click on it in the Project Explorer window. Then select Delete from the shortcut menu. After you confirm the deletion, the target (along with all the tests it contained) is gone.
Managing Tests
What is a Tiger Test?
Tiger test is a web page or service that is to be called during the execution of a project, using the supplied parameters and specified HTTP method. The outcome of that call is later evaluated by a set of various conditions. If those conditions are met, they generate alerts (essentially signals that something is wrong). Generation of such alerts is the ultimate goal of running any Tiger project.
Each test is associated with a target, which defines the scheme, host, port and virtual path parts of the virtual directory that contains that particular test. (Please note that Tiger supports only the http and https schemes.)
Adding a Test
To add a new test to your project (or, more precisely, target), do one of the following:
- Select the target to add a test to and, from the Project menu, select Add Test.
- Right-click on the target in the Project Explorer and select Add Test from the shortcut menu.
Configuring a Test
Relative Path
The scheme, host, port and virtual path parts of the virtual directory are defined by the target containing that particular test. The other parts of the test URL (namely, the file name, query and fragment) can be, if needed, supplied by the test itself, using its Relative Path property. Supplying a value for that property, however, is not mandatory (this allows you test the default document of the target's virtual directory).
This division of the URL parts between the target and test objects may seem awkward at first, but it allows you to redirect execution of a bunch of tests to a different server (or virtual directory) just by changing one property value (specifically, the Path property of the Target object).
Tests can be invoked using the standard GET or POST HTTP methods. You can define which one to use via the Method property. The default is GET.
Tiger supports passing parameters to tests. Basically, a parameter is a pair of strings where the first value in the pair represents the name of the parameter, and the other represents the actual value to be passed.
How the parameters are ultimately passed to the test is determined by the value of the Method property.
After a test has finished executing, its response is matched against a set of conditions. If one of these condition is met, an alert is generated. Alerts notify the user that something is wrong (although nothing prevents you from defining alerts to be generated when something is right) with the web site or application being tested.
Each alert is defined by its alert condition, message and type. More info on alerts is provided in the "Managing Alerts" section.
Deleting a Test
To delete a test from your project, right-click on it in the Project Explorer window. Then select Delete from the shortcut menu. After you confirm the deletion, the test (along with all the parameters and alerts it contained) is gone.
Managing Alerts
Alerts are the final result of executing tests. After a test has finished executing, its response is matched against a set of conditions that you defined. If one of these conditions is met, an alert (including a descriptive message that you defined) is displayed to the user.
Although tests without alerts defined for them are of a questionable usefulness, they are allowed. They can be used for automating access to a set of pages. For example, you might define a test project to 'warm-up" a web application before you give a demo of it (so no one will think it is slower that it actually is ;).
Adding an Alert
To add a new alert to your test
- Right-click on the test in the Project Explorer and select Add Alert from the shortcut menu.
Specifying Alert Conditions
Once you have created the alert, the most important thing to do is to specify the condition that defines when this alert is going to be generated. Tiger supports these types of conditions:
- Response status code is equal to the value you specified
- Response status code is not equal to the value you specified
- Response body contains the text you specified
- Response body does not contain the text you specified
- Response body contains a match for the regular expression you specified
- Response body des not contain a match for the regular expression you specified
- Logical AND combination of two conditions, including other AND and OR conditions
- Logical OR combination of two conditions, including other AND and OR conditions
These basic conditions allow for creation of very complex tests, although most often alert conditions tend to be quite simple.
Creating a condition
Without a condition defined, a test is not considered valid and it cannot be run. Conditions are created using the condition editor. To display it, in the Project Explorer, select the alert you want to define condition for. Then, in the Property window, click the Condition property. The ellipsis button will show up. Click on it, and finally the condition editor appears.
Initially, it looks like this:
To add a condition, right-click the placeholder element. A shortcut menu appears:
Select the type of condition you want to add. If you made a mistake, right click on the condition and select Delete from the shortcut menu. Repeat the process until you are done. Here's an example of a not too complex condition:
Specifying Alert Type
Alert type defines how serious the problem is. There are three types of alerts:
- Red alert, intended to indicate most serious problems
- Orange alert
- Yellow alert, intended to indicate not-so-serious problems
The default alert type is Red.
Specifying Alert Message
Alert message is a descriptive text that will be displayed to the user if the alert is generated (i.e. if the alert condition is met).
Alert Ordering Matters!
Multiple alerts can be defined for one test. (This feature is most often used to define different types of alerts for the same test, although that is not a requirement). For example, you can generate a red alert if the test manages to start the operating system shell and execute certain executable, and yellow alert if it manages to start the shell, but fails to execute that particular executable).
However, keep in mind that the evaluation of alert conditions will stop when a first condition is met. (So, in the previous scenario, you won't get both red and orange alert, which is usually what you want).
