text:
Carl Sagan's Life and Legacy as Scientist, Teacher, and Skeptic
David Morrison
Skeptical Inquirer Volume 31.1, January / February 2007
In this new remembrance of Carl Sagan, who died ten years ago, a noted planetary scientist and colleague (and former student of Sagan) recalls Sagan's immense contributions to planetary research, the public understanding of science, and the skeptical movement.
Carl Sagan was the world's best-known scientist in the late twentieth century, serving as our guide to the planets during the golden age of solar system exploration. He was both a visionary and a committed defender of rational scientific thinking. Sagan died on December 20, 1996, while only 62, and he has been greatly missed in the decade since. In addition to my own knowledge and insights about his scientific and skeptical contributions, I have made extensive use of the two excellent narrative biographies by William Poundstone (1999) and Keay Davidson (1999). Poundstone is stronger on Sagan's science, Davidson on his personal history. Neither, however, emphasizes his role as a skeptic.
Sagan was propelled on his academic and public careers by enormous talent, good luck, and an intensely focused drive to succeed. His lifelong quest was to understand the universe, especially our planetary system, and to communicate the thrill of scientific discovery to others. A natural teacher, he loved to explain things and never made a questioner feel stupid for asking. Although Sagan had broad intellectual interests, his pursuit of his career left little time for other activities: he did not play golf or follow sports, take up cooking or photography, sing or play a musical instrument, or join a church or synagogue. His first two wives complained that he devoted insufficient time to his marriages or his children (Davidson 1999). He focused on his career goals, and the world was enriched thereby.
Many scientists would like to be able to communicate with the public about their discoveries. However, few become adept at explaining technical subjects in terms that are readily understood by the lay public. Even fewer are willing to take the time to answer journalists' questions patiently, to sit still for application of makeup for television appearances, or to return reporters' calls promptly even when they interrupt a meal or a lab experiment. They might like to be great communicators, but they lack the skills and the commitment. They also recognize that academic rewards generally come to the best researchers, with limited honor associated with excellence in teaching and even less for public outreach. Sagan was different. He recognized his talents as a teacher and popularizer and decided to make such outreach a major aspect of his career.
Born in 1934, Sagan grew up in a working-class Jewish neighborhood of New York and attended urban public schools in New York and New Jersey. The University of Chicago provided him scholarship support when he entered in 1951, and he continued there for graduate work, receiving his doctorate in astronomy in 1960. After two years as a postdoctoral fellow in biology at Berkeley and Stanford, he joined the Harvard College astronomy faculty as Assistant Professor. Denied tenure at Harvard, Sagan moved to Cornell University in 1968, serving as David Duncan Professor of Astronomy and Director of the Laboratory for Planetary studies until his death in 1996.
Although best known to the public as a popularizer, Sagan first distinguished himself as a research scientist. His accomplishments in research made it much easier for his academic peers to accept him as a spokesperson for science. Sagan loved the research process, especially when it was combined with the exploration of new worlds. As he often noted, only one generation was privileged to grow up when the planets and their moons were little more than dim points of light in the night sky, and to see them emerge as unique worlds with their own geological and perhaps even biological history. Sagan helped define two new disciplines: planetary science and exobiology. As a leading consultant to NASA, he also helped chart the exploration of the solar system by spacecraft.
With training in both astronomy and biology, Sagan brought a unique breadth to the emerging new fields of planetary science and exobiology. At the time he received his doctorate, his thesis advisor Gerard Kuiper recognized that "Some persons work best in specializing on a major program in the laboratory; others are best in liaison between sciences. Dr. Sagan belongs in the latter group" (in Davidson 1999).
Sagan was an "idea person" and a master of intuitive physical arguments and "back of the envelope" calculations. He usually left the details to others, and most of his published papers were collaborations. Much of this work was done with students, many of whom went on to become leaders themselves in planetary science. On much of his later work, including the famous TTAPS paper on nuclear winter (more on this later), his name appears last among the listed authors. Throughout the 1970s and into the 1980s, he also edited the foremost professional journal in planetary science, Icarus.
Sagan's most important early research dealt with the atmosphere of Venus. Discoveries in radio astronomy made when he was in graduate school first suggested that this planet had a very hot surface, in contrast to previous speculation that the climate of Venus was more Earth-like. Part of Sagan's thesis consisted of the first computed greenhouse model for the atmosphere, in which the high infrared opacity of carbon dioxide and water vapor produced a surface temperature hundreds of degrees higher than that of an airless planet. Over the decade of the 1960s he improved these models, working primarily with his former student James Pollack, to develop and refine what remains to this day our basic understanding of the atmosphere of Venus.
Mars was another planet that interested Sagan, and with Pollack he modeled the atmosphere and developed the idea, later verified by the Mariner 9 and Viking spacecraft, that quasi-seasonal changes observed on the surface were the result of wind-blown dust. He also wrote a series of papers on Jupiter, focused on atmospheric organic chemistry.
From childhood, Sagan had been inspired by the mystery of the origin and distribution of life. This passion led him to study biology and develop collaborations with leading biologists such as Stanley Miller, and Nobel laureates Joshua Lederberg and George Muller. Early in his career, he received more encouragement from these biologists than from astronomers, many of whom considered planetary studies to lie on the fringes of respectable science, and exobiology to be beyond the pale. A number of his early publications were in exobiology, and at various times he speculated about life not only on Mars, but also on Venus, Jupiter, and even the Moon. In spite of his increasing role as a scientific skeptic, he permitted himself to indulge in this broad speculation, so long as his ideas remained within the realm of possibility. Sagan was also one of the founders of international interest in SETI, the microwave search for extraterrestrial intelligence, although he himself did not conduct any searches.
NASA valued Sagan's contributions to the spacecraft exploration of the planets during its "Golden Age" (roughly 1960—1990). He was a member of science teams selected for the Mariner 2, Mariner 9, Viking, Voyager, and Galileo missions, among others. With his quick mind and breadth of vision, he was always a welcome contributor to planning sessions and the "quick look" interpretation that followed the first receipt of spacecraft data. His former student Clark Chapman wrote in 1977: "A man of vivid imagination, he keeps alive a wide variety of conceptions of planetary environments. By suggesting often outlandish alternatives and challenging traditionalists to disprove them, he has inspired doubts about many accepted theories. Sagan's role is essential for healthy science because a bandwagon effect frequently leads to premature consensus among scientists before equally plausible alternatives have even been thought of, let alone rationally rejected."
Sagan's own excitement with the process of scientific discovery is captured in the following quote (Sagan 1973): "Even today, there are moments when what I do seems to me like an improbable, if unusually pleasant dream: to be involved in the exploration of Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn; to try to duplicate the steps that led to the origin of life on an Earth very different from the one we know; to land instruments on Mars to search there for life; and perhaps to be engaged in a serious effort to communicate with other intelligent beings, if such there be, out there in the dark of the night sky."
Popularizer and Skeptic
At the same time he was building up an enviable bibliography (which grew to 250 pages by the end of his life) and a record of successful students, Sagan also established a growing reputation as a popularizer of science. His boyish good looks, resonant voice, and ability to explain scientific concepts in ways that lay persons and students could understand made him a popular teacher and public lecturer. He won teaching awards at Harvard and Cornell, and even in the busiest times of his life he tried to keep his hand in undergraduate teaching.
In 1966 he first achieved some modest national attention with his book (with the Russian astronomer I. S. Shklovskii) Intelligent Life in the Universe. The following year, Sagan wrote an upbeat article on the potential of life on the planets for National Geographic, and he made a few brief TV appearances. Already it was apparent to some that Sagan sought a broader role than that of academic researcher, a concern that probably contributed to denial of tenure by Harvard University in 1967. Students loved him, but some colleagues bristled at what they perceived as self-aggrandizement and pandering to the public. Unlike Harvard, Cornell University was looking for faculty with a potential for stardom, and they provided Sagan an endowed chair and the solid academic springboard he needed for his future rise to fame and fortune.
Throughout his career, Sagan devoted himself to the quest to improve public understanding of the nature of science. He wanted every citizen to have a "baloney detector" as defense against sham in commerce and politics as well as science. He felt that it was the duty of scientists to face these issues squarely and publicly. The Cosmic Connection (1973), which includes extensive discussions of extraterrestrial life as well as more conventional astronomy and planetary science, even explores the UFO phenomenon and the writings of pseudo-cosmologist Immanuel Velikovsky. However, Sagan opposed tactics that demeaned pseudoscientific beliefs or attacked religion, refusing (for example) to sign a statement against astrology because of its authoritative tone.
His interest in popular misconceptions about science led him to organize two public symposia on fringe-science topics at meetings of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). Both arguably concerned real scientific issues, not cases of fraud or religious extremism.
The first AAAS symposium, in 1969, dealt with the reality of UFOs. Like many scientists of his generation, in high school Sagan had been attracted to the idea that UFOs might be visiting spacecraft. At the AAAS, J. Allen Hynek and James McDonald defended UFO studies while Sagan, Donald Menzel, and Lester Grinspoon attacked this position. The proponents on both sides of the issue were scientists, although they took very different approaches to the interpretation of the anecdotal reports of UFO sightings. (The subject of alien abductions or direct contact with extraterrestrials, which has since become so common, was not an issue at that time; the AAAS symposium focused on the interpretation of moving lights in the sky and anomalous radar signals.)