One important consequence of this is that you should always specify your alerts in particular order: the most serious alerts should be tested before the not-so-serious ones.
Managing Test Parameters
In order to allow for flexibility when running tests, Tiger supports passing parameters to tests. These parameters usually alter the behavior of the test in some way, and are standard parameters used in almost every Web application (so the chances are that you are already familiar with the concept). Parameters are passed to tests using the standard GET or POST method (depending on how you configured the Method property of the test).
Adding a Parameter
To add a new parameter to your test, do one of the following:
- Select the test you want to add a parameter to and, from the Project menu, select Add Test Parameter.
- Right-click on the test in the Project Explorer and select Add Parameter from the shortcut menu.
Configuring a Parameter
When configuring a parameter, it is necessary to specify its name. Although most often you will specify a value for it, it is not required that you do so. Encoding the parameter value during the test invocation is done automatically, so don't encode it yourself.
Deleting a Parameter
To delete a test parameter, right-click on it in the Project Explorer, and select Delete from the shortcut menu.
Testing a Test
You don't have to run the whole project in order to check if you configured a test right. You can "test a test" by right-clicking on it, and selecting Test Run from the shortcut menu.
Running Your Project
Starting the Project
After everything is set up, you run your project by
- Selecting Run from the Project menu
- Clicking the Run toolbar button
- Pressing F5
The tests start, and the current status of each individual test is denoted by an icon and descriptive text.
Stopping the Project
Sometimes a test can take very long time to execute. If you don't want to wait for the test(s) to finish, you can stop the project, effectively cancelling all the currently executing tests. You can stop the project by
- Selecting Stop from the Project menu
- Clicking the Stop toolbar button
Note that stopping the project does not affect tests that have already finished executing in any way.
Finding Out the Test Status
You can determine the status of a certain test by looking at the icon displayed before its name. A descriptive message is displayed as well. Here are the meanings of the icons used:
- The test is currently executing.
- The test has finished executing and a red alert has been generated.
- The test has finished executing and an orange alert has been generated.
- The test has finished executing and a yellow alert has been generated.
- The test execution has succeeded, but no alerts have been generated.
- The test execution has failed.
- The test has been cancelled by the user.
Viewing, Printing and Exporting Project Results
After all the tests are finished executing, you can examine the results in the main Tiger window, or view a report by clicking the View Report button.
Figure: examining the test results in the main Tiger window
Figure: A simple project results report
From there, you can print the report and/or save it in the HTML format.
To print the report
- Click the Print toolbar button
To save the report as HTML
- Click the Save toolbar button


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Discover educational online video, and explore your favorite PBS Kids shows with learning activies and discussion points.
Learn new skills through online video such as Khan Academy, Workplace Essential Skills, and much more!
Explore learning videos and resources for teachers!
LIVE events and archived adventures.
Find out how APT Educational Media Services can help you become a better early childhood professional through activism workshops, and online video.
Here is the lesson plan for Bettye Kimbrell.
Other resources for teachers:
Note to Teachers
Supplemental Lesson Plans and Resources
Teacher Resources


text:
Hannah Thomas
Labour Market Analysis
Telephone: +44 (0)1633 455840
Categories: Labour Market, People in Work, Hours of Work, Employment
Frequency of release: Ad-hoc
Language: English
Geographical coverage: UK
Geographical breakdown: UK
Survey name(s): Labour Force Survey
This report examines the characteristics of workers who are underemployed, defined as those who want more hours in work. For example it looks at the full time/part time status, age and occupation of underemployed workers. It also looks at the rise in underemployment in the UK since 2008.
These National Statistics are produced to high professional standards and released according to the arrangements approved by the UK Statistics Authority.


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Daniel10 necesitaba un nuevo diseño de logotipo y lanzó un concurso de diseño en 99designs.
Un ganador ha sido elegido entre 44 diseños de 11 diseñadores freelance.
importR is a small private business located in Perth - Australia. We offer a personalised vehicle brokering service - from the locating of a vehicle in Japan, to purchasing, shipping, quarentine, licencing, etc we do everything on the clients behalf. We pride our selves in the vehicles we import - only the highest quality will do - we do not compromise.
We specialise in;
Nissan GTR's and Skylines - all models, Toyota Supra, Mazda RX7, Mitsubishi Evolution Lancer.
We are looking for a logo to incoroporate into our promotional material- mainly vehicles stickers.
Target Audience is mainly males ages 25 to 60.
Who have a genuine interest in performance cars, luxury cars, motorsport, racing, etc.
Our audience is prodominately wealthy well to do people, or hard working cashed up young men.
We are looking for a new comopany logo - incorpotation the company name "importr". It will be used as a "stamp of quality" on all our vehicles we import.
This will likely be on the rear wideshield, or side window - somewhere prominant and clearly visiable.
We always liked the font the Japanese company "mines" uses in the there logo (have attached below) - was envisaging the "import" text similar to that in lower case - with the last character "R" being a capital and similar in style to the "R" for the Nissan GTR logo.
Having said that we are very open to designs and concepts.
The web site will be http://www.importr.com.au - we would like the web address incorporated in some way if possible-not compulsory.
Just looking for a clean, simple design that we can proudly use to represent our company.
Thankyou for your time
Descubre cómo funciona un concurso de diseño u obtén más información sobre nuestros servicios de diseño de logo.


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I am loading data from text file into a table through unix script.
My requirement is that, there are about 200 files in a folder, these data file name should be loaded into the target table. The content of the data file doesn't have the file name. I have done the following steps.
export data_file
for data_file in `ls BBT_SHAW*.txt`; do
sqlldr userid=dwh_user/dwh_user@dwh control=bbt_shaw1.ctl data=$data_file
the control file is been attached in the attachment.
When i execute this i am getting the below error.
SQL*Loader-951: Error calling once/load initialization
ORA-02373: Error parsing insert statement for table DWH_USER.BBT_SHAW1.
ORA-00911: invalid character
Can any one solve this issue.


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9:30 am
Martha Bakes "Cheesecake" Is there anything more indulgent than rich, creamy cheesecake? In this episode, Martha creates a feast of cheesecakes in a range of sizes and flavors, including an Italian ricotta cheesecake and individual cherry cheesecakes, and teaches viewers how to achieve perfect results every time. D
10:00 am
Joanne Weir's Cooking Confidence "Simply Elegant" Joanne greets her student Sarina with a bruschetta salad and it is quickly apparent Sarina is the perfect student for dishes that are simple enough for a weeknight, yet elegant enough for Saturday night. They recreate the vinaigrette from the salad, discover how easy it is to cook clams, and finish with a warm blueberry maple compote melting over vanilla ice cream. Recipes: Bruschetta Salad with Prosciutto di San Daniele and Greens, Clams with Chorizo and Orange, and Vanilla Ice Cream with Blueberry Maple Syrup Compote. D
10:30 am
Cook's Country from America's Test Kitchen "Roast Beef Dinner" Chris visits the local butcher to learn about top sirloin. Then, Bridget shows Chris how to make affordable Roast Beef and Whipped Potatoes. Next, Chris shares the test kitchen's tips and techniques for cooking with salt. D
11:00 am
America's Test Kitchen from Cook's Illustrated "Short Ribs and Chops Hit The Grill" Test cook Julia Collin Davison show host Christopher Kimball how to make Easy Grilled Boneless Pork Chops. Then, equipment expert Adam Ried reveals his top pick for pressure cookers in the Equipment Corner. And finally, test cook Bridget Lancaster shows Chris how to make the best Grill-Roasted Beef Short Ribs, and gadget guru Lisa reviews her favorite knife accessories. D
11:30 am
Scrapbook Soup The first segment features Jenn Mason showing how to create a 3D mixed media shadow box. Next, Jo Pearson shares decorative techniques for recycling boxes into gift bags. Then, Jennifer McCord makes a paper quilt and flower sampler embellished with paper rosettes. D
12:00 pm
Paint This With Jerry Yarnell "Osage Prairie Summer, Part 1" In this segment, Jerry begins this beautiful prairie painting by giving a very detailed explanation of how the proper use of the value system creates great depth. Also, he explains how to use impressionistic techniques to under-paint and block in the background. D
12:30 pm
Aviators ATC gibberish: Breaking down and simplifying all that complex sounding radio chatter. Water egress: Sara learns how to escape from a submerged aircraft. Condor Squadron: Taking to the air with a team of formation pilots flying WW2 era planes. D
1:00 pm
This Old House "Essex 2012/13, A Cottage in the Wood" Kevin and Norm tour scenic Essex, Massachusetts, and roll up to the new project: a 1935 English-style cottage in the woods that homeowners John and Julie Corcoran hope to turn into an accessible in-law residence for aging parents. Architect Sally DeGan and Tom use a 3-D model to preview the plan for aging in place, and work begins. D
1:30 pm
Ask This Old House "Hanging a Flat Panel TV/Controlling Insects Without Pesticides" Master electrician Scott Caron helps a homeowner hang a flat panel television on the wall and conceal all the wiring. Back in the workshop, Scott shows host Kevin O'Connor examples of different types of electrical outlets. Then, Kevin, along with landscape contractor Roger Cook, plumbing and heating expert Richard Trethewey and general contractor Tom Silva, asks, "What Is It?" Afterward, Roger heads to Miami to help a homeowner control the insect pests in her yard without the use of pesticides. D
2:00 pm