UFO proponents argued that even though there was no individual sighting in which one could make a compelling case for extraterrestrial spacecraft, the sheer volume of reports justified continuing examination and study. In contrast, Sagan emphasized the unreliability of witnesses, the absence of physical evidence of UFOs, and alternative explanations including hallucination and self-delusion. He noted that "there are no cases that are simultaneously very reliable (reported independently by a large number of witnesses) and very exotic (not explicable in terms of reasonably postulated phenomena)," and he applied a skeptical standard that is often associated with his name: that extraordinary claims require extraordinary levels of evidence or proof.
The 1974 AAAS symposium, on the work of Velikovsky, was riskier, since Velikovsky himself was invited to speak under AAAS sponsorship, something he claimed as a vindication. While Sagan promoted the symposium, it was actually organized by historian Owen Gingerich and astronomers Ivan King and Donald Goldsmith. Velikovsky's thesis of global catastrophes caused by numerous planetary encounters within historical times was scientifically indefensible but had attracted a wide popular following. Unlike the UFO symposium, there were no scientists to defend these ideas, published in his 1950 book Worlds in Collision (dismissed by Sagan [1973] as a "speculative romance"). Rather, the 77-year-old Velikovsky confronted his debunkers personally.
Keay Davidson (1999) describes the symposium as part apology to Velikovsky for previous slights from astronomers, and part an effort to reassure the public of science's basic fair-mindedness. The confrontation of the patriarchal Velikovsky and his young, brash critic was a clash of egos on both sides. Sagan aimed his remarks, published in extended form in Scientists Confront Velikovsky (Goldsmith 1977), primarily at the public and science journalists. By most accounts he was the hands-down winner. Many people credit this debate as the beginning of the end for the Velikovsky cult, which is today reduced to a handful of obscure cranks.
However, Sagan's role earned him the bitter enmity of Velikovsky supporters. His greatest sin was his lack of respect for the old man, who steadfastly refused to accept any modification of his then quarter-century-old views. Sagan's critique of Worlds in Collision was also castigated by Velikovsky followers for its failure to address all of his claims, and for some slipshod calculations that were never corrected in Sagan's published remarks. This symposium has been extensively analyzed (e.g., Bauer 1984), and it still raises unanswered questions about the most effective ways to counter pseudoscientists. Similar scenarios are replayed today by scientists who debate creationists and defenders of intelligent design. I sometimes ask myself if Sagan would have ventured into this lion's den, and if so how a debate between him and, say, creationist Duane Gish, would have played out.
Both AAAS symposia were widely covered by the media and contributed to a growing public recognition. A further boost came in 1973 with the publication of The Cosmic Connection, described in Science (Hartmann 1974) as "thirty-nine genuine, vintage Sagan dinner conversations." This description was more accurate than the reviewer may have realized. This book, like all of Sagan's, was dictated. Creating his books and popular articles this way, Sagan simultaneously developed his unique speaking and writing styles. At his lectures, listeners were impressed by his carefully crafted sentences, and by the way his talks (delivered without notes) seemed to be so well organized. Dictation turned out to be the perfect way for Sagan to organize his thoughts and develop his prose style simultaneously. It allowed him to "write" while traveling or walking on the beach, and it never necessitated his learning to type. It also allowed him to derive multiple value from the same material, typically delivering his message in various lectures, writing it for a magazine article (for such outlets as Parade), and using it as the basis for a chapter in one of his books.
The Cosmic Connection helped open the door to a medium that Sagan seemed destined for: television. In November 1973, he was invited to appear on the popular Tonight Show with Johnny Carson (himself a skeptic). Handsome, articulate, informal in manner, yet enthusiastically discussing real science (and often bringing the latest photos from NASA missions like Viking and Voyager), he captivated both the audience and the host. Over the following thirteen years, Sagan appeared on The Tonight Show twenty-six times. No matter how pressing his other business, he was always willing to take a break and fly to Hollywood for Carson. He considered it "the biggest classroom in history."
In January 1974, Time did a cover story on life in the universe, in which it called Sagan "the prime advocate and perennial gadfly for planetary exploration." A few weeks later Sagan published an article in TV Guide, the largest circulation magazine in the United States. Sagan was suddenly hot, receiving media attention normally reserved for a select few Nobel Prize winners. In August 1976, Newsweek put his smiling face on its cover, a rare accolade for any scientist. Their thumbnail sketch stated: "At 42, Carl Sagan has become the leading spokesman and salesman for the new science of exobiology, the search for extraterrestrial life. Lobbying in Washington, appearing on television talk shows, and teaching at Cornell, he is building fresh support for the space program and fulfilling his own fantasies of finding life out there." Two years later, he received the ultimate tribute for a science writer, winning the 1978 Pulitzer Prize for general nonfiction for his book about the human brain, The Dragons of Eden.
Sagan was a founding member of the Committee for Scientific Investigation of Claims of the Paranormal. CSICOP originated in 1976 in part to direct attention to egregious media exploitation of supposed paranormal wonders. (He was always supportive of CSICOP and the Skeptical Inquirer, and served as keynote speaker at two well-attended CSICOP conferences, Pasadena in 1987, Seattle in 1994, each of which led to a major article in SI: "The Burden of Skepticism," Fall 1987, and "Wonder and Skepticism," January/February 1995.) Sagan's own contributions focused less on critiques of the media and more on creating news, skillfully using the media to inform and entertain about science. He preferred the positive approach, talking about what was correct rather than exposing errors in others.
Showman of Science
In the later 1970s, between the Viking mission to Mars and the anticipated Voyager encounters with Jupiter, Sagan decided to test the capacity of television to bring science to a mass audience. In partnership with engineer and entrepreneur Gentry Lee, a Viking colleague, he formed Carl Sagan Enterprises and began marketing a television series modeled on Jacob Bronowski's Ascent of Man. They developed a script, raised several million dollars in support, and hired Bronowski's director, Adrian Malone. At the same time Sagan fell rapturously in love with Ann Druyan, with whom he worked closely for the rest of his life. He and Annie moved to Los Angeles, and production at KCET Public Television started in 1977 on the 13-hour series called Cosmos.
Sagan with colleague Toby Owen at JPL in 1976, examining recent Viking orbiter photos of Mars. Sagan and Owen played key roles in deciding on the landing sites for the Viking spacecraft.
His commitment to Cosmos finally eclipsed Sagan's academic roles. His classes were canceled, and several graduate students who had come to Cornell to work with him chose other advisors instead. Colleagues complained, and there was an effort to force his laboratory out of the Cornell Space Science Building. In Los Angeles, clashes of will between Sagan and Malone almost derailed the entire Cosmos effort. Cosmos aired in September 1980, accompanied by a promotional effort that exceeded anything seen before in public television. Most reviews were enthusiastic, and suddenly Sagan became a celebrity. The series won the Peabody Award, and eventually more than 400 million people saw Cosmos in dozens of countries around the world. The accompanying book, also called Cosmos, was on the New York Times best seller list for seventy weeks and made him wealthy as well as famous.
In October 1980, Sagan appeared on the cover of Time, shown wading in the "cosmic ocean." Time described him as the "Showman of Science" and the "prince of popularizers." They wrote: "Sagan sends out an exuberant message: science is not only vital for humanity's future well being, but it is rousing good fun as well. Watching with wonder—and no doubt a little envy—the whirling star named Sagan, some of his colleagues feel that he has stepped beyond the bounds of science. They complain that he is driven by ego. They also say that he tends to overstate his case, often fails to give proper credit to other scientists for their work, and blurs the line between fact and speculation. But they probably represent a minority view. Most scientists, increasingly sensitive to the need for public support and understanding of science, appreciate what Sagan has become: America's most effective salesman of science."
Sagan with Ann Druyan in 1980 during the filming of Cosmos.
Sagan moved back to Cornell after Cosmos, but he could not return to the anonymity of the campus. People stopped him on the street and interrupted his meals in restaurants to tell him how much they liked Cosmos or to ask for his autograph. He mused to me at the time how strangers felt comfortable approaching him, since after all he had been in their living rooms (on TV). He also received crank calls and death threats, requiring police patrols of his home and prompting the university to remove his name from his office door and from the Space Science Building directory.
Fame also had its rewards. He bought a spectacular home modeled on an Egyptian temple, perched on the edge of one of Ithaca's wooded gorges, and hired a personal staff. He received an unprecedented advance from Simon & Shuster of $2 million for a science fiction novel to be called Contact, before he had written a word. Contact was published in 1985, and later made into a successful film starring Jodie Foster.
Sagan's popularity did me a service at about this time. Driving across West Texas, I was stopped for speeding. As the police officer started to write a ticket, he asked what I did for a living. When I mentioned that I had been Carl Sagan's student, he put away his citation book and launched into enthusiastic praise for Carl and, by implication, for his friends and students.
Journalist Joel Achenbach, in Captured by Aliens (1999), noted that once Sagan achieved superstardom with Cosmos, he became the public lightning rod for both the science and the pseudoscience of extraterrestrial life. As the "keeper of the gates" who effectively defined the border between science and pseudoscience, he was actively courted by many fringe figures who sought in his blessing a legitimization of their interests or beliefs. As an example, Achenbach reported this interview with Richard Hoagland, the popularizer of the "Face on Mars." Hoagland explained that in a public meeting in 1985, Sagan commented that those planning NASA missions to Mars should be open to discovering the unexpected. According to Hoagland, when Sagan made these remarks, he briefly made direct eye-contact with Hoagland, who was in the audience. In the weird world of pseudoscience, Sagan's innocent comment was interpreted as a coded message encouraging Hoagland to pursue his advocacy of an artificial origin for the Face—which he continues to this day, in spite of all the evidence to the contrary. (See some of Sagan's thoughts on the Hoagland/Mars Face matter in "Carl Sagan Takes Questions: More from his 'Wonder and Skepticism' CSICOP 1994 Keynote," Skeptical Inquirer, July/August 2005.)