American Woodshop "Wall Clocks" Turned finials and posts set these apart from all other designs. D
2:30 pm
Rough Cut - Woodworking with Tommy Mac "Chippendale Footstool" The s-curve legs and ball and claw feet are the dramatic features of Tommy's Chippendale footstool. Many furniture makers get defeated by the ball and claw, but in this episode, Tommy stops by master carver Will Neptune's shop to get tips on an incredibly easy way to break it down.G
3:00 pm
MotorWeek "Ford Fusion Energi" Road Test: 2013 Ford Fusion Energi. Road Test: 2013 Chevrolet Traverse. Goss' Garage: Tire Rotation. D
3:30 pm
America's Heartland Meet a Montana family finding success by combining farming and fishing. Take to the ocean for a New England program that delivers seafood direct to consumers. Haul in the harvest with an Arkansas family with a passion for exceptional produce. D
4:00 pm
NOVA "Ghosts of Machu Picchu" NOVA joins a new generation of archaeologists as they probe areas of Peru's Machu Picchu that haven't been touched since the time of the Incas. They unearth burials of the people who built the site, and seek answers to origins of the city, high in the Andes and deserted by the time of the Spanish conquistadors. Recent work has uncovered new areas of the city and advanced new theories about it.G
5:00 pm
Moyers & Company "A New Case for Gun Control" Smart talk & new ideas aimed at helping viewers make sense of our tumultuous times.G
5:59 pm
British Antiques Roadshow "Dartmouth 1" Fiona Bruce and team weigh anchor at the Britannia Royal Naval College for a day of evaluations. Some special finds include a relic from HMS Victory, a mystery device once used to make explosions, and perhaps the largest piece made by Faberg? seen on the show.G
6:30 pm
Rick Steves' Europe "Helsinki and Tallinn: Baltic Sisters" Rick explores the capitals of Finland and Estonia to sample each country's history, art and distinct love of life. In Helsinki, he finds a neoclassical old town, modern flair for design and steamy saunas. Tallinn offers medieval charms and new-found prosperity.G
7:00 pm
The Lawrence Welk Show "The Great Gershwin" This 1972 show opens with "Of Thee I Sing." Norma Zimmer follows with "Someone To Watch Over Me." Bobby and Cissy dance to "The Man I Love." Bob Ralston plays "Rhapsody in Blue." Joe Livoti sings of "Summertime."G
7:59 pm
Are You Being Served? "Hand of Fate" Everyone hopes fate is working for his or her particular promotion.G
8:30 pm
Keeping Up Appearances - The Memoirs of Hyacinth Bucket "What to Wear When Yachting" Hyacinth is thrilled about the opportunity for a weekend on a cruiser. She occupies herself with purchasing the correct yachting gear and plans a nautical light buffet.G
9:00 pm
As Time Goes By "Future Imperfect" To ease Lionel's financial situation, Alistair suggests the country house be sold.G
9:30 pm
The Thin Blue Line "The Green Eyed Monster" The promotion board will be visiting the Gasforth police station and Grim and Fowler are the most likely candidates. When Grim tells Fowler that they usually go for family men, Fowler proposes to Dawkins in a most unromantic way, causing her to break up with him.G
10:01 pm
The Red Green Show "The Driving Test" Red makes an anti-radar device. Bill demonstrates alternative modes of transportation. Harold impersonates Red at the driving test after Red loses his license.G
10:30 pm
My Family "The Guru" Ben is mentioned in a book dedication by a successful and wealthy celebrity dentist, whom Ben cannot remember having met. Susan reveals a romantic encounter in Albania.G
11:00 pm
Doctor Who Series "Closing Time" In the last few days of his life, the Doctor pays a farewell visit to his old friend Craig, and encounters a mystery. People are going missing, a silver rat scuttles in the shadows of a department store, and somewhere close by the Cyberen are waiting.G


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There's something to be said about being a walking billboard.
Jenji Kohan, best known for being the creator of Showtime's "Weeds," fully embraces the task. Her nails — hands and toes — are coated in an orange hue. Her short hair is dizzied up with orange streaks.
"I don't know how this Netflix promotion works," Kohan joked. "I'm just trying to spread the word anyway I can."
PHOTOS: Hollywood Backlot moments
The 43-year-old writer-producer is at the helm of Netflix's latest commission to roll out this year: "Orange Is the New Black." The 13-episode series, based on Piper Kerman's memoir, hits the Internet July 11.
The drama stars Taylor Schilling ("The Lucky One") as engaged Brooklynite Piper Chapman, whose life gets thrown a curveball when she must serve time in a federal women's prison for a past deed of running drug money. Jason Biggs ("American Pie") plays her well-to-do, long-suffering fiancé.
We spoke to Kohan this week in Santa Monica during a junket for the show. Here's what she had to say about getting the post-"Arrested Development" rollout, letting go of traditional episodic habits, and her longing for more sex on TV.
Does it feel like it's almost time now? We're getting closer to the launch date.
Oh my God, it's felt like it's "almost time" forever. It's like the end of a pregnancy. It's like, "Come on already! I want it out of me! I want it out!"
You had time to see Netflix roll out its other series earlier this year ("House of Cards," "Hemlock Grove," "Arrested Development"). Have you been analyzing the whole process and nagged Netflix about what you wanted to do differently with "Orange Is the New Black"?
I was a little worried about a summer release. I still don't know. I mean, it's dead. It's a dead zone.
But that's when people binge-watch the most, no? And when they try out new shows?
It's still weird to me. There was some talk initially about not releasing them all at once. There's part of me that still loves that anticipation and longing. But there is something great about getting what you want, how you want it. How often in life do you get that? So give the people what they want, I guess. The thing is, we spent a year making this thing and then someone watches it in a night and is like "Gimme more!" It's like, "Ugh!"
Right. And it must make for a precarious situation, promotion-wise. So much goes for the pre-launch, then it gets murky in how you promote it once it lands. You don't really know who to spotlight or what areas to discuss more fully because people watch at different times.
Definitely. I don't know how it all works yet. I keep my head down and make the shows. I can't control everything — as much as I want to. It's been a lesson in just watching how things fall where they fall.
PHOTOS: Celebrities by The Times
Is this coming from a person long tired of the network process? What sort of sparked your interest in collaborating with Netflix?
It was a dream. They pay full budget. They're nice. They're smart. They're supportive. They're enthusiastic. They openly say, 'We're not quite sure what we're doing. You seem to know; we trust you." I pitched the show and they bought 13 in the room. It's a dream. Beyond that, honestly, it's the future. I love being first. I love being on a new frontier. It's how my kids watch TV. There was a moment when I was on "Weeds," one of my baby writers got a new house and I bought him a TV as a housewarming gift — he didn't get cable and he didn't get a dish. He hooked up his computer. I was like, "Whoa! This is it."
I read the book. I lobbied for the book. I got the book. I was finishing up "Weeds" and it was all happening really fast. I was launching this at the same time. I had two writers rooms. One upstairs, one downstairs. And I was running up and down. It's like your grandfather dies while you're giving birth, you know? I couldn't really process the loss, which is good, because it was very emotional and I was all of a sudden, right into this. I believe in this and I love it. And I'm not good when I'm not working, so it was good. Although, I'd like to test that because I could use some time off.
How did you come across the book and why did you think it would work in a TV format?
One of my best friends sent it to me. She knew Piper socially. She read it and thought I would love it. And I did. I immediately thought it was a TV show. It gives you the perfect setup. You can say, 'Oh, I want to tell stories about Latina women and black women in prison" — it's a hard sell. But here you have this pretty white girl walking you in and she's your gateway, so then you can tell all your stories because people are in. You have this entree of a girl who is a fish out of water and you start looking around. I immediately knew I wanted it. I asked Lionsgate to get the rights. Piper was meeting with a bunch of people. She came in and I knew I had to sell myself, but I was so curious about the stories that I spent the entire time peppering her with questions. In a way, I think it worked to my benefit. My enthusiasm for it was hard to ignore. I'm really grateful she entrusted me with it. It's scary. I don't want to [screw] it up, I don't want to exploit her — it's hers, but it's also mine.
ON LOCATION: Where the cameras roll
You spent so many seasons crafting an antihero on "Weeds" — was it refreshing to take on someone like Piper? How challenging was it?
It was challenging a little because it's based on a real person. Very quickly Piper Chapman became a very different person from Piper Kerman — their stories are very different. The book is a launching pad. I'm learning about her too as it goes. I don't set out to write an antihero. I get interested in the predicament and as the show progresses, I learn more about them.
Is the way you tell the story affected because you know people may be watching more than one at a time? Or do old habits die hard?
It didn't so much this first season. If there's a second, I'd like like to step back and maybe look at that a little more closely. I was just so invested in trying to craft these episodes and maintain the arc in this season that I wasn't paying quite enough attention to the possibilities of binge-watching and shooting out of order or planting seeds. It's something I'd like to look into more about how endings relate to beginnings of new episodes. I still think episodically — I haven't quite figured out how to take advantage of the medium yet.
PHOTOS: Cable versus broadcast ratings
There was this piece recently on the New Yorker's website talking about theme music in a binge-watching era, and how it can become a nuisance that you fast-forward through. You're someone who loves theme music and you commissioned Regina Spekter to write a pretty lengthy opener for this show.
I'm a crazy fan of Regina's. I think she is a genius. I was listening to her albums while I was writing, and she had done some stuff for "Weeds." I think it sets the tone for every episode. Are people going to skip eventually? Probably. But I don't. I sing it all day.
Flashbacks are a major component to the show. Was that a tough dance to master?