Sagan's role is especially interesting because he himself was accused of straying beyond the limits of proper science in his pursuit of evidence for life on other planets and his defense of SETI. As Achenbach argues, it was precisely because of his apparent open-minded attitude toward fringe topics that many on the fringe became so bitter when Sagan turned against them.
Making a Better World
Sagan at Cornell in 1974 with three former students (L to R): David Morrison, Joseph Veverka, and James Pollack.
Sagan's rise to celebrity occurred simultaneously with Ronald Reagan's escalation of arms spending and cold war rhetoric. He told colleagues that he intended to return to the life of a professor, but he also felt he should use his new wealth and power to accomplish objectives of more global scope. As an early opponent of Reagan's Space Defense Initiative (SDI) or "Star Wars," he was able to rally vocal objections from the academic community that questioned both the technical basis for SDI and its potential destabilizing effect on the nuclear balance.
In 1982, an even more compelling opportunity presented itself, thanks to research involving two of his former students, Jim Pollack and Brian Toon (both at NASA Ames Research Center). With colleagues Rich Turco and Tom Ackerman, they were studying the influence of dust and atmospheric aerosols on global climate, working to understand the effects of martian dust storms and of the dust cloud that enveloped Earth following the asteroid impact that caused the extinction of the dinosaurs. In 1982, they had realized that smoke, especially from petrochemical fires, would have a much greater effect on global climate than naturally occurring dust. In fact, it appeared that the smoke from as few as 100 burning cities, when lofted into the stratosphere, could lead to severe global cooling (nuclear winter).
Turco and Toon flew to Ithaca in late 1982 to enlist Sagan's aid, for both the technical aspects of the research and as a means to overcome NASA objections based on the political implications of this work. This collaboration generated the TTAPS paper (named for the first initials of the authors, but with obvious symbolism) on nuclear winter published in Science in late 1983. The TTAPS authors concluded that even a less-than-full-scale nuclear exchange, especially if it were directed against cities, could cause global cooling and collapse of agriculture. The massive loss of life would hit victor, vanquished, or non-combatant nations alike.
Sagan used his prestige to argue that these new findings rendered nuclear war obsolete and undermined the concept of massive nuclear retaliation. The debate was international, including within the USSR, where it stimulated a rethinking of nuclear war-fighting strategies. But the pro-nuclear forces in the United States counterattacked vigorously, vilifying Sagan personally in the process. The National Review called nuclear winter "a fraud" and titled one cover story "Flat-Earth Sagan Falls off the End of the World."
Edward Teller, who at seventy-three was probably the second best known scientist in America, debated Sagan on nuclear winter before a special convocation of Congress. Sagan also led a delegation to meet with Pope John Paul II, who subsequently issued a papal statement against the build-up of nuclear arsenals. Many people credit this theory, and its advocacy by Sagan, as influential in the move toward nuclear disarmament and the end of the cold war.
Sagan oscillated between roles as scientist and political advocate. In this period, while attending a meeting of the imaging science team for the Galileo spacecraft, Sagan apologized to his teammates for his inability to commit more time to this mission, saying he was "putting most of my energy into saving the world from nuclear holocaust." Most team members agreed that this effort should indeed have a higher priority for Sagan than planning imaging sequences for the moons of Jupiter.
In parallel with its escalation of the arms race, the Reagan administration cut back drastically on NASA's program of planetary exploration. In 1981 they threatened to close down the highly successful Voyager 2 spacecraft before its Uranus and Neptune encounters and to turn the Jet Propulsion Laboratory into a defense contractor lab. After the space shuttle Challenger accident in 1986, the momentum seemed to have left NASA, just when Sagan was advocating an accelerated exploration program in his books and lectures. At the same time the USSR, under the influence of Mikhail Gorbachev's reforms, seemed more open to international collaboration.
Sagan saw an opportunity to achieve two goals of noble dimension. By working together on missions to Mars, the US and the USSR could build confidence and gain experience that would ultimately defuse the cold war and permit cooperation in other areas. By pooling their resources, these two space-faring nations could accomplish together what neither could afford alone—extending human presence into the solar system—and simultaneously ensure peace on Earth.
Sagan formed a close working relationship with Roald Sagdeev, the director of the Space Research Institute in Moscow, and together they opened up the Soviet planetary exploration program, with unprecedented live reporting of the Soviet flybys of Comet Halley in 1986. In Russia, he associated with Soviet cosmonauts and government officials as well as scientists. For a few years, under his leadership, anything seemed possible. Then the USSR disintegrated, and many of its space scientists found themselves unemployed. With the failure of Russia's last three planetary missions (all destined for Mars), both the motivation and the capability of Russia to partner in exploration of the solar system evaporated.
By the time of the final Voyager encounter with Neptune in 1989, it was apparent that Sagan's campaign to promote human expansion to Mars was doomed. His Russian friend Sagdeev was emigrating to the United States and marrying (of all people) Dwight Eisenhower's granddaughter. And after a decade of budget cuts, NASA seemed unable to summon the resources even to maintain a modest program of robotic space exploration. The high hopes of the Viking and Voyager era were gone. In a 1989 lecture at JPL, Sagan could not conceal his frustration and disappointment—the first time I had seen him unable to summon an optimistic perspective. However, worse personal blows were about to fall.
In the autumn of 1990, Sagan made his most serious scientific blunder. Threatened with military opposition to its invasion of Kuwait, Iraq threatened to set fire to the nation's oil wells. Sagan became concerned that the quantity of petrochemical smoke generated by these oil-field fires could generate a small-scale nuclear winter, endangering crops across Asia and threatening world food production. Of his four TTAPS co-authors, only Turco supported this hypothesis; Pollack, Toon, and Ackerman could not see how sufficient smoke could get into the stratosphere. However, Sagan went public with dire predictions. While he kept his predictions conditional, saying only that we could not show that massive oil-field fires would not have major climatological consequences (a "double negative" logic that he used frequently), his doomsday warning was widely reported. The oil fields were torched in January 1991, blackening the sky over most of Kuwait and disrupting the coastal ecosystem, but there were no climatic effects, even on a local scale. Sagan was widely criticized, and the episode had the further effect of undermining the credibility of the entire nuclear winter scenario.
The next year Sagan was nominated for membership in the National Academy of Sciences. Academy membership requires distinguished research scholarship, but that is rarely sufficient to ensure membership. Considerable weight is also given to public service, as well as more political factors such as where a nominee works and whom he or she knows. Most colleagues agreed that Sagan's research record was more than adequate (Shermer 1999), and that his additional journal editorship, government service, and contributions to public understanding of science should have ensured his election. But Sagan was blackballed in the first voting round, requiring a full debate and vote by the Academy membership. In the final vote he barely received 50 percent yes votes, far short of the two-thirds majority required for election to membership.
Two years later, the National Academy awarded Sagan its prestigious Public Welfare Medal, perhaps in partial compensation for his earlier rejection. The damage was done, however: not only a stinging personal blow, but also an attack on his credibility as a spokesperson for science. For all his accomplishments—or perhaps because of some of them—influential members of the academic "old boys" network never accepted him.
Other problems multiplied. In 1993 the NASA SETI program, which he had defended on critical occasions in the past, was abruptly terminated by Congress. His book on nuclear winter, written with Turco, sold only a few thousand copies; no one cared much any more about issues of nuclear war. Perhaps worst of all, a book that he and Annie put a great deal of themselves into, Shadows of Forgotten Ancestors, did not receive the enthusiastic welcome they expected. Although some reviewers consider it one of Sagan's best works, it was not a best seller. No longer a media star, Sagan was slipping from public consciousness.
Sagan with the author at a planetary science meeting in 1983.
A Candle in the Dark
Sagan's most important contributions in his final years were in the struggle against pseudoscience. Throughout the last decade of the millennium, this scourge of public irrationality grew, as astrology, alien abductions, alternative medicine, and any number of other New Age and "millennial" fads and cults gained in popularity. Sagan fought back, and after the death of his friend Isaac Asimov, his was the voice most often heard in defense of scientific reason in the United States.
His most influential platform was provided by the weekly newspaper-supplement magazine Parade, one of the two most widely read publications in America. His column appeared there regularly for more than a decade, providing a unique opportunity for outreach and education. He discussed the latest discoveries in science, debunked the purveyors of flimflam, and also delved into sensitive topics of public concern such as abortion and animal rights. His articles in Parade provided the basis for many chapters in his final three books, Pale Blue Dot, The Demon-Haunted World, and Billions and Billions.
The Demon-Haunted World, subtitled Science as a Candle in the Dark, was a passionate defense of science against pseudoscience and irrationality, as illustrated in the following quotes. "It is far better to grasp the Universe as it really is than to persist in delusion, however satisfying and reassuring [that may be]. . . . Superstition and pseudoscience keep getting in the way [of understanding nature], providing easy answers, dodging skeptical scrutiny, casually pressing our awe buttons and cheapening the experience, making us routine and comfortable practitioners as well as victims of credulity. . . . [Pseudoscience] ripples with gullibility. . . . The tenants of skepticism do not require an advanced degree to master, as most successful used car buyers demonstrate. The whole idea of democratic application of skepticism is that everyone should have the essential tools to effectively and constructively evaluate claims to knowledge. . . . But the tools of skepticism are generally unavailable to the citizens of our society. . . .Those who have something to sell, those who wish to influence public opinion, those in power, a skeptic might suggest, have a vested interest in discouraging skepticism" (Sagan 1995).