It was important to me. When you're writing these things, it's your life. I didn't want to spend my entire life in prison. I just thought I would crawl home on my knees every night. Part of it was built in, just to give us some blue skies, to give us life from the outside because I didn't think I would survive the writing process without it. But what turned out to be even better is part of what the show became is these masks we wear and how we adapt to our environments. And you get such a fuller picture of these people when you can see them in another context. They become a much rounder human being. It gave me more to work with. It was important that this was an ensemble and not just a star vehicle. Yes, Taylor is the main character, but she's more a gateway into all these stories.
And, hey, it's a producer's dream, because if you get tired of someone or someone's misbehaving, they go to shoot, they get out, they get furloughed — it happens. It maintains some peace on set. It's very nice.
BUZZMETER: Emmy 2013 pundit's picks
Yikes! Don't mess with Jenji! Speaking of which, did you feel a little jilted that you had to come out after "Arrested Development," considering all the hoopla that came with it?
You know, all ships rise. Netflix chose their order. We finished when we finished. They made their choices. I can't get bogged down in it. I like "Arrested Development." I like being first, but I'm not. I'm fourth. But I'm still in the first wave.
Do you expect this show to predominantly appeal to women, considering its a female-heavy ensemble?
I think there's something for everyone. It doesn't hurt that there are [breasts] or that some of the women are very attractive. Prison is a weird fetish for a lot of people — particularly, women's prison. You can get a whole demo just with that. I don't target an audience when I write.
Is there a lot more freedom with what you can get away with? I know you come from Showtime, which allowed for some pretty daring stuff. But I quickly realized this was not a show I could watch on my work computer.
It wasn't more freedom than I had at Showtime, to be honest. Sometimes you're limited by the actors. Some things we ask them to do makes them very vulnerable, so we have to pull back a little bit. I want more [sex]. I want more sex because I think sex is so many things. I don't think there's enough of it on TV, frankly. I want more sex. I want a lot more sex, so I'm pushing. But it's a dance. Actors are fragile. I don't feel I need to be PC or follow any sort of guidelines.
You go to great lengths to say this show is not like HBO's "Oz." And I think that's becomes quite clear early on, especially with the use of humor.
Women's prison is not "Oz." I was talking to a warden about this. He said men's prison, it's every man for himself; in women's prison, it's much more communal. As far as humor, that's how people cope — even in the darkest situations. I find that when there's an hour-long drama and I haven't laughed at all, it's a lie. There's nowhere in life that humor doesn't work its way in. It's natural. I want it to be naturalistic. I like to juxtapose humor against drama. I think it reflects reality.
'Orange Is the New Black' debuts in July
'Arrested Development': Too much of a good thing?
Netflix's Sarandos scoffs at stock drop on 'Arrested' reviews
Real places, fake characters: TV's bars and eateries
CRITICS' PICKS: What to watch, where to go, what to eat
PHOTOS: Violence in TV shows


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Saturday, October 16, 2010
Some Favorite Words from Paradise Lost
Greetings Grammo- and Logophiles!
In honor of an upcoming marathon reading of John Milton's Paradise Lost being held at Purdue on October 20, I thought I would highlight a few of our favorite words to read and say. Milton was a great wordsmith to say the least; by scholar Gavin Alexander's count, Milton coined at least 630 new English words, that compared to John Donne's 352 and Shakespeare's 229. Some of his more well-known coinages include "pandemonium," the name given to the devil's new fortress, or "lovelorn" to describe a forsaken nightingale. But these are too familiar; we are looking for obscure words that you can use to impress your friends.
I asked Purdue's resident Milton scholar, Professor Angeilca Duran (who is also coordinating the marathon reading), about her favorite MIlton words and phrases. She responded that she loves dwelling over mythological names like "Serapis," "Asmadai," or "Gorgonian." Even I had to look up Asmadai (6.365), who as it turns out is a traditional pagan god whom Milton identified with the fallen angels. If you aren't slumped over your computer yet with yawning boredom, here are few more philological oddities that are sure to impress both the ladies and the gentlemen.
* celestial panoply (6.760): a full suit of armor, bright and shiny
* hubbub (2.951): a confused noise often includes shouting and yelling
* verdurous (4.144): flourishing green
* jocund and boon (9.793): mirth, cheer, trivial gaiety
[MIlton uses this phrase to describe Eve just after she eats the fruit from the Tree of Forbidden Knowledge. Remember that next time you order a fruit smoothie!]
I would love to hear your favorite words from Milton or any other writer as well as some suggestions for other writers deserving of a place in the Wordsmith Hall of Fame.
Happy Hunting,
Brady Spangenberg
4 comments:
Shouldn't there be a comma after the salutation before addressing the readers?
"Greetings, Grammo- and Logophiles!"
- November 10, 2010 at 8:25 AM
You seem to have used a capital "I" instead of a lowercase one in Milton's name at least twice in this post. Tsk, tsk.r
- November 11, 2010 at 8:22 PM
- Rosemary said...