While vigorously advocating the concepts of scientific skepticism, Sagan also raised questions about strategy. He wrote that "The chief difficulty I see in the skeptical movement is in its polarization: Us vs. Them—the sense that we [skeptics] have a monopoly on the truth; that those other people who believe all these stupid doctrines are morons." He was especially troubled by anti-religious attitudes. While not a believer himself, Sagan had constructive interactions with religious leaders, including the Pope and the Dalai Lama. He wrote "There is no necessary conflict between science and religion. On one level, they share similar and consonant goals, and each needs the other."
Although more demanding and hence less popular than his books about astronomy and planetary exploration, The Demon-Haunted World is arguably his most mature and valuable publication. Expressing his concerns about the irrationalism that pervades modern society, he wrote: "I know that the consequences of scientific illiteracy are far more dangerous in our time than in any time that has come before. It's perilous and foolhardy for the average citizen to remain ignorant about global warming, say, or ozone depletion, air pollution, toxic and radioactive wastes, topsoil erosion, tropical deforestation, exponential population growth. . . . How can we affect national policy—or even make intelligent decisions in our own lives—if we don't grasp the underlying issues? . . . Plainly there is no way back. Like it or not, we are stuck with science. We had better make the best of it. When we finally come to terms with it and fully recognize its beauty and power, we will find, in spiritual as well as in practical matters, that we have made a bargain strongly in our favor."
Sagan's example has contributed to increasing efforts by scientists to reach out to the press and the public. For the first time in the 1980s, such professional organizations as the American Astronomical Society and the American Geophysical Union appointed full-time press officers and began sponsoring press conferences at their annual meetings. NASA missions also undertook to identify and encourage project scientists to speak with the press, both informally and as official NASA spokespersons. In the late 1990s this extended to welcoming commercial HDTV crews into high-level NASA meetings and spacecraft encounters. Breaking with tradition, the space agency was now anxious to show the human side of scientific exploration. In the 1960s, Sagan was almost alone in his work with the press, but such activity had become relatively common among space scientists two decades later. None, however, has approached Sagan's level of charisma or public name recognition.
Cornell's President Frank Rhodes, speaking at Sagan's sixtieth birthday celebration, summarized his impact: "I want to salute Carl Sagan . . . as the embodiment of everything that is best in academic life . . . in scholarship, teaching, and service. . . . Carl is an inspiring example of the engaged, global citizen . . . . [He is] a master of synthesis, and he has used that skill to engage us as a society in some of the biggest issues of our time. . . . With the conscience of a humanist and the consummate skill of the scientist, he addresses the needs of the society in which we live, and we are the richer for it" (Terzian and Bilson 1997).
- Achenbach, Joel. 1999. Captured by Aliens: The Search for Life and Truth in a Very Large Universe. New York: Simon and Shuster.
- Bauer, Henry. 1984. Beyond Velikovsky: The History of a Public Controversy. Urbana, Illinois: University of Illinois Press.
- Chapman, Clark. 1977. The Inner Planets. New York: Scribner.
- Davidson, Keay. 1999. Carl Sagan: A Life. New York: Wiley.
- Hartmann, William. 1974. Review of The Cosmic Connection. Science 184: 663—664.
- Morrison, David. 1999. Sagan and skepticism: Review of two Sagan biographies. Skeptic 17, (4): 29—31.
- Poundstone, William. 1999. Carl Sagan: A Life in the Cosmos. New York: Henry Holt.
- Sagan, Carl. 1973. The Cosmic Connection: An Extraterrestrial Perspective. New York: Doubleday. (Reissued 2000 as Carl Sagan's Cosmic Connection: An Extraterrestrial Perspective. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.)
- —. 1987. The burden of skepticism. Skeptical Inquirer 12(1): 38—46.
- —. 1995. Wonder and skepticism. Skeptical Inquirer 19(1): 24—30.
- —. 1995. The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark. New York: Random House.
- Shermer, Michael. 1999. The measure of a life: Carl Sagan and the science of biography. Skeptic 17(4): 32—39.
- Terzian, Yervant, and Elizabeth Bilson, eds. 1997. Carl Sagan's Universe, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.


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Dolly Parton to Help Launch New Water, Snow Park in Nashville
Two of Nashville's biggest entertainment moguls announced last week that they will be partnering for a new 114-acre family entertainment zone in Nashville. Dolly Parton's Dollywood Company is embarking on this new project with Gaylord Entertainment, the company that owns the Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center, as well as the Ryman Auditorium, Wildhorse Saloon, WSM-AM and more of Nashville's main attractions.
Though the proposed entertainment zone doesn't yet have a name, the first phase of the project includes a $50 million water and snow park, the likes of which doesn't yet exist anywhere in the US. The attraction will be located just adjacent to the Opryland Resort. The two companies expect to break ground on the project late this year or early 2013, with an anticipated summer 2014 grand opening.
While Tennessee politicians like Gov. Bill Haslam are touting the value of drawing even more tourism to a state in which tourism is the second largest industry, Parton says she's just excited to get started. "I'm so excited about this opportunity," she said in a press release. "I am confident that partnering my Dollywood Company with a great company like Gaylord will create something truly special. We're all working on new types of entertainment to do in the daytime and nighttime for the whole family so we bring new folks to the area year-round."
Likewise, Gaylord seems to be more than pleased with the 50/50 partnership including the country superstar. Gaylord Entertainment Chairman and CEO Colin V. Reed said in the same release, "We are thrilled by the prospect of bringing to Nashville a family-focused entertainment center with one of the preeminent theme park owners and operators in the country ... With Dolly Parton's country music legacy and strong ties to Nashville, we can think of no better partner for this venture than Dolly's Dollywood Company."

subset: commoncrawl


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Solvar Jewelry 'Mo Anam Cara' Large Silver Ring $89.95
'Mo Anam Cara' Large Silver Ring. This Irish ring by Solvar, one of the finest jewelers in Dublin, bears the phrase 'Mo Anam Cara,' Irish for 'my soul mate,' interspersed with Claddagh designs.
The story of the Claddagh goes back to the 1600's when the first ring was made in Claddagh on the edge of Galway City. By tradition it is taken to signify the wish that love and friendship should reign supreme. Two hands cradling a crowned heart: The Heart for Love, the Hands for Friendship, the Crown for Loyalty.
Available in whole sizes 8 to 13. Our website is live so if we don't have your size in stock it won't appear. If you wish to order a size that doesn't appear on the list please email email@example.com or call 1-888-IRISH-55 or 651-222-5151.


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Facts about Elin Nordegren
4 Good Links
The Tiger Woods ScandalThe Orlando Sentinel has the latest on the crash, the mistresses, and everything
Elin Nordegren ImagesSelection of photos from Google Image Search
Tiger Woods Welcomes Baby BoyHappier times: People reports on their second child
Who Is This Woman? Meet Elin NordegrenGreat 2004 backgrounder from Golf.com
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Elin Nordegren Biography
Elin Nordegren became world-famous in 2009, when her husband, superstar golfer Tiger Woods, admitted cheating on her. Nordegren first became a public figure in 2002 when she began dating Woods, one of the world's most famous sports figures. A striking, blonde, blue-eyed Swede and part-time model, Nordegren was working as a nanny for Swedish golfer Jesper Parnevik when she met Woods. Reportedly Parnevik introduced the two at the 2001 British Open. Their romance became more widely known during the Masters golf tournament in April of 2002, and they became engaged in November of 2003. They were married in Barbados on 5 October 2004. Their first daughter, Sam Alexis Woods, was born on 18 June 2007; Woods told reporters that "Sam" was a nickname his father called him as a child. A son, Charlie Axel, was born on 8 February 2009.
On November 27 of 2009, police were called to the Woods home near Orlando, Florida, after Tiger crashed a Cadillac Escalade near their driveway at 2:30 in the morning. It was soon revealed that the Woods and Nordegren had been arguing, after she discovered his relationship with club hostess Rachel Uchitel. Other women then came forward to claim they had slept with Woods before and during his marriage. Two weeks later, Woods released a statement admitting "infidelity" and said he would take an indefinite break from golf. On 23 August 2010, the couple announced that they had divorced.
Extra credit
Elin Nordegren went by the name Elin Woods during her marriage to Tiger Woods; in the divorce announcement at the end of their marriage, she was identified again simply as Elin Nordegren… Elin Nordegren has never posed for nude photos; online photos with titles like "Elin Nordegren nude" or "Elin Woods naked" are fakes. One particularly popular series featured a model named Kim Hiott… Elin Nordegren has a twin sister named Josefin; she is a lawyer in London, with the married name of Josefin Lonnborg. According to People magazine, the twins also have an older brother named Axel… Nordegren's mother, Barbro Holmberg, has served as Sweden's migration minister. Their father is a radio journalist.


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I've been engaging in some wiki maintenance lately, and I noticed that a lot of maintenance is expended on user pages that haven't been touched for years, with the users presumably gone for good. For example, going through Special:WantedFiles, I found pages like this one that have accumulated half a dozen maintenance edits, but had no real edit for 3 years.
To me, it makes no sense to keep fixing these; if the page is old, if the user is gone, why not delete it and save ourselves the burden of maintenance? To clear the maintenance backlog, I'd have to fix code and images on pages that nobody is ever going to need again; it makes more sense to delete them outright instead of maintaining them again and again.
I propose to delete user pages that have received only maintenance edits since 2008, and where the "owner" has not edited here since 2008 either (i.e. they've been inactive for more than 2 full years). Exceptions would be pages with fanfic content; these would be moved to mainspace in accordance with our new mission.
Addendum: I would add Where is my user page? or something like that to our FAQ, which is linked from the wiki navbar. It would state that users can contact any admin to have their page undeleted.
If there are no objections, I would start this project in April. Please comment!
Related: I suggested on the community portal that our archives of game updates and game news be deleted, since we don't keep them current any more anyway.


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A fun and easy 9-patch making method to make this 9-Patchtastic quilt. Use a 40 count package of Moda Charms and a background fabric to make a little 24″ x 30″ quilt… or go big and use a package of Moda Layer Cakes and a background fabric to make a large 66″ x 82½" quilt.
This easy 9-patch method makes for a perfect retreat or group project. Less thinkie – more talkie, more snackie, more laughie. Remembering to always press to the print, or to the side that has the most print… will make for nicely nested seams when joining your blocks and rows.
[CHARM QUILT 24″ x 30″ Finished]
1 package Moda Snippets Charms (or forty 5″ squares)
¾ yd. Moda Bella Solids – Snow (9900-11) for background
¼ yd. for binding
1 yd. for backing
30″ x 36″ batting
From 5″ SNIPPET charms, cut:
40) charms into 4½" squares
From MODA BELLA SNOW, cut:
5) 4½" strips
–> sub-cut into 40) 4½" squares
{LAYER CAKE QUILT 66″ x 82½" Finished}
1 package of Moda Snippets Layer Cake slices (or forty 10″ squares)
2⅞ yds. Moda Bella Solids – Snow (9900-11) for background
⅝ yd. for binding
5 yds. for backing
72″ x 89″ batting
From 10″ SNIPPET Layer Cake slices, cut:
40) slices into 9¾" squares
From MODA BELLA SNOW, cut:
10) 9¾" strips
–> sub-cut into 40) 9¾" squares
1. Layer a print square and a background square. Right sides together.
2. Join fabrics with a seam on each side.
3. Cut joined unit into three equal slices in the same direction as your seams.
4. Press each seamed end slice unit toward the print. Layer a center slice unit to each end slice unit.
5. Join, right sides together with a ¼" seam.
6. Press to the print on both units.
7. The back will look like this:
8. Layer each unit (right sides together) with the seams horizontal.
9. Join units with a ¼" seam on each side.
10. Cut joined unit into three equal slices in the same direction as your just made seams.
11. Press end slices toward the side that has the most print.
12. Layer a center slice unit to each end slice unit.
13. Join units with a ¼" seam.
14. Press end slices toward the side that has the most print. You will yield two 9-patch blocks:
— One block will have 5 print squares – a "5 print block"
— One block will have 4 prints squares – a "4 print block"
15. Lay out your blocks on a design wall or favorite design laying area in rows of 8 blocks, each block alternating with a "5 print block" and a "4 print block". Start your first row with a "4 print block", the second row starting with a "5 print block" – alternating with each new row. Make 10 rows.
Join rows to finish quilt. Layer, baste, quilt as desired. Bind. Fin.
Along with background fabric… a 40 count charm pack will yield a 24″ x 30″ quilt top… and a 40 count Moda Layer Cake pack will yield a 66″ x 82½" quilt top.
Have a happy patchtastic day!
Monica/Happy Zombie


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Mythic Alga... Eleg... Starbucks is down!
Finally one of the three big ones in Nighthold is defeated. Star Augur Etraeus def. proved to be the hardest nut to crack so far in this tier, but 7.2 and new traits came in a timely fashion and gave us the help needed to get our constellation prize. Now only one hurdle stands between us and Gul'dan. Let the AP grind continue
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Helya? Fuckyeah!
What was supposed to be an incredibly hard and epic fight turned out to be somewhat of a clown fiesta at this point in the expansion. WIth Nighthold gear and 54 traits it didn't matter all that much that we ran around like headless chickens every now and then, and the first time we reached phase 3 with everyone alive and some kind of idea of what to do there the achievement was ours. Starboy is now in our sight and the climb towards the last three big walls in NH begins.
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7/10 Nighthold - only the big boys left
With Tichondrius also succumbing to our might that makes two new kills this week - amazing job! Next up is that chick from Hell and after that the real tough ones in Nighthold. SS and videos below.
Shadow Priest PoV:
BM Hunter PoV:
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Tracie and I finished off the year with one final show last night. We had a lot of fun with this episode. In case anybody wanted to read it, I've copied what I said about Christopher Hitchens below the fold.
Christopher Hitchens died on Thursday at the age of 62. As the author of God is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything, and an outspoken atheist debater, Hitchens was a well respected figure in the international atheist community. Of all the things people have written about him in the last few days, I think the most fitting tribute was a headline in the satirical newspaper "The Onion." There was no article, just a headline, and it said: "Fumbling, Inarticulate Obituary Writer Somehow Losing Debate To Christopher Hitchens."
When I watch people debate atheism, I am often left frustrated by their approach, and sometimes feel like they tried too hard to be nice, or didn't hammer home a point that ought to have been made. Among the debates I've seen, I've always felt that Christopher Hitchens was the least frustrating and most confident speaker I've had the privilege of watching.
Hitchens lived with esophogeal cancer for about the last two years. As such, he had the luxury — or more accurately the burden — of knowing roughly when he would die. In April, Hitchens was unable to attend the American Atheist convention, so instead he sent along a letter, which many people saw as his own self-eulogy. I think it's fitting that we should read it now.
Dear fellow-unbelievers,
Nothing would have kept me from joining you except the loss of my voice (at least my speaking voice) which in turn is due to a long argument I am currently having with the specter of death. Nobody ever wins this argument, though there are some solid points to be made while the discussion goes on. I have found, as the enemy becomes more familiar, that all the special pleading for salvation, redemption and supernatural deliverance appears even more hollow and artificial to me than it did before. I hope to help defend and pass on the lessons of this for many years to come, but for now I have found my trust better placed in two things: the skill and principle of advanced medical science, and the comradeship of innumerable friends and family, all of them immune to the false consolations of religion. It is these forces among others which will speed the day when humanity emancipates itself from the mind-forged manacles of servility and superstitition. It is our innate solidarity, and not some despotism of the sky, which is the source of our morality and our sense of decency.
That essential sense of decency is outraged every day. Our theocratic enemy is in plain view. Protean in form, it extends from the overt menace of nuclear-armed mullahs to the insidious campaigns to have stultifying pseudo-science taught in American schools. But in the past few years, there have been heartening signs of a genuine and spontaneous resistance to this sinister nonsense: a resistance which repudiates the right of bullies and tyrants to make the absurd claim that they have god on their side. To have had a small part in this resistance has been the greatest honor of my lifetime: the pattern and original of all dictatorship is the surrender of reason to absolutism and the abandonment of critical, objective inquiry. The cheap name for this lethal delusion is religion, and we must learn new ways of combating it in the public sphere, just as we have learned to free ourselves of it in private.
Our weapons are the ironic mind against the literal: the open mind against the credulous; the courageous pursuit of truth against the fearful and abject forces who would set limits to investigation (and who stupidly claim that we already have all the truth we need). Perhaps above all, we affirm life over the cults of death and human sacrifice and are afraid, not of inevitable death, but rather of a human life that is cramped and distorted by the pathetic need to offer mindless adulation, or the dismal belief that the laws of nature respond to wailings and incantations.
As the heirs of a secular revolution, American atheists have a special responsibility to defend and uphold the Constitution that patrols the boundary between Church and State. This, too, is an honor and a privilege. Believe me when I say that I am present with you, even if not corporeally (and only metaphorically in spirit…) Resolve to build up Mr Jefferson's wall of separation. And don't keep the faith.
Christopher Hitchens
At the same time that I express my admiration of Christopher Hitchens, I don't want to whitewash the fact that he was a controversial figure even among atheists. He was a strong advocate of the Iraq War, and in 2007 he denounced the attendees at a meeting of the Freedom From Religion Foundation as being soft on Islam, and being too weak to commit to an all out clash of civilizations, and strongly recommended that we go on to declare war on Iraq. He called one questioner incredibly stupid for not understanding that every Muslim killed is a Muslim we don't have to fight.
I bring this up not to denounce Hitchens, but only to point out that he was a complex individual with strong convictions, who never hesitated to piss off any person or group he spoke to. He was also, however, very open to changing his mind. While he was initially a supporter of waterboarding as an interrogation technique, in 2008 he set out to prove that it wasn't torture, and so he submitted to being put through the process by a group of veterans. The followup article he wrote in Vanity Fair was titled, simply, "Believe Me, It's Torture."
One of the accusations we get all the time when we speak out as atheists is that atheism is just another religion; that instead of God, we worship money, or science, or ourselves; and our religious figures are people like Richard Dawkins, Charles Darwin, and Christopher Hitchens. I think it's important to remember that the atheist movement doesn't have idols, only people who earn respect based on the quality of their ideas. I appreciated Hitchens for who he was. I think he would have sneered at the idea of being idolized, but we'll miss him. He's not in heaven, he's not in hell, all that remains of him is in our memories now.