Someone else loves Milton; sweet! Milton introduced me to "intervolved" (Book 5, line 623) and reading the following lines reminds me to use and savor "delectable."
My fave passage tells how beauty overwhelms evil as the serpent glimpses Eve who has "...overawed / His malice, and with rapine sweet bereav'd / His fierceness of the fierce intent it brought" leaving him "stupidly good." Book 9 lines 460ff.
- November 23, 2010 at 12:47 PM
- Brady Spangenberg said...
Hi Rosemary!
"Intervolved" and "delectable" are great additions. It's too bad that intervolved is one of Milton's Latinisms that never quite caught on. They can't all win major public approval. Thanks again for the comment.
- December 23, 2010 at 4:55 AM


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All around the country, right-wing legislators are asking Main Street Americans to pay for budget deficits caused mainly by a recession caused by Wall Street by attacking collective bargaining, and cutting necessary services and investments like college tuition aid and health care for the poor.
As these conservatives are cutting these services for hard-working middle class Americans, they are claiming they are acting out of need for "shared sacrifice." Yet at the same time, the right continues to advocate for massive tax cuts for the wealthiest among us.
Rep. Jan Schakowksy (D-IL), along with a number of her progressive congressional colleagues, has introduced a plan that demands real "shared sacrifice." Her plan, The Fairness in Taxation Act, calls for creating new tax brackets for the richest Americans, starting at a 45 percent rate for people whose income is $1 million. Her bracket would impose the highest rate — 49 percent — on billionaires.
A chart provided by her congressional office demonstrates that asking the wealthiest among us to pay a little more would actually save more money than all of the House Republicans' cuts to domestic spending combined. House Resolution 1, which gutted funding on Pell Grants, low-income housing aid, community health centers, and other important programs for Main Street Americans, cut a total of $61 billion. Meanwhile, Schakowsky's plan saves $78.9 billion, considerably more:
In an interview with ThinkProgress, Schakowsky said that she is "hoping" to build enough momentum within Congress to make her proposal the main alternative to the conservative slash-and-burn budget effort, saying that it is a "winner" for Democrats, both politically and on policy grounds. She said that the House Progressive Caucus is planning to do a road show in the summer to campaign on tax justice and endorsed the Main Street Movement that is defending the middle class across America:
THINKPROGRESS: You've mentioned a few times the grassroots movement that's going on…that's something that we here at ThinkProgress have dubbed the Main Street Movement, all around this country we're seeing working families rise up. […] I wonder if you've and your colleagues on the Progressive Caucus have thought about similar kinds of tactics [to the Tea Party], a road show, holding rallies, trying to engender grassroots momentum around your proposals.
SCHAKOWSKY: Well, the Progressive Caucus is planning a road show this summer. This will be a central theme of that. […] But I think this needs to be bigger than that. […] I like the idea of branding, I like the idea of the Main Street Movement, and I think it is beginning to seriously come together. I think all of the pieces are out there to put this together right now. This is a moment. I want to capture it right now by introducing this legislation that clearly states an alternative that is very popular.
Listen to it:
Indeed, taxing the super-wealthy is quite popular. A March 2 NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found that 81 percent of Americans prefer taxing the wealthiest Americans more as their top choice for deficit reduction, while less than a third of Americans endorsed policy options like cutting funding to education and health care.
ThinkProgress commenter Jay Kimball used IRS data to put together the following graph showing how the richest 1 percent of Americans is nearly earning more money than they ever have while they are paying the lowest taxes in decades:


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Rockit17 necesitaba un nuevo diseño de logotipo y lanzó un concurso de diseño en 99designs.
Un ganador ha sido elegido entre 102 diseños de 22 diseñadores freelance.
Weave Relief
Weave Relief is a conditioning treatment to help calm, sooth and stimulate a healthy scalp and aid in the elimination of itching and flaking for women who wear weave hairstyles. This is a new product launch and the intention is for it to be one in a line of several similar product types.
This easily absorbed product is formulated from pure, natural, botanically derived essential oils and other organic ingredients, rather than chemically created compounds.
Weave Relief will be dispensed as drops on the scalp from a 15ml (.5 oz) amber, ball-tipped dropper bottle.
It will be sold to beauty and hair salons and directly to consumers via the internet.
The primary target market is women who wear weave hairstyles.
A secondary market is women who have scalp problems, but don't necessarily wear wigs.
These are women who wear this hairstyle on a daily basis, rather than intermittently, as would women who wear wigs.