Of course, we all know that Christopher Hitchens was one of the lucky ones. This is the last episode of The Atheist Experience before the year 2012, which is really truly we mean it this time the end of the world. We'll all go out in a blaze of Roland Emmerich-style special effects.
Hitch, here's to ya. (Drink)


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Representative, Democrat
Illinois, District 5 (Chicago)
Served in House: 2009-
The grades above indicate how well this Member of Congress has been performing on one of the most important public policies affecting the United States' ability to become an environmentally sustainable society.
"A-Grade" Members earn deep congratulations on this the 40th anniversary of Earth Day. "F-Grade" Members are making the Earth Day vision of the future impossible to achieve.
President Clinton's Task Force on Consumption and Population concluded that it is not possible to have environmental sustainability without dramatically reducing overall immigration to allow for a stabilizing U.S. population.
Instead, Congress has maintained immigration numbers quadruple the traditional average. Immigration policies result in new immigrants and births to immigrants that account for nearly all of the population explosion that currently challenges all U.S. environmental efforts.
NumbersUSA grades all immigration actions on the basis of how they either force more population growth or how they would try to reduce the population pressures on the environment.


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Vice Chairman and General Counsel of APCO Associates Inc.
Good morning Mr. Chairman and members of the Commission. My name is James Jones, and I am Vice Chairman and General Counsel of APCO Associates, a global public affairs and strategic communications firm headquartered in Washington, D.C. but with ten other offices throughout the world. I have served in my current position for the past three years. Prior to that, for some 25 years, I was an associate and partner in the Washington, D.C. based law firm of Arnold & Porter, serving my last nine years there as managing partner of the firm.
I was pleased to receive the invitation of the Commission to share with you my views on the topic of multidisciplinary practice, particularly so since I have been actively engaged with MDP and related issues for the past 15 years. In the interest of full disclosure, I should note that I have, from time to time, consulted with several law firms and with one of the "Big Five" accounting firms concerning these matters. However, I appear here today on my own behalf and on behalf of APCO to describe our experience with MDP and, hopefully, to bring a somewhat broader perspective to the Commissions deliberations.
A Brief History: APCO and Arnold & Porter
Let me begin by noting that APCO itself is a multidisciplinary practice, a firm that combines the skills of many professional disciplines including lawyers to assist its clients in addressing public affairs, government relations, and strategic communications issues wherever they arise throughout the world. APCO today has some 250 professionals operating in governmental capitals and commercial centers throughout the Americas, Europe, and Asia. We are successful at what we do precisely because we are good at "thinking outside the box," at fashioning innovative strategies and creative solutions for our clients problems. Our ability to do that results directly from the quality and multidisciplinary skills of our professional staff. The MDP concept is at the heart of what APCO is and it always has been.
APCO was created in 1984 as a wholly owned subsidiary of Arnold & Porter. It was intended to complement several existing practice areas within the law firm by bringing to bear the talents and expertise of a number of non-lawyer professionals, particularly in legislative and related public policy fields. APCO was conceived as a vehicle for broadening the scope of services offered by Arnold & Porter to its clients and as a means for offering services in a more efficient and cost-effective manner. It grew out of the conviction that at least for certain types of matters an interdisciplinary approach combining the skills of lawyers and non-lawyer professionals could lead to better and more creative solutions for client problems. The clients evidently agreed since APCOs business grew and the company expanded. In 1991, when APCO was sold by Arnold & Porter to Grey Advertising (APCOs current parent company), the firm had increased to some 35 persons serving numerous clients on a wide variety of issues.
Moreover, Arnold & Porters experience with APCO soon led the law firm to create two additional subsidiary companies MPC & Associates, a development consulting firm that worked primarily with colleges, universities, and other large nonprofit institutions on major real estate projects, and The Secura Group, a consulting firm for the financial institutions industry. Both of these companies worked closely with lawyers in established Arnold & Porter practice groups to serve the needs of existing clients and to expand the range of services that clients could be offered.
At the time that Arnold & Porter created these three subsidiaries, the impact of the Model Rules of Professional Conduct on their structure and operations was far from clear. Accordingly, the firm sought guidance from experts in professional ethics as well as a ruling from the D.C. Bar before proceeding with its plans. The structure that was ultimately adopted consisted of several elements:
- First, all promotional literature and all retainer agreements used by each subsidiary company were required to disclose the relationship between the company and the law firm; to note that the company itself was not engaged in the practice of law; and to state that the clients of the company were not required to use the services of the law firm even if legal services were required in connection with the matters for which the company was retained.
- Second, each of the subsidiary companies was held to the same ethical requirements in terms of conflicts of interest, protection of client confidences, advertising of services, etc. that applied to the law firm itself, and all questions arising in this area were required to be resolved by the firms ethics committee and not by the subsidiary company.
- Third, for purposes of conflict-of-interest screening, all of the subsidiary companies and the law firm itself were treated as a single entity, and any potential conflict that emerged was required to be resolved by the governing committees of the law firm and not by the subsidiary companies.
- And fourth, all brochures and other promotional materials of each of the subsidiary companies were required to be cleared by the law firms ethics committee using principles consistent with those applicable in the legal profession.
The ABAs Debate on Ancillary Business Activities
I should stress that these principles were put in place in 1984 out of an abundance of caution and in the absence of any clear guidance as to the applicability of the Model Rules to these sorts of activities. Consequently, they exceeded in certain respects the requirements currently imposed under Rule 5.7 of the Model Rules concerning the provision of "law-related services." Nonetheless, as many members of the Commission will recall, Arnold & Porters activities and those of a large number of other law firms also engaging in these so-called "ancillary businesses" were widely criticized within the ABA at the time. Many critics asserted that permitting affiliations between lawyers and non-lawyers would inevitably lead to serious ethical conflicts and abuses of the rights and interests of clients. Indeed, one report issued by the Section of Litigation boldly asserted that such activities posed "one of the most important [crises] to ever face the American legal profession."
Caught up in this fervor, the House of Delegates in 1991, over the strong objection of the Standing Committee on Ethics and Professional Responsibility, narrowly approved a prohibitory version of Rule 5.7 proposed by the Section of Litigation. That version prohibited law firms from providing non-legal services ancillary to the practice of law, unless such services were provided by employees of the law firm, to clients of the firm, and in connection with legal services otherwise being provided. Not surprisingly, the prohibitory version of the rule was quickly recognized as too extreme, prohibiting as it did a great variety of activities traditionally engaged in by lawyers throughout the nation. Consequently, the House of Delegates, responding to requests from several ABA sections and bars across the country, repealed the prohibitory rule in 1992. It was ultimately replaced in 1994 by the current version of Rule 5.7, which takes a far more moderate, disclosure oriented approach to the regulation of ancillary services.
I take the time to recount this history of the ancillary business debate of the early 1990s because I think that the lessons learned from that experience are both relevant and instructive for the Commissions current deliberations concerning the MDP concept. To emphasize this point I would note that the current MDP debate is, in one sense, the "flip side" of the previous ancillary business debate.
Most of the ancillary businesses that were the subject of attention in the early 1990s were, in fact, entities engaged in multidisciplinary practice, combining the skills of lawyers and non-lawyers to serve the needs of clients. The focus of the ancillary business debate was, however, on the extent to which lawyers themselves should be permitted to own or control entities engaged in multidisciplinary practice. In todays MDP debate, the primary focus is on the extent to which lawyers should be permitted to practice in entities not owned or controlled by lawyers in a sense the "flip side" of the previous question. So, it is, I think, relevant to reflect on several points arising out of the ABAs prior consideration of the ancillary business question. There are four such points that I would raise for your consideration.
Affiliations between Lawyers and Non-lawyers Have a Long History
The first is the importance of realizing that affiliations between lawyers and non-lawyers do not constitute a new phenomenon in American law. Indeed, such affiliations have been a part of the legal landscape in America for a very long time.
In the first place, many practicing lawyers have qualified to practice other professions as well and hold separate licenses as certified public accountants, real estate brokers, insurance agents, financial planners, marriage counselors, and the like. It is quite common to find such persons, in communities across the country, engaging in both their non-legal specialties and their law practices, sometimes working closely with non-legal professionals. Indeed, for many lawyers in small towns and rural areas, the ability to supplement the income derived from their law practices by engaging in other professional and business activities is critical.
However, even in cases where lawyers do not hold licenses to practice separate professions, the affiliation of members of the bar with non-lawyer professionals in a wide range of activities is quite common. To cite but a few examples identified by the Working Group on Ancillary Business Activities of the ABAs Special Coordinating Committee on Professionalism:
- In hundreds of law firms throughout the country, real estate lawyers routinely act as agents for title insurance companies in connection with transactions in which the lawyers are also involved representing one or more of the parties concerned. In some cases, the lawyers own the local abstract or title company involved in the transactions.
- In hundreds of other cases, lawyers routinely provide trust services as adjuncts to their probate practices or serve as personal representatives for decedents, minors, or incompetents. Indeed, in Massachusetts, some firms many years ago established separate trust companies, registered with the SEC, to service the needs of their clients and others.
- Many lawyers routinely act as trustees in bankruptcy proceedings or as conservators in other types of insolvency matters.
- Other lawyers practicing in the domestic relations field often also provide marriage counseling or mediation services.
- Still other lawyers with active criminal practices offer private investigation services to their clients.
- And, in neighborhood legal clinics and other centers across the country providing legal services to the poor, lawyers routinely work in combination with social workers, medical personnel, family counselors, and other non-lawyer professionals in providing comprehensive services to meet the special needs of their clients.
In short, the affiliation of lawyers and non-lawyers in MDP situations clearly pre- dates the relatively recent creation of consulting companies by large law firms like Arnold & Porter. The practice is, in fact, almost as old as the practice of law itself in this country. Consequently, in considering the implications of the MDP concept, I urge you to remember that we are talking about practices that are very widespread and have been going on for a very long time.
The "Practice of Law" Is Almost Impossible to Define Precisely
The second point I would offer for your consideration is that the definition of the "practice of law" is frustratingly illusive. Indeed, aside from a few obvious functions (like the filing of pleadings in court or the rendering of formal opinions), it is almost impossible to define with precision what constitutes the practice of law in the United States today, at least in any exclusive sense. While it is certainly possible to list the hundreds of things that lawyers do, as bar counsel and many courts have discovered, it is very difficult to come up with a comprehensive list of many things that only lawyers can do. To cite but a few examples:
- Everyone would agree that assisting a client in the negotiation of a contract constitutes the practice of law when undertaken by a lawyer holding himself out as engaged in legal practice. But few would argue that such functions cannot also be performed by lay persons (such as real estate agents, talent agents, professional managers, or financial advisors) without violating proscriptions on the unauthorized practice of law.
- Similarly, lawyers who engage in lobbying activities or who advise their clients on the drafting of proposed legislation are clearly practicing law, even though lay persons who undertake the same activities are not subject to prosecution for unauthorized practice.
- And lawyers assisting clients in tax and estate planning are involved in providing legal services while lay persons engaged in the same activities are not.
Stated differently, the scope of the "legal monopoly" in the U.S. i.e., those activities that only lawyers may engage in -- is fairly narrow and arguably getting narrower. Thus, any regulatory scheme that is premised on a tightly drawn exclusive definition of lawyering is likely to be either too narrow to be much good in a regulatory sense or too broad to be enforceable. I would accordingly be very suspicious of any regulatory approach to dealing with the MDP concept that depends for its effectiveness on a precise definition of the "practice of law."
The Development of the MDP Concept Is a Logical Step in the Ongoing Evolution of the Profession
The third point I would suggest for your consideration is that the current deliberations regarding the MDP concept are quite consistent with the evolving character of the legal profession. It bears remembering, in this regard, that the American legal profession has never been static but has always evolved to meet the changing needs of the country. Thus the profession has changed dramatically and often during its some 200+ years of history. Creative and innovative lawyers have introduced many "revolutionary" concepts that are now an accepted part of our professional landscape.
The creation of law firms an American invention is a good case in point. The modern law firm was first conceived in New York in the 1870s as a means of providing more responsive and comprehensive legal services to growing corporate enterprises that needed large-scale representation. Although many at the time criticized this decision of lawyers to act as a joint economic unit and feared the implications of it, the form soon became a permanent part of the American legal landscape and completely transformed the way legal work was organized and performed.
Many other examples of the dynamic character of the American bar could also be cited:
- The concept of "in-house counsel" -- also an American invention -- and the growth of large corporate legal staffs, developments that were vigorously attacked in former days on a variety of ethical and professionalism grounds;
- The provision of legal service by "in-house" lawyers to members of trade associations and similar groups, a development that altered traditional concepts of the appropriate relationship of lawyer and client;
- The use of pre-paid legal services plans, a development that triggered a substantial amount of opposition from bars around the country; and
- The expansion of "legal services" to include work in a wide variety of areas certainly not historically included in the definition of lawyering e.g., legislative services, the structuring of complex financings, compliance audits for various regulatory schemes, etc.
The point is that the practice of law in America has never been a static enterprise. It has always responded to the changing legal needs of society. I suggest that, properly viewed, the development of the MDP concept is but a logical step in the ongoing evolution of the profession as it seeks to respond to the changing needs of its clients.
Modifications to the Model Rules Are Needed to Assure the Continuing Role of the Legal Profession in Key Client Matters
And that leads to the fourth and final point I would like to offer for your consideration. It is the need to rethink the applicability of various provisions of the Model Rules to the evolving MDP concept and the implications of that applicability to the future of the legal profession. It is a very important point, because I believe that in a perverse way -- the strict applicability of the Model Rules has led (and will continue to lead) to the increasing marginalization of the legal profession, at least in respect of certain clients and certain types of matters. Let me explain what I mean.
Under Rule 5.4, a lawyer is forbidden from sharing "legal fees" with a non-lawyer and from engaging in the "practice of law" in any organization in which a non-lawyer has an ownership interest, serves as a director or officer, or has a right to direct or control the lawyers professional judgment. The implications of this rule are clear in the context of a law firm, where virtually everything that a lawyer does is regarded as the "practice of law." However, many of these same activities if performed by non-lawyers do not constitute the unauthorized practice of law. Consequently, when those activities are undertaken in non-law firm settings whether by lawyers or non-lawyers they do not constitute the "practice of law." As a consequence, such activities even though undertaken by persons who are trained as lawyers are not governed by most of the rules of the legal profession.
In my view, this is a highly undesirable result from the standpoint of all concerned. It deprives the lawyers themselves of full participation in their profession; it prevents the bar from exercising its supervisory role over a growing number of lawyers who choose to work in non-traditional settings; and it deprives the public of the full benefits and protections of dealing with "regulated lawyers." Moreover, as the range of services offered through MDP organizations expand and as more lawyers elect to work in such settings, the problem will only be exacerbated. Perversely, the rules intended to preserve the integrity of the legal profession will, over time, force increasing numbers of lawyers into this jurisdictional limbo where the services they perform and for which they were trained will fall outside the ambit of the legal profession.
I believe that all lawyers working in settings where they are called upon to use their legal skills and experience should be subject to the discipline of the bar regardless of the nature or ownership structures of the organizations for which they happen to work. However, to achieve this result it will be necessary to modify Rule 5.4 to remove the restrictions that cause the current problem. And that, in turn, will require an openness to the continuing evolution of the profession and to the changing demands being placed upon it by the society it serves.
* * *
I hope that the Commission will find my comments of some help as it continues with its important deliberations. Thank you again for inviting me to appear today. I would be happy to try and answer any questions you might have.


text:
Dead Money is the first add-on for Fallout: New Vegas, developed by Obsidian Entertainment and published by Bethesda Softworks.
A timed exclusive,[1] Dead Money was released on December 21, 2010 for Xbox 360 and was later released for PC and PlayStation 3 on February 22, 2011.
Dead Money is set in the Sierra Madre, an opulent and extravagant resort that would have been the greatest casino in the west, had it ever been opened. The bombs fell before the grand opening gala event, and the Sierra Madre froze in time, its state of the art security system locking the place up tight. Nothing could get in, and none of the guests could escape. The security holograms then activated and the once glorious event turned into a slaughter. After many years, the climate control and air conditioning systems within the facility began to spit strange toxins into the surrounding city, causing a red cloud to form over the area - which proved lethal to anyone who tried to explore the city. Only a mysterious group called the ghost people survived to call the city home, trapped inside what appear to be Hazmat suits, they wander the streets never speaking to their victims, only capturing them alive and dragging them away to the depths of the city deep within the Cloud.
And so the Sierra Madre faded from memory, only occasionally being seen in posters across the wastes, until it took on mythic ghost story status, a supposed "City of Gold" in the Wasteland where all the treasures of the Old World were rumored to be held. It was kept alive as a late-night saloon story by prospectors who'd claimed to have found maps leading there and were willing to part with the map for a few caps. Or a drink. Or a warm place to sleep.
The Sierra Madre is a place in the wastes, with travelers risking their lives to find it. Only one man truly "found" it and lived. After the fall of HELIOS One, Father Elijah of the Mojave Brotherhood of Steel set out to find new weapons to eradicate the NCR, and in the process he discovered the Sierra Madre.
Robots and computersEdit
Armor and clothingEdit
Cut armor and clothingEdit
Cut weaponsEdit
Weapon modsEdit
World objectsEdit
Other itemsEdit
The VillaEdit
Sierra Madre CasinoEdit
Regular perksEdit
|Level req
|Other requirements
|Base ID
|In Shining Armor
|Repair 20, Science 70
|This perk is bugged and applies no effect. Were it functional, you would be granted +5 DT against energy weapons while wearing metal armor, with a further +2 DT while wearing reflective eyewear or helmets.
| xx00f216,
|Junk Rounds
|LK 6, Repair 45
|You can craft ammunition using scrap metal and tin cans.
|Light Touch
|AG 6, Repair 45
|While wearing light armor you gain +5% critical hit chance and your enemies suffer a -25% critical hit chance.
|Old World Gourmet
|EN 6, Survival 45
|+25% addiction resistance. +50% health bonus from snack foods. Scotch, vodka and wine now give you health in addition to their normal effects.
|And Stay Back
|Guns 70
|Shotguns have a 10% chance, per pellet, of knocking an enemy back.
|Weapons with a weight of more than 10 are cut in half. This does not affect weapons modded to under 10 wg.
|Your chance to hit an opponent's legs in V.A.T.S. is increased by 25%.
Companion perksEdit
|Base ID
|In My Footsteps
|Traps do not activate and you are given a stealth increase.
|Ravenous Hunger
|Dog will devour the limbs of any Ghost People, preventing them from resurrecting.
|Signal Interference
|+50% time to escape signals.
|Unclean Living
|Dean Domino
|Temporary cloud protection, take 25% less damage.