Weave Relief (tag: End the Itch)
> bold, clean, modern
> "clinical look", not fanciful or flowing
> sans-serif font
> aqua (01B3C1) & black (see attachment - to demonstrate color - don't necessarily use this font)
> perhaps consider how the letter "E" might be a common letter for both words
> think about how the logo will be conveyed on a label on a small amber colored bottle - consider vertical alignment
> as well as on point of sale (pos) material and collaterals [see attachments]
> please do not use any stock images or clip art in the logo
> do not include an image of woman
Descubre cómo funciona un concurso de diseño u obtén más información sobre nuestros servicios de diseño de logo.


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Midland warning seen as too brief
30 seconds' notice planned at crossing.
A railroad crossing in Midland where a train crashed into a parade float, killing four war veterans, was designed to have more warning time than officials said was given when the wreck occurred, documents show.
The design plans for the crossing at South Garfield Street were released Wednesday by the Texas Department of Transportation, the same day lawyers representing four passengers on the float filed a lawsuit in connection with the crash.
The records reveal the design plans called for a 30-second warning time, 10 seconds longer than the 20-second warning that the National Transportation Safety Board said was given Nov. 15, when the Union Pacific train plowed into a float full of injured war veterans and their spouses at 62 mph.
Four men previously injured in combat were killed in the crash, and 16 people were injured. Among the dead was U.S. Army Sgt. Joshua Michael, 34, who medically retired in San Antonio in 2010.
Railroad crossing warning systems must "activate in accordance with the design of the warning system," according to the Code of Federal Regulations, which also requires a minimum warning time of 20 seconds.
Also released by TxDOT Wednesday was an agreement between TxDOT and the railroad, which states: "The railroad shall maintain and operate these highway-railroad grade crossing warning systems as installed and in accordance with the design of operation as shown in the" design plans.
UP spokeswoman Raquel Espinoza-Williams sent an emailed statement on the safety plan Wednesday.
"The TxDOT documents from 20 and 30 years ago do not reflect current conditions at the Garfield crossing," the statement reads, adding that recent studies show driver behavior as the main cause for grade crossing crashes. "The NTSB's timeline indicates the truck proceeded onto the tracks eight seconds after the red flashing lights and bells activated, and the NTSB's preliminary findings show the signal system met federal requirements."
According to the NTSB, the crossing arm at the intersection had started to descend when the parade float's driver, Dale Andrew Hayden, 52, began to enter the crossing. As the flatbed trailer crossed the tracks, the crossing arm came down on the float, striking some of the passengers.
"This is huge," said Bob Pottroff, whose co-counsel filed a lawsuit Wednesday in Midland County. "You add five or 10 seconds, and our driver has the gate come down in front of him. It's a matter of life or death."
The 1991 design plan stated the warning system time was set when trains at Garfield traveled at a maximum 25 mph. In 2006, the speed limit on the tracks increased to 70 mph.
In order to provide a 30-second warning time for a train traveling at 70 mph, Pottroff's co-counsel, Kevin Glasheen, said detectors would need to be placed 4,600 feet away from the crossing. The design plan states the circuits extended to 1,642 feet on either side of the crossing.
"While the anticipation is the (railroad) has maintained the design of the signal circuitry as they have raised train speeds, we have not confirmed this information with" Union Pacific, Darin Kosmak, TxDOT's director of the Rail-Highway Section, said in an email accompanying the release of the design plan.
NTSB spokesman Peter Knudson said federal investigators left Midland on Tuesday — without having interviewed Hayden — and a preliminary report should be released in about a week. He added the agency still hopes to speak to Hayden.
Pottroff and Glasheen's lawsuit claims that UP and Smith Industries Inc., who employed Hayden and donated the flatbed trailer for use in the Show of Support's parade, were negligent. The organization sponsors an annual event to honor injured veterans called Hunt for Heroes, which includes the parade.
The lawyers' clients are Army Sgt. Richard Sanchez and his wife, Heather, based in Fort Collins, Colo., and Staff Sgt. Todd King and his wife, Traci, of Bexar County.
Sanchez, who like several others pushed his wife off of the float, suffered a broken spine and remains hospitalized in Midland.
The Kings suffered minor injuries, Pottroff said.
The suit states UP was negligent on 28 different points, including ignoring hazardous conditions and not providing a reasonable visual or audible warning. Smith Industries, it alleges, was negligent on four counts. The lawsuit also is seeking a temporary injunction to preserve evidence, and a hearing has been set for next week.
UP lawyer Mainess Gibson did not return a call or email seeking comment.
Doug Fletcher, a Dallas-based attorney for Smith Industries Inc., said he hadn't yet seen the lawsuit.
"I would reiterate that the use of both drivers and both trucks were donated by my client to the Hunt for Heroes charity and at the time of the accident were under the authority and direction of the charity that was running the event," Fletcher said in an emailed statement.
He added that local law enforcement authorities were controlling traffic on the parade route and directing the parade vehicles, but according to the city of Midland, the Hunt for Heroes event violated a city ordinance by not having a parade permit.
Twitter: @EvaRuth