Special perksEdit
|Unlock conditions
|Base ID
|Coin Operator
|Dialogue with Christine
|Adds recipe. 1 fission battery + 2 scrap metal = 50 Sierra Madre chips
|Ghost Hunter
|Dialogue with Dog
|Ghost people are more likely to die outright without needing to be dismembered or disintegrated.
|Sierra Madre Martini
|Dialogue with Dean Domino
|Adds recipe to create Sierra Madre martinis with 2 junk food, 1 tin can, and 1 jar of Cloud residue.
|Elijah's Last Words
|Give Veronica holomessage from Elijah.
|Boosts Veronica's melee attack speed 150% & gives her a 25% chance for melee attacks to knock down enemies.
|Elijah's Ramblings
|Keep holomessage from Elijah after Veronica unlocks it.
|Boosts melee critical damage +50%.
|Achievement points
|Trophy type
|Assemble Your Crew
|Recruit Dean Domino, Christine and Dog
|Cash Out
|Confront Father Elijah in the Sierra Madre vault
|Having a Ball
|Complete the Sierra Madre Gala Event
|Safety Deposit Box
|Trap Father Elijah in the Sierra Madre's vault
|Sierra Madre Souvenir Aficionado
|Collect 500 Sierra Madre chips
- Installing Dead Money raises the level cap by 5, as with all story add-ons.
- It is recommended that first-time players reach level 20 or higher before beginning this add-on.
- Despite the warning you receive at the first door in the bunker, you can stay in the Mojave even if you choose to proceed; the actual point of no return is at the end of the bunker with the radio.
- Because of the explosive collar with which you are fitted, you will be unable to leave the Sierra Madre until you have completed the story. In addition, it will become important to avoid or disable radios and speakers found around the Villa to avoid a premature and fatal detonation.
- Companions cannot follow you to the Villa; they will be dismissed when you reach the end of the hall.
- You can explore the Sierra Madre as much as you like after completing the story, but will not be able to return after leaving. You can return using console commands; if you noclip with tcl through the radio at the abandoned Brotherhood of Steel bunker, you will find a "Door to Villa." Using that door will take you back to the Villa, with all the ghost people still alive, holograms working, etc. You even get to keep your items. You can also use player.moveto ref id to teleport any living companions, though they won't be approachable as they disappear after a certain point in the story.
- The player can still spend Sierra Madre chips after returning to the Mojave Wasteland at a Sierra Madre vending machine in the abandoned BoS bunker. You can still turn in cartons of cigarettes, packs of cigarettes and items of apparel to receive more chips and buy cheap supplies. There is also a dropbox near the door, which gives you a complimentary voucher (a value of 1,000 chips) and 100 chips every three days. The chips will stockpile: for example, after 6 days, there will be 2 complimentary vouchers and 200 chips.
- If a player turns in an item of apparel that raises Agility while wearing it, the Agility increase will remain. This can be repeated until the Courier's Agility reaches 10. While this increased Agility improves skills affected by Agility and increases AP, it does not allow the courier to take perks otherwise unavailable, unlike an increase from an implant.
- The add-on focuses more on skills than combat, often placing you into Speech, Explosives, Science, and Barter checks that have a large bearing on how companions will treat you. It also focuses on scavenging as well, mainly due to the lack of shops that sell ammo and materials for weapon repair kits.
- You cannot Fast travel while inside the Sierra Madre.
- If playing in Hardcore mode, the sleep meter does not advance, unless the Courier sleeps. There may be a considerable delay before this happens, however.
- Since you do not keep your items when entering the Sierra Madre, low-Endurance characters will have a tough time, because healing items are limited to snack foods and the odd stimpak. Do note, however, that you will keep all Quest Items including items such as the Rebreather.
- A recipe for stimpaks can be found on one of your first quests, inside the Clinic. This can make it much easier to survive when dropped here without sufficient gear.
- Players may also want to note that if they steal the Van Graff combat armor from the weapon container outside of the Silver Rush, the armor will remain in their inventory when waking up inside of The Villa so long as the Birds of a Feather quest is active. This is very useful for low Endurance characters.
- Alternatively, doing the glitch to leave The Fort with the Gladiator armor will also give the player light armor and a machete when waking up.
- If you don't wish to go through the trouble of glitching to get gear, you may also use the Courier's Stash DLC. Start the DLC normally and when the cutscene is over and you have spawned in, pause the game and download Courier's Stash. After it is done downloading you should receive the items, this will significantly help you in the quests that follow in the Sierra Madre.
- Once you complete Dead Money, the radio signal of the Sierra Madre will remain, but Vera Keyes has different dialogue at the end.
Behind the scenesEdit
- The add-on as a whole is a reference to the 1948 film The Treasure of the Sierra Madre, where two people who are down on their luck meet a prospector, and plan to prospect in the remote mountains in search of gold, dealing with fierce locals and personal greed.
- Chris Avellone discussed some of the design decisions behind Dead Money. [1]
- "Dead Money" is a slang term used in poker to refer to numerous things. Most commonly, it refers to money that is already in the pot and goes only to the winner of the hand. For example, if two players each bet $5 on the first betting round, in the second betting round, there will be $10 in the pot in "dead money." Additionally, it also refers to money bet out but is now facing a reraise. If one player bets $5, and another player raises to $15, the original player cannot retrieve his original $5 without winning the pot - the money is now dead. "Dead Money" can also refer to a player who believes they have a chance at winning, but in reality, they have almost no such chance due to a lack of skill or experience: "Bob wants in. Let him join, he's dead money". Therefore a tournament with many unskilled players can be said to have a lot of "dead money". It is also a reference to how Father Elijah treats the player and the other NPCs, existing only to get him the technological riches of the Sierra Madre - to him, they are all "dead money."
Official trailerEdit


text:
Mrs. Dolly Gallagher Levi, widowed too soon and left to her own devices in 1890s New York, turns meddling into a sly, lucrative art. She "arranges things, like furniture and daffodils and lives," all the while looking out discreetly for No. 1.
And when she decides on a plot to snare as her next husband the well-known "half-a-millionaire" Horace Vandergelder in Yonkers, she generates plenty of frantic activity — and one of the best of the grand, old-fashioned musicals.
Since its premiere in 1964, "Hello, Dolly!" has maintained a prominent place in the Broadway canon, thanks to terrific source material (Thornton Wilder's 1955 play "The Matchmaker," adopted for the musical by Michael Stewart); an ear-friendly score by Jerry Herman; and a juicy title role that has given many a singing (or mildly tune-carrying) actress an enviable showcase.
That said, "Hello, Dolly!" doesn't get professional revivals every day, so its appearance in a co-production between Ford's Theatre Society and Signature Theatre is all the more notable.
This presentation in the historic Ford's venue offers a fresh take, small and unfussy in scale, pared down in sound — more a play with music than the full-bodied musical you may be expecting.
The staging, guided fluently by Eric Schaeffer, does take some adjusting to, given all the downsizing. There are only 16 people in the cast, including choristers/dancers, so the big production numbers look pretty thin (Karma Camp's choreography could use a few more splashes of invention to make up for that).
Adam Koch's set design conjures time and place simply, and reuses a minimum of props to allow a rapid progression of scenes. But a visual jolt (besides Wade Laboissonniere's lively costumes) would be nice now and then, especially when it comes time for Dolly — endearingly portrayed by Nancy Opel — to deliver the show's famous namesake song.
There is no grand staircase for the toast of the town to descend for her return to the Harmonia Gardens restaurant. No stairs at all. Not much in the way of glittery ambience, either. She just walks out and gets down to business on the same flat, uncluttered space where everything else transpires. And the subsequent dinner scene is oddly short on food.
On the other hand, there is a lot to be said for the way the production offers such an immediate, intimate encounter with the familiar characters and brings the story into tight focus.
Much to be said, too, for the fresh orchestrations by Kim Scharnberg, who, using eight players (expertly led by James Moore), evokes a vintage ragtime ensemble — fully appropriate for the time period of the action and well-suited to Herman's score. (It would have been nice to encourage more individualistic, playful phrasing from the singers to go with the new sound.)
The shadow of the role's iconic originator, Carol Channing, continues to loom large over "Hello, Dolly!" but there are many ways to play the character (including the Mae West-infused approach that Barbra Streisand settled on for her undervalued performance in the film version).
Opel, who has a touch of Debbie Reynolds' winsomeness about her, plays Dolly in a refreshing, straightforward way. She can be very funny, without underlining things, and she allows a vulnerability to peek through, nowhere more touchingly than in her hushed, halting start of "Before the Parade Passes By." Opel is not a born belter, but she can summon more than enough power when required.
Although Edward Gero is not the most colorful Vandergelder imaginable, his polished performance scores effective points. As the woefully underpaid Vandergelder Hay and Feed employees who get into delicious trouble sneaking off to New York, Gregory Maheu (Cornelius Hackl) and Zack Colonna (Barnaby Tucker) do vibrant work.
Tracy Lynn Olivera is a warm, witty Irene Molloy, the milliner caught up in Dolly's schemes, and she sings "Ribbons Down My Back," one of Herman's most beguiling songs, with exceptional nuance. The rest of the cast, especially Carolyn Cole as Vandergelder's whiny niece Ermengarde, fills out the show nicely.
In the end, not quite a life-changing "Hello, Dolly!" but an affectionate and welcoming production that reaffirms the still-crowin', still-glowin' quality of an authentic American classic.